MR. FORTUNE EXPLAINS

H.C. BAILEY, 1931

FIRST EXPLANATION

THE PICNIC

THE Cleeve case came to Mr. Fortune in his Kentish garden: which was the one piece of luck. So after the local doctor rang up from the cottage hospital to ask if Mr. Fortune was at home, only ten minutes passed before Mr. Fortune was looking at the Hon. Julian Wray. There might have been hours.

Julian Wray was not a pleasant sight. He lay unconscious. His face was livid and bruised and a swollen lip oozed blood. He breathed noisily.

The doctor expounded. Mr. Wray had been found by a farmer lying in the Abbey meadow. There was no one else in sight. But the injuries seemed to be fresh. The doctor was afraid the skull was fractured: a very grave lesion: he was anxious to have Mr. Fortune's opinion about an operation...

"No. I don't think so." Reggie turned away from the bed. "No. He has a chance. Quite a good chance." But he looked at the doctor with plaintive, inquiring eyes.

"I am so glad to have your opinion," said the doctor nervously. "Would you say it was an accident - a fall?"

"He fell all right. On his face. But not accidental. Blow from left rear by a heavy blunt instrument." 

"An assault, then?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Did you notice anything else?" 

"I couldn't say - I don't know that I did." "Why did they try to chloroform him?" said Reggie.

He gazed pathetically at the doctor. "Well, well. We want a little local colour. I'll have to visit the scene of the crime."

As he reached the hall of the hospital a car drew up and the Inspector of police from Wembury came out of it. "Hallo, Mr. Fortune! Are you on this job, sir?"

"I fear so." Reggie sighed.

"That's good. How did you find Mr. Wray?"

Reggie told him. "Oh lord," the Inspector groaned, "I was hoping he'd be able to tell us something."

"I wonder." Reggie climbed into his car. "Let's go and see what he was doing in the Abbey meadow."

"He was on a picnic, sir."

"Very sociable of him," Reggie murmured. "I seldom get sandbagged on a picnic myself. Why did the company lay him out? Had he left the lunch behind?"

The Inspector snorted at this babble. "There wasn't any company. It's like this, sir - I suppose you know who Mr. Wray is? He's the brother of the Earl of Cleeve up at Stourham House."

"Oh yes. Yes. And do Earls' brothers go on picnics without company? I didn't know that. How haughty."

"Mr. Wray wasn't alone, sir. He was taking his nephew, Viscount Stourham, for a day on the river. They were going to picnic in the Abbey meadow and -"

"Viscount Stourham?" Reggie cried. "That's the little boy. Oh! There was a child in it."

"Yes, sir. Viscount Stourham is only seven. He was with Mr. Wray. That was the first thing the Earl of Cleeve said to me over the telephone when I told him about Mr. Wray. 'But Peter was with him,' he said; 'where is Peter?' Of course I didn't know, sir. There wasn't anybody to be seen in the meadow when Mr. Wray was found."

"No. There wouldn't be," Reggie muttered. His face was set.

"This young Viscount he's the heir and the only child, too. The Earl not having any yet by his second wife. Next to him would come Mr. Wray, if he lives."

The Abbey meadow is a broad strip of pasture by the river. Grey ruins in which wallflowers grow and toadflax and stonecrop rise from the turf and a scattered company of ancient, gnarled hawthorn trees.

The river lies under a high bank from which clumps of iris stretch out into the stream. Among the lances of golden bloom a sculling boat lay with her bows aground. There was nothing in her but sculls and boat - hook and a bundle of bathing things. Reggie turned away and, staring at the ground, moved slowly across the rough grass.

"Both of 'em landed here, sir " - the Inspector came after him.

"Thank you. I did notice it," Reggie murmured. "They also came along here together. Desirin' to have lunch in the shade." He stopped. Under one of the thorn trees stood a luncheon - basket. The grass was much beaten down. He opened the basket. "Yes: lunch consumed. And then?" He moved to and fro, he picked up two pieces of a briar pipe. "Wray lit his pipe. He'd just begun to, smoke when it got smashed. Yes. That would be the attempt to chloroform him."

"Chloroform!" the Inspector cried. "The doctor didn't say anything about that."

"No. No. Only a slight indication. They didn't bring it off with him. Probably worked all right with the child." Reggie moved about. "Lot of trampling. Looks like a struggle - breakin' away - yes" - he stopped by a long patch of bent grass" that's where they finished with Wray. He lay there - and bled. Not very far from the lane." And into the lane Reggie went. "Not many cars come along here?"

"I'd say not one in a twelvemonth, sir."

"There's been one just lately. Came from the other end. That's from the Dover road, what? Turned by the gate there. Stood under the hedge. Some time. Went back the same way." He frowned at the wheel - marks. "What do you make of it?"

"Lord, sir, what can you make of it? There was a car here, that's all."

"No. No. The top broke that elder bough. It was a closed car, big car. But it would be. There isn't much."

"I should say not. And they've got clean off with the boy."

Reggie gazed at him with sad, wondering eyes.

"We shan't do any good here, sir." - the Inspector followed him. "It's wasting time, to my mind."

"Yes. Yes. Time's everything," Reggie muttered, but he wandered on. "Several fellows came out of the car. And then?"

To and fro in the meadow he moved, working it like a dog after game, and the Inspector fumed at his heels.

He came to a hollow along the hawthorns, where the grass was flattened and crumbs lay about.

"They had lunch here, eh?" the Inspector said. "Pretty well hidden they'd be."

Reggie did not answer. He was on his hands and knees picking up crumbs. He rose with a small collection on a sheet of paper and rather diffidently offered it to the Inspector. "Thanks. I saw it was bread and cheese," the Inspector snorted. "What about it?"

Reggie put the crumbs in an envelope and the envelope in his pocket - book and wandered to and fro, gazing at the ground with dreamy, wistful eyes. "Look here, sir, I must get on. We're doing nothing here."

Reggie stooped and picked up something else, looked at it carefully and went on, paused by a patch of nettles and raked out of that with his foot a wine bottle. It had no label, he held it up to the light and saw it was empty. He smelt it. And then he called out to the Inspector, "Come on," and ran back to the car.

"What have you got, sir?" The Inspector jumped in after him.

'"Has the village policeman a telephone?" asked Reggie, and the car shot into reckless speed down a lane it filled.

"Yes, sir - good lord, sir, be careful."

"I always am," Reggie protested, and the car came out of the lane into the village like a skidding comet. "Now then" - they were shut in the policeman's stuffy sitting - room. "Ring up the police at Dover and ask 'em if there is - a Greek ship in harbour."

The Inspector stared and began to stammer questions.

"Oh, don't bother. Get on. Time's everything."

The Inspector talked to the telephone and turned again to Reggie with a new respect. "That's right, sir. Greek ship come in three days ago, a tramp, Apate, still there doing repairs to engines."

"Tell 'em they must get aboard quick and search her for Viscount Stourham."

"Search her, sir?" the Inspector gasped.

"Damn it, man, they'll be off with him while you chatter. They've had too much time already. Give the orders."

"It's all very well, sir. But searching a ship - and a foreigner - that's a big responsibility."

"Give me the 'phone" - Reggie snatched it. "Dover police? Right. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department speaking. Search that Greek ship for Viscount Stourham. Small boy. Go right through her. Inspector Grampound will give you his description. Go on, Inspector." And the scared Inspector, taking the receiver again, said Viscount Stourham had been kidnapped: boy of seven years old, fair hair, blue eyes, fresh complexion, small for his age, dressed in grey flannel. "Tell 'em to get on it quick," Reggie prompted. "If the boy's not on board yet, the ship must be watched. They should look out in Dover for a big closed car, possibly several men, some Greek sailors. That'll do."

The Inspector hung up the receiver and wiped his face. "That'll do!" he repeated. "I hope to God I've done right backing you, Mr. Fortune. You do take a bit on yourself. What if these chaps at Dover ring up Scotland Yard?"

But Reggie was already asking for that number. "Mr. Lomas, please. Fortune speaking. Oh, Superintendent Bell then. Hello, Bell, Mr. Lomas gone into the country? Oh, about the Earl of Cleeve's son? Splendid. I'm on that myself. Well, Mr. Lomas has instructed the Dover police to search a Greek tramp in Dover Harbour. Thought you'd better know. What? No, I haven't seen him. But these are his orders. I'm telling him so, when we meet. If the Dover people ring you up, say they're to get on with it instead of askin' silly questions. Good - bye." He turned to the Inspector. "Had you told Scotland Yard you wanted help?"

"No, sir, not yet we shouldn't. None of our people but me knows what's happened."

"It was Lord Cleeve, then. Callin' on the higher powers very quick." Reggie contemplated the Inspector dreamily: "That's not without interest."

"Well, sir, I don't know. His lordship would be doing everything to find the boy."

"Yes. That is indicated," Reggie murmured. "Well, well. I wish you'd look about among the people down here and find out if anybody saw that car, or came across any foreigners in these parts lately."

"Very good, sir." The Inspector was revived at the thought of action. "I'll see about it. But it's like magic to me. I don't know how you got on to that Greek ship."

"Not magic. No." Reggie smiled. "Only the sense of smell. And takin' one thing with another. I showed you the bread and cheese."

"It beats me " - the Inspector breathed hard. "What is there Greek about bread and cheese?"

"Nothing distinctive. No. But it was goats' - milk cheese. That didn't say Greek, but it made a foreign atmosphere. Then there was this." He took out of his pocket - book a small fruit stone. "Suggestive, isn't it?"

"Looks like a little plum stone to me." The Inspector stared at him.

"Oh, not plum. No. An olive stone. There were others. Strong flavour of the Mediterranean in the atmosphere. Finally we have their wine bottle. Smell it."

The Inspector sniffed and did not like it. "Did you say wine, sir? More like turpentine, to my mind."

"Others have said so," Reggie smiled. "But it's wine all right. Greek wine. They put resin in it, you know. They say they like it."

"Good lord, sir," said the Inspector with disgust.

"Yes. A sad world. Well, we thus had a wholly Greek meal and a car that went off to Dover. The natural inference was a Greek ship in Dover Harbour. There is one. Which verifies our theory."

"It's very clever, sir" - the Inspector hesitated. "But why would Greeks want to kidnap the Earl of Cleeve's son?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "The facts are not yet adequate. You go and look for some Greeks."

"Yes, sir, where will you be?"

"I'm going home to tea."

But neither the anchovy sandwiches nor the cream horns of Elise interested him and he turned away from the strawberries. The door opened and let in Lomas.

"My dear fellow!" Lomas laughed and came to shake hands with Mrs. Fortune.

"How do you do? Good - bye," she said and departed. She has never yet allowed herself to be in the way.

"Have you heard from Dover?" Reggie cried.

"Yes. I've just seen the Inspector here. Dover has telephoned him. They took Customs officers on board and rummaged this Greek ship. There was no child, there was nothing suspicious."

Reggie's round face was drawn with anxiety and fear. "I say, they must watch her still, Lomas. You didn't stop that?"

"That's all right. I confirmed your instructions. They'll watch any communication with the shore. But I wish you'd confined yourself to that. I don't like these dashing irregularities."           

"I had to be quick," Reggie said. "Don't you see? Time's everything. They might have got away with the child."

"Well, they haven't. And they won't - not in the Apate. If they try to put the child aboard her, we shall get him."

"Yes. I hope so," said Reggie drearily. He dropped into a chair and fumbled in his pockets. A cigar - case was at last found, a cigar was clumsily lit: in hours of anxious inaction his adroit hands are apt to make queer blunders. "I don't know if they will try now," he mumbled, and looked at Lomas with the plaintive appeal of a puzzled child.

"Losing confidence, eh?" Lomas smiled. "Not so sure about this Greek ship theory?"

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie groaned. "It wasn't a guess. Some fellows were hiding in that meadow this morning. They ate goats' - milk cheese and olives and drank that awful Greek wine with resin in it. They must have been Greeks and in the way of getting Greek rations. They came in a car from Dover way and went back towards Dover. The only possible inference is, they belong to a Greek ship in Dover Harbour. And there is a Greek ship there and it came in with no business but to mend engines just a day or two ago. You have to believe it sent men to kidnap this child - or you've lost faith in the human reason." Reggie puffed at his badly burning cigar. "Perhaps you have."

"Not quite. Not yet," Lomas consoled him. "My dear fellow, this is brilliantly clever. But you push it rather far. You're so absolute. When you have hit on a theory, it has to be the whole truth. What is the evidence after all? There were some people in that meadow some time lately making a foreign sort of meal. That doesn't prove they stole the child. And when we begin to act on your theory we get nothing. There is this Greek ship at Dover, but the child is not on board. The ship is well known in English harbours, a tramp in the regular trade, with respectable owners, a big firm, Castro & Castro. How can we go on believing that her crew were concerned in kidnapping the child? It is a widely improbable idea in itself - a Greek ship coming round Dover and landing her crew to kidnap the son of an English peer! What should Greeks want with him? What would they do with him? Lord Cleeve is as English as I am."

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "What are we talking about? We've got to find the boy, Lomas. Don't you see time's everything?"

"Quite. Quite. But I'm afraid we'll have to begin at the other end."

"The other end?" Reggie's voice rose and he shuddered and started up. "What do you mean? Waiting till you've found him and workin' back? Waiting! You'll find nothing or find a corpse."

"Oh, my dear Reginald. Of course it's a cruel case, but you needn't be so emotional. These affairs of wealthy children being stolen are always a matter of money. The rascals want a price for the child of course. We shall have an offer presently."

"I wonder." Reggie looked at him with distrust. "You want to wait for that? It's a chance."

"Well, everything is chance in our trade," said Lomas. "But the child must have been stolen to hold for ransom. There's no sense in the case else. Just a quiet commercial crime."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie murmured.

"What have you got in your head, Reginald? There is no rational purpose in carrying off the child to kill him. And who should want him killed? The only person to benefit by his death is Wray, who would become the heir to the title and estate. But Cleeve is young still and has a young wife. They might have half a dozen other children yet."

"Yes, I had thought of that," Reggie said. "Yes. Very obscure case. Many nasty motives possible. We can't stop to look for explanations. We have to get the child back from these fellows quick."

"You're rather rattled, you know, Reginald."

Reggie shivered again. "I'm frightened. Yes," he said. "I don't like it. I don't like any of it."

"My dear fellow! But what do you want to do? We've searched this ship, we're watching the ship. They won't get off with him that way."

"No. That don't comfort me. That may make 'em desperate."

"Well, you would have it," Lomas shrugged.

"What else could I do?" Reggie muttered. "Once aboard and away, they'd have the child at their will. We've got to turn 'em and hunt 'em. But it's rather ghastly, Lomas."

"Oh, I shouldn't worry, you know," said Lomas. "They'll want to return him in good condition. There's no money in cruelty to him."

Reggie looked at him with wondering eyes in which there was no admiration. "You talked about workin' from the other end. Did you happen to mean to do anything?"

"Oh yes. I'm going up to Stourham Castle now. I like to begin at the beginning myself. There are several things I want to know. It's curious the kidnappers should have been able to pick out the time when Wray had the boy alone on a picnic in this remote meadow."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Lots of other ends. All right, I'll come."

Lord and Lady Cleeve were in the library together and together they rose and came to shake hands. "Oh, but, Mr. Lomas, it is kind of you to come so quickly," she cried.

"I'm afraid I have no real news," Lomas said.

Cleeve looked at her anxiously. "Dora - perhaps Mr. Lomas would rather speak to me alone."

"Oh, is there anything more - anything dreadful?" She put her hand to her throat.

"I've nothing worse to tell you than you know," Lomas said.

"Ah, let me stay, Bertie." She put both hands round her husband's arm. "I must hear what they think. My poor Peter!"

Cleeve looked down at her. He was head and shoulders the taller, a lean man of brown lined face and sombre eyes, weary and worldly wise against her simplicity. She had the fresh charm of a girl, though there were dark shadows under her eyes, she was so fair, so slight and dainty. She clung to him.

"Is there anything we can do?" Cleeve said gruffly.

"I can't say that." Lomas shook his head. "But you might be able to help us. I would rather Lady Cleeve stayed."

"Oh, won't you sit down?" she cried. She waved them into chairs, she pulled her husband down beside her on a sofa. "Please tell us! If we could only do something."

"The position is this. The boy has been kidnapped, but we have yet no information about the men concerned. I want you to tell me if anything has ever occurred to make you fear an attempt on the child."

"But no, no." Lady Cleeve looked bewildered.

Lomas looked at her sombre, silent husband. "No suspicions of any of the servants? No strangers been seen about the place?"

"I've not heard of any strangers," Cleeve said. "The servants are all right. I should have said everybody liked the boy." He gave Lomas a queer look of defiance or mistrust.

"This is the point. I don't understand how the kidnappers knew they would find the boy alone in that remote place unless his movements were continually watched or someone in the household gave them information."

"Oh, that's clever," Lady Cleeve cried. "But how horrible! Why should anyone want to hurt Peter?"

"If we've been watched, I didn't know it," Cleeve said.

"About this picnic, then," Lomas went on placidly. "Does Mr. Wray often take the boy out for the day?"

Cleeve left his wife to answer. "Oh ^no, indeed he doesn't. Mr. Wray is not here very much, is he, Bertie? He only came last week. But he is rather fond of having Peter to himself. He made quite a fuss of this river picnic. They've been talking about it for days. Oh, I wish, I wish-" She struggled not to cry.

"Yes. I see," Lomas said. "Almost everybody in the house would know of it."

"I dare say," Cleeve scowled.

"But - but can't you do something, Mr. Lomas?" his wife cried. "All this while they have Peter, they're taking him away from me and we're just talking. Oh, there must be a way to find where they've gone with him?"

Cleeve stared at Lomas. "No clue at all, eh?" he growled.

"Well, Mr. Fortune has a theory," said Lomas. "Some indications have suggested to him that the boy was kidnapped by a party of Greek sailors."

"Greeks!" Lady Cleeve cried. Her blue eyes grew big and she looked at her husband. "Oh, my dear," she gasped. She was afraid.

For the first time Reggie spoke. "Yes. What exactly does that mean?" he said.

Lady Cleeve did not answer. She was fighting emotions as she watched her husband, and he too suffered. "It means my brother Julian has lived a good deal in Greece. I suppose you knew that?" He scowled at Reggie. "That's where you got your theory from."

"Oh no. No. There were other facts," said Reggie blandly. "But, of course, he's the Wray who was excavatin' in Sparta. I didn't connect that. My error."

"Well, we spent a spring with him in Greece. You can connect that, too," Cleeve growled.

"But Julian was frightfully hurt himself," Lady Cleeve said unsteadily. "I don't understand. What do you mean, Mr. Fortune?"

"I don't know. I don't understand either, Lady Cleeve."

"You're throwing suspicion on my brother," Cleeve said heavily. "Because he's the next heir he's made away with Peter. That's it, isn't it?"

"The next heir!" Lady Cleeve moaned. "Oh, Bertie, don't talk so. My poor Peter!"

"No, I'm not throwin' suspicion," Reggie said quietly. "I say the boy was kidnapped by Greeks; and Mr. Wray was nearly killed in the struggle. It don't occur to you some Greeks might have a grudge against Mr. Wray?"

"Oh, there!" Lady Cleeve cried faintly. "Bertie! That would be right, wouldn't it? That might be."

"It's only a theory, I'm afraid." Lomas spoke to soothe him. "Mr. Fortune found the remnants of a Greek meal on the ground and there's a Greek ship in Dover today. But the boy is not aboard her and she's being watched. He won't be removed that way."

"But then - but then - you don't really know anything!" Lady Cleeve cried. "The Greek ship hasn't got him. You haven't found any Greeks. The ship is nothing to do with it. And all the while some awful people are taking my Peter away. And you talk about ships! Oh!" She flung herself on her husband's shoulder. He was much embarrassed, muttered something to her, caressed her awkwardly and got free of her. Flushed and ashamed of himself, he turned on Lomas. "It comes to this, you haven't traced him and you've found nothing that's any use to work on."

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. "There's the ship, you know."

Lomas frowned. Cleeve exclaimed angrily, "The ship! You say yourselves the boy isn't there and they won't be able to get him there."

"They may try, though," Reggie murmured.

"I don't believe in it," Cleeve announced. "I can't believe any of this about Greeks and a Greek ship."

"No? Why can't you?" Reggie sat up.

"It's fantastic." Cleeve scowled. "I don't think you really believe it yourselves. Do you?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Absolutely," said Reggie.

Lomas shrugged. "It's a theory. A possible theory."

"It's wildly improbable."

"You don't help us, you know," said Reggie sharply. "I thought you might help us to a motive."

"For a pack of Greek sailors making away with my son? Well, I can't, then. It's mad."

"For anybody making away with your son," said Reggie.

"I don't know of any motive for anybody," Cleeve growled.

"Oh, but what could there be?" his wife cried. "Peter - the child - -"

"I should take it there's only one possible motive," said Lomas. "He's been stolen to make you pay for his recovery."

And after a moment, "I suppose so," Cleeve muttered.

"You agree?" said Reggie. "Well then, you'd better offer a reward. If you telephone to the Press Association that you'll pay a thousand pounds for the recovery of your son. Viscount Stourham, kidnapped today, all the papers will announce that tomorrow morning."

"You think that would do good?" Cleeve looked at Lomas.

Lomas spread out his hands. "I'm not to advise it. We don't advise rewards in such cases. As Fortune has suggested it, I don't care to prevent you."

"The perfect official," Reggie chuckled. "He washes his hands of it, Lord Cleeve."

"You don't advise, and you don't prevent!" Cleeve said angrily. "Very well, I'll do it."

"Oh, do, Bertie, please." Lady Cleeve started up. "Let's do it at once. It might, you know - oh, it must bring him back."

"It's the only hope, I suppose." Cleeve looked at Lomas.

"No. I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. "The next chance. But we're keeping you. Information leadin' to recovery of Viscount Stourham. And give his description. I should say a thousand pounds."

"Thanks," said Cleeve angrily. "You're going, are you?"

Lomas said something civil and they went. "Not popular, are we?" Reggie murmured as they settled down in the car. "Takin' one thing with another, you'd better stay with me."

"As you're so pressing," Lomas smiled. The car ran on through orchards and hop gardens shimmering in the yellow sunset light. "I'm afraid the Greeks are out of it, Reginald. I abstain from saying I told you so."

"Yes. I should if I were you," Reggie murmured.

"My dear fellow! You know you've given them up yourself."

"Oh no. No. The Greeks were in it all right."

Lomas looked at him. "This faith is beautiful. But I remark that you suggested a reward for further information."

"I wanted to see if Cleeve would put it in the papers. If he doesn't, that'll be rather interesting, Lomas."

"What do you mean? Of course he will. He was at the telephone before we were out of the house."

"Yes, I noticed that. Oh yes, I think he will. I rather think I frightened him. Well, if he does, that may be interesting, too."

"We shall get a mass of futile rumours," Lomas said gloomily. "A reward is always a nuisance. I've heard you say so yourself."

"Not scientific, no," Reggie murmured. "But time's everything. We can't wait to be neat. This is a chance to break 'em up."

"Break them up?" Lomas echoed. "Where are we now, Reginald? Another theory?"

"Oh no. Same theory. Growin' more complex. What did you make of Cleeve and his wife?"

"Quite natural, weren't they? He was rather surly. She's almost hysterical, poor thing."

"Yes. Marked contrast. Woman full of emotions. Man sullen. Woman talking voluble, all ejaculations. Man almost dumb, even when losing his temper."

"My dear fellow!" Lomas laughed. "One's a woman and one's a man."

"That was emphasized. Yes. But great disturbance in both when I mentioned Greeks. Not so much surprise as alarm."

"Natural enough - it was Wray's connection with Greece horrified them."

"Yes, comin' back to my Greeks, aren't we? But they'd all been in Greece, you know."

"Good gad! You don't suspect Cleeve himself?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "I don't think Cleeve was quite frank, you know. And I think he's afraid."

"But, great heavens, why should Cleeve have his own son kidnapped?"

"I don't know," Reggie said slowly. "Quite a lot of things we don't know, Lomas." And the car turned into the gates of his house.

The Inspector was waiting for them. "Hallo, my friend." Lomas smiled. "Any news from Dover?"

"I've heard nothing from Dover, sir. But Mr. Fortune told me to look about for foreigners. Well, I think we've got 'em!"

"What?" Reggie was amazed.

"Not arrested 'em, sir. Not laid hands on 'em. I mean to say we've got evidence there were foreigners down there by the meadow today. It's like this, sir. The boy from the shop, he'd been up to Skindle's farm with their fresh yeast and he was coming back through the meadows. He saw some men looking about, little dark men he says, and one of 'em had ear - rings."

Lomas laughed. "So they must have been foreigners. Good!"

"Beg your pardon, sir," said the Inspector with dignity. "I hadn't finished. The boy says they were jabbering. He's sure it wasn't proper English. One of 'em kept saying something about 'Cleet hear us,' and another was trying to shut him up. 'Them brass,' he said. Then they saw the boy and had a good look at him and he heard this, 'Them brass' again."

Reggie smiled. "Yes. That boy's too good to be carrying yeast," he said.

"Good gad!" said Lomas. "Do you pretend to recognize this language, Reginald?"

"Yes, I think so. One of them was afraid of ' Kleteras' - that's police. And another was telling him 'Them Birassi' - that means ' It don't matter.' In modern Greek, Lomas, old thing."

"Your game," said Lomas.

"Oh no. No." Reggie's smile passed. "We're only toilin' after 'em. And they've got the child. What will they do with him when they're checked?"

"If we keep 'em off the ship, we shall get 'em in the end," said Lomas.

"In the end!" Reggie said. "Where will the child be by then?"

"Ring up Dover, Inspector, and tell them to watch close who goes aboard that ship. Did your errand - boy see the car these fellows used?"

"He says there was a big closed car in the lane. Dark car. I can't hear any more of it. Something may turn up."

"Oh yes. Yes. Something will turn up," Reggie murmured. "But not tonight." He looked pathetically at Lomas. "Well, well, I suppose I can eat. Can you? We'd better try."

Lomas had no difficulty, and Reggie in an absent, abnormal manner made something of a dinner. Thus fortified, he began to talk about the case. His wife looked at him with anxiety. It is not his habit to talk shop, and she does not expect to be told anything of his cases till they are over. But his simple purpose was soon revealed. "You know everything, Joan. What do you think of the Cleeves?"

Mrs. Fortune gave him the opinion of the world, revised by her own placid and kind judgment. Cleeve was a lonely fellow. He lived to himself and his own people. He had been much absorbed in his first wife, after her death in the child. There was some surprise when he married again, but the lady was in all things approved - charmingly pretty, rich, of good breeding, plainly devoted to him. They were never apart. People laughed a little. But the child was not put aside. They would not be long away from him. Indeed, it was a common joke that Lady Cleeve believed she was his mother.

"Yes. Yes. You don't like 'em, Joan," Reggie murmured. "I wonder."

"Does a nice woman ever like a man who marries again?" Lomas smiled.

"The only rule is there's no rule," said Mrs. Fortune. She turned to her husband. "I think I might like him, but he stands off."

In the morning Lomas, who loves his bed, was disturbed by Reggie. "Were you getting up today? I think you'd better. The ship's gone."

Lomas sat up. "Well, what about it?"

"I don't know. I thought you might. Exert the higher intelligence. But it's true. The Inspector has just rung up. Dover says she went out on the morning tide, heading down Channel. Swears nobody has gone aboard since they searched her, except two of her own men late last night, rather drunk but unaccompanied. And she's off."

"What do you want to do now?"

"Oh, my aunt! What can we do? Wait. I know what I'd have done in Dover last night: arrest those two for drunk and disorderly and see what I could get out of them. But we're always missing the bus in this case. Nothing to do but wait for the next." He contemplated Lomas gloomily. "You might as well get up though. Better warn coastguards and ports and people we want to hear of the good ship Apate if she comes in anywhere."

When Lomas, after a long conference with the telephone, came to breakfast Reggie was behind a paper. "He's been and done it. Here you are. Reward of One Thousand Pounds for information leading to recovery of Viscount Stourham. Send it to the Earl of Cleeve at 999 Grosvenor Gate. Not to our active and intelligent police force. I'm afraid Cleeve didn't take to you, Lomas."

Lomas made an ugly noise. "Ugh! I wish you'd let it alone. He'll be bothering us with a mass of silly rumours."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "His London house, you observe. He abandons the county of Kent. I'm afraid we'd better go to London, too."

"I wasn't thinking of staying here."

Reggie sighed. "No. No. London is indicated. But what indicated it to him? He didn't know the ship would sail this morning. Or did he?"

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. Very obscure case," Reggie moaned. "Oh, to be in London now that summer's here."

And to London they went, and every police force in the kingdom was inspired to watch for the little fair boy who was Viscount Stourham and a big, dark, closed car in which might be foreigners, and the air bore questions to ships in the Channel of the course of the Greek ship Apate.

On the next morning Cleeve himself appeared at Scotland Yard. His temper had not improved, he showed signs of strain. He wished, quite without courtesy, to know if he could expect the police to be of any use. Lomas, civility at a low temperature, was sorry they had not received the help which might have been expected. Cleeve did not know what they had expected. The offer of a reward had brought a pack of nonsense, if they wanted that. He produced many letters. Lomas looked them over and, rather remote and contemptuous, agreed that they were nonsense. Cleeve wanted to know if there was anything in that other nonsense about the Greeks and the ship at Dover. Lomas had found no further evidence. Cleeve supposed he never would. He had done nothing and didn't mean to try. Lomas, still civil but below freezing - point, was employing all the resources of the police to find the child. And Cleeve laughed.

Some time after he was gone, Reggie drifted in, pale and vague of eye and movement and speech, but also demanding news. He was told. His wistful gaze settled upon Lomas. "Yes. You don't seem gettin' to love each other, you an' him. I wonder."

"The fellow's deuced hostile." Lomas frowned. "But I could excuse that. I felt he wouldn't open his mind, that's what stiffened me. I believe you're right, Reginald. He knows something."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured drearily.

"It begins to look like a put - up job."

"Yes. Put up against a child. Oh, my hat! And we can't get near." He drew a long breath and got on his feet. "Well, you'd better have the Cleeves watched, you know. I can't do anything. I'll go down to the Laboratory. A job is sedative." He wandered out.

He worked in his hospital laboratory till evening. He sought the loneliest of his clubs for dinner; he was loitering, heavily full and forlorn, over the tape machine in the sepulchral hall when he was called to the telephone.

"Lomas speaking. The ship has been sighted coming into Falmouth. Any ideas?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Shake up the Falmouth police. Where are you? Scotland Yard. Good. I'll come along."

It was a message from a pilot boat sent through the signal station at the Lizard. The Apate was going into Falmouth, reporting engine trouble.

"Yes. Has a lot - of it, hasn't she," Reggie murmured. "When is the night train? Somewhere about ten, what? We'll catch that nicely. And some of your heftier men wouldn't be amiss."

"I've warned Falmouth," Lomas said. "They'll watch the ship and detain her."

"I want the child," said Reggie. "The child ought to be somewhere near Falmouth " - he stopped, he looked at Lomas with fear in his eyes "or the fellows who had the child. Let's get on, let's get on." Lomas was persuaded, Lomas was collecting his forces and giving his orders, and in the middle of it the telephone rang again.

"What? What? Who are you? Oh, Cator. Good gad! Go on after 'em. All right." Lomas turned to Reggie. "That's one of the men watching Cleeve's house. Cleeve and his wife have just taken a taxi to Paddington. They won't get away. There's another man following them. Just as well we looked after 'em, though."

"Yes. We can't afford to make mistakes," said Reggie. "But that wouldn't have mattered, as it's turnin' out. They wouldn't have got away, anyhow. Oh, come on."

Lomas bustled after him. "Why do you say it wouldn't matter?"

"Paddington's the station for Falmouth."

When their car stopped at Paddington, a man like a valet was briskly at the door. "Booked to Falmouth, sir. Got berths in the sleeping - car."

He was told he must watch it and he faded away. A square fellow closed on them as they walked to the platform. "No room in the sleeper, sir. Two last berths taken early this evening. Got you a compartment. We're just forward."

They established themselves behind drawn blinds. "Did you notice that?" said Lomas. "They knew they were going to Falmouth early this evening. And the Apate hadn't come in yet when I rang up the Falmouth police."

Reggie looked at him with dreary wonder. "Does that happen to mean anything to you?"

"It means they know too much about that ship."

"Oh yes. Yes. I always thought they were interested in my Greeks. But what are they wanted for in Falmouth?"

Lomas frowned. "I'd like to confront Cleeve with that ship's captain."

"Yes. Yes. That is indicated. Lots of confrontation. Last scene. Everybody gettin' on the stage, livin' and dead. Oh, my lord! Let's try and sleep."

For Falmouth you change from that train at Truro. Lord and Lady Cleeve were anxious to do so. Reggie watched their scurry down the platform, while Lomas stretched himself awake. Then a little party of solid men made for the other train. 

Just as it drew out one man more climbed into their carriage. "I've been on to the Falmouth police, sir. This Greek ship came in just after midnight. Police boat patrolling. No one gone on board yet, no one landed. Some fellows were loitering about the quay in the night, but nothing to call suspicious. An Inspector's coming to meet the train."

"Seem to be all on our toes, don't we?" Reggie murmured. "Yes. I wonder if we're in time."

The little train stopped. Cleeve was out on the instant and calling a porter. His wife and he hurried away. But two of the detectives were in front of them. A man of military aspect scanned the train and marched upon it.

"Mr. Lomas, sir? I'm Inspector Hawken. I phoned your man at Truro. Nothing new since."

"We'll have something now." Lomas smiled. "I want you to go aboard the Apate and ask for the captain. Tell him you have orders to bring him ashore about the two men of his crew who got drunk at Dover. You can say the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department has come down here to inquire into the affair. You don't know anything else. To inquire into the affair. But you can frighten him like hell. I don't mind."

Inspector Hawken marched off with an air to frighten armies.

One of the detectives came back. "Gone to the Bristol Hotel, sir. I've got a car for you."

It was not far, but when they drove up, Cleeve and his wife were already coming out of the hotel. "Good morning!" Lomas called. They started round; the tired faces were distorted with emotion. "You're in rather a hurry." He came out of the car. "But why are you in a hurry?"

Cleeve scowled. "I suppose he wrote to you, too?"

"You've had a letter? What a pity you didn't tell me! I'm afraid you've not been quite frank with us, Lord Cleeve."

"Very well, if you like, I didn't trust you."

"Oh, why should we?" Lady Cleeve cried. "You've done nothing - nothing."

"The letter, please?" said Lomas.

Cleeve brought out a sheet of cheap paper. The writing was in pencil and laborious.

DR SIR, - 

Your advert, ofering reward for Vicount Stourham. I know how you could get him back if you was to come quick to Falmouth. Come to Blacky's in the Ope, which any will tell you of and ask for Pincher. Looking to you as a gentleman for the reward. Come in the daytime. P.S. You best come quick.

"Half educated and English." Lomas looked at Reggie. "Well, we'll try it." He turned sharply on Cleeve. "If you'd done your duty we could have taken this fellow and had what he knows last night."

"No, you couldn't," Cleeve said sullenly. "He says he's only there in the daytime. My God, do you suppose no one thinks but you?"

"Bah, he wants to see who's coming," Lomas cried. "Now go on with you. Ask for the fellow. We'll do the rest."

The Ope is a court which runs down to the sea, a place of lounging and lodging for sailors. Cleeve and his wife hurried into it, asked for Blacky's and were directed to a house something cleaner than the rest. A shaggy, frowsy man answered their knock. Pincher was in, for what he knew. Come yesterday and had his usuals, never went out last night. He looked at Lady Cleeve's wan daintiness with curiosity. Would the gemmun go up? But the lady went, too.

The next minute the Ope was startled by a woman's scream. Cleeve put his head out of a window and shouted, "Lomas! Here for heaven's sake!"

Lomas came into the room to find a dead man. He lay in bed and it was sodden with his blood and a wound gaped in his throat. "What do you know about it?" Lomas turned on the landlord.

"Gawd! I don't know nuffin, sir. He's been lodging here this two - three days. 'E come in yesterday bit later 'n this, 'ad 'is usuals an' I never see 'im since, so 'elp me Gawd. Anybody might 'ave come up to 'im."

Reggie turned from the body. "Killed by knife - thrust in the throat. Many hours ago. Say last night. He may have been a sailor. But I think he was a chauffeur last." He looked vaguely about the room, from the puzzled frown of Lomas to Cleeve's scowl, to the wide - eyed horror of Lady Cleeve. "And that's that. I suppose you don't know him, Cleeve?"

"Know him?" Cleeve took a step forward and looked again. "I never saw him before. I could swear that."

"Come on then. Let's try our captain."

"The captain?" Cleeve Stared. "What do you mean?"

"The captain of the Greek ship Apate."

"She's in here?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Didn't you know?" said Reggie.

"Come and meet him, Cleeve," said Lomas. He spoke to some of his men, he waved the Cleeves to the door.

"I'll do anything you like," Cleeve muttered.

"You'd better," said Lomas.

"Oh, but this dreadful thing!" Lady Cleeve cried. "How did it happen?"

"We'll attend to that," said Lomas. "If you want to know why it happened, this fellow was killed so that he shouldn't be able to say what has become of the child."

"Oh, then we shall never know! Oh, Bertie." She clung to her husband. But he was not sympathetic.

They hurried on; much stared at by the loungers in the Ope they came to the main street. Outside the post office Inspector Hawken was waiting. "I've got the captain, sir. He has the wind up. He asked to go into the post office to get his letters." The Inspector winked. "I was willing. One of my men went, too."

A man came quickly out of the office, a dark, sleek little man. Another appeared at the door and made signs to Inspector Hawken. 

The Inspector strode forward and caught the little man. "If you please, sir. I'm a police officer."

"What do you want with me?"

"I'll have to ask you a few questions."

The little man looked quickly all round him. He saw the Cleeves and Lomas and the shepherding detectives; he wrenched himself free and pulled out a pistol. The Inspector closed again as he fired. They wrestled together; the street was a turmoil of scrambling men. There was another shot and another. The detectives had him down. But they fell upon a dead man.

"My oath, he's gone," the Inspector gasped. Blood began to ooze from the sweating face. He rose and stared at Lomas. "I swear I thought I'd got him."

"Where's that captain?" Lomas frowned. The captain was brought in the grip of a sturdy Cornishman. "Do you know this man?"

"They spoke in the post office. Spoke foreign," the Cornishman said.

"I know him, yes," the captain burst out. "He is my owner, he is Mr. Constantine Castro. Why do you shoot him?"

"Your owner. That won't get you off. You'd better come along and tell the truth." Lomas turned away. "Every one at the station please. Inspector. I shall want you, Cleeve."

The detectives made a way for them through the gathering crowd.

In a big bare room at the police station the captain was put into a chair opposite Lomas. "Where's Lord Cleeve? Sit at the end of the table, please. Now, my man, you are Captain Janni, master of the Greek ship Apate?"

"I am the captain, yes. Mr. Castro, he was the owner."

"You've acted under his orders? You know that's no defence on a criminal charge."

"But I 'ave done no crime. I 'ave done nothing."

"You know what you're brought here for. You and your men were concerned in kidnapping a little boy, Viscount Stourham, when your ship was in Dover."

"It is not true, sir. You search my ship in Dover. I 'ave no little boy."

"Have you ever seen this man before, Cleeve?" said Lomas sharply. Cleeve was looking at Captain Janni with a queer, uneasy stare. "You don't care to say?"

"I don't know," Cleeve muttered. He turned to Lomas. "I knew this fellow Castro. Met him in Greece."

"Friend of yours?"

"No. I met him. I didn't like him."

"Any particular reason for not liking him?"

Cleeve shifted in his chair. "I - I loathed the fellow."

The captain swore a spitting Greek oath. "And he is to be shot, my owner, because this my Lord does not like him!"

"Your owner started shooting, Janni. If he shot himself, he had his reasons. What were they?"

"He did not shoot himself." The captain was gathering truculence. "He was shot down like a dog."

"That won't do." Lomas smiled. "What was he up to that he tried to shoot a policeman? What was he doing in Falmouth at all? Where's that boy, Janni? Speak out now or you'll have ten years of an English prison - if it isn't the rope. Don't be trying any more lies. I know too much. Castro had your men ashore at Dover and they stole the boy to put him aboard your ship. We watched you so closely they couldn't do it. So you came in to Falmouth to pick him up here. You haven't got him and you won't get him. But we've got you and we'll hold you till he's found and hang you if he's found dead. Now then - where is he?"

"What do I know?" the captain screamed. "I know nothing, nothing, nothing. You 'ave killed the only man who knew."

"Think!" Lomas bent forward. "Think! It's the rope for you."

"But I do not know. I cannot tell." The captain wept and beat at himself.

Lomas watched his paroxysm moment. "So much the worse for you. Take him away. Take him away."

The wretched man was dragged out screaming. "Now then, Vardon, go aboard that ship and get the men who were drunk at Dover. Quick. Inspector, you'll have to find out where this fellow Castro has been in Falmouth. Get on to it."

"Have you finished with me?" said Cleeve.

Lomas flung back in his chair. "Damme, Cleeve, you're very disinterested. What do you want to do?"

Cleeve looked at him under heavy brows. "I want to find my wife," he said.

"What? I suppose she's here." But she was not.

When the shots were fired, when the detectives ran in upon the dead man, Reggie stepped aside. His hand drew at the sleeve of one. "Sergeant Cator," he said softly, and Cator fell back to him. Reggie's eyes were on Lady Cleeve. She, too, was out of the crowd; she was hurrying away. "Don't stop her," Reggie murmured, "don't lose her." And Cator followed her and Reggie followed Cator. She went fast through the town, past the Swan Pool, and away by a footpath through wild pasture, and Reggie closed on Cator. The roofs of a tiny hamlet were near. Lady Cleeve stopped there and asked the name of it. She made haste on, climbing over rough ground, and they heard the roar of the sea. The hill - side was broken with heaps of stones, and above stood the ruins of the stone chimney and engine - house of an old mine.

"Run for it," Reggie muttered, but as round as he is, it was he who came first to Lady Cleeve. She had given one glance behind, she ran on, she was at the low wall which guarded the mine shaft.

"Yes. Thanks very much," Reggie panted. "We'll do the rest." He gripped her arm. She was pulling at the knots by which a rope hanging down the shaft was fastened. "Mr. Fortune!" Red and dishevelled, she stared at him with wild eyes. "He's here. My Peter's here. I - I heard that man say so."

"Yes. When?" said Reggie, and reached for her other hand, "Take her, Cator."

"If you please, ma'am." Cator embraced her. Reggie began to haul at the rope.

But she fought madly, she broke a hand free, she had a pistol out. Cator wrenched it from her as she fired. She tore herself away from him and sprang at the rope, flinging herself in front of Reggie as he hauled, tearing it out of his hands. He thrust her aside, Cator gripped at her again, but she clung to the rope and threw her weight upon it, lying on the wall, flung herself over. At the jerk, Reggie slid and staggered, but he held fast. The rope was torn from her fingers and she fell into the dark with a shriek that ended in a thud.

He stood a moment, breathing hard and drew at the rope cautiously. It bore a light weight still. Into the daylight rose a little boy. A bandage was bound across his mouth, his white face was wet, his eyes haunted.

"All over now, Peter," Reggie said, and gathered the boy in his arms. He pulled the bandage away from the wan mouth.

"Ooh! it hurts," the boy moaned, and his little hands plucked at the rope round his chest. Then they stopped with a quivering spasm. "Oh, I shall fall," he screamed, and clutched Reggie.

Cator was cutting at the knots. "All right, old man," Reggie said gently. "You're safe now."

The child moaned. "Everyfing goes wound and wound." His head thrust into Reggie's shoulder.

"Oh no. Not now. Nothing goes wound any more. All fixed and firm."

"What was it vat did fall, all crying and wump? Ooh!"

"That was just the last of it. All over."

"Is it really?" The haunted eyes sought Reggie's. "You're not like ve bad men. Who are you?"

"I'm Mr. Fortune. Your Mr. Fortune. Come to make you all right and jolly again."

"Was vat one of the bad men vat fell?"

"Just a badness trying to hurt you. But it didn't and never will: and all the bad men are caught: and everything's going to be all right for Peter."

"I did say Our Fawer," the boy said. "But it all went muzzy in my head." He began to cry. . . .

Some time after the telephone in the police station rang.

"Hello, Lomas. Fortune speaking. From the hospital. Have you got Cleeve?"

"I'm holding him," said Lomas grimly.

"Told him anything? No? Good. Bring him along." Reggie came down to a room in the hospital, where, under the cold and curious eyes of Lomas, Cleeve stood waiting with the face of a man in torment.

"We have your boy," Reggie said gravely. "He's alive. Lady Cleeve isn't. We couldn't save her."

Cleeve shook, Cleeve gulped. "Peter is all right?" he cried.

"I wouldn't say that. Peter's going to be all right - if you're wise. You haven't been very wise, have you? The child has been living in hell for days."

"Oh, my God!" Cleeve shuddered. "What could I do? I didn't know."

"No, I believe that," Reggie said gently.

"You didn't know!" Lomas snapped. "You had a good guess. When Fortune told you there was a Greek ship in it, you suspected your wife. I saw that."

"Well, well!" Reggie murmured and gazed at him with reverence. "You do see things, Lomas."

"If you'd told us Lady Cleeve was mixed up with that rascal Castro, We should have stopped this damnable business."

Cleeve had hidden his face in his hands. "Don't you see, I didn't know," he groaned. He looked up. "Is Dora dead?"

"Lady Cleeve killed herself when we found the boy." 

Cleeve shuddered. "Well, every one will know everything now, I may as well tell you. Don't you see, I believe Dora - Dora did - - Oh, well. We were happy. I used to think she loved Peter, too. All the more as she hadn't a child. Then she met this fellow Castro in Athens. I don't believe there was anything - I wouldn't believe it. But after we came back she was different. I noticed it first with Peter. She made a great deal of him still, but - I can't put it in words - she wasn't kind. And then - this. You see, I had nothing I could tell you. I don't know what she wanted."

"She wanted to hurt the child," said Reggie gravely, " because she hadn't one, because she was jealous you loved him, because - it doesn't matter. She arranged with this scoundrel Castro to carry him off to Greece. I'm afraid they meant Peter to have rather a bad time there. We spoilt their chance at Dover. Castro ordered his ship round to Falmouth and brought the child down here. Castro and his chauffeur. They hid the child hanging on a rope down an old mine shaft. Not a nice man, the late Castro. But ingenious. The chauffeur watched at night, Castro by day. Then the chauffeur read of the reward and wrote to you. You should have told us of that. We might have saved the fellow's life. But perhaps it's as well as it is. Lady Cleeve must have telephoned to warn Castro, and Castro made an end of the chauffeur. I rather wonder he didn't let the child drop down the mine and run for it. I suppose he wanted to keep a hold on Lady Cleeve. When she saw him being taken she shot him."

"It was Dora!"

"Oh yes. Yes. Didn't you know? I thought you might have guessed then. She made off to the mine. But we were a little too quick. She tried to drop the child down. She missed and went down herself."

"She was lucky," said Lomas fiercely.

"I don't know." Reggie looked at him with dreamy eyes. "I wasn't thinking of her myself. We can manage the thing now."

"Peter saw her?" Cleeve groaned. "Peter knows?"

"Oh no. No. Peter didn't see. Peter doesn't know anything. Peter isn't going to know. That's your part. You have something to make up to the child, Cleeve."

Cleeve drew deep breath. "Ah, if I can, if I can!" he muttered. "But everybody has to know the whole cursed thing. Everybody will be - -"

"Nobody will. For publication - the late Mr. Castro kidnapped your child and, being caught, shot himself. Lady Cleeve, tryin' to rescue the child from the mine, fell down, and Mr. Fortune and Sergeant Cator couldn't save her. That's all. Now just come to Peter. He wants you."

Cleeve gripped his hand. Cleeve tried to talk and failed. "All right. In a minute," said Reggie, and took Lomas away.

"What a fool! What a fool!"  Lomas said. 

"Yes. Yes. He gets fond of people," said Reggie. "How clever you are, Lomas."

SECOND EXPLANATION

THE LITTLE MILLINER

IN moments of bitterness, when work is continuous, Mr. Fortune has been heard to complain that the life of a policeman is an insult to the human reason. It is then his conviction that he was born to be a family doctor: to keep babies blooming, mothers quiet and fathers in a good temper: and he mourns the fate which made him the scientific adviser of the police force, for he compares the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department to an undertaker. This has been resented. But he points out to Lomas that the police, like the undertaker, do nothing until the only thing to be done is clearing up the remains with pomp and circumstance: a procedure fundamentally irrational. His favourite example in this argument is the case of the little milliner.

It began with the card of Lady Jemima St. Lo. No woman since Florence Nightingale has found other people so much work to do. Reggie Fortune was sinking into a doze between tea and dinner when Lady Jemima's card came before his eyes. He blinked. He said "Help!" He became aware that it bore an inscription. He sat up. The writing of Lady Jemima is of the most modern art: it does not resemble anything, it suggests emotions. After some time it appeared to Reggie that Lady Jemima intended to say, "Do help the poor child."

Reggie moaned and went to his consulting - room. The "poor child" who ran at him was some six feet high. He is not. She was of a stately shape and dressed to show it. She found him less impressive. "Mr. Fortune?" she cried, and stared at him. Her handsome, haughty face became blank and she giggled.

"Yes. That being that, let's sit down," said Reggie. 

"Sorry. I am awful. I thought you'd be big and important and - oo"; again she giggled.

"Like a policeman?" Reggie suggested.

