The inspector grew red and puffed, and advanced upon Reggie. “Here, you—you clear out of this. You’re obstructing me in——”
“Is it possible?” Reggie drawled. “Well, it isn’t necessary, anyway.” and he left the inspector still swelling.
It is fair to him to add, what he has since protested, that he never liked May Weston. Pussy-cat is his name for her, and he is not fond of cats.
From her room he went to the telephone in the hall, and there the inspector, still rather flushed, found him again.
“And what might you be doing now, if you please?” said the inspector, with constabulary sarcasm.
“Oh, I’m talking to Miss Bolton’s solicitors. Hadn’t you thought of talking to Miss Bolton’s solicitors?”
“Never you mind what I thought of. Don’t you use that telephone again. I won’t have it.”
“Oh, yes, you will. Now I’m going to talk to Superintendent Bell.” The inspector was visibly startled. For Superintendent Bell was near the summit of the Criminal Investigation Department. “Any objection? No? How nice of you. . . .” He conferred with the telephone, and at length: “Dr. Fortune. Yes. Oh, is that you, Bell? So glad. I wish you’d come along here, Normanhurst, Westhampton. One of my patients murdered. No, not by me. Quite unusual case. Yes, it is the Birdie Bolton case. The inspector in charge is such a good, kind man. Sweet face he has. You’ll come right on? So glad.” Reggie put down the receiver and smiled upon the puzzled inspector. “That’s that,” he said, and went out. Samuel, the chauffeur, put away his picture paper. “I want my camera,” Reggie said, and Samuel touched his hat and drove off. Reggie sauntered into the garden.
Normanhurst, as you know, is a low, spreading house of a comfortable Victorian dowdiness. There are—don’t count the attics—only two stories. It is old enough to be quite covered with climbing plants—ivy on the north, roses and a wistaria on the other sides. Birdie Bolton’s bedroom and boudoir looked to the south, and were on the ground floor. On the north of the house is the approach from the high road, a curling drive through a shrubbery. Birdie Bolton’s rooms looked out upon a rose-bed and a big lawn. About her windows climbed a big Gloire de Dijon. The roses beneath were of the newer hybrid teas, well cultivated, well chosen, and at their best—a fragrant pomp of red and gold. “How she loved ’em, poor soul,” Reggie thought, and began to feel sentimental. That singular emotion was interrupted by the sound of a motor-car. He went back to the front of the house to meet it.
A big car was drawing up. It contained two people—a uniformed chauffeur and a large young man who jumped out, rather clumsily, before the car stopped. He had the good looks of a hero of musical comedy, but an expression rather sheepish than fatuous, and a pallid complexion.
“I think you are Mr. Ford.” Reggie came close to him. “I am Dr. Fortune. Miss Bolton was a patient of mine. I hardly expected to see you so soon.”
“Miss Weston sent for me, sir.” Mr. Ford recoiled, for Reggie’s face was very close to his.
“Did she, though!” Reggie murmured. “Did she really?” Miss Weston had forgotten to tell him that. Pussy-cat!
“Well, Flora telephoned for her. She said something terrible had happened, and Miss Weston wanted me. I say, doctor, what has happened?”
“Jolly kind of Flora,” Reggie said. “Well, Mr. Ford, Miss Bolton has been murdered.”
“My God!” said Mr. Ford, and became livid.
“And Miss Weston has been charged with the murder.”
“Oh, my God!” Mr. Ford said again. “Oh, damn!” and put his hand to his head. “Here, let me go to her.”
“I don’t mind,” said Reggie, and Mr. Ford plunged into the house.
Reggie remained on the steps waiting for fresh arrivals. The goggled chauffeur moved his car on out of the way, descended, and behind a laurustinus lit a cigarette. Reggie, who never smoked them, sniffed disapproval and began to fill a pipe.
A taxi-cab drove up, and out of it bounced a plump little man whose coat looked as if he wore stays.
“I am Dr. Fortune,” Reggie said.
“And I’m Donald Gordon, doctor,” said the little man, who was emphatically a Jew. “Moss and Gordon.” It was the name of Miss Bolton’s solicitors. “Many thanks for letting us know. Poor, dear Birdie. She was a peach. Let’s have all the facts, please.” He had an engaging lisp.
“There’s a detective inspector inside. Like a bull in a china-shop.”
“Had some,” said Mr. Donald Gordon. “Come on, doctor. Hand it out.”
“Well, let’s see the flowers,” Reggie said, and walked him into the garden and began to tell him all that he knew.
“So he’s pinched Miss Weston, has he?” the little Jew lisped. “He’s a hustler.”
“Oh, I expect he’s arrested Ford too, by now. Me and you in a minute. He’s a zealous fellow. By the way, Gordon, who is Ford?”
“Yes. He’s a dark horse, ain’t he? I only met him once, doctor. You could see poor old Birdie was sweet on him.”
“Oh, so Miss Weston was telling the truth about that.”
“Why, didn’t you believe her, doctor?”
“D’you know, I wonder if I believe anything I’ve heard in this house.”
“Like that, is it?” Gordon lisped.
“Just like that,” said Reggie. A gravity had come over the perky little Jew, which he found very engaging.
Mr. Gordon nodded at him. “Birdie was the one and only,” he said, and Reggie nodded back.
“Nice flowers, doctor,” a new voice said. Reggie turned to see the small insignificance of Superintendent Bell, greeted him heartily, introduced Mr. Gordon. “Am Ide trop, as the French say?” said Superintendent Bell. “No? Thought it might be a council of war.”
“Oh, is it war?” Reggie said.
“Well, you know, you’ve quarrelled with Inspector Mordan.” The Superintendent shook his head at Reggie.
“I wouldn’t dare. He quarrelled with me.”
“Such a pity.” The Superintendent smiled and rubbed his hands. “I ought to tell you, doctor, I quite approve of everything that Inspector Mordan has done.”
“Splendid force, the police,” Mr. Gordon lisped. “Wonderful force. So forcible.”
“Including the arrest of Miss Weston?” Reggie asked. “Well, well. Any one else you’d like to arrest?”
“Any one you suggest, doctor? Now I ask you—what would you have done?”
“Oh, I’m not in the force.”
“We do have to be so careful,” the Superintendent sighed. “That’s a handicap, that is. I wonder why you wanted me, doctor?”
“I’m frightened of your inspector. He’s not chatty. I want to photograph the body.”
The Superintendent turned to Gordon. “It’s a taste, you know, that’s what it is. He likes corpses. Speaking as man to man, doctor, are you working with us?”
“May I?”
“That’s very handsome. Yes. Inspector Mordan, he has a kind of a manner, as you might say. I’ll speak to him. Is there anything you’d like to tell me, doctor?”
“Nice flowers, aren’t they?” Reggie nodded to the rose-bed under Birdie Bolton’s window. It was minutely neat.
“Look as if they’d been brought up by hand,” said the Superintendent, but he looked at Reggie, not the roses. “Anything queer, sir?”
“There’s that,” Reggie said. He pointed to a spray of the Gloire de Dijon beside the window. It bore a bud; it had been broken, and the bud was limp and dead.
“That wasn’t broken last night,” said the Superintendent.
“No. That’s what’s interesting,” said Reggie, and turned away.
At the door and in the drive there was some congested traffic. Mr. Ford’s big car still waited. Reggie’s humbler car had come back with his camera. The taxis of Mr. Gordon and Superintendent Bell took up more room. And yet another taxi was trying to get to the steps.
