CLUE FOR MR FORTUNE
H.C. BAILEY, 1936

THE TORN STOCKING

MR. FORTUNE has sometimes been heard to regret that he noticed the tear in the stocking. He argues that it was the decisive object of the series which determined his career. The first two - the match with a blue head, and the broken rose - bud - had a malignant influence, but if he had never met the torn stocking he might have escaped the clutches of the Criminal Investigation Department; he might have existed beautifully as a family doctor and really known something about the common cold.

He was still, though inscribed on the records of the police, conducting his father's pleasant practice in the suburb of Westhampton when the stocking was torn. His daffodils that morning took the winds of March with beauty, but he was content to give them sympathy from inside the window. He had nothing urgent enough on his conscience to take him out till the world had the warmth of noon. From breakfast he retired to the couch in front of the study fire and his black Persian cat, Cyrus, first of a dynasty which still reigns in his house and heart.

Cyrus objected to his reading the paper, a duty in which Mr. Fortune seldom shows determination. Having made him put it down, Cyrus, always a just cat, rewarded merit by sitting upon him for a moment to purr, knead, and puncture, then withdrew to the end of the couch and curled up for a little peace. Though he had a pipe in his mouth, Mr. Fortune's eyes also closed. This rare mark of genius he showed from the dawn of manhood.

The telephone jangled at them. One golden indignant gleam from Cyrus watched Mr. Fortune reach for the rowdy thing. It said it was speaking for the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, and then did so in a sprightlier voice: "Lomas here. Morning, Fortune. Up yet? Good! Little job of work going. Like it?"

"No," said Reggie Fortune.

"Oh, yes, you would," Lomas assured him. "Quite interesting, and might be useful."

"Who to?" Reggie asked nervously.

"My dear fellow, you know what I mean." The tone of Lomas was confidential and unctuous. "Possibilities. You know Boyd Maple's gone sick."

"So am I," Reggie moaned.

"Well, here it is. Tricky stuff. And I want a real mind on it. Try the thing out, what? I'm sending Mordan up to you. Good - bye."

Thus the voice of the tempter came to Reggie's suburban paradise. He insists that he did not immediately fall; he never felt less like falling than when Inspector Mordan arrived. His purpose then was determined and clear - to listen to Mordan, whom he disliked, to give him an opinion, and go forth to consider Mrs. Byng's nervous stomach and Billy Reid's mumps.

Inspector Mordan has always looked more like a policeman than any man should. With this professional extravagance he unites incongruously a snappy gait and speech.

"Morning, Mr. Fortune. You've had a ring from Mr. Lomas, haven't you? I suppose you'd like to get down to it right away?"

Reggie gazed at him with dreary dislike, and said: "No. Oh, no. Nothing like that, Mordan. Sit down. Tell me all."

Mordan sat beside him on the couch with such energy that Cyrus was vibrated and raised a glaring head. "I'll just give you the outline," Mordan announced. "I don't want to put any particular idea in your head."

"Liking yourself!" Reggie said bitterly. "I'm not."

"Sorry, sir. Mr. Lomas told me not to influence you at all."

"My only aunt," Reggie protested.

Mordan laughed and sat back with a jerk. "Now it's like this, Mr. Fortune. This morning - -"

"Look," said Reggie. "You're annoying him." Disturbed by the encroachment of Mordan's back, Cyrus had put out against it a paw of haughty repulsion. "Yes. That's how you make us feel."

"Fond o' their comforts, aren't they?" Mordan answered, with a sneer. "All right, puss." He stroked the paw, which at once withdrew and shook itself. "A reg'lar cat! But I've got a dead girl on my hands, Mr. Fortune."

"Confound your impudence!" Reggie grumbled. "Go on."

"It's like this. About 8.30, Fincham police station was rung up by a doctor informing 'em he had been called to a girl dead with her head in a gas - oven."

Reggie's eyebrows rose slowly. "Any objection?" he asked.

"How do you mean, objection?" Mordan was irritated. "That's the first information. They went round and found the girl as stated. Small house, gas - oven in the scullery, smell o' gas still strong. Our divisional surgeon agreed with the family doctor the cause o' death was gas poisoning; time o' death most likely after midnight."

"Age of girl?" Reggie murmured.

"Schoolgirl. Said to be sixteen." Mordan gave him a knowing look. "But let me give you the facts in order. They took a statement from the servant who found the body. She don't sleep in the house - comes daily; lets herself in. On arrival this morning she noticed a smell of gas, and when she went into the scullery it almost knocked her down. Then she saw the girl's body sticking out o' the gas - stove. She found the taps were on, turned 'em off, opened the window and the door, and tried to bring the girl to. When she saw she couldn't do any good she ran upstairs, calling Mrs. Miller."

"The girl's mother?" Reggie asked.

"Step - mother," said Mordan, and paused. "Don't akeep taking me up, please. I do want to put it straight. Mrs. Miller was in bed - seemed to be asleep; the servant told her, couldn't get her to take it in, and went down again and rang up the doctor. There's the servant's statement. Now we come to Mrs. Miller. She says she had supper with Lorna - that's the girl's name - about nine last night, as usual; then she went up to bed telling Lorna to go too. That would be round about ten. She soon went to sleep. She didn't hear a sound till the servant called her this morning. She don't understand it. She never thought of Lorna doing such a thing. That's her own words."

"Oh. They asked her if she had thought of it," Reggie murmured.

"Yes, they did. For reasons. Now I have to give you a bit o' background - -"

"More?" Reggie sighed. "Step - mother and daughter known to the police?"

"You do rush it," Mordan complained. "I never said that. They're not - not like you mean. But there is some funny stuff. Do let me get the facts clear. This Miller family has lived in Fincham for donkey's years; most respectable. I mean to say, the father. He's a commercial traveller for Pares & Goeur - big fancy - goods firm, you know - been with 'em since a boy. Well, he's lived in this house since he married his first wife. She died when the girl Lorna was a toddler. Then he got in a housekeeper, and, after a bit, married her. That's how the step - mother came in."

Reggie's eyelids drooped. "With scandal?" he asked.

"Not as I know of," Mordan snapped. "Nor I haven't suggested it. If you'd just listen! Anyhow he married her a dozen years ago or more, and they've been reg'lar Church folk and all the rest of it. What has been said is that Mrs. Miller brought the girl up very strict: kept her in; kept her down; kept her short."

"Oh, yes." Reggie nodded. "Step - mother keepin' step."

"I grant you, it's the sort of thing that always gets said," Mordan agreed. "I'm not telling you to believe it. Nor the talk that if the father really knew how the girl was treated - him being only home at week - ends, or not then - he wouldn't have stood for it. You can't work on gossip."

"No. Picked up a lot in quick time, haven't you?" Reggie murmured.

"I have not. The divisional inspector had gone over all this before ever the girl was found dead."

"Well, well!" Reggie sat up. "And you said the Millers were not known to the police."

"No more they are." Mordan frowned. "Not in the usual sense. There's never been a charge - there's never been any evidence to be sure of. And I was being careful not to prejudice you, Mr. Fortune."

"Careful force, the police force," Reggie moaned. "What you tell me three times is true. Go on."

"All right," Mordan snorted. "The girl went to the Fincham High School. Some months ago the head mistress informed the police the school had had a number o' thefts - odds and ends, and money from cloak - rooms and such. Enquiries were made and observation was kept, and they found reason to suspect this Lorna Miller, but nothing definite could be got and the thieving stopped. Well then, last Monday, Mrs. Miller and Lorna went shopping together, at Lace's - that's the local department store. Mrs. Miller was carrying one of those coloured mat - bags women take out marketing. The shopwalker on the fancy - goods floor thought Lorna was fussing round suspicious; kept his eye on her, and saw her scoop up a flapjack. He took the pair of 'em along to the office. The flapjack was found in Mrs. Miller's bag, and a manicure set as well. Mrs. Miller blew up, weeping and wailing and scolding Lorna for a wicked, sinful girl, disgracing her and her dear father. Lorna did a crying act too: said it was cruel; mother told her to take the things - always to take what she could; and she wished she was dead and so on. The end of it was, old Lace, the owner of the store, sent 'em off with a flea in the ear: he wouldn't prosecute 'em that time, but they'd be watched, and if ever there was anything again they'd be for it. I don't know as I blame him."

"Wasn't blaming him," Reggie murmured.

"That's right. Nasty case to handle, with the woman and the girl each putting it on the other, and all the sob - stuff about charging a child. And a local shop don't want to get into a scandal like that with local people. Besides, Lace had known the father all his life, and done business with him. But there it is. Girl and step - mother caught shop - lifting o' Monday night, and the girl found dead Thursday morning. Wants looking at, don't it?"

"I hate you," Reggie moaned. "Come on. Lead me to your gas - stove."

In pensive moments he will wonder why thus he yielded to the tempter. He denies earnestly the theory of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department - that the strangeness of the case allured his uncanny mind. The explanation to which he inclines is that he was annoyed by Inspector Mordan, whose charge of being too fond of his comforts moved him to just but distressful indignation, made him the victim of a silly desire to show off. His wife will have it that the vision of the girl lying dead compelled him - he had to be her champion. But this, also, he rejects. "No. Oh, no. Mind doesn't work like that. Not my mind. Nasty muddle of facts presented. Natural human impulse to put 'em in order. Only impulse. Just the natural man - burnin' to be clever. Me."

He is emphatic that he did not think the case strange, or expect that it would become so. Everything in it, he complained to Mordan, as they drove to the Millers' house, was drably common. Girl of sixteen with her head in a gas - oven - a daily horror with a score of stock explanations: girl and harsh step - mother; naughty girl with a step - mother who couldn't keep her straight; wicked step - mother driving a girl to crime - old, old stuff. The only puzzle in it all - too much; of it. Some of it wasn't true, or some of it didn't matter.

Mordan's mouth came open. "If you ask me," said Mordan slowly, " we haven't got enough."

"Didn't ask you," Reggie mumbled. "Knew you were thinking so. But science is elimination, Mordan."

"Not half." Mordan grinned. "Not with you."

The offensiveness of Inspector Mordan, Reggie has complained, lies in his capacity for being partly right.

Their car turned from one quiet street of small houses to another, indistinguishable but for a different name. The roadways were all lined with polled plane - trees; the houses were all bow - windowed - red brick below and roughcast above - spruce, discreet, stunted.

In front of one, which was labelled Homeleigh, stood a grim, nameless van, and close by some errand - boys and nursemaids loitered. As the car stopped there, faces came to neighbouring windows.

A policeman let them in, the divisional inspector received them, and Reggie was brought to the scullery. It was placed between the kitchen and the back door to the garden. It contained a sink, a copper, a gas - cooking stove, and the body of a girl.

She was dressed in the blue - serge tunic of a school uniform. She was rather of a child's shape than a woman's; her face, also, was thin and small - featured, and had a look of childish rage, for it was flushed to a bright red.

Reggie stood contemplating her solemnly.

"Gets you, don't it?" said Mordan. "Such a kid. Sixteen! She's more like a baby. Baby in a temper, you know."

"Yes. That is so," Reggie murmured. He knelt down by the body and looked close at the peaky, red face; lifted one heavy eyelid and the other. ... He sat back on his heels and again contemplated the whole body. Then he bent forward over the legs. They wore black stockings of artificial silk. He lifted the left leg. Its stocking was torn in a hole from which a ladder had begun, and on the pink flesh showing through the hole was a scarlet scratch. He pored over that for a moment, then stood up slowly and gazed all round the scullery with vague and plaintive eyes; and, at the end of this survey, sighed: "Well, well. Take her away, Mordan. I'll do the post - mortem."

"Very good, sir." Mordan gave the orders, and the body was carried out, with Reggie holding the door widely open for its bearers. "Well, and what's your opinion?" Mordan asked.

"What?" Reggie was looking at the door and the door - post. "Oh, yes. Cause of death - happy to agree with other medical witnesses. Cause of death - probably gas poisoning. Almost certainly gas poisoning. However. Other points of interest." He scraped, with a penknife, from the lock of the door a fragment of black stuff and held it out in the palm of his hand. "Textile material. Provisionally, artificial silk from left stocking of deceased."

"Well, what if it is?" Mordan frowned. 

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie reproached him, and put it away. "Second point - where is step - mother? I could bear to hear step - mother explain things." 

"All right. You have a try," said Mordan bitterly. "She's in the drawing - room."

It had an atmosphere of complex mustiness, but was cold. The windows had not been opened, the fire had not been lit. It was crowded with furniture, and things on or in the furniture - an overmantel, two china cupboards, a piano and several little tables all heavy laden. On a small, low chair with a perpendicular back Mrs. Miller sat knitting. She had sagged into middle age. Her figure was undefined; her dark face loose of cheek and throat.

"I have to ask you one or two questions," said Reggie.

She looked up for a moment, and he saw that her eyes were sunken and small; she looked down again, and the knitting - needles worked fast.

"What did you give Lorna for supper last night?" 

"We had the cold mutton and cocoa. Oh, and prunes after." She spoke in a nervous hurry, and thickly. 

"Did she eat well?"

"Yes - not much - just as usual."

"Oh. She hadn't been eating. Was she much upset by this trouble at the shop?"

"She never would eat properly. She wasn't good with her meals."

"Was there any quarrel between you about the things stolen?"

Mrs. Miller bent over her knitting. "I don't want to talk about it."

"She accused you, didn't she? And you accused her? How were you getting on together?"

"I couldn't do anything with her," Mrs. Miller muttered.

"Did you think she was feeling desperate?"

Mrs. Miller looked up at him. "I didn't know what she was feeling. I never knew," she panted.

"Had you told her father about the stealing?"

"Yes. I wrote to him."

"And he answered?"

"No, I haven't heard from him yet."

"But you told her you had written?" Mrs. Miller nodded, and her throat shook. "Was she angry? Was she frightened?"

"She made fun of me," Mrs. Miller said faintly.

"Oh. So it never occurred to you that she might commit suicide?"

Mrs. Miller gave a cry. "I never knew what she'd do."

"And after supper - who washed up?" 

"I did," she gasped. "Why? Loma never did." 

"Really? Then you went to bed, leaving her downstairs?"

"I told her to go to bed too." 

"Oh, yes. But she didn't. And you went to sleep and didn't hear anything all night?"

 "No, nothing - nothing at all." 

"Pity," said Reggie, and turned away and went out. 

"Hard case, that woman," Mordan grunted. 

"Bafflin' case, yes. Well, well. Have you been through the house?"

"Not yet. Why?"

"You never know," Reggie murmured, and opened the door of the dining - room. It was a sombre place, dark red on walls and floor, full of lumpy mahogany. It smelt of stale food. The servant jumped from the window as they came in, and was told she could get into her kitchen. Reggie wandered about, and paused at two decanters in a tantalus on the sideboard and sniffed at them. "Whisky and gin. H'm." Spirits he does not love. He opened the sideboard cupboards. "French vermouth and a cocktail - shaker. Well, well."

"And Mrs. M. said she drank cocoa," Mordan sneered. Reggie gazed at him with owlish eyes. "Yes. A sad world."

They went upstairs and Reggie opened the first door, which let them into a room at the back. "This'll be the girl's," said Mordan. "Mrs. M. slept in front."

"As you say. The girl's," Reggie murmured. It was heavily scented. The single bed in it was smoothly made. They saw a looking - glass draped with clouds of pink. But drawn curtains kept the room in a half - light, and Mordan went to pull them back. Reggie held his arm. "No. Don't do that. Look." He pointed to the lower corner of the window. The long curtain was there hitched over a chair, the half - curtain of cream casement cloth against the glass was drawn a little towards the middle so that at the side a gap of uncovered glass let them see out into the garden. "Somebody arranged that," Reggie said.

"Very likely. What about it?" Mordan grumbled. 

"I haven't the slightest idea. However. Curious and interestin'. Interestin' and curious. And recorded by Inspector Mordan with many other facts. So we can now pull back the curtains." He did so, and turned to survey the room. The meagre furniture was in white painted wood - plain, cheap stuff, but sound. It had tawdry decorations of drapery. On the walls were pinned a number of newspaper photographs of beauties, male and female - film stars, stars of society. 

"Bright young thing, eh?" said Mordan. 

Reggie did not answer. He moved to the dressing - table, which was also a chest of drawers. From the small space between it and the wall he picked up a doll - a doll of some size dressed as a small girl, but with gaudy elaboration. He put her straw hat straight; he smoothed down the tumbled frock. "Standin' on her head," he complained, and looked at Mordan, his blue eyes large in sad surprise. "Well, well." He put the doll down in the pink drapery of the looking - glass. "That's her place."

