Chapter VII.Inspector Cottingham Smells BloodIf anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve o’clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly, notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be concocted in cold blood.One does not remark casually over one’s second cup of tea: “By the way, you people, an idea’s just occurred to me for hoaxing the British Broadcasting Company rather neatly. Anybody care to give me a hand? I shall tell them, you see, that I’ve got a trained rabbit that gives organ recitals, and …” Certainly not. But give the average law-respecting Briton (which Guy was not, nor yet Mr. Doyle, but George was) a modicum of sound alcohol to titillate his sense of humour into a slightly perverted form, taunt him through the mouth of one friend with inability to carry the thing through, egg him on through the lips of another to show the stuff he is made of, and smile at him through his wife’s eyes as if to say, “Dear old Guy! Oh yes, my dear, he oftentalkslike this—but bless you, he’d neverdoanything. Oh, dear no!”—do these things to him, and then be very careful not to answer for the consequences. For consequences will certainly occur. In cold blood George would never have considered that he possessed any corpse-imitating properties at all.At twelve o’clock, then, two people stood in Guy’s drawing-room and dithered; two others watched them happily. The ditherers were the constable, who had been keeping it up for the last hour, and Mr. Foster. These two victims of the modern cinema were being watched by Guy himself, with critical appreciation of their efforts towards his ends, and by Inspector Cottingham, of the Abingchester Police.Inspector Cottingham was a fatherly man, with a large walrus moustache, and he was very, very happy. He had not only smelt blood, he had actually seen it. He had, not to disguise the truth, gloated over it. Blood very seldom comes the way of a country Inspector of Police.Inspector Cottingham however, had been blessed above most country Inspectors, for this was the second time blood had come his way. Many, many years ago, when the Inspector had been a mere Sergeant, a small village outside Abingchester had startled the placid neighbourhood by becoming the scene of a particularly brutal and mysterious murder, and Sergeant Cottingham had taken the matter in hand. To the admiration of the neighbourhood, and the intense surprise of his superior officers, the Sergeant, by a series of brilliant deductions, had followed an obscure trail to the person of the murderer, who, sharing the astonishment of the Sergeant’s superiors, had been so taken aback as to confess at once to the crime.This confession was very fortunate for the Sergeant. It obviated all necessity to produce the person of a certain Ethel Wilkinson, a labourer’s daughter, who had actually seen the murder committed, had told the Sergeant all about it, and had pointed out to him the clues which had so won the Chief Constable’s admiration—a series of facts which the Sergeant had prudently concealed. Ethel Wilkinson, who had no wish to be mixed up in such a sordid affair and help to put a rope round a fellow-creature’s neck, had been grateful to the Sergeant for keeping her name out of it and had never breathed a word of her knowledge from that day; the Sergeant had been no less grateful to Ethel Wilkinson. The Chief Constable, sharing in the general gratitude, had come to the conclusion that he had misjudged a very sound man and had caused the Sergeant to be promoted, by way of some small reward, to the rank of Inspector. Ever since then Inspector Cottingham had naturally been the district’s sage and authority where the science of criminal detection was concerned.He was now once more in his element, trying to obtain something remotely approaching a connected story from the two chief witnesses. He was an optimistic man, and he had no doubt that somebody must have seen the murder committed once more.Guy’s story he had heard already. That was simplicity itself. Guy had been summoned away immediately after dinner by a note purporting to come from an old friend of his who had just taken a house a few miles away. He had gone off at once in the car with his wife, and after spending nearly three hours in trying to find the house had come to the conclusion that the address did not exist at all. He had thereupon returned. In the course of his journeying the note had most unfortunately been thrown away in disgust. Mrs. Nesbitt had corroborated these particulars and then retired, somewhat hurriedly (but that was hardly surprising), to bed. Cynthia, in fact, had chosen the path of prudence rather than bravado. Otherwise there would have now been three ditherers in the drawing-room instead of two. Cynthia was very decidedly alarmed—and she was a poor liar.“Be quiet, you, Graves!” bellowed Inspector Cottingham, rounding suddenly with portentous authority upon his underling. “I’ve heard what you’ve got to say, and the less you talk about it the better; it don’t do you much credit, when all’s said and done. And how on earth do you expect me to understand what this gentleman’s trying to tell me, if you will keep on about that blessed cupboard? I’m sick and tired of that cupboard.” Inspector Cottingham was also a little jealous of that cupboard, but he could hardly tell a subordinate that. The cupboard, Inspector Cottingham could not help feeling, was the place where somebody ought to have contrived that he himself should have been the whole time, if the game had been played according to its proper rules.“Now, sir,ifyou please,” he added, turning back to Mr. Foster. “The whole story right through, please, in your own words.”Mr. Foster, who in any case had nobody else’s words in which to tell his story, complied with alacrity. He was a tubby, rather red little man, and at the moment he looked as if he were suffering from an acute attack of apoplexy. His slightly prominent, pale-blue eyes stood out farther than ever, his wide loose-lipped mouth gaped with the unspoken words seeking egress, his sanguine countenance was mottled with earnest perspiration. He swept himself along in the flood-tide of his own speech.Guy listened with puckish delight concealed beneath the grave countenance proper to the occasion. His acquaintance with Mr. Foster had not been long, but it had been very intense. Acquaintance with Mr. Foster was like that. He pervaded as well as clung. One may dismiss limpets with an airy gesture, one may disregard the crab affixed to one’s toe, one may smile in an atmosphere of poison-gas; but one was still unfitted to cope with Mr. Reginald Foster. And the desolating, the heartrending, the utterly unforgivable thing was that Mr. Reginald Foster meant so well. Give us malice, surround us with backbiters, fill our house with blackguards; but Heaven defend us from the well-meaning bore.Mr. Foster spluttered on. He had a good story to tell, and he was making the most of it.