“Who’s this, Superintendent?”
“I dare say it’ll be for Miss Weston.”
“Taking her to Holloway at once? Well, well. I dare say it’s all for the best.”
But Miss Weston was not to go without a noise. Mr. Ford saw to that. At the head of the stairs he conducted an altercation with Inspector Mordan in which defiance, abuse, and profane swearing were his chief arguments. It was beastly stupid and it was damned impudence to arrest Miss Weston, and it was also beastly impudence and damned stupid, and so forth. In the midst of which the wretched girl was shepherded by two detectives downstairs.
“My God, you might as well arrest me!” Mr. Ford cried, in final desperation.
“Perhaps I will,” said the Inspector heavily, and glowered at him.
Mr. Ford paled and drew back.
On the stairs below Miss Weston stopped and turned. “Oh, Edmund, don’t,” she said. “They can’t hurt me. You know they can’t.”
Superintendent Bell drew Reggie aside.
“Think that throws any light?” Reggie said.
“Well, not a searchlight,” said the Superintendent.
Miss Weston was driven off. Mr. Ford, looking dazed, came slowly downstairs, and to him went Gordon.
“Better get her a solicitor, you know,” Gordon said.
“By Jove, that’s it!” Mr. Ford cried, and plunged out.
The Inspector and the Superintendent exchanged glances and looked at Gordon.
“Why did you put him on to that, sir?” said the Superintendent.
“Professional feeling, dear boy,” Gordon smiled. “Nice girl, ain’t it? I fancy my firm are Miss Bolton’s executors, and I fancy that bird is sole legatee.”
The Superintendent pursed his lips. The Inspector laughed. “It grows, don’t it, sir? Just grows,” he said.
“I would like to get on,” Reggie yawned.
“That’s right,” said the Superintendent, and took the Inspector aside.
Mr. Gordon, following Reggie to the boudoir, was distressed by the sight of the dead body, and said so. Reggie went on with his photography—first the stab in the throat, then the minor wounds, then the bruise on the shoulder. At which last Inspector Mordan found him.
“Taking the wrong side, aren’t you?” he sneered.
“Oh, I’m taking all sides. Ever try it?” Reggie said.
“Well, have you done, doctor?” the little Jew broke in. “Can’t we have her covered up?”
“I’ll have the body removed, sir. If the doctor has quite done.” said the Inspector.
And so at last the body of Birdie Bolton was taken away to the mortuary, and Mr. Gordon, much relieved, flung open the windows and turned to his business, the secretaire and its papers. He worked quickly. . . . “Nothing there but love-letters. Wonder where she kept her will?”
“There’s a safe in the bedroom, I think,” Reggie said.
“You bet there is. She had all her jewels in the house, I know, and she had some good stuff, poor old girl. Well, come on; here’s her keys.”
They went into the bedroom, and the little Jew made for the safe. Reggie wandered across the room. It was a parquet floor with Persian rugs on it. He shifted one by the bedside. There was a small dark stain on the floor still not dry. An exclamation from Gordon made him turn. Gordon had the safe open, and the safe, but for some papers in disorder, was empty.
“Not one bally bangle left!” Gordon cried. “Not a sparkle of the whole outfit! Remember that ruby and diamond breastplate! Remember her pearls! And the stuff that Indian Johnny gave her! My hat! Somebody’s had a haul.” A spasm crossed his face. “I say, doctor, you were here when I opened the safe!”
“I was here,” Reggie said stolidly. “I wasn’t surprised.” The little Jew gasped. “You remember that emerald she always wore? It wasn’t on the dead body.”
“Oh, God!” said Gordon, and with unsteady hands turned over the papers. “That’s her script. More or less all there, I should say. Where’s the will? I know she had her will. Drew it myself.”
“What’s that?” Reggie said.
The one untidy thing in that very tidy room, a paper lay by the fireplace. Gordon picked it up. “Here we are! Yes, ‘May Grace Weston, my companion.’ That’s the document. Crumpled up and torn!” He whistled. “As if Birdie was destroying it and then—biff!”
“Just as if she’d been destroying it,” Reggie agreed.
“That puts the lid on, don’t it!” said the little Jew. “Miss Weston-oh, lor, there’s a soft kid if you ever had one. Just shows you you never know with girls, doctor. Girls, girls, girls! Well, we’d better tell these bally policemen.”
So Inspector Mordan, vastly to his satisfaction, was told, and Superintendent Bell, appearing from nowhere, heard, and agreed to search the house for the stolen jewels. “You gentlemen come too, please.” He cocked an eye at Reggie.
“Want to keep me under observation?” Reggie grinned back.
“Want you to identify what we find,” said the Inspector.
“You’ll find something all right,” said Reggie.
But he showed little interest in the search, mooning after their men in and out of servants’ bedrooms and yawning in corners. Inspector Mordan had gone straight to Miss Weston’s room, and from it he came glowing with triumph. He called for his Superintendent, he collected Reggie and Gordon. “You gentlemen happen to recognize that?” He opened his big hand and showed the ring with the big emerald which Birdie Bolton had loved.
“That’s it,” Gordon cried. “That’s Birdie’s. Coo! What a stone, ain’t it?”
“In Weston’s room,” the Inspector proclaimed, “on the floor; just under the bed, in Weston’s room.”
“Only that and nothing more?” Reggie murmured.
“Yes, where’s the rest, Mordan?” said Superintendent Bell.
The Inspector smote his thigh. “By George, I see it! I let that rascal Ford see the wench alone. He’s gone off stuffed with the swag.”
“That’s a thought,” Reggie admitted, and the Superintendent lifted an eyebrow at him. “You ought to have Ford watched. No, I mean it. If I was you, Inspector, I’d have his place watched night and day.”
The Inspector was visibly gratified. “I know my business, thank you,” he said. “I say, doctor—it is growing, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, as if it was forced,” Reggie smiled.
“What do you mean?” The Inspector flushed.
“You see, you’re so witty, Mordan,” said the Superintendent.
“And that’s that,” Reggie yawned. “You don’t really want me any more. Good-bye. Oh, Inspector—I don’t want you to be disappointed. The murder wasn’t done in that room where you found the body. Good-bye!”
“Wasn’t done——” The Inspector stared after him. “Good Lord, he’s mad!”
“Better get him to bite you, Mordan,” said the Superintendent.
* * * * * *
That party did not meet again till the day of the inquest. Before the court met, Superintendent Bell called on Reggie and found him in a bad temper. This was unusual, and equally unusual in the Superintendent’s experience was a pallor, a certain tension, across Reggie’s solid, amiable face. A civil question about his health brought a snappish answer. It seemed to the Superintendent that Dr. Fortune had been making a night of it.
“Well, what is it?” Reggie snarled. “Got anything to tell me?”
“I’ve been rather disappointed,” the Superintendent said meekly.
“More fool you. I told you to watch Ford.”
“That’s it, sir. Were you pulling my leg?”
“Oh, damn it, man, this is serious! Miss Bolton was a patient of mine. I don’t let any one but me kill my patients.”
“Very proper, I’m sure,” the Superintendent agreed. “But we have watched him, doctor. Nothing doing.”
“Set a man to stand on his doorstep, I suppose. What’s the good of that?”