She nodded. She became intensely earnest. "You are really sort of high up in the police force, aren't you? Lady Jemima said you were." She looked like a tragic goddess. Her speech was Cockney, sharp and strong.

"Yes. Very good of Lady Jemima. I tell the police a few things sometimes."

"And they take notice of you, Mr. Fortune?"

"Oh yes. I have known it happen."

"I'm most awfully worried, don't you know," she said in the drawl of a perfect lady, then relapsed into the twang of London streets. "I don't 'arf know what I'm doing. They all think I'm just potty about 'er." She gazed at Mr. Fortune and her classic nose wrinkled, her large eyes filled with tears.

"Oh no. No," said Mr. Fortune gently. "Who is she, though?"

"Of course I am sweet on 'er," the goddess admitted. "She's a dear. And then going off like this! She was in the 'ats, you know."

"Where was that?" said Mr. Fortune with anxiety.

"There, I never told you! I'm getting it all wrong, I'm so upset. Look here, my name's Miss Higgs. I'm a mannikin at Amilee's."

"Of course." Mr. Fortune sighed satisfaction that he had the goddess classified at last. "Of course," with her beauty and her accent she would be a mannequin - at Amelie's. Amelie is a dressmaker of distinction, but economical. Just the shop for Lady Jemima. The affair was becoming partially reasonable.

The goddess went on with a rush: "Miss Gray was in the 'ats. Been there a long time. Earning good money, too. She didn't go with anyone, kep' 'erself to 'erself, but we been friends, Mr. Fortune. She liked me, she did. She'd come 'ome with me and 'ave a bit o' dinner o' Sundays, 'er 'aving no people of 'er own, though quite the lady. But she wouldn't take things off you and do nothing herself, Cely wasn't that kind. Let me call 'er Cely, she did and called me Bertha - when we wasn't in the shop. And now she's gone, Mr. Fortune, gone right off ahd never no word. What I say is, there's something wrong. Something's been and 'appened to 'er. She wouldn't go away and not tell me nothing - not Cely."

"And the alarmin' fact is that she did," Reggie murmured. "I see." He considered Miss Higgs with dreamy eyes.

"She never went natural, Mr. Fortune. It's my belief she was took. Kidnapped or something. Like girls are, you know, that's what I told the police. But the Inspector 'e did nothing but grin. Fat'ead!"

"Yes. What was the Inspector's theory?" said Reggie.

"Theory!" The goddess snorted. "I don't know. He said, 'Girls do leave home. Miss Higgs,' he said superior - like, and grinned at me; 'don't you worry, my dear,' he said. I could ha' slapped his nasty face."

"When did Miss Gray vanish?"

"Last time I saw her was at the shop on Saturday. She never said a word about going away, she was just like usual. Then - -"

"One moment. What is usual? What is she like?"

"She's just sweet, Mr. Fortune. A little quiet thing, you wouldn't 'ardly notice 'er."

"But you want me to, you know," Reggie protested. "She never gave you a photograph?"

"She never was took that I know." Miss Higgs meditated profoundly. "She's fair and her hair's bobbed and she's got grey eyes. Such nice eyes. Moddam says she's very shick. But it's not that. She just looks sweet."

Reggie sighed. "Last seen - looking sweet - on Saturday."

Then o' Monday she didn't come to the shop. Moddam 'eard nothing from 'er. So in the evening I went round to 'er lodgings to see if she'd been took ill. And she wasn't there, Mr. Fortune!"

"Where are the lodgings?"

"Camden Town. 7, Navarino Street, Camden Town. Nice, respectable 'ouse. But you know what lodgings are. Not 'omely, poor girl."

"Miss Gray didn't like them?"

"You wouldn't yourself. Cely did want a place of her own. But what's a girl to do? Well, the old landlady said Cely came in Saturday all right and then she went out again leaving word she was going away for the weekend, but she 'adn't come back. Well then, Tuesday she wasn't at the shop either and no word of 'er. I trapesed off to 'er lodgings again and still she 'adn't come back. Then I went straight to the police. Like I told you. Fat lot of good that was. Now it's Thursday, Mr. Fortune. She's been gone pretty near a week and no one's doing anything to find her and God knows what's 'appening to 'er."

"Yes. Yes," Reggie murmured. "Taldn' the landlady as honest - -"

"I don't know. She's the usual."

"Miss Gray meant to go off for the week - end: without telling anybody where. You don't think she often did that."

"I don't believe she'd ever done it before. Don't you see, Cely's a good girl!" There was a cry of faith in her voice. She blushed, she went on quickly: "She's not like some of 'em, Mr. Fortune. She never would look at a man."

"Yes. She has a friend," said Reggie gravely. "Well, well. No other friends - no people of her own?"

"She wasn't one to make friends much. I never 'eard of any. She 'adn't any relations anywhere. She often said that."

"And yet she meant to go off somewhere without telling you. I wonder."

"Why, don't you see?" Miss Higgs cried. "If she told the old woman she'd be away for the week - end, she meant just that, just the week - end and no more. She was always straight. And she's stayed on and on. That's what ain't right about it. If you knew her, you'd know she wouldn't never leave us all worrying."

"Yes. Yes. I thought of that point myself." Reggie contemplated her with closing eyes. "Quite a good point."

"Ah, you understand. Don't you? Oh, sir, make 'em find 'er, for God's sake. I can't bear to think of 'er being - - being - like she may be."

"Don't think anything, my dear," said Reggie gently. "Not till we know." He stood up. "I'll make the police have a look for her. I can't make 'em find her. There's ten thousand things might have been." He held out his hand. "But the worst don't often happen."

"Oo - you're a gentleman," said Miss Higgs, and wept.

When she was gone Mr. Fortune fell into his deepest chair and moaned. "Missin' from Camden Town: a little woman with fair hair bobbed and nice grey eyes: just sweet. Oh, my aunt! You fall over 'em. Possibilities practically infinite and mainly nasty." He has an active conscience. He meditated uncomfortably. He wriggled. He reached for the telephone and rang up Scotland Yard. "Mr. Fortune speaking. I want to know if there's any news of Celia Gray, reported missing from Camden Town. You haven't heard? You wouldn't. Let 'em know I want to see the reports in the morning, please."

Next morning the room of the Hon. Sydney Lomas received him early. Lomas cocked a bright and quizzical eye.

"Hullo," said Reggie morosely. "Any news?"

"This anxiety is affecting. All my regrets, Reginald. We had no notion you were interested in the girl. I'm afraid there's nothing to give you any encouragement." He rang for Superintendent Bell. "Speaking as your friend, I can only advise you to think no more about her."

"We are not amused, Lomas."

Superintendent Bell came in briskly, greeted him, received a grunt and looked at him with curiosity and apprehension.

"Mr. Fortune isn't pleased with you, Bell," Lomas chuckled.

"I'm afraid we haven't got much, sir." Bell frowned at his papers. "But it seems a straight case."

"Get on, get on. Let's have it."

"Celia Gray, lodging 7, Navarino Street, Camden Town, employed as milliner at Amelie's. . . . Gray left lodgings Saturday, taking suit - case, destination unknown. Not since heard of. Landlady and employer unable to account for absence. Left some clothes behind and odds and ends of no value. Furniture not her own. No rent owing. Never left work before. Never away from lodgings without notice. Seldom went away. Considered respectable girl. Nothing known of any followers."

"Our active and intelligent police force," Reggie mumbled. He swung round to face them. "The Inspector got all that from Bertha. He's done nothing."

Lomas shrugged. "My dear fellow! What was he to do? The girl said she was going away and she's gone. If we went looking for all the girls who go away for a week - end and stay rather longer we should be busy."

"Better to do nothing, isn't it?" said Reggie. "You might stop a crime or two before it happened if you took trouble. Much more official to come along afterwards and bury the dead."

Lomas stiffened. "Taking this matter rather seriously, aren't you. Fortune? Of course, if we had known the little milliner was a friend of yours we'd have seen after her with the whole force."

Reggie gazed at him. "Bertha wanted to slap your Inspector's face," he murmured. "I quite understand."

The respectability of Superintendent Bell was alarmed. The professional instinct of Superintendent Bell was troubled. "Beg your pardon, Mr. Fortune," he said hastily. "Don't mind my asking. Did you know this Miss Gray?"

"I never saw her."

"Then I don't understand, sir. You don't know but what she's the sort of girl to go off on the quiet."

"Oh yes. Yes. I've talked to Bertha. Bertha says she isn't."

"Good gad!" Lomas gasped. "But, my dear fellow, what does it all come to? A little milliner chose to go away without telling anybody where she was going. There are a thousand possible reasons. She may have gone to get married and don't want these girls at the shop to know about it." 

"Yes. Yes. I thought of that, Lomas. It could be."

"Of course it could. Happens often enough."

"But it don't cover all the facts. If she wanted to disappear quietly she wouldn't have made a mystery for Bertha to worry about."

"My dear Reginald! You want her to be quite reasonable. Girls aren't. She didn't bother about explanations."

"Oh yes, she did. She said she was going away for the week - end. Just as easy to say she was going for a week or for ever. But she said the week - end. What's happened that she can't send word?"

Lomas leant back in his chair and smiled. "What Bertha says isn't evidence, Reginald."

"Oh yes, it is. Bertha was telling the truth. Your Inspector didn't believe her. She said he was a fat - head, Lomas. I rather agree with her."

"Thanks very much." Lomas shrugged. "It comes to this, then. You want to make a mystery of it because you like the girl's face."

"I never like anybody's face," said Reggie with indignation. "And she's taller than any woman has a right to be. I feel small and inadequate still. Bertha is good but depressing. Only she's right, bother her. It is a nasty mess."

"It's all in the air," Lomas grumbled. "What do you want to do? Advertise her missing, with description and portrait?"

"There isn't a portrait. Description is small, fair, bobbed, nice grey eyes, just sweet."

"That would only get you about a million girls." 

"Yes. I had thought of that, Lomas dear. We won't advertise anything yet. The people who've been keeping her might do something hasty."

"What have you got in your head?" Lomas cried. 

"Nothing. Nothing. That's what worries me. You don't feel a vacancy. Well, well. I want some sound fellow to take up the case, some fellow that's a man and a brother." He smiled on Superintendent Bell. "Yes. Bell is strongly indicated."

Thank you, sir." Bell was pleased and uncomfortable. "I'd be very happy. But I don't see my way."

"Nor do I. Come and have a look at Celia's lodgings and Celia's shop."

"You're for it, Bell," Lomas chuckled. "Take him away. Make him buy her a wedding present."

Reggie gazed at him with melancholy wonder and went out.

"Queer, how it's taken him, sir." Bell rose. "I'd say there's nothing in it myself - but he has a way of feeling things."

"Confound him!" said Lomas. "Confound you. Bell! Go away."

Mr. Fortune's car bore him and Bell into the depths of Camden Town. Navarino Street is shabby genteel houses, all stucco and lace curtains. The inside of number seven fulfilled dismally the promise of the outside. It smelt musty, its landlady was of a dingy and acid propriety, her parlour plush and antimacassars. By the dignity of Superintendent Bell she was unawed. She became shrill with many grievances. She was a respectable woman and kept a respectable house and the police had no right to come bothering her: nothing but botheration; bad enough to have a lodger go off and no notice given: she couldn't afford to keep her rooms empty on the chance my lady was coming back, and she had a right to a week's money, anyhow. So the landlady at length, with repetitions and variations, and the persistence of Bell could extract from her nothing like a fact which they did not know.

"We'll see her rooms, please," he said.

"Rooms!" The landlady sniffed. "She only had one. Bed - sitting she was. First floor back." She took them up, lingered, was dismissed, and withdrew, snorting affront.

"She's all right, sir, I'd say," Bell pronounced.

"Yes. Yes. Only a fool," Reggie murmured. He wandered round the room. It was drearily uncomfortable.

"Looks like all the cheap lodgings I ever saw," said Bell.

"Yes. I don't wonder Celia wanted to get out of it," Reggie mumbled.

"Did she, though? That's rather a point, sir."

"One of the points, yes." Reggie looked about him.

On the faded wills there were some pictures, sentimental and religious. A few popular novels stood on a shelf. "Celia's room don't tell us much about Celia."

"You'd say she wasn't anything in particular."

"I'd say she was poor and didn't mean to make a home here." Reggie opened the wardrobe. There were several frocks in it - good frocks.

"Well, well," he murmured, and went to the chest of drawers. The first that he pulled out was full of dainty clothes. The others also. "I would also say she meant to come back, Bell." 

"I'm sure," Bell nodded. "No girl would leave these behind. Silk, too. That's where the money went. She's got a regular trousseau."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. His round face was without expression.

"You mean Mr. Lomas may be right, sir," Bell smiled. "She's just gone off to get married."

"Leavin' her trousseau behind. Not much done, is it? No. Don't you feel we're up against something queer?" He rummaged in the drawers, he pulled out a box covered with chintz.

"Hallo, she did have some papers then," Bell said eagerly. "Landlady's bills. Savings Bank book. Matter of ten pounds she had. List of clothes. What's this. Menu of restaurant dinner. At the ' Bristol,' too. Flying a bit high for once. And a champagne cork. Some theatre programmes. What's this? Picture cut out of a paper. Photograph of a bit of country. And that's the lot. Not a single letter." Reggie was looking at the picture. "Well. sir, we haven't got much here."

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. "No. I wouldn't say that," and still he gazed at the picture. It showed the head of a valley among hills crowned with trees. "What did she keep this for, Bell?" 

"Good lord, sir, how can you tell? Took her fancy, I suppose. It's cut out of one of the daily papers that publish photos o' landscape. Nice bit o' country."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. 

"Looks like a bit of the chalk downs to my mind."

"Oh no. No. Look at the stream. Those slopes ought to be limestone." He put it away in his pocket. "Let's get on. We'll try Amelie now." He ran downstairs.

"Why, sir, do you think you're on to something?" said Bell, as he settled himself in the car. "We're where we were to my mind."

"Oh no. No. Deeper and deeper yet."

"Well, I don't know why you say so."

"Oh, Bell! oh, my Bell! We find the girl was gettin' clothes together, apparently for her trousseau. But her best friend didn't know there was a man. And when she vanished, she didn't go to get married. We find also that she'd been dining lavish and she thought a lot of the dinner. And finally there is a bit of country which she's very keen on."

"If you can make anything of all that!" Bell cried.

"I can't. That's what worries me."

"You do find such a lot in things," Bell objected. "About that picture, sir. Lots o' people keep photos of a bit of country they like."

"She didn't care for pictures. She didn't keep anything to speak of. What she did keep meant something."

Bell shrugged. "A girl that kept champagne corks!"

"You're so inaccurate. She kept one champagne cork. Which is very suggestive. There was just one dinner and one bottle of champagne which had mattered in her life."

"That looks like a man, don't it?" said Bell.

"Yes. Yes. One of the unknown quantities is probably a man. And her particular friend had never heard of any man. She kept him very quiet."

"If some fellow's been playing tricks with the girl that'd account for everything," Bell pronounced. "Take it like that, and we've got a regular, ordinary case."

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "Why do you fellows want to make every case an ordinary case? 'Is it weakness of intellect, Birdie? I cried.' Lomas said it was all right, a man was just marrying her; now you say it's all right, a man's just ruining her. It isn't ordinary, it isn't all right. It's all queer and horrid. And we can't get near her. We can't get near." Bell looked at him curiously. His round face was pale and unhappy, like a child's in pain it cannot understand.

The car turned out of the stream of traffic into a certain by - street where houses which still try to look private have been taken by tailors and discreet, mysterious agents. There Amelie has established what she would like me to call her atelier.

A minute page in apple green opened to them the door of what looked like a drawing - room sparsely furnished with ladies' maids. One of them minced in careful elegance to Superintendent Bell. "You wish perhaps to see Moddam?"

Bell gave her a card. "If you please."

A languorous hand waved them to chairs. They were left bashful to endure the gaze and the murmurs of the other ministrants.

But not for long. The languorous hand beckoned from the door. They were put into a little office where an ample dark woman sat at her desk. She looked more French than a housewife in a French comic paper. She spoke the English of the City.

"I suppose you want to see me about Miss Gray? Quite at your service. She's left me in the lurch, that's all there is to it. The last girl in the place I'd have thought would do such a thing. Here am I with a hand short in the millinery just as the season is getting busy. Too bad of her."

"Always a respectable girl, was she?" Bell said.

"I've nothing against her. It's not my business how the girls live, but I should have said Miss Gray was quite straight. No glad - eye work. She's not the type men run after. Too refined, if you know what I mean. Quite chic, oh very chic. But no presence. Still, I'm bound to say she was a good worker. She had a touch, not an artist you know, but she could carry out an idea. Quite skilled. It is a scandal how girls treat you. Off she goes without thinking about the business. I've got to fill her place in the rush and not a day's notice. A pretty thing!" Amelie was eloquent of the wrongs of employers.

"Yes, it's a hard world," Reggie drawled. "Have you a photograph of Miss Gray?"

"Is it likely?" Amelie glared at him.

"I suppose not." Reggie sighed and turned over some drawings on her desk, drawings of frocks.

"What do you want a photograph for?" said Amelie with contempt.

Reggie looked up. "Sorry to disturb you. I'm thinking about Miss Gray, you see."

"I can't do anything more for you."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured, and looked again at the drawings.

"What do you mean?" Amelie said fiercely.

"You wouldn't actually mind if we could trace Miss Gray?" Amelie was crimson and spluttered. "Thanks very much. The artist who drew these frocks seems to be able to draw. If she's seen Miss Gray she might draw us a portrait."

"I'm sure I don't know." Amflie was subdued. "You're welcome to try."

"Yes, I thought we should be." Reggie stared at her without respect. "Give me her address. Give me your Miss Higgs, too. I'll take her to help the artist."

"I'll fetch her at once." Amelie hurried out.

"You've put the wind up, sir," Bell said.

"Yes. Yes. Probably means nothing. I should say she's only a brute. But she annoyed me."

The large Miss Higgs fluttering with emotions was an uncomfortable companion in a car. She told them everything all over again, passionately incoherent.

The door of the artist's flat was opened by a buxom girl with a mop of black hair. "Hallo, Bertha" - she made eyes. "What's doing? Who are the little men?"

"Let's come in, may we, Miss Grant?" She bent to the girl's ear. "They're police."

"The constables came in two by two." She led the way to a little untidy room. "What's up, Bertha? Have you been getting pinched?"

"It isn't me. It's about Cely."

"The little milliner? Search me!"

"They wanted you to draw 'er, Miss Grant." 

Miss Grant whistled. "Can do. What was she wearing?"

"The clothes she would wear for a longish journey by rail or car," said Reggie, and Bell looked at him curiously.

"That'd be her grey coat - and the grey 'at," Bertha cried, and explained technically.

"Right - o. Plain or coloured, constable?"

"Colour for choice," said Reggie. "General likeness, please."

"Hold your breath." Miss Grant sat down to her desk... "Not so bad" - she drew back from the damp portrait. "I do best when I dash it."

"It's 'er!" Bertha cried.

Superintendent Bell surveyed it with a professional eye. "It's somebody all right."

"Yes. That's real," Reggie murmured. The little woman in it had a charming shy dignity. He bit his lip. "Thanks very much. Miss Grant. Good - bye." He hurried out.

"What are you going to do now, Mr. Fortune?" Bertha panted after him.

"Look for her," said Reggie. "Run away back to Amelie. I'll let you know as soon as we know anything. Come on, Bell."  He directed the car to Scotland Yard. "Better get this photographed."

"What, you want to send copies to the papers? They'll splash it. 'Pretty young milliner missing! When did you see this face?' I don't like these stunts myself. But it's the only way."

"Oh no. We'd better get ready for it, that's all. When the photograph's taken, you can go up to Paddington with the original."

Bell breathed hard. "That beats me," he said. "Why would I go to Paddington?"

"You would go to ask the fellows on the trains to Worcester and Cheltenham last Saturday if they'd seen that girl: and who was with her and where she got off."

"It's like dreaming, sir." Bell stared at him. "How do you come to know she went that way?"

"I don't. It's the best bet. Remember the picture. That's Cotswold scenery. The inference is she had some particular interest in the Cotswolds. So the first hypothesis is she's gone there. And if she went by rail she'd go by a Worcester train or a Cheltenham train."

"All right, sir. It's wonderfully clever. But I'd say it's a chance of a chance."

Reggie wriggled. "I want to be quick. Bell. Don't you see we've got to be quick."

So Superintendent Bell went to try his luck with the railwaymen at Paddington. Reggie's car took him on to the office of the Daily Recorder. In the files of that paper he found the picture. The description which Celia had not cut out informed him that it was a landscape in the heart of the Cotswold Hills, between Stow - on - the - Wold and Ford. He went home and spent the afternoon in his library over books about the Cotswold country, drearily conscious of futility.

In the evening Lomas surprised him bent over a map. He started up. "Hallo! Any news from Bell?"

"Ingenuous youth!" Lomas chuckled. "No, Reginald. The wretched Bell labours in vain. The Great Western Railway declines to know your little milliner. Most respectable line. He has put her picture before all that can be found of the guards and dining - car men and what not on Worcester and Cheltenham trains and they plead not guilty. Over the telephone he sounds disgruntled. He proposes to wait at Paddington to see one crew more, one lone last hope, but I infer he hasn't any. A faithful fellow. He spoils you, Reginald. You abuse his simple trust. Speaking frankly, this is chasing one of your wildest geese."

"It was a chance," Reggie mumbled.

"My dear fellow! You don't really think so?" Lomas stared. He observed the open map. It displayed the Cotswold country on a large scale. Reggie had marked off a tract; some of the highest ground in which valleys were cut deep and with steep sides: a tract in which villages were small and few. "What is this selected desert?"

"That's where her bit of landscape is. If Bell can't trace her, I'll go down there tomorrow."

"Great heavens!" said Lomas. "My dear fellow, you're not yourself in this case. From every scrap of a fact you make a wild conjecture and take that for evidence. All your theories about the girl are outside reason. This hunt in the Cotswolds is simply fantastic."

"Oh no. No. I'm quite rational, Lomas," Reggie said wearily. "What's the higher intelligence want to do? Nothing?"

"We have to look for the girl, of course. We shall probably disturb her on her honeymoon. But that's her own fault. I came round to speak to you about putting her portrait in the morning papers."

"Send it out, yes. We must try everything." His parlourmaid came in. "What is it?"

"Miss Higgs to see you, sir."

Reggie nodded. "All right. This is the faithful friend, Lomas." And Miss Higgs came tempestuously.

"Mr. Fortune, I've 'eard from Cely. I've 'ad a letter. Waiting for me tonight when I got 'ome. 'Ere, look. Didn't I say she wouldn't never leave me without a word?"

Reggie took the letter. It was addressed in a sketchy, jerky hand. The envelope bore the postmark LONDON, W.2. "This is Miss Gray's writing?" he said.

"Why, Mr. Fortune, of course it is. As if I wouldn't know! It does look a bit splashy. She's kind of flustered, poor dear. But it's 'er. She's all right, thank God." Miss Higgs wiped her eyes.

The letter was written on a sheet torn from a pad. It had no address. Twice the pen made a blot. The writing was spasmodic in short uneven lines which ran downhill.

Thursday. DEAR BERTHA, - 

Don't worry about me. I was wanting to write before. Just a line to tell you not to worry. I'm all right, I'm perfectly all right, dear. I want you to tell Madame and my rooms I shan't be coming back. Can't explain now. It's like being in a dream, all that's happening. Going to be wonderful. Must stop now. I want to see you soon.

Yours ever, CELIA.

Reggie was a long time reading it. He gave it to Lomas. He looked at Miss Higgs. "That's like her, is it? Sort of letter you'd expect?"

"We was always such friends. I knew she wouldn't chuck me," said Miss Higgs affectionately. "Of course, she don't say much. You can see something's come to her. She's that excited."

"Quite," Lomas smiled. "I should say the lady's making a good marriage. Miss Higgs." He gave her back the letter.

"Well, I never did!" Miss Higgs cried. "It does sound like that, sir. But I 'adn't a notion. She was that close! Might be some gentleman what wouldn't want it known he was marrying in the shop."

"Nothing more likely," Lomas agreed. "Anyhow, you're quite satisfied?"

"I should say I was! She did ought to 'ave all the best. She's a lady. And look 'ow she thinks o' me!" Miss Higgs again wept.

"Very nice, very nice." Lomas was paternal. "I hope she always will. So glad it's come to a happy ending. Miss Higgs."

"Thank you, sir." She looked at Reggie, silent and solemn, sunk in his chair. "Thank you, Mr. Fortune. I've give you a lot of trouble for nothing. And you been so kind."

"Oh no. No," Reggie mumbled. "Good night, my dear." He heaved himself up, he got rid of her.

Lomas slapped him on the shoulder. "My poor Reginald!Are we downhearted?"

"Yes. We are," said Reggie, and stared at him with contemptuous dislike.

Lomas chuckled. "This bitterness is very painful, Reginald. I'm afraid you're spoilt. Not one of our good losers. The little milliner must be a lesson to you. Learn to respect the simple mind."

"Have you a mind?" said Reggie. "Then why not use it? You told that girl it was a happy ending. It isn't happy. And it isn't the end."

"My dear fellow! You have a letter which her friend recognizes as the girl's own writing. Do you doubt that?"

"Oh no. She wrote it."

"Good. We return to the world of reason. She said she was all right. She suggested extreme happiness. Isn't that dear?"

"No. No. She said it was 'going to be wonderful.' In the future; the present seemed to be rather hectic."

"Quite. The girl was wildly excited."

"You did notice that? Well, well. Rather vague too, wasn't she? Striking absence of information. She didn't say where she'd gone or why she'd gone or what she was doing."

"What is the theory now?"

"Somebody's breaking her. Ever seen a letter like that before?"

"Oh, it looked a little drunk, of course."

"Drunk. Yes. Drunken writing, wasn't it? Drunken thought: even to repeating she was quite all right. But I don't think she'd been drinking, Lomas. Say disorder of the nervous system."

"By all means," Lomas laughed. "Great nervous excitement. It does happen to girls when they're just married or just going to be."

Reggie was not amused. "Call it fright, then," he said sharply. "Can't you see that letter was written to order? Whoever has got her wants to make sure nobody shall worry about what's happening to her."

"Good gad! This is an obsession. You got it into your head that the girl had had foul play and now you can't bear to be proved wrong. Look at the facts, man."

"Which?"

"The letter will do, thank you. Your wonderful theory was the girl had been carried off to the wilds of the Cotswolds.  Did you see the envelope? Postmark, London."

"Yes. W.2. I did notice it. That made me quite sure. I'm going to the Cotswolds tomorrow."

Lomas cocked his eyebrows. Lomas stood up. "That is the limit," he said. "Good - bye. Thank you for a very pleasant evening. When symptoms of sanity return, let me know."

"Sanity! Oh, my aunt!" Reggie laughed drearily. "Don't you see the people that wouldn't let her put her address on the letter couldn't let it be posted where she was. This little game is being played very carefully."

"Oh, you can spin theories till all's blue. Why should they let her write at all?"

Heavy steps ran up the stairs. Superintendent Bell came in. "I've got her at last, sir," he cried. "She is down there in the Cotswolds."

Reggie turned to Lomas. "Yes. That's that," he said.

Bell continued: "She went on the Cheltenham express last Saturday night. One of the dining - car men knew her picture at once. Knew the man she was with, too. It's a young sportsman who lives down there; they often have him on the Cheltenham trains. Name of Smith - Marner. Mr. Harry Smith - Marner. He took the girl off in his own car at Cheltenham. I 'phoned the police there about him. He has a place out in the hills - Marner Grange. Lives there with his mother."

"Oh, there's a mother," Reggie murmured. "I wonder."

"That don't look so bad, sir. This young fellow, he's a well - thought - of good sportsman. Very old family, the Marners. His pa was called Smith - made a pot of money out of soap or something. He married the Miss Marner who was heiress to this old estate and he took her name and got a knighthood. Dead a long while. Lady Smith - Marner runs the place. She's all right, they say. Don't forget she's somebody. No children but this young man."

"I see no sign of crime, Reginald," Lomas smiled. "The heir of all the Marners wants his wife to get away from the shop, that's all."

"You think so? Well, well. I wonder what Celia thinks by now?" 

"Meaning to go down, sir?" said Bell. "No more trains tonight."

"No. No." Reggie looked at his watch. "My only aunt!" he moaned. "I've had no dinner. One small swift dinner and early to bed. And then the car at dawn. Oh, my hat! You'd better sleep here, Bell." 

"What on earth do you want to do?" Lomas cried.

"I want to see the girl." Reggie looked up with a certain ferocity on his amiable face. "Any objection? I'm going to see the girl - alive or dead."

"Still at it!" Lomas sighed. "All right. If you will go mare's - nesting!" In the doorway he turned. "Try to keep him out of trouble, Bell - but should Lady Smith - Marner tell him off, let her rip."

Pale and glum in the early morning light Reggie climbed into his car and slid deep under rugs. Superintendent Bell tucked him up paternally and. the big car purred away through the shut, silent town. . . . Bell's pipe fell from an opening mouth. Bell was soothed to massive slumber. but Reggie fidgeted, Reggie watched the fleeting miles, drearily wakeful. . . . Spring sunshine broke through the grey sky, the towers of Oxford stood clear, the car slowed for the High Street amidst a ringing of chapel bells. Bell woke and gaped. "Ah! Bless my soul! Here already. Rare fine town, sir."

"Go to sleep," Reggie growled. "We aren't anywhere."

The sprawling suburbs were left behind, they made speed through flat meadowland and climbed on a ridge above the hurry of a stream. The mellow stone of a little town glowed in the sunshine and was left behind; they came upon the hills, long miles of rolling bare land where no smoke stained the air, no house broke the green curves, there was no sound but of the birds and the wind. "Lonely!" Bell grunted.

Reggie fumbled for a map. "After the next village turn right," he called to the chauffeur.

The village slept forlorn about a noble church. They turned away north and the hills broke into deeper valleys, steep slopes falling to clear, swift brown streams edged with gold, and here and there beech - woods covered hollow and ridge.

Reggie came out of his rugs. "Look! There's Celia's picture," he said.

"Bless my soul!" Bell cried. "It is, absolutely. You've hit that off, Mr. Fortune."

"Yes. I think so. And it's quite close to Marner Grange."

Through solitude they came to the stone wall of a park, to ancient gates of wrought iron. "A wolf's head. Crest of the Marners. Well, well."

Bell looked at him. "Right out of the world they've got her, too."

"Yes. Yes. Very neatly managed. Some brains among the Smith - Marners."

Marner Grange was built under the hill, a Tudor Manor House of kindly grace in the mellow Cotswold stone. A small car stood by the porch and its chauffeur looked at them curiously. An antique butler opened the door. He was given the card of Superintendent Bell of the Criminal Investigation Department.

"Take that to Mr. Harry Smith - Marner. Tell him that I have come down from London to see him."

"I will see if Mr. Harry is at home."

"Tell him he is," said Bell.

"This way, if you please." The butler took them out of the hall into a room which was the study of a man who did not study.

They had time to examine it before anyone came to them. At last appeared a slim youth of a pleasant, simple countenance, very fair by nature, which had become of an ashen pallor.

"I say. What's all this?" he cried.

"Mr. Harry Smith - Marner?" said Bell heavily.

"That's my name. What do you want?"

"The police have received information that Miss Celia Gray, employed by Amelie, Rye Street, London, disappeared in suspicious circumstances. Miss Gray was traced travelling with you to Cheltenham. I want to know where she is."

"She's here, of course. There's nothing suspicious." The young man flushed. "My mother's here. I don't know what you mean. My mother asked her down and she's been staying on."

"Is that so? Then we want to see her."

The young man's colour faded again. "See her?" he cried. "I say, you can't talk about a lady like that. I don't know if she ought - if she'd like - - I'll have to ask my mother. I - -"

The door opened. "If you please, sir," the old butler spoke. "Dr. Whinney wishes to speak to you."

The young man hurried out.

"Looks queer," Bell said. "He's got very cold feet."

"Yes. Yes. Severe mental disturbance. Him also. That's very interesting. You never know, you know. Actions and reactions. And there's a doctor about. Well, well. I wonder if Dr. Whinney will like speaking to me."

Bell stared at him. "You're cheering up, sir. Do you reckon you see your way through it?"

"Oh no. No. It's opening out. But they're playing with souls. Bell. Not a nice game. Not at all a nice game." He wandered away to the books, looking at one and another. "This won't do, Bell," Reggie said. "Dr. Whinney has too much to say. Come on."

In the hall the butler confronted them. "Mr. Smith - Marner is engaged, sir."

"Where?" Reggie snapped. The butler's chill horror rebuked him in silence. But through the silence he heard the young man's voice. It rose high. Bell swept the butler away. They crossed the hall to Lady Smith - Marner's drawing - room.

The door opened upon emotions. The young man sat huddled; his hands hid his face and he muttered in a broken voice. His mother had her arm about his shoulders. "My dear Harry," she was saying, "my dear boy."

Two men watched with sympathy: a small sleek one who was murmuring, "My dear fellow, I am most distressed "; another, lanky and military, who barked, "A sad business. A sad business. Have to face it. Harry. What the devil! Who are you, sir?"

They all became aware of Reggie and Superintendent Bell. The lad's pallor showed drawn and blotchy. He waved them away as if they were wraiths in the air. Lady Smith - Marner started up, a tall woman in black, white hair piled above a gaunt bloodless face. She bit her lip. Her lean bosom heaved. She swept upon them. "An outrage," she said hoarsely and her voice found strength. "This is an outrage."

"Oh no. No." Reggie met her. "You've made it necessary. You know who we are."

"I know nothing, sir."

"Why say so?" Reggie sighed. "Dr. Whinney!" The smaller of the two men stood up. "My name's Fortune, Reginald Fortune. You may have heard it. The discomfort of Dr. Whinney made plain that he had. "I'm here to make a medical report on the case of Miss Gray for the Criminal Investigation Department. Any objection?"

The young man's face was distorted with fear, horror, shame. "My God! Oh, my God!" he groaned, and rushed out.

"What has affected your son, madam?" Reggie said coldly.

"How dare you!" she muttered.

The military man swung forward. "Steady, Agnes, steady. May as well tell him. Can't be a secret, you know, damn it. Doing his duty, what? Sit down, Mr. Fortune. This is a very painful affair, sir. Sad thing for the family. Now -"

"See what the boy's up to, Bell," said Reggie over his shoulder, and Bell strode away. "Now who are you?"

"Colonel Marner, sir. I'm Lady Smith - Marner's cousin."

"Oh yes. Yes. Are you managing this affair for her?"

"Damme, sir, I'm the only man in the family. Now."

"Except her son," Reggie murmured. "Oh yes." He swung round on the unhappy little doctor. "Now, Dr. Whinney, what are you going to tell me?"

"Really, Mr. Fortune" - the doctor made mouths - "you see my position. Professional confidence - good gracious, what's that?"

It was a thudding crash, the noise of a scuffle, a gunshot, a fall. Reggie ran out. The smell of powder met him. Bell called, "Mr. Fortune, sir." In the room across the hall Bell was kneeling beside a young man's body.

"Came here and locked the door, sir. So I broke in. He was getting one of his guns fixed to fire into his face. See the rod there to shove the trigger. I went for him, but he had his shot. Took him somewhere up here by the neck. I don't know if he's gone, there's such a mess. These shot - gun wounds - -"

A hoarse cry tore through his talk. The mother had seen that wound.

She caught at Reggie bent working on the senseless body. "Is he dead?" she muttered.

"No. No." For a quick moment Reggie looked up at her. "But he's tried hard. You're in the way, madam. The room dear, please. Dr. Whinney!" The little doctor came shaking. . . . The wound was dressed and bound. . . .

"That'll do now. I want him taken to a trustworthy nursing home. Go and telephone."

"Really, I don't know, Mr. Fortune-"  the doctor stammered. "Lady Smith - Marner - couldn't he remain here?"

"A nursing home I can trust. Tell 'em to send an ambulance."

"Well, of course it is a very nasty case." The little doctor was torn with anxieties.

"Yes. Quite nasty. For everybody. And I'm in charge."

"Certainly, Mr. Fortune. Quite so, yes. I - I will tell Lady Smith - Marner."

"Go and telephone," said Reggie sharply. Dr. Whinney fled.

The young man lay, decently and in order now, waking to half - consciousness. "Stand by, Bell," Reggie murmured. "Don't let anybody talk to him. Tell him not to worry. Ah!" A light step was moving outside. He went to the door.

Behind it appeared the brown face of Colonel Marner. "How goes it, what?"

Reggie came out and shut the door behind him. "The boy is still alive," he said.

"You don't like the look of it, do you? Whinney's telephoning for nurses, I hear."

"No. For a room in a nursing home."

"Quite so. Let's know how we stand. What's going to happen to the boy? Looked a nasty thing to me. I remember a poor chap in India, love affair don't you know, went out shooting, put a shot into himself. Didn't look such a mess as this. But they couldn't do anything. Called it accident, of course, for the sake of his people. Only decent, what?"

"Oh! You've been in India," Reggie murmured, and his eyes opened. "Oh yes. Well, this boy ought to pull through. If he's properly cared for. That's why he's going to a nursing home."

He turned away, he sought Dr. Whinney... The telephone was still in action...

Dr. Whinney gushed apologies: very sorry for the delay: difficult to get through to Cheltenham. Unfortunately Miss Ablett's nursing home was full. But he had been offered a choice of rooms at Miss Dumaresq's: really very good: Mr. Fortune could have every confidence in her: and the ambulance should arrive in half an hour, well, an hour at most. He did hope - - 

"Do you?" said Reggie. "What about the girl? Come on." He opened the door of Lady Smith - Marner's drawing - room. It appeared that the Colonel's explanations with her had been stormy. Some swift, vehement talk was suddenly hushed; she stood very close to him, gripping his arm.

She swept round upon Reggie. "Is my boy going to live?" she cried.

"I think he will live if he wants to live, madam," said Reggie slowly. "Why did he want to die?"

She bit her lip. "It is this woman," she said.

"A most painful affair, sir," the Colonel barked. "Most distressing, begad. The boy was infatuated with the poor creature. And she - well, well, the doctor will tell you."

"One moment. One moment. You can tell me something, madam. Why did Miss Gray come to your house?"

"My boy wished to marry her. I had never seen her. You know what she is. A girl in a milliner's shop. Harry is all I have. I told him to bring her here."

"Very generous, too," the Colonel grunted.

"The boy had your consent to marry her, madam?"

"Nothing was decided. When the girl came here we saw she - she wasn't well."

"Which the boy hadn't noticed before. She came on Saturday night. How soon was she ill?"

"On Sunday we thought she wasn't quite normal." Lady Smith - Marner spoke as if each word hurt her. "Very excited and noisy."

"Might have been feverish, don't you know?" the Colonel explained.

"After that she got very strange. Sometimes in wild spirits and then depressed and sullen. She - she puzzled us very much."

"Took to seeing things, if you know what I mean," the Colonel put in. "Poor girl, she'd say 'What's that?' all of a sudden, when there wasn't really anything."

"Yes. Very painful for the boy. When did you have the doctor?"

"I sent for Dr. Whinney on Tuesday."

Reggie turned to the doctor. "Your case from Tuesday. Well?"

"I - I - it has been a very distressing case, Mr. Fortune," the little man stammered. "I thought possibly some nervous strain - in the circumstances - a hysterical condition. I found the symptoms - the symptoms Lady Smith - Marner describes. I ordered the patient to bed - complete rest. But her condition has grown worse. The senses are disordered. There is grave mental disturbance. There are hallucinations. Her judgment of time and distance and sound is quite uncertain. I was forced to the conclusion it is a case of paranoia. I had to tell the poor boy this morning."

"You told him the girl was mad. Yes, I thought so. And now I'll see her."

"Certainly, Mr. Fortune. Of course, I shall be very glad-" Reggie pointed to the door.

The room to which he was taken was vast and dim, so closely its casements were curtained, so dark the panelled walls, so gloomy the ancient furniture. In a corner he made out a four - poster bed hung with crimson. He looked at Dr. Whinney without affection. "Nice wholesome mausoleum," he muttered. He went to the window and dragged back all the curtains.

From the bedside a nurse arose, rustled forward with an important show of moving quietly and spoke in a penetrating whisper. "She's very low. Doctor. The light's bad for her."

"I'll call you when I want you," said Reggie, and she retired dwindling.

In the wide expanse of the four - poster there was a little mound. Celia lay with her knees drawn up to her body, burying her face in the pillow. "Well, well." Reggie bent over her. "Good morning, Miss Gray. Harry wants me to have a look at you. My name's Fortune. A doctor, you know. All the way from London."

"Harry sent for you?" She turned to look at him. He saw the charming shy face of the portrait, wan and anxious, with fear haunting dull eyes.

He took her hand. "Now we're friends." His fingers moved to the pulse. "You see, I know Bertha. So I know something about Bertha's friend. And I ought to be able to find out what's gone wrong with her." He was looking close into the sunken, dark - rimmed eyes. "Tell me all about things."

"You know Bertha?" she said, as if she could not believe it. A little colour came into her face.

"Oh yes. Yes. Bertha's rather a dear, isn't she? Well, how have you been feeling down here?"

She frowned. "What was that noise?"

Dr. Whinney coughed. Dr. Whinney touched Reggie's arm. "Yes, ignorin' the doctor's silly cold," said Reggie, " which noise do you mean?"

"It was this morning. I'm sure it was this morning."

From her banishment the nurse spoke with prim satisfaction: "I told Miss Gray it was nothing, doctor."

"She thinks I'm mad," Celia cried. "I know she thinks I'm mad."

"Oh, my dear!" said the nurse. "You mustn't talk like that."

Reggie looked over his shoulder. "I've heard all I want of you," he said sharply and came back to the girl. "It don't matter what nurse thinks. If she can think. There was a noise, of course: an awful crash. Somebody hit a door and things fell down."

"There was! Oh, I'm so glad. I've heard things before and they said there wasn't a sound. And afterwards I thought really there wasn't." She thrust her tumbled hair back from her brow. "Then seeing things, too: they couldn't really be real."

"Nice things?" Reggie said gently.

She blushed. "Oh - oh, yes." Her voice was faint. "Only like dreams. Sort of gorgeous. Like a big scene in a theatre."

"And you were happy while you saw them?"

"Awfully happy. Only when they're gone it's dreadful. Sort of being dead while you're alive," She looked at him and he saw the fear in her eyes darker. "Oh, that's ghastly. Do you know?"

"Yes, I think so," Reggie said gently. "Now just shut your eyes a minute." His hand moved upon her. "Do you feel me touch you? Tell me if I do. Tell me where." Sometimes she knew, sometimes she felt nothing. "Eyes open. All over." He took her hand. "Well, I'm going to look after you. I'm going to take you away from this gloomy old room into a nursing home where you can be comfy. And you're going to be quick and get well. Now just curl up and be peaceful. I'll be back soon."

"Oh, you are nice," she said faintly.

Reggie moved to the door, beckoning the nurse after him. "Don't talk to her," he said in a low voice. "Don't give her anything. If anything more happens to her in this house, I'll make you responsible." He turned to the little doctor. "Now I'll talk to you. Where's a room?"

Dr. Whinney babbled: "Certainly, Mr. Fortune, if you please. I am sure we may use this." They went into an old sun parlour. "I hope you don't think - -"

"What have you been giving her?"

"Why, really - nothing but a sedative. Just a little bromide."

"Who brought that nurse in?"

"Really, Mr. Fortune. I thought it quite necessary - and Lady Smith - Marner asked me to get a nurse who could control the poor girl - be firm with her, you know, in her delusions. I was bound to agree."

Reggie contemplated the little man without affection. "Lady Smith - Marner told you she wanted a firm nurse and you agreed. Yes. Did Lady Smith - Marner tell you she wanted the girl found mad?"

"Good heavens, Mr. Fortune! Upon my word. I don't understand you."

"I was wondering if you agreed to that, too."

"This - this is really intolerable," the little man stammered. "I'm not to be treated so. Mr. Fortune. I - I - -"

"Yes. You're very uncomfortable. You ought to be. You told that boy the girl was mad and he went and shot himself. And she's not mad. She's been drugged."

"Drugged?" The little man gasped. "It's not possible. What drug?"

"Don't you know?" said Reggie. "I do."

"I swear I never thought of such a thing."

"Yes. You haven't thought much, have you?" The sound of a car was heard. Reggie looked out of the window. "Well, here's the ambulance. We'll deliver you of your patients, Doctor." He ran downstairs.

The lad lay conscious, staring at the grave, paternal presence of Superintendent Bell. "Well, young man." Reggie felt about his wrist. "Yes. I've seen your Celia. She's going to be all right, you know. Nothing to worry about. Now then." The men from the ambulance carried the lad away. "That'll do nicely. You'll take him to Miss Dumaresq's home. Tell her Mr. Fortune will be there soon. And I want another room for a lady, a nice room. Then come back here with the ambulance for her."

The ambulance drove off. "Mr. Fortune, if you please," Dr. Whinney twittered. "Mr. Fortune, just a word - -"

Reggie stared at him. "I don't want you any more. You may go home - and think." Reggie drew Bell into the house. "Anything happen while I was upstairs?"

"The boy's mother came in, sir. I said not to talk. She just looked at him, kind of ghastly. He must have seen her, but he didn't seem to. She gave a sort of groan and went away. I reckon it's hit her hard."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. He drew a long breath. "Well, let's deal with 'em." He took Bell into the drawing - room.

Lady Smith - Marner was by the window staring out. She did not choose to see him. The Colonel was more affable. "Well, Mr. Fortune, got poor Harry comfortably provided for? That's good. You've made your examination of the girl, what? Formed an opinion?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Quite a clear case. There's only one point." He stopped. "Lady Smith - Marner!" he said sharply.

The gaunt face turned to him. The eyes were dim.

"Was it part of the scheme that Harry should be made to kill himself?"

"What the devil do you mean, sir?" the Colonel roared.

"Oh, don't be noisy. I can see it would suit you very well if Lady Smith - Marner were left without a son. You're quite obvious. I did wonder whether his mother was ready at that, too."

"I never meant - I never thought-" Lady Smith - Marner gasped. "Oh, my God, what have you told Harry?"

"Damme, Agnes, don't let the fellow bully you!" the Colonel barked.

Reggie watched her. "Yes. I shall have to tell him something. You couldn't bear him to marry a girl out of a shop. When you found that he wouldn't give the girl up, you asked the girl to the house in order to drug her till she seemed mad. I might tell Harry that."

Lady Smith - Marner gazed at him and her lips moved, but she did not speak. "Drugs, sir?" the Colonel barked. "Damme, you're mad yourself. The girl's had a doctor. He knows all about her. He - -"

"Oh, the doctor." Reggie shrugged. " He was very nice and tame, wasn't he? I suppose you had reckoned up the doctor beforehand. And, as you say, it wasn't an English drug, Colonel. You mentioned you'd been in India. Very kind of you. That explained the case before I saw the girl. Do you use the stuff yourself?"

"What stuff, sir? Damme, what do you dare to suggest?"

"Cannabis indica. I suppose you call it Bhang or Hashish."

"Never heard of it," the Colonel growled.

"Oh yes. They eat it in India. Very excitin'. You're rather excited, aren't you? We call it - hemp. Used here for other purposes, Colonel Marner."

The Colonel's eyes swelled bloodshot. He made throaty noises. "Confounded impudence - don't you bully me, sir - infernal trick - know nothing about it."

"Oh - you coward," the woman cried. "Mr. Fortune - he did it - we did it. It's my fault. God knows it's my fault. I hated the girl so. But he thought of this way. He had this thing - he used it. He said if we gave her enough it would make her so wild and strange Harry would think she was out of her mind and have to break it off. And the drug wouldn't hurt her really - only make her so strange that even a doctor couldn't tell, and we could trust Dr. Whinney. So I gave her the stuff. It's me, me. And Harry - oh, I wish I'd died first. I wish I were dead. I never thought it would make him-" Her voice failed.

Reggie swung round on the Colonel. " That's all. When we want you, we'll find you," he said, and the Colonel slunk out.

"Mr. Fortune," the woman said faintly. "I never meant - -"

"Not the boy's death, no. I believe that," Reggie frowned. "Only breakin' the girl's life."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm not thinkin' about you."

"Oh, God, if I could die!" she sobbed. "What are you going to tell Harry?"

"Yes. That's what matters," he said gently. "They must have their chance. So I'm going to give you yours. Good - bye."

THIRD EXPLANATION

THE WEDDING - RING

ON a winter afternoon Mr. Fortune came back from a triumphant row with a physician over a culture of bacteria to be told that a doctor had called to see him. Few doctors do so without appointment. This one had startled Edith, the parlourmaid, by desiring to wait for the unknown moment of Mr. Fortune's return. He had been waiting a couple of hours. He gave the name of Dr. Marshall and said Mr. Fortune would not know him but his affair was urgent. In the opinion of Edith he was a foreigner.

"All right. Bring him along," said Reggie, and turned into his consulting - room.

The next moment Edith came fluttering: "He's not in here, sir. He must have gone."

"Well, well," Reggie sighed. "Has the silver gone, too?" And Edith fled.

But the doctor had stolen nothing.

It was an hour later when Edith disturbed him. "A lady, sir. She says she's Dr. Marshall's wife. Madame Marshall. She asked if he'd been here and wants to see you."

"You told her he had been?" Reggie frowned.

"No, sir, I didn't." Edith reproved him with conscious virtue. "I said I'd inquire."

"Oh yes. That's right. I'll see her."

A slim dark woman tripped in. "Mr. Fortune? I am Madame Marchal," she pronounced it as a French word. Reggie murmured that he hadn't the honour "But you know my husband. Dr. Marchal."