“Crown Prince, eh?” interrupted the Inspector, now thoroughly genial again. “CrownPrince?”Mr. Foster nodded importantly. “That’s what she said, Inspector, yes. Crown Prince.” The words slid smoothly off his tongue, like salad oil off the poised tablespoon.“Perhaps you misunderstood her, Foster,” put in Guy, who was not feeling any too happy about the Crown Prince; he felt that to drag in Royalty was really overdoing it a little.“ShesaidCrown Prince,” persisted Mr. Foster. One gathered that, in Mr. Foster’s opinion, what she said went.“That’s right,” ventured the constable. “All covered with ribbons an’ things, he was. Medals, I wouldn’t be surprised.”“Tl! take your statement later, Graves,” boomed the Inspector. The constable retired.“Crown Prince,” repeated Mr. Foster, with the air of one clinching a point.The Inspector was only too ready to have the point clinched. He clinched it in his notebook. “Yes, sir?” he cooed. If a corpse and two murderers make a sergeant, what does not a Crown Prince and a whole gang make an Inspector? Besides, somebody was sure to turn up.Mr. Foster continued, rapidly and with purpose.“Man with the Broken Nose?” gloated the Inspector, and moistened his pencil once more.With reluctance Mr. Foster brought his story to a conclusion. As if he had timed his entrance for the same moment (which, in point of fact, he had) Mr. Doyle strolled casually into the room.“Hallo, Nesbitt,” he said, as if not noticing the other three. “Saw your lights on and your library windows open, so I walked over. Hope you don’t mind. George wanted to know rather particularly whether you could—but am I interrupting a conference or something?”“Not a bit,” said Guy heartily. “Let me introduce you. Mr. Foster, Inspector Cottingham—Mr. Doyle. You’ve just come at the right moment, Doyle. The most extraordinary things have been happening here this evening.”“Really?” said Mr. Doyle with polite interest.The Inspector’s frown had brightened, only to darken a moment later. He tapped his pencil with his teeth. Evidently the new arrival was not the person who ought to be turning up.Guy hastened to put things on a different footing. “Mr. Doyle is staying with our next-door neighbours,” he told the Inspector. “Just the man you want to see. You’ll want to ask him whether they’ve seen anything of all this business, won’t you?”The Inspector, who had not thought of any such thing, brightened again. Guy had spoken with such deference in the presence of the expert that nobody could have taken offence. Instead, the Inspector took the suggestion.“That’s right, sir,” he agreed paternally. “I shall want to put a few questions to Mr. Doyle in a minute.”“Well, just give him an outline of the affair, Inspector, will you? I’m going off to see if I can’t find a decanter of something. I think the occasion requires it.” He went out of the room.The Inspector, who had begun to look somewhat doubtful at Guy’s first suggestion, changed his expression before the second one. Of course, if they were all going to be friends together, as it were…. He embarked on a brief résumé of the chief facts, as gleaned from his two witnesses. Mr. Doyle commented fittingly.When Guy returned Mr. Doyle was displaying the gifts which fitted him for the exacting profession of journalism. “This is great, Inspector,” he was saying warmly. “You’ve got the most magnificent opportunity ever presented to an Inspector of Police. Properly handled, this business is going to make your name for you.”“It may do me a bit of good, sir, yes,” agreed the Inspector modestly, wondering whether this engaging young man had ever heard of the Garfield case, and if not, how he could tactfully enlighten him.“Do you a bit of good! My dear chap, it’s going to make you famous. And look here,” added Mr. Doyle very innocently, “I may be able to be a little use to you. I’m a journalist, did you know? I can guarantee you a couple of columns inThe Courier, with your name splashed about all over it. Nothing like publicity in a big London paper to help a good man to get on, you know.” Mr. Doyle managed to convey the impression that he had the editor and organisation ofThe Courierattached to the end of a string, only waiting for him to jerk it.The Inspector, who, less tactfully handled, might have repented of his confidences on learning the newcomer’s identity, at once saw very clearly that he need do nothing of the sort. More, he was able to congratulate himself on his far-sightedness in making them. He was quite well aware that important London newspapers can do a very great deal for an able but unknown country policeman; quite well aware. He accepted the offer, with dignified — careful nonchalance. Guy interposed with interesting questions connected with the decanter and siphon in his hands, and all was joy and loving-kindness.“Extraordinary! Almost incredible!” remarked Mr. Foster, immediately the conversation presented him with an opening for the insertion of his own voice. “This affair is going to make the name of Duffley ring throughout the length and breadth of the land, gentlemen.”Mr. Foster was not unpleasantly aware that it would also make the name of Mr. Reginald Foster reverberate in a similar manner. A happy old age for Mr. Foster was assured, after a still more happy middle-age. He saw himself for weeks on end surrounded by eager reporters, their note-books at the ready; he saw his name familiar in men’s mouths as a household word; he saw himself pointed out in the street for years to come as “Oh, look, dear—there’s Reginald Foster! You remember—the man who showed up so awfully well in that extraordinary business about the murder of the Crown Prince of X at Duffley, years ago. They say he goes to stay at the Palace every year on the anniversary. They say he calls all the Royal Family by their Christian names. Of course he’s a wonderful man, though. It was really he who got the murderers brought to justice, you know. Yes, I believe there was a Police Inspector in it, too, but, of course, it was Reginald Foster——” Mr. Foster’s imagination ran blithely on, chased by its breathless owner.