“As you say,” the Superintendent agreed. “We’ve picked up one thing, though. Just before the murder his father turned him down for wanting to marry this girl Weston. He hasn’t a penny except from his father. That might have made him desperate—him and the girl. It does grow, you know, doctor.”
“Queer case,” Reggie grunted. “Going to the inquest? Sorry I can’t drive you down. My chauffeur’s taking a day off.”
So they walked to the coroner’s court, and on the way Superintendent Bell used his large experience in the art of extracting confidences in vain. But Reggie mellowed, perceptibly mellowed, as he baffled Superintendent Bell.
The court was crowded to its last inch. The coroner was conscious of his importance, and made the most of it in a long harangue. The divisional surgeon was more pompous than ever, and made it a point of honour to use terms so technical that all his evidence had to be translated to the jury, and the coroner and he argued over the translation.
“What a life, ain’t it?” Mr. Gordon murmured in Reggie’s ear.
At last came what the evening papers called “Dramatic Evidence”: the housemaid who had found the body and had hysterics over again as she described it; Mrs. Betts, who had found May Weston sleeping beside it, waked her, and heard her say, “I did it—oh, I did it!”
“Sensation in Court” was the cross-head for that. The coroner looked over his glasses at the jury, and the jury muttered together, and May Weston came into the box. With the manner of a chaplain at an execution the coroner warned her that she need not give answers that would incriminate her. “I want to tell you everything,” she said. She was very pale in her black, and listless of manner, but quite calm.
What she told was the queer story she had told Reggie, but she was not allowed to tell it her own way. The coroner badgered her with continual questions designed to make the queerness of it seem queerer. He made her nervous, confused her, frightened her. “You bother me so that I don’t know if I’m telling the truth or not,” she quavered.
Then, in the language of the newspapers, “another sensation.” Mr. Ford, large and red, started up and roared, “I ought to be there, sir. Let her alone. I ought to be there.”
Reggie put his head between his hands and bowed himself, groaning.
Every one else was much excited by Mr. Ford. He was pulled down in his seat. The coroner rebuked him with awful majesty. The foreman of the jury wanted to know if he would be called. The coroner pronounced that the court would most certainly require Mr. Ford to explain himself—and came back to May Weston.
“The fool that he is, he’s done the trick, though,” Reggie muttered to Mr. Gordon, and Gordon nodded and grinned. For after this interruption the coroner handled May Weston much more gently, almost indulgently, as a good man sorry for a woman’s weakness. And he was soon done with her.
“Any questions?” He looked at the lawyers. Reggie bent forward and whispered to the solicitor appearing for Miss Weston.
That large, bland man stood up. “Now, Miss Weston, about that coffee.” He had his reward. Every one in the court, and Miss Weston not least, stared surprise at him. Slowly he extracted from her (she seemed bewildered at each question) the whole history of that after-dinner coffee. Coffee had been brought to the boudoir just before Mr. Ford came; no one but she had expected Mr. Ford; another cup was brought for Mr. Ford; Mr. Ford and she had both drunk their coffee. Miss Bolton—why, no, Miss Bolton had not. Miss Bolton had been very gay, and in doing a few steps of a dance had upset her coffee.
“No more questions, sir.” The large solicitor sat down smiling.
The coroner was visibly unable to understand him, and made a great business with his papers. It was now long after tea-time. “I suppose we shan’t finish to-day, gentlemen?” the coroner suggested.
“Quite impossible, sir,” said the large solicitor cheerfully. “I have some long medical evidence. Dr. Fortune, Miss Bolton’s physician. The first medical man who saw the lady. The first medical man who saw Miss Weston.”
The court rose. Reggie, with Gordon at his heels, went out by the solicitor’s door and found Superintendent Bell waiting for him. “Now are you playing the game, doctor?” said Superintendent Bell sadly.
“For keeps,” Reggie laughed. “Come and dine with me. Bring Mordan. He’s so genial.”
“We do have to take these little things so seriously,” the Superintendent murmured.
But a party of four, the Superintendent and the large Inspector, Reggie and the little Jew, packed themselves into a taxi-cab and drove into town. Reggie was full of elegant conversation. He grew iris, and told them all about iris, with appendices on the costumes in revue.
Once or twice Superintendent Bell tried to turn his attention to serious subjects. Vainly. At last Inspector Mordan broke out with, “I say, doctor, what’s the wheeze about the coffee?”
“The Inspector touches the spot. Care not, all will be known ere long. There’s a jolly little iris from the Himalayas——” Reggie returned with enthusiasm to horticulture.
“Where are you taking us, doctor?” said the Superintendent. The taxi, which had for some little time been running through the city, seemed to intend coming out on the other side—a locality promising no good dinner. As he spoke, it turned into Liverpool Street Station.
“Liverpool Street, by George!” the Inspector said. “This is a bean-feast. Going to take us to Epping Forest, doctor?”
“We may have to go farther,” Reggie said, and Gordon laughed.
“Are you in this, sir?” The Inspector turned on him.
“Professional secret, dear boy.”
Reggie led the way to the station dining-room. “I don’t know the cook. But let’s hope for the best. A tirin’ day, an active evening. Strength is what we need. Strength without somnolence. Salmon, I see. Lamb chops, I would add. One of your younger ducks would comfort me. Do you sleep after Burgundy, Inspector? A warm night, as you say. Larose is a genial claret. Let us all be genial.”
“Well, you’re a bit supercilious,” the Inspector complained.
“How can you say so? I am keeping all the glory for you. Glory on ice. All ready for Inspector Mordan. So gather you roses while you may. Talking of roses, what do you think of the hybrid Austrian briers?” He explained what he thought of them to a silent audience, sliding gracefully into an appreciation of salmon eaten at Waterford, at Exeter, and at Berwick. Few are the men who will not talk about food. The detectives produced much valuable experience of bourgeois cookery, and the dinner went merrily. In its later stages Reggie became silent and watched the clock. He seemed to grudge Inspector Mordan his cheese, and as soon as it was swallowed made a move.
“Well, doctor, I did think we should have had some coffee,” the Inspector chuckled.
But Reggie was already making for the door. By the door stood his chauffeur looking for him. Reggie beckoned impatiently to the detectives and followed the chauffeur out. He led them to the main line departure platforms. It was near the time of the Harwich boat-train. A dark, wiry man was registering some luggage for Amsterdam. By his side stood a veiled woman of full figure. Both he and she carried suit-cases. As the man turned round he bumped into Reggie, who was looking the other way, and seemed to have some difficulty in disentangling himself. He glared at Reggie and hurried away. The woman was ahead of him.
Reggie grabbed Superintendent Bell. “See that pair. Take them both. Picking my pocket. Get the bags.”
Bell and Mordan hurried after the pair. Bell tapped the man’s shoulder, and he jumped round.
“I thought so. You’ll come with me to the station, my man,” said Superintendent Bell, with admirable calm.
“What is it?” the man cried. His accent was slightly foreign. “What station? What do you mean?”
“You know all right,” said the Superintendent. “I am Superintendent Bell of Scotland Yard.”
“I do not know at all,” the man protested. “What do you want with me?”
The woman saw Reggie. She hissed something to the man in a foreign argot, and turned to run. The Superintendent laid hold of her. Inspector Mordan closed with the man. The Inspector was large and brawny, but at the end of a moment he was on his back and the man making off. Reggie dived for his legs in the manner of Rugby football, and they went down together.