Mordan gave out a grunt of a laugh. "Queer, ain't it? All these fal - de - lals don't seem to belong with a girl nursing her dolly. She was only a kid, after all."

"Curious and interestin'," Reggie mumbled. He continued to look at the doll. "Yes. However." He turned away and wandered to the door. "I'd better go on. And you'll go through the house, what? With a small tooth - comb."

"For anything in particular?" Mordan looked at him keenly.

"Oh, no. No. For everything in general. Small tooth - comb, but quite open mind. Keeping - -"He stopped. Mrs. Miller's voice was heard calling: "Tiny! Tiny! Tiny!" He moved to the window. He saw her out in the garden, vociferous, rattling a plate.

"Just calling the cat," said Mordan.

"Yes. That is indicated." Reggie continued to look out till she vanished and the voice and the rattling were hushed. "Yes, keepin' - as I was sayin' - one eye on step - mother. Good - bye."

In the afternoon he entered the room of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. His round face was pale and of a plaintive melancholy.

"Hallo, Fortune! Good man!" Lomas greeted him.

"Yes, I am. Yes." Reggie dropped into the easiest chair. "It hampers me."

"Feeling sorry for yourself, what?" Lomas chuckled.

"That is so. And hatin' you."

"My dear fellow! No results?"

"Oh, yes. Results quite definite. The girl was killed by coal - gas poisoning. Typical, clear case."

Lomas put up his eyeglass. "So you make it suicide?"

"I didn't say so," Reggie moaned.

"What? You don't suggest anybody could have forced her into the gas - oven?"

"Not suggestin' anything. Statin' facts. Previous to inhalin' gas, she had drunk a cocktail or two."

"The deuce she had." Lomas smiled. "A sixteen - year - old! But suicides often take a drink before the last act, you know."

"I did know." Reggie's voice went up a tone. "Not influencin' me, are you? No. Just keepin' me straight. Same like Mordan. However, she had also taken a narcotic."

"Good gad!" Lomas let his cigarette fall. "You're sure of that?"

"Oh, yes. Indicated by puffy eyes. Confirmed by reaction from contents of stomach. One of the barbiturates. Not yet identified, but we'll get it. Takin' one thing with another, probably medinal."

"My dear fellow! Extraordinarily good," Lomas applauded.

Reggie's melancholy eyes opened wider. "Found some on the premises?"

Lomas settled back in his chair and put up the eyeglass again. "You expected that, what? You're an uncanny creature, Fortune."

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie protested. "Not me. No. Only careful."

"Careful!" Lomas ejaculated. "Before you did the post - mortem - before any analysis - just because the girl's eyes were puffy - you told Mordan to search the house for drugs. Not so much careful as diabolical."

"Oh, no. You're quite inaccurate. I didn't mention drugs. Simply said search with small tooth - comb and open mind. My mind was open."

Lomas made a grimace. "Are you telling me you didn't expect him to find drugs?"

"No expectation either way. Thought a drug had been used."

"Just because the girl's eyes were puffy?" Lomas persisted. "Inspired guess, what?"

Reggie squirmed. "Why wrangle? Wasn't a guess. Possible hypothesis. Other suggestion of narcotic on premises. Extraordinary sound sleep of step - mother. Heard nothing, she said. Had to be waked, servant said."

"Quite." Lomas smiled. "That impressed me. Very determined sleep. Were the step - mother's eyes puffy?"

"No. Not when seen by me. But she was alive. Effects of any drug had time to pass off. Girl expired while effect was still visible: thus preservin' it."

"Damme, you are cautious!"

"Yes, that is so," Reggie murmured. "Well? What did the zealous Mordan find?"

"He found a pill - box," said Lomas. "It was in the step - mother's room; had a local chemist's label with her name written in. There were some capsules or sachets, or whatever you call 'em, inside - seven of 'em. Mordan went round to the chemist, and was told each sachet contained five grains of medinal, and he had supplied twelve to Mrs. Miller last Saturday, on the prescription of her doctor."

"Last Saturday," Reggie murmured. "And five had been consumed up to and includin' yesterday. Average one per diem. Well, well. Seen the doctor?"

"Mordan put him through it. He says Mrs. Miller came to him last week very tired and nervy; complained she couldn't get any sleep. He found nothing wrong but nerves, so he prescribed this stuff and warned her to take only one at a time. What do you think of him?"

"Don't give patients barbiturates to play with, myself. However. It is done. Sequence curious and unfortunate. Last week step - mother suffered from insomnia and obtained medinal. This week daughter expires with medinal inside her."

"Very unfortunate." Lomas made a grimace. "But where are we? You don't suggest the girl was killed by medinal."

"Oh, no. She wasn't. Gas."

"Well, then, your evidence is simply that she swallowed some cocktails and some medinal and went into the gas - oven. Quite consistent with suicide, isn't it? Not uncommon for suicides to take a soporific so that death shall come easy."

"As you say," Reggie mumbled, and gazed at Lomas with melancholy eyes. "But it wasn't suicide. Girl was murdered."

"Good gad!" Lomas gave him a questioning, ironic stare. "What is this? Divination? Where's the evidence?"

Reggie sat up with a jerk. "Yes. That's what you wanted me for, isn't it? Anxious not to influence me. You and Mordan. Confound you. Not makin' it murder. Oh, no. Pushin' on me, it couldn't be. While convinced it was. Doosid insolent. Doosid stupid."

"My dear fellow, don't be so touchy. We've had some prejudice raised about experts brought in to get convictions. I simply wanted to make sure of a sound independent opinion."

"All right. You have it. Girl was put to sleep with medinal. Girl was then put in the oven. Murder."

"You'd swear that to a jury?"

"Oh, yes. I shall have to." Reggie sighed. "And they'll believe me. Won't be able to help themselves. No probable, possible shadow of doubt - no possible doubt whatever. Decisive, conclusive fact. Her stocking was torn."

"Damme!" Lomas frowned at him. "What has her stocking to do with it?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap," Reggie sighed. "Think it out. How could she tear her stocking putting her head in a gas - oven?"

"We don't know that she did. We don't know when she tore her stocking."

"Oh, yes, we do. We're quite sure. Didn't Mordan tell you? Stocking - black artificial silk. On lock of scullery door - fragment of identical material. Under tear of stocking - scratch on leg; recent scratch; blood from scratch bright red, because charged with carbon monoxide from gas of oven. Only possible inference - her leg was scratched on the lock just before she was gassed. How could her leg get scratched on the door lock? Only one way. She was carried into the scullery. There's your evidence. She didn't enter scullery and oven under her own power. She was murdered. Satisfied?"

"Quite. That makes a case. You're very good, Fortune." Lomas lit a cigarette. "Dam' good. I don't mind saying, nobody would have made it but you. This is your line, you know."

Reggie sat up with a jerk, Reggie gave him a cold intent stare. "'Nero is a fisher in the lake of darkness'!" Reggie said swiftly, as if it were a curse. "No, thank you. We are not flattered, Lomas. We merely loathe you more."

"True, though," said Lomas, and blew smoke - rings. "It is a devilish business, isn't it?"

"Not nice, no. Confound you."

"You see where we are. There was nobody in the house but the girl and her step - mother. The stepmother had a motive. There were suspicions of theft over 'em both - they'd accused one another. The stepmother had got medinal ready. Clear enough, isn't it?"

Reggie's round face was pale, "Oh, no. No," he said drearily. "Background uncertain. Alternative possibilities. Girl stole and put it on step - mother. Step - mother stole and put it on girl."

"Quite. We don't know which, but that doesn't matter."

"My only aunt!" Reggie moaned.

"It doesn't touch the case. The girl was murdered in a way to make it look like suicide. Only the stepmother had the opportunity. Only the step - mother had a motive - to put the girl who'd brought suspicion on her out of the way."

"Motive not defined," Reggie complained. "Was it fear of further exposure of her own sins, or fury at wicked girl's sin?"

"You're too subtle." Lomas smiled. "Fear or fury, fear and fury. We have evidence she was hard on the girl. I know what a jury will think, don't you? She drove the girl to steal and then murdered her because it got dangerous."

"Don't know what they'd think," Reggie mumbled. "Know what they'd do." He gazed at Lomas with large solemn eyes. "Not a nice case. No. 'There may be heaven, there must be hell. Meanwhile we do our work here - -' Get on with it. Better not leave the woman loose."

"Quite." Lomas nodded. "Desperate, unstable creature. I had that in mind. We'll charge her at once. Thanks very much, Fortune."

"I hate you," Reggie answered, and stood up slowly. "Good - bye."

He drove his car back to the Millers' house, and found Mordan in the dining - room with the divisional inspector. "Just had instructions by phone, Mr. Fortune," Mordan told him. "So you've done the trick, eh? I always thought you would."

Reggie breathed deep. "Where is she?" he asked.

"Still in there." Mordan jerked his head at the drawing - room. "Still knitting. Want to see how she takes it, Mr. Fortune? Come on. You've earned that."

They went into the drawing - room. "Mrs. Miller!" Mordan's voice had the official rasp. Her flaccid face was raised and shook; the little eyes looked anywhere but at him; her fingers went on knitting. "I have to ask you certain questions. But it's my duty to warn you, anything you say may be used as evidence. You understand that?" The loose lips moved, and no sound came. "Very well. From six o'clock last night, when the servant left, were you alone in the house with your daughter?"

She moistened her lips. "Yes. No one came. No one ever comes. And Mr. Miller's away."

"Can you account for the fact that a narcotic drug was found in your daughter's body?"

Her mouth fell open and trembled as she tried to speak. She shook her head. "I don't know. Oh, my sleeping tablets. She might have taken some. I suppose she did."

"When?" Mordan snapped.

"I don't know."

"Can you tell me any reason why she should take your sleeping stuff?"

Mrs. Miller looked down at her lap, and her hands stopped knitting and plucked her dress. "Lorna did take things," she muttered.

"You say she stole this stuff and swallowed it, and then put herself in the gas - oven?"

Mrs. Miller's fat hands went on fumbling. "I was asleep," she said.

"If I tell you there's evidence she was carried to the oven, how do you explain that?"

Mrs. Miller looked up with a stare of stupefied fright. "Carried? She wasn't. She couldn't be. She did it herself. Of course she did."

Mordan waited for a moment of silence. "That's all you have to say? Very well. Then I have to tell you you'll be taken to the police station and charged with the murder of Lorna Miller."

She shuddered and panted. "But it wasn't murder. She did it, of course she did."

"No use talking any more." Mordan put his hand on her shaking shoulder. "Come along."

She made an ineffective movement, dropped her knitting, picked it up, and struggled to her feet. "I must put my things on," she said. "I can take my knitting, can't I?"

"Better not, please." Mordan pulled it from her hands with a knowing glance at Reggie. "And the inspector will see you into your coat."

She was led out.

"Knitting - needles!" Mordan winked. "Not much. One of these cunning half - wits. I don't know any kind makes you feel more creepy."

"Yes. As you say," Reggie murmured.

They heard her coming heavily downstairs again. Her voice was raised in a quavering call to the servant. "Gladys! Gladys! Take care of Tiny! Take care of Tiny, won't you?"

The door closed behind her.

"Can you beat it!" Mordan exclaimed. "Kill the girl, but take care of the blinkin' cat. That's a masterpiece."

Reggie gazed at him solemnly. "Yes. Curious and interestin'. Interestin" and curious. I wonder." He strode out of the room and called: "Gladys!" The servant shuffled from the kitchen - a thin, grumbling face over a faded overall: an old young woman. "Where is the cat Tiny?"

"Now you're asking. I ain't set eyes on 'er to - day."

"Unusual?"

"I should say so. Reg'lar to meals like a 'uman."

"Oh, yes. Thanks." Reggie came back to Mordan and again fixed him with a solemn eye. "Yes. Anxiety about cat very interestin'. But you missed the point, you see. I thought you had."

"Which was that?" Mordan was annoyed.

"The cat isn't here," Reggie drawled. "Cat absent without leave. Absence irregular, unexpected, and surprisin' to servant and step - mother."

"Fancy that!" Mordan sneered. "A cat out on the loose! Isn't it wonderful?"

"Careless mind, your mind," Reggie told him. "However. Has it found any other evidence?"

"I don't know what you mean, careless," Mordan's tone was pugnacious. "I found that sleeping stuff, as you know."

"Yes. Quite creditable. Though not surprising. Nothing else?"

"Nothing that adds much," said Mordan sulkily. "Not to be sure of. In the woman's bedroom, nothing at all except the pill - box. She had that by her bed. About the girl's bedroom there is some funny stuff. The drawers and wardrobe are in a rare old mess. I got out of 'em things you can be pretty sure were pinched. Silver wrist - watch, with initials not hers. Enamel cigarette - case, brand - new. Handkerchiefs, ditto. Three fountain - pens and a couple of purses. One drawer had quite a bit of money in a bag - four pounds odd. Notes filthy dirty. There you are. That lot means thieving and pawning all right. But you can take it several ways - the girl may have stolen on her own, or to step - ma's orders, or the whole bag of tricks may have been planted in her room by step - ma after doing her in. Looking at the way her things were tumbled, I have no doubt step - ma did fake it. But I wouldn't like putting that into the case. Sort of evidence that hits back at you. So what it really comes to is proof of stealing as a habit of one or other. Which we had before."

"Yes. As you say. Congratulations."

"Thanks. What for?"

"Good judgment. However. No pawn - tickets found?"

"There were not," Mordan grinned. "I wondered if you'd spot that. Fits with step - ma planting the stuff on the girl, don't it? But there again - we can't use that. It's just an opinion. You can't prove the girl did pawn. Just as likely she wouldn't keep tickets if she did."

"That is so. Or more likely. Well, well. Let's look at her room again." They went up. "Original conditions," Reggie mumbled, and manipulated the curtains till they were as he had first found them - across the window, but hitched back to leave a small gap at the side. "Like that, what?"

"That's right," Mordan frowned.

Reggie stood peering out through the gap for some moments. When he turned, his round face had a look of bewildered curiosity.

"Seen the cat?" Mordan grinned.

"No. I haven't. No. Have a look."

Mordan looked, and drew back. "No cat, no nothing," he said.

"My dear chap! Ob, my dear chap." Reggie sighed. "Come on."

As they went downstairs, the front door was opened with a latch - key, and a man came in and called, "Sophy! Sophy! Where are you?"

The wizened face of Gladys the servant appeared from the kitchen. "Oh, Mr. Miller, sir, there 'as been such doings. Missis 'as - -"

Mordan hurried on and came between them. "You get back to your work, my girl." He shut the kitchen door on her again, and turned to the man: "I take it you're Mr. Stanley Miller?"

"I am. And you'll excuse me, who may you be?"

"I'm Inspector Mordan, Mr. Miller. In charge here."

"I see. I had your police message, you know. I've come straight up. That is true, is it, Lorna was found dead?"

"I have to say it is. I'm sorry."

Miller held by the banister. "Thanks. All right. Half a minute. I sort of hoped, you see. Where's my wife? How is she?"

"Better come in and sit down, Mr. Miller." Mordan took him into the drawing - room and gave him a chair.

He sat upon it, a plump little man made to embody brisk, genial respectability, stricken with an agitation of distress, his face purple and sweating, his breath noisy. "This is one over the heart," he said. "Poor little Lorna!"

"I've got to ask you, Mr. Miller, had you heard of Miss Lorna and her mother in a row about shop - lifting on Monday?"

"Yes, I'd had letters only this morning - followed me round. I was on my eastern circuit, you see. The wife wrote to Ipswich and missed me there; and Mr. Lace, he addressed to my firm. Both their letters had to come after me to Norwich. But I can't make it out at all. Mr. Lace is an old friend of mine. His people in the shop must have got things wrong. Loma's always been a good girl. And the wife - I'd answer for her anywhere. I can't understand it. There! What's the good of talking? Did it hurt Lorna much, would you say, dying like this?"

"Not physically, no," Reggie said.

Miller blew his nose. "I see what you mean," he said thickly. "Hurt her cruel, being caught and accused. Ah, it would. She was always one to feel things. Sort of torture to have it go about she was a thief. Drove her mad. And a girl her age!"

Mordan cleared his throat. "I have to tell you, Mr. Miller, we have evidence Miss Lorna did not kill herself. And her step - mother has been charged with the murder."

"Murder? Sophy?" Miller exclaimed. "Here, I'm going mad - or you are. Sophy! She wouldn't hurt a fly. How could it be murder? Loma put her head in the gas, you said."