“Indeed it is,” replied Doyle heartily. “I’ll see to that.” And he looked at the Inspector as if to add that he would see that that gentleman’s name rang in harmony with it.The Inspector wondered harder than ever how to begin the enlightening process.“But whoisthe Crown Prince?” demanded Mr. Foster earnestly. “That’s what I want to know.WhatCrown Prince? Now, it seems to me, Inspector, that what you ought to do is to get on the telephone at once to the Home Secretary, tell him what’s happened (I’ll corroborate your story, of course), and ask him what Crown Princes are known to be absent from their countries at the moment. Or perhaps the Foreign Office would be better.“Yes,” decided Mr. Foster, “I think it should be the Foreign Office. Why, who knows what this may lead to? It may be another Serajevo! It may precipitate another European war! Goodness knows what may not happen. We must be very discreet, gentlemen,” said Mr. Foster weightily. “Very discreet indeed. But, of course,” he added thoughtfully, “we should do nothing to interfere with the freedom of the press. Undoubtedly a full story must be got through toThe Courierat once. Why not get on the telephone to them at once, Mr. Doyle? Yes,” concluded Mr. Foster handsomely, “urgent though our business with the Foreign Secretary is, I do think we should communicate with the press first of all.” He ceased, because the most determined men must draw breath sometimes.The Inspector eyed Mr. Foster with distaste. Mr. Foster did not appear to realise that he was not the person in charge here. If Foreign Secretaries had to be communicated with, then the police officer in charge was the man to take the decision, not a mere outsider who happened to be invested with a fortuitous importance as a mere corroborative witness. The Inspector felt decidedly that Mr. Foster showed every sign of becoming a thorn in his flesh. And what does one do with thorns in the flesh? Pluck them out, of course.“I must ask you, sir,” said the Inspector, with none of his usual geniality, noting with pleasure that Mr. Foster in his excitement had drained his glass, “I must ask you to go back to your own house now. I have some important questions, of an ’ighly—h’m!—of a highly confidential nature to put to Mr. Nesbitt here, and it won’t be in order for you to be present. I will communicate with you,” said the Inspector with dignity, “when I want you.”Mr. Foster’s face fell with an almost audible thud. He expostulated. The Inspector was firm. He implored. The Inspector was adamant. He argued. The Inspector became peremptory.And then Mr. Foster made a very bad move. He asked point-blank whether Mr. Doyle, a real interloper, was to remain while he himself, of vital importance to the case, was thus summarily dismissed; and he asked it very rudely. Not content with this, in the same breath he accused his antagonist of favouritism and threatened reprisals. He further added his doubts regarding the Inspector’s knowledge of his own job.The breach was complete. The hero of the Garfield case turned to his underling and became very official indeed. With technical efficiency, the remains of Mr. Foster were removed by the underling from the room.“You’re not—you’re not going to arrest him, Inspector, are you?” asked Doyle, when he had recovered from the fit of coughing which had caused him to bury his face in his handkerchief. Guy’s features, it may be remarked, had expressed absolutely nothing at all beyond sympathy with a public servant in the execution of a painful duty.“Not this time,” replied the Inspector with paternal regret. “But if he comes interfering with me any more in the execution of my duties and trying to teach me my own job—well, I’m not saying what mayn’t happen.”“Quite right,” agreed Guy gravely. “Perfectly correct. Have another drink, won’t you?”The Inspector graciously accepted this aid to the readjustment of ruffled plumes.Constable Graves, returning a trifle heated, a few moments later, also consented to be soothed in a like manner. It would be too much to say that Constable Graves had been sulking with his superior officer; it would not be too much to say that he had been feeling a trifle resentful. This was his little murder after all; it was he who had been enclosed in the cupboard; it was his astuteness which had bidden him lie low while the body was being removed, in order to collect invaluable evidence—yet here was the Inspector taking the whole thing into his own hands, bellowing at him as if he had been the actual criminal, and not allowing him to put a word in edgeways! Constable Graves felt he had legitimate cause for resentment. He had been able to work some of it off upon Mr. Foster and now felt a little better. A contemplation of the generous allowance of whisky which Guy poured into his glass made him feel better still.The police were not the only persons to view Mr. Foster’s retirement with complacency. Mr. Doyle was also glad to see him go. The enlistment of Mr. Foster’s aid had seemed a mixed blessing to Mr. Doyle; certainly his testimony was useful in one way, in another it was embarrassing. While feeling all proper respect for his fiancée’s nimble exploitation of the situation, he did agree with Guy that the introduction of a Crown Prince was overdoing things a little. Besides, this man Foster was such a consummate ass that he might make trouble out of sheer well-meaning enthusiasm.Another matter was also in the forefront of Mr. Doyle’s mind. So far he had only heard the Inspector’s version of the constable’s story, and that astute man’s sojourn in the cupboard had been glossed over a little hurriedly; Inspector Cottingham seemed to feel that his subordinate’s ignominy in this connection was reflected to some degree upon himself. Mr. Doyle was now anxious to put a few questions on this subject to the principal actor.Permission to do so having been craved of the Inspector with tactful humility and graciously given, Doyle drew the constable a little aside. Guy, seeing what was in the wind, at once engaged the Inspector in earnest conversation. Doyle found himself with more or less of a free hand.