The railway police came on the scene. The man was handcuffed, and he and the woman and the two detectives packed into a cab. Reggie and Gordon followed in another to the police station in Old Jewry.
When they arrived, the two prisoners were already in the charge-room and the woman was protesting vehemently, to the great edification of the uniformed inspector at the desk and a plain-clothes friend of his, and the embarrassment of Superintendent Bell and Inspector Mordan. It was an outrage. Why did they assault her and her husband? Why? They were respectable people. She would not endure it.
“Oh, Flora, Flora!” Reggie shook his head at her.
The woman whirled round on him. “You! Ah, it is you, then, the doctor. You are a traitor. You are a wicked villain. I spit upon you.” And she did. The man said something to her in the strange foreign argot they seemed to use between themselves, and she was silent.
The plain-clothes man came forward grinning. “Why, Bunco! It is my dear old pal, Bunco! What have they got you for now, old thing?” The man scowled. Dusty and bruised from the scuffle and in the ignominy of handcuffs, he had still a certain arrogant dignity. He was well made for all his slightness, and the strength which had upset Mordan showed in his poise. It was a dark, aquiline face with a good brow, but passionate and cruel.
“What is the charge, doctor?” said Superintendent Bell.
“Oh. On the seventh instant—murder of Wilhelmina, otherwise Birdie Bolton,” Reggie drawled. “Better search them.”
“It is a lie!” Flora screamed; and continued to scream.
Reggie and Gordon were smoking in another room when Bell and Mordan came back with the results of the search. A suit-case was put on the table, opened, and seemed to be full of light, a mass of jewels.
“Can you identify, gentlemen?” Mordan said.
Superintendent Bell laid on the table a sheath knife. An unusual knife, rather long, rather narrow, rather stiff. “I’ll identify that,” Reggie said, and took it up. “That’s the thing that killed her!”
“Coo!” said Mr. Gordon. “You’ve got a real head, doctor. This is Birdie’s bunch all right. Swear to those rubies anywhere.”
“Who’s the man?” said Reggie.
Superintendent Bell sat down with a bump. “He asks me that.” He appealed to the company. “I put it to you. He asks me that! The woman—she’s Miss Bolton’s maid, of course. But the man——”
“Oh, he’s Ford’s chauffeur. I told you to watch Ford. But you only sat on the steps of his flat. You’ve given me a lot of trouble, you know. I was up all last night. Chauffeur doesn’t sleep in, of course. But who is he?”
“We call him Bunco in the Force,” said the Superintendent meekly. “He’s a jewel thief. Quite in the front of the profession. American-Austrian, I think. I believe Nastitch is his name—Alexander Nastitch or Supilo.”
“Croat, I think,” Reggie said. “This knife—they use ’em down that way.”
“Coo! Tell us something you don’t know,” said the little Jew.
Reggie laughed. You may have noticed that he had his vanities. He passed his cigar-case round. “Where will I begin?” said he.
“At the beginning, please.” Mordan grinned.
“The Inspector touches the spot as ever. Well, it hasn’t been quite fair. I had the start of you. On the day before the murder Birdie Bolton consulted me. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Heard noises at night. Now you see your way, don’t you? No? Dear, dear. And I showed you that broken rose! Well, well. These two beauties, Flora and Nastitch, I suppose they got their situations to have a go for the jewels. Nastitch, as Ford’s chauffeur, would have an excuse for hanging round the house and a car to use. He’s had the car out of the garage till the small hours several times. I think he got in by the window last week—more than once, perhaps. And each time poor Birdie stirred. Better for her if she hadn’t, poor girl. But they didn’t mean murder, bless ’em. So they chose to drug her. There was morphia in that coffee. As you heard to-day, Birdie didn’t drink hers. Another rotten chance. So May Weston went to sleep while Birdie was storming at her. Birdie raged off to her room. Whether she got out that will and tore it, we’ll never know. It may have been Flora’s little game. Nastitch came in, reckoning she was sure to be sound, and Flora was with him, I think. Birdie was very wide awake. There was a struggle and he stabbed her. He’s a hot-tempered devil, as you saw to-day.”
“This is all very pretty, doctor, but it ain’t all evidence,” Mordan said.
“You’re so hasty. When she was dead, they took her into the boudoir where the Weston girl was asleep. They laid her on the couch and stabbed at her with her scissors and the bodkin. Filthy trick. That was what May Weston saw in the opium dream. Then I suppose they cleared the safe, and Nastitch went off. Flora annexed the emerald ring. Her perquisite, I suppose. Now, you shall have your evidence. When I came to the body, I saw those scissors never did the business. Ever tried killing anybody with scissors, Inspector? Poor game. No. We wanted something like this.” He fingered the knife affectionately. “Just like this. Also somebody had left his mark on Birdie—a queer hand—a hand that wasn’t quite all there—long fingers with no top joint. Did you notice Mr. Nastitch’s left hand?”
The detectives looked at each other.
“That was in a burglary in New York,” said the Superintendent. “He escaped out of a window, and a constable smashed his hand on the sill.”
“So I photographed the wound and the bruise. Well, when I saw Weston, I saw she had really been drugged. Contracted pupils, bluish pallor. Morphia. Same symptoms in Ford. Why should they drug themselves and not drug Birdie? That ruled them out. Also, I surprised Flora in Birdie’s bedroom doing something by the bed. When I browsed round afterwards I found a wet bloodstain under a clean rug. When Flora knew the Weston girl was arrested and the jewels had been missed, she chucked the ring into Weston’s room. While you were searching the house, I drifted into Miss Flora’s room. Several medicine bottles about. One of ’em empty. That had carried a strong solution of morphia. So I set my chauffeur to watch for Flora. And that night she went off to the lodgings of Nastitch. She’s been buzzing round ever since. Well?”
“Well, sir, it’s a good thing you didn’t take to crime,” said Superintendent Bell.
“Oh, that’s much harder,” said Reggie.
CASE III
SOME are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them. That was Dr. Reginald Fortune’s trouble. He had become a specialist, and, as he told anybody who would listen, thought it an absurd thing to be. For he was interested in everything, but not in anything in particular. And it was just this various versatility of mind and taste which had condemned him to be a specialist. Obviously an absurd world.
The Criminal Investigation Department, solicitors, and others dealing with those experiments in social reform which are called crimes, by continually appealing to his multifarious knowledge and his all-observant eye, turned Dr. Reginald Fortune, general practitioner at Westhampton, into Mr. Fortune of Wimpole Street, specialist in—what shall we say?—the surgery of crime. And Reggie Fortune, though richer for the change, was not grateful. He liked ordinary things, and any day would have gladly bartered a murder for a case of chicken-pox. This accounts for his unequalled sanity of judgement.
Reggie was in that one of his clubs which he liked best, because no member of it knew anything about his profession. He had just completed an animated discussion on the prehistoric art of the French Congo, and was going out, when the tape machine buzzed and clicked at his elbow, and he stopped to look.
“Murder of Sir Albert Lunt,” said the tape and, “Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie. The tape continued the conversation—thus: “Sir Albert Lunt, the well-known mining magnate, was found dead this afternoon in the deer park of his estate at Prior’s Colney, Bucks. The body was discovered by an employee, in circumstances which suggested foul play. A medical examination led to the conclusion that the deceased had been shot. The local police have the case in hand, and search is being actively prosecuted for——” Words failed the tape, and it relapsed into a buzz.