"The evidence is she didn't put herself. That's all I can say."

"I don't believe it," Miller said. "It don't make sense."

"I can't argue with you," Mordan told him. 

"You hear what I say. I don't believe any of it. Not Lorna being a thief, nor Sophy neither. And as for Sophy murdering - it's just stupid. Do you hear?"

"I take that as your statement," Mordan said stolidly. "I can't say any more."

"What have you done with the wife? I want to see her. I've got a right to see her, haven't I?"

"No objection from me," said Mordan, and scribbled on a card. "You can take that to the station."

Miller snatched it and hurried out, and the front door slammed.

"Poor devil, he's hard hit," Mordan made a grimace.

"Yes. Severe shock. Yes," Reggie murmured. "Well, well. To resume . . ." He turned from the drawing - room into the dining - room, opened its close - curtained French window and proceeded into the garden.

"What's the idea?" Mordan asked. The garden was a strip cut to the common suburban pattern - an oblong patch of turf with narrow flower borders to right and left and shrubs at the far end, the whole enclosed with palings, above which, for greater privacy, trellis - work had been erected. An independent trellis screened the small tiled yard under the kitchen and scullery windows, in which stood the dust - bin and a tool - shed. But against the kitchen window the shrunken face of the servant Gladys was compressed. "First idea, remove the damsel," Reggie murmured.

Mordan made a contemptuous exclamation, strode off and told her not to do the Nosy Parker on him but go into the drawing - room and stay there. He returned to Reggie, who stood in the middle of the lawn contemplating the flower borders. These exhibited no flowers but were bleakly tidy, planted with bush roses and perennials, the precocious leaves of which had been stunted by the rigours of that grim March. The mulching about them and the earth were parched to pallor.

"What are you after out here?" Mordan demanded.

"Bushel of March dust worth a king's ransom," Reggie murmured. "I never believed that. However. I never made a garden on clay myself. Respect the wisdom of your ancestors, Mordan. Look at that. You wouldn't look at it from Lorna's window." He pointed to a space between the green fingers of lupins and the red, unfolded shoots of a peony. There the grey dryness of the earth was mixed with black damp clods.

Mordan strode to the place and examined it, and turned back to Reggie with a frown. "You mean somebody's been digging there just lately - and the girl was watching behind the curtain?"

"Yes, I think so. But I should say there had been digging more than once - the last very recent: some clods still wet in spite of your welcome wild northeaster, but some half - dry."

"Very clever," Mordan admitted, and the furrows of his frown deepened. "I grant you, it might be. Let's have a look." He strode to the tool - shed and took out a spade. "Ah! This has been used recent, too. All dampish, see?"

"As you say," Reggie murmured. "But scraped clean. Tidy place, this place." He picked up a trowel and examined it; he loitered about the borders, and he stooped to pick up a fragment of earth while Mordan marched off with the spade and began to dig up the disturbed patch.

Soon there was a hole, some two feet deep, down to cheesy, yellow virgin clay. Through the edges of the hole on either side came the roots of lupin and peony. "Too much zeal." Reggie put a hand on Mordan's labouring shoulder. "Don't set back the perennials."'

Mordan straightened himself with a grunt of contempt. "No use going on, anyway. That clay hasn't been touched since the world was made, and the flower roots are fixed good and well. And not a blinking thing to be found. So there's the end of that hunch of yours, Mr. Fortune. The place was dug just for stirring up the ground, like people do in spring."

"You think so?" Reggie murmured. "Well, well." He held out in his right hand the fragment of soil which he had picked up. "And this?"

Mordan bent to look at it, turned it over with his finger. "Some hair in it. Kind o" clotted."

"Yes. Quite good. Yes. Apparently scraped from spade by careful digger. Provisionally, cat's fur. Absence of regular, well - conducted cat was always interestin'." He looked at Mordan with large, reproachful eyes. "I did mention that," he complained, and wandered away round the garden and stopped before the shrubs at the far end.

After a moment Mordan came to him. He was looking through the boughs of a weigelia and a big rugosa rose. Behind them, against the fence, a row of ferns showed their brown uncurled fronds through dark earth. "More digging," he murmured.

"Ferns just been planted," said Mordan.

"Oh, yes. That is indicated. So we'll unplant 'em. They won't mind."

"Don't mind me, either," Mordan grumbled. "I like it"; and he dug with angry vigour, tossing the ferns aside. Then the spade stuck. "Hallo!" he muttered, tried another place, worked more carefully, and exhumed the body of a black - and - white cat. Its head was crushed to a hideous distortion.

"Nasty bit of work," Mordan said, and stared at Reggie. "Well, now you have got something, but it beats me what you've got."

Reggie was examining the head. When he straightened himself again his round face was pale, but he spoke in a drawl. "Explanation of absence of cat Tiny. Killed by brutal blows of the spade from which her fur was scraped. Not a nice slaughter. No. Find some paper. Corpse of cat Tiny required as evidence. Get on."

While Mordan went back to the house he took the spade, filled up the hole again, and replanted the ferns. At this work the returning Mordan found him, and complained, "What's the point of that?"

"No reason the ferns should suffer," Reggie told him. "Wrap up Tiny."

With that gruesome parcel they reached the yard again, and Reggie scraped the spade. "You're neat too, aren't you?" said Mordan impatiently.

"I am. Yes. And careful." He put the spade back in the shed, and turned from that to take off the lid of the dust - bin. It was about half full, a stratum of ashes on top. He laid it on its side, and, as the contents were tilted out, turned them over with a rake. The first thine which interested him was a screwed - up sheet of a picture paper. He opened in gingerly. Mordan looked over his shoulder and chuckled. "The latest lady's pyjamas. There's a blinking clue!"

The paper contained nothing but a heap of sawdust. Reggie contemplated it with a frown which yielded to a look of wonder and a small smile. "Well, well," he murmured, and crushed the paper together again and laid it on the window - sill. "Just sawdust, isn't it?" Mordan grunted. "Yes. That is so. Problem for Inspector Mordan. Who's been sawin'?" Reggie continued his work with the rake. After another layer of ashes, dirt, and kitchen rubbish he came to a cigarette tin, which had traces of black earth upon it. He picked that up and opened it. It was empty.

"Drawn another blank!" Mordan chuckled. "Oh, no. Contrariwise. A felt want." He put the tin down by the ball of newspaper, and went on raking till the last of the refuse was spread out on the tiles. He contemplated it; he gave a little sigh of content, stooped, and picked up by the corner a small, dirty, brown - paper bag and laid that also on the window - sill. "Third and final exhibit from dust - bin," he remarked.

Mordan frowned at it. "Just a tradesman's bag," he grumbled, and read out the printed inscription, "Moses Aaron, Fruiterer and Greengrocer, Bear Street, Hoxton. What about it?"

Reggie was raking the rubbish back into the dust - bin. "My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap," he smiled. "Hoxton! Far, far away. All other tradesmen's bags here from the neighbourhood. Why was something brought from Hoxton? What was brought from Hoxton? Crucial questions."

"I got to own it's queer," Mordan said slowly. "But Lord! we can't make anything of it."

"You think not?" Reggie murmured, and raked fast, and, taking a garden broom from the shed, swept the last of the refuse tidily into the dust - bin, set it up again and put on the lid. "Collectin' the exhibits, we will now proceed."

"Exhibits!" Mordan snorted. "A dead cat, a bit o' sawdust in newspaper, empty baccy tin, and a fruiterer's bag!"

"Yes, that is so. Makin' the whole case clear. Nothing more required - except proof."

Mordan guffawed. "Is that all? I believe you. What is the great idea, Mr. Fortune?"

"To get proof. Not easy. However. Come on. You bring the cat." He took the other things himself, and made haste up to Lorna's room. There he sat down on the bed and took breath. "Well, well. That's all right." He looked at his watch. He rose and softly opened the door, which Mordan had shut, and left it open.

"What are you working to?" Mordan complained.

Reggie shook his head and looked reproach. Reggie went to the dressing - table and picked up the doll. "Found her tumbled down, didn't we? Despised and neglected doll. What a shame!" He began to undress her.

"I say! Can't you give me a line, Mr. Fortune?"

"My dear chap! Quite obvious. What are dolls made of?" Mordan swore. "Oh, no. Hush!" Reggie held up a finger.

The street door was being opened. It shut, and after a moment the voice of Mr. Miller was again heard: "Gladys, Gladys! Have the police gentlemen gone?"

"I don't know," Gladys answered. "They went out in the garden and put me in here."

Reggie looked out of the window where the curtains left a gap. After a moment he saw Miller walk down the garden, glance from side to side, approach the first place in which they had dug and go on to the shrubs at the end.

"Watch, Mordan. Very interestin'," he said. He caught up the parcel of the cat and ran downstairs. Gladys stood in the doorway of the drawing - room. "Go out in the garden and call Tiny," he said sharply. "Call her as your mistress did. Go on!"

Gladys shuffled away. Reggie put down on the floor of the hall the parcel, and opened one end of it so that the crushed head of the cat came out. Then he went back to Lorna's room.

Mordan looked over his shoulder. "Here! He's poking round where the cat was buried!" Mordan whispered.

"Fancy that." Reggie smiled.

From the garden came the rattle of a plate and the quavering voice of Gladys. "Tiny! Tiny! Tiny!"

Miller turned with a jerk, hurried away from the cat's grave. They saw his plump face glistening pale. "Shut up," he said furiously. "What - -"

"The doctor told me to," Gladys whined.

Miller stood in front of her, glaring such rage that she cringed and shrank away. Reggie tapped at the window. Miller gave a start, looked up, his face distorted with a passion of fear and hate, and ran into the house.

They heard a stumble, a stifled scream of an oath, and the front door banged.

"Blast it! He's bolted!" Mordan exclaimed, and rushed after him.

"Yes. That is so." Reggie smiled. "He saw Tiny again. Final blow to nerves."

But Mordan was out of hearing - out of the house.

Reggie tucked the doll under his arm, picked up the dust - bin objects, and went downstairs. Having packed the cat's head into the parcel again, he opened the front door. Mordan and the fugitive Miller had vanished. The sedate street was empty but for his own car. He put his collection into it and drove away.

When he came into the room of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department he was not well received.

"Damme, this is a nice mess you've made," Lomas exploded. "Mordan phones he's lost the fellow absolutely. Not a line on him at all. Why the devil did you play this game on your own? I expect you to have some sense of responsibility."

"I have," Reggie said sadly. "Too much. All too much. That's why I'm doing your beastly work for you. And I've done it. No mess. Case now quite clear and complete."

"You mean Miller was concerned with his wife in the murder? I dare say."

"My dear chap! You shouldn't dare. Bad for your reputation. Murder not a duet. Solo by Mr. Miller. Quite simple. Didn't Mordan telephone what we found?"

"He did. He said it was like nightmares. I don't blame him."

"Well, well. Sensitive minds. But not active. Ring the bell. Tell your man to bring in my exhibits."

Upon the floor were spread the doll, the bundle of newspaper, the cigarette tin, the fruiterer's bag, the limp parcel. Lomas gave them a supercilious stare. Reggie opened the parcel, and Lomas recoiled with a gasp of disgust as he saw the cat's crushed head.

"Not nice, no. But primary. That's the kind of man Mr. Miller is. However." He took up the naked doll. "His particular motive may be found here." His penknife slit the stitches along the side of the body. On to Lomas's desk fell a little stream of glittering green jewels, some of them with fragments of gold adhering.

Lomas gave him a look of amazement and pored over them. Reggie joined in the inspection. ..."Emeralds all right, what?" He smiled.

Lomas counted them. "Damme, I believe they're the stones from the Boon emerald cross. The tally's right. You remember that Mayfair burglary?"

"Not me. No. However. Bunch of emeralds. Mr. Miller did business in disposin' of stolen goods. Under cover of respectable commercial travellin'."

"How the devil did you guess they were in the doll?"

"Didn't guess. Rational inference." Reggie opened the newspaper bundle. "From this sawdust. Dry, old sawdust. Obviously from the stuffing of something. There was a doll on the scene. Doll, when undressed, exhibited new stitches, and torso felt nobbly. But you're getting things out of order. Mr. Miller was living the double life quite nicely till his daughter grew up and took to theft: takin' after father, which recoiled on him. His habit was to come back privily and by night and hide things on the blameless suburban premises. He'd got suspicious somebody was wakeful. Mrs. Miller was sent to the doctor to get a drug which would make her sleep. But it was daughter Lorna who watched his little games. She saw him bury these emeralds. She dug and found that cigarette box - see the earth on it - with emeralds inside. May have been in the original setting. If so, she broke 'em out and sold the setting as old gold - same like she sold other things - and hid the emeralds in her doll. Then she got caught shop - lifting, and Miller had letters about it and was naturally scared. There might be a search warrant. His doings might be watched. He came back to the house by night, having his nice little alibi of sleeping at Norwich, and dug for the emeralds. Mrs. Miller was duly asleep after her medinal. But Lorna wasn't. He had trouble with the cat Tiny. No doubt she came to him and started yowling. He couldn't do with noise. He laid her out, the brute. And Lorna was awake and watching from her window. Mr. Miller dug in vain. Emeralds gone. He had to do something about it. He went back to the house and found Lorna bright and ready for him. From what we know of father and daughter, you can take it they both put up a bluff - she'd say the emeralds were where he'd never find 'em; he'd try to get it out of her. They played that game over a cocktail or two - remember her stomach contents - and the cocktail he shook for her had medinal in it. As soon as he'd put her to sleep he searched her room. Remember how everything was tumbled! But he despised the doll. His error. His grave error. The second one."

"What was the first?"

"Oh, my Lomas! Killin' the cat. Disappearance of cat invited attention. Corpse of cat indicated brutality and alarm. However. He did not find the emeralds. That meant daughter Lorna had him cold. She could give him away any time. The end of life for daughter Lorna. He carried her out to the gas - oven. Very neat. Looking just like the suicide of a naughty, neurotic girl, which she was known to be. But he tore her stocking on the door. Third and fatal error. Then he buried the cat and went back to Norwich. There's your case, Lomas. Quite clear."

Lomas sat back. "Oh, quite!" He frowned. "It's very ingenious, Fortune. But why the devil did you let him get away?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap," Reggie sighed. "I didn't let him. I made him. I drove him. Progressively shatterin' his nerve. Necessary action. Previous evidence, inference from exhibits. Requirin' confirmation for a jury. Provided by flight of accused. Finish."

"It gives us a case, yes," Lomas exclaimed. "But it's lost us the man. Not a trace. He's gone into the blue."

"Oh, no. No. One exhibit forgotten. Bag of Mr. Moses Aaron of Hoxton. Why did the Miller household buy fruit in Hoxton? It never did. Bag came from one of Mr. Miller's connections. Probably contained the emeralds. Transferred to cigarette box for burying. Look over the bag. Look up Hoxton." He rose slowly. He gazed down gloomily at Lomas. "Justify your existence. If possible. Good - bye."

Next morning, when he came back from an early, urgent call to a woman who had not appendicitis, he was told that Mr. Lomas had been ringing up. He ate his breakfast. He had come by way of grilled salmon to a mushroom omelette when the telephone rang again. "Fortune speaking," he said bitterly. "What's the matter with you?"

"Thought you'd like to know we've cleared it up," said Lomas.

"Aren't you wonderful?" Reggie's tone was low and reverent.

"Not too bad," said Lomas complacently. "That fruiterer's bag, you know. We found Hooky Smith's fingerprints on it. Hooky's one of our class cracksmen. We always suspected he did the craftsman's work in the Boon emerald robbery, and he generally goes to ground in Hoxton. So we combed the district last night. We haven't got him yet. But we've got Mr. Miller. Picked up in the small hours in the Kingsland Road - dead. Skull smashed in. He was full of drink, and the doctor makes it a running - down case."

"Let him," said Reggie.

"It occurred to me, Miller probably went down there to hide with Hooky and his pals, and they wouldn't stand for it. He'd lost the jewels - or double - crossed 'em - he was wanted for murder. So they made him drunk and did him in. Pushed him under a lorry, what?"

"As you please," Reggie said. "I don't mind."

"Would you like to have a look at him?" 

"I should not. No. I'm busy. Bad case of overeating. What about Mrs. Miller?"

"Poor wretch." Lomas gave a contemptuous, sympathetic laugh. "They've put her in the prison hospital. We're withdrawing the charge against her, of course. She's been told. Didn't seem surprised. Didn't seem to care. Just asked if she could have her knitting, and had Tiny been found. They let her have some wool to knit, and she began to cry over it. They heard her saying to herself, ' Oh, I ought to have done better by them. But I did try. Oh, I did.' Something like that. We can't make anything of it."