"Do I?" Reggie contemplated her with half - shut eyes. She was young, but many years more than a girl. A sharp, knowing face. She was excited but quite sure of herself. Not English, possibly French. Not too well off. Discreet dark clothes. Like a secretary or superior clerk. But she had a wedding - ring all right. It showed as she twisted her bare hands.

"He's been with you this afternoon. You've seen him," she cried.

Reggie shook his head. Reggie smiled. "I'm afraid this won't do, you know. I'm a medical man. I can't tell you whether anybody has been to consult me or not."

"But I am his wife, Mr. Fortune."

"Quite. Naturally you have his confidence." Reggie bowed.

"His confidence? Oh yes. Perfectly. I know that he desired to consult you." Large dark eyes gazed at Reggie with tragic intensity. "Mr. Fortune! He came to you this afternoon and he is not returned to me."

"My dear lady " - Reggie smiled "are you suggesting that I have made away with your husband? If you think that, you should apply to the police."

"Oh, heaven! Why are you so cruel with me? I am distracted. My poor husband, he is lost, he is vanished! Mr. Fortune - did you see anything strange in him? What did he say to you? What did you advise him?"

"Oh, my dear lady! If you knew he wanted to talk to me, of course you know what he wanted to say."

"I know, of course!" she cried. "It was - it was an affair of science. But look! He has vanished. What has happened? What did you tell him to do?"

And again Reggie shook his head. "Oh no. No. If I had given professional advice to a man, I shouldn't be able to say what it was."

"Oh, you are cruel. It is my husband, and I want to know why he has not come back to me, what has become of him."

"Yes. Yes. Quite natural." Reggie contemplated her with closing eyes. "But you can't get the answer from me."

"You will not help me?" she cried. "That is brutal! Ah, I waste my time with you." She whirled to the door.

"When you want help the police are always anxious to oblige," said Reggie, and followed her out. She stopped and looked back at him. "Allow me," Reggie murmured, and opened the street door.

She ran out to a waiting taxi. "Go on. Go back," she cried to the driver, and got in quickly. The taxi turned and Reggie saw a man inside.

He went back to his room with a mild curiosity as to what it was all about. Madame Marchal seemed to him generally and in detail unsatisfactory. But at this stage he had no other opinion: he could not make any sense of things. This he considers a sad proof of his lack of insight. The simple nature of the case should have been already clear.

He dined at home and alone, for his wife was in the country, and after dinner went on with his letters. It was late when he had finished and he took them out himself to catch the last post. The night was dark and murky. As he came to the pillar - box he felt men hurrying behind him. He stepped aside and the blow of a sandbag swished by his head, another hit his side and sent him staggering against the railings of an area: he found the gate in them and as the sandbags struck again he went through, struck again as he went, and fell and rolled down the steps to the kitchen door. He made much noise.

Where he fell he lay. The assailants did not follow him. They looked through the railings, they muttered together, they vanished hastily. The kitchen door was opening. A belt of light came into the area and fell on him and after the light a butler in shirt - sleeves. "What's the game? Why, it's Mr. Fortune!"

"Yes, I think so," Reggie mumbled. He scrambled to his feet, holding to the butler. "Get me inside, there's a good chap." He was brought into the empty kitchen. "Oh, my hat!" he moaned, and felt himself painfully.

"Hurt bad, sir? However did you come to fall down the area?"

Reggie blinked at him. "I'm quite sober, you know."

"I can see that, sir. But how did it happen?"

"I was just going to post - and some fellows jostled me - and the gate came open - and I came down - and that's that. See if I've dropped my letters in the area, will you?" But the letters were not to be found. "Sorry to bother you. Whose house is this?"

"Sir Roger Brown's, sir. You know Sir Roger. But I'm afraid he's gone to bed."

"That's all right. I didn't come to see him. I say, would you mind just helping me back to my place? I'm a little shaky."

The butler helped him like a father. But the darkness of the street was empty. Reggie shut his door and limped to the telephone and sat down by it. "Is that you, Lomas? Fortune speaking. Yes, I know I ought to be in bed. I'm going. But I want you to send some stout fellow to watch my humble home. A nice big policeman or two, please. Then I shall feel comfy. What's the matter? I don't know. But somebody doesn't love me. Rather queer things have been happening. I'd better have some of the higher intelligence on it. Anything definite? Oh yes, quite definite. It nearly vitiated my future career. The silent tomb yawned for Reginald. You'll come round yourself? My dear old thing, that's very gratifying." He limped upstairs to his dressing - room.

He had removed his damaged clothes and the dirt, he was completing an examination of his aching body, when a car drove up and the bell rang. He got into a dressing - gown and reconnoitred from an upper window and saw the slim shape of Lomas accompanied by men of comforting solidity. He made haste to let them in.

"Good gad!" Lomas stared at him. "My dear fellow!"

"Yes. The eye blackens rapidly. Other parts also."

"My dear Reginald." Lomas took him by the arm. "You come along to bed. We've got men watching the house and one will stay inside. It's all right now,"

"Oh yes. Yes. Quite all right. Bed is indicated. I ache at large. Nothing serious, but tiring. I shall be very stiff tomorrow. And not beautiful. That schoolgirl complexion is lost awhile. Ow!"

Lomas helped him to bed with solicitude. "Now what about a doctor, young fellow?"

"Oh no. No. The medical profession is superfluous. We'll keep it quite quiet. Give 'em something to think about."

"Who do you mean?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. Dr. Marchal perhaps. With him Madame Marchal. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Somebody must yearn to know whether I am a corpse or otherwise. And what's being done about it. Let's be mysterious, too. Same like the vanishin' doctor. Lomas, dear, I'm confusin' you. It is confusin' to the simple mind." And he told the story of the Marchals and the attack. "There's the crude, bewilderin' facts. And if you can see what they mean, I shall be delighted. And surprised." He gazed dreamily at Lomas with the one eye which remained open. "Yes, I should say we're goin' to be a good deal surprised before we're done with it. Speakin' broadly, anything would surprise me."

"One thing's clear," said Lomas briskly.

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "And what is that?"

"There's been a determined attempt to kill you."

"Ow! I wish you wouldn't make me laugh. It hurts. Yes. Somebody is not loving me. I did notice that. One of the crude facts. But its meaning escapes me. Why should anyone want to eliminate me?"

"Let's take it from the beginning," said Lomas in a superior, instructive manner.

And Reggie murmured: "Yes, dear."

"The natural explanation is that these Marchals were engaged in the attack on you."

"Yes. It could be. Yes. Some connection between the Marchals and the sandbags is indicated. But why the sandbags? Why does anyone want to slay poor Reginald? Cui bono? Who's goin' to gain by my decease? I haven't got anything big in hand."

Lomas nodded. "There's no important case just now. I thought of that."

"I riled old Basildon today, showin' him he didn't know a streptococcus when he met one. But he wouldn't murder me. He only wanted to."

"This is a nasty business. An attack on you is an attack on the work of the police."

"Yes. Yes. Also it hurts."

"As there's no question of interference with a case in hand, the motive must be revenge. Someone you've convicted, or his friends would like to get even with you."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie sighed. "I suppose I've made a few earnest enemies."

"We've had a case or two before, haven't we?"

Reggie moved uncomfortably. "Rather a near thing once or twice. Yes. And this was near enough. Yes. Revenge is one possibility. But there are difficulties. You can fit the vanishing doctor into revenge. Or Madame. But not the two of 'em together."

"Quite simple, my dear fellow. Marchal couldn't get at you, so Madame was sent to discover if you were going to be out for ever."

"That's why she was so anxious to know whether I had seen Marchal? I wonder."

"Naturally she wanted to find out if you had any suspicions."

"Yes. She did want. She very much wanted to find out what I made of the vanishing Marchal. But I don't think she knew whether I'd seen him or not. That's why I didn't tell her."

"No doubt Marchal was sent to attack you, got scared of waiting so long, thought he was suspected, and bolted. So the people behind him wouldn't know what happened."

"Theory number two," said Reggie wearily. "You can have which you like, Lomas, but not both."

Lomas stared. "There's no new theory. I'm only working out this idea of a conspiracy of revenge."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! First theory, Marchal went back to the hypothetical people behind him and said I was not at home, so they sent Madame to see if I'd come in. All right. Second theory, Marchal got the wind up and bolted, so the people behind him didn't know what had happened to him and Madame was sent to find out. All right again. But one must be wrong."

"There's no real difficulty," Lomas pronounced.

And Reggie moaned, "Oh, my hat!"

"Don't you see, it's obvious there are people in it besides the Marchals - -"

"Oh yes. My friends with the sandbags. I did notice em."

"Whether Marchal has bolted in a funk or has been working with them all the time doesn't matter much."

"My only aunt," Reggie moaned.

"The point is, we have to deal with a gang who are out for your blood. Well, they won't get it now." Lomas looked at him with affection. "I'll see to that, old man. But I have to get them. And the only clue is these Marchals."

"Yes. Thanks very much. A hefty man or so will be grateful and comfortin'. Yes. Safety first. I have no desire to die for my country. But this revenge motive is only a hypothesis, you know. Not one of our best hypotheses, Lomas old thing."

"What's in your mind?"

"Well, some of the facts don't fit into it. What worried Madame was that she didn't know whether I'd seen Marchal or not. What she was afraid was that he'd told me something."

"Why naturally, she was afraid, as the man had bolted, he might have given them away."

"All right. Try again. When I went out, I had some letters to post. Those letters didn't go into the area with me. They weren't on the pavement when I came back home. They must have been taken by the sandbag men. The only possible inference is those fellows wanted to make sure I shouldn't send information of anything Marchal had told me."

"Good gad!" said Lomas. "That's an odd thing. But it's rather mad. You'd been hours in the house. Anything urgent that Marchal might have told you, you would have telephoned. They couldn't expect you to write us a letter about it"

"Yes. That's assuming Marchal came to tell me something short and snappy. But they seem to have thought it would want writing out."

"What on earth could that be?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. But you see there's another possible hypothesis. Marchal came to give me some information, and because I may have it somebody felt it worth while to do me in."

"Quite. It is a possibility. But we come back to the same point. The only clue is the Marchals. That's what I said."

"Dear Lomas," Reggie smiled. "Ow! I wish you wouldn't be funny. Who is Marchal, what is he, that I have got it in the neck? What's become of Marchal, since he gave us all the slip? Run away and look for him. He isn't in the medical directory. Madame is a dark slim thing in dark clothes not too good. Nearly new wedding - ring - very yellow - she's certainly foreign. Might be French. She went off in a taxi with a man in it about eight." He yawned. "That's all the available facts. And I wish you luck." His one operative eye closed. He wriggled down into bed. "I would like to sleep if it could be managed. Good - bye."

"My dear fellow," said Lomas affectionately. "Sleep the clock round. We'll look after you."

But the energies of the solemn men who watched over Reggie's house were not called for. Undisturbed, his bruised and sprained body rested, his face sank back into its natural shape and colour. And day by day his telephoned inquiries to the Criminal Investigation Department became more satirical.

Till Lomas brought Superintendent Bell to lunch. "You've been sounding peevish, Reginald. I always find Bell has a soothing influence."

"You've had a bad time, sir," said Bell with solicitude.

"Not nice, no. Startlin' at the moment. Kind of lookin' at the everlastin' void. Bell. And afterwards painful. But the pain is now in the mind."

"Ah! That sort of thing shakes you up, doesn't it?" Bell nodded.

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! I'm not a plaintive sufferer. I want to know what's become of the elusive Marchal. That's my complaint. Well, come and lunch. I can eat both sides of my mouth now. Very gratifyin'! You watch. Ignore the iridescent eye."

He fed them on oysters and an entrecote Elise, that rich way of dealing with beef which he designed and christened with his cook's name; he gave them Richebourg to drink and apologized for the meal. "A trifle crude, a trifle coarse. But fortifyin' to the nerves. Vigour is what we need."

"Sleep is what I shall need," Lomas chuckled. "We haven't been exactly dawdling, sir," Bell protested. "You know this isn't an easy case to handle. Absolutely the only thing we had to work on was these Marchals coming and going here. I've got a taxi - driver who picked up a man and a woman in Regent Street and drove 'em to your house and drove 'em back to the Marble Arch. That's not going to do us a lot o' good. He didn't notice the man. It was the woman did the talking. He describes her same as you did. Then about Marchal. A taxi was engaged by a chap in your street about tea - time that day and drove him to the Victory Hotel - big, fair chap. Well, they've had a Doctor and Madame Marchal there. Came in the morning. On that evening Marchal went out again and a taxi took a big man like him to Hertford Place - you know, up in Westminster - he didn't give a number, he wasn't seen to go in anywhere. There we've lost him. He hasn't been back to the hotel as far as we know. Madame stayed on two days. Then she left and we lose her. The hotel noticed nothing special about 'em. Luggage, a couple o' suitcases. Thought they were foreigners. Only their names in the register."

"Bell, have you told me all?" said Reggie solemnly. 

"Well, of course there was one other clue - the sandbagging. I'd say that was a professional crook's job, it was managed so neat. If you hadn't thought of going down the area they'd have done you in. And I never knew anybody but a professional use a sandbag."

"Professional work," Reggie smiled. "Yes, I thought that. What about it?"

"Well, we don't have sandbags much in London."

"Yes. Yes. Again foreign talent is suggested. Another little point. The directin' intelligence is cautious. If they'd used the knife they could have got me just as well. Probably they would have got me. But it would have been plain murder. If I'd been found dead in the road with a fractured skull and a bruise or two I should have gone to the grave as a traffic accident."

"Yes, very likely," Lomas grinned. "As you wouldn't have done the post - mortem yourself."

"Don't be facetious. It would have been most annoyin'. Think of me in heaven watchin' another doctor report it accidental death and you fellows hushin' up the case. My hat! I'd have come back to haunt you."

"You would, Reginald, I'm sure you would," Lomas chuckled.

Bell was shocked. "This sort of talk doesn't help," he rebuked them.

"Oh, my Bell! Not wholly irrelevant. I'm pointin' out that if the thing had gone accordin' to plan, there would have been no tiresome policeman sniffin' after the Marchals. Two inferences. First that somebody don't want us to know the Marchals, though Marchal came runnin' round to me. Second, that the somebody is a cautious, far - sighted mind but frightened. He can plan very clever, he has large resources, he is in some sort of danger and he'll do anything he can think of to save himself. I don't like it, Lomas. I don't like it at all. I should say we'll get him in the end. These clever nervous criminals generally put in one crime too many. But he may do a lot of damage first."

"My dear fellow!" Lomas pushed back in his chair. "This is sheer prophecy. You not only imagine the required criminal but tell his fortune! Very daring. Not like you at all."

"Imagine!" Reggie moaned. "Oh, my aunt! Imagine nothing. That's what he is. Don't you feel it in the facts?"

He led the way to his library and set them smoking and lit a long cigar and sank into a chair. "Yes. The primary problem is, what was Marchal coming to tell me?"

"You give up the theory of revenge?" Lomas said.

"No. I never had it. No. I wonder how things would have worked out if I had told Madame I hadn't seen Marchal."

Bell frowned at him. "Why didn't you tell her just that? Seems the natural thing."

"Because she wasn't natural. Because I didn't believe in her."

"Ah! You always thought she was fishy. Then what did you think she was up to?"

"I hadn't the slightest idea. But I thought if she believed I knew something she'd show her hand."

"Your mistake," said Lomas.

"Oh no. No. We had a trump played. Attempt to murder me. It didn't take the trick. But it shows you the sort o' card they've got ready. And the card they're afraid of - what Marchal knows."

"My dear fellow. This is nothing but fancy. What could Marchal have been going to tell you?"

And again Reggie murmured, "I haven't the slightest idea." Then he sat up. "Anything else occur to you, Bell?"

"Not me, sir. Everything's broken down."

"I wouldn't say that. There are points. Curious diffusion of the Marchals over London. He goes to Westminster and vanishes. She is picked up in Regent Street and dropped at the Marble Arch. Another curious point. Very curious. Madame stays on at the hotel two days after the vanishing of Marchal."

"Probably waiting for news of your death." Lomas shrugged.

"I wonder. Well, take the definite spots in Marchal's movements. Victory Hotel, Hertford Place, Westminster. Who lives in Hertford Place?"

"You can take it we've worked that out, sir. Absolutely first - class people. Young Rimington of the Rimington firm Sir Blayne Gorton, Lady Esther Botynor, Viscount Ford, and Mr. Spennilove the architect. Nothing known of any Dr. Marchal calling. Gorton's away, but I saw his butler. He's all right."

"Yet the elusive and foreign Marchal picked out this small distinguished street. Curiouser and curiouser. Architect? I think not. Ford - he's a discharged politician. No. Lady Esther's a lamb. I've met her. Gorton - Blayne Gorton-" He looked at Lomas.

"Chemical manufacturer. Quite well known. Leading man in his line."

"Yes. That is so." Reggie blew smoke rings. "Yes. And Gorton is away. Was Gorton away when Marchal drove to Hertford Place?"

"I didn't get that." Bell frowned. "The butler just said he was away. And nobody had called that night. Quite clear."

"One more house. Young Rimington. The Rimingtons have a finger in a lot o' pies."

"My dear fellow!" Lomas was impatient. "Historic firm. Sound as the Bank - and as straight. What's in your mind? It's absurd to suspect Rimingtons or Gortons of conspiracy with a gang of crooks."

"Oh yes. Yes. That is indicated. But you don't explain why Marchal drove to Hertford Place."

"Because he was going somewhere else," said Lomas.

"You think so?" Reggie murmured. "Well, well. Take it from the other end. What about the Victory Hotel? Did you see the chambermaid, Bell?" 

"Yes, sir. Saw every one who had to do with 'em. She couldn't describe 'em."

Reggie gazed at him with dreamy eyes. "I wonder," he murmured. "I'd like to talk to the chambermaid."

Bell was not pleased. "What do you think I've missed, sir?"

"Oh, my Bell! Nothing. Nothing anybody knew. But there might be something they don't know they know."

"All right, sir. I like to see you at work. If you're up to it."

Lomas laughed. "Oh, take him along. He won't be happy till he's showing us how to do our job."

"I wish I knew," Reggie mumbled. He stood up and surveyed them, and his round face was pale and anxious. "Don't you see? This isn't the usual police case: crime all over before you come along. What they did to me is only a by - product. We haven't got near the real thing. And it's still going on."

The Victory Hotel is a place of a hundred beds and the simple life. The manager, a brisk and competent Swiss, received another police inquiry with resignation. For his part he had told everything. He could not himself recall the Marchals clearly: an impression that the man was a big blond and spoke English not like an Englishman - that was all. In fact, he had only remarked them once, when first they came and he happened to be in the hall. It was his habit to go round the tables at dinner and speak to the guests. But they did not dine in the hotel.

Reggie stirred. "Oh, Madame stayed on two days after the doctor departed. But she didn't have dinner."

"She did not have dinner. That is sure. It is not charged to her. When the doctor departed, I do not know. You see, they engaged a room for two persons and they pay for two all the time. But there are meals charged for one only. See" - he produced his books. "Breakfast for one - lunch for one - breakfast for one in the bedroom the next day and the next. Then the bill is paid and the room given up. They tell me Madame paid and no one here saw Monsieur after the first day. But I do not know."

"That's clear enough." Bell looked at Reggie. "The man never came back here after he went out that first evening."

Reggie gave no sign of hearing. "How did she pay her bill?" he murmured.

"How?" The manager stared. "She paid in her room. She paid the chambermaid. That is a little unusual, yes. But since she had only two meals downstairs, natural enough."

"Breakfast and lunch on the day after she came - then nobody saw her but the chambermaid?"

"I see. Yes." Reggie contemplated him with dreamy eyes.

"The Marchals have never been here before?"

The manager shrugged. "What do I know? No one remembers them. They appear the type of which we have many. Business people. You understand, sir, this is a most respectable hotel."

"Quite. Quite. You ought to be a judge of nationality. And you think Marchal wasn't English? What was he?"

The manager spread out his hands. "I see him only a moment, I hear only a few words. I think perhaps he is French. But do not trust to that."

"Oh no. No, I won't. Now it's mademoiselle of the bureau, and the waiter, and the chambermaid, please. And your register."

Mademoiselle brought the register. "Dr. & Madame Marchal " was written in a small neat hand with a flourish.

Mademoiselle remembered Marchal as a big man with a fair beard, his wife as small and dark. She thought him flurried. The man's accent was French. The woman had been to the bureau once or twice for her key. She was very polite.

"No change in her manner as time went on?" Reggie asked.

"But I do not remember. I think I did not see her only at first."

The waiter also thought Madame amiable. He supposed her French. Certainly she spoke to him in French. She was dark and small. But pretty, without doubt. "What you call nice in English."

Bell grunted. "You think so?" 

Reggie murmured. "Yes." He turned to the manager. "Is the room which Madame had vacant?"

"One moment. Seventy - three. Yes, it is vacant. But you will find nothing there. We have had people in there since. It has been cleaned and cleaned again. Also the Superintendent he saw it before."

"That's right. Nothing there, sir," said Bell.

"No, I suppose not," Reggie sighed. "But I'd like to talk to the chambermaid in the room."

"If you please." The manager led the way.

The room was of the bleak comfort standard in such hotels. Reggie surveyed it and sighed. "Oh. A telephone."

"All our rooms have the telephone," said the manager proudly.

Reggie sat down on one of the beds. "That's led to a lot of crime," he murmured, and contemplated the instrument with disgust.

The chambermaid appeared, a stocky, sallow Swiss. She was sullen. She would not understand anything or say anything. Reggie dropped into French. "Come, you have nothing to be afraid of, have you? Speak frankly, then. What is this you have noticed about Madame Marchal?"

She found her tongue and a clatter of Swiss French came. She had noticed nothing. She was tired of that Madame Marchal. She knew nothing about her. A sickly, stingy creature. And of a vile temper.

"But this is very interesting," Reggie purred. "You are most intelligent, my child. You notice many things. It is quite unusual. I see that you are going to be of great help to the police. Now tell me all about the Marchals." He beamed upon her.

She smirked. Certainly she would tell Monsieur. She was very willing to assist the police. As for the Marchals - she would be happy to catch them. A stingy creature. She always believed Madame was bad.

"Yes. That's very nice. When did you begin to believe that?"

But as soon as she knew Madame. Madame was of a temper. She kept her room. The room must be dark, the room must be quiet, nothing must be touched, she would not talk. And when she went - a shilling, one shilling.

"Yes. Too bad. Yes," Reggie purred. "But she wasn't in her room all the time?"

No, not at first. It was after the first day. Then she seemed always to be there, it was always locked, she would not have the blind up. A sickly thing.

"I see. Yes. French, weren't they?"

"So they say downstairs. Me, I do not believe it. When I heard them talking together it was not French."

"German?"

"No, no. I know German so well as French. It was like German a little, but not German."

"You're a very useful girl," Reggie beamed. "Now did they leave anything behind?"

The chambermaid was embarrassed. "She, she would not leave anything, that one," she said vehemently.

"No luck," Reggie sighed, and jingled his pockets. "Paper, box, bottle, nothing?"

"I remember! There was a box, it had patisserie, an empty box. Could I find it?" She bustled out.

"God bless her " - Reggie smiled at Bell.

She came back in triumph. "Voila, monsieur. You see, just a patissier's box, all empty."

Reggie took it. It bore the words Robert: Montagne de la Cour. He shook into his hand some crumbs and turned them over with his finger. "Yes. Empty," he said, and over his face came a slow, benign smile. "But it's worth ten shillings, my dear." He wandered out.

Bell took leave of the manager and pursued him. Mr. Fortune was already in his car and it began to move while Bell was getting in. "Sorry, sir." Bell struggled off his lap. "In a hurry, are we?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Still pantin' far behind. But not without hope."

Bell looked at the convalescent face and saw a dreamy amiability. "You're feeling happy?" he said with surprise. "I knew when you smiled at that girl. But it beats me what you've got."

"Not happy. No," Reggie murmured. "If I could find out who telephoned to that woman I might be."

"Good lord, sir! You don't even know anybody did."

"My dear chap," Reggie sighed. "Oh, my dear chap! Somebody did. Probably after lunch on the second day. Hence the subsequent seclusion."

"How can you know?" Bell grumbled.

"Oh, my Bell! Look at the facts. After lunch comes a change of life. She shuts herself up. Obviously something happened. And the telephone must have been in it."

Bell meditated. "Looks like funk. She might have got news they didn't manage to do you in. But how can we trace who telephoned to a woman in a hotel?"

"We can't. I know that. A diabolical invention." Reggie sighed. "Well, well. Let us use it."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to telephone to Professor Delarey. He lives in Brussels. You've got to find out his number. The Criminal Investigation Department has its simple uses."

"Brussels!" Bell stared. "How do you make out we want Brussels?"

"Takin' one thing and another. Here a little and there a little. And the confectionery is conclusive. You weren't interested in the confectionery. Bell. The weakness of a great mind. I like sweets. Almost all sweets. Pain a la Grecque is pleasin' stuff."

"I saw you'd got something out of that box."

"Only crumbs. But they were pain a la Grecque all right. And the box came from a gentleman who keeps a shop in the Montagne de la Cour. So that settled it."

"Oh, did it?" Bell grunted.

"Yes, I think so. Considerin' all things. The name Marchal - which is probably genuine. The accent, which might be French. The unknown language, which was like German but not German. It might be Flemish. Assume the Marchals are Belgian and those facts are covered. And the confectionery confirms the hypothesis. So I'll ring up old Delarey and ask him if he knows any Dr. Marchal."

Bell stared at him. "And I told you there was nothing to get at the hotel!"

"You never know, you know," Reggie murmured. "Perhaps it isn't anything." The car turned out of Whitehall to Scotland Yard. "You notice the sad little fact, we've lost two people or so - lost 'em some days -" He hummed an ancient comic song. "' And Maisie wonders why!'"

An hour afterwards he came out of a telephone - box and wandered away to Lomas's room. "A cup of your weaker tea would do no harm," he moaned, and dropped into a chair and wiped his face and neck. "A fiendish invention. Praise God. I shall never know what my French sounds like over the telephone." He shuddered. "Delarey sounds like a revolution in hell. But that was after. For the first week or two he was a lorry changing gear. Before my screams roused his interest."

"Oh, he was interested?"

"My only aunt!" Reggie moaned. "Hell's foundations quiver with the shout of praise - same like the hymn says. Oh, my head!" Bell brought him a cup of tea.

"So he knows all about Marchal?" Lomas was impatient.

Reggie waved a hand at him. "No, dear, no. Don't hustle me. I can't abear it." He drank deep and sighed. "Oh, my hat! And you think that's tea. What a life! My poor Lomas. Well, well. Delarey does know Marchal. That's the fundamental fact. Dr. Marchal is real. Quite genuine. Dr. Quentin Marchal was a brilliant young chemist. Special line, the rarer metals. Unfortunately he didn't keep to pure science. He married a wife - and wanted an income. He was tempted and he fell. He went into the chemical industry. He took a job with the S.A.I."

"What the deuce is that?"

"Oh, my dear chap. The Society Anonyme Internationale. Big chemical manufacturers - works in Brussels, in Holland, in Switzerland. Make the world's supply of delium. Ever heard of that?"

"Use it in medicine, don't you?"

"Yes. Quite a lot. We're going to use it more. If we can get enough. Well, that's who the genuine Dr. Marchal is. But Delarey hadn't heard of his leaving Brussels. Thought it unlikely. He's going to find out and telephone later. Somebody else can take that message." Reggie rose wearily. "I'm going to call this a day, Lomas old thing. But if the real Marchal has left Brussels, some of your bright young men had better find out quick where Sir Blayne Gorton's got to. If it was the real Marchal who came to London, we have a clever chemist in the employ of a big company, going, privily and by stealth, to the door of a rival manufacturer and vanishin' - with wife. That wants a lot of explanation. Good - bye."

In the morning the detective who kept watch in his house met him as he came to breakfast. "Message from Superintendent Bell, sir. Mr. Lomas would like to see you when you feel up to it."

"Tell him I'm taking nourishment," Reggie murmured.

Lomas was found alone. His usual sprightliness was overcast with solemnity. He was official and important.

"Well, my dear Reginald, how are things?"

"If you mean me, I am fit but peevish. Things are horrid. Everybody is so respectable."

"Quite. Quite. I hate to bother you. But the case is taking a very difficult turn. Your professor telephoned again last night. He tells us that Marchal is not to be found in Brussels, nor Madame Marchal. He asked the employers, this Society Anonyme Internationale, if they knew what had become of him and could get no information. I have felt justified in asking the Brussels police to take it up."

"Oh yes. Yes. Let's do all the regulation things. But what about Sir Blayne Gorton?"

"Well, on that report, as we agreed, I gave instructions to locate Gorton. It's not certain, but we have reason to believe he's down at his works at Erith."

"Livin' at the works?" Reggie's sleepy eyes opened. "What zeal!"

"He has rooms there. I've sent Bell down to make sure if he is there and get at him."

"Yes. Yes. I'm afraid what the butler said wasn't evidence."

"Very awkward affair." Lomas shook his head. "Difficult to believe a man like Gorton would be concerned in crime."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Anybody may be concerned in crime. From the highest motives."

A man brought in a card. "Dr. Doelen. Address in Brussels." Lomas looked at Reggie. "Do you know him?"

"Not personally. No. He's one of the larger noises in the S.A.I. I wonder what we can do for Dr. Doelen."

Dr. Doelen was a short wide man with a big head. "Mr. Lomas?" He smiled and bowed. "It is kind of you to receive me. Perhaps I need not explain who I am?"

"Can I take it you come from the Societe Anonyme Internationale?"

"As you know, I am the managing director in Brussels."

"Quite." Lomas nodded. "What can I do for you? By the way, do you know Mr. Fortune?"

"I have, of course, heard of Mr. Fortune." Dr. Doelen bowed again and gazed at Reggie with respectful curiosity.

"I speak to you in confidence, gentlemen." Doelen drew his chair nearer. "You understand, I represent large interests and I assure you I shall be grateful for your help. The affair is this. Last week a young man of science whom we employ in our laboratories at Brussels was absent without leave. His name is Dr. Quentin Marchal. We felt some anxiety. He is a brilliant fellow and his work was valuable. Also, I could not ignore that he had important knowledge of our processes of manufacture. We made inquiries and it appeared that both he and his wife had left Brussels travelling to London. This is a strange and disturbing situation. Pray understand me, I do not at all accuse Dr. Marchal. It is very possible that his sudden flight may be on account of some private trouble. But also, I am bound to remember Dr. Marchal has the secrets of our laboratories."

"Quite. Quite. I see your position." Lomas nodded. "But what do you want us to do? Is it suggested that Dr. Marchal has committed a crime?"

"Mr. Lomas, I suggest nothing. I tell you the facts. This unhappy young man has disappeared, and it seems in London. I appeal to you to discover what has become of him. There is perhaps foul play. I cannot tell. But if you can find where he is, then we shall know what to do."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured.

A paper was brought to Lomas. He read it. "Hold the line," he said, and passed it to Reggie. "Telephone message Superintendent Bell to Mr. Lomas." Was written. "Woman found drowned in creek near Gorton Works. Clothing marked Adele Marchal. Have not yet seen Gorton. Waiting instructions."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Dr. Doelen, do you know Madame Marchal?"

"Know her?" Doelen stared. "I have seen her. A small dark woman."

"Would you know her if you saw her again?"

"Certainly, I think so. Why, my friend, have you news of her?"

"Yes. Yes. They say she's been found dead."

"Horrible!" Doelen cried. "But where? But how?"

"Found drowned somewhere down the river. I'm afraid you'll have to go and see the body."

"I? But why? Oh, I am at your orders. But what can I do?"

"You can tell us if she is Madame Marchal."

"It is possible, yes, if she is not much injured. I suppose you have reason to believe - -"

"Oh yes. Yes. Name on her clothes." Reggie stood up. "But you're the only man we have who knew her."

"I'm afraid we must ask you to identify, Doctor." Lomas rose.

"I am perfectly at your orders," said Doelen again. "But what was the poor creature doing down the river? Why should she be there?"

"Yes. That's what we're going to find out," said Reggie. "One moment." He went out with Lomas.

"Queer thing." Lomas frowned. "This case gets worse and worse."

"Yes. I did tell you so," Reggie mumbled. "Go on. Tell Bell to watch the works and stop Gorton if he tries to break away. We'll attend to him when we've seen the corpse. You take Doelen in your car. I'll go on first."

On a slab in the mortuary the woman's body lay and the divisional surgeon turned from it to nod at Reggie. "Well, Mr. Fortune, I didn't think they'd bring you to this. There you are."

Reggie bent over her. Her face was pale and shrunken and there was froth about her mouth. He moved the eyelids from the contracted pupils. ... He turned to the surgeon: "Anything occur to you?"

"Medically speaking, I should say it's a plain case. She went into the water alive. There's no injuries. All the indications point to death by drowning."

"You think so? Where was she found?"

"In a bit of a tidal creek by Gorton's works. Queer place for a stranger to get to and not much of a place to drown in. But that's not for medical evidence. Drowned she was."

"Yes. I expect we'll have to say that. But there'll be a lot of work first. Notice her eyes? I should think she was under morphia when she was put in the water. That's why her pupils aren't dilated as they ought to be. That's why she didn't struggle. That's why she couldn't get out." He gazed at the surgeon mournfully. "Not that it makes much difference. But very careful. Very ingenious. As ever." He turned and looked again at the body. He drew off the wedding - ring, turned it over, peered at the inside. "Well, well." Over his troubled face came a slow smile. "Everybody has a weakness. Thrift, thrift, Horatio." He wandered out. Lomas and Doelen were already in the waiting - room, "You've lost no time. Good."

Doelen stopped short and made a pious exclamation in French. Reluctantly he approached the body and peered at it. "Yes, my friends," he said in a low voice. "This is Madame Marchal."

"No doubt about it?" said Lomas.

"I can have no doubt." Doelen turned from the body and stared at them. "But how? What has happened? What brought her here?"

"Yes. We'll have to discuss that," said Reggie. "Just wait, will you? I'd like you to meet Sir Blayne Gorton."

"Blayne Gorton!" Doelen cried. "The chemical manufacturer?"

"Oh yes. Yes. He has works down here. Didn't you know?"

"Heaven, how should I know? I do not know where I am. Gorton - is it possible! The Gorton combine is in rivalry with my company. And it is beside his works that you find Madame Marchal dead. Where is Marchal, then? What does it mean?"

"We'll ask Gorton." said Reggie. "If you'll wait."

"Wait? Wait here?" Doelen looked about him in horror.

"Not in here. No. They'll make you quite comfortable." Reggie went out and spoke to the policeman at the gate. "Come on, Lomas," he cried and jumped into his car. "Gorton's works."

"Was that the woman who came to you?" said Lomas.

"Oh yes. Yes. That's my Madame Marchal. So our case for Gorton is that Madame Marchal has been found dead by his works and we want Marchal to come and own her."

"If he's there."

"My dear chap," Reggie murmured. "Oh, my dear chap!"

The car stopped at the gate of a large factory and the square form of Superintendent Bell appeared from nowhere. "Gorton's staying there all night," he said. "Want me, sir?"

"No. Stop him if he slips out," said Reggie and they went in.

The Gorton office was of a rich solemnity. The manner of Lomas became majestic to match. A man like a churchwarden received them. "You will tell Sir Blayne Gorton that the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department wishes to see him at once." The churchwarden believed Sir Blayne Gorton was not in Erith and vanished. They were taken to the works manager. He regretted that Sir Blayne Gorton was not there. If he could do anything -

"You can find him," Lomas snapped. "At once. Tell him to bring Dr. Marchal." The manager flinched. If Mr. Lomas would explain the nature of the business he would try to communicate. Lomas scrawled on a sheet of paper, "Investigation of the death of Madame Marchal," and put it in an envelope. "Take him that." The manager fled.

In three minutes a fat man burst into the room. "What's all this now? What are you giving me?" he puffed.

"I want to know why a woman bearing the name of Adele Marchal has been found dead near your works," said Lomas.

Gorton gulped and made mouths. "Let's get that," he muttered. "Madame Marchal dead down here? Natural?"

"Apparently drowned," said Lomas. "Found in the creek."

Gorton stared at him. "Why would she - it's not possible-" He spoke rather to himself than Lomas.

And Lomas said: "You've got Dr. Marchal here."

"What do you mean?" Gorton pulled himself together. "Marchal is here, been here for days, but he hasn't seen Madame Marchal. I can swear to that."

"You'll probably have to. You'd better begin by explaining why he's here in hiding."

"Hiding be damned! Marchal's here at work for me."

"While he's in the employ of the Societe Anonyme Internationale? An unusual arrangement. No wonder you kept it secret."

"I've my answer to that. And so has he. Damn it, man, do you think I do things I'm ashamed of? He's left the S.A.I, and there won't be any secret about the reason. He'd got a new process for extracting delium. Dr. Doelen wouldn't take it up. The S.A.I. have got their monopoly and they don't want a process that will make the stuff cheap. Suits them better to keep down production and sell dear - with all the hospitals in the world calling out for delium. So Marchal chucked up his job with them and came over to England to get somebody to take up the new process. He came to me and I brought him down here to try it out."

"That's an explanation of his presence," said Lomas coldly. "It doesn't explain his wife's death."

Gorton's confidence forsook him again. "I'll swear Marchal knows nothing about it," he muttered.

"Well, you'd better produce him. He'll have to come and see her," said Lomas. "Go on, tell him." Gorton stared at him and swallowed and went out.

And in a hurry Marchal came, a big bearded man in tumbled clothes. "What is this he tells me?" His sunken eyes blazed. "My wife is dead here? It is not possible. My wife is in London."

"Oh no. No. That's where she isn't," said Reggie quickly. "Come along. We've lost too much time already."

"You take me to see her - her body." The big frame shook. "Let us go then quick, quick." Reggie led the way.

"I shall want you, too," Lomas said to Gorton.

"And you'll have me," Gorton scowled. "I'll see the lad through it."

They hurried to the car and Lomas beckoned to Bell, and with his sturdy presence beside the chauffeur they drove back to the mortuary.

Reggie took Marchal's arm. "It's this way. . . Now -" He drew back the sheet which covered the dead woman.

And Marchal burst out laughing. Then, "God forgive me!" he said, and crossed himself. He turned to Reggie. "It is not my wife. Why do you say so?"

"Look at her clothes," said Reggie gently.

"My God! Yes, I think-" Fear came into his sunken eyes again.

"Marked Adele Marchal. Dr. Doelen said she was your wife."

"Doelen!" Marchal stared. "Doelen has been here?"

"Yes. You'd better see him now."

"I do not understand. That woman - she is not my wife - I do not know her - but she has my wife's clothes. What does it mean? Where is Doelen?"

Reggie took him to the room where, in the company of a stolid policeman, Doelen sat. "Dr. Marchal wants to ask you a little question," he said. "Why did you say that woman was his wife?"

Doelen stood up. "Marchal denies her?" He licked his lips and smiled. "He sees her dead and he denies her?" He shrugged. "Mr. Fortune, that is like the man who betrays every one. I have finished." He turned away.

"Oh no. No. Your error." Reggie stopped him. "Pardon, my friend," he bowed. "I think the rest is for you."

But Marchal roared. "Doelen! What have you done with my wife?" And again Dr. Doelen smiled. Marchal sprang upon him and they went down together.

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie groaned. It took the help of the policeman and Bell and Gorton to drag Marchal off and hold him. Doelen lay still and pale, the collar torn from his throat.

"Damme, is he dead?" Lomas muttered.

Reggie knelt beside him. "Oh no. No. He'll come round-" As he spoke Doelen started up, tumbled him over and bolted out. Bell ran after him. He got out of the mortuary, he rushed into the traffic of the high road and a lorry met him. . . .

"My only aunt," Reggie moaned. "We have no luck."

Bell thrust his way through the gathering crowd. "He don't want you. Gone, sir."

"Yes. Job for the experts in another world. Bring him in. Go through his pockets. I want an address; any sort of address."... 

To the room where Marchal raged in vain wild questions Bell came back with a cigarette - case and a wallet and a bunch of keys. "Nothing else on him, sir. And the cards in the wallet have only got his address in Brussels."

"Oh, my God!" Marchal groaned. "What to do?" 

"You go to Scotland Yard and wait," Reggie said. He took Lomas and Bell to the telephone in the keeper's room and turned the pages of the directory. 

"What's the move now, Reginald?" "The S.A.I, ought to have a London office. Yes, here we are, Gresham Lane. Come on." He bustled into his car. "Gresham Lane in the City, Sam. Rush." 

"You want to bluff Doelen's men?" Lomas smiled. 

"Yes. Job for you. Your strong suit, Lomas."

"I can bluff them if they know anything. What if they don't?"

Reggie spread out his hands and let them fall.

The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department demanded the manager of the office and was introduced to a suave Englishman. "I want to know where Dr. Doelen has been staying."

The manager was politely amazed. There must be some mistake. Dr. Doelen was in Brussels.

"Oh no, he's not. We have him safe enough. Unless you want to be arrested as an accessory you'd better tell the truth."

The manager shook. He did not understand. Accessory to what?

"You'd better think of murder. Now. Out with it. Where has Doelen been hiding?"

The manager really had no knowledge, absolutely none. Dr. Doelen had a flat in Adelaide Mansions, generally stayed there when in London.

"Don't try to be clever. You know he has some other place. Where is it?"

The manager took time. He really did not know the address, but Dr. Doelen occasionally gave instructions when in London to ring up Tyburn 701. He supposed a club or a friend's house. He had no idea.

Lomas took the telephone from his table and asked the authorities for the name and address of Tyburn 701. "Thank you. Good - bye. Now, my man. You and all your staff hold yourselves at the disposal of the police. No one will leave the office till my men have seen them."

Reggie was already hurrying out. He opened the door of the car. "Where is it, Lomas?"

"Bacon, 3, Nicholas Street, Bayswater."

"Bayswater. And the dead woman who came to me as Madame Marchal went away with an unknown man to the Marble Arch. That's near enough."

Nicholas Street is a place of pleasant little houses by the Park. They came to the door of Number 3 and Bell was going to ring. "No. Use Doelen's keys," said Reggie, and with the second of them the door opened. "Now ring." An oldish man of the butler kind appeared and gaped.

"I'm a police officer. Superintendent Bell. This is Dr. Doelen's house?"

"Dr. Doelen is not in, sir."

"Is the lady in?" said Reggie.

The man looked different ways. "The lady, sir?" he repeated. "Dr. Doelen is not married."

"Where is she?" Reggie snapped.

"Is it Dr. Doelen's secretary, sir? I'm afraid she's not well enough to see you."

Bell took hold of him. "You'll show me where she is quick."

"Oh, very good, sir. If you say so. She's in bed, you know." Bell pushed him on upstairs.

They came into a little dark room at the back. Lomas pulled up the blind. A woman lay in bed, her face buried m the pillow and a mass of dark hair. She was asleep or unconscious. Her breath came moaning.

"How long has she been like this?" said Reggie.

"I really couldn't say, sir. I didn't know she was took so bad. Dr. Doelen said she wasn't well and she was staying in bed. He was going to send a doctor."

"Take him away," Reggie muttered. He sat down by her side. . . . When he rose his face was drawn and he bit his lip.

"What is it, Reginald?"

"I should say it's meningitis. Go and ring up Robert Blake for me and ask him to come round. Then Wimpole House for nurses."

Lomas returned. "Blake's coming at once. And two nurses. I suppose this is Madame Marchal?"

Reggie pointed to her hand. "Her wedding ring's gold. Yes. Who else?"

"Is there a chance for her?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Stand by, will you? I want to look round this jolly house."

He was still looking when the specialist came. He had to be called.

"Hallo, Blake. Good man. I'm not really neglectin' the patient. Now look here - " They went into the sick - room together. ...

Nurses were established in charge, the specialist departed and Reggie came down to Lomas. "Well, what's the opinion?"

"Still fighting," Reggie smiled. "Not without hope. You see, in this beastly disease, you have to know the type of organism that brought it before you can apply the right serum. Well, I've got the stuff that infected her. Doelen has a little laboratory on the top floor and there it is: diplococcus intracellularis fine and large."

"He gave it her? The devil."

"Yes, as you say," Reggie murmured. "Lots of risks in being up against Dr. Doelen. Very ingenious mind."

Some days afterwards he wandered into Lomas's room, dreamy and benign, and remarked that he was going away. "Wife - Christmas - country. Rather jolly inventions. Especially together. Before departure - is there any little thing you want?"

"I infer the patient is doing well?"

"Yes. She's out of danger. Nothing else for me is there?"

"No. You are not necessary, Reginald. In fact, there's nothing much to be done. We've established those thugs who set on you were brought over from Brussels and they've gone back. So that's up to the Belgians. The woman drowned was a secretary of Doelen's. No doubt he murdered her and I suspect that old rascal in his house was an accessory: there may have been others."

"Must have been," Reggie murmured.

"Probably. But we've no evidence and no chance of it. It's a mad case."

"Quite clear, isn't it?" Reggie opened his eyes.

"Good gad! Do you pretend to see your way through it?"

"Yes, I think so. Doelen was a very clever fellow but subject to fright. Dangerous combination. Begin at the beginning. He wouldn't take up Marchal's process for fear cheapening delium would lower his profits. Marchal rushed off to England to find a manufacturer with more pluck. He'd heard of me from old Delarey as a man of science who knew the world a bit. So he came round to ask me if Gorton would give him a square deal. I wasn't in, he got tired of waiting and decided to chance it. Off he went to Gorton and old Gorton jumped at the process and hurried him down to the works to set plant going and try it out. Meanwhile Doelen had got on his track. That secretary woman was sent to find out if Marchal had described the process to me. I was so discreet she thought he had. So Doelen set his thugs on to wipe me out and went after Marchal. But Marchal, being in Gorton's works, was out of reach. The only way to attack him was through his wife. Doelen sent her a telephone message that a car was coming to take her to Marchal. And it came and took her to that house in Bayswater. She doesn't know what happened then, till she found herself in bed feeling very ill. No doubt Doelen chloroformed her and put her to bed and gave her a dose of diplococcus intracellularis. The secretary woman was sent back to pass for her at the hotel. Partly to prevent inquiries into her vanishing - very cautious man, Doelen - partly to pick up any communication from her husband. I dare say Doelen still had hopes of trapping Marchal, too. Then she may have got the wind up, or wanted too much money and threatened to give the show away. Or Doelen may have come to think he'd trusted her too far. Anyway, it occurred to him that she might do very nicely to get Marchal arrested for murdering his wife - very ingenious man Doelen. So he drugged her and put her into Madame Marchal's clothes and dumped her in the creek. And then he heard from Brussels that the London police were asking questions about the disappearance of the Marchals. That broke him up. He came running round to us to find out how much we knew. Very timid man, Doelen."

"Timid!" said Lomas. "Good gad!"

"Oh yes. That's fundamental. The timid man is a public danger. Two other little lessons in the case, my brethren. One that a simple rational motive, like keepin' a trade secret, can produce very odd results. Secondly, that economy is a mistake in crime."

"What the deuce do you mean?"

"The wedding - ring," Reggie smiled. "The nearly new and garish wedding - ring of the sham Madame Marchal. If I hadn't thought that looked brazen I should have told her I hadn't seen Marchal. And we should never have got near the case till the real Madame Marchal had died quietly of meningitis and Marchal was arrested for murder. But the poor woman bought a brass wedding - ring. Never do that, Lomas."

FOURTH EXPLANATION

THE FOOTBALL PHOTOGRAPH

THE shop of Durfey and Killigrew sold jewellery to Queen Anne. Perhaps it was a little dowdy even then. Its low - browed windows are not for the smart or the millionaire, but for people who want value for money. Yet Durfey and Killigrew show some perception of the progress of mankind since Queen Anne's death. The doors and windows of their shop are closed with rolling steel shutters.

It was a Monday morning in August. Mr. Fortune was explaining to Mrs. Fortune without hope that duty would prevent his going to the house in Scotland to which she had promised to take him. A place in which there is nothing to do but take exercise he considers bad for his constitution, and the conversation of country houses weakens his intellect. All this he set forth plaintively to Mrs. Fortune, and she said, "Don't blether, child," and the telephone rang.

Reggie contemplated that instrument with a loving smile. "How wonderful are the works of science, Joan. What a beneficent invention." He jumped at it. "Yes, Fortune speaking. What? Durfey and Killigrew? Of course I know 'em. My grandmother bought me studs there. Like warming - pans. Burglary? Yes, I'll come if you want me. Not much in my way, is it? Oh, all right." He turned to Mrs. Fortune. "Well, well. Duty, Joan, ' Duty, stem daughter of the voice of God'; thou dost preserve the stars from wrong - me too, darling."

"Pig," said she. "You are a fraud, Reggie."

"Oh no. No deception. Some poor beggar's been killed." He kissed her hair. He departed.

The roll shutters of Durfey and Killigrew were still down when his taxi came to the shop. The lights were on inside. Some men were crowded into a corner, talking softly, watching others who moved about the shop. From behind the counter rose the square form of Superintendent Bell. Reggie came to his beckoning finger. It pointed down to the space between the counter and the unrobbed showcase of silver on the wall. A man lay there in what had been a pool of blood. He wore a long coat of olive green with purple cuffs and collar. "It's the porter, sir," said Bell.

Reggie crouched over the body. Its brow was torn and bruised, but the blood came from a wound in the throat. He worked upon both. . . . The clenched hands and the blood on their knuckles interested him. . . . From the man's coat he scraped something sticky and shapeless and put it in a specimen box. He opened the dead mouth.

Then he stood up and gazed round the shop. "Well, well," he murmured. "Too many people."

"That's the manager and the assistants, sir." Bell nodded at the group in the corner. "Waiting to check what's been taken. And we'll have to check them off, too."