Reggie stared at it with gloomy apprehension. “I believe the beggars get murdered just to bother me,” he was reflecting, when a jovial tea-merchant (wholesale—that club is a most respectable club) clapped him on the shoulder, and asked what the news was. “They only do it to annoy because they know it teases,” said Reggie, and held up the tape.
“Albert Lunt!” said the tea-merchant, and whistled. “Well, he won’t be missed!”
“Don’t you believe it,” Reggie groaned, and went out.
Upon his way home the passionate interest which the world, expressing its emotions on newspaper placards, took in Sir Albert Lunt was heaped upon him. When he let himself in, his factotum, Samuel Baker, was hovering in the hall.
“Oh, don’t look so alert, Sam. It’s maddening,” Reggie complained.
Samuel Baker grinned. “You’ll want all the papers, sir?”
“I suppose so!”
“I’m getting each edition as they come along, sir. Would you like a photograph of Sir Albert?”
“Go away, Sam.” Reggie waved at him. “Go quite away, Sam. Do you know one reason why many fellows get murdered? It’s because other fellows can’t live up to them.”
As he changed, Reggie looked through the papers. They were eloquent upon Sir Albert Lunt. His career, even when treated with the delicacy due to those who die rich, was a picturesque subject. Sir Albert Lunt, with his surviving brother Victor, had gone out to South Africa in the early days of diamonds. His first vocation was discreetly veiled. Some references to his life-long passion for sport reminded the knowing of the story that he and his brother had been in the front rank of the profession which works with three cards, the thimble, and the pea. Sir Albert, always in close alliance with Victor, had come out into daylight in the second stage of the diamond fields, when the business man was following in the steps of lucky adventurers. It had been Sir Albert’s habit through life to appear in the second stage of things. The polite newspaper biographies called this prudence and sound judgment. He had always been fortunate in reaping other people’s harvests. There were strange tales of his devices at Kimberley and Johannesburg, and just a hint of a clash with Cecil Rhodes, in which Rhodes had said what he thought of the Brothers Lunt with a certain gusto.
So ways that were dark and tricks that were anything but vain in Kimberley and Johannesburg made Albert Lunt a millionaire. He was not satisfied. South Africa was too small for him. Or was it too hot for him? He had spread his “operations” round the world. He was “interested” in some Manchurian tin and the copper belt of the Belgian Congo. “One of our modern Empire builders,” as the evening papers sagely said.
How Sir Albert came by his title was a problem left in decent obscurity. Much was said of the magnificence of his life in England, his rococo palace not quite in Park Lane, his pantomime splendours at Prior’s Colney—the ball-room which was in the lake, and the dining-room which was panelled in silver. The knowing reader could divine that Sir Albert had lived not only blatantly but hard and fast.
“Yah,” said Reggie Fortune.
Just as he was putting on his coat, Sam arrived with a photograph of Sir Albert, and Reggie sat down to it. A plump man of middle height, rather loudly dressed; a long, heavy face, rather like a horse’s, but with protruding eyes—commonplace enough. It was only the expression which made Reggie examine the fellow more closely. Under the photographic smirk was a look of insolence and conceit of singular force. The man who owned that would never allow any creature a right against him. Behold the secret of Sir Albert Lunt’s success. And “Oh, Peter, I don’t wonder some one murdered the animal,” said Reggie. “Justifiable porcicide.”
On which he went off to dinner with his sister, who had married a man in the Treasury, and gave him the pleasant somnolent evening you would expect.
When he came back there were two telegrams waiting for him.
Number one: “Was called in to Lunt case. Desire consult you. Lady Lunt also anxious your opinion.—Gerald Barnes.”
Number two: “Desire consult you Lunt case. Please see me Prior’s Colney morning.—Lomas.”
Reggie whistled. “Let ’em all come,” said he.
Gerald Barnes had been house surgeon when Reggie was surgical registrar at St. Simon’s Hospital, and had gone into practice somewhere in Buckinghamshire. The Hon. Stanley Lomas was the head of the Criminal Investigation Department.
“Have they had a scrap?” Reggie smiled to himself. “Lots of zeal at Prior’s Colney. Sam! The car after breakfast. We’ll go and see life.” And he went to bed.
But in the morning, just as he was finishing breakfast, he was told that Nurse Dauntsey wanted to see him and said it was most urgent. Nurse Dauntsey was at St. Simon’s Hospital and had a partiality for Reggie, who (quite paternally) liked her for being gentle and kindly and pretty. A trim figure, a pair of honest grey eyes, a wholesome complexion, and an engaging red mouth were the best of Nurse Dauntsey’s charms, but there was a simplicity about her which commended them. “Types of English Beauty.—Third Prize, Nurse Dauntsey,” somebody said once. And it was felt to be just.
On this morning Nurse Dauntsey’s nice face was troubled, and she had lost her usual calm. “Oh, Mr. Fortune, will you help me?” She rushed at Reggie. “It’s the Lunt case.”
“Now what in wonder have you to do with the Lunt case?”
Nurse Dauntsey blushed. “I’m engaged, Mr. Fortune,” she said.
“Well, he’s a very lucky man. And I hope you’re a lucky girl.”
“Oh, I am,” said Nurse Dauntsey, with conviction. “He has been arrested. They say he murdered Sir Albert Lunt. Mr. Fortune, you will help us?”
“Who in creation is the lucky man?”
“His name is Vernon Cranford. He’s a mining engineer. Oh, he’s been everywhere. He’s a born explorer, you know. He discovered a copper mine in Portuguese East Africa, one of the richest mines in the world. He came home last year and told Sir Albert Lunt about it, and Sir Albert sent him out to show the place. There was a sort of expedition, you know. And then, somehow, on the way up country Vernon was left behind. The other men tricked him. And when he got back to Mozambique he found that the other men had claimed the place was theirs. They had—what do you call it?—secured the concession, the rights in it. Wasn’t it a shame? Vernon was just furious. I don’t know quite how it happened. He only came back on Monday. I know he thought it was Sir Albert Lunt’s fault. He said he was going to see him and have it out with him. He was going to see him yesterday. And then, last night, I had this note from him.” She held it out, then couldn’t bear to let it out of her hands, and so read it to him.
“‘Dear Jo,—You mustn’t worry. Lunt’s been found shot, and the police have pinched me. Take it easy and go slow, and we’ll comb it all out.—Yours, V.’”
Nurse Dauntsey gazed at Reggie with very big eyes.
“Sounds as if he knew his own mind,” Reggie murmured. “And all this bein’ thus, you want me to take up the case. Why?”
Nurse Dauntsey was startled. “But to get him off, of course—to defend him.”
“Yes. But don’t let’s be previous. Speakin’ frankly, did he do it?”
Nurse Dauntsey stood up. “I am engaged to him, Mr. Fortune,” she said with dignity.
“Quite. That’s the best thing I know about him. But I don’t know much else.”
“And I am sure he’s not guilty.”
“That kind of man, is he?”
“Just that kind of man,” said Nurse Dauntsey, and her eyes glowed. “He couldn’t do anything that wasn’t fair and clean.”
“Then he’d better have a solicitor. Do you suppose he’s got one?”
“He’d never think of such a thing.”
“Make him have Moss and Gordon. Ask for Donald Gordon, and say I sent you.”