"Can't you?" Reggie sighed. "Why, don't you think she's innocent?" 

"Innocent!" 

Reggie's voice rose. "Yes. Yes. Innocent and tortured."

"I agree. Half - wit in the hands of knaves. Well, taking it altogether, this is brilliant work. Fortune. We should never have put it on that scoundrel Miller but for you. And, damme, we should never have got near the emeralds. What?"

"I said 'grrh'." Reggie told him. 

"Meaning it." Lomas chuckled. "Quite. Playing the game for the sake of the game. I know. You would feel that. Well, you've found your line in life now, Fortune."

"You think so?" Reggie said slowly. "I wonder."

"Great game, man - hunting, isn't it?" 

"No," said Reggie. "Not a game. And I wasn't man - hunting. I was working for that woman - savin' what could be saved of her life. So little, my Lord, so little! However. That is my job." He hung up with a clash. He went back to his cat and his pipe, and Cyrus bit him for absence of mind.

THE SWIMMING - POOL

IT WAS THE CASE of the swimming - pool which made the newspapers put Mr. Fortune into headlines. But that is not his only reason for lamentation over the result. He says it was an awful warning.

The late Joseph Colborn made a million or so out of small groceries. His ideas of spending it were old - fashioned. He did not buy a place in society but in the suburbs. Though outer London now stretches far beyond the green ridge of Tootle Heath, on the slopes about that open space some of the houses with which the modest business wealth of last century was content still stand secluded in what are advertised for sale as park - like surroundings half an hour from Piccadilly.

Joe Colborn bought the biggest - Heath Hall, a lump of grey brick with renaissance towers. Whether he made it more hideous by painting it all white has been vainly disputed by the cultured of Tootle. He did nothing else which changed the place, and he died and his nephew Sam Colborn reigned in his stead.

On a sultry afternoon of July, Mr. Fortune drove out to Heath Hall with the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. Others had come before them. They sat and sweltered in a slow procession of cars along a shadeless road. Reggie opened damp eyelids. "Where are we?" he groaned. "Oh, my hat! What a crush! Way to hell, I presume." Crowds he loves little and a crawling car less.

Lomas smiled. "That's the spirit, Reginald."

Their car stopped, and they got out of it into green gloom. The grounds of Heath Hall are encircled by a remnant of the old forest of the London heights, oak and beech. Within that girdle of woodland, the lawns and gardens look as if they were out in the country.

Arch females, giving no change, sold programmes of the delights which, by permission of Samuel Colborn, Esq., Heath Hall offered that afternoon to the philanthropic. The Guild of Grace - President, Her Highness Princess Somebody, who would receive the philanthropists; Chairman, J. Harvey Deal, M.D. - had arranged a tennis fete with the most fashionable foreigners on show. The famous gardens would also be thrown open. Band of the Green Dragoons. Tea. Buffet.

With enquiring eyes Reggie followed Lomas from the shade of the old trees through which a brown brook flowed to the blaze of the gardens. "Not so bad, what?" Lomas encouraged him.

"Like dining with grandfather," Reggie answered. "He had to have everything."

Heath Hall had a craggy range of rock garden and a Dutch garden and an Italian rose garden and what its maker might have meant for a Japanese garden, and arbours and pergolas and statues spattered among them, and, farther on, borders of lilies and perennials led up to carpet bedding and beds of geraniums and calceolarias.

"'Let me face the whole of it,'" Reggie sighed, "'fare like my peers, the heroes of old.' Yes. There's dahlias. I felt he'd grow dahlias. Now we know the worst."

Resolutely he marched Lomas round the windings of the path which led to the lawn in the shade of the white house. Her Highness the Princess Whatnot, a Mongolian face above a girlish frock, was receiving the charitable guests with the help of a dapper, officious man. "Is that Deal or Colborn?" Lomas whispered.

"Oh, my dear chap! Observe that ingratiatin' manner. Dr. J. Harvey Deal, the eminent physician."

As they approached, Dr. Deal came out of his bowing and smiling with a jerk of attention, then he glanced behind him, but had a smile ready for them by the time Lomas was taking the Princess's hand.

"One of our busiest men, ma'am," he explained. "Mr. Lomas is responsible for the public safety." The Princess said something guttural, and Dr. Deal's urbane voice flowed on: "My dear sir, it's most kind of you to spare an hour for us. Believe me, we do appreciate that. I know what the sacrifice is to a man under such stress of duties. But really it is of the greatest value that someone of your eminence should show his interest in our little work."

Lomas laughed. "I hope it may be. I have been interested in your work, Dr. Deal."

"So good of you. I do think the Guild is doing great things." Dr. Deal side - stepped to explain to the Princess that Mr. Fortune was one of the most brilliant of the younger men in the profession. "Will it be surgery or this - er - criminal work. Fortune? A fine future in either, I am sure. So glad to have you here. Do you know Colborn, Mr. Lomas?" He looked behind him again. He beckoned to a slouching young man with a sullen, bony face and a shock of red hair. "Really rather a noble fellow." He lowered his voice confidentially. "Takes his great fortune as a duty."

Reggie slid away, remarking to himself: "'The carpenter said nothing but: The butter's spread too thick.'" He sat down in the shade of a cedar and watched the conversation of Lomas with Deal and Colborn. . . . Colborn was sulky and fidgety. . . . Other people took chairs near Reggie, and he got into talk with them, about the gardens, about Colborn, about his deceased uncle. ... It appeared that uncle had been popular in Tootle, the most genial, the most hospitable of men, till he had that dreadful illness. . . . Tootle had not made up its mind about the nephew: nobody knew him, he wouldn't go anywhere; never opened the house; didn't seem to have found himself - of course he'd been as poor as a church mouse till his uncle's death. This gossip faded out into looks of silent mysterious meaning. . . .

Colborn had escaped from the triple conversation. Dr. Deal was conducting Lomas on a tour. Reggie wandered away, avoided with a shudder the tennis - courts on which the foreign champions were bounding - he objects to modern tennis as a ballet without art - and also Colborn was not stopping there. He made a circuit round the spectators; he vanished.

Taking the same direction, Reggie arrived at the stream which flowed from the wood through the lower level of the laboured gardens in a comparatively natural condition. Willows shaded it; white crowfoot rose from the water above swaying green ribands of vallisneria; the banks were spangled with the gold of St. John's wort.

The sound of talk made him stop; a man's voice sulky, a woman's cajoling: "It's all right, Ann. What's the odds?"

"Oh, silly! Such a funk!"

"Not funking. I've done my stuff."

"But you haven't. You must show."

"Dam' all!"

"Me too?"

"You minx!" - sounds which were not of talk, movement, a rustle of clothes, a gasp - "Oh, Sam, you bear!"

Reggie stood on a piece of dead wood, made a crack, and, after a pause of discretion, moved on. He saw Sam Colborn, red of face, departing quickly with a small, dark woman. She had a buxom shape; she had a chin; her walk declared assurance. "Bear has a leader," Reggie was thinking, when he saw them come upon another woman.

She did not go well with Ann. Slim and severe in grey silk coat and skirt, which looked like mourning against Ann's abundant apple green; she wore a bob of golden hair, and the tired, pretty face had a complexion so fair that against Ann's bright colour it seemed marble white.

"Hallo! Fancy meeting you," said Colborn, with no pretence of pleasure.

Ann did much better. "My dear! How jolly! I haven't seen you for donkey's years. What's the best with you? Come along and have tea and talky."

"Thanks very much, Miss Deal" - the answering voice had no expression - "I can't stay."

"Oh, come on, nurse," Colborn growled.

"No, thank you, Mr. Colborn. I only came to look at the place again. Dear place, isn't it? I must go."

"All right. Sorry. See you again some time." Colborn marched on.

"But of course we shall." Ann laughed. "All the best!" She waved a jaunty farewell and followed him.

The woman in grey stood still for a moment, using her handkerchief, then went on along the stream. Though Ann hung possessive on his arm, Colborn looked back at her. She vanished into the dark of some aged yew - trees.

Reggie strolled that way too. Beyond the yews the stream broadened to make a swimming - pool from which the overflow splashed down a cascade among ferns into the encircling woodland again. The woman stood on the bank looking up at the gardens and the white house, and her pretty face was miserable. As Reggie appeared she turned and hurried into the wood. He saw her go like a grey ghost through the shade to a gate in the palings and let herself out.

"Well, well," he murmured, and wandered round the pool. It had been elaborately made, with concrete bed and spring - board and diving - stage. It was ill - cared for. On the concrete, greenish slime was thick; through cracks in it weeds grew, and in the glittering yellow water floated scum and leaves and petals. The space within the close boughs of the old yews had been fashioned into two dressing - places, but the seats were dirty and lichened.

"Not swimmers, the Colborns, dead or livin'," Reggie reflected. "Prehistoric trees." He was guessing their age over a twisted hollow trunk when he heard brisk footsteps, and turned to see the living Colborn.

"Hallo!" Colborn looked impatient hostility. "I say, your Mr. Lomas is getting peeved with you. He wants to go."

"Fancy that," Reggie drawled. "Wonder why?"

"Bored stiff, by the looks of him. You don't seem to be leading the revels yourself."

"Not revellin', no. But very interested, thanks."

"You're easy pleased."

"Yes. A simple mind. Yes. Lead me to him."

"He's up there." Colborn jerked his head towards the house.

"Thanks very much." Reggie strolled away and left him.

Lomas was found on the outskirts of the tennis crowd with Dr. Harvey Deal. "What, Reginald, you have to go?" He cut through Deal's flow of talk. "Of course. A most interesting afternoon, Dr. Deal. Good - bye. Well, au revoir."

Deal went with them a little way, gushing still. They left him, and proceeded to their car in silence.

"Quite interesting, yes," Reggie murmured, as they drove away. "Did you send the living Colborn to fetch me? No, I thought you didn't. But he said so."

"The deuce he did! Why?"

"Because I was where he didn't want me. Which was by a decayed swimmin' - pool."

"What has that to do with anything?" Lomas frowned.

"Difficult question. The provisional hypothesis is that he wanted somebody else there." Reggie described the proceedings of Colborn with the two women.

Lomas gave a coarse chuckle. "Caught by Deal's daughter, is he? Suggestive. And with another girl on his hands. That may be very useful."

"How happy could he be with either were t'other dear charmer away! Yes. You have a low mind. However. He called the unknown 'nurse.'"

"What did she look like? Children's nurse?"

"My dear chap!" Reggie moaned. "I don't know. People don't look like anything. She didn't nurse Colborn's innocent childhood. Or Ann Deal's. Too young. And they both knew her well. I should say she was a hospital nurse. Might have nursed the deceased uncle."

"Good gad!" said Lomas. "Devilish suggestive."

"Yes, it could be. What did you do in the Great War, daddy?"

"You saw the reactions, didn't you? Deal was rattled, badly rattled. And Colborn couldn't be civil. Colborn fled and Deal kept at me with stories of what fine fellows old Colborn and young Colborn were, and how they loved each other and how old Colborn suffered and what a hopeless case it was - and then young Colborn hustled us off the premises. Not bad stuff, Reginald. Better than I expected. But it's generally a sound move to break in on people and shake 'em up over this sort of case. Now we have to consider the next move."

"Oh, no. No. I want my tea." Reggie was plaintive. "I haven't had any tea, Lomas." He leaned forward and told the chauffeur to stop at his house in Wimpole Street.

Behold him recumbent there, eating a compilation of cream and quince jelly, while Lomas stood before the pots of lilies which filled the fireplace and lectured.

"Now what have we really got? Old Colborn died six months ago, and Deal certified that the cause of death was cancer of the stomach. Colborn left nearly a million: the bulk of it to this nephew Samuel; 5,000 pounds to Deal, and 1,000 pounds to his devoted nurse, Sybil Benan. Will made shortly before death. Two weeks ago the Tootle police received this anonymous letter telling 'em that Mr. Joseph Colborn would be alive now if he had been properly treated, and suggesting he was poisoned. Letter in printed letters on common paper, posted in Tootle. Of course we often get that sort of thing when a wealthy man dies. The divisional inspector reported local scandal over old Colborn changing from the local doctor to Harvey Deal. Well, we've had rumours about Deal before. And you confirmed them."

"No. I wouldn't say that. I told you Deal had a sort of name for passing people out quiet and easy. Nothing more."

"Quite. Nothing definite. But it was also confirmed by the Tootle doctor. He said he'd advised Colborn that an operation would be necessary and wanted to take him to a surgeon; and Colborn went to Deal on his own, and Deal advised against operation. All wrong, what?"

"Oh, yes. Yes. Bad choice. Bad opinion. But fashionable. Patients will go after a doctor known to keep 'em off the operatin' - table. Not a criminal offence to do so. However convenient to impatient heirs."

"Exactly." Lomas frowned. "But now we add to all that the alarm of Deal and young Colborn at our interest in 'em - and the connection of Deal's daughter with young Colborn. Very fishy, all this fresh stuff."

"As you say." Reggie spoke through a mouthful of eclair. "And more. Connection with hypothetical nurse."

"Quite. More than fishy. But I don't see my way. Would you like to exhume old Colborn's body and try your luck?"

"I might, yes," Reggie said slowly. "For the good of Dr. Deal - his soul, if any. And our Mr. Colborn's. But don't expect much. Probably old Colborn had cancer. If so, probably kept under morphia at the last. I should find all that. And you'd be just where you began. Unless I got a lot of morphia. Even then!"

Lomas nodded. "Very difficult. Looks like a murder by calculated neglect. The worst kind to prove."

"Bafflin'. Yes. However. There are other possibilities."

"What are you thinking of?"

"My dear chap! Two obvious possibilities. Find the nurse, Sybil Benan - the thousand - pound nurse. Look after the living Colborn. Put a man or two on his place. I could bear to know who goes there."

Lomas nodded again. "I agree. We must put the nurse through it."

"Yes. That is indicated. But don't forget our Mr. Colborn and that gate by the defunct swimming - pool."

When Reggie talks of the case now he is apt to speculate what would have happened if he had not given this advice. Though it determined the issue, though it was wholly sound, he insists that he gave it expecting quite different consequences. Which is one part of the proof of his incapacity to be a good policeman. The other is that he stayed by the swimming - pool.

On the evening of the next day he was warned to attend the exhumation of old Colborn's body, and groaned into the telephone: "Hasty, aren't you? What about the nurse?"

"The nurse can't be found," said Lomas. "Hence the haste."

"Well, well. You may be right. Have you told Dr. Deal of your fell design?"

"I sent Bell round to him. He didn't give anything away. Said he must go on record as protesting we had no justification, and investigation by a competent medical man must confirm his death certificate. He asked who would do the post - mortem, and said he had complete confidence in you and did not desire to be present."

"Very kind; very gratifyin'," Reggie murmured.

"Sure of himself, isn't he?"

"Yes. He knows the game. What about the nurse?"

"Not at home. Not been at home since yesterday, as far as known. Lived in a one - room flat in Marylebone. Don't seem to have slept there last night Said nothing about going away."

"Last night!" Reggie murmured. "Oh, my Lord." It was from this moment he became aware that he should not have stayed by the swimming - pool. "Find her good and quick."

"We try to please," said Lomas.

"And the living Colborn?"

"Out in his car. Not informed yet."

In the dew of next morning Reggie watched the exhumation of Joseph Colborn. The day he spent working upon the corpse. That evening he came into Lomas's room, pale and plaintive. He let himself down into the biggest chair; silently he stretched out a hand to the larger cigar box.

"I thank you." He blew smoke through his nose. "Yes. A warm day. 'What have I done for thee, England, my England? What is there I would not do, England my own?' I wonder. However. Speakin' broadly, I've done this job. As stated. As expected. The late Joseph Colborn was full of cancer. Early operation might have postponed death. But he was seventy plus. Not likely he'd have lived long or happy. I shouldn't like to swear it was wrong not to operate."

"Damme," Lomas exclaimed, " that lets Deal out altogether. That leaves us with no case at all. It's natural death."

"Not a good case. But I should say he didn't die natural. Sharp colour - results to the morphine tests. Must have been quite a lot of morphia in him. Too much morphia, Lomas. Only I can't prove it. After all this time. We didn't get goin' soon enough. We never do."

"My dear fellow, we can't detect a criminal before we know there's been a crime."

"That's what I complain of. Essential futility of police work."

"Not at all." Lomas was annoyed. "The effect of your work is to show that no crime has been committed."