“While you were in the cupboard, constable,” he began, “I suppose you heard these people moving about when they took away the body, didn’t you?”The constable smiled benignly. Here, at any rate, was somebody who took him and his cupboard seriously. He expanded, both metaphorically and literally, hooking a thumb in the front of his belt as if to guard against expanding too far. “Heard ’em, sir?” he repeated benevolently. “Bless you, Isaw’em!”With a praiseworthy effort Mr. Doyle refrained from leaping violently into the air. “The deuce you did!” he exclaimed, a little faintly. “Er—sawthem, did you say?”The constable was pleased with the evident impression he had made. He expanded a little further still, to the imminent danger of his belt.“Yes, sir, that I did. Through the key-hole. Saw em as plainly as I see you this very minute.”“That—that’s excellent,” said Mr. Doyle, wriggling uneasily under the constable’s kindly eye. He plunged at a question that was burning a hole in his tongue. “And—and do you think you would recognise them if you saw them again?”“Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the constable heartily. “Ho, yes, I’d recognise ’em quick enough. Desprit villains they was too,” he added with gusto.Mr. Doyle was recovering his grip on himself. “That’s very important,” he said gravely. “You had a good view of them then?”“Well,” said the constable with some reluctance, “pretty good, that is, sir. I couldn’t see ’em all the time, because of how the key-hole was facing, if you see what I mean. Just now and then I saw ’em. Pulling the body out, f’rinstance. On a mat, they did. Pulled him out on a mat. Wouldn’t ’ardly believe it, would you, sir? Now, I wonder why they did that.”“So do I,” said Mr. Doyle in feeble agreement.The constable ruminated. “Might just as well ’ave carried him. Not but what he wasn’t a tidy weight. Big man, he was. Crown Prince they say, don’t they?”“So I hear. But look here, about these—er—villains, could you describe them, do you think?”“Near enough, sir. There was two of ’em, a big feller and a little un’. One of ’em was big, you see, and the other wasn’t; well, little you might call ’im. Undersized.”“Little will do, I think. Yes?”“They was wearing ’ats and coats, so I couldn’t see their faces not too well, I couldn’t, but you could see they were foreigners.”“Oh? How?”“Because they were talking a foreign language,” returned the constable with triumph. “That’s ’ow I knew they were foreigners. They were talking a foreign language. There was a girl too.”“A girl, eh?” said Mr. Doyle uneasily.“Yes. I’d seen her before, of course, and let ’er slip through my fingers, I’m afraid. She knew I was in the cupboard too, but she didn’t know I was watching ’er. Funny thing, too, she’d taken off her hat and furs and things. Now I wonder why she done that?”“Perhaps she was hot. Er—I suppose you’d recognise her again, wouldn’t you?”“I would, and all,” replied the constable grimly.“That’s fine,” said Mr. Doyle, without conviction. This was a snag he had not foreseen. He blessed himself for the happy piece of foolery which had caused Nesbitt and himself to dress for their part and cover their faces with the mufflers. In the meantime Dora would certainly have to lie low till she got back to London.“Now, sir,” the Inspector’s voice remarked in rolling tones. “Now, Mr. Doyle, if you’ll come with me down the road to where you’re staying, I’d just like to ask the members of the household there if they heard anything. Mr. Howard, isn’t it? Who else is there?”For the fraction of a second Mr. Doyle lost his head. “Nobody!” he said swiftly.To his guilty mind it seemed as if the Inspector’s eye became suddenly less genial. “What, nobody else?” he said.“Nobody!” repeated the guilty one firmly.“No maids, even?”Mr. Doyle drew a breath of relief. “No, no maids. Their maids come in by the day. Mr. Howard and I were quite alone this evening.”“Who keeps house for him, then?”“Oh, his sister. Er—Miss Howard. But she’s away for the week-end.” Mr. Doyle cocked an anxious eye at the door, to reassure himself that Laura was not coming down the passage towards them at that moment, complete with handcuff and accomplice.“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle nodded.Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through toThe Courier, wouldn’t you?”Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing upThe Courier, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one ofThe Courier’s own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to have been exceedingly buoyant.Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch, before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir. It’s like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts once….”Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.
If anybody had told Guy Nesbitt, a few hours earlier, that at twelve o’clock the same night he would be engaged in a whole-hearted attempt to hoodwink the official police force, the proprietor of an important newspaper and the entire British public, as if they had all been provided with one enormous joint leg for hauling purposes, he would have repudiated the suggestion with grief and amazement. And rightly, notwithstanding the subsequent event, because these things cannot be concocted in cold blood.
One does not remark casually over one’s second cup of tea: “By the way, you people, an idea’s just occurred to me for hoaxing the British Broadcasting Company rather neatly. Anybody care to give me a hand? I shall tell them, you see, that I’ve got a trained rabbit that gives organ recitals, and …” Certainly not. But give the average law-respecting Briton (which Guy was not, nor yet Mr. Doyle, but George was) a modicum of sound alcohol to titillate his sense of humour into a slightly perverted form, taunt him through the mouth of one friend with inability to carry the thing through, egg him on through the lips of another to show the stuff he is made of, and smile at him through his wife’s eyes as if to say, “Dear old Guy! Oh yes, my dear, he oftentalkslike this—but bless you, he’d neverdoanything. Oh, dear no!”—do these things to him, and then be very careful not to answer for the consequences. For consequences will certainly occur. In cold blood George would never have considered that he possessed any corpse-imitating properties at all.