“But I want you, Mr. Fortune. You know there’s no one like you.”
“I blush. We both blush.” Reggie smiled at her. “Well, nurse, two other people have called me into the Lunt case.” Nurse Dauntsey cried out, and her nice face was piteous. “Take it easy and go slow, as V. Cranford says. I’m going down to Prior’s Colney now to find out who I’m acting for. Oh, my dear girl, don’t cry. I’m guessing it may be you. Now you be a good girl, and take Donald Gordon to him.”
Nurse Dauntsey held out her hands. “Oh, Mr. Fortune, don’t go against him,” she cried.
Safe in his car, Reggie communed with himself. “She’s a lamb. But disturbing to the intellects. Well, well. I’ll have to make Brer Lomas sit up and take notice.”
It was a clear cold morning of early spring, and Reggie shrank under his rugs. He had no love for east winds. He thought that there should be a close time for murders. He was elaborating a scheme by which the murder and the cricket seasons should be conterminous, when, at about twenty-five miles from London, they passed a horrible building. It was some distance from the high road, perched on the top of a small hill. It was of very red brick and very white stone, so arranged as to suggest the streaky bacon which might be made of a pig who had died in convulsions. It was ornate with the most improbable decorations, colonnades, battlements, a spire or so, oriel windows, a dome, Tudor chimneys, and some wedding-cake furbelows.
Reggie writhed and called to his factotum, who was sitting beside the chauffeur. “Sam, who had that nightmare?”
“That must be Colney Towers, sir. Mr. Victor Lunt’s place.”
Reggie groaned. “And Victor yet lives!”
A mile or two farther on they ran into a village which, before ruthless fellows stuck garden-city cottages on to it, must have been placid and pretty. The car drew up at an honest Georgian lump of red brick which bore the plate of Dr. Gerald Barnes.
Gerald Barnes was a ruddy young man who looked and dressed like a farmer. “I say, this is very decent of you. Jolly day, isn’t it?” he bustled.
“Have you a fire, Barnes—a large fire? Put me on it,” said Reggie. “And don’t be so cheerful. It unnerves me.” Still in his fur coat, Reggie planted himself in front of the consulting-room hearth. “Now, what do you want me for?”
“Well, it’s not so much me, though I’d like your opinion. It’s more Lady Lunt. Medically speaking, it’s a pretty straight case. Lunt was shot in the chest and the bullet lodged in the spine, .38 revolver bullet. So there’s not much doubt about the cause of death, what? But there are one or two odd things. The right thumb seems to be sprained. There’s a nasty wound over the left eye—seems to have been made by a blow.”
“Sounds messy. Where do I come in?”
“Why, I don’t quite see my way through it. If a fellow had a pistol ready to use, why bash the beggar? It’s a futile sort of wound too, nasty mess, but not dangerous. But you’d better see the body, Fortune.”
“Oh, let me thaw. So Lady Lunt’s not satisfied with the police?”
“No, by Jove, she isn’t. I say, Fortune, how did you know that?”
“Genius, just genius. And what’s Lady Lunt like?”
“Well, you know, she isn’t quite a lady. And yet she is in big things. He married her about ten years ago, somewhere on the Continent. But she’s English. She was a dancer or singer or something. Pretty low class, I believe. She was awfully handsome—big, dark, dashing type. She hasn’t kept her looks, but she’s still striking. She was pretty rowdy at first—went the pace like he did. He was an awful old bounder, you know. But for a good while now she’s been different—quiet and serious—looking after things down here, good work on the estate—that sort of thing. She quietened him down too, but he was pretty bad. I think she was getting him in hand slowly, but she must have been having a rotten time for years.”
“And what does Lady Lunt want now?”
“I’m hanged if I know,” said Barnes, after some hesitation. “She thinks there’s more in it than the detectives see, and she’s not satisfied about this arrest.”
“Now go easy. Two other people have called me in, and I don’t know who I’ll act for. So don’t spoil anybody’s game. Lomas wired for me——”
“Lomas! So Scotland Yard isn’t so mighty cocksure.”
“Did Lomas seem so? Rude fellow. And then there’s V. Cranford.”
“Cranford’s got to you already! He’s lost no time.”
“Oh, he’s in very good hands. Now let’s take a walk. You’ll show me where Lunt was killed, and I’ll have a look at him.” Reggie shed his fur coat and became brisk.
It was his bailiff who had found Sir Albert Lunt, taken the news to the house, and telephoned for Gerald Barnes. Sir Albert Lunt had been walking back from his home farm across the park, which was an undulating stretch of turf over chalk, broken here and there by some fine beeches and coverts of gorse and bramble. A gravel path ran straight from the home farm to the main chestnut avenue. Barnes halted at a place where the turf was trampled in half-frozen footprints. Reggie looked round him. “Humph! Well out of sight of any house. Nobody heard the shot?”
“Nobody noticed it. It’s a good way from the house, you see, and a mile from the farm. A shot or so—what’s that in the open country? You often hear a gun somewhere.”
“Quite. Where’s that path go to?” Reggie pointed to a track across the turf diverging from the gravel.
“That? Oh, over to Victor Lunt’s place. His park—he calls it a park too, but it’s a small affair—almost joins this, you know.”
“Well, well, let’s see the body,” Reggie yawned, and they marched on to Prior’s Colney.
It had once been a comely place in a staid eighteenth-century fashion. “Oh, my only aunt!” Reggie groaned. “Looks like your grandmother put into the Russian ballet.” It was loaded with excrescences of contorted ornament still raw and new against the mellow solemnity of the original homely house.
A motor-car stood at the door. While they were detaching hats and sticks in the hall, they could hear some one being told that Lady Lunt was not leaving her room. Then, being shown out, came a bulky man muffled in a fur coat with a big Astrakhan collar. He had a large head and a long face of unhealthy complexion. Across the forehead from right eyebrow to hair was a red furrow. He had prominent, pale eyes.
“Who is the sportsman with the scratched face?” Reggie said, as the door shut on him.
“Oh, that’s Victor Lunt. Been inquiring after Lady Lunt, I suppose.”
“Bright and brotherly,” Reggie murmured.
There appeared briskly a man of grave and military aspect, who was presented to Reggie as Radnor Hall, Sir Albert Lunt’s secretary. Radnor Hall (in a faintly American accent) was very glad to see Mr. Fortune; hoped for Mr. Fortune’s company to lunch; after which, Lady Lunt was most anxious to see Mr. Fortune.
“I want to see the body,” Reggie said gruffly.
So to the body he was taken, and saw that Gerald Barnes was right enough: there could be no doubt of the cause of death. A pistol bullet, fired from some little distance, had entered the chest and lodged in the spinal vertebræ. Sir Albert Lunt might not have died on the instant. He could not have lived long. But that mortal wound was tiny. What made the dead man look horrible was the gash in his forehead and the bruise round it. And over that Reggie frowned and pondered. “Showy, isn’t it, very showy?” he complained. Such a hurt a man might get by falling on a stone. But Sir Albert Lunt had fallen on his back on the turf. If some one had hit him with a stone or some such jagged thing—but why should any man take a stone who had a pistol and was not afraid to use it? “If there was any sense in it, I’d say it was a fake,” Reggie grumbled.
He gave up the wounds at last and moved round the body.
“Oh, you’re looking at the wrong hand,” Barnes said.
“Am I though?”
“Yes, this is the one where the thumb’s sprained—the right hand.”