"Oh, no. No. Effect is to leave us where we began. As expected. With suspicion the old man was poisoned."

"I don't accept that. You show Deal was honest about the cause of death, and probably honest in his treatment. He advised against operation because it was just a desperate chance for an old man. You admit that you daren't say he was wrong. At the worst, then, he made a sympathetic error of judgment."

Reggie sat up. "Sympathetic error? Yes. It could be. By itself. And the morphia. Lomas? Another sympathetic error. Old man in horrid, hopeless pain. An overdose of morphia. Yes. It's done."

"So I've heard," said Lomas drily. "Wouldn't you do it yourself?"

"An overdose? Not me, no. But I'm not sympathetic."

Lomas looked curiously at his round face, which was drawn into an expression of cold, puzzled anger. "I shouldn't like to have you out for my blood, Reginald," he said. "Well, there it is. You can't get Deal. No case."

Reggie started. "What? Wasn't trying for Deal's blood," he snapped. "Trying for the truth. That's my job. What about the nurse?"

"Not come home. Not found."

"Oh, my hat!" Reggie sank back and gazed at him with large reproachful eyes. "What are you for, Lomas?"

"My dear fellow," Lomas laughed. "Sorry I don't give satisfaction. There's nothing very unusual in a young woman going off privately. And we have evidence there's the usual man in the case. The night before last a man was seen coming out of her flat."

"Night before last. That's just after we called on the livin' Colborn."

"Quite so. But Colborn hasn't gone. He's at home still. When he isn't buzzing about with Ann Deal. By the way, he blew up over the exhumation. Game down here and cursed at large, Bell says."

"And the nurse is missing," Reggie murmured. "Just after we begin to take an interest in the case. And you say it's over. Well, well. Why are policemen?"

"The case is over," said Lomas. "You've finished it. What could we ask the nurse if we found her? What could she say? If she swore Deal poisoned the old man, nobody would believe her against your evidence."

"No. I'm very useful. I excuse you for doing nothing." Reggie dragged himself up and looked down at Lomas with weary dislike. "My only aunt! How I hate you," he mumbled, and wandered out.

When he discusses his conduct of the case now, he will remark that this was the first point at which he showed some faint intelligence: inadequate, futile, but, so far as it went, sound. He did perceive that something else had happened, would happen, or ought to happen. What it should be, he had not the slightest idea: because, as he always maintains earnestly, he is without imagination.

Late that evening he rang up Lomas. "Fortune speaking. The mind is almost impotent. But conscience has been invigorated by beef and burgundy. Have you got into the vanished nurse's flat?"

"Good gad! No, of course not. We can't break in. No sort of justification. There never was, and now less than any. What?"

"I said the Lord have mercy on your soul. Which I don't expect. The only evidence she's not there is: she didn't answer when you rang, and a man was seen coming out. Not any evidence."

"What's in your mind?"

"Nothing. Mind is vacant. Is anybody watchin' the Colborn demesne?"

"Damme, yes, they're still on that," Lomas chuckled. "I forgot to cancel the orders."

"Well, well. Mr. Lomas - his defence on the Day of Judgment: ' I never did anything without justification. But, please, I did sometimes forget.'"

"Oh, go to bed," said Lomas, and rang off.

Reggie was still in bed next morning, still asleep, when Superintendent Bell rang him up. Reggie squirmed and blinked, and took the receiver and complained.

"Sorry, sir," said the telephone. "But this is big stuff, and right up your street. Can you meet me at St. Alban's mortuary in half an hour?"

"No. I eat when I get up. I also wash. I will now do so. Go away."

"I can give you - -"

"You cannot," Reggie snapped, and rang off and rolled out of bed.

Under pressure, however, he will dress and even eat fast. In less than an hour his car slowed to stop at the squalid precincts of the mortuary. Bell stood in the courtyard, smoking a pipe. "I'd better give you the outline first, Mr. Fortune. There's a dead end to the gates of a little factory just a bit beyond here. This morning, round about six o'clock, some chaps came along to open up the place, and they saw an old brown canvas trunk lying in the roadway where the dead end opens off the main street. Like as if it had fallen off a cab or a car or a van, you see. They told a constable, and it was brought along to the station as lost property. Then the sergeant noticed it was broke a bit, as might be by a fall, and he had a look through the hole and saw a foot inside - a bare foot. So they opened it, and found inside a woman's body without a head. That's what we're up against. I leave it to you."

"Yes. You do," said Reggie bitterly. "Any news of the vanished nurse?"

"There is not." Bell gave him a stolid stare.

"No. There wouldn't be. Ring up Mr. Lomas. Give him my love, and remind him he told me to go to bed last night." Reggie passed into the mortuary.

The headless body was naked: a young body. Not only at the red neck had there been violence. The right knee was wounded. Elsewhere the flesh was livid white. Reggie inspected it inch by inch, and collected from it yellow flakes, fragments of green leaf. . . . The hands interested him. The palms were dirty with brown slime in the lines, the nails too . . .

Late in the afternoon he entered Lomas's room and found Bell there also, and subsided into the easiest chair and gazed at them plaintively. "Well, well. Concentration of the higher intelligence. On the fundamental, painful question. Why are policemen?"

"What are you going to tell me?" said Lomas briskly.

'* My dear chap. No answer yet discovered. Your existence seems wholly futile. However. I went to bed. As instructed. I take it you went to bed. Nothing attempted, nothing done, had earned a night's repose. While the corpse was prepared for us. Quite a young corpse, this one. No sympathetic error of judgment. Woman was drowned. Blonde woman, under thirty. Subsequent to death, head detached by an efficient knife. Some cutting operation also performed on right knee."

"After death?" Lomas asked. 

"Oh, yes. Very dead when performed. Small effusion of blood."

"Why should her knee be cut about?" 

"Not havin' known the lady, I can't say. Probably to remove something about the knee which would help us to know her. She may have had a cartilage removed in life. She has now."

"Quite good, Reginald. That fits very well."

"What with?" Reggie opened round innocent eyes. 

"Why, with the removal of the head. That was cut off to prevent identification."

"Oh, my Lomas! You do think of things! What a mind! When used. Yes, I should say there was an idea of concealin' identity. Some other little points. Petals of St. John's wort adherin' to body. Also scraps of water - weed. And muddy slime about the hands. Suggestin' she was drowned in stream or pond. Curious and interestin" suggestion."

"It is, begad!" Lomas exclaimed. "Water - weeds on her body! That suggests she was put into the water naked."

Not necessarily, no. Submerged for some time in pond, she would get its odds and ends under her clothes. Common feature of drownin' cases. You miss the point. What is particularly interestin' is the St. John's wort. Don't grow much round London except in gardens. The suggestion is therefore that she was drowned in a garden pond: rather dirty pond for a garden; same like our Mr. Colborn's swimming - pool."

"Good gad!" said Lomas.

"Yes. I told you to watch it. And you forgot to stop 'em watchin'. Stroke of genius by Mr. Lomas. Any result?"

"There is." The smile of Lomas was unamiable. "Not only that back door by the pond, but every gate to Colborn's grounds has been watched. They were still watched last night - while this body was being dumped in the street. You'll be glad to hear, Reginald, that the result is to clear Sam Colborn of suspicion." Bell coughed. "What's the matter with you?"

"I wouldn't put it so high myself," said Bell.

"As regards this woman being drowned in his swimming - pool, he is cleared," Lomas insisted. "He ought to be very grateful to you, Reginald."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured.

"Since his place has been under observation, no woman except Ann Deal and a servant or two has gone in by any gate. Last night he drove out alone, in evening dress, just after seven; no luggage on his car. Came back about one a.m., quite normal. Apart from his running round with the Deal girl, nothing particular has been noticed at all."

"Ah, I don't know as I'd say that, sir," Bell objected again.

"And what would you say?" Reggie turned to him. "It's like this, sir," Bell gave Lomas a respectful, apologetic look, and Lomas replied by an ejaculation of contempt. "Our man on that back gate last night saw a fellow loitering about the heath close by with a bag, pretty much like you do see men loitering with intent; might have been going to crack the house or only just rob the garden - there is a good deal o' that round these big gardens in the suburbs. Mr. Lomas thinks it was a job of that sort, nor I shouldn't have any doubt either, in the ordinary way. Well, our man went after the fellow, lost sight of him - no wonder, dodging round on that heath in the dark - went back to the gate, nipped into the grounds, and did a bit o' search; couldn't see anybody, got back to the gate, and had a snap o' the fellow cutting away."

"Still with bag?" Reggie murmured. "That's right. And that's all. I'd agree with Mr. Lomas, it's the reg'lar stuff, burglar, or sneak thief scared off, only for all this business behind."

"As you say. Yes. Ordinary in the middle of the extraordinary compels suspicion. For the soul is dead that slumbers. And things are not what they seem. You hadn't noticed that, Lomas. Any description of man and bag?"

"Not much good." Bell shook his head. "Slouched hat, long, dark coat, about middle size, quick mover. Squarish, fattish sort o' bag. We ought to have - had more, but playing hide - and - seek in the dark you don't often get much of a chance. I don't blame our man, Mr. Fortune."

"Oh, no. No. I think he did very well. So Mr. Lomas will now give humble and hearty thanks he forgot to remove the watch on the gate by the pool. Our one bright effort, so far. Genius." Reggie gazed at Lomas with eyes of dreamy wonder. "I wish I knew when to forget. Just genius."

"Always happy to amuse you, Reginald," said Lomas sharply. "Even when I don't see the joke."

"My dear chap!" Reggie was affectionate. "Spoke very handsome."

"But I happen to think this gives us nothing relevant. It's a thousand to one the loitering fellow with the bag was a common thief. Suppose he wasn't, the evidence about him is of no use. There's not a hint of an identification. A middle - sized man who moved quick! Of course that would fit Colborn or Deal. And it would fit millions of other men just as well."

"Oh, yes. That is so. Remains the strikin' fact that a man who might have been Colborn or Deal was pokin' round the Colborn swimmin' - pool, privily and by stealth, with fattish bag, on the night when the body of a young woman, apparently drowned in pool, was dumped on us without a head."

"You think it was her head in his bag?" Bell grunted and nodded.

"It could be. Yes. One of the possibilities. Rather probable possibility."

"What are you suggesting?" Lomas demanded, with some vehemence. "Do you mean the woman was drowned in that swimming - pool last night, and then the head was cut off and removed by this man while the body was carted away in the trunk? Is it likely?"

"No. It is not. And it didn't happen. She was drowned some time ago. Day or two ago. That's one of our few certainties."

"Very well." Lomas laughed unpleasantly. "You're getting more and more muddled, Reginald. You say it's days since she was drowned and she was drowned in that pool. But the place - has been watched day and night, ever since we were at the garden - party, and no strange woman has gone in. Yet you ask me to believe that her body was taken away from it unobserved last night, while a man was observed removing her head. The whole thing is preposterous."

"As you say. Yes. But what you say isn't what I said; it isn't the whole thing, and parts of it aren't anything. I said she was drowned days ago, and there were indications of her being drowned in such water as that of Colborn's decayed swimming - pool. Not proof. Couldn't be proof. Only curious and interestin' indications. Uncomfortable, but irresistible." He looked at Lomas with large, plaintive eyes. "I don't like it. But we have to fit 'em in. You said the place had been watched since the garden - party. That isn't true. There was a gap. Watch began next day. Thus leavin' one clear night. At the garden - party people were meetin' round about the pool - Colborn, Ann Deal, unknown young woman called nurse. The same night a man came out of Nurse Benan's flat. But since that day she's sunk without trace - and now we've found a young woman's headless body and we've missed a man with a fattish bag. That's the whole thing, Lomas. Not preposterous. Ghastly. And futile. Why are policemen?"

Lomas sat silent, frowning. Then he exclaimed: "You are the man in the street, Reginald. Blame the police, whatever happens."

"Oh, yes. Yes. The natural man. I am. With a reasoned faith in the permanent inefficiency of all officials. Faith justified by works."

"You talk about reason!" Lomas said, with ferocity. "Do you suppose you've given me a reasonable theory of the case?"

"No. I haven't. Materials inadequate. That's what I complain of. We're futile."

"Speak for yourself. You're as futile as a cheap newspaper, cursing at large because we can do nothing without evidence."

"Oh, my Lomas!" Reggie reproached him. "A woman's been murdered. Had you noticed that? I'm cursin' because we didn't stop it."

"How the devil could we?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! We didn't try. However. Study to improve. The first - felt want is somebody who knew the departed Nurse Sybil Benan."

"That's right," Bell agreed heartily.

"Certainly," said Lomas. "But suppose the body can be identified as hers, which isn't too likely, where are we, Reginald? Neither young Colborn nor Deal had any reason for making away with her. She wasn't dangerous to them. Your own evidence is that old Colborn wasn't murdered."

"Oh, no. I said I couldn't prove he was. But the nurse might have been able to swear to it. And there is another reason possible for the elimination of Nurse Benan, if she was the nurse who met our Mr. Colborn and Aim Deal by the pool. That young woman didn't like seeing 'em together. He didn't like her being there. Indications of uneasiness and jealousy strongly marked."

"You mean the nurse had an affair with Sam Colborn before he took up with Miss Deal," said Bell eagerly. "Ah, that's saying something. That puts it on the usual lines of a trunk murder - man getting rid of the woman he didn't want any more. Crime of passion."

"Yes. I should say there was passion about," Reggie murmured.

"Quite. We can assume that," Lomas nodded. "But how far can you go towards identifying the body in the trunk with the woman you saw by the pool?"

"Same sort of age, same sort of figure, same sort of fair skin. That's all."

"Doesn't amount to anything," Lomas said, with contempt.

"No. It doesn't. By itself. But it's quite a lot to work on. Only you won't do any work. I told you to search Nurse Benan's flat days ago. You wouldn't. You were very correct. Feelin' correct still, Lomas?"

"I still prefer not to act without justification," Lomas told him. "Of course the case is altered now."

"Yes. It is. Woman's been murdered. But we've - been quite correct. Grateful and comfortin' reflection. Have you got your blessed search - warrant?"

"Don't worry."

"Worry!" Reggie's voice rose, and he stared with round eyes. "Oh, my Lord! I want to see the place quick."

"If you like," Lomas shrugged. "Take him along, Bell."

"What celerity! But I want more. I want young Colborn asked if he saw Nurse Benan by the swimming - pool at his party. Question one. And when he saw her last. Question two. Turnin' to our eminent physician, Dr. Harvey Deal. Ask him what hospital Nurse Benan was trained at. Question one. If she'd ever had trouble with her right knee. Question two. And when he saw her last. Question three. Then you can get on to the hospital for description and identification."

"Thank you. I had thought of it," said Lomas acidly.

"Well, well," Reggie's voice was soft. "Fancy that! And you will still forget to remove the men watching Colborn's place, won't you?"

"What?" Lomas exclaimed.

"My only aunt!" Reggie moaned. "You would have removed 'em!"

"Of course I shouldn't," Lomas snapped. "Not now."

"Bless you for those kind words," Reggie smiled sadly. "Come on, Bell."

The block of one - room flats to which they came was in a back street of Marylebone. Bell instructed him that nothing was known against the place - most respectable - built for working women - pretty well all of 'em nurses and doctors' secretaries and that sort of thing, with jobs in the medical quarter close by - but you couldn't say it was fishy in itself a man should have been seen coming out of Nurse Benan's flat. No rule against it; not even a custom. Only, nobody would be allowed to stay on who didn't behave decent.

"No. I'm sure she did," Reggie murmured. "However. There was a man."

Bell's assistant, Sergeant Underwood, had no difficulty in opening Nurse Benan's door. They passed from a tiny hall into a bed - sitting - room, the blinds of which were down. When Underwood let the daylight in, they saw a bed draped to look like a divan, a bureau writing - desk, and other cheap, good furniture all in order. Reggie gave a glance round and went on into the bathroom. That also had been left neat and spotless. The towels had been used, but were dry and clean. He opened the white mirrored cupboard, and found in it comb and hairbrush.

Bell joined him. "Hallo! Left them behind. That don't look like she meant to leave home."

"No. Unintentional absence is indicated. She didn't take her toothbrush. Or her sponge." Reggie frowned at the hairbrush and drew out some yellow hairs.

"What about them, sir?" Bell asked. "Are they the right colour for the woman young Colborn called nurse?"

"Oh, yes. Just about. Also for the woman without a head." Holding them in the palm of his hand, he continued to frown at them.

"Bobbed yellow hair, eh?" Bell said.