"Oh yes. Yes. But there must be an office or something. Shut 'em up there." So the staff of Durfey and Killigrew's was removed while Reggie contemplated the dead man with large and dreamy eyes.

Bell came back briskly. "Well, sir, what about it?" 

"Has he been moved?" said Reggie. 

"They say this is where they found him." 

"Yes. It could be," Reggie murmured. He wandered away, bent and poring over the floor. He dropped on hands and knees. His finger - tips moved upon the linoleum. He stooped close, he cut some small pieces out of it. "Yes, blood, I think. I'll verify it. But I should say this is where he was knocked on the head." Reggie sat on his heels and looked up at Superintendent Bell with plaintive wonder.

"What was he doing here at all?" 

"Ah. If we knew that we'd know something. He didn't live here. Nobody lives here. He wasn't the watchman. They don't have one. He doesn't lock up. There's always two of 'em do that together, manager and one of the assistants. He was just the porter. He pulled down the shutters and made 'em fast one o'clock Saturday and went off home. That's the routine. Then the other chaps went out through the side - door there. Come and have a look sir. See? The shutter comes down over the entrance and is fastened to the floor with those bolts inside. That little door in it lets 'em out and when they're outside they lock that up. Well, they went off like that on Saturday and the manager swears there was nobody left in the shop. When he came this morning, the door was still locked all right, but as soon as he got inside he saw the place had been robbed. Then he found the porter lying dead behind the counter." Bell put his head on one side and looked at his Mr. Fortune with a paternal smile. "Now, sir, the place was still locked up safe, but the porter had got inside and been killed and somebody had gone off with a bag full of jewellery. Do you see how it was done?"

"Not wholly. No."

Bell chuckled. "Ah. It beats Mr. Fortune! Then I'm going to get some of my own back for once. Look here, Sir." He bent to the bolts which should have held the shutter to the floor.

"Oh, that," Reggie murmured. "I saw that when I came in. Some fellow's cut through the bolts. From outside. There's a mark or two on the base of the shutter. What was the tool? I don't do much burglary myself."

"Thank Heaven there's something you don't know," Bell growled. "Yes, it was a queer tool. A cold chisel uncommon long and thin - they slid it under the shutter and hammered it through the bolts. And that's pretty queer, too. These fellows knew just what they needed to' make a short cut into this funny old shop; they got their tool made and they had the almighty cheek to stand in the street and hammer at the door."

"Yes, quite bold. But I suppose it wouldn't take long."

"Matter of minutes, sir. Still, hammering at a jeweller's door in the open street! It is so blooming impudent. Once they cut the bolts, of course they had a soft job. Ran the shutter up a little, came underneath and - -"

"And brought the porter in to kill him. Yes. All very dear, Bell." 

"I don't know what the porter was doing, sir. That beats me."

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. "I think I know what he was doing. Bell. But why did he come inside? And why did they kill him? Not according to plan. Some error. I should look into the porter." He gazed at Bell dreamily, "By the way, what are you looking into?"

"Everything, as you might say. We haven't got a line yet. No finger - prints. Glove job. Professionals, of course. We'll have to put some work in. It's a kind of insult to the police, breaking in in this bare - faced way. When I told Mr. Lomas he said it was the most infernal impudence of his wretched career."

"Yes. Yes. It is cheek." Reggie nodded. "I feel that. I don't like being ignored myself. I'll go and sympathize. When you've looked up the porter's record you might come along."

The Hon. Sidney Lomas at his desk was surprised by the touch of a gentle hand.

"Alas, my poor brother!" Reggie sighed.

"Ha, Reginald! Bell said he would get you on to it. Good man!"

"I am. But unrecognised. Treated as negligible. Same like you, Lomas. I resent this."

"Deuced impudent, isn't it? Burgle a West End jeweller's from the street with a hammer. Damme, it's defying the whole police force."

"Yes. Not respectful. I think there were precautions, you know. Still, not nice of 'em. But they've behaved shocking to me. Killing a poor wretch crude and casual in the course of the job as if they could get away with a murder as easy as nothing. My only aunt! I exist, I suppose; I am still extant."

"My dear fellow," Lomas chuckled, "highly extant."

"Yes. Yes, I think so. I resent being ignored by an elementary person with a cold chisel."

"By all means. And what are you going to do about it, Reginald?"

"Well, I was going to provide some work for our active intelligent police force. There are one or two little points left lying about by our nasty friend with the cold chisel. Hallo, here's Bell, nice and quick."

"Got the outlines, sir. Pretty well all the jewellery in the place is gone, except some things in the safe. That's not been touched. The silver and gold plate seems all there. You might say they cleared out the light stuff. The manager puts it at ten thousand pounds provisional."

"And very nice, too." Lomas smiled. "All anywhere by now. Looks easy, doesn't it. Bell? Mr. Fortune says he has some work for you."

"I thought he had," Bell said gloomily. "I can see plenty of work myself. But nothing that leads anywhere. What's your line, sir?"

"It's the porter, you know," Reggie murmured. "The manager says he'd answer for him absolutely. Been employed a dozen years. Always straight."

"Poor beggar," Reggie sighed. "And how does the manager think he came to be inside, Bell?" 

"The idea is, he saw something wrong at the side - door and came inside to see what was up and the burglars killed him."

Lomas nodded. "Reasonable enough. We've had cases like it before. What's the matter, Reginald?"

"Well, you haven't, you know. Not cases like this. Think again, Lomas. At one o'clock Saturday the porter went off duty. The first thing he ought to do is to get out of his highly coloured livery. By the way, where is his home? What about his people? Nobody's reported him missing and he's been dead since Saturday." 

"Has he, though?" said Lomas quickly. 

"Oh yes. Yes. Forty hours or more. His blood's been drying quite a long time." 

"Nobody reported him missing because he lived alone," said Bell. "Rooms in workmen's dwellings, Clerkenwell. No family."

Reggie sighed. "We don't have much luck. Well, well. He didn't go home and change on Saturday. He hung about. The burglars couldn't begin to work till everybody was well away from the shop. Nevertheless, when they did begin the porter was handy in his livery all complete. What about it, Lomas?"

"You mean he was an accomplice."

"Yes. That is indicated. If he wasn't - why did he go in? Suppose he saw the fellows at work - the natural thing is to challenge 'em and make a row. Suppose he came along when they'd gone inside - they wouldn't have left the shutter up, and while it's down nothing shows. He must have been an accomplice or he wouldn't have gone in. And that explains the remarkable cheek of hammering at the door in the street. Nobody would interfere with them while Durfey and Killigrew's own porter stood by. They'd pass for lawful workmen mending the shutters."

"You've got it, sir," Bell cried. "That's neat." 

"Yes. I am neat," Reggie sighed. "So were they. Up to a point. Then the thing got away with 'em." 

"Yes, sir. That often happens in crime," Bell said solemnly.

"When you two have finished chirping at each other!" Lomas cut in. "It isn't so dam' clear, Reginald. Take it your way. The porter was an accomplice. He stood by to guarantee them while they forced the shutter. Good. That explains their confounded cheek very nicely. But it don't explain in the least why he went in after 'em. Or why they killed him."

"No. I noticed that," Reggie murmured. "I don't know everything, Lomas; I don't know why he went in. Not according to plan, I think. Some error."

"You might take it he went in to see how much they got," Bell suggested. "So he shouldn't be done out of his fair share of the swag. And there was a row about it and they did him in. We've had cases like that, sir."

"Yes, it could be," Reggie murmured.

"Yes, I dare say you're right, Bell."  Lomas settled deeper in his chair. "That'll do for a theory. Quite nice. But it's only a theory. It doesn't give you anything to work on."

"I never thought it did," Bell said gloomily. "One of those cases where you've got a lot of donkey work. It was a professional job and well planned out beforehand. We'll have to go through all the burglars on the list. I don't mind owning, there's nothing in it that's any fellow's particular style. It's too simple."

"Simplicity is the mark of ability," Reggie mumbled.

"I dare say. You are often obscure, Reginald." Lomas yawned and lit a cigarette. "Same old game, what? Same dull old game. Sorry, Bell. You're in for it."

Reggie reached for a cigar. "Thank you so much. Yes." He lay back and blew smoke rings. "'Do the work that's nearest. Though it's dull at whiles,'" he murmured. "The nearest, Lomas old thing. I don't like burglars. I want a murderer."

"Quite. Very proper taste. Happy to oblige. Name and address, please?"

"I don't know his name. Or his address. He's a shortish man, agile, of considerable strength; he has dark red hair which is rather long and oiled, and he has lost a triangular piece from one of the two middle teeth in his upper jaw. At this moment he has a bruised cut on his face. And he uses chewing - gum."

"Good gad!" said Lomas. "Were you there?"

"Do you mean there was only one man in it, sir?" Bell cried.

"Oh no. No. He had a companion, I don't know much about him. He was heavier and I should think older. But the little man did the killing. The porter came in, and they were all three together in the middle of the shop, and there was a quarrel. The small man got his face punched - the porter's knuckles are broken and there was some red hair in the blood. The porter also hit the little man in the mouth and broke his tooth, and the beggar spat out blood and chewing - gum and the bit of tooth, and it all stuck on the porter. Then the little man got some long weapon and hit him on the head. He fell stunned. They hid him behind the counter, and to make sure jabbed him in the throat with a sharp long tool. No doubt it was that long chisel they had made for the job." 

"Thank you. Very brilliant, Reginald. And now all we have to do is to find a little man with red hair and a broken tooth; That's going to be quite easy."

"It is wonderful what you get, sir," Bell said reverently. "Quite," Lomas chuckled. "Makes me feel like the man in the play when they show him Peter Pan's shadow. ' It's nobody I know.'"

"No. You're not suspected at present," Reggie murmured. "Any other helpful suggestions? I want to get on."

"Quite. Very right and proper. Where to?"

"I was thinking of the porter's humble home."

"Man there, sir," said Bell.

"Good. May I go and help him?"

Lomas chuckled. "By all means. If there's anything else you want to do, don't mind us. We like it. Forgive our existence, Reginald."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie stood up and contemplated him benignly. "It's beautiful."

"Thanks so much. Sometimes something seems to say that you feel the Department superfluous."

"Oh no. No. Who ran to lift me when I fell and kissed the place to make it well? My Lomas! Come on, Bell." The workmen's dwelling in Clerkenwell where the porter lived stood in a by - way, a drab, respectable mass. Children swarmed in the courtyard. The clean staircase was full of the steam of washing - day. "Not the sort of place for a crook, sir," Bell muttered.

"He wasn't," said Reggie.

The porter's rooms were at the top. A detective opened the door to them. "No fresh news of him, sir. The woman below comes in and cleans up for him twice a week. She was here Saturday morning and saw him go off, and the bed's not been slept in since. Down at the office they say he's lived here a matter of ten years." He looked round the room. "Decent place in a plain way."

The porter had taken some pride in it. The room smelt fresh and dean, its scanty furniture was in good order - he had curtains up, and a picture or two.

Reggie looked at them with some care. Reggie stared at the wall. "Well, well," he murmured, and went into the bedroom. That had no decorations but a coloured print of the King. Its furniture was a bed and a chest of drawers. Reggie opened one after the other. The first was empty. The others contained a few clothes. He came back to the other room where the detective was conferring with Bell. "Have you found anything?"

"No, sir, nothing. He doesn't seem to have had any papers at all. There's nowhere for 'em to be."

Bell shook his head. "Somebody's been here before us, Mr. Fortune."

"Yes. That is indicated. I was wondering what they came for. Ask the woman who did the rooms to come up."

She came, a large woman wiping red arms on her apron, breathing hard. "There's something you can tell us, I think," said Reggie amiably. "Has anything gone from this poor chap's rooms?"

She snorted. "Wodsher mean gawn? I ain't took nuffink. Ain't never been in the place since Sat'dy. Tike my dyin' oaf I ain't."

"Of course you haven't. We want to know if anybody else has. And there's only you who can tell us what was in his rooms before he was killed."

"Can I? Dunno so much. I ain't no Nosey Parker. I never poked into 'is tings." She fixed Reggie with a choleric eye. " 'E didn't 'ave no golden jools lyin' abaht. 'E kep' 'is bit o' money in the top drawer."

"Just show us, will you?" Reggie murmured.

She waddled into the bedroom. She opened the drawer. "Lummy, it's gawn," she wheezed. "Bit of a tin box it was, guv'nor, so big. I swear it was 'ere last week."

"Did you ever see it open, mother?" said Bell.

"Yus, I seen it. 'E 'ad 'is money in it and some bits o pipers."

"They got away with his papers, then. Thank you, mother, that's all." He led the way back to the sitting - room.

"One moment," Reggie murmured. "One moment. Has anything else been taken?"

"Ardsher mean?" she wheezed. "Ain't nuffink else to tike only 'is bits o' sticks." But Reggie was looking round the room, and she stared about her with puzzled eyes.

"What about the pictures?" said Reggie.

"Gorblimey!" she gasped. "One of 'is picshers is gone. 'Ere. 'E 'ad one 'angin' up 'ere. Yer can see w'ere ve nile wos, guv'nor."

"Yes, I did see," Reggie smiled.

"Nah, w'at'd anyone want to tike that for?"

"I wonder. What was it?"

"Jest a blinkin' set o' footballers."

"A football team. Was he in it?"

"Not 'im, no. Don't know none of 'em. Don't know w'at 'e 'ad it for."

"Any name to it?"

"I don't know. Yus. Some nime. Couldn't tell yer. But w'at the 'ell does anyone want to pinch a blinkin' photo of footballers for?"

"Quite so. Yes," Reggie murmured. "Don't you worry. Thanks very much." And with professional exhortations not to talk about it Bell got rid of her.

Then he stared heavily at Reggie. "And what's going to happen next, if you please? I begin the day with a murder and a ten - thousand - pound burglary and come on to a stolen football photo."

"Yes. Yes. Very careful mind at work," Reggie smiled. "Quite a pleasure to deal with him."

"Deal with him! He's dealing with us all right. But we don't get near him. He breaks up every clue before we find it."

"I wouldn't say that. No. I wouldn't say that. Dangerous move destroying clues. Bell. He had to, of course. He couldn't let us see that photo. But he's told us he was in it."

"What, you mean the chap that did the murder was one of this football team? That's only a guess, sir."

"Quite."

"Well, suppose he was. You set me to look for a red - haired man with a broken tooth; now you've got it he plays football. I dare say. But it leaves me a nice long job."

"Yes. Yes," Reggie agreed cheerfully. "Better look for a short cut. Somebody at the shop ought to know where the porter had his drop of beer. You might find out what football team was his fancy. Good - bye."

The interesting thing about this case, he has been heard to say, is that it provides some justification for the existence of an expensive police force. He will explain that he always thought he would want to have the Department in his theory up to the neck or they would not have gone through with it. In fact, he took the case as a game of chess (Lomas says a game of poker), which is not his habit. He was for once without emotions. And Bell and his men worked like beavers, and Reggie saw his wife off to Scotland and played with biochemistry and his marionette theatre.

After some days Lomas rang him up. "Is that you, Reginald? Good. Come round, will you. Bell thinks he's on to something."

Reggie went round. Bell was conferring with Lomas more solemnly than ever. "Well, well. And are we yet alive and see each other's face? How do you do, Bell?"

"I've had a heavy week, sir. Now, take it from the beginning. We've found a clerk who was working after hours in an office by Durfey and Killigrew's that Saturday afternoon. When he went home he noticed some men hammering at the shop door. Thought it was a bit queer, so he had a look at 'em. Didn't look much because he saw Durfey's porter standing by and supposed it must be all right. But he noticed there were two of 'em, and one was a little chap with red hair. Well, then, we've got on to a chap who's caretaker at a block of offices round the corner. He came along between three and four o'clock. There was nobody at Durfey's door then, but he saw the porter hanging about in a doorway opposite. Bit surprised to see him in uniform so late on a Saturday. He called out something about it, and he thought the porter was a bit short with him."

"Yes. He would be," Reggie murmured.

"All fits what you said," Bell nodded. "The porter was there in his uniform so that nobody should meddle with 'em while they were breaking in. If anything was said about it afterwards I suppose he'd have sworn it wasn't him, it was somebody in a sham uniform. That's been done before. But this chap came by who knew him and could swear he was outside while the burglary was being done. He got the wind up and went in to warn his pals. Most likely he wanted 'em to clear off without the swag to save his face. Then there was a row and they did him in. I dare say it all happened like that."

"' Some error and the thing got away with them,' "Lomas chuckled. "Your game, Reginald. You told us so and you told us right."

"No butter, thank you," Reggie murmured. "What's the matter with our Superintendent?"

"I don't like a case to look so neat when I'm only halfway through it. Pretty often I've found, if we've got a theory all fixed up half - way, in the end it turns out we made a big bloomer. You know that, too. You're fond of having us on that way."

"Oh. Bell! Oh, my Bell! How can you? I never did. I only look beyond a theory when it don't take in all the evidence."

"You're satisfied, Reginald? '' Lomas nodded. "So am I. This is good enough to go on with, Bell." 

"I don't say it isn't, sir." Bell frowned. "But Mr. Fortune talks about taking in all the evidence. That's the trouble. I don't know if we have." He turned to Reggie. "Mr. Lomas thinks I've got a bee in my bonnet. But I put it to you, the chances are these two chaps that were seen had someone else in the job with 'em. A big jewel robbery has to be worked out very careful, to study the place and fix up the plans and to get rid of the stuff afterwards."

"Of course there was somebody behind 'em," said Lomas impatiently. "Some fence in a large way of business. We'll stick to the red - haired footballer, please."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured.

But Bell was stubborn. "I'm not talking about a fence, sir. What if there was another man actually in the job, Mr. Fortune? It's like this. Yesterday we had notice a man who lived in Barkham Mansions, Marble Arch, was missing."

"Quite a gentlemanly address."

"Yes, sir. But he was last seen that Saturday afternoon. Harvey Stroud was the name he used, and we don't know it, and we can't recognize his description. But he was in touch with a diamond merchant in Amsterdam that does some very shady business, and he kept an outfit that'd come in useful for burglary. He's vanished absolutely. Him and his car. Ever since that Saturday."

"Yes. Very interesting. What was he like?"

"Dark chap, going bald. Smiled a lot, showed his teeth. Several gold ones. Tall and thin. Very spry. Any age."

Reggie shook his head. "I don't think so. Bell. The other man in the shop had large flat feet. And the gentlemanly Mr. Harvey Stroud don't sound like a chap to hammer at a street door. He may have gone off with the swag. I'd like my red - haired little friend first, thank you."

"Quite, just my view." Lomas rubbed his hands. "We'll get on with him, Bell." 

"Oh! Are you getting warm?" said Reggie.

"I hope so. Bell's put in very sound work. But he's never happy unless he has a certainty."

"I like to be sure it's a fact," Bell grumbled.

Reggie looked at him with half - shut eyes. "Which do you mean? Sure a man ought to be hanged, or sure you can get him hanged? Well, what have you got, Bell?" 

"It's going like this, sir. We've got a man who saw a motor - bike with side - car left in Broadlands Rents that afternoon. You know the place. Light vans and such get parked there ordinary weekdays, nothing much on Saturdays. So he noticed it. And he saw two fellows go off with it. Each of 'em was carrying a workman's tool - basket. He thought they looked like builders' men. But the one that rode the bike was a little chap with red hair. Do you notice, Mr. Fortune, these chaps that saw 'em can't tell us anything about the other?"

"Yes. Rather a pity. I should say he was somebody who looked the ordinary British workman. Any further trace of our red - haired friend?"

"He goes off on the motor - bike and we lose him. But there's the football clue, sir." He stopped. "You know this is all your case really. Everything we've got is what you made for us."

"Oh no. No. Not my case. Not in my way at all," said Reggie quickly. "It's a job for the whole Department."

"Quite, quite," Lomas agreed. "Building things up."

Bell glanced at him. "Yes, sir," he said respectfully. "Well, this is what we've built up, Mr. Fortune. The porter used to have his dinner at a little eating - house round the corner. And they say there he talked a lot of football, and his pet club was London City. They got into the Final of the Cup last year, you know. Well, their outside left is a little red - haired man, Percy Clark."

"And is Mr. Clark known to the police?" Reggie asked.

"Not at all, sir. He's in the regular team, though he isn't a professional. And you can take it First League football players don't do much crime. They train too hard."

"Mr. Clark plays as an amateur. Yes. And how does he get his living?"

"He's got a business of his own, sir; motor and cycle depot; specializes in motor - bikes."

"Well, well!" Reggie murmured, and Lomas laughed. "It does all fit, doesn't it, Bell?" 

"You mean he could ha' made that queer long chisel they used in his own workshop. Yes, I thought of that. But it is quite a respectable business, old standing; his father had it before him."

"Yes. Yes." Reggie smiled. "What are his teeth like?"

Bell breathed hard. "Ah. I reckon that's up to you, sir. I've had some fellows look at him, but all they can say is he has a scar on his face, healing. Playing football, be might get that easy."

"Do they play football in August?"

"Oh yes, sir. Practice games. League season begins before summer's over. What I was thinking - his team has a practice game this evening - if you'd come up and have a look at him."

"If you like. Anything I can do," said Reggie meekly. "What about it, Lomas?"

"Safety - first idea, isn't it?" Lomas shrugged. "But there's no harm in looking him over beforehand. I take it the thing turns on his tooth. If he's lost the piece you found, then we've got him cold. If he hasn't, then we shall have to work up something more."

"I don't know about working up," Bell grumbled. "We shall want something more. I thought of taking the chap who saw the burglars at work up to the ground to see if he could identify dark."

"Oh no. No. I wouldn't do that," Reggie said hastily. "It's not fair. Bell. The red - haired man he saw was in ordinary clothes. Mr. Clark may look very different stripped for football. Try him in a regular identification parade."

"Very good, sir," Bell frowned. "You don't mind my saying so, but you're uncommon careful to have us do everything in the regulation routine way for you in this case."

"It's that kind of case, you know." Reggie was plaintive.

Quite," Lomas approved. "Quite. You're perfectly right, my dear fellow."

The huge amphitheatre of the London City ground was sparsely populated for that practice match. Two men who strolled in just before the kick - off had no difficulty in finding places against the rails. The players ran on to the field and lined up. The red head of Percy Clark glistened in the sun.

"Yes. Quite oily," Reggie murmured. "And the right red, thank you." He smiled. "Cut over the eye nearly gone. Sturdy little wretch, isn't he?"

"He could have struck that blow?" Bell said under his breath.

"Oh lord, yes! Just the man. Short and powerful. I told you he would be. Quick on his feet, isn't he?" Clark was making rings round the opposing half. "That also. Oh, damn!" Clark had come into contact with the back. They had some badinage.

"I didn't see," Bell muttered. "What is it? Tooth there, sir?"

"No. The whole tooth's gone. He's had it out, confound him." He turned away.

"What do you want to do now, sir?" Bell said when they reached the street.

"Carry on, carry on. You'll have to ask Mr. Clark to come to Scotland Yard, and if he won't come - take him."

That night two grave men called on Percy Clark in the neat little house beside his garage. They asked him to come and give Superintendent Bell a little information. He laughed. He wanted to know what about. They said the Superintendent would tell him. He replied that he had no time to go running round to police stations. They said he would have to make it. He went with them.

"Cut it short, will you, old friend?" He greeted Bell jauntily. "I'm a busy man."

"All right," said Bell. "You just tell me what you were doing the afternoon of Saturday the 20th."

"I don't think!" Clark winked. "Want to pinch me for something, do you? Nothing doing, old bean. There's been too much in the papers about what a chap gets by talking to the police."

"You can't account for your time that afternoon?"

"Not 'arf," said Clark. "I'm saying nothing, mate."

"If you're innocent, you're a fool," Bell frowned.

"You've got nothing against me. I know that. Not being a fool, old friend, I'm not going to help you fake up a charge. Got that? Now, what about it?"

"You'll be detained as a suspected person," said Bell.

"What of?" said Clark.

"You'll hear when the time comes."

In the morning. Bell put him up for identification by the man who had seen the burglars at work and the man who saw two workmen go off in a side - car. Both of these witnesses picked him out, both declared that they had seen a little man with red hair like his. Neither would say he was the man. His house and his garage were searched and such a tool as the long chisel which had been used in the burglary was found: more than one queer tool of no lawful use.

Then Bell charged him with burglary and murder, and he grinned and asked to see his solicitor.

Reggie was called out of his laboratory to the telephone. "Well, Reginald, Mr. Percy Clark is going to be put through it," said the voice of Lomas. "In the police court tomorrow. Happy now?"

"Not happy, no. Tranquil. I thought you'd have to."

"Quite. You're satisfied? Good. So am I. Come round, will you? The Public Prosecutor wants to talk."

Reggie came into a room which seemed to be occupied by a large man in front of the fireplace, who lectured.

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "Lomas - oh, you are there. I couldn't see you for the noise. Hallo, Bell! You look disgruntled." He turned at last to Mr. Montagu Finchampstead, the Public Prosecutor. "What's the matter with you, Finch?"

"He's explaining that he doesn't think much of the case," said Lomas.

"Fancy that," Reggie murmured. "Haven't we been correct, Lomas? How would Finch have done it?"

"The question is not how I should have done it, but whether the evidence you have will obtain a conviction. And - -"

"Is it?" said Lomas. "I should say if the police have good evidence a man was guilty of murder he ought to go for trial."

"Good evidence, yes," Finchampstead fumed. "There's practically nothing but Fortune's story."

"My what?" Reggie was hurt. "I don't tell stories, Finch."

"We have some other striking facts," said Lomas. "A man very like this chap was on the scene of the murder. He has the motor - bike equipment and the burglarious tools which the murderer required. He's a footballer, and a football photo was stolen from the murdered man's room after the crime."

"A lot of detail," Finchampstead snorted.

"Of course it's detail," said Lomas. "Every case is made up of detail: and when each scrap fits, the cumulative force is strong."

"The only clear evidence you've got is Fortune's statement about the hair and the piece of tooth. And in my opinion it's not satisfactory."

"Thank you for all these kind words," Reggie murmured. "Why isn't it satisfactory? The murderer left hair on the dead man's fist which is just the colour of Percy Clark's. He left a bit of a front tooth, and Percy has lost all that tooth."

"Just so. All of it," said Finchampstead. "Which means that the bit you found is not evidence against him at all. A man can't have something broken off a tooth he hasn't got."

"How true. Finch! How brilliant!" Reggie looked at him reverently. "But don't you see, dear, that raises the little questions, when did he have that tooth taken out, and why did he have that tooth taken out?' For he had his front teeth all present and correct quite recently. I've found a smiling photograph."

"That's right, sir," Bell nodded. "In the football papers. And I've found customers of his who want to swear he hasn't lost a front tooth at all."

"Satisfied now?" Lomas smiled.

Finchampstead scowled at him. "No, I am not satisfied. I am bound to say the evidence is inadequate."

"Now, what exactly do you mean, Finch?" Reggie murmured. "That you don't think Percy was the murderer or that you don't think you can make a jury say he was?"

Finchampstead hesitated. "You show a strong probability. But I have to make a proof, Fortune."

Lomas laughed. "You admit it's a case for trial."

"I agree we must go through with it." Finchampstead rose. "Don't forget we have no idea what his defence is going to be."

"No. Not a notion," Reggie murmured. "That'll make it very interesting."

The conference broke up. But Bell took Reggie aside. "Mr. Fortune, do you believe this man's guilty?" he said.

"Oh yes. Absolutely. Not a doubt. Why?"

Bell drew a long breath. "Well, I'm glad. I did think you were keeping out of it: leaving it all to us."

"Yes." He looked at Bell with half - shut eyes. "It makes you all nice and keen. I couldn't force a prosecution. But Lomas can. And he has."

The arrest of a First League player for murder was a fortune to newspapers in the depths of the silly season. The great heart of the people was taught to yearn over Percy Clark. Pages of stories, pages of pictures, set forth his deeds on the football field, his beauty and his charm. He became a popular hero persecuted by the police.

The prosecution went on its slow prosaic way. Before the magistrate an old solicitor of renown in criminal cases appeared for Mr. Clark, played lightly with the evidence against him and announced that he would reserve his defence. Mr. Clark was committed for trial.

When the case came on, a crowd fought to get into the court, a crowd remained outside. The driest, hardest little Judge on the bench took the case. "Looks in form," Lomas smiled. "He'll hang the fellow if he can."

"He will keep the jury to the evidence," said Finchampstead with dignity, glancing at the fleshy advocate who was leading for the defence.

But Mr. Justice Blackshaw had no chance for his noted snubs. Sir Edward Pollexfen did not use the melodramatic style which has made him the idol of the criminal classes. He took the case as quietly as the neat counsel for the prosecution. The dangerous evidence of Reggie did not excite him, his cross - examination treated Mr. Fortune with careless respect. "Your evidence is that the murderer had red hair and lost a portion of a tooth in his struggle with the dead man. Very good. I suggest that many men have red hair, Mr. Fortune." 

"Yes. Not so many this shade of red." 

"Still, a good many. You produce one hair and a piece of a front tooth. You don't suggest that piece is missing from any of the prisoner's teeth."

"Not from any that he has now. He has had the tooth in the position from which this piece came removed."

"If he had lost that tooth before the murder, this piece cannot be his?"

"If he had," said Reggie, and was told that was all. 

Lomas looked at Finchampstead. "Taking it easy, what?"

"Much too easy," Finchampstead frowned. Reggie came from the witness - box to sit beside them. "Well, well. I should say we're going to hear some good hard swearing, Finch."

"I should say they have a good answer. I was afraid of that, Fortune."

"Yes, yes. I know you were," Reggie murmured. The defence continued to take it easy. The men who had seen a red - haired little fellow at the time and place of the murder were let go with the admission that they could not swear to Percy Clark. The woman telling of the stolen football photograph was only required to admit she did not know who was in it. The customers of Clark who swore he had had all his teeth till the eve of the murder were contemptuously challenged. Bell's own evidence of strange tools in Clark's workshop was dismissed with a few technical questions to confuse the jury.

Pollexfen arose to open the defence with expansive confidence. The jury must be amazed at the weakness of the case which they had been brought to hear. In all his long experience he had never known a criminal charge supported by such scanty, flimsy evidence. It would be apparent to them that no rational man could find the prisoner guilty. But his client was not content to be acquitted for lack of evidence against him. He claimed the right to prove his innocence. And he would show that he could have had no part in the crime.

"That means we're going to have an alibi," said Lomas.

But they began with the tooth. Some of the other players in dark's football team swore that he had an accident in practice the week before the murder and stood out of training.

"Yes, I dare say they're telling the truth," Reggie murmured. "He'd want time off to make his little arrangements."

They testified that Clark had a kick in the face, complained that it had loosened his teeth, told them the front one had gone so shaky he had to pull it out.

"Thus avoiding any dentist's evidence," Reggie murmured.

The prosecuting counsel, going gingerly, brought out that they had no knowledge how the tooth was lost except what Clark had told them.

And then came a man who said he lived at Gilsfield. It is a little place fifty miles out of London, away from main lines and main roads.

Reggie lay back and gazed at him with mild and dreamy eyes.

The man said he was a retired grocer, and he looked it. He had a habit of going out for a stroll and getting a cup of tea at a wayside inn, the "Billhook." He knew Mr. Clark by seeing him there pretty often. He was at the "Billhook " on the Saturday of the murder. He saw Mr. Clark there. Under cross - examination he was sure of the date, but vague about the time. It was tea - time: might have been four or five. "Or six or seven?" counsel suggested. But he was sure it was before the bar opened. The Court laughed.

"Pretty vague," said Lomas.

"Yes. Yes. Mr. Clark will want them to do better than that," Reggie murmured, and contemplated the sharp, impudent face in the dock.

The landlord of the "Billhook " came next, an oldish, fattish man, sweating freely. He also knew Mr. Clark. Mr. Clark often came to the "Billhook " when he was out on his motor - bike. He came that Saturday. Came for a bit o' lunch. Stayed on till it was getting dark. Had a bit o' game with the darts in the afternoon. He knew the date, he'd got it scored up. Mr. Clark lost half a dollar to him and hadn't paid yet. Again the Court laughed. And cross - examination made nothing of the landlord. He was anxious to oblige, in the manner of a publican, he wheezed and he sweated, but he stuck to his story.

"So that's that," Reggie murmured, watching him out of the box. "Now, what's little Blackshaw going to do about it?"

Pollexfen's speech for the defence took that for granted. He boomed assurance. The charge had collapsed; it was atoms, dust. The prisoner was proved innocent before God and man.

The reply for the prosecution was in a minor key, ironic about alibis, sarcastic upon dentistry by hearsay, bitter in emphasis on the anxiety of someone to destroy the evidence that the murdered man had a footballing friend.

Mr. Justice Blackshaw took snuff. The summing up came in his driest style. The jury would not be misled by counsel's complaints that a grave charge had been made without proof. They would observe that facts had been given in evidence which were in substance unchallenged and which pointed to the prisoner's guilt. They would also observe that evidence had been given to weaken the strongest part of the case and other evidence which would disprove it all. He made it plain that he did not think much of the explanation of the tooth. He treated the alibi with more respect. If they believed the witnesses for the defence, the foundation of the charge, that dark had been at the shop at the time of the burglary, was destroyed. They must consider that evidence carefully and the evidence as a whole.

"Fair little beggar, isn't he?" Reggie smiled.

"He knows what your evidence is worth," Finchampstead growled. "That's a direction to acquit."

"I know. I know," Reggie murmured. He gazed pensively at the man in the dock. The gap where the tooth had been showed in a queer, sneering grin.

The jury did not consider long. They came back with a verdict of not guilty, and at the words a cheer rose from the back of the crowded court, rose louder, to the impotent rage of the little Judge, as it was swelled by a boom of cheering from the crowd outside.

"I told you so, Lomas," Finchampstead growled. "You've made a nice thing of it. This is what comes of relying on Fortune's theories."

On the next day a young man on a motor - bicycle stopped at the "Billhook " for lunch. His clothes were loud, his speech Cockney. He confided in the landlord that he was having his fortnight off: mooching round the country on the old jigger: rather thought of putting up somewhere for a bit. The landlord, who looked like the morning after a wet night, said the "Billhook" had no beds. "Sorry. You got some good beer. 'Ave one with me." The landlord had one and another. "Prime stuff. I'll be coming this way again, dad " - the young man winked. "Cheerio!" He rode off and found a bed in Gilsfield. He was Mr. Fortune's chauffeur, Sam, a young man of versatility.

The country round the "Billhook " is lonely, a picturesque and barren region of sandhills which grew heath by nature and have been made to grow larch and pine. Here and there the ponds, which such country is apt to produce, give variety to the vegetation. About this time a botanist, complete with vasculum, was noticed working over the heath. The solitary woodmen and gamekeepers found him affable. He was Mr. Fortune.

Sam continued to mooch round and he often recurred to the bar of the "Billhook," and the men who used it agreed that he was a lad. From them his bicycle took him often to the hotel in the county town where Mr. Fortune unostentatiously resided.

They had been rusticating thus for something more than a week, and Sam was sitting in the "Billhook " at lunch when he heard the telephone ring. "Yes," the landlord's wheezy voice answered; "yes, this is the ' Billhook.' I'm the landlord. What?" His voice made throaty noises. "Don't know what you mean. Who's that speaking? Who is it?" There was a silence. Then a rattling of the telephone. "I say, miss, who was that rang me up?" And again silence.

Sam finished his lunch and went into the bar. The landlord was gulping down a glass of brandy; his hand shook and his face was a mottled yellow. Sam grinned. "And I'll 'ave a spot o' sloe gin myself, guv'nor." He was served without a word and his money was taken. The landlord watched him go out, shut the door and went back to the telephone.

In the evening Sam related these events to Mr. Fortune. "It gave 'im a rare turn, sir. Pity you can't over'ear what's coming from the other end of the telephone."

"Don't worry," Reggie murmured. "And then?"

"Well, then 'e went back to the telephone and rung up someone and 'ad a long talk., 'E saw me off the premises first careful, so I don't know who that was. But I 'ung about down the road an' presently 'e came out and 'e went walking round by that old pond under the wood. Sort o' mooning about. Didn't do anything. Just starin' like. And then 'e came back lookin' that queer."

Over Reggie's face came a slow benign smile. "No. No. He couldn't do anything," he murmured. "Now we'll do a little more telephoning. Good - bye, Sam. I'm afraid you'll have a night out. I want the ' Billhook ' watched tonight."

"All right, sir. I'd love to do the blighter in. The beastly swipes I've drunk in his place! But what do you mean, more telephoning? That message 'e 'ad - -"

"Oh yes. Yes. That was me. Good - bye."

As soon as it grew dark Sam went into hiding behind a dump of gorse in the road above the "Billhook." He saw the regular drinkers of that respectable inn arrive and cheerily depart. At the legal hour the "Billhook " closed its door and the light behind the red blind of its bar went out. Two lights upstairs announced that the landlord and his maid - of - all - work had gone to bed. Then those lights also vanished, and the inn was a vague mass in the dark.

The night was silent but for the whirr of bats and an owl hooting. After a while Sam made out the beat of a motor engine far away, a bicycle engine efficiently silenced. It came nearer at a great pace, rushed past him, stopped at the inn, and without a knock or a word the door opened and the man and the bicycle were inside.

For a moment Sam thought he heard a car purring down the road, then lost the sound. But soon other faint sounds came. A man was nearly treading on him, a hand felt for him, a torch flashed into his face. "All right, son," a voice whispered. "I'm Bell." The bulk of the Superintendent lay down at Sam's side. "You've got a good nerve. Anything doing?"

"Not 'alf," Sam muttered. "Chap and his motor - bike gone into the pub. Couldn't see him."

They lay there some while longer. Then a light came out of the inn, a stable lantern in a man's hand. He was the landlord. With him walked a smaller man, who carried a spade on his shoulder. They turned off the road. " 'Ere," - Sam gripped at Bell - goin' down by the pond. That's where the old 'un went this afternoon. What's the game?"

"Shut up," Bell muttered. He let the two go well ahead before he stood up. Four other men rose out of the ground behind him. They moved on towards the pond silently. The lantern light was glimmering over the water: there was a squelching, splashing sound. The landlord stood in the pond a little way from the bank, digging, and the other man held the lantern. Something came away with a gurgling and sucking, which took two hands to lift, was taken out of the water and the landlord hurried away with it, leaving his companion to bring lantern and spade.

As they came. Bell turned his torch on them, and other torches flashed out. They were held in the glare while his men closed. "We're police officers," said Bell, with a heavy grip on the landlord's arm.

"Oh, police, are you?" It was the other man who answered. "Going to make another bloomer, then?"

"I know you, Clark," Bell said.

"You bloomin' well do, Mr. bloomin' Superintendent. An' you know you can't do anything more against me. I've been found not guilty, I have, and you can't touch me. I know my rights and I ain't going to stand for any rough stuff. Come off it."

"And this is your alibi," Bell said mildly. "Well, what's he giving us now?" He took from the landlord's shaking arms a big metal box. "Thanks. Bring 'em back to the pub."

"Now, what do you think you're doing?" Clark cried. "You've got no right to pinch me again. You can't touch me. I tell you -" One of the detectives, hustling him along, advised him to stow the gab. "You wait till I get to my lawyer, you bloomin' stiff. I'll have the hide off you for this. I'll have you turned out of the force."

"Want to talk now, Clark?" said Bell. "Let it out. You hadn't much to say last time."

They came into the bar of the "Billhook," and the lamps were lit. Bell looked at his prisoners. The landlord's fat face sagged, pallid. Clark scowled. "Going to give me the key?" Bell tapped the box.

"I dunno nothing about it," the landlord whined. "I - I was jus' keeping it for - -"

"Don't you say anything, George," dark said quickly. "He'll only twist it against you."

"Yes, who were you keeping it for, George?" Bell smiled. There was no answer. "All right. I dare say we can tell you. Put 'em in there." He opened the door of the bar parlour.

"Here, now, wait a bit. What's the charge?" Clark protested.

"Detained, on suspicion," Bell said.

"Oh yes, I don't think. You had that before."

"And now I've got some more," Bell said, and the two were taken away. "Well, Forbes, what about it?"

One of his men was already opening the box. It was full of a bundle in leather cloth. Out of that came jewellery. Forbes spread out a printed list and began to examine things. "This is Durfey and Killigrew's stuff all right, sir."

"Good work," said Bell, and went to the telephone. "That Mr. Fortune? Bell speaking. We've got 'em, sir. With the stuff. They had it buried in this pond here. What, sir? You don't mean -?" He brushed his hand over his face. "Very good, sir. I'll keep 'em here." He hung up the receiver. He sat down heavily and lit a pipe. It took many matches. . . .

Until dawn they waited in the inn, a long watch broken by the complaints of Clark. With the light came a car. Mr. Fortune and Lomas and the Chief Constable of the County. "Hallo, Bell." Reggie was brisk. "Nobody else in the place?"

"There's a woman servant upstairs, Sam says. I haven't got her up, sir. She seems to have slept through it."

"Yes. Been trained not to hear too much. Well, one of your men had better take her off. We shall want her statement. Don't let her see these fellows. I - -"

A lorry groaned past the door.

"Well, let's get on, what?" He turned away. "When I want these two beauties I'll whistle."

Through the window of the bar parlour the sharp red face of Mr. Clark could be seen peering after the lorry. It carried some country policemen in uniform. As near the pond as it could get, it stopped. The policemen clambered down and hauled out a cumbrous apparatus of iron and rope.

The Chief Constable strode up to the pond. "It's not so big, Mr. Fortune. We'll soon make sure one way or the other."

"Yes, yes." Reggie walked round the bank and measured distances with his eye. "We're going to make quite sure. They couldn't throw him further than this. Begin from here and work towards that end."

The drags were put in and the constabulary hauled and the black water grew turbid and yellow. The ropes strained. "Got something," the Chief Constable grunted. "Go steady, lads." Out of the depths of the pond into the shallows came a shapeless mass of cloth. Policemen splashed in and lifted on to the bank something that had been a man.

Lomas turned away. The Chief Constable pulled out a flask and drank and passed it to his men. Reggie knelt down by the body. . . . When he stood up again he dabbled his hands in the pond. "Could you blow a whistle, Lomas?" he murmured.

The Chief Constable did that. "Is it the chap you were looking for?"

"Oh yes. Gold teeth, as per invoice. The late Harvey Stroud."

"Was he drowned?" said Lomas.

"No, not drowned. Skull fractured. Injury to bones of the face. Hit and jabbed by hard, heavy weapon. Same like the porter. Ah, here come the operators." Under the propulsion of Bell's men, Mr. Clark and the landlord reluctantly approached. "Come along," Reggie called. "Just want you to recognize the deceased."

The landlord caught sight of that shapeless face and gave a gasping cry.

"Yes. Your error," Reggie said. He contemplated the little red face of Percy Clark. Its look of impudence was fixed, but his jaws worked fast. "Still chewing gum, Mr. Clark?"

Then Clark swore at him. . . .

That afternoon the Public Prosecutor was asked to come and see the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. He found Mr. Fortune with Lomas. "My dear old Finch," Reggie beamed. "Journeys end in lovers meetin'. Another nice case for you now."

"Good heavens!" Finchampstead exploded. "Another case of yours? I should have thought that last exhibition was sufficiently ignominious. What is this, now?"

"Percy Clark, dear. Yet once more, oh ye laurels, and once more."

"Are you mad? You can't charge the man again."

"Not the same murder. No. This is another one. And thus we will establish your shaken reputation, Finch."

"My reputation !" Finchampstead gobbled.

"Yes, old thing. Yes, it was too bad." Reggie soothed him. "But necessary, you know. All for your country's good. We had to prosecute the beggar. We had to make him show his hand. And you did it beautifully, Finch."

"What does this mean, Lomas?" Finchampstead groaned.

"He's quite right," Lomas chuckled. "He generally is, confound him. Don't you see, the prosecution drove Clark into a corner. His only chance was to set up that alibi. And the alibi gave him away."

"It was perjured evidence? I dare say. If you hadn't been so hasty - -"

"Not hasty. No. Forcin' the game," Reggie smiled. "When he put that fat landlord into the box; he put the rope round his neck. We had it sworn that he was a pal of the landlord's, and that he'd been at the 'Billhook' on the evening of the burglary. So I went down with my chauffeur to look into the landlord. And we found another fellow came to the ' Billhook ' that night. A tall, dark fellow, who came in a car, went into a back room with the landlord and Mr. Clark, and was never seen to go away. His car was there days after. Well, you know, there was a man reported missing from that Saturday who had interests in burglary - Mr. Harvey Stroud. Bell was always worrying about him. Bell thought he might be the man who put up the job. It looked as if he was. We knew the murder of the porter wasn't according to plan. If Mr. Stroud came quietly down to the ' Billhook ' to collect the swag and found he'd been mixed up in a murder, he wouldn't be pleased. There might well have been a row. Another little affair not according to plan. So I rang up the landlord and said, 'What's become of Harvey Stroud?' Only that and nothing more. Just to see the reaction. He reacted very nicely. He gargled. Then my man saw him go out and wander round the adjacent pond, just looking at things. And then he went back and telephoned to Mr. Clark. Soon as the evening shades prevailed, Clark buzzed down to the 'Billhook.' In the night they went out and dug the swag out of the pond. And Bell got 'em with the goods all present and correct." "We can convict them of the burglary, then?" said Finchampstead.

"Oh yes. Yes. And the murder of Stroud. We dragged the pond this morning."

"I always knew that rascal Clark was guilty," Finchampstead announced.

"Yes, I think so," Mr. Fortune murmured. "One of my neater cases. Pure art. No vulgar emotion."

FIFTH EXPLANATION

THE ROCK GARDEN

MR. FORTUNE was lunching at that one of his clubs where they understand mayonnaise. This often happens when he is condemned to spend June in London. The defect of that club is men speak to each other. He was therefore not surprised that big Blenkinsop stopped at his table: it only renewed his gloom. Blenkinsop had a guest in tow, a plump old fellow with white hair and owlish eyes which looked queer above a red youthful face. He was introduced as Sidney Brigg and a little flustered about it. When Mr. Fortune settled down to a cigar upstairs he found them on top of him.

Blenkinsop asked after his garden and Reggie moaned that he had not seen it for weeks. Blenkinsop laughed. "You two fellows would go well together, Fortune. Brigg is a great gardener, too. Mad about it. Wonderful place down in Wessex."

Reggie's eyes opened a little. "Jolly," he sighed.

"Oh, nothing wonderful at all," said Brigg eagerly. "I - I do think I have a rather remarkable rock garden. If you care about that sort of thing, Mr. Fortune, I - I should be most happy if you'd come down to my little place."

"Thanks very much. Like to." Reggie got on his feet. "Good - bye. There's some bacteria waiting for me hungrily." He went off to his laboratory and Brigg and the rock garden faded out of his conscious mind.

Two days afterwards they came back. Reggie was at home dozing between tea and dinner and upon him dozed Darius, his black Persian cat. They woke to gaze reproachful at the parlourmaid who offered the card of Mr. Sidney Brigg. "My only aunt!" Reggie murmured. "Yes. I'll see him." And Brigg was brought in. Reggie and Darius blinked at him. "How are you?" Reggie held out a hand. "You see why I can't get up." Darius rose with cold indignation and descended to the floor.

"Too bad of me to trouble you like this really," Brigg said, and stooped and stroked Darius, who gave answer in a contemptuous curse. "Sorry, old fellow. Yes, too bad of me." He looked up at Reggie. "The fact is - I'm off again to my place tonight - I just wanted to fix things up before I went - better come along soon - the garden is just at its best." He spoke fast and in jerks.

"My dear chap!" Reggie murmured. "Thanks very much. But I've got my little problems up here."

"Your police work?" Brigg answered quickly.

"Oh no. Not police. Bacteria. Much more interesting. But exacting. Gardens always are at their best when you can't be there. A sad world."

"You must give me a week - end, Mr. Fortune. You really must. It was a promise, you know. And really you'll find it most interesting. Every one tells me my rock garden is something quite out of the way." He dilated upon it, he babbled of gentians, of anemones, of veronicas from the ends of the earth. And it became clear to Reggie that he did not know what he was talking about.

Darius had sat down in the middle of the floor: with round golden eyes he contemplated the babbling Brigg: he opened his mouth to utter a long, low wail.

Brigg jumped. "Ah, poor fellow," he said, and bent to stroke him. Darius looked at the caressing hand, bit it, rose and went to the door and ordered it to open.

"Yes. Very interesting," Reggie murmured. He gazed at Brigg, at the large, pale, haunted eyes which reverted from Darius to him. "I could get away on Friday if you'd have me."

"My dear sir, I shall be delighted." The red face puckered into a boyish smile. "Just what I hoped for." He gave elaborate directions. They must come through Broading: anyone would tell them the way to Five Thorns. He was hard to get rid of.

When he was at last gone Reggie went slowly upstairs to his wife's room. A smile out of the looking - glass rewarded him. He sat down and contemplated her as she dressed. "My dear child," she protested. "Run away and change yourself."

"You're nice, aren't you, Joan?" he said gravely.

"Yes. I think so," said the face in the glass. She turned. "What's the matter?"

"Wanted to look at you. I'm going away this weekend."

"Pig," said Mrs. Fortune. "What for?"

"I don't know. The fellow wanted me to go and look at his rock garden. And, speakin' broadly, I should say he hasn't got one." He told her about the intrusion of Brigg.

Mrs. Fortune put the last gold pin into her amber hair and turned. "What do you think he really wants?"

"Me, darling," Reggie smiled. "That's the basic fact. He wants me and he wants me badly."

"Vanity," said Mrs. Fortune. "Why should he want you?"

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"If he was really in trouble, and wanting you to help, he would have told you what it was."