“Well, you know, he seems to have been busy with his hands. What did you make of this?”
Barnes came to look. The fingers of the left hand were bent towards the thumb as if the dead man had been plucking at something.
“Not much in that, is there?”
“What was he wearing?”
“Rough brown overcoat—brown tweeds.”
“Oh, ah!” Delicately Reggie extracted from the stiff fingers some little curly, black tufts.
“Well, that’s queer,” Barnes said. “Looks like a nigger’s hair.”
“You know you’ve got imagination.” Reggie put the stuff very carefully in his pocket-book. “Some oppressed nigger from the compounds at Johannesburg—came all the way to Prior’s Colney for vengeance—threw a stone at him—shot him—and then butted him. Thorough fellow, very thorough.”
“What is it, then?” Barnes said sulkily.
“Seek not to proticipate. Hallo!”
The interruption was the Hon. Stanley Lomas, Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, dapper and debonair.
“Ah, Fortune, good man. Why didn’t you ask for me? I’m at the inn in the village.”
“That’s very haughty of you. Why not in the house? Have you put Lady Lunt’s back up? Or has she put up yours?”
“Oh, best to have a free hand, don’t you know? Well, what do you make of it?” Reggie shrugged. “Curious features, what? What I want to know is, was that blow on the head before the shot or after?”
“What you want is not a surgeon, it’s a clairvoyant. Anyway, you don’t want me. You’ve got your man.”
“Have I?” Lomas put up his eyeglass. “You mean Cranford? Now how did you know about Cranford?”
“Sorry, Lomas. Nothing doing. I’m the independent expert this time.”
Lomas frowned. “My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow! Unless you’re acting for some one, you’ve no business here, don’t you know.”
“I’m acting for some one all right—for V. Cranford.”
“Hallo! You’ve made up your mind?” Barnes cried.
Lomas dropped his eyeglass. “Ah! Well, well. Things must be as they may, what? It’s a pity. Afraid you’ve made a bad break this time, Fortune. It’s a straight case.”
“I wonder,” Reggie said.
“My dear fellow, I’d hate you to be at a disadvantage.” Lomas seemed suddenly to have become older, paternal, protective. “Well—it’s not strictly official—but I may tell you we’ve found the pistol. It was in Cranford’s rooms.”
“A Smith-Southron .38? Fancy! I don’t suppose there’s more than half a million of them in circulation. It’s a good gun. I’ve got one myself somewhere.”
“My dear fellow!” Lomas was young and jaunty again. “Why try to bluff me? Lunt was killed by a particular kind of pistol. And we find the particular man to whom all suspicion points owns one of these pistols. It’s quite simple, don’t you know?”
“Yes, oh, yes, ‘Doosid lucid, doosid convincing.’ But I wonder why you want to convince me?”
That was the first skirmish over the Lunt case, and Reggie, Gerald Barnes discreetly excusing himself, ate a littletête-à-têtelunch with Radnor Hall—not in the silver panelled dining-room. When the servants were gone, “I don’t want to hear anything under false pretences, Mr. Hall,” Reggie explained. “I shall act in this case for Cranford.”
“Is that so?” Radnor Hall rubbed his back hair. “I guess I’ll take you right in to Lady Lunt.”
Lady Lunt stood in front of the fire with a cigarette in her mouth. She was a big woman, a little flat of figure and gaunt of face, but still handsome. She thrust a hand on Reggie, gripped his hand, and shot a “Glad to see you,” at him. Reggie was sorry he could not act for Lady Lunt, but had to consider that Cranford had the first claim on him. “I don’t mind,” she cried. It seemed her habit to be explosive. “If you’re against the police, that’s good enough for us. Eh, Radnor?”
“Sure,” said Radnor Hall, who was watching Reggie closely.
“I want you to hear what we’ve got to say about the case,” the lady explained. “We think it matters.”
“Quite a lot,” said Radnor Hall. Lady Lunt nodded at him, and he began. “You see, Mr. Fortune, Sir Albert left everything to Lady Lunt.” Reggie murmured that it was very natural. “As Lady Lunt regards the proposition, it’s up to her to see that justice is done about the murder.”
“Justice, see?” Lady Lunt broke in vehemently. “And not have some poor devil hanged because the police think he’s an under dog and don’t count.”
Radnor Hall frowned at her. “Mr. Fortune will realize when we make the position clear.”
“Sorry, Radnor. You go on.” Lady Lunt threw her cigarette away and dropped into a chair.
“Well, sir, to commence.” Radnor Hall smoothed his black hair. “This firm never was Albert Lunt. It was Lunt Brothers. The late Sir Albert he was sure master. He put in the git up and git. But quite a lot of the head work came from Mr. Victor Lunt. And lately, Sir Albert having largely relapsed into living on his rents, Mr. Victor Lunt has had considerable control. Now, sir, speaking as man to man, I would wish to say that the methods of Lunt Brothers have been complex—highly complex. I conjecture that in early days Albert and Victor were both out for scalps. But in my time, Sir Albert having mellowed, largely mellowed—under prosperity and certain influences——”
“Oh, don’t blether, Radnor,” Lady Lunt exploded.
“Well, Mr. Fortune, Sir Albert has lately showed a tendency to more conservative methods of finance. Mr. Victor Lunt has gone on putting in his sharp head work. There has been friction, sir—some friction. Now in this affair of Cranford’s—without prejudice, I would like to say that Mr. Cranford has been hardly used by Lunt Brothers.”
“He’s been damnably cheated,” said Lady Lunt.
“There’s a point of view,” said Radnor Hall. “Lady Lunt had put her point of view to Sir Albert. Well, sir, the Cranford case was largely handled by Mr. Victor Lunt. I wouldn’t say Sir Albert disavowed the methods used. But he considered Mr. Victor was taking too much control. Words passed. And we find Sir Albert shot. That’s the proposition, Mr. Fortune.”
Reggie smiled. Reggie put the tips of his fingers together and over them looked very blandly at the military face of Radnor Hall. “Your view is that Sir Albert was murdered by his brother Victor,” he said.
Lady Lunt started and looked at Radnor Hall.
Radnor Hall gave no sign of surprise. “Pitch up another, doctor,” he smiled back. “No, sir. Your guess, not mine. I’m giving out facts.”
“Oh, cut it out, Radnor,” said Lady Lunt.
“Well, well.” Reggie surveyed her benignly. “And so Sir Albert’s death leaves Victor in control of the firm?”
“Sir Albert’s share comes to me,” Lady Lunt said. “Five-eighths. I’m master now.”
“A responsibility,” Reggie murmured. “If I understand one cause of quarrel between the brothers was that Victor resented your influence, madame, which Sir Albert encouraged you to use?”
“Yes, that’s the proposition,” said Radnor Hall.
“You know it’s not,” Lady Lunt cried. “They both hated me to meddle.”
“Is that so?” Reggie said dreamily. “And you were asking me to find out who murdered Sir Albert?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Lady Lunt flashed at him. “I was asking you to save this poor boy Cranford.”
“Ah well, let’s hope it’s the same thing.” Reggie stood up. “I can play about in the park, I suppose? Many thanks.”
And he did play about in the park till dusk, and when he went back to London, Sam, the factotum, was not with him.