"That is so. Yes. Woman called nurse was bobbed. I wonder." He put them away in an envelope. "Hair to match. Collect the brush too. And what has our young friend Underwood found?" He returned to the bed - sitting - room.

"Seems to have left a good lot of clothes, sir," Underwood told him. "And a couple of suitcases. No sign of having taken anything."

"Found a grey silk coat and skirt?"

"No, sir. Nothing like it. Why?"

"That's what the nurse by the swimming - pool was wearing." Reggie wandered round the room. Bell sat down to the bureau and began to go through drawers and pigeon - holes. "Hallo! Here's her hospital," he announced." She was trained at St. Bede's. Some letters too. Patients and relatives, and one from Dr. Harvey Deal, thanking her for work in a very difficult case."

Reggie glanced round. "I wonder," he murmured. "Date?"

"May twelvemonth, sir."

"Well, well. Wonder if that patient also died. However."

"My oath!" Bell muttered, and searched on fiercely. "Nothing else to signify, sir. Nothing from young Mr. Colborn." Reggie sat down at the bureau, turned over the letters, looked at the blotting - pad beneath. The blotting - paper had been little used and some writing was clear upon it. He started up and took it to the bathroom and held it to the mirror. "S. Colb . . . Heath . . . Toot..." appeared from a corner and in the middle. "Dear . . . must speak . . . meet . . . fete ...if... can't . . . come . . . swim . . . my dear ... can't. . . Syb . . ."

Reggie looked back into Bell's grim face at his shoulder. "Nothing from our Mr. Colborn. No. Something to him though," he said.

"Here, we'll have to get this photographed," Bell growled. "That might give us the whole letter."

"Yes. Possible. However. We know what the letter was meant to say. That's enough to put up to our Mr. Colborn. Come on."

They came back to Lomas and showed him the blotting - paper and turned it over to the photographers.

"Good work, Reginald," Lomas smiled. "You are getting us somewhere now."

"Not me. No." Reggie shook his head. "Only doin' the obvious and findin' the always probable results. And we're not anywhere. What have you done?"

"I have the answers to your little questions. Young Colborn admits that he did see Nurse Benan down by the pool at his party, and says he's never seen her since. Deal says she was trained at St. Bede's and he knows nothing of any knee trouble, and he hasn't seen her for months. The hospital says she was twenty - eight, blonde, blue eyes, about five foot six and nine stone, and she had a cartilage removed from her right knee while on the staff. That tallies with the body in the trunk, what? And I take it the wound on the knee was inflicted to obliterate the scar."

"Yes. That is the obvious inevitable inference," Reggie said slowly. "Body about right. Not a nice case, Lomas."

"It is not. This won't do for an identification, however sure you feel."

"I said so," Reggie complained. "However, we will now ask Dr. Harvey Deal and our Mr. Colborn to give us their opinion of the remains. Have 'em brought along to the mortuary."

"Damme, you don't expect them to identify a headless body? They'd be crazy."

"Don't expect anything. I haven't expected anything that's yet happened. My error. My gross error. No imagination. I ought to have followed that nurse at the fete. However. I can take pains. I'll try everything. Bring 'em along. It'll shake 'em up. And we might have reactions."

"I agree." Lomas nodded. "Quite justified." And Reggie made a sorrowful noise at him.

In the mortuary, the headless body lay covered by a sheet, a dim shape under the twilight. Bell brought in Dr. Harvey Deal, who was talking fast: it must be understood that he protested; he could not possibly identify a mutilated body as Nurse Benan even if it was she; he had never been her medical attendant; he - - 

Reggie came forward from the shadow with a sharp interruption. "Switch on the lights, Bell," and as he spoke he drew back the sheet. The body and its wounds gleamed stark.

Deal stood still. "Really, Fortune," he gasped.

"Look at her," said Reggie.

Deal approached the body with mincing steps, and made a perfunctory examination and swallowed and turned away. "I can only tell you that I am quite unable to give an opinion."

"You're not doin' yourself justice," Reggie told him. "I ask you if you see any reason why that could not be Nurse Benan."

Deal hesitated. "It - it is a question to which I should answer No, with every possible reservation. I see nothing definitely incompatible. But you must be aware, Fortune, that is very, very far from evidence of identity."

"I am. Yes. What about the decapitation?"

"Brutal," Deal exclaimed.

"Oh yes. Yes. Would you say it was done with skill?" 

"I - I - had not considered," Deal stammered. "You know very well it's not a matter on which I should care to claim the authority of an expert."

"No. But you can give an ordinary medical opinion."

"If you ask me - but it's quite out of order, Fortune - I should have thought there was very little skill."

"And the wound on the knee?" 

"I can't understand that at all," Deal said in a hurry.

"Very well. Thank you. Good night."

"I must be allowed to say, Fortune, that I do consider this most unnecessary and unjustified."

"You think so?" Reggie murmured. "Good - bye." He nodded at Bell and Deal was led out, and a moment later Sam Colborn was brought in.

He came with a swagger but, like Deal, stopped short when he saw the naked, headless body. He growled something profane, then broke out:

"Expect me to identify that? I told you I couldn't. It's a blasted outrage, whoever she is, bringing a fellow in to stare at her. And Nurse Benan, I never saw her, except like everybody else."

"Could it be Nurse Benan?" Reggie asked.

"I don't know, damn you. I can't tell what she'd look like, like that. I don't believe she's dead, if you ask me."

"Why?"

Colborn scowled at him. "She wasn't the sort to get herself lolled."

"Oh. Compliment?"

"Yes, it is. She knew her way about."

"You think so? She seems to have lost her way. She's vanished, Mr. Colborn. Unless she's on the table there."

"I don't believe it."

"Well, well." Reggie sighed, and went to the door and called Underwood, who brought him a portfolio. "Thank you." Reggie turned. "Mr. Colborn, have you had a letter from Nurse Benan lately?"

"No, I have not." Colborn was truculent.

"Really? You were surprised to see her at your garden - party?"

"I didn't expect to see her, if that's what you mean. No reason why she shouldn't come."

"You weren't pleased, were you?"

"Oh, I know you were eavesdropping. You think you got on to a bit of scandal, do you? Well, you're wrong."

"I said nothing about scandal. Do you recognise that writing?" Reggie handed him a photograph of the writing on the blotting - pad. Some more words had come out, and now it read: "Dear Mr. Sam . . . must speak . . . meet . . . fete ... if we can't, do come . . . by the swim . . . where . . . you know . . . my dear . . . can't, can't. . . Sybil."

Colborn flushed as he read, and he crushed the photograph in his hands and looked up at Reggie with a glare in his greenish eyes. "It's a fake! It's a damned fake!" he roared. 

"Oh, no. Written in Nurse Benan's room. Blotted on her blotting - pad. Any explanation?"

"I never had it. I never saw the thing."

"Had she any claim on you to account" - Reggie paused and directed his eyes to the body - " to account for her writing you that letter?"

Colborn turned his back on the body. "No, she hadn't. Nothing."

"Letter's a surprise to you?"

"I say it's a fake! That's all I'm going to say."

"Do you deny the writing is Nurse Benan's?"

Colborn scowled at him, and decided to say, "I don't know her writing."

"Oh. Good night," said Reggie.

Colborn stood a moment staring at him, then made off without a word. "Well, well," Reggie murmured. "The end of a perfect day." He drew the sheet over the body, and his round face was pale and miserable. He went out, switching off the lights.

Bell was at the telephone, reporting to Lomas. Underwood whispered: "Both of 'em being trailed, sir. That's fixed up all right."

"Yes. Day after the fair. Several days. However. The mind is empty, Underwood. Oh, my Lord - empty!"

Bell turned from the telephone. "Mr. Lomas would like to speak to you, sir."

"Bless him," Reggie groaned, and took the receiver. "Hallo! Yes. Deal did shy at admitting there was any evidence of skill in removal of head and incision on knee. And there isn't. Not exactly. Operations not performed as a medical man should. On the other hand, they're not crude. Either by somebody who only knew a bit, or by somebody who didn't mean to show competent skill."

"Rather suggests Deal himself, doesn't it?" said Lomas. "Doctor careful not to leave proof he was a doctor."

"Yes, one of the possibilities. And heaven only knows what an operation by Harvey Deal would look like afterwards."

"Don't love him, do you?" Lomas chuckled. "I don't blame you. On the other hand, that letter was in Nurse Benan's writing. We've got some documents from the hospital, which she did write, and they match. That's not too good for Colborn. So it's about fifty - fifty against each of 'cm. And yet it don't make a case, what?"

"Oh, no. No. Not yet. However. I call this a day. No more from Reginald. It's dark - oh, my hat, it's dark."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't see in the dark," Reggie was plaintive. "I want to see the much - advertised swimmin' - pool. And so to bed. Risin' early in the mornin', I proceed to the swimmin' - pool. With an active and intelligent police officer. With our Sergeant Underwood. Will that do?"

"Good luck to you," said Lomas.

"Luck!" Reggie's voice rose. "No. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings. Pleasant dreams." He hung up and turned to Underwood. "At my place?" he asked mournfully. "Bright and early?"

"Six o'clock, sir?" Underwood suggested.

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie moaned. "There isn't such a time. Not to live in. Say seven."

And when Underwood arrived in the morning, he was already eating strawberries and cream. "Have some?" he invited. "No? Coffee? No? Oh, my dear chap. Don't be so superior. Any news?"

"Just a bit, sir. On leaving the mortuary, Deal went home. When Colborn was let go, he went there too, and was in the house a couple of hours. So they thought well to have a confab., you see. Then Colborn went straight back to his own place. Last I've heard is that our chaps there saw nobody about in the night, and Colborn hasn't gone away yet. Deal's still at home too. Looks like they settled to face things out."

"Looks like anything you please," said Reggie. "However." He finished the strawberries while Underwood fidgeted and disapproved.

It was nevertheless before eight o'clock when Reggie's car set them down on the ridge of Tootle Heath, still in the dewy mist of the prelude to another torrid day. They walked down through clumps of thorn and gorse to the grey palings of Colborn's house and found the back gate. An unshaven loafer sauntered up and grinned at Underwood. "Not a soul been round here, inspector."

"Oh. Very well," Reggie said. "Show us where the soul went the other night."

"I couldn't give you the track of him, sir," the detective protested. "It was all snooping round these clumps."

"Yes. But you thought he went inside. And followed. Which way?"

"Oh, I can show you that," the detective said gloomily, and they passed through the gate into the belt of woodland. "I couldn't see him here, but I went on thinking I heard footsteps. But it's like country, for queer sounds o' nights. I came on here, yes; I nearly flopped into that blinking pond, came round it like this, watching the grounds to see if the bloke was making for the house. Not a blink. So I went back to the gate again, and there he was still loitering, and I cut after him and he was off."

"As you said. Yes," Reggie murmured. He stood gazing at the pool, and walked round it. The yellowish slimy bottom could be made out clearly enough.

"Nothing in there," said Underwood.

"There is not. No." Reggie wandered on into the dressing - places under the old yew - trees, and stood there, looking about him. He made a stride forward, and dropped on his knees where the carpet of brown leaves showed a fragment of something red. Slowly he stood up again, and gazed at the ground all about with a look of fear and surprise, moved to and fro, poring over it. He came back to the twisted hollow trunk of a yew, close by where he had made his find, stared at it, gave a jerk of the head. "My case, Underwood," he said sharply, opened it, took out two wooden boxes and a surgical knife. Into one box he scraped the red fragment from the ground. Then he approached the yew - tree, and from the gnarled wood about the gaping hollow removed other fragments, red and pallid, in which yellow hairs were caught. These went into the second box.

He peered down into the hollow trunk. When his face met the light again, it was frowning. He measured across the mouth of the hollow and made a note, and looked up to contemplate Underwood dreamily. "Well, well," he sighed. "This bein' thus, this is all."

"It's flesh, that stuff, is it?" Underwood asked, in a voice of horror, as they walked away.

"Yes, I think so. However. A little laboratory work is required. Get on the phone to Mr. Lomas, and tell him to keep close contact with Colborn and Deal. Then come on to me."

About half past ten Reggie walked out of his laboratory to the room in which Underwood sat waiting. "Have you proved it, sir?" Underwood asked eagerly. "Mr. Lomas has just been on the phone again, but you said not to disturb you."

Reggie took the telephone. "Is that Lomas? Fortune speaking. Fragments from yew - tree and ground both human tissue: traces of glands in neck."

"Thanks very much." A chuckle came from Lomas. "Nice wedding - present for Mr. and Mrs. Colborn."

"What? Who? When? Where?"

"Can it be you didn't foresee this, Reginald? Arc you only human after all? You disappoint me sadly. While you've been finding human glands for him, Colborn has been marrying Ann Deal at the Marylebone registry office. Wedding breakfast at Scotland Yard, what?"

Reggie put down the receiver with a clash. "Come on, Underwood," he cried, and ran out.

His car brought them to the registry office just before a police car drove up with Superintendent Bell. A loafer approached them. "Parties gone back to Dr. Harvey Deal's house, sir. But Sergeant Smith said Colborn has sent luggage on to Paddington Station."

"You follow 'em up to Deal's place, Bell," said Reggie, and told his own chauffeur to drive to the railway station.

On the first departure platform there was a bustle of passengers about a long train to the Devonshire coast. Reggie wandered along with Underwood at his heels till they came to a first - class carriage where a man dressed as a chauffeur stood waiting on guard over luggage which filled the corner seats. Reggie passed on, got into another carriage, and walked back down the corridor, looking in at the luggage as he passed, turned into a neighbouring compartment and sat down. Other people came along the corridor, this way and that.

The chauffeur moved away from the train, lifting his hand. Colborn and Ann appeared, hurrying to him, with a porter who carried more luggage. Colborn spoke to the chauffeur and dismissed him. In the same moment Bell pushed through the crowd and clapped his hand on Colborn's shoulder.

Then Reggie got out of the train and whispered to Underwood, and Underwood slid away and vanished.

Colborn was in a red, stammering fury. Ann clung to his arm. "No use making a row," Bell told him. "Come along, you and your lady." Detectives closed about them and shouldered a way through the gaping crowd.

Reggie touched Bell's arm. "And their luggage, please. All the luggage," he murmured, and watched while it was collected. "Put it into my car. I'm coming on."

Three suitcases, a woman's dressing - case, and a square, wide - mouthed bag were in front of him when he drove away. It was the bag which he picked up. He opened it, looked inside, made a small unhappy sound, and still looked long. When he shut the bag again he lay back and closed his eyes, and his round face had a melancholy calm.

Still in a dreamy melancholy he entered Lomas's room carrying that bag. "Good fellow!" Lomas smiled at him. "Made a kill at last, what? They tell me Bell's just brought in the happy pair."

"I suppose so. What about father - in - law - and father?"

"Deal? Oh, we've collected him. I was just going to put 'em through it. But let's get the interpretation of your medical evidence."

"Yes! That is required," Reggie's eyelids drooped. "Not from me, though. Evidence short and sweet. Woman found in trunk was drowned, and on her body vegetable matter like that in the pool. On a yew - tree there, and below, I found, to - day, human material which came from the interior of a human neck. Old Deal and young Colborn should be asked to explain these things. Also one other thing." He laid upon Lomas's table the wide - mouthed bag. "This was found with Colborn's honeymoon luggage. You remember the unknown person who dodged round the pool carried a squarish bag." Reggie opened it. "Look."

Lomas looked, and drew back with a start - gasped. "Good gad! The head!"

"Yes. I think so. Head of young woman. With yellow hair. Provisionally, fitting body. Face obliterated by vitriol."

"And that devil Colborn was taking it on his honeymoon!"

"Explanation certainly required," Reggie murmured.

Colborn was brought into a room where Lomas and Bell sat together with Reggie lounging behind them, the bag on the floor at his feet.

Colborn let out a storm of abusive threats: it was a blank outrage, they had no right, he would give them hell for it, he - - 

"I am investigating a murder," Lomas said. "I have to ask you to explain your actions. Where were you going?"

"I was taking my wife to Dartmouth. I have a yacht there."

"Really?" Lomas put up his eyeglass. "Spending your honeymoon at sea?"

"What about it?"

"You didn't tell me you were going to marry Miss Deal. Why not? You didn't tell me you would be at sea to - night. Why not?"

"What the devil is it to do with you?"

"You had been asked to identify a woman's body."

"And I couldn't. Nothing more to do with me."

"You said you were unable to recognise that headless woman as Nurse Benan. The woman had been drowned, and on the body were water - weeds like those in your swimming - pool. Beside that swimming - pool we have found fragments of flesh from a human neck. Can you give me any explanation of that?"