"Yes. That would be the natural process. I didn't think he was quite natural, Joan. I should say he's in fear. Fear of something he can't be sure about. Kind of haunted."

"And he wants to get you down alone to this country place. There may be something horrible."

"Trouble for somebody. Yes. That is indicated."

"Oh, of course, if you think someone's in trouble you must fuss to help. But this horrid old man may be making a trap for you."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie said slowly. "That would be his error, Joan."

"You are just a small boy," said Mrs. Fortune. "I know why you're going really. It's because Darius liked him. Horrid cat."

"The darling!" Reggie was indignant. "You have no reverence, Joan. No soul. Darius couldn't bear him. Though he worshipped most respectful. Darius don't like people jumpy. So I have to attend to Mr. Brigg."

Mrs. Fortune made a face at him. Thus with domestic strife he undertook the case of the rock garden.

At this stage he regarded it with a completely open mind. He allowed an equal possibility that it might turn out to be anything from murders to indigestion. His treatment of it, he will point out, showed that caution which is his chief virtue as a man of science. Blenkinsop was sought at the club and his desultory mind turned over thoroughly. Old Brigg had confided to him a craving to meet the great Mr. Fortune and Blenkinsop had eagerly arranged it. He knew all about Brigg. The man belonged to an old Wessex family. His place down there had been in their hands for generations. Brigg hadn't had it long. He'd made his pile in the cotton trade before the estate came to him. He was a widower then with one daughter - very smart girl. Married again a few years ago. Lovely woman, an actress or something. Old Brigg found her down in the provinces and married her right away.

"Have you been to his country house?"

"Oh yes. Several times. Fine old place. They do you very well, too. And the ladies are worth looking at. You ought to go."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured.

The domestic affairs of Brigg seemed to him to offer opportunities for various complications. Superintendent Bell was asked to look into the past of Sidney Brigg, and with a mind resolutely open Reggie went down to look into his present.

The big car came to a pleasant country of woodland and down. At the end of the afternoon they ran into the quiet little grey town of Broading, and Sam the chauffeur drew up by the dreaming policeman in the market - place to ask the way to Five Thorns. When he woke up he was zealous to oblige.

Sam nodded and drove on. "Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Always wise to be in good standing with the police, Sam. We've got it on record we arrived here, anyway." Sam looked round with a hint of a grin on his Cockney face. "All right, sir. I thought somebody 'ad got 'is number up."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured.

And they saw Five Thorns. Its roof rose close under the bastion of a bare hill - side, where springs broke out to make a pool, gleaming silver through the green darkness of surrounding trees.

Beyond the pool and the wood the house stood, a mass of grey stone built by some eighteenth - century Brigg whose ideal was solemn comfort. The wide lawns about it smiled in the sunshine, bright with Victorian gardening: geraniums, calceolaria, lobelia.

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Home, sweet home. That's what I did not think, Sam."

As the car drew up, a woman hurried round the corner of the house and stopped short. It was to be inferred that the sound of a car had brought her expecting someone and Reggie was not what she expected. She was a vivid creature, if her colours were put on by nature.

From the other end of the garden came Brigg. He beamed, he gushed, he was officious, and the woman vanished.

Reggie was taken to a large, much - furnished bedroom, and, relieved at last of the attentions of Brigg, who seemed to want to valet him, sat down to contemplate it. It had everything, as Brigg had laboriously pointed out, that any man could think of putting in a bedroom; its colours were a pleasant blue and grey; its air was fresh, but there was a gloom about it. The light outside was brilliant. Reggie moved to the window and looked through the sunshine to the trees about the pool and the green wall of the down. But the sunlight did not come into the room, had not come and would never come. The windows looked north.

"Keeping me on ice," Reggie murmured. "What shall be done to the man whom Brigg delights to honour? He shall be put in a room without sun. By accident or design? I wonder." Sam tapped at the door and came in. "Hallo! Found your quarters?"

"Yes, sir. Floor above this. Looking the other way.'' Sam stiffened under his dreamy eyes. "Anything doing, sir?"

"Run away and make yourself at home. Be affable, Sam. We just want to know, you know."

Reggie went down to tea. The drawing - room did not look north. It was full of sunshine.

The woman who had hurried to meet his car sat with her back to the light. Brigg bustled forward. "Here's Mr. Fortune, Gladys."

"So pleased you could come." Her tone was careful and lifeless. A thin hand was limp in his. "Sidney thinks the world of his garden. I hope you'll like it. It is rather a dear place."

She did not seem to mean that or to mean anything in particular. She was without interest in him. Reggie considered her with benign curiosity. Those vivid colours, of course, were not provided by nature. Pity she used all that paint. She had a certain originality, too. She was years out of fashion. She let nature determine the length of her hair and the black mass of it was bound in a knot on her neck. Her red dress gave her a waist and amplitude above and below and fell long. "Strange survival," Reggie said to himself. "Nineteenth - century vamp."

But her conduct was insipidly, timidly respectable. She was attentive to both men, not very quick and with a touch of shyness or humility, but anxious to oblige, to agree, to have them satisfied and pleased. Brigg did his share. He kept her in the conversation and he made the most of what she said. He was an admiring and kindly husband. Yet Reggie felt that everybody was working hard.

Brigg looked at his watch. "Do you know where Dorothy is, dear?" he said.

"She went out with Mr. Howard in his car."

Brigg grunted. "She won't be in to tea now, I suppose. My daughter, you know," he explained to Reggie. "We've got a fellow staying here, friend of my wife's, with a contraption he calls a sports car. Dorothy's fond of motoring. Well, you'll see her at dinner. What about a turn in the garden now?"

"Oh yes," Reggie smiled. "I must see the famous rock garden without delay." He turned to Mrs. Brigg. "Something rather wonderful, isn't it?"

She looked at him with puzzled eyes. "I don't understand about it myself. It's - it's very curious. Sidney's awfully interested."

Brigg laughed. "That's really what brought him, Gladys." Brigg clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, sir." Mrs. Brigg did not come.

They walked, as it seemed to Reggie, over miles of lawn studded with masterpieces of bedding out and carpet bedding. They inspected a good old orchard. They came through an expanse of model vegetables to acres of glass with all the kindly fruits of the earth out of their season.

Reggie emerged breathing like a fish. Reggie mopped a weary brow. "Did you say you had a garden somewhere?"

Brigg was not offended. He was not amused. He remained nervously earnest and anxious to please. "You mean the rock garden," he said. "Yes, of course. Yes. That's the real interest. I just wanted to show you what we can do down here. Now we must go up this way-" They turned back to reach the house from another side.

Reggie glanced at him again. He seemed to suffer from excitement.

"There it is, do you see, there."

Reggie looked where he pointed. Up the side of the house rose the rock garden.

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Yes. That's very remarkable." He felt Brigg watching him intently. "I never saw anything like it."

The mound of the garden was set close against the house wall - that sunless northern wall from which his bedroom windows looked out. It spread only a few yards wide at the base, but was built up, hiding the wall, to about a man's height.

"Yes. Very interesting. Did you make it yourself?" "No, it wasn't me," said Brigg quickly. "It's been there half a century. My cousin, who had the place before me, was a great gardener."

"Was he?" Reggie murmured. He made a polite inspection. It was mostly rocks and labels, as if it had been constructed yesterday.

The plants were not only small but sad, disliking their sunless habitation. Most of them had not been there fifty years or fifty days. "You've done a good deal to it yourself?" Reggie asked.

"Well, yes, I have taken a bit of trouble with it," said Brigg, and stopped suddenly as if he had made a blunder. "I mean to say, I got very interested in these little things, you know." He pointed out, as if they were rarities, saxifrages and sedums and anemones which every rock gardener grows. "See those asters - they come from the Alps and that rhododendron, too. They're very rare. And that aquilegia, it's Siberian, you know. And the primulas just above, they grow on the Himalayas. It is interesting, isn't it?"

"Yes. Yes. It is." Reggie looked at him. The old fellow was babbling nonsense: if he got a plant's name right, he was wrong about its origin: a wild jumble of catalogue descriptions. Queer state of mind in a man who was keen about his garden. For he had stuck some rare things into that sunless mound.

Brigg laughed nervously. "Rather wanted to make something new of it, you know. Something a bit different."

"Well, you have," Reggie murmured. "Something quite out of the way," and he went over that garden plant by plant. It was not adapted to inspection, being built in the manner of a mountain. But Brigg encouraged him to clamber. His interest delighted Brigg.

When he went back to his room to dress he found Sam in waiting. "And what have you found?" He dropped into a chair.

"Nice 'omely 'ouse, sir. Very pleasant. Old servants running it, to please 'emselves, which they do you very well, and giving master and missus a first - class character. Looks all right to me." 

"Does it?" said Reggie, and gazed at him with large, melancholy eyes.

Reggie undid his more constraining buttons and sank deep in the chair, in the dishevelled condition he prefers for deeper thought. He desired urgently to arrange the absurd facts. . . .

When he came down he found Mrs. Brigg with another man. They were apart with the ostentation of people who do not want to be caught together. She introduced him to Mr. Ormond Howard and he found himself looking at a man not so young as he had been, but dapper, like a middle - aged hero of musical comedy. Mr. Howard talked about nothing and found himself most amusing. He was a very bright young thing.

Another one came in, but she was young: straight and angular as a boy and with a boy's swagger. It did not suit her abundance of paint and powder. She was whistling one of the commoner tunes of the moment. "Hullo, old thing -" she patted Mrs. Brigg on the head "- had a good day?" And she turned to Mr. Howard. "Give me a gasper, Ormond."

"Where have you been, Dorothy?" Mrs. Brigg's eyes had a queer anxiety.

"All round the jolly old world." She blew smoke rings. "That's some bus Ormond's got. What did we work up to, boy? Eighty plus?"

"Go easy with it," Howard chuckled. "Only seventy. While she was on the ground."

"I wish you wouldn't," said Mrs. Brigg.

"Oh, cheerio!" Dorothy laughed.

Brigg bustled in. "Ah, you're all down." He saw Reggie contemplating life from a corner. "You've met Mr. Fortune, Dorothy?"

"Looked him over, papa," said she, and did so with amusement.

"I'm so sorry." Mrs. Brigg started up. "My stepdaughter, Mr. Fortune."

"Now I know you, what about a cocktail?" said Dorothy.

"I'm not young enough." Reggie shook his head: for he considers the cocktail one of the gravest errors of the human race.

"Poor old thing. Watch the children play." Howard drank with her and they went in to dinner.

Whatever was wrong in the house, it had not upset the cook. Her ideas were simple but wholesome, her results mellow. The claret was a bland and opulent Leoville. Part of Reggie's mind was diverted into a benign meditation whether a sound dinner of the second class, a dinner without imagination, is not the most soothing. The other part tried dutifully to talk to Mrs. Brigg, which was difficult. She tried, too, but she seemed to have no subjects. When he fell back on the sure and certain hope that a woman who had been on the stage would talk about that, she became dumb. The ladies departed. From a little casual talk the voice of Howard asserted itself.

He wanted Mr. Fortune's opinion: he would like to tell Mr. Fortune about old somebody: and then there was a funny business at so - and - so; and so on. It became clear to Reggie that pumping operations were in progress. . . .

Howard was anxious to know whether Mr. Fortune knew anything about his past and what he knew. Its result was to bring over Reggie's round, face a sleepier innocence, to make his conversation more vaguely irrelevant. If ever man had reason to believe that he had failed to interest another, it was Howard.

He was well satisfied. He brought his autobiography to an end and they took their cigars in to the ladies. Wireless was in full blast. Reggie sought the remotest corner: it is a form of noise which produces in him resentful melancholy: but he found it convenient then: he desired a little meditation on Mr. Howard. The man was afraid of him. Well. Always a useful start. It must be assumed that Mr. Howard knew his reputation.

It could be inferred that Mr. Howard had reasons for fearing the attention of the police. Anything more was a guess. And what could the fellow be up to? Making love to that minx of a girl? There they were together, his permanently waved head very close to her sleek one, babbling.

Brigg said he was a friend of Mrs. Brigg's. She must have brought him into the house. Perhaps he was using the girl as cover for an affair with the woman. Mrs. Brigg looked about half - dead, pretending to play patience and watching them. Suppose Brigg thought the fellow was playing tricks. Good reason for kicking him out: very queer reason for bringing a medical expert down to look at him. No. Some unknown factor in the problem.

Howard and the girl started up, declared themselves tired of the wireless, ragged a little and went off to play, as they announced, billiards. Mrs. Brigg said she was tired. Brigg switched off the wireless, fussed over her and advised bed. She went. Brigg stared at Reggie. His owlish eyes had a queer intensity. It seemed to Reggie that he was ready to bring his trouble out. "Care for a game?" he said. Reggie shook his head. "All right. Come and smoke a pipe in the library."

It was a sombre room, though Brigg put on a lot of lights. An ugly room: Reggie wondered why it was all wrong, looked about him and discovered that the plan was bad. It was too big for one window and the one was in a corner. "Whisky and soda?" said Brigg.

"Just soda, thanks," Reggie murmured. Brigg made a mess of it. Brigg talked a lot of muddled apology about that and stopped suddenly and sat down and stared at Reggie. He seemed to be waiting for something to happen.

Reggie's placid nerves stood to attention. He cocked a leg over the arm of his chair and turned in it so that he could see both curtained door and curtained window. And to explain his inspection of the ugly room he murmured that Brigg had some jolly old books. It took Brigg some time to make an answer to that startling remark. Then he said he didn't know, he wasn't much of a judge; his cousin had made the library, and in spasms he gave a catalogue.

His pale, owlish eyes turned from Reggie to the books in the corner far from the window.

Reggie looked that way, too. The shelves stood solid from floor to ceiling, built into the wall, full of books. "Something special there?" he said sharply.

"Nothing at all. It's Darwin and Huxley - that sort of thing - my cousin rather went in for science. All that corner is science." But Brigg's eyes were frightened.

"The scientific department. I see. Do you use it much?"

Brigg did not seem to hear. "I say. Fortune - do you find the room rather dark?" he asked in a low voice.

"No. No. Plenty of light. Just comfortable."

"Oh, very well. If you're comfortable." The voice sank to a whisper. Then Reggie could hear his breathing. "Fortune - what was that?" he gasped.

"I don't notice anything."

"You don't hear it?" Brigg whispered.

And Reggie heard no sound but the man's uneasy breath. "I only hear you," he said, and waited, watching Brigg's face. It was pale and drawn. "What do you hear?"

"The tapping," Brigg whispered. "There!" He pointed with an unsteady finger to the books in the corner.

"In the scientific department?" Reggie came out of his chair with one quick, silent action. He went to the corner, put an arm into the shelves and felt them and the wall behind. All was solid.

"Can't you hear anything really?" Brigg muttered.

"I can't. No," said Reggie gently. "What's it like, Brigg?"

"Just tap, tap, tap. Listen, Fortune. It gets louder. Ah!"

"And what was that?"

"You did hear! Like a cry, isn't it? That always comes."

"But I didn't hear it," Reggie murmured. He went silently to the window and slipped between the curtains and looked out into the half - dark of the summer night. He saw the mound of the rock garden.

A hand clutched at him. Brigg's breath was on his face. "Did you see her?" Brigg whispered.

"No. No. Who was she?"

"I don't know. I can never see her face. It's like a white blur. Under that bonnet, you know."

"Oh! She wears a bonnet."

"Something like that. And a cloak that's dark, and a sort of big skirt to the ground. She just glides along."

"Not like anybody you ever saw elsewhere?"

"Nobody at all."

"And she glides away after the tapping?"

"Yes, after the cry. She stays till the cry and then goes away."

"Ever been out to her?"

"I did, yes, two or three times, but she faded away into nothing. I've never got close."

"Anyone else ever seen her - or heard the tapping?"

"I'm not sure." Brigg hesitated. "I spoke about it to my wife, I brought her here one night. She said there was nothing. But I'm not sure."

"It only comes in this room: and only at night?"

"Yes, that's it."

"When did it begin to come, Brigg?"

"About a month ago I heard the tapping first."

"Any special reason why you should begin to hear things?"

"You mean it isn't real? Fortune, honestly, didn't you hear anything at all, didn't you see anything?"

"No. No. Nothing. I'm sorry."

"It isn't real, then. Do you think I'm going mad?"

"Oh no. No, I think it's very curious and interesting."

"But if there isn't anything - if it isn't real - and I could swear I heard it and saw it - -"

"What is real?" said Reggie gently. "My dear chap, I don't know."

"But you didn't feel anything?"

"I didn't say that. No. I didn't say that. I felt rather queer. Uncomfortable and worried. Kind of depressed."

"My dear Fortune!" Brigg clung to his arm. Brigg was delighted. "That's exactly how it affects me."

"Yes." He looked at Brigg with curiosity. "I wonder why. Well, well. A little placid thought is required. Does it come again tonight?"

"Oh, not again, no. Never twice the same night," said Brigg quickly.

"Then bed is indicated. Things look different the morning after. You may as well sleep, you know. I shall be adjacent."

And even at this stage in the case he still preserved an open mind. He is emphatic about that. He went to bed, as he points out, ready for anything. He inclined to believe in the sincerity of Brigg, but he admitted a possibility that by way of a bit of fantastic humbug Brigg might be working up to something horrid. If Brigg was sincere, he allowed that several explanations were equally available. The old boy might have worried himself into delusions and hallucinations. Somebody who wanted to upset him might have put the idea of the tapping and the woman into his head. Either way, quite a common case. Yes. But there were other possibilities. The noise, the cry, the woman might be simply real. Not that night, but perhaps some night before. And having started seeing ghosts he didn't stop. A living woman playing ghost? The wife then.

"I wonder." Reggie sank deep in the chair in his bedroom. In his large experience of the abnormal he has not met a ghost. But he had seen fear take hold of Brigg if ever a man felt fear. "Yes. That's where I began," said Reggie drearily. "There is something queer about the beastly room. Feels like death."

The door opened. He sprang to his feet and faced to it. "Oh, my lord!" he laughed. "Hullo, Sam! Come in."

"Anything doing, sir?"

"I don't know. Not what you'd call a nice house for the simple mind."

"Very pleasant in the servants' 'all."

"Is that so? Good. Now you're goin' to make a night of it."

"What's up, sir?"

"You are. I'm not. I'm goin' to bed. You're goin' to stay here bright and wakeful, and if you hear anybody movin' or any noise you'll wake me. Which I hope to Heaven I shall be asleep." He began to shed his clothes. "When decency permits open the door a bit, so you'll hear any sound. See."

"That's all right, sir. You go bye - bye. I'm on."

But nothing happened in the night.

The only person at breakfast who showed signs of lack of sleep was Mrs. Brigg. Her painted face was haggard, the rings darker beneath her eyes. She did not eat. She divided a nervous watchfulness between her husband and Howard. Howard was bright and noisy with Dorothy, and they got up together. "Are you two going off again?" said Brigg.

"He says he can get eighty out of the jolly old bus. Want to see him do it. There's a bet on, old dear." Dorothy kissed the top of his white head. "Cheerio! Be good." They departed.

And Reggie also left the table. "Shall we have a turn in the garden, Fortune?" said Brigg eagerly.

"A little later. Yes. I'm just goin' into Broading with a letter to express." He ran upstairs.

As Howard came to the garage, a camera held behind the half - open door clicked and clicked again. He did not hear it. Reggie was whistling. When he arrived the whistling was deep in the interior and Reggie offered only his rear to inspection. "Hallo! Are you going off, sir?" Howard said.

"Just to see about some letters. After you."

"Half a momentina." Howard backed his two - seater out. "Bye - bye." As he turned, the camera looked out of Reggie's coat and took another shot.

In the post office at Broading Reggie did not send a letter; he made a trunk call. "Give me Superintendent Bell. Hullo, Bell. Fortune speaking. 'Morning. I'm down here with the man Brigg. Have you got anything?"

"Nothing to signify. Well known in the City and Liverpool. Lived quite open. Most respectable party. First wife died long time ago. Pneumonia after operation. That sounds all right."

"Yes. I think so. What about number two?"

"She was an actress, second class. Leading lady provincial companies. Acted as Mavis Lloyd - maiden name. Nothing known against her. She was a widow. Been married to a chap called Bertram. Algy Bertram. Didn't live with him long. He was a bad egg."

"Actor, too?"

"'M, yes. He'd call himself an actor in the police court. Professional handsome man. In the blackmailing way."

"I see. Nice husband to have about. Are you sure he's dead?"

"That's all right, sir," said Bell's voice. "You can take it he's dead."

"All right. Get this. I'm sendin' up a roll of films by train. Meet it at Paddington two - five. It contains three snapshots of a man passing as Ormond Howard. See if any of your fellows know his pretty face."

"Paddington two - five. Ormond Howard. Yes, sir. What's his line?"

"He's here as a friend of Mrs. Brigg's. He's nervous of the police. He says he was an actor. Same like the late Algy Bertram."

Again the telephone buzzed. "I'll look into it myself, sir," said Bell. "What's the address? Five Thorns, Broading. I've got it. Good - bye."

"Oh, good - bye," Reggie murmured. He contemplated the receiver. "A little coy, my Bell. I wonder."

He drove his car back to the house. Brigg was sitting with his wife on a shady lawn, reading the paper and telling her all about it. She seemed to be asleep. The thin painted face in its relaxation looked miserably old.

Reggie did not disturb them. He inspected with minute care the rock garden and the wall beside the rock garden. He went into the library and gave equal care to the shelves and books within. When he came out Brigg hurried to meet him. "Well, here we are again." Reggie smiled. "That wall seems to be all honest to God."

"Did you suspect it wasn't?"

"No. I suspected it was. But one ought to try everything."

"Yes, of course. You said you were going to think it over. Fortune. Can you see any explanation?"

"Nothing certain, no. Number of possibilities." He gazed at Brigg with dreamy eyes. "We'd better talk 'em over."

"By all means. It's just what I should like. But I don't want to talk about it before my wife. Let's go for a stroll. I don't want her to be worried, you know." They went and Mrs. Brigg sat up and watched them go. Then she hurried into the house.

"Well, well," said Reggie, and lit a cigar. "You said you didn't know any special reason why you should begin to hear things?"

"You mean it's all a delusion." The owlish eyes stared at Reggie with innocent alarm. "Honestly, Fortune. I can't be going out of my mind?"

"Oh no. No. I mean, had anything happened; or anything new come into your life?"

"No, really. There hasn't been anything at all." The old fellow looked like a bewildered boy.

"Well, take it another way. When you first heard things - was there any stranger in the house?"

"No, there wasn't. We were quite by ourselves. We don't have many visitors. I'm sure we were alone. Howard had been here for a few days, but he'd gone again."

"Well, well. Thus we eliminate the possibility of tricks."

"But it can't be a trick. You didn't hear it. You didn't see it. It only comes to me."

"And Mrs. Brigg."

"I'm not sure," said Brigg uneasily. "She won't admit it. But I think she's felt something. You know you said you felt uncomfortable, Fortune."

"Yes. That is so. Feeling of trouble somewhere. And anxiety. Take another possibility. Do you know any reason to fear anything might go wrong in your affairs?"

Brigg stood still. "What do you mean?"

"Well, I mean sometimes a fellow's mind puts a notion of trouble into a queer sort of shape."

"But that's making it out a delusion again."

"Oh no. No. A notion that's true, though the shape's fantastic."

"You're thinking of my wife," said Brigg, "aren't you?"

"I'm thinking of everything. But it's a woman, you see.

"It's not my wife. The clothes, you know. They're old - last century - fifty or sixty years old."

They walked on. "Yes. That's a very interesting point," Reggie murmured.

"Of course, in a way I am a little worried about my wife," said Brigg. "She doesn't look well, does she? I made her see the doctor. He says there's nothing at all wrong. And being anxious about her health - that can't account for this, can it?"

"No. I should say not. No. We thus eliminate Mrs. Brigg."

Brigg started and laughed uncomfortably. "Oh, I say. You have rather a heartless way of talking, Fortune."

"My dear chap!" Reggie linked arms with him. "Oh, my dear chap. I'm quite human." They had come beyond the garden to the wood which hid the pool. "Allurin' place. That light on the water, greys and greens rippling. Kind of gentle. Well, well. The problem bein' thus simplified, we return to the rock garden." He turned Brigg round and strolled back.

"What could the rock garden have to do with it?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Reggie. He looked sideways at Brigg. "It was you made a fuss about the rock garden."

"Oh well," Brigg laughed nervously, " that was just to induce you to come down, Fortune. I didn't know how sympathetic you are."

"If you want to know, I never believed in the rock garden. The fuss I'm thinking of is digging it all up and planting it fresh. Why?"

"Well, you see " - Brigg was embarrassed" I suppose it sounds silly - it was the noise coming just there - as if the rock garden was haunted - I thought there might be something queer about it. I had my men take it all down and make it up again."

"Oh! And they didn't find anything queer?"

"Nothing at all."

They reached the rock garden. Reggie gazed at it with dreamy eyes. "Well, well," he murmured.

"You have some idea about it?"

"No. No. Only difficulties. Primarily, why is it? Why is it there? Quite irrational."

"Irrational!" Brigg exclaimed. "There's no reason in anything, is there?"

"Oh, my dear chap! Don't you believe that. There's got to be. There's going to be." The gong boomed out. "Oh yes. And meanwhile there's going to be lunch. Life is not wholly drear."

Mrs. Brigg was waiting for them. She had resolved to be gay. "I thought you had gone off for ever," she challenged her husband.

He tried to play up to her. "Were you afraid of that?"

"Oh, one never knows, does one, Mr. Fortune?"

"I expect you do," said Reggie.

"Don't you think he could do without me?"

"I see he couldn't," said Reggie.

"Oh, he never tried!"

"Of course I tried," said Brigg. "But I found I couldn't. That's why you're here, Gladys."

"Thank you. Have you been telling Mr. Fortune all about it?"

Brigg was embarrassed. "The story of his life?" said Reggie quickly. "Oh no. No. He's been quite nice and interestin', Mrs. Brigg. Talkin' gardens."

"The rock garden?"

"Yes. The rocks come in. Rock garden people are always a bit assertive." He contrived to lead Brigg into some mild chaff that made easier conversation, but Mrs. Brigg fell out of it. Brigg tried to bring her in again by a question about where the young folks had gone to.

"I don't know. I don't suppose Dorothy knows herself."

"Oh well, I expect Howard does," Brigg laughed. "He knows most things."

His wife looked up quickly. "Do you want him?"

"Oh no, I don't want him. He's no gardener, Fortune."

"No, I suppose not," Reggie murmured. And Mrs. Brigg left them. She seemed to Reggie's taste abrupt. He lit a large cigar and wandered out and sank into a chair on the lawn, from which he contemplated dreamily the rock garden.

"What have you got in your mind?" said Brigg.

"The primary problem," Reggie mumbled. "What is the reason for its existence? And why does it exist there? Climbin' up the wall - which is unusual - and up a north wall - which is absurd."

"You mean it doesn't get enough sun?"

"It can't get any. Look at the plants. They don't understand it at all: they droop: same like me."

"Rapley told me they'd never do any good."

"Did he, though? And who is the intelligent Rapley?"

"The head gardener. He's been here a long time. He said I should never make anything of it. He couldn't think why the squire had it made. That's my cousin. The old fellows always call him the squire."

"Well, well. And you can't think either?" Reggie turned to look at him.

"I never thought about it. But I can't, of course. I hardly knew him. I only came to the place once or twice. He didn't care about visitors."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Minds innocent and quiet take this for an hermitage. I wonder."

Brigg was ruffled. "There's nothing unusual in a widower with no children liking to shut himself up alone."

"Oh! He was a widower."

"Certainly. I never saw his wife. She died when I was a boy."

"After which he built his rock garden in an impossible position where a Victorian woman comes and cries to you of nights. I wonder."

"You mean it was something he did makes the place haunted."

"I didn't say that. No." Reggie looked at him with half - closed eyes. "There may be other factors, Brigg. But why did he make the rock garden by that room? And why has the room only got one window?"

"Good heavens, how should I know?" Brigg cried. "The house is built like that."

"It is. But it wasn't. That room was designed for two windows and the other one used to be where the rock garden is: where you hear the tapping. Why was that window built up?"

"Built up? That's all guesswork. Fortune. There's nothing to show. How can you tell?"

Reggie smiled. "I looked. I'm rather careful, you know, Brigg. Not ingenious, but careful." He stood up. "So I think I'll talk to the intelligent Rapley."

Rapley was found at tea in his cottage and talked freely. When reduced to facts, what he said was only that the rock garden was there when he came and the old squire liked to be left alone.

"The intelligent Rapley thus failin' us," said Reggie, "is there anyone who was here when the thing was made?"

"He's the oldest servant on the place. And if it was made before his time it must be fifty years old."

"Yes: say fifty plus. I should say the ghostly clothes you describe belong to the 'seventies. That would fit."

"Good heavens, Fortune! You don't believe the woman I see is buried there?"

"No. No evidence." Reggie looked at him with dreamy eyes. "But when did the wife die?" Brigg couldn't tell the date. It must have been more than fifty years back. "Any evidence in his papers?" said Reggie sharply. Brigg couldn't remember - he left very few - nothing personal - there might be a note of her death in the Family Bible.

They went into the library. Brigg brought out a big seventeenth - century Bible. It went back two hundred years and more. Secundum morem majmum - according to the custom of his ancestors some Brigg of Queen Anne's time wrote about his family in that sacred book with his own hand. Reggie turned the pages. Carolus Brigg natus erat apud Quinque Rubos 15 mo die Aprilis A.D. 1840. "Charles Brigg born at Five Thorns 1840 - that's the hermit squire? Yes." In ecclesiam Sanctissimce Trinitatis apud Sarum uxorem duxit Annum Sophiam Moreton 20 mo die Octobris A.D. 1870. "Married Ann Sophia Moreton Holy Trinity Church Salisbury 1870. And then - just another date - 11 mo die Julii 1874."

"That must be when she died," said Brigg.

"It could be. Yes. He doesn't say so. When other people died, he put mortem obiit or ob. - but not for her."

"I suppose he couldn't bear to write it, poor old man. Don't you see, it's just as I thought. She died in 1874. I was ten."

"Yes. He put 1874. And some time in the 'seventies he built up his library window with a rock garden. And in 1929 you see a woman wearin' the clothes of the 'seventies and she cries to you. I wonder."

"You're not suggesting foul play?"

"No. No. But I'd like to know what happened at that window in 1874."

Brigg thrust his hand through his hair. "Fortune, don't you see it's all fancy? You don't believe in ghosts haunting the scene of crime. You're a scientific man."

"Yes. I am scientific," said Reggie sharply. "I believe in evidence."

"But if there was crime, why should the ghost only be seen by me - and why have I never seen it till lately? I've been here years. I've not done anything. You can't get an explanation by looking for crime."

"I'm not. I'm looking for the truth," said Reggie. "My dear chap, we'd better have it, even if it hurts."

"I see that," Brigg said uneasily. "If we could. The mystery is horrible. Fortune - you won't say anything about this to my wife?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie murmured.

Sam was in his room. "Made up your sleep?" said Reggie.

"That's all right, sir. Wanting me again tonight?"

"Yes. I think so. Got anything to tell me?"

"Don't know as I 'ave," Sam considered. "All very 'omely and friendly. I did 'ear master and missis 'ave separate rooms."

"Yes. Yes. That might be relevant. What's the servants' hall think of Mr. Howard?"

"Just a bit sniffy. Quite nice about it, but can't think what she can see in 'im, don't you know."

"Meaning Mrs. Brigg - or Miss Brigg?"

Sam winked. "Either," said he.

When Reggie went downstairs he found a state of agitation. Howard and Dorothy had not returned. Brigg was arguing to his wife that there was nothing to worry about, being himself visibly worried. She did not answer; she let him go on telling her over again that they had not noticed the time and they had had trouble with the car. She sat looking at the ground and her fingers plucked at her dress and twitched. . . . An hour later they went to a dreary dinner, which only Reggie ate. . . . After that, Brigg supposed he had better see if he could get any news of them. He looked at Reggie pathetically and Reggie went with him to the telephone. "Get the police headquarters," Reggie said softly. "Tell 'em - -"

Mrs. Brigg came up behind them. "What are you going to do?" she cried.

"Describe the car and ask if it has been seen on the road," said Reggie. "That's all."

"Yes, that's all, my dear," said Brigg anxiously. "You see they may have had an accident."

"An accident!" she said. "Oh no!"

But while he was asking, the car came. Dorothy ran into the hall. "Hallo, old things. Most awfully sorry. Beastly bus. Beastly day. Been right off the map." She went straight upstairs.

Brigg disentangled himself from the telephone. "Dorothy, what's been the matter?"

"Bus wouldn't go. I'm all right. Bye - bye. I've had dinner. Dead to the world, that's all. Cheerio, old dear." She vanished.

Howard came in, more than ever the bright young thing. "Hallo! hallo! hallo! Anxious parents and what not. Frightfully sorry and all that. Engine trouble, don't you know. The jolly old carburettor wouldn't function. Had to dine the fair lady out in the wilds. Sorry you have been trrrroubled, what?"

Mrs. Brigg was staring at him.

"I wish you wouldn't do this sort of thing, you know," said Brigg.

"Absolutely. Abso - altogether - lutely. Not my idea at all," Howard laughed. "But here we are, here we are, here we are." He yawned. "The fair lady is right, methinks. The downy couch for mine." He tripped upstairs. "Nighty, nighty."

"Ah well. That's all right, anyway," said Brigg. "You look tired, Gladys. Better go to bed, too."

"Are you coming?" She looked at him strangely.

"I shan't be long. Good night, dear." She hurried away. Brigg turned to Reggie. "Do you care to try this again?"

"Do you feel like it?" Reggie was surprised.

"Yes, I do. It's curious. I rather want to." They went into the gloomy room. "As if I ought to come, you know," said Brigg.

"I see. Yes," Reggie said gravely. He made trivial talk. . . . Slowly a sense of discomfort came over him. He watched Brigg's attention wander. "You hear it again?"

"She's tapping. Don't you hear?" Brigg whispered.

"Not me. No." Reggie shook his head.

"Ah! The cry!" Brigg muttered, and Reggie started up. "You heard it?"

"Yes. I heard that," Reggie said. Brigg ran to the window and peered through the curtains. Reggie went to the door and opened it silently a little. Upstairs there was a creak of movement. A door closed.

Brigg came out of the window curtains. "I saw her again, Fortune," he said. "She seemed to hold out her hands. She's gone. Just as she always goes - faded into nothing." He gave a little miserable laugh. And they went to bed.

Reggie found Sam on the alert. "Did you hear anything downstairs, sir?"

Reggie nodded.

"That was Mrs. Brigg. She went to Howard's room - bit of talk - like muttering - then that sort of cry."

"Has she come out again?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. Slowly and fumbling he lit a pipe, then switched off the light and set the door ajar and settled down in a chair. . , . The house had long been quiet when another door was opened. A patter of quick footsteps went along the corridor, came back, passed downstairs. The hall door was opened and closed.

Reggie climbed out of the window, hung by his hands and dropped to the ground by the rock garden, and Sam followed him. He moved silently round the house. The lawns glistened dim in the half - dark of the summer night, and across the lawns a woman ran and vanished. "It was 'er," Sam muttered. "Making for the road, ain't she? Wot's the game?"

But Reggie did not make for the road. He ran through the garden to the gloom of the wood. He saw Mrs. Brigg pass into it, saw her again on the verge of the pool, a vague shape, poised. And then there was a faint moaning cry on the air. It came, not from her, but from the garden. "My oath!" Sam gasped. "Wot's that now?" She heard it, too. She turned from the pool, started away, stumbled and fell.

Reggie ran on. "About here," he panted. Her face showed white on the black water.

"I see. You lemme get her, sir." Sam pushed him away and waded in. Her body was lifted limp to the bank. "Queer start," Sam muttered.

Reggie's hands worked upon her. "Not dead. No. Fainting. She's done something to her ankle. When that cry startled her. Fracture, I think. The pain's knocked her out. Or the shock."

"Queer, ain't it, sir? She was just chuckin' herself in and that cry stopped her like."

"I know. She was stopped. Praise God. Well, well. Now we carry on. There's a cottage somewhere here. Gardener's cottage. Go and knock 'em up. Say Mrs. Brigg went out for a stroll and she's broken her ankle - can't move her to the house - want a bed for her. Come back with a hurdle or a gate."

So Rapley and his wife were roused, and in their cottage Mrs. Brigg was put to bed. As consciousness came back to her came pain and wild fear. She knew no one or did not dare to know. She stared and moaned and asked mad questions and screamed and laughed. Sam was sent off to take his car into Brooding for narcotics and a nurse, and Reggie banished Mrs. Rapley and kept watch while dawn broke upon delirium. . . .

He was back in his room wondering drearily whether he could sleep an hour if he lay down. An agitated knocking introduced Brigg. "Fortune! My wife's gone."

"Oh no. No. She went out walking in the dark last night. I saw her cross the garden. She had a fall. I found her and took her to Rapley's cottage. She's in bed there. I'm afraid her ankle's broken. It'll be all right, but she's had a lot of pain. I've got her to sleep now. There's a nurse with her."

"She went out in the night?" Brigg gasped. "Why?"

Reggie contemplated him for a moment. "Well, I should say she's been haunted, too," he said.

"Can I see her?"

"Oh yes. Yes. You can't talk to her. She'll sleep for a bit yet. When she wakes - well, just be nice about it." Brigg stared at him and hurried away.

Then Reggie took his time about dressing. When he came down he found Dorothy and Howard at breakfast. They displayed signs of tension. Silence prevailed while he drank his coffee and ate his egg. Then Dorothy cried, "Mr. Fortune, have you seen my father this morning?"

"Yes. Yes. He's gone out," said Reggie.

"Why?"

"Well, that's rather difficult to say," Reggie murmured. "I think you'd better ask him."

"Is my mother with him?"

"Did you want her?" Reggie looked up.

"Yes. I do. I want to speak to her and she's not in her room and nobody knows where she is."

"So I've heard." Reggie turned to Howard. "No ideas?"

"Not an earthly," Howard grinned.

"Well, well. We'd better talk it over, then."

"Charmed. Any old time." Howard lit a cigarette and lounged to the door.

"Now," said Reggie. "In the library." He rang the bell.

"Oh, right - ho. Half a momentina." Howard went out and upstairs.

"My chauffeur, please," said Reggie to the butler, and when Sam appeared took him out into the hall.

"Mr. Fortune!" Dorothy followed them. "I want to speak to you." Sam slid away. "You think that man had something to do with my mother running away?"

"Yes. It could be," Reggie murmured.

"Then I can help you. Let me tell you about yesterday." Howard came downstairs with an envelope in his hand. She turned and led the way into the library.

"Hallo! hallo! Little lady going to assist?" Howard put up his eyebrows.

"Yes, I am. I'm going to tell Mr. Fortune - -"

"One moment. One moment," said Reggie. "Howard, I suppose you know who I am?"

"Some sort of doctor, what?"

"Yes. Often consulted in criminal cases. That's where I come in."

"I don't get you, old bean," Howard yawned.

"Late last night Mrs. Brigg had an angry conversation with you. This morning she's disappeared. The police will want to know what you've done with her."

"Me? I've done nothing with the woman. If she's gone, I suppose she's bolted."

"Why?" said Reggie sharply.

"Great Jimmy! Why do women bolt? Fed up, another man, or what not."

"That's a lie," Dorothy cried. "I know why mother was angry with him, of course. It was because she saw he was playing tricks with me. He was. Mr. Fortune, I don't believe there was anything wrong with his wretched car yesterday. He faked it to get me stranded with him at that inn out on the downs. Then he proposed we should stay there. Yes, he thought I should fall for that. Oh, I've been a fool! I was a fool not to tell them last night. But I was so sick, so sick." She stamped her foot. "I thought I'd turn him out in the morning and nobody need know. But mother must have guessed and told him off and then -" She looked miserably at Reggie.

"You are a fool, aren't you?" Howard snarled. "She'd have hugged herself if we'd gone off together."

"She wouldn't," Dorothy cried. "She wouldn't, Mr. Fortune. Look. I found that under my door this morning."

"I see." Reggie took the letter. He saw why Mrs. Brigg had pattered along the corridor of the sleeping house before she went out to seek death.

"' DOROTHY,'" he read. "'For God's sake don't let that man Howard ruin you. He means that. Forgive me, dear. MOTHER.'"

He looked at Howard. "Yes. Mrs. Brigg doesn't seem to have liked you. What have you done with her?"

"Done nothing. The woman must have gone off her head."

"Yes. That'll be a little difficult to explain to the police. They'll want to know why she's made away with just when she warned her daughter against you."

"I suppose she's made away with herself," Howard muttered.

And Reggie laughed. "Do you hear yourself telling that to a jury?"

"No, I don't, laddie." Howard started up. "Because it won't ever get to a jury. It won't get to the police. I know too much. See? You mind your step."

Reggie shook his head. "Oh no. No. Not at my time of life. I'm not to be bluffed, Howard. We now ring up the local police and Scotland Yard."

"Bluff my foot. You bring the police on to me and you'll make old Brigg hang himself. The woman wasn't his wife."

"No, thank you." Reggie moved away. "Nothing doing."

"You fool, look at that," Howard cried, and thrust upon him a photograph of a group. Beneath was printed THE GAY GIRL NUMBER ONE COMPANY, BLACKPOOL, 1926, and the names of the people.

There was a tap at the door and the butler came with a card for Reggie. He picked it up and waved the man away. He looked at the photograph. He looked at Howard and he gave Howard the card. "Well?" he said.

Howard tossed the card down and came up to him and pointed to the photograph. "See the date?" he said. "1926. When did Gladys Bertram marry Brigg? 1925. See that chap in the front row, Algy Bertram? That's her husband. He was alive in 1926. He's alive now. Want to put the police on to me, laddie?"

"So that was it," Reggie murmured. "I see." He sat down again and pored over the photograph. "Thanks very much." He smiled at Howard. "That's the bit of evidence I wanted. Makes a nice case now. Quite a good fake, isn't it? Miss Brigg, would you mind? Just ask Superintendent Bell to come in here?" She ran out and Howard made a dash for the window and was gone. Reggie strolled to the window and with mild amusement watched him run. He made for the garage.

"'Morning, sir." Bell marched in. "Where is this Mr. Howard? Lady said he was with you."

"One moment. One moment. So you did recognize the snapshots?"

"That's right, sir. But we don't call him Howard."

"No, I dare say not. No. And what do you want him for?"

"Bit o' blackmail. Where is he?"

"Just a moment. About the man Bertram. You were a little coy. Bell. Are you sure Bertram is dead?"

"Absolutely. We know all about it."

"Date, please. Place. And cause of death."

"I see." Bell nodded. "Your Mr. Howard's been playing tricks about that. Algy Bertram got killed 1922. By a chap he was trying to blackmail. It was kept quiet. Nice and quiet. We don't want any talk now."

"Oh no. No." Reggie smiled.

"We'll manage that all right. Now, sir, where have you got this fellow Howard?"

"I haven't got him. He's gone. In his little car."

"What, sir? And you've kept me talking here? That's too bad, Mr. Fortune 1 I didn't think it of you."

"Oh, my Bell!" Reggie took his arm and walked him out. "My Bell! No harsh words. I was only bein' careful. As you want him for his own sweet sake, you shall have him. All arranged, quite nice." They came to the door where Bell's car stood throbbing and Sam conferred with the chauffeur. "Sam, how is Mr. Howard's car feeling?"

"That's all right, sir," Sam grinned. "The Superintendent will pick 'im up between here and Broading. That car won't get up a 'ill today. Nice drop of water in the petrol."

Bell jumped into his car and was driven away.

"And that's that," Reggie murmured. "Now you can go to bed, Sam." He wandered back into the library.

Dorothy stood before him. "Mr. Fortune," she said in a low voice, "where is mother?"

"She's in the gardener's cottage. She broke her ankle last night, wanderin' out in the dark."

"In the dark?"

"Yes. Yes. You've all been rather in the dark, haven't you?"

"That man!" She shuddered. "He must have driven her mad."

Brigg came in. "Fortune! She's been talking to me. She's so strange!"

Dorothy ran to him and kissed him. "Oh, my dear!"

"Is she?" said Reggie. "What did she say?"

"She kept saying, ' I'm not your wife, I'm not your wife.' "

"And what did you say?"

Brigg was embarrassed. "Me? Oh, I said, 'Well, I'm your husband, anyway.'"

"Yes. Quite a good answer," Reggie said gently.

"But what did she mean? What's possessed her?"

"She's been tortured. That's all," said Reggie, and told him the story. "You see? The amiable Howard got in here by pretending her first husband was alive when she married you. No doubt threatened to get her prosecuted for bigamy if she didn't give him a good time. What he hoped was to get hold of your daughter."

"Oh, I hate myself!" Dorothy cried.

"When she saw he meant that, your wife got more and more frightened. She wouldn't have that, whatever happened to her. She had a row with him last night about it. The crisis. She left a letter for Dorothy telling her to have nothing to do with Howard and ran away. And then something stopped her." Reggie looked round the ugly room. "She fell and I found her."

"Fortune, will she be all right now?" Brigg said.

Reggie looked at them. "Yes, I think so." He smiled and went out.

That night when they came back from Mrs. Brigg's bedside Reggie took him into the library again. But the flow of his talk about his wife was not checked. Reggie watched him curiously. He seemed to have forgotten that anything strange had happened to him in that gloomy room. When they were going upstairs, "So you heard nothing tonight?" Reggie smiled.

"No. Bless my soul, no, I hadn't thought of it," Brigg beamed. "I suppose I shan't now. It must have been her trouble somehow affecting me. Poor girl. Thank Heaven it's all clear now. Good night, Fortune. God bless you." He wrung Reggie's hand.

Reggie turned into his own room. "Clear? Oh, my hat!" he moaned.

It was two nights afterwards that he took Brigg into the library once more. And again Brigg was fluent upon the healing of a broken ankle and the recovery of wives from nervous shock. "Yes. She's doing very nice," Reggie murmured. "Don't hear anything now, Brigg?"

"Now? Of course not," Brigg laughed. "That's all over."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured. "Her job's done, poor soul."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I've been looking into it, you know. I like to finish a case. I've found your cousin's builder. Fellow that built up that window. At least, his father did. This old boy's retired, livin' at Stourmouth. His evidence is the late cousin had a row with his wife, cause unknown. She went away. Somewhere in the 'seventies cousin ordered that window to be built up. The builder heard talk, the wife came back one night and tapped at the window, and your cousin wouldn't let her in. So he didn't like looking at the window after and he blocked it up and hid the place with the rock garden. Nobody ever saw her again till you saw her."

"You mean it was her ghost?"

"Do I? I don't know what a ghost is. Somebody, something not in our world, saw another Brigg and his wife getting into trouble in this place, same like they did. And tried to save you. Perhaps your mind was set free to see and hear what your cousin did. Perhaps - -"

"Fifty years ago!"

"Yes. What is time?"

"But it didn't help. It only puzzled me."

"You think so? It made you bring me down. It stopped your wife that night."

"Oh well," said Brigg. "This is all fancy, isn't it?"

"No. No. I shouldn't say that. I always believe evidence." said Reggie.

SIXTH EXPLANATION

THE SILVER CROSS

WITH the simple purpose of asking him to dinner Mr. Fortune strolled into the room of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department.

He was received with enthusiasm. "The very man!"Lomas chuckled. "Now we'll tell you all about it. Superintendent. This is Mr. Fortune. Sit down, Reginald. Momentous case for you."

Mr. Fortune moaned gently. Mr. Fortune blinked at him and saw also a solemn, fattish man. "Superintendent Billson of Downshire," Lomas explained.

"Very jolly county," Mr. Fortune sighed.

"I've heard of Mr. Fortune," said the Superintendent with reverence.

"Now, Reginald, what's that?" Lomas held out to him a little flat piece of grey metal. It was in the shape of a cross, but the arms curved down at the ends. It was marked with a faint irregular pattern.

"Is it some kind of religious thing, would you say, sir?" Superintendent Billson said eagerly.

"Lots of crosses aren't Christian, you know," Reggie mumbled. "This wasn't."

"What is it, then, sir?"

Reggie studied it. "Well, it's silver. It was made as a bit of jewellery. Probably a charm also. Possibly charged with magic. By South American Indians. Pretty far south, I should say."

Billson listened with his mouth open. Billson slapped his thigh. "That's good enough!" he cried. "That's got him, eh, Mr. Lomas?"

"I should say so. Very neat little clue, Billson." 

Reggie blinked at them again. "Yes. Now tell me what I've done," he said plaintively.

"Billson has a bit of a case against a parson, but he didn't want to make a charge unless he was sure of a conviction. So he came to consult us."

"Very touchin' faith." Reggie turned the silver cross over. "And the evidence is this?"

"There's more than that, sir." Billson was not pleased. "Mr. Lomas didn't put it quite right, if I may say so. The parson in the case is a queer fish. He's never got on with the other clergy or the county people or anybody but a few what you might call devotees. You see, if we put up a case against a man like that without we can prove it absolutely, it looks as if we were trying to down him because he set the big folks' backs up. We'd be making him a martyr and fall down over it, and that sort o' thing gets the police a bad name. That's how the Chief Constable looks at it, so he said to come and ask you gentlemen at Scotland Yard about this trinket. Now you've recognized it, we've got our evidence. You'd be ready to swear it came from South America, Mr. Fortune?"

"Oh yes. Yes. If and when necessary. And the next thing, please?"

"I don't think we shall want any more from you, sir. That'll about settle the Reverend Neath."

"What's the charge?"

Lomas laughed. "Oh, very grave, Reginald. Theft. Matter of twenty pounds."