In the evening Donald Gordon rang him up. Donald Gordon thought Cranford was a bit of a tough, but was going to act for him. It would be a fruity case. He had arranged a consultation with Cranford at the prison to-morrow, and hoped Reggie would be there. What did Reggie think of the case? “Rotten,” said Reggie, and rang off.
The fact is that from first to last the Lunt case annoyed him. He never saw his way through it, and has always called it one of his failures. The one thing which he did, he will tell you, was to grasp that the police were mucking it—to divine that whoever killed Sir Albert and however he—or she—did it, it was not a simple, common bit of pistolling. He was right about nothing else. His apology is that he has no imagination.
At this stage he was prepared to believe anything. When he went gloomily to bed it was with the conviction that if he were Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department he could make it—or fake it—into a hanging matter for “any one of the bally crowd”. The unknown Cranford, the enigmatic Victor, Lady Lunt, Radnor Hall, you could put each of them in the dock—or several of them together. Lady Lunt stood to gain most by the death—or perhaps Radnor Hall—what were her relations with Radnor Hall? Cranford had the worst quarrel with the dead man—or perhaps brother Victor. In favour of Cranford was only the oddity of the business, and nice Nurse Dauntsey . . . a lamb. . . . Comfortable visions of her sent him to sleep.
Seen in the gaunt room at the prison, the unknown Cranford came up to expectation. He was a dark fellow, lean and powerful, with a decisive jaw. The little Jewish solicitor, Donald Gordon, became nervous before him. “Miss Dauntsey says I’m devilish obliged to you, doctor,” said Cranford sharply. “So I am. You understand I admit nothing.”
“That’s the best way,” the little Jew lisped.
But Cranford told his story and admitted a good deal. He had offered his discovery of copper to Lunt Brothers, and been sent out to Mozambique with a party of their men. On the way up country he had gone out of camp to shoot for the pot. Out of the bush came a native spear and broke in his thigh. By the time he struggled back to camp, there was no camp. The party had gone on with the food and the baggage, his baggage too, in which was the map of his copper belt. He was left wounded and alone in the bush. After some desperate days he struggled into a native village, and lay there a month before he could travel. When he came back to Mozambique he found that Lunt Brothers were enrolled as the owners of all the copper belt.
He sailed for England. There was in him, he confessed—no, proclaimed—the single purpose of getting his own back from Sir Albert Lunt. And so his first day in England took him to the office of Lunt Brothers. Victor Lunt received him. Victor Lunt had been civil, even sympathetic, but had nothing to offer. Victor Lunt admitted that they had jumped his claim, did not conceal that the trick had been planned by Sir Albert Lunt, agreed that Cranford had been damnably swindled; but gave him no hope that Sir Albert Lunt would do anything.
“You didn’t kill Victor, anyway?” Reggie said.
“Victor? Poor beast, there’s nothing to him. He’s all talk,” said Cranford. “Albert ran that show. Victor as good as told me so. Said he was just a clerk in Albert’s office. So I told him a few things about Albert. Poor devil, he was in a funk. He got cold feet. Said I had better go right on to Albert. Albert was down at Prior’s Colney. Would I go to Albert? I would so. And I did.”
“Yes. By train. You got to Colney Road Station 12.20,” Reggie said. “You came back by the 2.5.”
“That’s so.” Cranford stared at him. “You know something, doctor. I walked up to Prior’s Colney. Flunkey said Albert was out. I walked back and caught the 2.5.”
There was silence for a moment. Then the little Jew said, “That’s the story. You’ll have to tell it in the witness-box, you know.”
“Can do,” said Cranford.
“That’s nice,” the little Jew lisped. “Now you know some fellow will ask you—don’t you tell me if you don’t want—did you murder Albert Lunt?”
“I did not, sir.”
The little Jew rubbed his hands. “That’s nice, ain’t it, doctor? That gives us a free hand.” He got up. “Well, doctor, any questions?”
“I wonder what coat you were wearing, Mr. Cranford?” Reggie said.
“Coat? Brown raincoat. Devilish cold it was too. Only coat I’ve got. I’ve not had time to fit out for an English spring.”
“Quite. We’ll carry on, then.” Reggie got up too. “It’s shaping all right, Mr. Cranford. Shouldn’t worry.”
“Not me. Tell Miss Dauntsey,” Cranford said.
Outside in their car, “What’s the verdict, doctor?” Gordon said.
“He’s telling the truth,” Reggie said.
“Fancy!” And they became technical.
On the day of the inquest Reggie went down to Prior’s Colney, but the inquest he did not attend. The Hon. Stanley Lomas noticed that, and remarked on it with surprise to Donald Gordon. It was the one thing in a successful day which gave Mr. Lomas concern. But at the close of that day Mr. Lomas, going back to the inn for his car and his tea, found Reggie eating buttered toast. “I envy you. Fortune, don’t you know.” Lomas sat down beside him.
“Oh, Mr. Lomas, sir,” Reggie mumbled. “Go along with you.”
“I envy your stomach,” Lomas explained, put up his eyeglass and surveyed the buttered toast more closely. “O Lord! And after a bad day too! You’ve heard the verdict. What? Wilful murder against Cranford.”
“And all is gas and gaiters. And hooroar for Scotland Yard. And you shall pay for my tea.”
“It was the pistol did for him you know.” Lomas smiled as a man who can afford to smile.
“Childhood’s years are passing o’er us, Lomas,” Reggie murmured. “Soon our schooldays will be done. Cares and sorrows lie before us, Lomas. Hidden dangers, snares unknown. I’ve found the real pistol, old thing. Good-bye.”
Lomas caught him up outside. “I say, Fortune. Without prejudice—what’s your line?”
“Seek not to proticipate,” Reggie smiled. “This gentleman is paying for my tea, Mary. You would be so hasty, you know.”
Mr. Lomas drank whisky and soda.
That was the second skirmish in the Lunt case.
The general action was fought at the assizes. The interest in it began with the cross-examination of Victor Lunt. Victor Lunt, called for the prosecution, made a good impression. He looked harassed and in ill-health, affected as a good brother should be by a brother’s death. But he had command of himself, proved that he had brains as well as the heart displayed by his dull eye and flabby face, he was lucid and to the point. He showed no malice against Cranford. Cranford had called on him on the morning of the murder, complained bitterly of his treatment by Sir Albert Lunt, used violent language about Sir Albert, demanded to know where Sir Albert was, and gone away. Such was Mr. Lunt’s evidence in chief.
Then arose a small and pallid barrister with a priggish nose. He would ask Mr. Lunt to carry his mind back to some earlier transactions. So the story of the expedition to Mozambique was brought out and, such was the simplicity of the priggish little man, the harassed mouth of Mr. Lunt was made to explain that Lunt Brothers had annexed Cranford’s discovery, and that the expedition of Lunt Brothers had left him to die in the bush.
“Are you justifying the murder?” said counsel for the Crown.
“You will understand my friend’s uneasiness, gentlemen,” says the little barrister, and pinned Mr. Lunt to the statement that it was Sir Albert who had planned this iniquitous scheme. “And when Cranford had gone, Mr. Lunt, of course you warned your brother at once this desperate fellow was on his track. No? Curious. Yet you went down in your motor to your own house at Colney Towers, not much more than a mile away. You reached the house between 12 and 12.30? Perhaps? Oh, don’t begin to forget things now. What did you do then?”
As far as he remembered Mr. Lunt took a stroll.
“On your oath—did you not go and meet your brother?”