The freckles on Colborn's face stood out tawny against pallor. "What do you say?" he stammered. "It's mad."

"No explanation. Very well. The luggage which you and your wife were taking with you to sea has been brought here." Lomas reached down and put the bag on the table, and opened it. "Will you give me your reason for taking that?"

Colborn bent forward, saw the dark, misshapen face, cried out an oath, and flung himself back. "I - I wasn't taking it," he stammered. "I never saw it before. That bag's not mine."

"Not - yours," Lomas sneered.

"Not ours, damn you!" Colborn roared. "It's been planted on us."

"Oh. Who would be likely to plant it on you?" Reggie asked. "Can you think of anyone? Well, well. Do you recognise the head?"

"Who could recognise it?" " Colborn growled.

"Not easy. No. Features chemically obliterated. However. Anyone else connected with you missing besides Nurse Benan? Anyone else about your place with fair hair?"

Colborn glowered at him. "I say that bag's not ours. I know nothing about it."

"Better try Deal, Lomas," Reggie said.

"Quite. Your answers are unsatisfactory, Mr. Colborn. You'll be detained."

"All right. Do your damnedest," Colborn said loudly. "What about my wife?"

"She will be detained too," said Lomas.

As another storm of abuse broke, Reggie went out. A detective was waiting outside the door. "Anything for me?"

"Yes, sir. Urgent from Sergeant Underwood. He asked for a couple of men to Garnet Mansions, Kennington, and said to let you know."

Over Reggie's face came a dreamy smile. "I wonder," he murmured. "Lead me to it."

A detective beside the chauffeur conducted his car to a shabby road in which blocks of flats rose among small old houses. They stopped at the corner of it and walked on to the entry of Garnet Mansions. Underwood came out from behind the stairs. "He's here in the top flat, sir. Took it furnished from the regular tenant. Name of Edgar Smith. Nothing known about him."

"Well, well. Let us call on Mr. Smith."

They went up the greasy stone stairs and on the last landing another man joined them, and whispered:

"He's still there all right. He hasn't shown."

They rang at Mr. Smith's door, waited, rang longer, and were not answered. Underwood banged on the panels. The door was opened a little way, a thin, dark face looked round it; an angry voice asked: "What do you want?"

Underwood and his men pushed in, thrusting before them into the fusty sitting - room of the flat the man who had opened the door, a swarthy man in blue serge. "I am a police officer," Underwood said. "Mr. Edgar Smith, I presume?"

"That's my name. What can I do for you?" 

"I'm here to ask you where you got the bag left in a first - class carriage at Paddington this morning'

The man laughed. "Oh, that! That's all right, officer. Dr. Deal gave it to me to take to Mr. Colborn. Sit down. I'll tell you. Have a drink?" He turned to a gimcrack sideboard, and opened one of the cupboards. Reggie moved to the table.

"No drinks, thank you," said Underwood. "Come on."

"Oh, just a spot." The man laughed, and turned with a bottle and glass in his hands. As he poured the liquor, Reggie plucked off the tablecloth and flung it over his head, and ran at him from behind and pinned his arms.

"Keep clear of the fluid, Underwood," he cried. Bottle and glass were knocked down and sulphurous fumes rose. Handcuffs snapped on the man's wrists.

Reggie drew back. "Thanks very much." He made a little bow to the pinioned man, who grinned and trembled.

Underwood looked down at the smoking, yellowing carpet, and looked at Reggie. "Oh, yes." Reggie nodded. "Vitriol. Meant for you. As used on detached head. Bring her along. She's a felt want."

"What, sir?" Underwood gasped.

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Let me introduce you to Nurse Sybil Benan."

And she began to laugh.

Reggie came into Lomas's room and sank into the biggest chair. "Where the deuce have you been?" Lomas exclaimed. "Why did you cut out?"

"Not my job. Your job." Reggie gazed at him with sad eyes. "Are we down - hearted? Yes."

"It is the devil of a case," Lomas said. "But I put the wind up Deal, Reginald. And he's told a fool's tale. You remember you asked Colborn if any other woman about the place was missing, and that gravelled him? Not a bad line."

"My dear chap! You flatter me."

"I worked that with Deal. And he said old Colborn had a housemaid who'd been discharged for a row with the nurse. I asked what the row was, and he tied himself in knots. I take it that housemaid had her suspicions there was dirty work. She may have tried blackmailing Deal."

"Yes, it could be," Reggie murmured. "I wonder. I always wondered who wrote that anonymous letter which set us going."

Lomas frowned. "Damme, do you ask me to believe Deal? What he's after is to make out the housemaid murdered the nurse for revenge, and put it on Colborn and him to make the revenge complete."

"Ingenious fellow. No. I don't ask you to believe that. Housemaid did not murder nurse. Because Nurse Benan isn't murdered. She's in the cells by now. With black hair and a brown face. But it'll all come out in the wash. Nurse murdered housemaid."

"Good gad!" Lomas flung himself back in his chair. "How the devil have you got to that?" And Reggie told him. "Bag containin' head was put into the carriage where Colborn's luggage was by a person of middle size in a long coat - Bag and person thus recalled the loiterer with intent round Colborn's place at night. I sent Underwood to see the person home. Person, when embraced by me in the act of throwing vitriol, was found to be female. As expected. Nurse Benan. Kindly convicting herself by possession of head and vitriol. Quite clear now. Nurse Benan, havin' helped old Colborn out of life, which we shall never prove, meant to marry young Colborn and the fortune. She probably tried blackmail for services rendered. He preferred Ann Deal, and he's not a man to be blackmailed. Nurse Benan had lost, and she's not a good loser. Remember the vitriol for Underwood. And she had the housemaid on her shoulders. Probably wanting blackmail also. One brilliant stroke of murdering the housemaid and putting the murder on Colborn and Deal would settle accounts all round. Nurse Benan made it so. She had funds, you remember. A thousand - pound legacy from old Colborn. Even if Deal didn't pay her any hush money. She took the second flat disguised as a man. She'd cut off her hair in the first flat. An error. I found very short yellow hair on her brush. That compelled my attention. However. She also left evidence of a letter making appointment with Sam Colborn by the swimming - pool. Very ingenious. But that also bothered me. Too convenient.

She got the housemaid to call on her in the second flat. Knocked her out and drowned her in the bath. Cut off the head, cut up the knee with the skill of a nurse, and obliterated features by vitriol. Daubed the body with stuff from the pool, collected on the night of the party when we weren't watching. My error. Your error. Dumped body in the trunk from a little old car she has. Then tried to plant head by the swimming - pool. But you had forgotten to remove the watch on the gate. She was nearly caught, head and all, by your active and intelligent police officer, while trying to poke it into the hollow tree. It didn't go easy. Too big. Head had still to be disposed of. Bold and brilliant stroke to plant it on the honeymoon couple. If they were stopped - Colborn was taking the head to throw overboard from his yacht. If they weren't - head would be found in the train they'd travelled by. Clever female. Rather underratin' the male intelligence. As they do. However. Can't blame her. Bad case, Lomas. Very bad case. One of our gross failures. Full of encouragement to the criminal mind."

"Failure?" Lomas exclaimed. "Damme, it's great work, Reginald."

"Oh, my Lomas!" Reggie groaned. "Frightful. Exemplar of futility. We shall never know the truth of old Colborn's death. We've let a poor wretch of a woman get murdered. And all we do is to hang another. An awful warning. Hopeless trade, our trade. Change the uniform of the police. Should be sackcloth and ashes."

THE HOLE IN THE PARCHMENT

THE MONTH WAS MAY, and Mr. and Mrs. Fortune were in Florence. This combination Mr. Fortune ranks as one of the highest classes of human felicity. But a faint bitterness mingled with it. Mrs. Fortune was in a needlework shop.

Reggie gazed wistfully, for the fifth time, at the filmy under - garments in the window. The shop was on the road by the river, close to the old bridge, which is lined by houses as old built out over the water.

Through the shop door he saw his wife's face in a beatitude of consideration. He sighed, and, bidding himself imagine for comfort what she would look like in that gossamer thing, crossed the road to the footway on the riverside. Swallows swooped low to the eddying jade pools. The west wind met him with a tang in its multitudinous fragrance; he looked through it to the rich green masses of the Cascine trees, to the dark hills beyond, and the crimson and coral and pale lucent blue of the sunset.

The calm of the evening was shattered by horns, roaring engines, and the rush and surge of wheels - the sudden torrent of Florence when work is over. Around the cars, like flies with horses, went clusters of cyclists, swerving to either side, swirling out of the narrow streets in column, closing again in serried ranks bent double and pedalling hard.

Reggie watched the flood with the anxiety of a man who only feels safe in traffic when he is driving, with an impatient desire to reach his wife alive. The needlework shop was hidden by bustling pedestrians, who forced one another off the footway into the scurrying waves of cyclists.

A man stumbled into the road and crashed. How he fell or what hit him Reggie could not tell. All the torrent of traffic broke into seething confusion - cyclists swinging across cars, cars hooting, squeaking, skidding with the rasp and twang of colliding metal. As the jam came to an angry, objurgating stop, Reggie made out through wheels the man still prone.

"Yes. It would happen while I was here," he complained, and threaded his way across the road.

By the time he reached the other side, there was a crowd about the man. "Please. I am a doctor," he said. His Italian is short of grammar but adequate to the common needs of life. The crowd divided with enthusiasm, telling each other so to do, telling him that he was sent by heaven - the poor gentleman was dead.

Reggie bent over the poor gentleman. He was a shortish, stout man, with iron - grey hair. It appeared from his clothes that he had fallen forward and since been turned over. But he was not dead. His breath came in snorts, and, as Reggie examined him, he lifted his head and spoke thickly in English: "What's doing? Where am I?"

"You've just crashed, sir," Reggie said. "You're on the Lungarno. I'm a doctor. Lie still a minute."

"Ay, I remember. Something hit me." The man frowned, and turned his head this way and that.

"As you say. One moment. ... I don't think there's any serious injury. Steady, steady - -"

The man was scrambling to his feet. "I'll say there isn't," he announced, and shook off Reggie's helpful hand. "I'm all right. Thank 'e kindly." His face, like his body, was stout, but not genial, and the eyes stared into Reggie, cold and calculating. "Let me have your address, doctor, and you'll hear from me."

"Don't bother," Reggie said, and turned away.

"Here! You want your fee, don't you?" The man caught his sleeve.

"There isn't one," said Reggie, freed himself, and passed through the dwindling crowd, and heard an exclamation of wrath behind him.

In the doorway of the needlework shop his wife was waiting. "My dear child!" she reproached him. "Wherever have you been?"

"Oh, woman! Completely woman," Reggie sighed. He drew her arm through his and marched her away.

"You went into that crowd to look at the smash," said Mrs. Fortune severely. "You know you did. Small boy."

"Unfairness, thy name is wife. Yes. I did go to the smash. Not as small boy, but medical man. Doing the Good Samaritan. Now I know what he got for his pains. The Fellow he picked up told him he was on the make. Look, there's the grateful soul." The iron - grey man was now walking with a companion, a young fellow whose solicitude he repulsed.

"But they're staying at our hotel," said Mrs. Fortune. 

"Oh, ah. I thought I'd seen his fat, commercial face before," Reggie complained.

"He has a charming wife," said Mrs. Fortune.

"Sorry," said Reggie.

When they came into the hall of the hotel, a woman much younger than the grey man started up to meet him in a graceful hurry, but he was brusque; he went off to the office, and the woman and the younger man were left talking together with sideways glances after him. . . .

The Hotel Cosimo pretends in its decorations and furniture to be a palace of the Renaissance, but its food is of genuine Tuscan art. Reggie had come happily to the fowl and the salad before the iron - grey man brought his party in to dinner. With a gait of pomp and defiance he marched, his mouth shut tight, his heels heavy. Three people straggled after him - a girl by herself, then the young man of the street and the woman who had met him in the hall, together.

When they sat down, the three made some effort to talk; the grey man was dumb. He ate and drank in hurried gulps, but little, and between courses sat back looking at his companions and beyond them.

"Head of the family, bein' familiar," Reggie murmured.

"He looks ill," said Mrs. Fortune. "Are you sure he wasn't hurt, Reggie?" 

"Not physically, no. He wasn't. Symptoms of shock to self - importance. Effects septic." 

Mrs. Fortune has a superhuman desire to think well of everybody. "It is a wicked world, isn't it?" she said severely.

 "Yes. Rather. Yes. That wouldn't matter so much if it wasn't silly."

"The wise, superior child! How would you feel if you'd been knocked down in this awful traffic?"

"Shiverin' panic. He isn't. He's hating hard."

"He's just upset, and they're all bothered. They're rather sweet people."

"Quite easy to look at," Reggie admitted. "The others. The family."

"I suppose they arc his wife and daughter," Mrs. Fortune said.

"Probably. Let's hope he doesn't treat anybody else's this way."

"She's young to be his wife. Do you think she's old enough to be that girl's mother?"

"Yes, it could be. Something under forty and something like eighteen. And the girl has a face like mother's, a little spoilt by father's. A sad world."

"Pig," said Mrs. Fortune. "She's a darling. I love that little turn - up nose."

"Not so thrustful as father's - no. Comic and pleasin'. Father's done quite well for himself. An earnest collector."

"What do you mean?"

"My dear child. Oh, my dear child. Acquisitive and collective instincts strongly marked. I should say that's why father has no use for the young man. A rival collector."

"How pleasant to know everything!" said Mrs. Fortune, and wrinkled her nice nose.

"I shouldn't think so. No. But I don't. I only know too much. Rather bitter. Seeing a lot - having no power."

"Reggie!" Mrs. Fortune was startled. "You're being serious. Do you expect something hateful?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. Don't want one. This isn't my job." But in that he deceived himself.

As they went out into the sham Renaissance lounge, they drew the attention of the grey man.

"Eyes popping out of his head," Reggie murmured. "He don't like me. I wonder."

"My dear boy!" Mrs. Fortune protested. "He's perfectly natural. Just a pleasant, comfortable man badly shaken up. And the boy's a lamb."

"Rather sophisticated lamb," Reggie murmured. "Hallo!"

The grey man crossed the lounge in a stumping hurry and went into the office. After a moment the women and the young man came from the dining - room. He made for the lift alone. 

"'Souls of men, why will ye scatter?'" Reggie quoted, watching him. He was a pretty fellow; his face contrived to put into a pink - and - white complexion a look of sensitive intelligence, but, in spite of its aquiline cast and a good deal of brow, rather fragile for a man. Though his clothes were cut to make the most of his shoulders and the least of his waist, a studied carelessness of hair and tie and shirt advertised that he was not as other men. "Yes. Lamb conscious of charm." Reggie sighed.

Mrs. Fortune's amber eyes sparkled. "Lambs are, darling. Didn't you know?"

The two women came slowly towards them, and the elder spoke. "Mr. Fortune? May I introduce myself? I'm Mrs. Bross. It was my husband you helped this evening. I wanted to thank you."

Her voice was deep, a quality admired by Reggie; her face had the calm which he also loved, a broad - browed face with dark, large - lidded eyes set far apart, and a mouth which had in its composure something of a subtle smile. Mrs. Fortune, who does not care for the Mona Lisa, found in her an uncomfortable likeness to that enigmatic lady, but was better pleased with her daughter Rachel. Rachel's considerable mouth also hinted at the absurdity of human things, but she did not pretend to calm. Under a mop of black curls her black eyes flashed, her little nose was pugnacious, her chin insistent.

Mrs. Bross conducted the conversation. She wanted to know how her husband had been knocked down. Did Mr. Fortune see the accident? "I saw him falling and fallen," Reggie answered. "Doesn't he know what hit him?" Her heavy eyelids were raised. No, he couldn't tell how it happened. That was rather disturbing. But the traffic was wild, of course. Did Mr. Fortune notice anything? "Sorry." Reggie shook his head. "General impression, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I.' Very difficult to live on foot."

"When you're driving, dear," said Mrs. Fortune.

"You weren't, were you?" Rachel struck in.

Oh, no. No. Trembling. Gentleman in waiting. And panic."

"You saw it all -" Mrs. Bross took charge again " - and you didn't see anything?"

"Yes. I'm like that," Reggie sighed. 

"Manly, sir, manly," Rachel flashed at him. 

"We are." Mrs. Fortune smiled. "We always pretend to be incompetent. Our way of fishing."

"But you are sure he wasn't hurt?" Mrs. Bross asked. 