"Twenty - five, sir," said Billson severely. "It was like this, Mr. Fortune. The Reverend Neath came into our county matter of five years ago. He was what you might call an odd job parson, taking duty when men went sick, doing a bit of mission work. He'd been a missionary - in South America, do you see?" Billson winked. "It was given out his health broke down out there, but some says he quarrelled with the missionary society. Anyway, there he was in Downshire looking for what he could get. After a bit he got made Vicar of Fotton. That was the Bishop. Not much catch, believe me. Sort of place nobody will take. Big parish, big church, tumble - down house and just enough to starve on. But the Reverend Neath would take anything, and people said the Bishop wanted to get him tucked away somewhere off the map. So there he's been in Fotton getting into trouble all round same as he always did."

"Yes. How is that?" Reggie murmured. 

"Every way there is. He's one of these haughty parsons. He's a holy saint and anyone else is a simple worm - that kind of thing. Our Downshire people won't stand for it. And it don't come particular well from the Reverend Neath. He's up to his neck in debt. I don't want to be too hard on him. He hasn't got a decent living in Fotton. Still, you can't say it's right for a parson to bilk all the tradesmen. That don't get him liked. Then, he's always asking people for money, in the parish and out of it. Begging letters all over the county. Only not what you'd call begging - demand notes, the Chief Constable says. The other day Mr. Neath goes up to the big house in the parish - that's Fotton Hall, Sir Ernest Smart has it now. New man, made his money in London, drapery or something. He isn't what you'd call a gentleman, but a pleasant little chap. Well, of course him being the squire of the place, the Rev. Neath's quarrelled with him. He don't know why Mr. Neath came up to the Hall; he didn't put himself out to see the fellow, and being kept waiting a bit Mr. Neath went off saying nothing to nobody. Well, you could take your oath he came to ask for money. Never comes there for anything else. Sir Ernest says. It was Saturday. All the men about the place that don't live in, gardeners and farm hands and such, get paid weekly. Sir Ernest has a way of paying 'em himself. He's like that. He had the money ready in the room he uses as his office, just on the desk. When he came in to pay, he found he was twenty - five pounds short - three fivers, the rest currency notes. He sent for the police. When I looked into it, I found the only stranger who'd been about the place was the Rev. Neath, and he'd been left to himself in a room just by the office an hour or more. And searching the office I came on that little cross. I thought it was a religious thing, such as a parson might have. But it isn't ordinary, so the Chief Constable told me to try it on you gentlemen at Scotland Yard. Lord, you made me jump when you said South American, Mr. Fortune. That gets him fair and square. He was years in South America missionizing. I reckon there's not another man in Downshire would have a bit o' South American jewellery on him."

"No, no. It isn't likely," Reggie murmured.

"So that's done for him, you see," said Billson.

"I wonder," Reggie murmured.

"Eh?" Billson's mouth came open. "What do you mean, wonder?" And Lomas laughed.

"Well - speakin' by the light of reason - I should say it pointed elsewhere."

"But look here, sir," Billson protested, " you said yourself nobody but him would have such a thing."

"Yes, yes, that's one of the fishy points about it."

"I don't follow you," Billson grumbled.

"Oh, sorry. Oh, the other fishy point is that it makes the case too difficult."

Lomas chuckled. But Billson grew red. "Look here, sir, I don't know what you mean. I hope you're not playing the fool with me."

"My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow!" Reggie purred. "I'm wholly serious. I think you've got on to a very interesting little problem. It attracts me."

"Very happy, I'm sure," said Billson with sarcasm. "But what's all this about the silver cross making it too easy and too difficult?"

"Think! If you believe the parson dropped it in the office, that links him up with the theft of the money nice and neat. But if you do believe he dropped it, you have to believe a man who looked into an empty office, picked up some money and went off with it, managed to drop a special kind of trinket on the spot. That's very difficult. He wouldn't turn out his pockets. Why should he drop just the thing which would point to him?"

"I don't know, sir," Billson pondered. "It is queer, to be sure. But that's how chaps get caught. They make some silly blunder."

"Oh yes. Yes. I think there's been an error of judgment. But I don't see my way. If the parson dropped this in the office, I can't imagine how he did it."

Billson meditated laboriously. "Say he wore it on his watch - chain, sir. It's pierced for a chain. Parsons do wear crosses, you know. Then his chain might catch in something and this got pulled off. How about that?"

"Well, what about it?" Reggie opened his eyes. "Did he wear the thing? I never saw a parson wearing a cross like this."

Billson sucked his teeth. "Now you ask me, I don't believe he wears a watch - chain at all; I wouldn't say he has a watch. He's that shabby." Billson shook his head. "But then if he didn't drop it how did it get there?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie murmured.

"Sir Ernest said he'd never seen the thing before: he couldn't tell what it was."

"Oh, couldn't he?" Reggie mumbled.

"What's the suggestion, Reginald?" said Lomas briskly.

"There isn't one. Only caution. Extreme caution." He sat up.

"I agree," Lomas chuckled.

"Yes. Very interesting case. Superintendent. If you get any more evidence, let me know. Anything I can do, well, I'd like to."

"Thank you, sir. I'll tell the Chief Constable." Billson was properly impressed. And they got rid of him.

Then Lomas said, "What's the attraction, Reginald? Paltry business, isn't it?"

"It could be," Reggie sighed. "How does it strike the higher intelligence, Lomas?"

"Two possibilities, of course. Either the parson did take the money, or some of his many enemies are trying to get him into trouble. Quite a common trick. But it's a trivial case either way."

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "Trivial! If it looked like murder, you'd be on your toes. Because it may be a fraud to ruin a man's life, you don't bother."

"I have nothing to bother about. There isn't evidence to hang a dog."

"Not yet, no."

"Well, where's your interesting little problem, then?"

"The motive. What's the motive that's made it suddenly worth while to ruin the Rev. Mr. Neath? He's been in Downshire five years making enemies all the time. But there was nothing scandalous against him. Then it comes - bang! What's happened?"

"Good gad!" said Lomas. "That's sufficiently fanciful, Reginald. Take the thing one way - the poor devil's gone deeper and deeper into debt till he was driven to steal. Take it the other way, he's run up at last against somebody spiteful who didn't stick at a trifle to pay him out."

"Yes, yes. Very lucid," Reggie sighed. "But it might be more than spite."

"Oh, certainly. It might be a plot to kill the King. Yet I remain calm. My dear fellow, you're a wonder at seeing through brick walls - but a little fond of seeing what isn't there."

"I don't." Reggie was indignant. "I don't see anything. I keep saying so. That's what bothers me." He stood up. He looked down at Lomas with disgust. "Sometimes I hate you," he murmured. "Well, well. Oh - you're not worth it, but Joan told me to ask you to dinner on Wednesday. There's the Walewska coming. We want somebody to prattle to her."

"Delighted."

"I'm not," said Reggie. "Good - bye."

But that dinner went merrily. Not till Lomas was going, last of the guests, did he have a word with Reggie alone. "By the way, Reginald - you'll be glad to hear the Downshire case is cleared up. They've traced some of the stolen notes to the parson."

"Yes, I know. Billson 'phoned me. I thought they would."

"Good gad!" Lomas chuckled. "Splendid. Never admit an error, Reginald."

"When I make one, I do," said Reggie. "I'm not an official, Lomas, I only struggle to keep 'em straight. I'm going down."

The morning saw him arrive at the office of the Chief Constable in Avonbury. Chief Constables are a species which he does not love, but Colonel Tresham was neither military nor' official: in manner like a nice big dog, in mind simply human as Superintendent Billson. "Very kind of you to come down, Mr. Fortune. I know it must be a small affair to you, but I value your advice very much. It's a distressing case to me, however I take it."

"Yes, yes, that's how it got me."

"This poor fellow - well, whatever he's done he's had a hard life of it. And a clergyman, too! Any sort of charge is ruin. Billson tells me you didn't expect we should get evidence to prove him guilty."

"I didn't say that. No. I thought you would. I said wait till you've got it."

"I see. Well, we have got it now, I'm afraid. There seems to be no loophole. Very painful affair. I have it from the Bishop himself he thought Neath's character quite blameless."

"Oh, Mr. Neath has friends, has he?"

"I couldn't say friends. Neath's a most difficult fellow. The Bishop owns that. Always would go his own way. Never listened to reason. Thought everybody a miserable sinner. A sort of saintly tyrant. That's the best the clergy themselves can say of him. Nobody is his friend. But some of them do respect him highly. What can I do? The Bishop admitted to me if there is evidence the case ought to be tried."

"Yes, yes, you'll have to go through with it - if the man who lost the money means to prosecute."

The Chief Constable shook his head. "There's no doubt about that. Smart will prosecute. I can't say I blame him. It's his duty. And of course he'd be glad to get Neath out of Fotton. Nobody would want Neath for the parson of his parish."

"But Sir Ernest Smart is specially hostile?"

The Chief Constable meditated. "I don't know if that's fair, Mr. Fortune. I'm bound to say he's been quite correct all through. Ah, here's Billson. I sent him over to Fotton to fetch the parson."

Billson saluted Reggie with gloomy satisfaction. "I've got him, sir. Very stiff he is. A rum 'un, I give you my word." And he brought in the Rev. Jacob Neath.

A dark, haggard face, a gleam of fierce eyes. That was the first notion Reggie had of Mr. Neath. And it remained with him as important. Whatever was the truth of the man, plainly he believed himself a fighter and of forlorn hopes - a fighter, back to the wall. For the rest, a queer fellow. He had a mat of iron - grey hair short and tousled. He was lean and ungainly, all arms and legs. His clerical black was shabby, shiny, stained, white on the seams, frayed at wrist and heel.

"Please sit down, Mr. Neath," said Colonel Tresham.

Mr. Neath waved the courtesy off with a grimed, rough hand. "I stand to answer to you. Chief Constable," he said solemnly. And Reggie's eyelids drooped. He does not like the theatrical off the stage.

The Chief Constable was also uncomfortable. "As you please, sir. I have to put some facts before you and ask you to explain them."

"I render under Caesar the things which are Caesar's. I obey the law."

"Er - quite so. I only want you to do yourself justice. On the morning of Saturday the 15th a sum of money was stolen from Sir Ernest Smart: three five - pound notes and ten pounds besides taken from his office at Fotton Hall." 

"If this is true, I am sorry for the thief. I am glad that the loss falls on one who can bear it."

"You were at Fotton Hall that morning, Mr. Neath."

"That is certainly true. I went to ask alms of the knight for my poor. He received me not and I came empty away."

"Did you go into the office?"

"I do not know what room the knight calls his office. I sat awhile in an outer chamber till it was clear he meant an insolence, then I left his house."

"We have the numbers of the five - pound notes which were stolen. This week you paid two tradesmen in Avonbury, Smith the butcher and Grey the tailor, and you paid with stolen notes. Can you explain that, Mr. Neath?"

Neath quivered, raised his hand, took a step forward. Then his hand fell. "God forgive you," he said. "You know not what you do. Thus I answer you. Chief Constable: if what you say is true, I know nothing how it has come to pass. These moneys which I paid came to me as a free gift from some unknown hand. I received them in an envelope which was delivered by the postman."

"Oh, just the notes?" Reggie opened his eyes. "No letter?"

"Sir, there was no word of writing. Only a scrap cut from a newspaper wherein it was reported that Smith the butcher sued me for a debt."

"Have you kept the envelope?" said Reggie.

"The envelope? I know nothing of it. It is gone."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Neath, very sorry." Colonel Tresham shook his head. "I hoped you would be able to explain. I am bound to tell you this is quite unsatisfactory. You must expect Sir Ernest Smart will prosecute you for theft. I ought to detain you. But if you'll give your word to remain at Fotton, I'll do nothing more till I have consulted him."

"Do your duty, I ask nothing else," said Neath. "I shall not shun the charge nor avoid it. God's will be done." He went out.

"What's to be done with a man who takes things like that?" Colonel Tresham groaned. "He makes you feel you can't believe a word he says."

"I know. Very improbable invention."

Colonel Tresham thought it over painfully. "Just one thing does occur to me, Mr. Fortune. Suppose Neath didn't take the money himself: suppose it was given him by somebody and he only found out afterwards it was stolen. Then I suppose he would rather go to prison himself than betray the thief."

"But who is your philanthropic thief, Colonel? Who did pinch the money for Mr. Neath to pay the butcher? He ought to be in an asylum."

"I know it sounds silly." The Colonel shook his head. "After all, any way you take it, there's been some very silly work done. Think of Neath paying bills here on the spot with the bank - notes. Crazy!"

"Yes. Assuming Neath knew they were stolen, it was crazy. But if he didn't know, it was merely natural. And he didn't strike me as a crazy fellow."

The Colonel was startled. "Well, I'm glad to hear you say so. I feel as if I was persecuting a poor fellow not responsible for his actions."

"The play - acting touch? Yes. He sees himself as a sort of saint and prophet. I should say he is. Awkward fellow to live with. But not crazy. Saints aren't. Highly sane."

The Colonel struggled with this shocking idea. "Well, maybe. But I don't seem to understand what you really think about the case, Mr. Fortune?"

"No, no, nor do I. Nothing very definite. I should say it hadn't occurred to Mr. Neath the notes he got were stolen till you suggested he was the thief. I thought he was going to knock you down then."

"Oh, that was put on, wasn't it?"

"I shouldn't say that. No. But I think now he knows they were stolen he has a guess who stole 'em. And he don't mean to say."

"Why, but that's coming back to my idea of what you call the philanthropic thief. And you laughed at it!"

"My dear Colonel! I like it. I said it went very well with Mr. Neath's little ways. We'd better look into it. Let's go and see Sir Ernest Smart."

"I shall have to see the fellow, of course," the Colonel grumbled.

"You don't love him, do you?" Reggie smiled. "I wonder. By the way, let's take that silver cross."

"Certainly. I thought you advised us not to rely on it. That's why I didn't say anything about it to Neath."

"Oh yes. Yes. Very wise. But we might say something about it to Smart."

Fotton Hall is a spacious Georgian house. The room into which they were taken after a moment of waiting was small and bare with desks and ledgers and a small plump man. "Oh, is this the scene of the crime?" Reggie beamed at him.

The small man snorted. "This is my office, Mr. - er - I don't know your name."

"Mr. Fortune, Smart," said Colonel Tresham.

"Ah, I know. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Fortune. Come to look into this business of mine, eh? Well, I hope you make the Colonel get a move on. What about it, Tresham?"

The Colonel bristled. "I don't know what you've got to complain of."

The little man decided with an effort to be civil. "No offence. You are taking your time, aren't you? I was talking about it to Westow yesterday and he said just the same. 'Tresham's taking his time,' he said."

"Deuced good of him," the Colonel exploded.

"And who is Westow?" Reggie purred.

"Lord Westow, sir. Lord Westow of Compton."

"Oh yes. And Lord Westow takes an interest in the case?"

"Interest? I don't know. He's one of the leading men in the county, sir. He's a friend of mine. Naturally he's interested. There's nothing to take offence about."

"I don't need anyone to teach me my duty, Smart," Colonel Tresham growled. "You asked the police to investigate a case of theft. That's been done. Your five - pound notes were paid by Mr. Neath to his tradesmen in Avonbury. His explanation is that he received them by post in an envelope with a cutting from a newspaper about his being sued for debt. He says that he doesn't know where they came from."

"I dare say, eh?" the little man sneered. "A pretty tale, isn't it? Don't believe that, do you?"

The Colonel frowned at him. "If you want my opinion, I think it's a painful case. The question for you is whether you want to prosecute: whether you want to have all the poor fellow's story threshed out in court."

"What do you mean? Do you think I'm afraid of him? Of course I'm going to prosecute. The fellow's a common thief - with his high and mighty airs about being a priest! He makes me sick."

"If that's your line, I've no more to say." The Colonel stood up.

"Well, now-" The little man was startled. "I'm doing my duty, aren't I? I reckon it's a duty to the public, Colonel Tresham, prosecuting a thief. And a plain case to my mind. It's not the first time I've sent a sneak thief to prison. When I was in business - -"

"I don't want to hear about the shop, thanks." Colonel Tresham turned away. "Good morning."

"One moment," Reggie murmured. "That silver cross, Colonel." He held out his hand. "This was found on the scene of the crime, Sir Ernest. What about it?"

"I don't know anything about it. Billson showed it me. I never saw the thing in my life before. Anybody might have dropped it."

"You think so?" Reggie contemplated the little man with dreamy wonder.

A girl came violently into the room. The little man spluttered and got into her way. "Here, Lou, I'm busy. Not now, there's a good girl."

"Busy!" she cried. "I know!" She glared at him. She was very much his daughter, small, plump and fierce. "Colonel Tresham! You've come about Mr. Neath. What is it?"

"Well, if you want to know they've caught Neath with the notes," her father cried. "That's what it is, my girl."

"It isn't true!"

"Oh yes, it is. The parson's booked for gaol." 

"Don't you dare say it!" Rage played tricks with her voice. "If you put him in the dock, I'll never speak to you again."

Sir Ernest flinched. "Look here, Lou, this is no way to talk. We don't want a scene."

"I've finished. You heard what I said? That's all there is to it." She made for the door.

Reggie stretched out a meek hand. "One moment, Miss Smart. Do you happen to know this thing?" In his palm lay the silver cross.

"Of course I know it. It's mine. Where did you get it?"

"It was found in this room after the money was stolen."

"I dare say!" She laughed. "And he gave it to the police?" A jerky nod pointed to her father. 

"No. No. The police found it for themselves." 

"Well, it's mine." She faced her father again. "You can guess when I dropped it, can't you? Better tell them." And she whirled out and the door banged. 

"I'm sorry, gentlemen." Sir Ernest was shaken. "I'm afraid my girl has rather a quick temper."

"Oh, quite natural, quite human." Reggie purred.

"And takin' up her suggestion - can you guess when she dropped it?" 

"I suppose so." Sir Ernest wiped his mouth. "The fact is she was in the room here with me just before the money was stolen. We had a bit of a misunderstanding and you know she does get rather upset." 

"Oh yes. Yes. About Mr. Neath?" 

"No, sir, nothing whatever to do with Neath. If you must know it was about her going off for the week - end, which I didn't want."

"And did she go off for the week - end?" Reggie purred. 

"Yes, she did. She went straight away. Anything else you want to know?"

"Well, yes," Reggie smiled. "Yes. Quite a lot."

Sir Ernest stared. "I can't tell you any more."

"Then you'd better not prosecute just yet." Reggie stood up. "Good - bye."

"I'll do what I think right, sir," the little man cried. 

"Oh no. Don't do that," said Reggie anxiously. "Probably fatal." He took Colonel Tresham out. 

The Colonel settled down in the car and gazed at him. "Well, Mr. Fortune, you have a way with you," he said. "I thought nothing would stop that little brute savaging the parson. But you've got him so scared he'll hush it up now."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured.

"It is an extraordinary case. It keeps on opening out. That silver thing - we could make nothing of it - then you told us it was South American and we thought it convicted Neath - thank goodness you kept us quiet - and it turns out to be evidence against the girl."

"Oh no. No. Evidence of a connection between Neath and the girl. That's what worried father: our getting that out."

The Colonel frowned. "What? I don't follow."

"The thing that holds up father is he don't know what's coming next. No more do I. Very interestin' problem."

The Colonel pondered. "I should say what stops him is he sees it was the girl sent the money to Neath."

"It could be," Reggie murmured. "She didn't say so. She's had plenty of time to say so."

The Colonel smiled. "Girls are like that, what? She's had a row with father, probably about this parson. She's got a weakness for him. Quite common, isn't it? And she plays this silly trick to help him and don't want to own up. Sentimental nonsense, of course. But with a young woman and a romantic persecuted parson, anything can happen."

Reggie moved in his seat. Reggie gazed at the Colonel with dreamy interest. "Yes. Quite a lot. Yes. A queer case. As you were saying. It keeps on openin' out. Always something else in the landscape. Very exhaustin'. I want my lunch." He sat up. "My only aunt! I do want lunch. Can one eat the lunch of Fotton?" Colonel Tresham said there was a decent inn. "Lead me to it. I am without form and void. The mind does not function."

But when they came to the inn, he lingered outside looking dreamily at the church and the house beside the church and a small car by its door. The Colonel entered, negotiated for lunch and called to him. "There's cold ham, Mr. Fortune - -"

"A ham or so, yes," Reggie mumbled. "And stay me with tankards. Look. What's that?" His dreamy eyes indicated the house with the car.

"That's the vicarage. Neath's house, you know."

"Oh yes. And does Neath keep a car?"

"Good heavens, no. And I shouldn't have thought he had many people call on him in cars."

"Well, well," said Reggie, and sighed. "Ham and beer. Yes. How can man die better than facing fearful odds?" But in an absent - minded way he absorbed much beer and ham and his animation was restored. He was discoursing of the ham which is fed with peaches, the ham of Westphalia, the ham of Bohemia, the ham which is cured with treacle, analysing their several virtues, when a small car shot by the window. "Oh yes. That's who calls on Mr. Neath in a car," he said.

"Who was it?"

"Miss Smart. And she isn't going back to her father. That's very interesting. I think we'll call on Mr. Neath, too."

The Colonel sat back. "What do you think you can do there?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything. But there's something behind all this." His round face had lost its genial interest in ham, it was plaintive and puzzled. "Something big. Don't you feel it?"

"I suppose that silly chit is in love with the parson," said the Colonel.

"It could be," Reggie mumbled. The look of pain in his bewildered eyes sharpened. "But that man's straight, you know. There's something " - his hand made a queer, groping gesture "something nasty."

The Colonel stared at him. "You go beyond me, Mr. Fortune."

When they knocked at the vicarage door Neath opened it. "So!" He drew himself up. "You have your orders from the knight. You are bidden summon me to stand my trial."

"Oh no. No. Nothing like that," said Reggie gently. "I've been thinking about what you said. And it's brought me asking you to help us."

"You speak fairly. If you mock me, the shame be on your own head." 

"Yes, I'm content," said Reggie.

"Why, then, come!. I send no man away who asks help of me." Neath took them into a dilapidated room. The ceiling was dingy and cracked, and flakes of plaster from it lay on the carpet, a carpet with pattern and colour trampled into threadbare drab. The wallpaper was stained and faded and here and there hung loose. Rickety homemade shelves held a few books. The other furniture was a table and four wooden chairs. "Be seated, sirs," said Neath in a grand manner. "What help can I give you?"

"I hope you can help us to discover who sent that money to you."

"I have told you I do not know," Neath frowned.

"I'm acceptin' all you told us."

"I can tell you no more. I fear nothing. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?"

"Yes. Yes. I believe that, too," said Reggie gravely. "But it has to be done through men. And it's my job to puzzle out what is right in the business."

"You speak well, young man." Neath's harsh face showed some kindliness. "My heart is warmed to you. But you speak of right according to the law. I have a higher duty. See you, sir, the knight testifies these moneys were stolen from him. Of that I do not know, but since it is made clear they came to me and he claims them I must render them to him again and will do so as I may. But who was the thief I cannot tell, and it is not for me, a priest, to seek him out."

"Yes. It may be. But you can't leave it so. While we don't know who the thief is, other people bear the blame."

"The blame of men! Of men who know not what they do. Sir, I care nothing for that. I fear nothing."

"I wasn't thinking about you," Reggie said sharply. "There's something beyond you, Mr. Neath. Who sent you the money? And why was it sent?"

For the first time Neath was shaken. "Surely for a relief of my necessities?" he stammered.

"Was it? Or was it to ruin you and drive you out of Fotton?"

Neath wiped his lips with a ragged handkerchief. "I dare not think so."

"Do you think you have no enemies?"

"Every priest who does his duty has enemies."

"Yes. And who are yours?"

Neath started up. "Get thee behind me!" he cried.

"Oh no. No. I'm not tempting you. I say if there has been a trick played to disgrace the Vicar of Fotton it's your duty to expose the man who is striking at the Church."

Neath's face worked. "Sir, forgive me a cruel word. I am humbled. You have been more righteous than I. What would you have of me?"

"Well, I should like to have the envelope in which the notes came," said Reggie.

"The envelope? I cannot tell. Without doubt I destroyed it." He turned to the cold fireplace where waste paper lay scattered.

"Wouldn't be there now, would it?" said Colonel Tresham. "You had the money a week ago."

"Did I?" Neath looked blank. "Indeed, yes. I received it on the Monday. I remember. But the envelope may be here yet. The woman who serves me has many cares in her own household, poor soul, and spares me but a few hours. This room is seldom cleansed." He turned the papers over hopefully. "No, it is not here. That is strange. There are some even older. Ah, did I keep it, perhaps?" He hurried to the table and tugged a drawer. When it came at last a mess of papers jumped out. "Why, yes. Certainly this is it. There is still a note inside. No doubt that is why I kept it."

Colonel Tresham grunted. Reggie took the envelope. "One pound note: and a bit of the local paper about your county court case: cut out with a penknife: envelope post office make with embossed stamp: posted on that Saturday at Leamore: addressed in laborious script: with a fountain pen: ostentatiously disguised writing. Yes." He looked up. His round face had the innocence of an inquiring child. "Where is Leamore?"

"Small place between here and Tremley," said the Colonel.

Neath turned away. Reggie's plaintive eyes gazed at his back. "In your parish, Mr. Neath?"

"Yes, sir, Leamore is in my parish." Neath fussed with his papers.

"I suppose the parish is rather large?"

Neath did not answer. "You go right up to Tremley, don't you?" said the Colonel.

"That is so. The parish contains a great space."

"Would you look at this script again?" Reggie said meekly. "Does it suggest any writing you know?"

Neath took it gingerly. "It appears the writing of one who studied not to be known."

"And now you can think of no one who wants to ruin you?" Reggie said slowly. "No one who has a reason? Some shameful reason?"

"Sir, sir, I have done no wrong," Neath cried.

"I'm not thinking of you," Reggie said sharply. "I'm thinking of the man who tried to get you convicted of theft. What else has he done? Why does he want you out of Fotton?"

"I can tell you nothing. God is my witness, I can tell you nothing."

Reggie bit his lip. "You know this is very unsatisfactory, Mr. Neath," Colonel Tresham complained.

"Sir, I am not to satisfy you. I do as I must. Go."

The Colonel began to talk loudly, but Reggie said, "Good - bye, Mr. Neath," and took him away.

The Colonel plumped down in the car and started it at a rocket speed. "Quite so. Yes." Reggie's feet came down to the floor again. "Irritatin' creatures, saints."

"Confound the fellow, he knows all about it," the Colonel growled.

"He knows who did the trick. Yes. There's something nasty behind."

"The fellow's a play actor being noble and romantic."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap. Not romantic, no. He's as hard as nails. He's keeping strict to his rules. Very awkward temperament - for the police."

"Well, I don't know," the Colonel grumbled. "What do you want to do?"

"Go back to Avonbury. Employ your active and intelligent police to discover who lives at Tremley."

"You mean Leamore. The letter came from Leamore. But there's nothing to be made of that. Leamore is next door to Fotton: any of the Fotton people might post there."

"Is that so?" Reggie murmured. "Very interesting. But I did mean Tremley. It was the name of Tremley made him jump." He smiled. "Turning up just by chance. A bit of luck. I think I've earned it." And the smile passed. "I want some, Colonel," he said drearily.

When they came to the office in Avonbury a small car was at the door. "Well, well," said Reggie. "So this is where she was going."

They told the Colonel Miss Smart was waiting to see him. She began to talk as she came into the room. "What's my father going to do?"

"I can't say, because I don't know," the Colonel snapped.

"Well, what are you going to do?"

"You've no right to ask these questions. Miss Smart. And I shan't answer."

"All right, if you're afraid! Well, listen then. I've got something to tell you. I've been to see Mr. Neath. I told him if my father prosecuted him for stealing the notes, I should go into the witness - box and swear I took them and sent them to him. There!"

Colonel Tresham glared at her. "But that was very naughty of you," Reggie murmured.

"Don't like it, do you?" she laughed ferociously. "Well, wait. Mr. Neath told me that I mustn't. There! Now do you see the kind of man he is?"

"Yes, I think so," Reggie smiled. "And do you always do what Mr. Neath tells you?"

"What do you mean?" She came nearer.

"If you told us just the truth, it would be more use to Mr. Neath than playing tricks. You didn't send him the money. But you did have a quarrel with your father that morning. Was that about Mr. Neath?"

"No, it wasn't," she said eagerly. "Mr. Neath wasn't mentioned. It was about Lord Westow."

"What on earth has Westow got to do with it?" said the Colonel.

"I didn't say he had." She was uncomfortable. "I don't know. Well, I'm going to tell you everything. If they try to hurt Mr. Neath, it shall all come out. Lord Westow has been asking me to marry him. I - I didn't mind him, but I don't care about him and my father wanted me to. So I asked Mr. Neath what I ought to do."

"What, is he your confessor or something?" said the Colonel with disgust.

"No, he isn't. He doesn't hear confessions. Anyway, there wasn't anything to confess. But I wanted him to advise me because - because he's a good man. And Mr. Neath said I mustn't."

"Said you mustn't marry Westow? Oh, did he!" the Colonel snorted.

"And did you tell Lord Westow Mr. Neath was against him?" said Reggie.

"Of course I didn't. I just told him I couldn't. That's all I said to father. And father was furious."

"Oh yes. Is it possible they suspect Mr. Neath influenced you?"

"I don't know. Father's been quarrelling with Mr. Neath ever since he came to Fotton."

"And Lord Westow, too?"

"Oh, Lord Westow just sneers about him."

"Lord Westow also noticed you know Mr. Neath. Yes. About that silver cross - did anybody know Neath had given you that?"

Again she blushed. "How did you know?"

"My dear lady! Oh, my dear lady!" Reggie murmured.

"Yes, he did give it me. It doesn't matter. But nobody knew. I can't think how I lost it."

"In the agitation with your father that Saturday morning. What was the agitation about, Miss Smart?"

"I told you. About Lord Westow. Of course I didn't want to meet him again. Father knew that. And father asked him to come and stay. I didn't know till he came down to dinner on Friday night. I couldn't get away then. But I went to father in the morning and told him I wouldn't stand it, I'd go away. He made an awful scene. But I went. Oh, I wish - I wish I hadn't. You see, when I came back it had all happened, police and everything, and father didn't tell me for days. I would never have let him do it if I'd been there." At last she showed signs of tears. "Now I've told you the truth - all of it."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured. "Thank you. But don't tell anyone else, Miss Smart. And for Heaven's sake don't try to interfere any more."

"If you do anything to Mr. Neath-" she gasped.

"It isn't Mr. Neath who is in danger," said Reggie. He got rid of her to find the Colonel staring at him.

"What on earth do you make of all that, sir?"

"Let's get on. Let's get on," said Reggie. "Do you know Tremley?" The Colonel said it was a tiny little place on the county boundary. "Remote and obscure. Yes. Where's Billson, the excellent Billson? Send him off to Tremley one time. He's got to find out who lives at Tremley that's mixed up with Lord Westow and Mr. Neath. Don't talk; do it. We're too late already."

The Colonel swallowed and rang for Billson and snapped out his orders. "And hurry on with it," he said bitterly. "Mr. Fortune's nervous." Billson gaped.

"Not nervous. Anxious," Reggie said plaintively.

"Do my best, sir." Billson strode out.

"It beats me what you expect to find by fussing round Tremley," said the Colonel.

"Me, too," Reggie murmured. "The mind is blank. But there is something to find: and it's nasty: and it must be at Tremley. Tremley was what made Neath jump, and he don't jump easy."

The Colonel made a scornful noise. "I don't understand all this talk about something nasty behind."

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie groaned and wriggled in his chair. "Don't you feel it?" He looked at the Colonel with large, sad eyes.

"I do not, sir. I see nothing to make such a fuss about. I agree it looks as if somebody put up this business to get Neath in a mess. Smart, perhaps, or Westow, or both. Westow could have got the notes. A dirty trick enough. But you can see motives for them. This fool of a girl is crazy about Neath. He put her off marrying Westow."

"Yes. Why did he?"

"Well, suppose he's in love with her himself."

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "My only aunt! Don't you see? Neath isn't human. He's a saint. If he told her she mustn't marry Westow, it was because he knew something that damned the man."

"I don't know what Neath would think damns a man. It might be nothing at all. And it was something he was afraid to tell us."

"Afraid?" Reggie laughed. "My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! He was never afraid in his life."

"Why couldn't he tell us then?" the Colonel fumed.

"Because he's a saint, confound him." Reggie stood up bit by bit. "Makes me feel old and sinful. Let me know when Billson has anything."

It was late that night, and in his room at the "Lion" Reggie was drinking his night - cap of simple seltzer when the Colonel and Billson came to him. "Oh, Peter! Don't look at me like that!" he moaned. "What have you found?"

"God knows what it is," said the Colonel. "You were right, Mr. Fortune. There was somebody at Tremley Westow used to go and see. Neath, too. A woman. And she's dead. She died the week before this business with the money." He stared at Reggie with a certain ferocity. "Is that what you expected?"

Reggie did not answer. "She was dead before," he murmured. "I was afraid - -"

"Afraid of what?" the Colonel cried.

"Afraid it was going to be my fault. Well, well. I haven't missed anything then."

"Missed anything!" said the Colonel. "I should say not. You've been seeing things we couldn't see all the time. You seem to have expected this woman dying at Tremley. It's uncanny."

"Oh no. No. I didn't expect her. I didn't know. I don't know now. But it was plain something nasty had to be kept hidden, and there was something queer about Tremley."

"That's all very well, but how are you going to work out the case?"

"I don't know." Reggie was shrill. "I don't know anything. I keep telling you. Let Billson talk. Who was she, Billson?"

Billson cleared his throat importantly. "Well, sir, about five years ago a lady came to live in Tremley. There's a good little house there used to be a gentleman farmer's. This lady took it. Mrs. Vernon by name, supposed to be a widow. Not so young, but a good - looker. Always lived very quiet, but from time to time Lord Westow used to go and see her. They talked a bit in the village - you know what the country is - it don't seem to me there's anything you could say for certain wasn't respectable. Still, he did go, and the lady not being in any county society it's queer: all the more her settling herself down there right off the map. Since Mr. Neath came to Fotton he's been over to see her now and then. There's nothing in that. He visits every house, rich and poor, where they'll let him in. However, there it is. She was living kind of secret and nobody much went to the house but these two. Well, she's been in bad health and Dr. Newsom of Fotton has attended her. Fortnight ago she was found on a hill above the village lying pretty near dead. The chap that found her says she looked ghastly. She was that pale he thought she was gone, but her eyes kind of stared in a shrunk - up way, and there was a sort of rattly breathing. They carried her down to her house. They say she was all cold, kind of blue, and yet sweating." Reggie stirred in his chair. "Well, sir, they got the doctor to her, but by what I can make out, she never came to. She died the same day. The doctor gave a death certificate all right and they didn't think anything of it in the village, she being known to be ill."

"Oh yes. And what did the doctor put on the certificate?"

"I couldn't tell you, sir. They talk about heart disease. It would look all right, for what I see. Dr. Newsom's well known. There's only this. Lord Westow was over there the day after she died and had a long talk with the servants, and they're gone off nobody knows where."

Reggie turned to Colonel Tresham. "You want me to see the doctor, don't you?"

"Do I?"

"Oh yes. You think there's cause for suspicion. So you're telephoning Dr. Newsom tomorrow that he'd better come and see Mr. Fortune in the Chief Constable's office."

"He won't like that, you know."

"I don't mean him to," Reggie murmured. "You'll have to trace those vanishing servants. And you might as well find out where Mrs. Vernon's money came from."

The Colonel looked uncomfortable. "This is going to make a lot of noise, Mr. Fortune."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured.

"Do you mean you feel sure there's been foul play, and Westow was in it?"

"I mean it wasn't a natural death: and Lord Westow knows what it was."

"Westow!" Colonel Tresham muttered. "I'd never have thought that of him."

"No. One doesn't sometimes, till they've done it. Any special evidence of character about Lord Westow?"

"He's an arrogant fellow, rather a bully, but - -"

"That'll do, thanks," said Reggie. "That's the man for the part. Happy to meet Lord Westow."

Outside the Colonel complained that there was something unnatural about Mr. Fortune and Billson agreed.

In the morning Reggie went over to the Chief Constable's office to find the Colonel nervous and uncomfortable with a blustering doctor. Dr. Newsom was well fed and purple and of an important manner. He made the most of it. He was explaining that a professional man was not to be bothered with futile, meddling inquiries, when Reggie came in. "Ah, Mr. Fortune!" The Colonel gasped relief. Dr. Newsom ignored him. Dr. Newsom's eloquence swept on. The Colonel must know very well that his professional experience gave him the right to say any suspicion in the case of Mrs. Vernon was preposterous. And a man of his standing - - 

"Oh yes. Yes," Reggie murmured. "But here you are. Very wise."

"Mr. Reginald Fortune?" Dr. Newsom inquired.

"Yes, you know who I am. Then you know if I have suspicions they're not preposterous. And I have."

"I don't know what you mean, sir."

"You certified that Mrs. Vernon died a natural death."

"I did, sir. There's no doubt about it. The poor lady had been a patient of mine for months. She was suffering from myocardial degeneration. That was the cause of her death." The Colonel looked at Reggie.

"Thanks very much," Reggie murmured. "Who called you in to the case?"

"Mrs. Vernon herself, sir." Dr. Newsom's red face darkened.

"Oh yes. Do you know who she was?"

"I know nothing of her private affairs."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured, and gazed at Dr. Newsom with cold curiosity. "Has Lord Westow ever consulted you about her condition?"

"I don't understand you, Mr. Fortune. Certainly Lord Westow has asked me about her health from time to time - when I've met him - very natural in his lordship - he was an old friend of hers - nothing more."

"What medicine did you send her?"

"I - I - really, Mr. Fortune, you must know nothing could cure the disease."

"Yes. You'd better assume I know. The question is, what did you give her?"

"Nothing of any importance. Occasionally - just to relieve her - she had difficulty in breathing sometimes - you will admit it's the regular practice - I sent a draught with a little morphia."

"Oh yes. You sent her morphia. Anybody suggest that to you?"

"Of course not. I hope I know how to treat my own patients. Certainly she did complain a great deal. I really I couldn't say. I believe Lord Westow may have asked for something to soothe her. I don't know. What - what do you imply, Mr. Fortune?"

"Didn't it occur to you that her symptoms, when you found her dying, were the symptoms of morphia poisoning?"

"It's impossible!" Dr. Newsom wiped his face. "I can't believe it. I never sent her any but the smallest doses. I've gone over my stock of morphia. I can account for it all."

"Oh. It did occur to you. And you certified she died a natural death." Reggie contemplated him with disgust. "I don't want any more from you."

"But - but - but what do you propose to do, Mr. Fortune?" the doctor stammered. And Reggie laughed. It was not a genial sound. It made the Colonel move in his chair, it scared Dr. Newsom. He muttered something about consider his position - consult his solicitor - he stumbled out of the room.

Reggie reached for the telephone. "Get me through to Scotland Yard," he said.

Two days afterwards a car drove up to the Chief Constable's office and the Hon. Sidney Lomas got out of it. Brisk and sprightly he came in to Reggie and Colonel Tresham. "Well, Reginald, you have been and gone and done it. You come down here to a theft of three - ha'pence and turn it into murder by a large, live lord." He turned to the Colonel. "Nice young gentleman for a quiet tea - party, isn't he?"

"It's an ugly case, Mr. Lomas." The Colonel was shocked.

"Quite. Looks like a big scandal," said Lomas cheerfully. He sat down and lit a cigarette. "Well, Bell's found those servants for you. He scared 'em white. They say they always thought there was something between Westow and Mrs. Vernon. Westow paid 'em off after the death: said he was doing it as an old friend. I should judge he paid 'em handsome. It took some work to make the parlourmaid remember Westow was with Mrs. Vernon on the morning before she died: with her a long time. They swear she went out alone afterwards."

"With the poison in her," the Colonel growled.

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured. "Not a nice man, the Lord Westow."

"Poor thing." Lomas shrugged. "A bad business."

"What do you suppose he was to her, Mr. Lomas?"

"My dear Colonel!" Lomas shrugged again. "I can only tell you he's been financing her for years. The money paid into her bank down here came from his in London."

"And the scoundrel got tired of her and finished her off," the Colonel snorted.

"The old story. This Smart girl came in sight with pots of money."

"Have your men traced him yet? I warned you he'd gone off."

"No news yet. We'll get him. Now, Reginald, you want her body."

"Yes, please. As soon as you can."

"I have the exhumation order."

"We're only waiting for that," said the Colonel.

"Good. You can get to work."

The Colonel rang for Superintendent Billson.

Lomas lit another cigarette. "No doubt you'll find morphia, I suppose?"

"Oh no. No. Clear symptoms. That fat fool of a doctor knows she was poisoned."

"Do you suppose he gave Westow the stuff that killed her?"

"It could be." Reggie frowned. "He's a complete ass. No, I should guess Westow worked on him to get a little morphia given and some more was obtained elsewhere. There's some suggestive bits of bottles in the rubbish at her house. And morphia having been given Westow could rely on the ass to write a death certificate."

Superintendent Billson came in. "About that exhumation, Billson," said the Colonel. "Get on with it at once."

"Very good, sir." Billson hesitated. "The Reverend Neath's here, sir, wishing to see you."

"What's he want?"

I couldn't say, sir. But being as she's buried in his churchyard-" 

"Oh, all right. Bring him in."

"Coming now, is he?" A puzzled smile twisted Reggie's face. "I thought we should hear from Mr. Neath before all was over. But now - I wonder."

"What did you expect to hear?"

"I hadn't the slightest idea," Reggie murmured.

Neath stood before them: lank, shabby, proudly erect. And it seemed to Reggie that the man was even more worn and harassed than at first. But still, sunken deeper in the dark face, his eyes glowed fierce. He was still fighting. "Chief Constable" - he made a formal bow - "I have to speak with you. Shall I speak before these men?"

"If it's about your case, they know as much as I do," said the Colonel. "You've met Mr. Fortune. This is the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Mr. Neath."

"Sirs, your servant. It is nothing which touches me. It is in the matter of the woman Vernon. Do they know of that also?"

"I'm in their hands."

"Say not so. You are in the hands of God and answerable unto Him. But if these men command, to them I speak. Sirs, I have heard from the man Billson that there is a design to dig in my churchyard and discover the body of this poor woman. I must ask you what you intend against her?"

"You know, you've no right to ask anything about it," said Lomas blandly.

"But suppose I say we're going to find out if she was murdered," said Reggie. "Any objection, Mr. Neath?"

"Be assured I have right to ask, sirs, and duty. This is your purpose then, to dismember her unhappy body and pry into it for poison - -"

"Who said anything about poison?" Lomas snapped.

"Peace, sir, let me speak. I know not what is in the power of your science. But to this search into her body I will tell you one objection that forbids it. What you find shall prove nothing, but delude you into doing wrong upon wrong."

"Oh, you know she was poisoned, then," said Lomas.

"You'd better tell us the other objections," Reggie murmured.

"I am here to speak. This I say to you. If you should dig up her body and take it to your laboratories, you will do a cruel and useless outrage to the dead form. If you should drag out the secrets of her life, you would blacken her fame among men to take a vengeance on a sinful man which is not just."

"You see, we have to do what we're doing, because you wouldn't tell us what you know," said Reggie.

"I blame you not. Blame me not either. I had no right to speak, for the truth was given me in trust. Now I speak to stay you from black wrong. The woman Vernon was of my people, and when she lay sick she told me of her sorrows. This Lord Westow married her in youth, before he was a lord. She was humbly born and he would not own her his wife. He placed her apart in that lonely house and still resorted to her, and that she endured, being a humble woman by nature. She fell ill and suffered much. She discovered that the Lord Westow sought after the daughter of the knight at Fotton and it sharpened her pain. She learnt to take the drug morphia for relief of the pangs."

"Oh yes. Where did she get the morphia?" said Reggie quickly.

"I cannot tell that. Sometimes I have thought that the Lord Westow procured it for her. But I dare not charge it against him. Sometimes she would promise me to take no more. But always she returned to it again. And often she would declare to me she was resolved some day to seek the peace of death by the accursed drug. God of His grace have mercy upon her. Sirs, I have told you all! What now? I charge you, do not tear asunder her poor body to publish her shame."

Reggie stood up. "Oh no. No. That's the end," he said, and held out his hand. "You've been tried high, Mr. Neath."

"Sir, I know not why you should say so. I have never had a doubt what was right for me to do."

"No. I suppose you haven't," Reggie smiled. "And yet this scoundrel Westow was trying to convict you of theft, so nobody should believe what you could tell of him and Mrs. Vernon. And now you choose to dear him of a charge of murder. I doubt if I should have done that. Would you, Lomas?"

"Sir, sir, speak not so lightly." Neath was shocked.

"Confound the fellow," Lomas cried. "He goes scot - free. And it's a million to one he tempted the poor creature to death by supplying her with morphia."

"Not a nice man. No," Reggie smiled.

"Sirs, sirs, be content." Neath held up his hand. "He shall go to his account. ' Vengeance is Mine,' saith the Lord. 'I will repay.' "And with that he left them.

SEVENTH EXPLANATION

THE BICYCLE LAMP

IT is a cherished conviction of Mr. Fortune that his mind is always governed by caution. This is not admitted by the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. When Mr. Fortune's theories disturb the official tranquillity he is apt to be facetious about the bicycle lamp of Police Constable Napper. Mr. Fortune is not amused.

He came into the case, which, as Lomas will tell you, never began to be a case, by way of Lord Platt. They met first as Judge and expert witness, and the clash was severe. But it produced a friendship which endures, a potent friendship, taking Reggie for week - ends to the country place where his lordship breeds pheasants which he cannot shoot and which Reggie would not shoot if he could.

Across the fire at Yardley House, Platt gave a considered judgment that the charm of Clos Vougeot is rather that of claret than Burgundy, and Reggie asked leave to appeal and drank his seltzer and went to bed. He remembered afterwards looking out on a dark sky in which the stars were clear. And the clocks struck midnight.

It was about this time that Isaac Smallpeice drove up from the village with the simple purpose of poaching Platt's pheasants. This was not unusual. The lawful trade of Smallpeice was hawking pots and pans, brushes and brooms, which he took round the countryside in a decrepit motor - van. But his night work was more respected. He was a poacher of high standing. The only covert of Platt's which he had not worked that season was far away from the house, nestling in the eastern slopes of Yardley Down. That dark mass of sandstone and heather - clad sand is lonely in summer sunshine. You may climb about it by the hour and see neither house nor man, for the old homesteads of the ridge are hidden among the trees in the hollows, and only one bad, steep road crosses it. Smallpeice turned his car into a friendly farm track, put out the lights and went on afoot.

Through the dark of the winter night he saw with disgust a light moving on the road. He obliterated himself behind a patch of gorse. The light drew slowly nearer and he saw it came from a bicycle lamp. He made out the shape of the cyclist, a stiff way of riding, a policeman's uniform. After a little way the man turned and rode slowly down the hill again. The heart of Smallpeice was filled with profanity. It was his own village constable Napper, and plainly the man was bent on patrolling the bounds of the covert where he designed to work. He lay and made dumb oaths.

But not for long. A car whirred down the hill, a closed car driven fast. In its headlights the policeman stood out a moment, a sharp, black shape. Then he was gone in a crash and the car rushed on and away.

Smallpeice sucked his teeth. His first impulse may have been to give help. But he was a thoughtful man. It became clear to him that there would be a painful difficulty in explaining his assistance at a midnight disaster to a policeman in the neighbourhood of pheasants. He withdrew. Thus the bicycle and the body of Constable Napper were left lying in the road high on the eastern slopes of Yardley Down. . . .

Lord Platt, who despises newspapers, reads them all and wants them early. When Reggie, dreamy and benign, wandered into the breakfast - room, he found the little man cursing his kidneys. "There, there " - Reggie patted his shoulder: " be calm. This early rising excites the nerves. Take a sedative. Watch me eat. A comfortable sight. It has persuaded many saintly men all's right with the world." And he also ate kidneys. "Yes. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the cook, but in ourselves that we are out of sorts. The little system is to blame."

Platt denied it with passion and champed toast, and the butler came in: "If you please, my lord" - he was short of breath - "the boy with the papers - -"

"Damn it, hasn't he brought them?"

"Yes, my lord. I have them, my lord. But the boy says he was delayed, having found a policeman lying dead on the road."

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie moaned.

"Confound the urchin!" said Platt. "What did he want to do that for?"

"He tried to revive the man, my lord, which he says he's a horrible sight. The lad is much shook up. He's come on here, being the nearest place to get help. What would you wish to have done, my lord?"

"Good God, man! telephone for the police and a doctor." Platt started up. "Don't waste time chattering. I'll do it myself."

"Yes. Tell the police." Reggie poured himself another cup of coffee. "They like to know these little things. But I'm the nearest doctor, Platt. My car, please."

Nature has not given Lord Platt a sympathetic face. An aggrieved criminal once called him "old cod's head." It is too true. Reggie came into the hall to see the paper boy under examination, a sweating, gurgling boy who could not be clear where he found the policeman.

"Boy's a fool," Platt's big mouth snapped. "Body's on the road somewhere between here and the station; anywhere in three miles."

"Oh yes. I expect he can find it. Come along, young man." Reggie got into his coat.

"Do I have to see him again, sir?" the boy gasped. "He's horrible."

"You've only to stop the car when we come to the place. There, sit by me. Which way is it?"

"Below the down, sir. Down in the marsh."

"He means at the bottom of the hill, in the flat on the west side." Platt got into the car.

"Yes. I thought he did. Are you coming? Good. The judicial mind don't usually begin at the beginning."

"The judicial mind," said Platt - and breath left him as Reggie whirled the car out of the lodge gates. "Ugh! The judicial mind does not usually receive the facts uncorrupted."