At twelve o’clock, then, two people stood in Guy’s drawing-room and dithered; two others watched them happily. The ditherers were the constable, who had been keeping it up for the last hour, and Mr. Foster. These two victims of the modern cinema were being watched by Guy himself, with critical appreciation of their efforts towards his ends, and by Inspector Cottingham, of the Abingchester Police.
Inspector Cottingham was a fatherly man, with a large walrus moustache, and he was very, very happy. He had not only smelt blood, he had actually seen it. He had, not to disguise the truth, gloated over it. Blood very seldom comes the way of a country Inspector of Police.
Inspector Cottingham however, had been blessed above most country Inspectors, for this was the second time blood had come his way. Many, many years ago, when the Inspector had been a mere Sergeant, a small village outside Abingchester had startled the placid neighbourhood by becoming the scene of a particularly brutal and mysterious murder, and Sergeant Cottingham had taken the matter in hand. To the admiration of the neighbourhood, and the intense surprise of his superior officers, the Sergeant, by a series of brilliant deductions, had followed an obscure trail to the person of the murderer, who, sharing the astonishment of the Sergeant’s superiors, had been so taken aback as to confess at once to the crime.
This confession was very fortunate for the Sergeant. It obviated all necessity to produce the person of a certain Ethel Wilkinson, a labourer’s daughter, who had actually seen the murder committed, had told the Sergeant all about it, and had pointed out to him the clues which had so won the Chief Constable’s admiration—a series of facts which the Sergeant had prudently concealed. Ethel Wilkinson, who had no wish to be mixed up in such a sordid affair and help to put a rope round a fellow-creature’s neck, had been grateful to the Sergeant for keeping her name out of it and had never breathed a word of her knowledge from that day; the Sergeant had been no less grateful to Ethel Wilkinson. The Chief Constable, sharing in the general gratitude, had come to the conclusion that he had misjudged a very sound man and had caused the Sergeant to be promoted, by way of some small reward, to the rank of Inspector. Ever since then Inspector Cottingham had naturally been the district’s sage and authority where the science of criminal detection was concerned.
He was now once more in his element, trying to obtain something remotely approaching a connected story from the two chief witnesses. He was an optimistic man, and he had no doubt that somebody must have seen the murder committed once more.
Guy’s story he had heard already. That was simplicity itself. Guy had been summoned away immediately after dinner by a note purporting to come from an old friend of his who had just taken a house a few miles away. He had gone off at once in the car with his wife, and after spending nearly three hours in trying to find the house had come to the conclusion that the address did not exist at all. He had thereupon returned. In the course of his journeying the note had most unfortunately been thrown away in disgust. Mrs. Nesbitt had corroborated these particulars and then retired, somewhat hurriedly (but that was hardly surprising), to bed. Cynthia, in fact, had chosen the path of prudence rather than bravado. Otherwise there would have now been three ditherers in the drawing-room instead of two. Cynthia was very decidedly alarmed—and she was a poor liar.
“Be quiet, you, Graves!” bellowed Inspector Cottingham, rounding suddenly with portentous authority upon his underling. “I’ve heard what you’ve got to say, and the less you talk about it the better; it don’t do you much credit, when all’s said and done. And how on earth do you expect me to understand what this gentleman’s trying to tell me, if you will keep on about that blessed cupboard? I’m sick and tired of that cupboard.” Inspector Cottingham was also a little jealous of that cupboard, but he could hardly tell a subordinate that. The cupboard, Inspector Cottingham could not help feeling, was the place where somebody ought to have contrived that he himself should have been the whole time, if the game had been played according to its proper rules.
“Now, sir,ifyou please,” he added, turning back to Mr. Foster. “The whole story right through, please, in your own words.”
Mr. Foster, who in any case had nobody else’s words in which to tell his story, complied with alacrity. He was a tubby, rather red little man, and at the moment he looked as if he were suffering from an acute attack of apoplexy. His slightly prominent, pale-blue eyes stood out farther than ever, his wide loose-lipped mouth gaped with the unspoken words seeking egress, his sanguine countenance was mottled with earnest perspiration. He swept himself along in the flood-tide of his own speech.
Guy listened with puckish delight concealed beneath the grave countenance proper to the occasion. His acquaintance with Mr. Foster had not been long, but it had been very intense. Acquaintance with Mr. Foster was like that. He pervaded as well as clung. One may dismiss limpets with an airy gesture, one may disregard the crab affixed to one’s toe, one may smile in an atmosphere of poison-gas; but one was still unfitted to cope with Mr. Reginald Foster. And the desolating, the heartrending, the utterly unforgivable thing was that Mr. Reginald Foster meant so well. Give us malice, surround us with backbiters, fill our house with blackguards; but Heaven defend us from the well-meaning bore.
Mr. Foster spluttered on. He had a good story to tell, and he was making the most of it.
“Crown Prince, eh?” interrupted the Inspector, now thoroughly genial again. “CrownPrince?”
Mr. Foster nodded importantly. “That’s what she said, Inspector, yes. Crown Prince.” The words slid smoothly off his tongue, like salad oil off the poised tablespoon.
“Perhaps you misunderstood her, Foster,” put in Guy, who was not feeling any too happy about the Crown Prince; he felt that to drag in Royalty was really overdoing it a little.
“ShesaidCrown Prince,” persisted Mr. Foster. One gathered that, in Mr. Foster’s opinion, what she said went.
“That’s right,” ventured the constable. “All covered with ribbons an’ things, he was. Medals, I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Tl! take your statement later, Graves,” boomed the Inspector. The constable retired.
“Crown Prince,” repeated Mr. Foster, with the air of one clinching a point.
The Inspector was only too ready to have the point clinched. He clinched it in his notebook. “Yes, sir?” he cooed. If a corpse and two murderers make a sergeant, what does not a Crown Prince and a whole gang make an Inspector? Besides, somebody was sure to turn up.
Mr. Foster continued, rapidly and with purpose.
“Man with the Broken Nose?” gloated the Inspector, and moistened his pencil once more.
With reluctance Mr. Foster brought his story to a conclusion. As if he had timed his entrance for the same moment (which, in point of fact, he had) Mr. Doyle strolled casually into the room.
“Hallo, Nesbitt,” he said, as if not noticing the other three. “Saw your lights on and your library windows open, so I walked over. Hope you don’t mind. George wanted to know rather particularly whether you could—but am I interrupting a conference or something?”
“Not a bit,” said Guy heartily. “Let me introduce you. Mr. Foster, Inspector Cottingham—Mr. Doyle. You’ve just come at the right moment, Doyle. The most extraordinary things have been happening here this evening.”
“Really?” said Mr. Doyle with polite interest.
The Inspector’s frown had brightened, only to darken a moment later. He tapped his pencil with his teeth. Evidently the new arrival was not the person who ought to be turning up.
Guy hastened to put things on a different footing. “Mr. Doyle is staying with our next-door neighbours,” he told the Inspector. “Just the man you want to see. You’ll want to ask him whether they’ve seen anything of all this business, won’t you?”
The Inspector, who had not thought of any such thing, brightened again. Guy had spoken with such deference in the presence of the expert that nobody could have taken offence. Instead, the Inspector took the suggestion.
“That’s right, sir,” he agreed paternally. “I shall want to put a few questions to Mr. Doyle in a minute.”
“Well, just give him an outline of the affair, Inspector, will you? I’m going off to see if I can’t find a decanter of something. I think the occasion requires it.” He went out of the room.
The Inspector, who had begun to look somewhat doubtful at Guy’s first suggestion, changed his expression before the second one. Of course, if they were all going to be friends together, as it were…. He embarked on a brief résumé of the chief facts, as gleaned from his two witnesses. Mr. Doyle commented fittingly.
When Guy returned Mr. Doyle was displaying the gifts which fitted him for the exacting profession of journalism. “This is great, Inspector,” he was saying warmly. “You’ve got the most magnificent opportunity ever presented to an Inspector of Police. Properly handled, this business is going to make your name for you.”
“It may do me a bit of good, sir, yes,” agreed the Inspector modestly, wondering whether this engaging young man had ever heard of the Garfield case, and if not, how he could tactfully enlighten him.
“Do you a bit of good! My dear chap, it’s going to make you famous. And look here,” added Mr. Doyle very innocently, “I may be able to be a little use to you. I’m a journalist, did you know? I can guarantee you a couple of columns inThe Courier, with your name splashed about all over it. Nothing like publicity in a big London paper to help a good man to get on, you know.” Mr. Doyle managed to convey the impression that he had the editor and organisation ofThe Courierattached to the end of a string, only waiting for him to jerk it.
The Inspector, who, less tactfully handled, might have repented of his confidences on learning the newcomer’s identity, at once saw very clearly that he need do nothing of the sort. More, he was able to congratulate himself on his far-sightedness in making them. He was quite well aware that important London newspapers can do a very great deal for an able but unknown country policeman; quite well aware. He accepted the offer, with dignified — careful nonchalance. Guy interposed with interesting questions connected with the decanter and siphon in his hands, and all was joy and loving-kindness.
“Extraordinary! Almost incredible!” remarked Mr. Foster, immediately the conversation presented him with an opening for the insertion of his own voice. “This affair is going to make the name of Duffley ring throughout the length and breadth of the land, gentlemen.”
Mr. Foster was not unpleasantly aware that it would also make the name of Mr. Reginald Foster reverberate in a similar manner. A happy old age for Mr. Foster was assured, after a still more happy middle-age. He saw himself for weeks on end surrounded by eager reporters, their note-books at the ready; he saw his name familiar in men’s mouths as a household word; he saw himself pointed out in the street for years to come as “Oh, look, dear—there’s Reginald Foster! You remember—the man who showed up so awfully well in that extraordinary business about the murder of the Crown Prince of X at Duffley, years ago. They say he goes to stay at the Palace every year on the anniversary. They say he calls all the Royal Family by their Christian names. Of course he’s a wonderful man, though. It was really he who got the murderers brought to justice, you know. Yes, I believe there was a Police Inspector in it, too, but, of course, it was Reginald Foster——” Mr. Foster’s imagination ran blithely on, chased by its breathless owner.
“Indeed it is,” replied Doyle heartily. “I’ll see to that.” And he looked at the Inspector as if to add that he would see that that gentleman’s name rang in harmony with it.
The Inspector wondered harder than ever how to begin the enlightening process.