The car left the woodland behind and turned across bare flat country of sodden pastures. The boy's hand clutched at Reggie. "Yes, I see. All right. Just as you found him, what?" The boy nodded and gulped and turned away.

Reggie stopped the car. A bicycle and a body lay in the road, some distance apart. The front wheel of the bicycle was buckled. The body had suffered worse. It lay upon its face and its face was a crushed wound.

"Good God!" Platt put his hand to his eyes.

"Yes. As you say," Reggie murmured, and knelt down by the body.

"Did he suffer, Fortune?"

Reggie was moving the shattered head. "No. No. The first crash and then - nothing." He turned the body over and the light fell on what had been the man's face, and Platt gave a groan. Reggie looked Close, then sat back on his heels and surveyed the body, the bicycle, the road. . . .

When at last he stood up, the round placidity of his face was disturbed. Then he wandered away to the bicycle. He bent over that, he lifted it and turned the buckled wheel, he peered into the lamp. His pathetic eyes turned this way and that, he drifted about the road.

"Well, well." He stood still and sighed. "Here's your uncorrupted facts, Platt." Sad and inquiring and childlike, his eyes gazed at the little man. "What do you make of 'em?"

"I never saw death in the raw before," said Platt. "I feel helpless."

"Not nice. No," Reggie murmured. 

"The damage to the bicycle suggests a collision?" 

"Oh yes. Something hit it." 

"I suppose he was run down by a car?" 

"It could be. Yes. Where would the car be going - on this road - in the middle of the night?"

Platt gave him the geography of the road. It linked scattered hamlets and farms with the railway: it was the ancient track between one country town and another which now used the engineered highway on the other side of the down.

"Not a nice road," Reggie murmured, and looked along it with dreamy dislike. It was tarred, but in bad condition, narrow and winding unreasonably. "The hypothetical car was driving fast."

Platt put out his long upper lip. "It can be done, Fortune. You did it."

"Yes. I had something to hurry for. And I knew it was on this road. What was the hypothetical car doing?"

Platt explained that cars sometimes came that way to avoid the high - road traffic.

"In the dead of night?" Reggie mumbled. "Yes. It could be." He turned away and again drifted about the road.

Two cars and an ambulance arrived. An Inspector of Police saluted Platt. "Very good of your lordship to take so much trouble. We've lost no time." He saw the dead man's face. "My God!"

"Oh yes. Do you know him?" Reggie said.

The quiet voice at his elbow startled the Inspector. He swung round and stared at Reggie's plaintive, inquiring face with disgust. "Know him?" he said thickly. "Of course I know him. But he wasn't ever found like that?"

"No. No. I turned him over," Reggie murmured.

The Inspector glowered at him. "Oh, did you! What do you want to meddle for? He didn't ought to have been touched."

"Inspector Brightman," Platt rebuked him, " this is Mr. Fortune."

"How do you do?" said Reggie amiably.

"Good day, sir," the Inspector growled. "You'll excuse me. I've got our own doctor here."

"You will be well advised to consult Mr. Fortune," Platt frowned.

"Very good, my lord. I'll tell the Chief Constable what you say." The Inspector sniffed. "He likes us to manage our own business - as a rule." He bustled away, barkingat his policemen. He conferred with them, he examined the bicycle, he dictated notes. He set them measuring distances from the bicycle to the body, from the bicycle to the side of the road.

Reggie watched him dreamily and sighed and turned to the doctor, a large, slow man who was breathing hard over the body. He made a tedious examination with pompous hum's and ha's. He rose and threw a chest and looked down at Reggie with condescension. "I suppose you've formed your opinion, Mr. Fortune?"

"Not yet, no," said Reggie meekly. "I'd like to be there when you do the post - mortem, if you don't mind."

"Oh, certainly. Honoured. I should say it's a plain case myself." 

"What's that?" The Inspector joined them. "You've finished, Dr. Lace?"

"You can remove the body, Brightman. The facts seem quite clear. The poor fellow has been dead some hours. The cause of death was injury to the brain from violent concussion. The probability is that the poor fellow was run down by a car."

"That's right. Doctor," the Inspector agreed heartily. That fits. Napper went out on his bicycle last night; regular night round of his district; didn't come back this morning. And there he is - bicycle been in a smash, head smashed. Run down by some car that didn't stop. Road hogs."

"You know him, do you?" Reggie murmured. "Know him?" The Inspector stared. "Oh, you mean with that smashed face. It's Napper all right, poor chap."

He turned to Platt. "You know Napper, my lord, your constable at Yardley."

"I thought it was Napper," Platt nodded. "Poor fellow." 

Reggie looked at them wistfully. "He'd be on this road, would he?"

"There's no fixed beat. He'd go anywhere in his district where he thought he might be useful. Quite all right for him to be here. It's a plain running - down case. As I make it out by my measurements, the collision was just there. Fast heavy car driving towards Oakhurst. I'm marking the place."

Reggie looked at him with melancholy wonder. "Good." The doctor rubbed his hands. "Well, let them take the body on to the mortuary now. Perhaps you'll join me at your convenience, Mr. Fortune. You have your own car."

"Thanks very much," Reggie murmured. "Oh, Inspector. Did you find anything on the road?" "I did not, sir."

"No. You wouldn't. Only the bicycle." The Inspector snorted, and he and his men drove off with the bicycle and the body and the doctor. "Nobody loves me, Platt," said Reggie sadly. "Two fools." Platt thrust out his upper lip. "The fool in office is the curse of the world. I suppose you see something. Fortune?"

"No. No. It's what I don't see," Reggie murmured. He wandered forlorn about the road. "I don't see the glass of the lamp." He came back, he gazed at Platt with large appealing eyes. "It isn't here."

"The glass of the lamp? Oh, the bicycle lamp." 

"That's the one I mean," Reggie moaned. 

"I take your point." The fish - like mouth of Platt extended even further in a grin. "What do you propose to do?"

"Oh, I must look at this post - mortem. There's some other little things. Then I'll have to talk to the Chief Constable. Is he a nice man, Platt?"

"I have not found him so. A mule. A military mule. My dear Fortune, I shall be happy to assist in dealing with the limited intelligence of Colonel Kitchell. I will go into Northam with you." His face made the motions of sucking which used to alarm the Bar.

When Reggie strolled into the mortuary at Northam he found Dr. Lace already at work. He did not interfere. In gentle silence he endured the doctor's demonstration of what had happened to skull and brain, and if he did not listen he watched keenly. But in the later stages of the lecture his attention wandered. He became interested in anything but the dead man's head: other parts of the body - the hands, the feet, the clothes and boots; and to the hands he returned with plaintive curiosity.

Dr. Lace completed his demonstration. "You will probably agree that is conclusive, Mr. Fortune. The injuries are such as would naturally be inflicted by the violent concussions resulting from collision with a fast car. You are satisfied?"

"Not satisfied, no. Several odd facts."

"I do not observe them, Mr. Fortune."

"No. I was afraid you didn't. For instance, I should say there was more than one injury to the head."

"That is certainly possible. But quite natural. His head may well have been struck by the car, then dashed to the ground. Several injuries are common in these cases."

"I have seen a few cases, you know." Reggie contemplated the doctor with half - shut eyes. "He's got all his injuries on the head. Otherwise quite intact. That's very unusual."

"In my small experience, Mr. Fortune," the doctor smiled, " every case is unusual. Each has its own features. I venture to point out this is particularly true of accidents. In their nature they are abnormal." He cleared his throat. "Is there anything else to which you wish to draw my attention?"

"Oh no," Reggie sighed. "No."

"Then if you will excuse me, I will go and make my report to the Chief Constable. Very happy to have had your assistance, Mr. Fortune." He bustled away.

But Reggie did not follow him. He lingered by the body, he lifted the right hand. It was well kept, but the longer fingers and the thumb bore stains in several colours. He turned, listened a moment, heard the doctor washing, and with silent quick movements found materials to make prints of the dead man's fingers. Then he also went to wash.

"I'll go round to the Chief Constable with you," he said cheerfully. "I fancy Platt's there."

"Oh, really? Pleasure," said Dr. Lace.

Platt was there. The appearance of the Chief Constable suggested severe strain. Nature had made him ruddy and full of face, he was empurpled and congested.

"Humph! Here you are then," he growled at Dr. Lace. "What have you got to say about it?"

And the doctor said what he had said to Reggie.

"All right. Damn the details. You're going to swear he was killed there on the road by collision with a car?"

Reggie turned to the doctor with polite surprise. "But are you?" he said.

"Don't interfere, sir," the Chief Constable roared. "Let the man speak for himself. Are you satisfied, Doctor?"

"Completely. I have already pointed out to Mr. Fortune there can be no doubt of the cause of death."

"Well, well!" Reggie sighed. "And the place, Doctor?"

"The place, Mr. Fortune?" Dr. Lace stared. "The place of death was obviously where the body was found."

"Oh no. No. That's where it obviously wasn't," Reggie murmured. "The one thing that is obvious."

"You amaze me-"  the doctor protested.

"I should think so!" said the Chief Constable. "Now, Mr. Fortune, I'll deal with you, if you please. I don't know why you thrust yourself into the case - -"

"We can't have this, Kitchell," Platt snapped. "Mr. Fortune is the medical man who first saw the dead body. It's his duty to inform the police of what he found. If you take offence, you expose your own incompetence."

"I'm not here to be lectured, my lord. When I want an expert from Scotland Yard I'll ask for him. Till then he has no right to meddle with my work."

"Why this passion?" said Reggie mildly.

"I don't want an expert coming here to make mysteries out of a perfectly plain case."

"Oh no. No. You only want a little common sense. Has Platt told you about the bicycle lamp?"

"He's told me you couldn't find the broken glass, so you want to make out Napper was killed somewhere else."

"Good. You grasp the simple thought. What about it?"

"I attach no importance to it whatever," the Chief Constable announced.

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie murmured.

"Kitchell!" said Platt. "Endeavour to understand the position. Mr. Fortune will give evidence at the inquest - -"

"Will he? The police won't call him, I can tell you."

"That will make your conduct still more suspicious," said Platt with relish. "Mr. Fortune will state that the glass broken from the bicycle lamp was not on the road where he found the man. The police will at once be asked whether they have tried to discover where the accident occurred. If the answer is that the Chief Constable declined to investigate, it will be clear that you have done your best to conceal how the man met his death."

The Chief Constable spluttered. "You've no right to say a thing like that, my lord. One of my best men - killed in the execution of his duty, too - -"

"Oh! Oh, was he?" said Reggie quickly.

"Of course he was. Out on his night patrol. What do you suppose he was doing?"

"I don't suppose. I don't know anything about him. You said he was one of your best men?"

"So he was, sir. I've got his record here. Came to us out of the Army. He'd been through the war. Conduct in the Army, first class. Recommended to us by Colonel Clairmont, his commanding officer. Absolutely clean sheet with us."

"Was he married?" said Reggie.

"No, sir. Single man." The Chief Constable stared at him. "Most respectable fellow. You must have known him, my lord. He was in your village. No complaints, I believe?"

"I know nothing but good of him," said Platt. "I consider that a reason for discovering how he was killed."

"Well, damn it, so do I!" the Chief Constable cried. "But what the devil do you want me to do? This business about the lamp glass - it's all fanciful. When a bicycle has been in a big smash, you can't expect to find bits of glass on the spot - might have been knocked anywhere - might have been smashed to powder."

"They must have been knocked somewhere," said Reggie mildly. "And they weren't there. In powder or otherwise. And it isn't only the glass. The lamp was burst and the oil had gone. But there was no oil on the road."

"That's a queer thing, I will say." The Chief Constable jerked back in his chair. "Oh, but look here. His lamp might have burnt out. Then he'd have no light, and that's how he was run down."

"Yes. Yes. I was afraid you'd say that," Reggie sighed.

"I'm sure I only want to be reasonable," said the Chief Constable.

"Quite so," Dr. Lace smiled. "But Mr. Fortune doesn't like reason. He prefers his theories."

"My poor man" - Reggie contemplated him with pity "oh, my poor man. What is my theory, please?"

"I really couldn't tell you," the doctor laughed.

"No. No. Because I haven't one. There's only been one theory. That's yours. Very comforting theory. But it don't fit the facts. You say the man was killed there by a car. But the facts state that he wasn't killed there and they don't say it was a car killed him."

"What?" the Chief Constable cried. "But that's the doctor's medical evidence - a car killed him."

"Not medical, no. Not really evidence. He was killed by severe blows to the head. Possibly by a car. Possibly otherwise."

"Well, what are you suggesting then?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Reggie.

"I suppose you think you're being helpful, Mr. Fortune," the Chief Constable snorted. "It's more like making game of us."

"No. No. You don't amuse me," Reggie sighed. "I'm rather frightened of you." 

"Of me, sir?"

"Of both of you. You're so anxious to hush it up." 

"That is intolerable, Mr. Fortune!" the doctor cried. 

"That's too bad," said the Chief Constable. "I keep  asking what you suggest and you can't tell me. You only make difficulties."

"Not make 'em. No. The difficulties are there. You're tryin' to hide 'em."

"What on earth do you advise then?"

"Oh, I should advise Dr. Lace to keep to the facts," said Reggie wearily. "I should advise you to look for some more. Look for the glass. Look for somebody who knew Napper well. Look for anybody else who's missing."

"Anybody else?" the Chief Constable gaped. "Nobody's missing at all."

Reggie stood up. "Well, well," he sighed. "You wouldn't know, would you? Good - bye."

He took Platt away and put him into the car and drove off. The streets of Northam are full of country business. He drove in ample swoops, dreamily: in what Mrs. Fortune calls with a shudder his lyric manner. Platt shuddered. It was not till a clear high road lay before them that he dared to speak. "Fortune, what did you mean by the last hint?"

Reggie moved in his seat. "I wanted to shake 'em up," he murmured. "I don't like 'em. These pompous fellows are dangerous. Always twistin' things to prove their own silly notions." He glanced at Platt. "You know they're goin' to make an awful mess of this if they're left alone."

"No doubt," said Platt. "You suggested somebody else was missing. Have you any reason to think so?"

"Not a reason. No. Only a guess or so," Reggie mumbled. "Made 'em jump, didn't it?"

"I infer you have formed some theory of your own."

"Oh, Peter! Not me. Only several little questions. Why was anybody drivin' a car round your lonely lanes in the dead of night? Why did he want to make us think that man was killed where he wasn't? And what exactly was the place of Constable Napper in the scheme of things?"

"I should say Napper was thoroughly reliable: and a keen, vigorous fellow."

"Yes. Yes. That's very interesting."

"You propose to go on investigating the case yourself?"

"I've got to." Reggie was plaintive. "A man's been killed. And your Chief Constable wants to muddle the evidence away. I've got to take it on. And it's all queer." He looked at Platt with the pathetic eyes of a frightened child, and the car shaved a lorry.

"My dear Fortune!" Platt shuddered.

"Not a nice case. No," Reggie sighed. "Things are not what they seem. None of 'em. Well, well. That's Yardley, isn't it? We'll call at the desolate home of Constable Napper."

The car stopped and Platt gasped relief. "Napper had no family, you know."

"No. No. That's one of the difficulties," Reggie murmured. "But we've called to ask after 'em. You ask, Platt."

The door of the trim cottage was opened by a policeman who began to snub them, recognized Platt, and saluted his lordship. "Are you in charge here? Just a word with you, then." They went into a neat kitchen and Platt sat down and the policeman stood to attention. "I came to see if I could be of any service to Napper's family."

"Beg pardon, my lord, he had no family. Not as is known. He wasn't a Lamshire man. Colonel Clairmont brought him here. He never talked of having people. The Inspector told me to search if there was letters from relations of his for to inform them of his death. But I can't find nothing of the sort. Only his Army papers and such."

"Lonely fellow," said Platt. "Who kept house for him?"

"Nobody, my lord. He did for himself. Kep' the place nice, too."

"Jolly little house," Reggie purred. "Jolly garden, too. He wouldn't want to leave all this."

"Ah," said the policeman profoundly. "Poor chap. Cruel, sir, ain't it?"

"Yes. Yes." Reggie wandered about the room. In its tidy comfort there was nothing personal but a few souvenirs of the war. "I suppose he just lived for this place?"

"That's right, sir. When he wasn't on duty you'd be sure to find him here. Generally working in his garden. He fair loved that."

"Good chap," Reggie smiled. "His one hobby, what?"

"Yes, that's right, sir. Just the garden - and the house, in a way. He didn't care about anything else. Why, he hasn't even got a wireless or a gramophone or nothing."

"The simple life," said Platt. "A wise man." He looked at Reggie, who was drifting to the door. "Well, Constable, if you should learn of any relations, let me know. Good day." And so they drove off. "You haven't made much of that, Fortune."

"Oh yes. Yes. Interestin' and suggestive."

"Entirely negative, wasn't it?"

"Quite. That's what's interesting." Reggie slowed the car. "Now then. Last night Constable Napper went out on his bicycle. That is the provisional hypothesis. Well, acceptin' that, where would he naturally go to?"

"To get to that road where he was found dead, the natural way is over the top of the down."

"Yes. Cuttin' out where the body was - found - which way would he naturally go on a night patrol?"

"I should expect him to go round the coverts. Watching for poachers, you know. There are a lot of pheasants in a covert of mine on the down."

"Oh I Thus takin' him the same way as if he were goin' to where we found the body. Is that so?"

"Certainly. The coincidence is curious. I had not thought of it."

"Lots of things are curious," Reggie murmured. "Pheasants and poachers. I wonder." His round face was perplexed. "Well, well. Let's try it." And he murmured a verse:

"' When I was a greenhorn and young And wanted to be and to do, I bothered my brains about choosing my line Till I found out the way that things go.'"

And the car went slower still up the narrow, steepening road. When they were a mile or more from the village, when the tilled land ended in heather and wood, Reggie stopped. "Any more houses?" he asked.

"Nothing more on the road."

"Civilization here ends. Yes. Now we'll look for things serious and particular." He ran the car on to the heather and they got out and walked on. "One of our prehistoric roads," Reggie complained. "Not much used by that curse of the modern world, the motor - car?"

"Very few cars come up here."

"No. No. I should say not. And that's very curious. The decease of Constable Napper is ascribed to a car. But the road where the body was found and the road which Constable Napper probably took are roads not adapted to cars: especially nocturnal cars."

"I admit your point," said Platt. "But surely the damaged bicycle points to a collision."

"Oh yes. I think the bicycle was in a collision. I should say there was a car. That's why I'm porin' over this rough and rocky road. But if you can tell me what that car was out for you would interest me, Platt."

"A gang of poachers often work with a car nowadays."

Reggie moaned softly. They had come to the top of the down. He stopped and looked about him. A wide prospect opened beyond the brown heather, dim miles of field and hedgerow melting to a violet haze where the land rose into the sky. "Yes. Good and soothin' to the troubled soul," Reggie murmured. "Why are people, Platt? The world's nice without 'em."

"My coverts are a little lower down," said Platt.

Reggie sighed. "Well, well. The horrid fact of life intrudes." He directed his eyes to nearer things. "Hullo. Somebody does live here." He pointed to a wisp of blue smoke, a mellow roof coming out of the trees in a hollow.

"One or two old houses about. That's Clairmont's place."

"Oh!" Reggie's vague eyes turned to him. "The patron of Constable Napper. He lives up here. You didn't tell me that, Platt."

"His house is not on the road. It didn't occur to me. An old place in its own grounds. My coverts are above on the other side. You see?"

"Yes. Yes." Reggie wandered on and they came to the place where Isaac Smallpeice had lain in hiding. Mr. Smallpeice had left few traces. The remnants of chewed tobacco by his lair in the bracken escaped Reggie's intent gaze searching the road. Some way lower down the yellow November sunlight glinted on the rough surface. "Ah!" Reggie stooped. ... "Three pieces of a thick convex lens . . . once composing the front glass of a bicycle. Thus verifyin' the provisional hypothesis." He wandered to and fro, peering at the channelled sandstone of the road. "Yes. Further evidence - an oozy mess, which was oil - and a dry stain, probably blood. Observe these exhibits, Platt. You may have to swear to 'em."

"I shall be equal to that." Platt thrust out his lip. "The inference is that this is where Napper met his death. A very ingenious piece of work, Fortune. And annoying to Colonel Kitchell."

"Yes. Yes. Assumin' the glass fits - this is where the cycle, with cyclist, crashed. No evidence how. The primeval road bears no traces of a car. But probably a car was present. Now what was that car here for?"

Platt pointed to the darkness of the covert. "My pheasants," he grinned unpleasantly. "This is just where a gang of poachers would come."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie sighed. "Well, well." He gazed at Platt and his flushed face was mournful. "We shall have to tell these policemen," he complained.

"I shall be delighted." Platt's lips made motions of sucking.

"Would you? Could you drive my car? Run along and take it and see if the glass fits, and if so bring the constabulary back with you."

"Very good. I was interested in the poor fellow's case before. Now it becomes a personal matter to catch these scoundrels. The man was practically killed in my service. I shall light a fire under Kitchell now." He trotted.

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie moaned. He sat down in the heather and contemplated with dislike the road and the covert. After awhile he turned and looked across the slope of the down to the hollow from which rose the brown house of Colonel Clairmont. He rose and wandered over the heather till he came to the fence of its grounds. By the side of that he strolled on. The house was a comely piece of seventeenth - century work in a severe and stiff garden. Beyond that lay a wilderness of shrubbery. As he made the tour of the fence he saw among the bushes another building. That also was old; it seemed to have been a barn or stable; it had been put into service again with a new chimney and windows. But the windows were shut and blinds drawn, there was no sign of occupation. Reggie strolled on and saw in the heather some tiny scraps of burnt paper, little more than dust. His eyes opened wider; he glanced back at the building and turned and wandered over the heather in little expanding circles. He found one scrap of paper charred but not burnt, thin stiff paper on which was printed in brownish pink what looked like the naked legs of a child.

With great care he put that in his pocket - book. Slowly he moved away and, completing the circuit of Colonel Clairmont's grounds, came back to the road. Then he turned up the hill again and paused at the entry of the curving drive, which led to the house, and looked in and still more slowly climbed to the place of the mess of oil and the stain. There he sat down in the heather once more and lit a cigar and, as his uncanny way is at times of deeper thought, smoked with his eyes closed.

He was thus occupied when he heard footsteps. His eyes opened to see a man marching fast up the hill. "Don Quixote, I presume," were the words which came into his head, for the man was tall and lean and his gaunt face had a look of forlorn nobility. What he said was "Good day, sir."

The man stopped and stared at him. "Good day to you. You have found a pleasant place to rest in."

"Yes. Large long view. Peaceful for the spirit."

"I am glad you find it so." The man turned to gaze at the blue distance. "Do you know the down, sir?"

"No. No. I'm a little pilgrim and a stranger here. Same like the hymn says."

The man looked at him again. "Really? A pilgrim?" The lean, handsome face was bewildered.

"Really a stranger. Metaphorically a pilgrim. Seekin' the truth. A distressin' vocation, sir. Present job, waitin' for the police. Also distressin'. And not necessarily compatible with the other."

"I don't follow?" The man seemed short of breath. "The police?"

"It is rather obscure, yes. But here they are." Platt brought the car down the hill with extreme caution. "The judicial chauffeur. Majestic but tedious, m'lud. Trickle on." Out of the car came the Chief Constable.

"Hallo, Clairmont!" He stared. "Mr. Fortune brought you into it, has he?"

"Into what, Kitchell? I don't understand you. Is this - this gentleman a detective?"

"It's Mr. Fortune, the Scotland Yard expert. He's been looking into this case of poor Napper."

"Oh, really," said Clairmont. "But here - I don't understand. I was told the accident happened down in the marsh."

"That's where the body was found." The Chief Constable looked knowing.

"Do you remember hearing any noise last night, Clairmont?" said Platt. "Some time after midnight or even later?"

"I remember nothing," said Clairmont quickly. "What could I have heard?" He looked from one to the other. '" You are very mysterious, gentlemen."

"Sorry, old man," the Chief Constable chuckled. "I have to be."

"Oh no. No," said Reggie. "Quite simple. Platt thinks there were poachers after his pheasants here last alight. And Napper met 'em."

Clairmont turned on Platt. "Have you any reason to think so?"

"There is reason to think the man was killed here," said Platt. "That is the obvious explanation. Did you hear any sound of violence?"

Reggie took Clairmont's arm. "Look. That's the oil from Napper's lamp. That's his blood. Did you hear anything?"

Clairmont did look. "His blood?" he said, and looked at Reggie. "How can you be sure?"

"That was blood," said Reggie quietly. "If he was smashed up by poachers, there must have been some sort of row. Did you hear anything?"

Clairmont could be seen thinking. "I heard nothing that I can recall, sir," he said at last. "I will ask my servants. If I should find that they have anything to tell, I'll inform you, Kitchell. As you know, I was much interested in Napper."

"Of course. Thanks very much," said the Chief Constable, and Clairmont saluted them gravely and marched away.

"Nothing doing there, I'm afraid. There's no reason why they should have heard anything away in Clairmont's house. Still, I'm inclined to accept your theory, Mr. Fortune. Very acute."

"I haven't a theory." Reggie was shrill. "I only say the bicycle was smashed here."

"No doubt about that, is there? Those bits of glass fit his lamp. And there's the oil and his blood. He was killed here. That means poachers. They had a car. So they carried off the body and dumped him down in the marsh to cover their tracks."

"And if Fortune had not pointed that out to you, you would have arranged a verdict of accidental death." Platt thrust out his lip. "Very efficient, Kitchell."

"I should have done no such thing, my lord. I should have looked for the car that killed him. I've still got to look for that car. Now I know it was used by poachers."

"Which simplifies the matter," said Platt disagreeably.

Reggie looked from one to the other with pained surprise. "Does it? Was it?" he murmured plaintively. "You fellows are so quick." He fell on his knees and scraped the blood - stained sand on to paper.

"You want to test that?" The Chief Constable frowned.

"I want to test anything I can." He went to a case in his car and put the scrapings away and returned to work on the mess of oil.

"Not sure, eh?"

"Sure?" Reggie looked up. "Oh, my hat!" and he laughed and worked on.

"All right. When you're ready, I'd like to go back. I have to get to work."

Reggie took him back to Northam at a disintegrating speed and in the same style went on with Platt. Uncertain about the knees, Platt arrived in his hall and sat down and gasped for whisky and soda. "I want my tea," said Reggie plaintively. Platt waggled his hand at the butler. "Weak tea," Reggie purred. "Oh, and could there be muffins?"

"Good God!" said Platt with emotion, and absorbed his whisky. "I thought this maniac driving was caused by perturbation of mind."

"Maniac? My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! I was driving with great self - control. I always do. Only you and the Chief Constable are in such a hurry and I like to be in the movement."

"You're not satisfied with the evidence?" Platt looked at him keenly.

"The evidence is all right. What there is of it. It's the theories that frighten me."

"You don't believe there was a poachers' affray?"

"It could be. Yes. Speakin' strictly, I don't believe anything except the facts. And I don't understand them."

"You have your doubts about this blood?"

"No. No. It's goin' to be blood all right. Likewise lamp - oil. But I'll have to make tests. We want to have something proved."

"You have the lamp - glass. I saw that fitted into the lamp myself."

"Yes. That is certain," said Reggie. And the tea came. "Oh, buttered buns," he smiled. "Yes. Grateful and comfortin'. Yes, the glass came out of Napper's bicycle. But the blood - you see, I can't prove the blood came out of Napper. I'll only be able to say it's human."

"That will suffice, I take it."

"What for?" Reggie's eyebrows went up. "To prove Napper was killed there on the hill? Would you tell a jury that?

"I should say it established a strong probability," said Platt.

"My only aunt!" Reggie sighed. "And you were a Judge - and a good Judge, too." He contemplated Platt with melancholy curiosity. "A strange mind, the legal mind."

"You're an odd fellow. Fortune," Platt frowned. "You were confident the man was killed somewhere else. Now you've found the evidence, and, very ingeniously, you proceed to doubt it."

"No. No. I don't doubt the evidence. I always follow it. Follow the gleam. Same like the chap in the poem. But it don't lead me to anything."

"What more could you possibly expect?"

Reggie looked at him with dreamy eyes. "Well, you know, I did expect a little more interest in the matter from Colonel Clairmont."

"Clairmont? If he heard nothing, and he might very well have heard nothing, he could have nothing to tell us."

"Yes. Yes. Acceptin' that - as he was the patron of Napper, when he heard that Napper was killed at his gate instead of miles away as announced, he might have been more interested."

"He was amazed."

"Yes. I thought he was surprised we'd got there. But he hadn't much to say."

"What should he say?" Platt was annoyed. "My dear Fortune, if you have in your mind any suspicion of Clairmont, I can tell you it's preposterous. I know him thoroughly. He's a man of the strictest honour."

"Yes. Yes. Fine type. I thought that. Do you know anything about his household?"

"His wife's dead. There's one son. A pleasant fellow. Some sort of artist. Etchings and woodcuts and that sort of thing. He's not at home now. A good deal away. Clairmont lives alone, with a few women servants and a gardener or so, all with him for many years. You can put the Clairmont household out of your mind."

"I see. Yes," Reggie murmured, and did so. For the rest of that evening he talked of Latin hymns and the charm of puddings and the ideal cat.

But in the morning he said that he must go and verify the blood, and he went to his laboratory by way of Scotland Yard. He drifted into the room of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, pink and dreamy, like a child just out of bed.

"Reginald!" said Lomas severely. "Shed that look of innocence. What have you been up to now? One of these days a Chief Constable will arrange your quiet decease. And I shan't blame him. This poor man in Loamshire don't know where he are."

"Well, well," Reggie beamed. "Has he found that out? Good."

"He has not. He blethers. Yesterday morning he rang me up very loud and frenzied to complain that you were meddling with one of his cases and he wouldn't have it. In the evening he was on the 'phone again to say he was devilish obliged to you. I am not. Why will you give Chief Constables fits? Very bad for trade."

"One of your larger cigars is indicated," said Reggie, and took it. "Yes. Heard all about it, Lomas?"

"Oh lord, yes. And more," Lomas groaned. "What do you want here? It's going to be a straight case of a poachers' murder, isn't it?"

"I wonder." Reggie blew smoke rings. He brought out the paper on which were the finger - prints of the dead man. "Tell your fellows to see if that chap is on their records."

Lomas gave the orders. "Who is the suspect?"

"He isn't exactly a suspect. He's the corpse."

"Good gad!" Lomas gasped. "But the dead man is the village policeman. They all knew him."

"Yes. Identification unanimous though casual. But he hadn't got a face."

"My dear fellow, they must know the general look of the man."

"Oh yes. The dead man must be the same sort of size as Constable Napper. The clothes were a fair fit. He may be Napper. But I don't think so. It's his hands. The dead man had been doing things with acids and other chemicals. That's not usual in the police force. And Napper hadn't any hobbies."

"You mean hands like a photographer's?"

"Yes. Yes. It could be."

"Another man - killed and put into Napper's clothes - why?"

"Oh, that's easy. So that his exit shouldn't be noticed."

"Someone wanted your supposed photographer put quietly out of the way? Then the someone must be Napper himself."

"Not must. Might. Napper either assisting or being otherwise disposed of."

"But why?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie murmured. His hand went to his pocket again. He produced the scrap of charred paper. "Does that suggest anything to the higher intelligence?"

Lomas looked at it with a reading - glass. "Bit of a plump, naked child, tawny - pink complexion. Once part of a foreign bank - note, I suppose."

"Yes. Yes. Observe the letters B.F. Not meaning what you fear, Lomas. But Banque de France. I suppose you've got a bank - note expert on the premises. Ask him what he makes of it, will you?"

Lomas sent it away. Then he sat back and put up his eyeglass. "Always happy to oblige, Reginald. But isn't this rather a fairy tale? You begin with a nice plain running - down case. Then, by way of glass from a bicycle lamp, you turn it into a poachers' murder. Still unsatisfied, you want to make the victim somebody else because he has stained fingers. And finally you produce a scrap of a burnt French bank - note to prove Heaven knows what."

"Yes. Yes. I don't, anyway. Very perplexin' to the simple mind."

"I hate to hurt you," Lomas smiled. "But it sounds to me like a parody of your own methods. You always want to be subtle. You've done it this time. A masterpiece of the imagination."

"Oh, my Lomas!" Reggie was hurt. "How can you? Imagination! I never did. I haven't any. And here! I'm just toiling timid after facts."

"What are you trying to prove?" said Lomas patiently.

"I'm not. I don't want to prove anything." Behind the cigar smoke his eyes were dark and vague. "It don't feel like that, you know. I'm only looking for the truth. Followin' the gleam. Same like Merlin in the poem. The light retreated, the landscape darkened-" He crooned verses.

"My dear fellow!" Lomas protested. "This is fantastic. Come out of dreamland. What has the burnt note to do with anything?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie beamed. "It don't make any sense. That's what's so interesting. The hypothetically defunct Napper had a patron. Military man like the late Don Quixote. Colonel Clairmont. Old Platt says he's the soul of honour. And Platt don't like his fellow - creatures too much. Clairmont lives on a primeval desert hill. And it was up there the bicycle smashed and the hypothetical poachers slew the hypothetical Napper. I went wanderin' round Platt's grounds. There's a kind of empty cottage away from the house. Just by that somebody had been burning papers. Burnt fluff on the heather, the sort of stuff that flies up the chimney. And there was this bit of a note. Well? Apply the higher intelligence."

"As you say, it makes no sense. Your virtuous soldier had been burning papers and there happened to be a French note among them. A common kind of accident. What on earth do you want to read into it?"

"Nothing, dear. Nothing," Reggie beamed. "I'm quite peaceful myself. It's the kind of case that feels all right. Sort of finished." He patted at his smoke. "Everything settled. If only the policemen would let it alone. But they mean to hang somebody. That's why I want the truth, Lomas."

"They won't hang anybody without evidence."

"Oh, Peter!" Reggie gasped. "What simple faith!"

An Inspector came in and reported that the paper was certainly part of a hundred - franc note: the finger - prints were not on the register of criminals.

"There you are." Lomas tossed back the note and the prints. "Nothing in it. You want a rest, Reginald."

"Yes. Yes. You are exhaustin'." Reggie stood up. "I'm goin' to the laboratory. Effects have causes there."

But first he went to his club and wrote a letter to M. Dubois of the Surete in Paris and that letter he registered.

In the morning he rang up Platt and asked for the latest news from the battle - front. "I have just been stimulating Kitchell," said Platt. "The imbecile informs me that the police have a clue."

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie groaned.

"I agree with you. Has anything come of your investigation?"

"No. No. Blood is blood and oil is oil. As expected. Platt - don't hustle your police. Warn me quick if they do anything."

"Have no anxiety. Who can hustle a mule?"

"I am anxious," said Reggie. "If they do anything, they'll do it wrong."

On the next morning came an answer from Paris:

DEAR FRIEND, - 

Your two pieces much interest my colleagues. First, the morsel of scorched paper. It is from a counterfeit note of a hundred francs; a good forgery, but without doubt forged. Second, the finger - prints. They are of one known to us as Georges Bouchard, who was arrested in 1920 for forging bonds. But evidence failed. He was not believed a Frenchman. You will understand that my colleagues will be greatly obliged if you can give information where he operates at present.

Always DUBOIS.

"No, I can't, old man," Reggie murmured, and lit a pipe and for a long time sat smoking. Then he sought the telephone again to ask Platt if anything had happened. "The unspeakable Kitchell still has a clue," said Platt. "I prod him in vain."

"Don't prod." Reggie was shrill. "I told you not."

"My dear Fortune, if you have any fresh information which affects the case you should produce it. Otherwise these incompetents must be made to proceed on the plain evidence."

"It isn't plain," said Reggie. "It's all wrong."

The telephone made queer noises. "Do you propose to explain?" said Platt.

"No. No. Better not."

"You accept a grave responsibility in attempting to impede the inquiry."

"I know. I've had lives in my hands before this, Platt."

"The law must take its course." Platt was angry. "If you act outside the law I can be no party to it. You should know that."

"I do. That's why I tell you nothing. Except this. You're doing wrong, Platt."

"We shall not understand each other," said Platt, and rang off.

Reggie looked at the telephone with disgust. "Oh, you lawyer," he moaned.

It was on the next morning that Reggie saw in his paper the headlines: DEAD POLICEMAN - MAN DETAINED. The paragraph beneath contained no more news than that. He was already ordering his car when the Chief Constable telephoned to ask him to come down to Northam.

Once more he came into Colonel Kitchell's room to see him in a state of inflammation and Platt making mouths. "Well, well," he said wearily. "And what have you been doing now?"

"I don't seem to please his lordship whatever I do," said Kitchell. "I'd be glad of your opinion, Mr. Fortune. Look here. You're satisfied Napper was killed up there on the down by the covert? Is that right? You'd swear to that?"

"I said the observed facts prove Napper's bicycle had an accident there. That's all."

"Well, that's quite fair. That's all right. Then the only thing it points to is some poachers working the covert got at him. Do you agree to that?"

"It could be. It's the obvious inference. It's not proved, you know."

"Yes, I do know. But I've nothing else to work on. And his lordship has been at me all the time to do something. Now I've found evidence a notorious poacher in Yardley was out that night. A woman saw him take his car out just before midnight, a man heard him come back some time in the small hours. So I've detained Mr. Isaac Smallpeice."

"Oh yes. And what does he say about it?"

"He's not saying anything. He's an old hand."

"I see. Is that all the evidence?"

Platt laughed disagreeably. "Well, Mr. Fortune, I ask you!" Kitchell said. "What sort of evidence can you get in a case like this? There's the circumstances, there's the motive, there's the opportunity: we've got all that fitting Smallpeice. You wouldn't expect any more."

"No. No, I don't," Reggie murmured.

"There you are!" Kitchell turned on Platt. "The police can't make eye - witnesses of a crime. Very likely there weren't any - only old Smallpeice himself. I dare say the evidence isn't what you'd like, but it's no use badgering me. Now here's Mr. Fortune, he's been keen enough about the case and he knows what police work is. If there's anything more you can suggest, sir, I'll be happy to do it."

Reggie shook his head. "I don't see my way," he murmured.

"You have no suspicions, Fortune?" said Platt sharply.

"Suspicions?" Reggie opened large innocent eyes. "My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! We don't want suspicions."

"That's right," Kitchell agreed heartily. "Matter of evidence, isn't it, Mr. Fortune?"

"Yes. Yes. What are you going to do?"

"I should be very glad of your opinion, sir. You see, there is a case against this rascal Smallpeice. We can feel pretty sure he's guilty. But when it comes to a jury - what do you think?"

"Oh, my dear fellow!" Reggie smiled. "Don't ask me. Here's the judicial authority. How would you charge the jury, Platt?"

"I should tell them there was no case," Platt snapped. He thrust out his lip and glared at the Chief Constable. "None."

"Well, there you are," Kitchell said. "You see it yourself, my lord. It isn't my business to make evidence against the fellow. I tell you what I'll do. I'll detain him over the inquest to see if anything turns up. Will that satisfy you?"

"Don't talk of satisfying me, sir," Platt barked. "If you have no case against the man, you've no right to detain him. Good morning."

Reggie nodded to the infuriated Kitchell. "A gleam of reason," he smiled, and followed Platt out into the street. "And that being that," he said sweetly, " were you going to ask me to lunch?"

Platt did not answer. He was staring at a car from which descended the lean form of Colonel Clairmont. "Come to stir up the police, Clairmont?" he sneered. "Very necessary."

"Platt!" Clairmont caught at his arm. "Is this true? They tell me a man's been arrested - that poor devil Smallpeice."

Platt stared up at him. "Have you any objection?" he snapped.

"But there is no evidence, there can't be!"

"You shouldn't talk like that, you know," said Reggie gently.

"Certainly there is evidence." Platt put out his lip. "The police would not detain a man without some cause. You are aware of that, Clairmont?" His face sharpened.

"But you don't want to argue about it here," said Reggie. "Colonel Clairmont, let's go home quiet. There's no danger to this chap now. It could all be managed."

"Managed!" Clairmont said tremulously. "Who are you, sir? I remember. It is Mr. Fortune. I beg your pardon. I suppose you know everything."

"Perhaps I guess," said Reggie gravely. "Go back home, sir. We can talk there."

"My God!" Clairmont groaned. "Home! Come, then. Come, Platt." He climbed into his car again and drove away.

"So this was your mystery." Platt frowned at Reggie.

"You're playing with lives, Platt," Reggie said in a low voice. "Be kind, man, be kind."

"I shall be just," Platt snapped.

"God help you," said Reggie.

It is believed that never has he driven so slowly as in that procession behind Clairmont's little car. He has said that the drive lasted through wretched ages.

When they came to the house on the down, Clairmont stood at the door looking through the wintry sunlight at the woods and the mellow haze. He drew himself up and with studious courtesy brought them into his study. There he sat down at a writing - table and fumbled with papers.

"Platt," he said. "I have no right to ask you to believe me. I give you my word I never intended this man Smallpeice should come into danger. Or any man. I did not think it possible."

"He isn't in danger, sir," said Reggie quickly. "Before you tell us anything, take that for certain. Platt will tell you there is no evidence to convict him."

Platt put out his lip. "I shall tell you no such thing, Clairmont. The man Smallpeice is under grave suspicion. The police believe him guilty."

"But they can't prove it. And they never will prove it," said Reggie sharply. "That is the state of the case, sir. It can end there."

"You have no right to say so," Platt snapped. "Clairmont, you have no right to depend on that. If you know something which will clear him, it is your duty to speak."

"I can't be silent," Clairmont said. "It's not in my mind. Mr. Fortune, I see you mean to serve me. I thank you, sir. But I mustn't rely upon you. This man Smallpeice is not to be in danger for my comfort. Platt, I am content to leave myself to your judgment. Do as you think right. I will tell you the truth of the thing now. Smallpeice has done nothing, knows nothing. I hoped no one need ever know anything. It was not Napper who was killed. It was my son. I killed him."

"Do you know what you're saying?" Platt cried.

Clairmont's gaunt face smiled. "Indeed I know. You may believe that. You thought Will was an artist, etching, making woodcuts and lithographs. So did I. You know he had the cottage made into a studio. What he did in it was forgery: forgery of foreign notes. I found that out only last month while he was away. I waited for him to come back. He came at night. Napper was out on the road watching your coverts, Platt. Will's car ran him down. Will did not stop. That was like him. He came on to the studio. But I heard. I was there to meet him. I told him what I knew and he laughed at me and I struck him - there in the studio - you think I am mad? - he told me it was a good trade and he was going on with it - I took one of the cursed stones he used in his trade and beat him down and killed him. What else could I do? My own son, the last of us giving himself to that! Then Napper came."

"You mean Napper hadn't been hurt?" Platt frowned.

"Napper's hands were cut and his head. When he picked himself up he followed the car and he found us. And then I had to tell him. He has known me twenty years. He has known Will since he was a boy. He was ready to help. And it came to him - it came to me - how we could hide it all. We changed their clothes. Napper said the face shouldn't be known." Clairmont stopped and shuddered and looked at them. "Napper took him away in the car. And I burnt all his forgeries. We thought the thing would end with people believing the body was Napper killed by an accident in the road and so the truth could be hidden and no one suffer. Now - -"

"Now!" said Platt sharply. "Where is this man Napper gone?"

"He is gone where I shall not tell you." Clairmont lifted his head. "What he did, he did under my orders. You cannot wish to punish him, Platt."

"It is not what I should wish. It's a matter for the law. You know what you have done. You confess murder and say Napper is guilty as an accessory."

"He is guilty of nothing," Clairmont said. "It is I. And I have done right. Will is better dead than living so. I hoped to conceal the disgrace." He looked at Platt with tragic eyes. "I hoped our name would end clean. Have I failed, Platt?"

"Good God, man, you don't suppose I can keep this secret!" Platt cried. "There's such a thing as justice, Clairmont."

"Very well." Clairmont rose wearily. "You will do what you think right. I bid you good day, gentlemen." Reggie held out his hand. Clairmont took it in a firm grasp. "You have been kind, sir. Let it be as it is."

"I advise you to send for your solicitor without delay," said Platt. And Clairmont laughed.

Platt walked briskly to the car. Reggie was some time after him. He started the car and drove slowly up the winding drive, stopped at the turn to the road. A shot rang out. "Ah." He turned and looked at Platt. "And that is that. Are you happy now?"

"What do you mean?" Platt was disturbed. "What is it?"

"He's shot himself. You told him to." "God forgive him," Platt muttered. "Yes. Yes. That's all right. God forgive you." Platt scrambled out of the car and ran back to the house. When Reggie came into the room again the servants were there huddled together and Platt bent shaking over the chair by the table.

Clairmont had sunk limp into it and blood ran down his haggard, scorched face. An old Army revolver lay in his hand upon his knee. Platt's tremulous little hands fumbled about him.

"What can you do?" Reggie said, and brushed the little man away. . . . "Yes. He made sure, Platt." And then to the sobbing servants: "Your master is dead. Go away and be quiet, like good souls. I'll do what has to be done." He got them out of the room. He turned calm and grim to face Platt. "Well. You've had your way with him," he said.

"Good God, Fortune, don't take it so," Platt said hoarsely. "The man was my friend."

"You remember that now. Yes. And you condemned him to death."

"Do you hold me to blame? I never thought of this. I did not judge him."

"No. You said he must stand his trial. Well, he's gone to it. And you won't be the Judge. He killed his son to stop him from crime. And you killed him for the honour of the law. It hurts, doesn't it? He was your friend. Think how he was hurt. Oh, I don't judge you. Perhaps it was the best way. There was no life for him. But this is going to be the end. The thing stops here, Platt."

"How can it?" Platt groaned. "We must report his confession. This man that's arrested - -"

"He's in no danger. You know that. You always knew it. There's no evidence against him. There's not going to be evidence against Clairmont. He shall leave his name clean."

"I can't conceal the truth. I must tell his story."

"Oh no, you mustn't. You've hurt him enough in life. If you try to tell anything I shall see to it you're not believed."

"What do you mean?"

"Listen." Reggie took up the telephone. "Police station at Northam, please. The Chief Constable. Is that Colonel Kitchell? Fortune speaking. From Colonel Clairmont's house. There's been a tragic affair here. Platt and I found Clairmont in Northam in great agitation. We persuaded him to go home and went with him. It was clear poor Napper's death has been weighing on his mind. He talked wildly about it. Yes, quite incoherent. He had pathetic delusions. Napper wasn't really killed - that sort of thing. I tried to soothe him and put him right. We were just driving away when we heard a shot. The poor chap's killed himself. Very sad, yes. Good fellow. You'll come out yourself? Thanks very much. I'll be here. I'm sending Platt home. He's broken down. Of course Clairmont was an old friend of his. It hits him. Quite. Thanks." He turned to Platt. "Colonel Kitchell sends his condolences. You'd better go now. Good - bye."

Platt stared at him. The fish - like mouth quivered. He looked about the room and saw Clairmont and hurried away.

And Reggie, too, looked at Clairmont. "The end, sir." He lifted his hand in salute. His eyes were dim.

EIGHTH EXPLANATION

THE FACE IN THE PICTURE

TAKING one thing with another, Mr. Fortune decided that he had better go to Paris. This often happens in April.

The case of the malingering professor and the beetles had bored him much. Spring came in late that year, and between the daffodils and the lilac his garden was bleak. The colour of Paris tempted him.

In sunshine and limpid air he strolled along the quays. A quick, light step came after him, a bulky man drew level: he found himself looking up at the large face of M. Dubois of the Surete, a face of renown in the world of crime. "My dear friend! I was sure of it. I knew that back! What a pleasure to see it again! You come to Paris for business?"

"Oh, hush! That's a horrible idea. I came to feel alive."

Dubois chuckled. "Aha, Paris in April, it is delicious. You are alone? That was wicked not to bring madame. But you must lunch with me and tell me ail your sins."

"Rather. Yes. My wife's in Italy. I want a confessor. Just now I was feelin' strong enough to look at the pictures. What's the Salon like this year?"

"Not so bad." Dubois shrugged. "Come then, I give myself the morning."

They turned into the Grand Palais. There was the earnest crowd of the first days, working its conscientious way round the walls, taking the duty of criticism seriously. Dubois also began with zeal at the beginning. But Mr. Fortune does not look at pictures like that: and these pictures did not compel his attention. It seemed to him that he had seen them in many Salons, portraits of the successful, arrangements of pretty models, landscapes trying to look strange, done with all the tricks of the trade, but without a reason, except that pictures must still be painted, why they should be done. He drifted on. It was in one of the less fashionable corners that Dubois found him again. "Pardon, my friend. I desert you."

"My fault." Reggie looked dreamily at a queer picture. "I was just wandering."

"You are not interested?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Most instructive show. You take your pleasures so seriously in France. I've heard more principles of art than I thought there were."

"You have been listening to the English - or the Americans."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! We haven't any principles. We say we don't like a thing because it isn't like something else. Just to show our culture. But you always have a rule about it." He drew closer to the queer picture. "What's the rule for that?"

Dubois stared at it, shrugged, made a grimace. "None. It has broken them all." The picture was, on the first glance, a stiff pattern in dark grey and pale yellow, rays of yellow straight up and down in front of sharp, angular masses of grey. "A problem of geometry: illustrated in colour," said Dubois with contempt.

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. "No. I wouldn't say that." His eyes saw the two colours take many shades in such a conflict of light and dark as comes when the sun is fighting through storm clouds, and the sharp pattern passed into a darkness which had form, the light came from far and in the heart of the light was a face. Very queer picture.

"Conic sections by the two - colour process." Dubois worked on at his joke.

Reggie sighed. "Look at the face," he said.

"I do not know him. He is perhaps the god of the sun."