“But whoisthe Crown Prince?” demanded Mr. Foster earnestly. “That’s what I want to know.WhatCrown Prince? Now, it seems to me, Inspector, that what you ought to do is to get on the telephone at once to the Home Secretary, tell him what’s happened (I’ll corroborate your story, of course), and ask him what Crown Princes are known to be absent from their countries at the moment. Or perhaps the Foreign Office would be better.
“Yes,” decided Mr. Foster, “I think it should be the Foreign Office. Why, who knows what this may lead to? It may be another Serajevo! It may precipitate another European war! Goodness knows what may not happen. We must be very discreet, gentlemen,” said Mr. Foster weightily. “Very discreet indeed. But, of course,” he added thoughtfully, “we should do nothing to interfere with the freedom of the press. Undoubtedly a full story must be got through toThe Courierat once. Why not get on the telephone to them at once, Mr. Doyle? Yes,” concluded Mr. Foster handsomely, “urgent though our business with the Foreign Secretary is, I do think we should communicate with the press first of all.” He ceased, because the most determined men must draw breath sometimes.
The Inspector eyed Mr. Foster with distaste. Mr. Foster did not appear to realise that he was not the person in charge here. If Foreign Secretaries had to be communicated with, then the police officer in charge was the man to take the decision, not a mere outsider who happened to be invested with a fortuitous importance as a mere corroborative witness. The Inspector felt decidedly that Mr. Foster showed every sign of becoming a thorn in his flesh. And what does one do with thorns in the flesh? Pluck them out, of course.
“I must ask you, sir,” said the Inspector, with none of his usual geniality, noting with pleasure that Mr. Foster in his excitement had drained his glass, “I must ask you to go back to your own house now. I have some important questions, of an ’ighly—h’m!—of a highly confidential nature to put to Mr. Nesbitt here, and it won’t be in order for you to be present. I will communicate with you,” said the Inspector with dignity, “when I want you.”
Mr. Foster’s face fell with an almost audible thud. He expostulated. The Inspector was firm. He implored. The Inspector was adamant. He argued. The Inspector became peremptory.
And then Mr. Foster made a very bad move. He asked point-blank whether Mr. Doyle, a real interloper, was to remain while he himself, of vital importance to the case, was thus summarily dismissed; and he asked it very rudely. Not content with this, in the same breath he accused his antagonist of favouritism and threatened reprisals. He further added his doubts regarding the Inspector’s knowledge of his own job.
The breach was complete. The hero of the Garfield case turned to his underling and became very official indeed. With technical efficiency, the remains of Mr. Foster were removed by the underling from the room.
“You’re not—you’re not going to arrest him, Inspector, are you?” asked Doyle, when he had recovered from the fit of coughing which had caused him to bury his face in his handkerchief. Guy’s features, it may be remarked, had expressed absolutely nothing at all beyond sympathy with a public servant in the execution of a painful duty.
“Not this time,” replied the Inspector with paternal regret. “But if he comes interfering with me any more in the execution of my duties and trying to teach me my own job—well, I’m not saying what mayn’t happen.”
“Quite right,” agreed Guy gravely. “Perfectly correct. Have another drink, won’t you?”
The Inspector graciously accepted this aid to the readjustment of ruffled plumes.
Constable Graves, returning a trifle heated, a few moments later, also consented to be soothed in a like manner. It would be too much to say that Constable Graves had been sulking with his superior officer; it would not be too much to say that he had been feeling a trifle resentful. This was his little murder after all; it was he who had been enclosed in the cupboard; it was his astuteness which had bidden him lie low while the body was being removed, in order to collect invaluable evidence—yet here was the Inspector taking the whole thing into his own hands, bellowing at him as if he had been the actual criminal, and not allowing him to put a word in edgeways! Constable Graves felt he had legitimate cause for resentment. He had been able to work some of it off upon Mr. Foster and now felt a little better. A contemplation of the generous allowance of whisky which Guy poured into his glass made him feel better still.
The police were not the only persons to view Mr. Foster’s retirement with complacency. Mr. Doyle was also glad to see him go. The enlistment of Mr. Foster’s aid had seemed a mixed blessing to Mr. Doyle; certainly his testimony was useful in one way, in another it was embarrassing. While feeling all proper respect for his fiancée’s nimble exploitation of the situation, he did agree with Guy that the introduction of a Crown Prince was overdoing things a little. Besides, this man Foster was such a consummate ass that he might make trouble out of sheer well-meaning enthusiasm.
Another matter was also in the forefront of Mr. Doyle’s mind. So far he had only heard the Inspector’s version of the constable’s story, and that astute man’s sojourn in the cupboard had been glossed over a little hurriedly; Inspector Cottingham seemed to feel that his subordinate’s ignominy in this connection was reflected to some degree upon himself. Mr. Doyle was now anxious to put a few questions on this subject to the principal actor.
Permission to do so having been craved of the Inspector with tactful humility and graciously given, Doyle drew the constable a little aside. Guy, seeing what was in the wind, at once engaged the Inspector in earnest conversation. Doyle found himself with more or less of a free hand.
“While you were in the cupboard, constable,” he began, “I suppose you heard these people moving about when they took away the body, didn’t you?”
The constable smiled benignly. Here, at any rate, was somebody who took him and his cupboard seriously. He expanded, both metaphorically and literally, hooking a thumb in the front of his belt as if to guard against expanding too far. “Heard ’em, sir?” he repeated benevolently. “Bless you, Isaw’em!”
With a praiseworthy effort Mr. Doyle refrained from leaping violently into the air. “The deuce you did!” he exclaimed, a little faintly. “Er—sawthem, did you say?”