"It could be," Reggie murmured. Built up of light, the face was a part of the pattern, yet a face distinct, of a Greek beauty, but pitiful with a knowledge of sorrow and kind. "Yes. I wonder."

"What, you wonder why it was painted? Oh, my friend! To be modern, to be startling. Or else it is mad."

"Not quite normal, no. Do you know the fellow who did it?"

Dubois looked at his catalogue. "One named Artus. Maurice Artus. I believe I remember. He is of the young ones. But not quite so young as he used to be. He begins to arrive, they say. I did not know he did horrors like this."

He turned the pages of the catalogue. "Aha! Here is another picture of M. Artus. 'Harvest.' Shall we try?"

"One moment. What does he call this?"

"This nightmare geometry? He calls it ' Diversions in Hell.'" Dubois shrugged. "He has no excuse at all then. He is not even serious with his horrors. Come, let us see if he has painted anything in his other picture."

He had. There was nothing obscure about that. It showed that M. Artus could paint with an easy command of his craft. The man had a mind, too. The picture was in grey tones, but sharp and clear: a squalid farmstead in a barren country, a peasant and his wife harnessed to a cart of sodden sheaves, old folk, bent and straining. Out of the cunning craftsmanship came a hard vision of the ugliness of old age and the misery of its futile suffering.

"Harvest!" said Dubois. "Yes, he has a talent, this young one. I could believe there is nothing of more force in the Salon. Observe, my friend." He began to demonstrate according to the principles of art.

"Yes. As you say," Reggie murmured. "Sort of picture that's painted to say how clever it is and make you wish you had never been born."

Dubois looked at him with tolerant affection. "Dear friend, you are English after all. You want art to make you feel comfortable."

"Yes, that is partly the idea," Reggie agreed. He turned away from the "Harvest "; he looked back wistfully at the other picture of M. Artus.

"Ah, that, no," said Dubois, and took his arm. "That is only an advertisement to make people say what a wonderful fellow is M. Artus. This is his real endeavour. But come, you shall have your comfortable art. Lunch, my friend."

The chestnut trees in the Champs Elysees were lifting their first white candelabra of blossom. Azaleas were golden and fragrant about a little glass restaurant. Dubois took a table in the corner which had the best of their scent and colour and with a curly haired round waiter in reverent attention gave himself to creative thought.

The asparagus in the buttered eggs was happily set off, yet kept its private charm, and Reggie said so. "Like a pretty woman successfully married," said Dubois. "There is nothing more delightful to the generous mind." The Carbonnieux had a fresh vivacity and Reggie drank and drank again.

"Yet you are pensive, my friend," Dubois protested. "He haunts you with his affected nightmare, that advertiser."

"Oh no. No. I rather liked his nightmare. It's the other thing bothered me. I was wondering about him."

"It is not worth while. An artist is seldom of any interest. Because he has no life but to make his little works of art. And one must confess he is an artist, this M. Artus, though he will stand on his head to make us look at him. But" - the coming of the saddle of lamb interrupted Dubois "but let us be serious, dear friend."

In grave tranquillity they ate. "Yes," Reggie smiled. "Yes. One of my best days, thank you." He gazed benignant at the sunshine and the azaleas. A woman was coming to the restaurant, slim and graceful in the blue of forget - me - nots. "Yes, the fellow's an artist all right. I think you're wrong about that queer picture. I think he'd felt it all. I did."

Dubois put up his eyebrows. "What then? For me, I felt nothing, but that if he was sincere with it, he is mad."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Yes, it is rather mad. Sort of mad, struggling puzzle and fight - and then the face: beyond it."

"My friend, you put your own mind into his mess of paint. That picture is like the old optical delusion patterns - you look at it long enough and your eyes are dazed, you see what is not there."

Reggie ate his share of a Parmesan souffle and sighed at the empty plate and glanced round the restaurant. The woman in blue had a table near. He saw her face, fair and full - browed, the face of a child whom womanhood had hurt, but of a constant strength. "No. I don't think so," he said. "It was in the other picture he was playing tricks. He did that just to hurt."

"Well, you do not like him." Dubois smiled. "I agree. But a clever fellow. Let him go. There is nothing such a bore as a clever fellow one does not like."

"No. But I'm not sure I don't like him," Reggie said slowly.

"Oh, my friend! I thought Mr. Fortune was always sure about a man. They boast of that at Scotland Yard. 'Wonderful how he feels people,' says your Superintendent Bell. You divine the character of a man from a trifle. And here are two pictures. Employ your genius, then. Divine M. Artus."

"You're not being nice to me," said Reggie plaintively. "I haven't any genius. I don't know what the beggar's like. That's what bothers me. I don't get him at all."

The quizzing wrinkles on Dubois's big face deepened. "Ah, my friend! This is the professional habit. To the doctor, all men are ill. To the detective, everything is a mystery. But you are on a holiday. Forget it. And pity me - I go back to my office to make mystery of a simple family murder." He pushed back his chair. "If I can hear that M. Artus has stolen the tomb of Napoleon, you shall know instantly."

"Oh yes. Yes. Thanks very much. I'm at the 'Lucullus.' You must dine with me. What about tomorrow?"

"But with delight - and also with alarm." Dubois went away chuckling.

Reggie sat for awhile in the Champs Elysees with a cigar. But when it was done he went back to the Salon. The queer picture would not be denied. Some talkative people were looking at it. They found it a droll piece: a freak of modernism: the last extravagance of the Cubists: but also it had something of the primitives, of El Greco, too. "One must confess, my friends, a state of the soul. Certainly a state of the soul." They agreed about that.

As they moved away chattering, the woman in blue came by. She saw the picture, gave it a puzzled look, a weary little smile. Then she came nearer. Her face was white and her lips parted. She bent over her catalogue and the pages fluttered. She looked again at the picture, bewildered, deeply intent, went close, peering at the brush - work, drew back again and stood long with wide, wondering eyes. When she turned away her light grace had gone. She stooped, she moved slowly and vaguely as if she could not see where she went.

Reggie followed her. It seemed to him that she was likely to faint. But she made her way to the outer air and a taxi carried her away. She was staying at some hotel. The name escaped him.

He wandered on into the Bois. It has been suggested by Dubois, a very human man, that if she had not been pretty as a lily he would not have gone into the case. But Reggie denies this coldly. He did notice, he will remark, that she was like an early Italian Madonna, but the only emotion which she produced was inability to make head or tail of her. The attraction of the case, he insists, was purely intellectual. There was something complex and subtle being done and his simple mind likes to have things clear.

As he walked under the trees, he struggled in vain to classify the woman. That complexion and that figure were not of any stock French pattern; the hotel address suggested she was foreign, but she was quite at home in Paris by herself and, foreign or French, a woman so young and pretty did not often go seeing the sights alone. She looked into the painting as if she wanted to know how things were done, but she was surely not a student; she had the clothes, the air of leisured wealth. She had not come to see the queer picture. She took it on her way round the room, and she was looking at it some moments before she found anything in it. She did not know that it was by M. Artus. When she turned up his name in the catalogue it told her nothing. M. Artus did not interest her. She did not go on to his other picture. No acquaintance with M. Artus - and yet his queer bit of work meant a mighty lot to her.

She looked a sensitive woman, but not a woman to be knocked over by emotions. What hit her? The thing had uncommon power, something more than power; it showed the man's conflict, suffering, mystery, in a light of tragic faith that was great or mad. Yes. "A state of soul," as the chatterers said. The fellow who did it had a soul, and rather a strange soul. But what was it knocked her out? The face? Some memory? That face could not be in the likeness of any man; it was a vision, an ideal, a dream.

And M. Artus said it belonged to "Diversions in Hell." But she did not know M. Artus.

Reggie felt inadequate. He devoted his mind to the cheery elegance of the Bois, met Madame de Jan, who knew all Europe before he was born, and was carried off into a world of conversation.

On the next day he was recovering from salons of antique vivacity in his bath when the telephone rang. Dubois wanted to know if he might bring another man to dinner. "It is an old friend who has happened. You permit? Thousand thanks."

The man whom Dubois brought to the tiny hall of that restaurant which Reggie loves best had a swagger and a pair of fierce moustaches. He might have been a cavalry officer. He was much impressed to meet M. Fortune and expected M. Fortune to be impressed by meeting him. But Reggie had no notion who M. Beaucourt might be. And Dubois beamed.

They went into a little room all white and mirrors and the noise of the street faded away. In religious quiet they were served. M. Beaucourt read the menu and his purple face became bland. Reggie made exploratory small talk, and it emerged that M. Beaucourt was a painter. Dubois chuckled. Reggie talked about the Salon carefully and discovered that M. Beaucourt painted fantasies. Reggie remembered, of course: Reggie had been charmed: Reggie praised them with a fine freedom from detail. M. Beau - court sipped his claret. "La, la la. It is my little trade. You are too kind, M. Fortune. Come, let us not talk of my nymphs. They are too simple, poor children. They are not company at dinner."

"One is modest," Dubois smiled. "It is the first effect of the claret. I have noticed this before. Certainly one ought to be modest with Margaux. It is the most gracious of wines. And this is perfectly succeeded. But for my part I desire no more charming company than one of your nymphs." He kissed his hand.

The three gentlemen were then charmed by the company of a brill in rich sauce and there was an interval of devotion.

"No," said Beaucourt. "A nymph would be an error of judgment. The eternal feminine leads us to trivialities. M. Fortune lives the life of a philosopher. He comes to Paris alone."

"What would you have?" Dubois made a grimace. "He is, after all, English. He must always be serious."

"My dear fellow! Oh, my dear fellow! My nature is to be simply futile, but you earnest officials won't let me be. I came to Paris with such a happy vacant mind and - -"

"And so he went to see your pictures, my friend," Dubois chuckled.

"And you were waiting to talk to me about the principles of art. Of course I'm showing signs of nervous strain."

"But no," Beaucourt said. "You wanted nonsense and you had it."

"In fact, he did not listen," said Dubois. "He found a mystery. Say then, he made a mystery. And in the Salon. It is incredible, is it not? But what would you have? Making mysteries for the poor policeman, that is his trade."

"Tell me," Beaucourt said. But poularde Albufera required their whole attention. "Yes, tell me." He exchanged a glance with Dubois and sipped his wine and looked at Reggie.

Dubois began to expound: "It was that horror by Artus - -"

"Aha." Beaucourt nodded, but still it was at Reggie he looked. "There are two. You mean the one which is not a picture?"

"I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured, " would you?"

"His 'Diversions in Hell,' that is what interests you?" 

"Yes, chiefly. But taking the one with the other." 

"Aha," said Beaucourt again. "You have the eye, M. Fortune. His 'Diversions,' no, it is not a picture, it is a violence of the emotions. But one must confess the thing makes its effect. The other, the peasants - well, that is something seen."

"Oh yes. Yes. What do you think of him, sir?" 

"It appears that he interests you, this Artus." They gave their minds to foie gras in a wine jelly. 

"Doesn't he interest anybody in Paris?" Reggie said. 

"But yes. He arrives. Without doubt, he arrives. I will tell you. Artus has been a young man with a future this ten years. He has tried almost everything - portrait, landscape, subject. One must say, it is perhaps a great talent. What any of us has done, that Artus can do and the painting is brilliant. Nevertheless-" Beaucourt shrugged.

"He hasn't done anything of his own?" Reggie suggested.

"Ah, my friend, it is not that at all. Whatever he does is perfectly Artus. He is a strong nature. You have seen his peasants. Very well. All his work is like that. As clever as the devil, mocking, hard. Well, you conceive, that sort of thing does not make success quickly. Also it makes enemies. But at last he begins to be somebody."

"Yes. I see. Yes. But you said all his work was devilish clever and hard. I'm wondering about this freak picture."

"Aha." Beaucourt glanced at Dubois. "I don't think it's devilish. You wouldn't call it clever, would you? And people don't seem to feel it hard."

"I - I should call it mad - if anybody but Artus had painted it. But certainly he is not mad. I will tell you. Some time ago he began to show pictures like this - nightmare pictures - El Greco and Blake and all the new crazes jumbled together."

"Oh. Oh. He's done it before," Reggie murmured.

"But yes. Ten times. A dozen times. We said, the fellow means to show that he can do all the tricks of the wild men also. We chuckled, he hit them off so well. But one must confess it helped him. He sold much better. Certainly he knows how to arrive."

"I see. Yes. You don't like him much."

Beaucourt smiled. "No, one does not like him. He is one of these very clever animals which live their own lives. What is that you say in English, 'the cat that walks by himself'? He is a great sleek cat, our Artus."

"But I'm fond of cats," said Reggie plaintively.

"Brr." Beaucourt shuddered. "Pardon. I am like that with them. However, you are curious about him. Well, he came to Paris a bright fellow - from the South, I think. He was in Leroy's studio. He had soon a little name for his caricatures. Very clever and spiteful. They thought he would be a modern Daumier. But he was not content with black and white. He must paint. Leroy began to tell us he had a young man who could do anything. And at last - here is the great Artus."

"Established, is he?"

Beaucourt shrugged. "He makes money. The critics talk of genius. What would you have? I - I say he is a clever fellow. And you - you are still interested, M. Fortune?"

"Oh yes. Yes. It's that picture with the face. I don't think that's clever. Does M. Artus live in Paris?"

Beaucourt ate a grape. "Do you know, you are the second person who has asked me that today."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured.

Beaucourt smiled. "Permit me, my friend - do you perhaps know Miss Everard - Miss Alice Everard?"

"No. Do you?" Reggie opened his eyes.

Dubois leaned across the table. "Miss Alice Everard - that says nothing to you, my dear Fortune?"

"Well, I thought you two fellows were nursing something for me," said Reggie sadly. "Not quite nice of you." He shook his head at Dubois. "So this is it, what? You've found a lady in the case. Miss Alice Everard? I never heard of her. Slight? Fair? Like an early Italian Madonna?"

Beaucourt slapped his hand on the table. Beaucourt muttered something about thunder and a paper bag, a mild amazed oath. "But it is she! A Lippo Lippi Madonna, yes. And you never heard of her." He turned to Dubois. "Explain me that, then. Is it that he is clairvoyant? You put him before that cursed picture and he sees Miss Everard, whom he has never heard of."

"My faith, it is very possible - by what they say of him." Dubois smiled, but his eyes were serious enough. "A sixth sense, is it not?"

"No, it isn't. It isn't sense at all." Reggie was shrill. "It isn't possible. I saw the woman when I looked at the picture because she was there. And I'd seen her once before. She was the woman in blue in the restaurant, Dubois."

"The devil! I remember," Dubois cried. "I said to myself she has had things in her little life, that one. Well, and then you went back to the Salon - to this horror of a picture again - it is wonderful how that holds you, my friend - and she was there looking at it. Well! Afterwards?"

"It hit her. It hurt her. I thought she was going to faint. But she got away. That's all."

"And what do you deduce from that, my friend?"

"Well, I should say it made her remember something in her life which was rather ghastly. But it wasn't M. Artus she remembered."

"Was it not!" Dubois cried.

Beaucourt smiled. "After all, you do not divine everything, M. Fortune. It is a little comforting. Yes, she finds herself very interested in Artus. She has come to me asking for an introduction."

"Oh yes. Yes. She'd want to know what he meant by it," Reggie murmured. "Have they met?"

"Not yet. I do not know the fellow to bring him strangers without warning. I have written to propose myself and Miss Everard. And now I wonder if I have done right. I ask old Dubois here - and he brings me to tell you all about it."

"Oh, she ought to meet him if she thinks so." Reggie opened his eyes. "Why not? Anything noxious about Artus?"

Beaucourt shrugged. "Nothing more than others. It is a vigorous animal, a son of the soil, with some polish but gross. But I would not wish to give him Miss Everard to eat. You see, I find myself a little paternal. She was once a student of mine, it is perhaps ten years ago; she was then, as she is now, of an adorable delicacy, and still I find her an exquisite child." He shrugged. "In the studio, she was nothing, a pretty little style, that is all. She took her painting with great earnestness, poor child; she worked long, two years I think, before she gave up. She was charming in her failure. Fortunately, it did not matter. She is rich. But you will understand that I do not wish to sacrifice her to our Artus."

"No. No. Was Artus about with your students in those days?"

"Oh, my friend! Not in my studio, at least. I have no responsibility for the animal. Besides, she does not know him, that is clear. She asks me of him, and this I am sure - she does not pretend. She is not capable of it. She says frankly she has seen his picture in the Salon and wants to meet him. That is all."

"If she wants, she will meet him," said Dubois. "That is sure. She had better meet him in a way that we know of."

"Yes, I think so." Reggie looked at him. "You don't like it much either?"

"Not too much." Dubois's big face twisted. "Bah, I tell myself I am an old fool. It is not my affair that a rich woman wants to worship an artist. But there is something devilish in that picture. It hurts and she wants to be hurt. That is what I do not like."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "There are points. Yes, I'd like to meet Artus too. Take me to him with her - I'll be another earnest admirer."

"But with all my heart," Beaucourt laughed.

"Very well," said Dubois. "In fact, I thought you would. It is curious, we never want to forget our profession. You are on holiday. But you smell mystery and you work at it eagerly to find the crime."

"I don't. I'm not." Reggie was indignant. "I hate crime. I'm interested in the people. Lots of human nature about: working up to the highest power. Rather fascinating."

"I believe it, my friend," Dubois smiled. "Go then. Observe these people. It is better you than I. M. Artus will have heard of me. But an English amateur of painting, that does not frighten him. At least you will lighten our Beaucourt's paternal responsibility. Be paternal also, my friend. She is charming, is she not? Go."

So the next morning Reggie went to Beaucourt's studio. Miss Everard was there already. It seemed to him that the shocks of the picture had left marks. Her delicate face was more eager, more wistful. Beaucourt introduced him. "My friend M. Fortune, English like yourself, mademoiselle - -"

"Mr. Fortune?" Her blue eyes were wide: it was evident that she had heard of him and his presence frightened her.

"And also," Beaucourt went on, "an admirer of the work of our Artus."

"Oh, really? Oh, do you know him?" she said in a hurry.

"A pleasure to come," said Reggie.

"M. Fortune saw that picture of his in the Salon - the vision of the unseen" - Beaucourt smiled "his ' Diversions in Hell,' and was much interested, like you, mademoiselle."

She was white. "That interested you?" She looked at Reggie. "And why, sir?"

"Well, I was curious about the man who could feel like that. I wanted to find out what it meant."

"To ask what a picture means!" Beaucourt flung up his hands. "Oh, my friend, what a question to put to a painter! Mademoiselle knows better."

But Miss Everard had nothing to say. Her breath came fast. She looked tired and afraid.

"You thought it was rather a wonderful thing?" Reggie said gently.

"I - I - oh, it - it's very modern, isn't it?" she said faintly, and turned on Beaucourt. "Is he coming here?"

Beaucourt shrugged. "I make my apologies. I have no luck. I wrote to him. There is no answer. I telephone to him this morning. One replies M. Artus left Paris last night."

"Oh - oh well, then. It's no use waiting." She made for the door.

"But, my child - you must not desert us like this-" Beaucourt tried to be affectionate, but she would not have it - she was gone. "Pouf!" He turned with a droll grimace on Reggie. "It appears we lack charm, my friend, you and I. But, in fact, this does not look nice, eh? She is afraid, the little one, devilish afraid."

"Yes, that was me. Sorry. My mistake. I hadn't thought of that. You see, people in England believe I'm a detective. And she's English."

"But that child - she has never done any wrong, I would swear it!"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Somebody else is afraid too, you know. Our Artus. He funks meeting her. Or meeting her with you about. Yes. Several little points. It begins to look like a case for the professional hand. I'll go round and talk to Dubois."

"You are right, my friend. Tell Dubois. He is a good fellow. I beg of you, protect that child. I swear it, she is innocent." Beaucourt was dramatic.

"My dear fellow!" Reggie smiled. "Oh, my dear fellow!"

In his room at the Surete, Dubois listened to the story with his large face set like a mask. "Very well." He moved at last. "There are only a thousand possibilities. Which do you choose, my friend?"

"No, thank you. Not like that." Reggie smiled. "Take the facts. The man's afraid to meet the girl. The girl's afraid of an English detective. Particularly horrified at an English detective being interested in that picture. The only possible inference is that the picture could tell something which the man don't want to talk about to the girl and which the girl believes might set the English police working in a way to hurt her."

"That is dear, yes. But if you can divine what that picture has to tell, then - why, then, you are more than human."

"Not me. No," said Reggie sadly. "It tells me that a man has been in hell and still believes in good. That's all. I suppose it told her who the man is."

"The face?" said Dubois. "But no, the face is not anyone."

"No. Not human, no," Reggie murmured. "God, I suppose."

"And then?" Dubois put up his eyebrows. "You present me the little problem, why does a man paint his god and call it 'Diversions in Hell'?"

"Yes. Yes. I was wondering about that," said Reggie dreamily. "Lots of answers, of course. He was feeling bitter and he jeered at himself. Or the man who painted the picture isn't the man who gave it a title. Or - -"

Dubois's big mouth went up at one side. "In fact, the man who painted the picture is not M. Artus. For some time I have been thinking that is possible."

"Fancy!" Reggie smiled. "Yes. It could be. It don't explain anything, you know."

"Oh, my friend! If she could recognize the picture as the work of some other man, that explains perfectly why Artus is afraid to meet her."

"Yes. Yes. The man whose work she knew being someone who meant a lot in her young life, and also an unknown criminal wanted by the police. Yes. But Artus has been showing pictures in this style some time and it never occurred to any of your other painters to smell a rat. Beaucourt told us the beggar can do anything and he's watched him from the start. He must know."

"That is true." Beaucourt nodded. "Without doubt Artus has a great talent. One accepts that. You acquit him, then?"

"Oh no. No. I never acquit anybody till I know the charge. What is it?"

"Aha, my friend!" Dubois rolled back in his chair. "Causing perturbation of mind to the eminent Mr. Fortune and poor old Dubois. That is true, eh? We do not like it and we have seen some things in our time. Unhappily, that is not yet a ground of arrest. What to do?"

"Well, you know, you might find out if Artus really has left Paris." Reggie smiled.

"You wish still to meet him?"

"I'm going to meet him - if he's still alive," said Reggie.

"So serious as that?" Dubois put up his eyebrows.

"Yes, I think so," Reggie said. "Somebody's been hurt, being hurt. Somebody else now. After all, that's what we're for, Dubois."

"Who knows?" Dubois shrugged. "These affairs of the soul! Well, one does as one can." He pressed a button.

The next morning, bathed and shaved but still unclothed, Reggie was drinking his coffee when Dubois came into the bedroom. "Fie, then. Poor old Dubois he has done a day's work already. But come. I have a little for you. This animal of an Artus he is, in fact, gone. He left Paris the day before yesterday. Exactly as his servant said."

"As soon as he had Beaucourt's letter about Miss Everard."

"That is not sure. What is sure, he is gone to a little country house he has in Berry. He is there now."

"Berry? That's round Bourges, isn't it? I like Bourges. Come and see Bourges with me, Dubois." He went to the telephone. He demanded a car, a car for a tour, a big car.

"Me, I am not on a holiday." Dubois made a grimace. 

"This isn't," Reggie mumbled, getting into his shirt. . . . 

"My faith, I believe it." Dubois shrugged. "That is why I go. . . ."

The car made speed through the afternoon sunshine over a bleak and drab flat country where spring had not yet waked the sodden soil, where the few farms were squalid and every creature, human or beast, looked old. "Cheery!" Reggie mumbled.

"It is one of our deserts. The Sologne."

"Oh yes. Yes. This is where he painted his other picture: 'Harvest'?"

The road led down from that plateau to richer land, a wide, dreary plain, and before them the towers of the cathedral of Bourges rose from its hill. Through quiet, quaint streets they came to a little square in the centre of the town and a hotel of solid old comfort. "This will do, eh?" Dubois drank off a glass of syrup. "Rest in peace. I go to report myself to the police."

Reggie wandered away to the cathedral, looked up at the Last Judgment, where Christ, strong and terrible, sits above the angel of justice, and from that went in to the peaceful infinitude of the nave. The windows glowed, the great spaces were warm with every gracious colour of light. He stood long. When he came out his round face was grave and benign. He looked again at the Last Judgment and saw the devil with a goat's face claiming that child woman who waits, meek hands folded, to hear her doom.

He wandered away into the town and loitered by the castle house of Jacques Coeur, faithful minister of a king who plundered him and drove him into exile. On either side the door is carved a servant, man and woman, as if they were looking out of window.

Dubois came up. "Aha. That is an irony. Maitre Jacques Coeur he had his servants put up so for a kindly jest. And one morning he goes out, rich, great, and he comes back never. Five hundred years ago, and still the faithful servants look out for their master. And see his motto, 'A vaillans coeurs rien impossible.' A great irony, what? To valiant hearts nothing is impossible!" He chuckled. "You do not like the omen, my friend? But do not despair yet. At least M. Artus has come back. He is safe in his house. It is four miles out of the town, in a lonely country place. He buries himself there often, it appears. He has had the house some years now. They know nothing against him. It is the quietest, most respectable household. One or two old servants, and monsieur never has company. He lives there only to paint. I think we can leave him to the morning." Dubois winked. "We might see him paint then. A little stroll before dinner, eh?"

Reggie sighed. That is a necessity which he does not feel. But he was in a state of meditation. He let himself be led through the narrow, winding streets while Dubois lectured on the history of Bourges and twilight fell. They came to a garden below the cathedral empty in the gloom of the chilling air. Reggie dragged on Dubois's arm. "Oh, my aunt!" he muttered.

"What, then?"

"Look. That's Miss Everard." A woman flitted through the dusk.

"The devil! Are you sure?"

"Oh, my dear fellow!"

"Pardon. She was alone?"

"Yes. Yes. I think so."

"Come, then." Dubois quickened step. They swung round by a wide open space to avenues of trees and then heard a faint cry, a fall.

When they reached her she lay upon her face and lay still. Under her shoulder Reggie found the hilt of a knife.

Dubois spat out an oath. "Before my eyes! Tcha, before my eyes!" He moved quickly to and fro, peering into the gloom. He whistled. The dozing town awoke with clatter and scurry. He snapped orders to panting policemen and came back to Reggie. "She is dead?"

"Not yet."

"Care for her, my friend. I beg of you, do your best possible. My God, I do not forgive myself. This becomes an affair of honour."

"It always was," Reggie murmured. The woman was carried away and he followed her. . . .

Late that night Dubois met him at the door of the hospital. "She lives, then?"

"So yes. She may live. I think we've stopped the bleeding. It's been internal, of course. Rather nasty. But she had some luck. The knife seems to have missed anything fatal. I should say the fellow knew his job, but he was flurried. Probably we hustled him."

Dubois made queer noises. "That - that is all I can do! The woman in the case I work on, I let her be stabbed before my eyes. But I hustled the assassin! Oh, surely that is something. Poor old Dubois! Go, grow cabbages."

"Yes. Yes. Haven't shone, have we? Warning against pride, this case. Don't tell me I have second sight another time, will you? But, speaking rationally, we couldn't know. I did think she might come here after him - that's why I was in a hurry to come too. I never thought she'd be killed to keep her away. Why should Artus kill her? Why should anyone? What is it that's worth her life? This isn't decent human crime."

"Someone is mad, yes. The devil, I should have known it when the thing began with that cursed picture. That is plain madness, my friend. Oh, genius if you like, but mad, mad. One cannot calculate what madness will do, no, but one can be careful. It is my blame. I should have had the girl watched. I forgive myself never. Tell me frankly, my friend, is she to die?"

"I can't," Reggie said. "She ought to live. I shouldn't be afraid of the wound. It's her general condition. Shock upon shock. The life in her is beaten down, fainting. I don't know if it's strong enough to come round."

"She has said nothing?"

"Oh no. No. Not yet. You won't be able to get any secrets out of her yet. If she ever tells. I don't suppose she knows who struck her."

"She would not see him, of course. He came from behind. She may know very well."

"Yes. Yes. She may guess. I doubt if she does; I think she's bewildered by everything - by the picture - by the name of Artus - by this attack. It seems to her the world's gone mad to hurt her."

"Poor little one," Dubois growled.

"Not a nice case, no. What are we doing about it?"

"Aha. Poor old Dubois, he makes no more mistakes. Be sure of that. He is very careful. First, I send a good quiet man out to the house of M. Artus. He is to make inquiries, some nonsense, about burglars in the country. He discovers that M. Artus is already at home. That is almost an alibi, but not quite. He sees also the servants of M. Artus, an old man and wife. He has it from them M. Artus has not been out all day. Quite an alibi if you believe them. But tomorrow I go through Bourges with a small - tooth comb to find out who saw anyone in the Place Seraucourt in the twilight."

"Yes. Yes. Quite neat. We won't alarm M. Artus yet, please. There's a little medical evidence. The blow was struck with great force and downwards. Her left arm was abnormally dragged back and there was a thread loosened in her coat. I should say her bag was snatched from her."

"Bag - snatching!" Dubois cried. "The devil! You make it a vulgar robbery!"

"I wouldn't say that. No. But it was done for some reason. So on the whole I wouldn't say anything to our Artus just yet. But you might have your people look up his youth."

Dubois laughed. "It is being done, my friend. This poor old Dubois, he does not leave out anything any more. Good night." They had come to their sleeping hotel, but he turned and strode away.

In the morning, when Reggie rose early to go to the hospital, they told him that Dubois was already gone out. Reggie had come back and was making a second little breakfast before he returned. His clothes looked as if they had been slept in, his large face was pallid, his eyes sunken and dull. "You have been with her?"

"Yes. No worse. That means better. But her life is faint."

Dubois drank black coffee and nibbled at a dry roll. "Well, I have news." He looked up at Reggie. "Her bag has been found."

Reggie smiled. "Oh yes. Yes. I thought it would be. Where?"

"It was lying beside a drunken vagabond on the Nevere road."

Reggie lit his pipe. "I told you it was taken for some reason," he murmured. "And very neat too."

"You understand it? Good. Poor old Dubois he is so dull. My colleagues in Bourges they also understand it perfectly. It is the usual case. It happens a hundred times a year. It has bored every policeman in France. Mademoiselle was walking alone in the dark; she was plainly rich; this tramp sees her, stabs her, robs her, goes away and gets drunk on her money and an intelligent gendarme runs him in." Dubois shrugged. "What would you have? It is as simple as that."

"I see. Yes. Who is he?"

"Oh, my friend! Who are they ever, these vagabonds? Dirt on the wind. This one - my respectable colleagues do not know him at all. They say he is certainly a stranger. That is bad. What is far worse, he has no papers. We are in France, my friend. Almost every rascal has some papers, though they are not his own. But he none - none. He is certainly an assassin."

"Yes. Yes. Well - managed business. But we are getting warm. What does he say about it?"

"He will say nothing, nothing at all. They ask him who he is; he is silent. They ask him where he got the bag; he stares at it, he is still silent. They say to him it is the bag of Miss Everard; he makes no answer. They tell him that she was stabbed last night in the Place Seraucourt; he will not open his mouth: only he stares."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Have you seen him yourself?"

"Oh yes, I was there. It is a small man with a yellow beard and hair. He has a fair skin under the dirt. He is of a fragility. A face not bad, but he has not lived well, the wretch."

"Has he had a doctor?"

"Certainly. The doctor says an alcoholic, a neurotic, but mad, he is not sure, he does not think so."

"Yes. Yes. It could be. And how far is it from where he was found to Artus's house?"

"Aha!" The big face twisted. "He does not seem to you the simple bandit? No, my friend, nor to me. But we do not say that yet to our good colleagues in Bourges. It is three miles. M. Artus has a car. The bandit could have been taken there, ready drunk in a few minutes. It is easily possible. But also one cannot tell that the wretch was ever in Artus's house. These Bourges people know only of two old servants."

"Nobody knows anything about Artus." Reggie was plaintive. "That makes all the trouble. Your fellows in Paris who are turning up Artus's awful past, you might tell them to look for a yellow - haired little man in it."

"Poor old Dubois! You do not trust him any more. But I have told them, my friend. Come, the examining magistrate is to question our bandit. I have obtained for the eminent M. Reginald Fortune to be present because he desires to study our methods." Dubois made a grimace. "My methods, good God!"

M. Clement, the magistrate, was a bald young man, conscious of importance. He welcomed Reggie to his bare office as one potentate to another, careful to acknowledge Reggie's dignity and assert his own. The punctilios took some time. Then M. Clement sat in the seat of power and made a quick change from the majestic to the ferocious. He snapped at Dubois, he barked at his clerk, he roared at a policeman. The prisoner was brought in and he sat back grinning and glaring. "So. This is the animal. I understand." He waited minutes that could be counted for the terror of his stare to take effect, then rasped out questions.

But no answer came. The little bearded man in the dirty blouse stood listless, as if he did not hear. He looked with wide, dim eyes straight before him at Clement, beyond Clement, at nothing. The torturing voice, the threats, seemed to bring him neither pain nor fear.

"You have no name, you come from nowhere, you work at nothing," Clement roared. "Good. You will be no loss when you go to the guillotine. You hear me? That is where you go, wretch. Attend now. You were in the Place Seraucourt last night." He started up. "It is dusk. You see there a lady, you follow her," - Clement acted it slinking round the room "you spring upon her from behind, you strike her so. Assassin! She falls to die." He stopped suddenly, for a silence to be felt, then cried out, "See, her blood is on you!" He pointed to the man's blouse.

But the little man did not look down. He gave no sign or movement; he stood wearily patient, gazing straight before him at nothing.

"Why do you kill her, wretch?" Clement cried. "She has done you no wrong. What is she to you, this Englishwoman, Miss Everard, Miss Alice Everard?" He stopped again. "If you have a reason to kill her, speak!" he roared. Still the little man was silent, but he shook and beads of sweat came upon his brow. "Bah, you have no reason but to rob her, beast. You snatch her bag and you run away to get drunk. A life is gone that you may be drunk for a night." He waited a moment. "Name of God, what vile thing are you?" he thundered.

The little man kept silence some while more. Then faintly: "Is it finished?" he said.

"Oh no. No, no," Clement laughed. "This is only the beginning, animal. You shall pay, be sure, you shall pay in full. You sweat blood already. Drop for drop, it will come. Speak now, you suffer less."

And then the little man shook his head. "That - that is not true," he said.

"Wait, then," Clement laughed savagely. "Wait and endure. I am content. Take him away."

"A moment," Reggie said. "You permit?" He bowed to Clement. He went to the man's side, ran a hand down his right arm, bent to the dirty blouse and smelt it. "Go, then," he said gently. He came back to Clement. "A thousand pardons. You made the affair so interesting. Forgive me and let me thank you for the most valuable demonstration."

Clement had become again the sublime official. He took these compliments as his due and condescended to ask for more. "Sir, I have perhaps some little methods which are my own. If anything strikes you, pray tell me frankly."

"But it was all striking," Reggie murmured. "In detail and as a whole. Especially as a whole. You have from him all that can be learnt at this stage. But what I most admired was your restraint. You gave the man no hint of your suspicions."

Once more Clement made a quick change. But this was not studied. The stiffening went out of him, he was deflated. "My suspicions," he repeated. "Ah, my suspicions, yes. For example, what were you thinking of?"

"Well, you know I'm not very quick. I didn't understand at first. But when you asked him everything - absolutely - except the one thing which is crucial " - Reggie beamed "ah, my friend, that was masterly."

A horrid uncertainty could be seen troubling Clement. "And your one thing, what is that?" he cried.

"But of course you have it in your head. Where did he get drunk?"

"Where did he get drunk?" Clement repeated, and tried to look mysterious. "Ah, that indeed. You conceive at this stage, I desired not to suggest to the animal that was important."

"You are right. It is marvellous, is it not, Dubois?"

"Most marvellous, my friend."

"We are fortunate that the affair has come before M. Clement." And Reggie bowed and they all bowed. "My dear sir, when I came into the room I expected that you would find it an ordinary case of robbery with violence. But your acuteness has divined a crime much more subtle." Reggie contemplated the bewildered Clement with reverent admiration. "Tell me, what first suggested that?" But Clement could only struggle to look knowing. "Ah, the mind has its own secrets. Perhaps it was when you saw this fellow has not the strength for the blow that was struck."

Clement jumped at that. "As you see, he is a poor animal. I put it to you, M. Fortune, as a surgeon - -"

"Oh, of course. He couldn't. But you are so quick. You divined at once the question is who is behind him. You have made your preparations for him to let us know that. My dear sir, a most brilliant piece of work. I make you my compliments. And also permit me to thank you. You have put us on the track of the villainy which my friend Dubois and I are come from Paris to seek."

"I - I shall be most happy," Clement stammered, and stared with vacant eyes and open mouth. "I do not understand."

"There is a mystery around this poor lady. She has some enemy who fears her. Who he is, we do not know. What is the cause of his malice, we cannot tell. But, as you see, he does not shrink from murder. And it is M. Clement who has shown us how we may discover him. Again I thank you."

"Sir, sir, the honour is mine. But how then? What to do?"

Reggie smiled. "Oh, my dear sir! I am not quick, but I see the plan you have formed. It is admirable. This fellow, he is not himself the assassin, and in fact we have yet no evidence that he knew of the crime. But he is frightened almost out of life. If you let him loose and have him followed, he will lead us to his hiding - place, to his friends. And then - then we have him and them. Tell me, do I guess right? That was to be your way?"

"Aha," Dubois said. "Clement, my friend, you should not be in Bourges, but in Paris."

Clement smirked. "In fact, I must confess something of this sort I had thought of. It is a great pleasure to co - operate with a mind so brilliant as M. Fortune. Come then, I let the wretch out, and you, Dubois - -"

"And poor old Dubois will do the rest. Yes. I have some of my own men here now. Thousand thanks." He looked at his watch. "We let him out without a word, it is understood. At once, then."

"No. In an hour," said Reggie.

"It is as you please." Clement spread out his hands. And they left him a little dazed but swelling again.

When they were outside Dubois took Reggie's arm. "My friend, never tell me again that you have not genius. I have seen you handle an official. It is a white day in my life."

"I wanted to wring his fat neck," said Reggie plaintively.

"I know. I know. One does." Dubois soothed him. "But why do we wait an hour? For you to have lunch?"

"No, for me to talk to Artus."

Dubois put up an eyebrow. "You are sure?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! That's paint on the little man's blouse. And turpentine. The studio of M. Artus is strongly indicated."

Dubois put out his lower lip. "You go alone?"

"Oh yes. Yes. Don't you stick one of your fat detectives on me."

"I do not like it, my friend."

"Nor do I. But nobody else can do it."

"Do what?"

"I don't know. That's the trouble. Good - bye."

Artus's house stood off the main road, at the end of a furlong of lane running between cherry trees. It had a scrap of a park about it, small lawns and many shrubs; it was a suburban villa trying to be a country house, in the style of the Third Empire.

The door was opened to Reggie by a fat old man with whiskers and a green apron. He thought M. Artus could receive no one. M. Artus was much occupied. But reluctantly he let Reggie into a drawing - room where neither the furniture nor the air had been renewed for generations. A pinched old woman with a black moustache came in and sniffed and clattered away. After some time the man appeared again and announced that the master was in his studio. He led Reggie to a building in the grounds like a barn.

Artus was working at a picture, a picture in the same strange style as that with the face. This also had a geometrical pattern, but of different colours; a clear blue and faint red and gold, it was a happier thing, but without unity yet. Artus had still to bring something out of the wet paint in the middle.

He turned. He was a big - bodied man, very dark and ruddy. "M. Reginald Fortune? You come all the way from England to see me? I am honoured."

"Well, I was in Paris. I saw your pictures in the Salon, M. Artus. I was very much impressed."

"I compliment you on your taste, sir." Artus smiled. He had thick lips which showed red and pulpy through his black moustache and beard. "And which of my pictures does M. Fortune prefer?"

"You have, in fact, a marvellous versatility. But I was most interested in your 'Diversions in Hell.'"

Artus looked ugly. "A state of soul, is it not? Yes, almost every one likes emotions. Well, I gave you them there."

"Yes. Yes. It affected me rather a lot." 

"A sensitive mind?" Artus sneered. "And so you come from Paris to Bourges to find the painter. Enchanted to make your acquaintance, M. Fortune. And are you buying it?"

"I wonder if I could go to the price."

"Fifty thousand francs," said Artus quickly.

"One pays for the name, of course," Reggie murmured.

"The devil! Do you expect not to pay for my name, sir?"

"Oh no. No. Only it is so unlike your other work." 

"What?" Artus snapped. "Explain that, if you please."

"I beg your pardon?" Reggie gazed at him with mild eyes. "I was only saying your usual style is so different." 

"I have no style, sir," Artus roared. 

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Reggie murmured. 

"Do you come to insult me, then?" Artus cried. "I have no little narrow style to paint always the same picture. I am an artist, sir, do you understand? Not a portrait painter, or a landscape painter, or this or that. All the world is mine. You like these pictures that give you emotions. Look, then. I do them when I am tired of the truth. There." He pointed to the painting on the easel.

"Not finished, is it?" Reggie went close and peered into the wet paint. "Looks as if it might be rather cheery. Not like the other."

"Cheery?" Artus said fiercely. "I promise you, no. Watch." He began to work on it again.

And Reggie watched. The man had no hesitations. He knew exactly what he wanted to do and how to do it. His hand was bold and swift. . . . Across the middle of the picture the pattern spread and lost its stiffness and the colours mingled to become like the light in the sky at dawn, and in the light, made of the light, was a face. . . . The picture was becoming the counterpart of that in the Salon. This face too was visionary, but a satire, a parody on that other, cruel, contemptuous, jeering.

"And what do you call this one?" said Reggie.

"I shall call it 'Faith's Vision,'" Artus laughed.

After a moment: "Oh yes. Yes, I see," Reggie murmured, and watched the horrible face sharpen under his hand. . . .

The door opened softly. Into the studio came the little bearded man, furtive, slinking, but in a sweat of breathless haste. "Artus!" he gasped, and before he spoke Artus turned and saw him and muttered and looked from him to Reggie, pale and furious. But Reggie's solemn round face betrayed only curiosity.

"What do you want here, vagabond?" Artus cried.

"What have you done? You shall tell me," the little man panted, and then he saw the picture on the easel with its mocking face. A strange, quivering cry broke from him. He dashed himself upon Artus, clutching and striking.

Artus dropped palette and brushes, grappled with him and flung him off, but he came on again and Reggie took hold of him. "You have done enough, my friend. We will deal with him for you now. Let him be." But the little man struggled wildly, and as they swayed together Artus made at them and a knife gleamed. Reggie broke free to strike at the striking hand, but the stab came into his arm; he was fighting hard to hinder another blow before hands reached up to Artus's throat from behind and he was dragged off choking in the grasp of two compact men.

Dubois strode to Reggie. "Pardon, my friend. We are too slow."

"Oh no. No. Just the right moment, thanks." Reggie gasped. "Take the beggar away. Nice little job for Clement."

"Aha." Dubois turned on Artus reluctantly quiescent under hands with no mercy. "Be at ease, M. Artus. I am Dubois of the Surete."

"Are you mad, then?" Artus cried. "A vagabond breaks into my house and attacks me and I defend myself and I am throttled by your agents. It is an outrage."

"Oh no. No. It's an arrest," Reggie smiled.

"What is the charge, then?" Artus growled.

"Well - obtaining money under false pretences - attempted murder - I dare say M. Clement will find a lot of little things when he gets going. He can enjoy himself with you. Take him away, Dubois." And Dubois waved his hand and Artus was hustled out.

"But the other, my friend," Dubois said gently, with a nod at the little man who shrank huddled and quivering and watched Artus go with wide, dazed eyes.

"It's going to be all right for him now," Reggie said loudly. "Quite all right. He'll come into the hospital with me. But one moment." He began to take off his coat.

"Ah, my friend!" Dubois cried, as he saw the blood.

"Oh yes. Artus got me. Nothing serious. But if you'll just tie it up. Like that."

"You should not have come alone."

"Yes, I think so." Over Reggie's face came a slow benign smile.

"You have it all now?" said Dubois eagerly.

"No. No. But I see my way. Come along, my friend." He took the little man in his unhurt arm. "I say, Dubois, you might gather in these old servants. They ought to talk."

"Be content. I have them." Dubois smiled. "They shall talk."

"And leave a man here to look after things. Goodbye." Reggie helped the little man away. "There'll be some more pictures of yours about, won't there? We'll see they are all right."

The man looked up at him, a piteous, hopeless face. "Sir, that is not mine, that one. He has made it a cruelty."

"I know. Yes." Reggie tucked him into the car. "But we'll save the others. And you can make that one right again."

"Never, never," the little man muttered. "I am finished."

"Make everything come right again," Reggie went on gently. "You see that magistrate didn't know Miss Everard isn't dead. She was stabbed by this scoundrel Artus. But we have her safe now."

The man cried out. "It is not true, no, not true."

"Oh yes. Yes. That's what I'm for. To find out the truth of things."

"My God! The truth!" The man cried and his voice broke in hysterical laughter and sobs. . . .

On the next day Reggie came into the room where Alice Everard lay with his arm in a sling. He made his examination of her. "Yes. This isn't so bad. Pain gone, what? Now you're going to do a lot better."

"I am, yes," she said eagerly. She was looking at his arm. "But you've been hurt yourself, Mr. Fortune."

"That was a little error of judgment. I met M. Artus and he was rather rash. Not a nice man. Not really a nice man. What do you know about Artus, Miss Everard? Why did you come to Bourges to look for him?"

She blushed. "Why did you?" she said quickly.

"You're afraid of me, aren't you? You've no reason, none in the world. I came to deal with Artus."

"And with nobody else?"

"I didn't know there was anybody else."

"There isn't?" she cried, and her face was white.

"Oh yes, I've found him."

"It was Tom!" she gasped. "Mr. Fortune, where is he?"

"He hasn't had a good time. I have him safe now. How did Artus come to get hold of him?"

"Indeed, I don't know. I never heard of M. Artus till I saw that picture. Then I was sure. I was sure there was Tom's work in it. You see, that way of building up the face, and that ideal, it was just what Tom used to try for."

"Oh yes. Yes. You knew it was his picture, and Artus stabbed you in case you should find him, and stabbed me because I did. Not a nice man."

"But Tom - you have nothing against him?"

"Nothing in the world. And if I had I think I should forget it." Reggie looked at her gravely. "Would you?"

"I - oh yes - I think so - yes. I don't understand. It was like a mad dream. Only real. It was real!" She shuddered.

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "You'd better tell me. I'm rather good at seeing where the trick is."

"Trick!" she cried. "You think - well, listen then. It's nearly ten years ago. I was a student in Paris; I - I came to know Tom. He was a student too, but just finishing. He painted my portrait. I thought it was wonderfully good. I told my people about it - about him. They came over to Paris. I asked Tom to send the picture for them to see. He sent it, only with it he sent a perfectly horrible thing - a spiteful burlesque of me - it was exactly like the picture turned to ugliness - everything weak and poor in me made the most of."

"Yes. Done to hurt. So that was it. Thanks very much. Now we have it. Yes. He knows how to hurt, our Artus."

"It was M. Artus!" she cried. "You are sure?"

"Quite. Yes. I caught him doing just the same. He can do most things with paint, you know, but his turn is for jeering. Don't you remember, he called that divine face 'Diversions in Hell.' That was what made me curious about M. Artus. I was sure the fellow who painted the face didn't call it that."

"But why should he want to hurt me, Mr. Fortune? How has it all happened? And Tom - -"

"Why? Well, say he was jealous - of Tom's fine picture - of Tom's success with you - and he likes jeering - he likes to show what a devil he is. Quite a lot of men of that kind. How has it happened? Well, you were knocked over, I suppose; you went away and Tom was left with his world upside - down."

"I - I was - oh, never mind me. My father was furious. He burnt the pictures. He took me back to England. When I was well again, I heard that Tom had been to our house and my father wouldn't see him. I tried to find out what had become of him. I heard of him in London, and people said he was drinking, and he got into some trouble with the police and vanished. That's why I was afraid of you, Mr. Fortune."

"The police aren't worrying about him. He didn't do anything dreadful. Just a drunken row. There has been some drink, Miss Everard. He drifted back to Paris, and Artus picked him up, brought him down, and turned him into a studio drudge. Yes, he hasn't lived happy. So he took to painting pictures like the one you saw. Rather a brave soul."

"And M. Artus - M. Artus has been showing them as his own," she cried fiercely.

"Yes. Yes. He won't do that any more," Reggie smiled. "I can deal with M. Artus. But this poor chap - he needs to find life again."

"Where is he?" she said.

"Well" - Reggie looked down at her "it's you who'll have to be strong, you know." He turned away.

When he came back Tom Paton was with him. The woman in the bed lay watching the door. She gave a cry, her hands were held out to him. The little man stumbled to her side and fell on his knees. . . .

Reggie came out of the hospital and wandered through the tortuous streets of Bourges. At one of the little tables of a cafe his pensive eyes beheld the bulk of Dubois drinking syrup. He shook a reproving head. Dubois came to him smiling and sprightly. "Be at peace. They have spoken, the faithful servants. Our Clement has had a great day. They will swear anything you please. It is finished with M. Artus. We - -"

"I don't want to hear about Artus." Reggie was plaintive. "He's not a nice man."

Dubois agreed with a cheerful oath. "And those others, poor children?"

Reggie stopped. They stood before the house of Jacques Coeur. He glanced up at the sculptured woman looking out for her master who never came back. "Well, we've brought our man back at last, Dubois," he said. "And now they've told each other all about it."

"She receives him?"

"Oh Lord, yes," Reggie smiled.

"That will succeed?" Dubois looked at him. "The man has suffered."

Reggie pointed up at the inscription, "A vaillans coeurs rien impossible." "To valiant hearts nothing is impossible."