The constable was pleased with the evident impression he had made. He expanded a little further still, to the imminent danger of his belt.
“Yes, sir, that I did. Through the key-hole. Saw em as plainly as I see you this very minute.”
“That—that’s excellent,” said Mr. Doyle, wriggling uneasily under the constable’s kindly eye. He plunged at a question that was burning a hole in his tongue. “And—and do you think you would recognise them if you saw them again?”
“Not a doubt of it, sir,” replied the constable heartily. “Ho, yes, I’d recognise ’em quick enough. Desprit villains they was too,” he added with gusto.
Mr. Doyle was recovering his grip on himself. “That’s very important,” he said gravely. “You had a good view of them then?”
“Well,” said the constable with some reluctance, “pretty good, that is, sir. I couldn’t see ’em all the time, because of how the key-hole was facing, if you see what I mean. Just now and then I saw ’em. Pulling the body out, f’rinstance. On a mat, they did. Pulled him out on a mat. Wouldn’t ’ardly believe it, would you, sir? Now, I wonder why they did that.”
“So do I,” said Mr. Doyle in feeble agreement.
The constable ruminated. “Might just as well ’ave carried him. Not but what he wasn’t a tidy weight. Big man, he was. Crown Prince they say, don’t they?”
“So I hear. But look here, about these—er—villains, could you describe them, do you think?”
“Near enough, sir. There was two of ’em, a big feller and a little un’. One of ’em was big, you see, and the other wasn’t; well, little you might call ’im. Undersized.”
“Little will do, I think. Yes?”
“They was wearing ’ats and coats, so I couldn’t see their faces not too well, I couldn’t, but you could see they were foreigners.”
“Oh? How?”
“Because they were talking a foreign language,” returned the constable with triumph. “That’s ’ow I knew they were foreigners. They were talking a foreign language. There was a girl too.”
“A girl, eh?” said Mr. Doyle uneasily.
“Yes. I’d seen her before, of course, and let ’er slip through my fingers, I’m afraid. She knew I was in the cupboard too, but she didn’t know I was watching ’er. Funny thing, too, she’d taken off her hat and furs and things. Now I wonder why she done that?”
“Perhaps she was hot. Er—I suppose you’d recognise her again, wouldn’t you?”
“I would, and all,” replied the constable grimly.
“That’s fine,” said Mr. Doyle, without conviction. This was a snag he had not foreseen. He blessed himself for the happy piece of foolery which had caused Nesbitt and himself to dress for their part and cover their faces with the mufflers. In the meantime Dora would certainly have to lie low till she got back to London.
“Now, sir,” the Inspector’s voice remarked in rolling tones. “Now, Mr. Doyle, if you’ll come with me down the road to where you’re staying, I’d just like to ask the members of the household there if they heard anything. Mr. Howard, isn’t it? Who else is there?”
For the fraction of a second Mr. Doyle lost his head. “Nobody!” he said swiftly.
To his guilty mind it seemed as if the Inspector’s eye became suddenly less genial. “What, nobody else?” he said.
“Nobody!” repeated the guilty one firmly.
“No maids, even?”
Mr. Doyle drew a breath of relief. “No, no maids. Their maids come in by the day. Mr. Howard and I were quite alone this evening.”
“Who keeps house for him, then?”
“Oh, his sister. Er—Miss Howard. But she’s away for the week-end.” Mr. Doyle cocked an anxious eye at the door, to reassure himself that Laura was not coming down the passage towards them at that moment, complete with handcuff and accomplice.
“Oh, I see. Well, come along, then, sir. And, Graves, you’d better come, too. Thank you, Mr. Nesbitt, sir; I think I’ve finished here now. But it’s a pity you threw that note away. If you only remembered where you’d thrown it, I’d have a search made. Try and think during the next few hours. Mrs. Nesbitt might know; ask her. It’d be a valuable clue. Are you ready, then, Mr. Doyle, sir?”
As Doyle went out of the room he caught a look from Guy. The look said quite plainly: “Come back here when you’ve got rid of him.” Doyle nodded.
Followed by the constable, they made their way out to the road.
“And while I’m speaking to Mr. Howard,” remarked the Inspector very airily. “I expect you’d like to be telephoning your report through toThe Courier, wouldn’t you?”
Doyle nodded. He had already taken the opportunity of ringing upThe Courier, and asking the editor to hold a couple of columns for him if possible as he had a scoop of the first magnitude, and without divulging too much of its nature, he had succeeded in obtaining exceedingly good terms if it should, in the editor’s opinion, come up to its rosy forecast; it was too late to send one ofThe Courier’s own men down, and Doyle, being a freelance, had been able to make almost his own terms. They were very good terms indeed, and they provided for the future as well as for the present. Mr. Doyle ought to have been exceedingly buoyant.
Yet his nod in answer to the Inspector’s suggestion had been an absent one. To tell the truth, he was engaged in wondering very busily how he was going to warn George to say nothing about Dora’s presence in the house, and Dora to conceal herself with efficiency and despatch, before the Inspector surprised the truth out of either of them.
Mr. Doyle was not quite sure whether he was enjoying himself or not.
“It’s a funny business altogether,” pronounced the Inspector, as they turned in at the next gate. “Tell you what it reminds me of, sir. It’s like nothing so much as one of those shilling shockers you read on a railway journey. Now, another case of murder I had down in these parts once….”
Even that could not resolve Mr. Doyle’s perplexity for him.