"No serious injury, no. Only shaken. Is he a nervous subject?"

"I don't think so," Mrs. Bross was saying when the manager glided across the lounge. Excuse. There was a gentleman asking for Mr. Fortune. If he would be so kind - - 

Reggie was conducted to the manager's private room and shut in with a man who stood up and struck an attitude. Reggie blinked at him, and wondered what he was trying to look like, and remembered Michael Angelo's statue of Giuliano de' Medici - the haughty, defiant warrior telling the world he would put it right.

He spoke in a purring voice. "You understand Italian, sir?"

"Sometimes."

"If you please." He put a chair for Reggie. "You are Dr. Reginald Fortune?"

"Yes. I don't call myself doctor."

The melodramatic face frowned. The voice boomed. "I am of the police service, you understand? You told Mr. Liddon Bross that you were a doctor."

"I did - yes. I am a medical man. Not in ordinary practice. Rather of the police service, like you. What's the matter?"

The man slapped his brow. "Mr. Fortune of the London police! I thought the name told me something." He sprang up. "Ten thousand pardons. Permit me, sir. I am Briosco - Arnolfo Briosco. Do me the honour." He bowed low and held out his hand. "But this falls most happily. I beg you give me your brilliant help. I have here a tangle of a case. You know, of course, this gentleman, Mr. Liddon Bross?"

"Not me - no."

"But he is one of your richest men, is he not?"

"It could be."

"The Bross car!"

"Oh, he's that Bross, is he? He would be."

"They make them in millions, yes?"

"Yes, I should think so. Confound him! However. Is he selling them here?"

"Ah, no. Here he comes to buy, so he says. And what? Will you guess? He came to buy the Gospel of St. John."

"No, I shouldn't have guessed that," said Reggie. "Why?"

"He is, so he says, a collector."

Reggie made a melancholy noise.

Briosco's mobile face became sardonic. "You do not like the tribe? No, certainly; a collector, as Voltaire said of the prophet Habakkuk, is capable of everything." His face changed again, to be Mr. Worldly Wiseman. "But one must confess - collectors - we are all collectors."

"As you say. Matter of degree. As with many other criminal tendencies. However. What's Mr. Bross done?"

"Ah, sir, it is not what he has done. It is what he says was done to him. He laid the complaint, you understand. The background is that he is a collector of the Holy Scriptures - the early printed Bibles and then also manuscripts. That is not what you expect in your new automobile millionaire, no? But he talked to me like an enthusiast, a pietist." Briosco's face changed back to the sardonic. "Well, it is possible. Almost all the improbabilities are possible. One has learnt that in our service, yes? And so he says he is here in Italy to buy old manuscripts of the Holy Scriptures. With him he brings a recommended scholar to help him - this Mr. Treverick. You have met him?"

"No. I suppose I've seen him. Handsome fellow. I've only met Bross's wife and daughter."

Briosco was again Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and his smile had the force of a dig in the ribs. "Oho, certainly they also are to be considered."

"What for?" Reggie murmured, and felt tired.

"They are handsome too, are they not? Mrs. Bross, I am told she is magnificent, and in the summer of beauty. Very well. The old millionaire collector, the beautiful young wife, the pretty girl daughter, and the handsome scholar. There are our persons. Now Mr. Bross heard that Bussone, a merchant of antiquities here, had an old manuscript of the Gospel of St. John - a very old manuscript written in the seventh century perhaps; more than a thousand years old at least. He went with Treverick to examine it. Treverick was suspicious. Treverick advised him that it was a forgery - old perhaps, yes, but not older than two or three hundred years, made when the old manuscripts began to have a value. But Bross does not trust Treverick; he has it in his mind that Treverick is playing some game of his own. He went again to Bussone alone today - he bought the Gospel for a thousand pounds. He was walking back with it in his hand when he was knocked down on the Lungarno here. He does not know how it happened. He seemed to be jostled into the roadway and thrown down. When he came to his senses, there was a crowd round him and a doctor he did not know was feeling at him. But the manuscript of the Gospel of St. John was not in his hand; it was not on the ground; it was not anywhere. And when he got on his feet he saw Treverick. What was Treverick doing there, you will ask. Bross did ask. Treverick answered that Mrs. Bross had sent him to look for her dear husband; she was anxious, he was so long away from her. Then Bross came back to his hotel and telephoned at once to the police headquarters. A strange story, is it not - a very strange story?"

"Yes. Tiresome. Yes." Reggie frowned. "Collectors always are. Values all wrong. Motives all messed up. However. Speaking broadly, you believe Bross?"

Briosco put on an expression of ineffable cunning. "That he went to Bussone and bought the Gospel - I believe so much. What happened afterwards, I believe nothing. I am the absolute infidel."

"Thanks very much. You did think the charitable doctor stole the Gospel."

For the first time Briosco was embarrassed. "I confess it. I beg you forgive me. It was suggested by Mr. Bross, and how could I know - -"

"That's all right. I was pointing out that Bross is a suspicious animal."

"It is certain. But, again, who knows with what ground?"

"Does he suspect his wife?"

Briosco sneered. "He did not say so in words. It was made very clear."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Many possibilities. Might have been common accident and common theft. Might have been all arranged by Treverick to get a valuable manuscript into his own hands. Might have been a trick of the vendor Bussone to make away with a forgery when he'd pocketed the cash for it. Bross might be inventing a crime to put it on Treverick and his wife."

Briosco bowed. "I am happy. I find myself perfectly in agreement. I had thought of all those theories myself. But evidence - -" He spread out his hands. "None. What I had hoped, it is that Mr. Fortune had seen something more than others."

"Not me. No. Only a nasty frame of mind in Bross. Reaction to kindness - suspicion. Might be the natural man. Might be the result of jealousy."

Briosco looked profound. "Truly. Like your Othello, 'being wrought perplexed in the extreme.'"

"Othello of big business. Yes. There was passion about. However. Avoid the fixed idea. What do you know about the dealer in antiquities?"

"Bussone? He is not of the first rank, but he is well enough. I beg you observe - Bross says it himself - Bussone did not press him to buy. He offered the Gospel simply on its beauty as an old manuscript, with the tradition that it came long ago from the abbey of San Eugenio when the monks were selling their library by stealth. It was exquisitely written and bound; it had the cypher of the abbey on the binding. That is all."

"And Bross says Treverick tried to put him off, but he snapped at it?"

"Precisely. He told me that it was one of the most beautiful things he had ever had in his hands. And he had had many. He could not understand Treverick's objections. He implied that Treverick must have wanted to obtain it for himself."

"I wonder. Have you talked to Treverick?"

Briosco made a face of derision. "I have had that great honour. He is condescending to my ignorance, this young gentleman. He told me that he was not satisfied, for reasons which he could not expect me to understand, that the Gospel was of early date."

"Very trying, these experts. Very superior. What about your own experts, my friend? Did they know this manuscript was on sale?"

"This particular Gospel, no. They do not want such a thing in our great libraries. They have their manuscripts of the first authority. But they tell me the tradition is quite good. From San Eugenio and other dissolved abbeys, manuscripts many, many years old came secretly long ago, and may be found the devil knows where."

"Yes. There are indications of the devil. Using Scripture for his purpose. Very ingenious. And baffling. However. Kind of challenge, isn't it?"

"That is the word, my friend," Briosco cried, and his face again declared him the man of might.

"Splendid," Reggie approved. "What were you thinking of doing?"

"I leave nothing undone," said Briosco superbly. "I seek someone who did see all that happened to Mr. Bross on the Lungarno to - night. I mark down all our rogues who practise street thefts."

"Oh, yes. Excellent. It does occur to me - you might put a good man in this hotel."

Briosco showed all his teeth in a smile. "You believe the Gospel is here - with Bross or with Treverick? Oho. Have no fear, their possessions shall be looked at."

"It could be," Reggie said slowly. "I wasn't thinking of that. A good man - in case something else happened."

Briosco bent forward. "You expect - - " he whispered.

"I expect this business isn't finished," said Reggie. . . .

The party in the lounge had dissolved. He went upstairs. His bedroom was dark except for moonlight flooding through the open windows. In the shadow by the window his wife sat looking out at the night, at the dark swell of the wooded hill beyond the river, over which the moon rose white in a violet sky of myriad stars. He came to her and kissed her hair. "Rather good. Rather a blessing, Joan." He breathed deep the scent of her hair and the gentle night wind.

The screech of a horn tore along the road beneath. "Well!" She moved a little and turned to him. "Who was your man of mystery?"

Reggie told her. It is not his habit to talk shop to his wife, and she is of all women within his experience the least curious. But he related his conversation with Signer Arnolfo Briosco in full, and she said," How vile!"

"The Italian policeman? Oh, no. Dramatises himself. Dramatises the evidence also. Violent mind. But he intends to be rational."

"I wasn't thinking of your policeman. I meant the man Bross."

"Rather swift, aren't you, Joan? At dinner you said he was a pleasant, comfortable creature. At bedtime you say he's vile. Have you had a revelation from the ladies Bross?"

She looked up at Reggie, her face pale in the moonlight. "No, I haven't. I don't understand. They didn't say a word against him. Better than that. I believe they're both anxious about him - fond of him - but they're afraid of something."

"Yes. Fear was indicated," Reggie murmured. "Also doubt. General distrust in the family of Bross. Mother wasn't quite sure about daughter or daughter quite sure about mother. Complication of the Othello motive, to have a daughter."

"You can be grim," said Mrs. Fortune. "No, I thought Mrs. Bross was the sort of woman who is always perfectly sure."

"As you say. Not a Desdemona. Don't love her, do you?"

"Oh, don't sneer."

"My dear girl. Not me. Only recognisin' the evidence. You don't love Bross either how."

"He's horrible. Whatever has happened, whatever is wrong, to go to the police and tell them he suspects his wife with this boy -"

"Not nice, no. Rather a mean Othello. Not a noble mind o'erthrown. Disappointed collector. Acquisitive instincts thwarted."

"It's vile. And then - all this ugliness springing out of a manuscript of a Gospel. That's ghastly."

"Yes. Grim world. Man collects Bibles. Man wants the Gospel according to St. John. And the devil uses that to get hold of him. However. The world is not wholly grim, Joan. You should see my Italian policeman looking like a confident archangel."

She felt for his hand. "I'd rather see you. You're not afraid, Reggie?"

"No. I wouldn't say that. No. Certain satisfaction. Glad I'm in it. My sort of case."

When he came out of his room in the morning, Reggie met a small man who slipped into his hand Briosco's card and whispered, "I am Taddi, sir. At your orders."

"Thank you. If anyone comes to the family Bross - who and why." Reggie went on downstairs to the lounge. Bross was there with his daughter. Reggie went to him with an amiable question as to whether he felt any effects of his fall, and was dismissed with curt civility. Rachel began to make pretty amends. They were going to drive out to Fiesole and spend the day there. Wouldn't Mrs. Fortune like to come?

Watching Bross's glum face, Reggie said he was sure she would but she had a hundred and one things to do, and Bross took his daughter away. Reggie likes to verify statements. He followed them to the hotel garage.

The car of Mr. Liddon Bross was not one of his own multitudinous manufacture but, as Reggie expected, a big Rolls furnished forth with luscious coachwork. What Reggie did not expect was that a garage with proper respect for wealth would have placed beside it a Bross ten two - seater - a tired and dingy little Bross.

Mr. Bross gazed at this offspring of his genius without any paternal pride; with disgust and malice. Its bonnet was open and the upper part of a man buried within.

"Tony!" his daughter exclaimed. "What are you doing with the imp? She bucked along grand yesterday."

Treverick's face appeared with a smear of black oil across its beauty and an embarrassed frown. "Hallo!" he said. "Carburettor."

"Tuning up for a speed trial?" Rachel laughed. "Count me in on that."

"Thanks very much," said Treverick, and went off and talked to one of the garage men.

Bross went round to the open bonnet and spent a minute or two examining the engine, but when Rachel joined him he stood up with a growl. - "Oh, let him play the fool" - and bustled her away to the big car and drove off.

Reggie strolled back to the hotel, where he found a wife who was talking to Mrs. Bross, who told him that she had been waiting for him hours. "Very gratifyin'. It ought to seem that long. But you've no experience, Joan. How long has she been down, Mrs. Bross?"

"I came down ten minutes ago," said Mrs. Bross's deep, serene voice. "She wasn't here then."

"She's not well trained, Mrs. Bross." Reggie shook his head. "Not a good waiter. Are you?"

"I always pretend not to be." She smiled at Mrs. Fortune, whose answering smile was perfunctory.

"Well, well," Reggie sighed. "Thus faith is shattered. Are you doing anything? We were going to the Innocenti again. I like those babies."

"They are charming," said Mrs. Bross. "But I think I had better have a quiet morning."

So Reggie and his wife left her to it. When they were outside, "She has sent her husband and her daughter to Fiesole," said Mrs. Fortune. "She does want to be quiet."

"Sent?" Reggie asked. "Is she the managing director?"

"She was telling her daughter last night they must take father to Fiesole. As if she was going too."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "'Souls of men, why will ye scatter?' Recurrin' question. Father and daughter off for the day. Mother wants to be alone. And young man Treverick tunes up his little car. And none of em' likes me. That hurts my gentle, kindly nature. However. Forget 'em. There's babies to look at."

By way of the dancing boys and girls in the cathedral museum they came to the benign babies in swaddling - clothes who reign between the arches of the Hospital of the Innocents and dreamed the morning away.

When they returned to the hotel, Treverick's shabby Bross two - seater stood at the door. "Oh. He hasn't scattered," said Reggie. "Not yet. Well, well." Treverick was in the hall, talking to the porter beside a wall map of Italy. The porter's fat finger ran along the road to Siena: he discoursed of the quality of the hill roads with faint praise.

Reggie went into a telephone - box and rang up Briosco. "Good morning. Any news your end?"

"You are kind to enquire, sir. Of much interest. My man Taddi has investigated the Bross apartments. He is ready to swear that there is no manuscript of a Gospel there. English Bibles and prayer - books, yes. They are certainly devout, the family Bross. But the manuscript - no. Either it was stolen, and Bross is so far honest, or he keeps it on his person."

"Yes. He might. Yes. Has Taddi seen anybody visit the Brosses?"

"Oho. He told me you spoke of that. There was one. Will you be surprised? It was the gallant Treverick went to Mrs. Bross's room just now. He was with her some time. Her husband, it appears, is out for the day. The poor man." Briosco gave a wicked chuckle.

"Yes, I think so. One way or another. Are you doing anything this afternoon? I think Treverick's going out too. Possibly with Mrs. Bross." He glanced over his shoulder through the glass door and saw Treverick make for the dining - room. "Thank heaven. He hasn't had his lunch yet. Be at the corner of the Via Tornabuoni by the bridge in half an hour. I'll have my car."

When he followed his wife into the dining - room, Treverick was talking eagerly to Mrs. Bross and had stimulated her serenity to laughing interest.

Mrs. Fortune compressed her lips and sat down with her back to them and talked of anything else in the world. But Reggie's way with his lunch alarmed her. "My child! Are you quite well? Why this swift frugality?"

"Sorry. Bear with me. Goin' joy - ridin' with my Italian policeman."

"Oh!" Her nice nose wrinkled.

Reggie's car stood empty in the Via Tornabuoni. Briosco was loitering on the opposite side. Reggie, obscured by the column on the top of which is an incredible statue, gazed up at it with plaintive bewilderment. He came across to Briosco. "Wonderful what you can miss," he said dreamily. "I've always missed that till now. What is it?"

"She is Justice." Briosco made a grimace. "They thought she was too thin, so they put that bronze robe on her."

"Well, well. It's all very sad. Justice must be thin."

He glanced from his own comfortable curves to Briosco's. "A wearing job. If you do it."

"You did not bring me here to talk statuary." Briosco frowned.

"No. Just passin' the time with sad, elegant thoughts." The dingy two - seater came from the hotel and turned to cross the bridge, carrying Mrs. Bross as well as Treverick. "There we are," Reggie murmured, and took Briosco to his waiting car and started in pursuit. "Father and daughter having been sent out for the day, wife goes off with young Mr. Treverick, who had previously overhauled his engine."

Briosco arranged his face to express knowing, malicious mirth. "The old story. The oldest story. The triangle splits. And we follow to assist at an elopement. My friend, I like it very well. But what do you conceive that you can do?"

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"Nor I, I swear. It is not a crime for a wife to take a holiday. But go on, go on. I enjoy a front seat at a comedy. And this is new; this is bizarre - a comedy of intrigue which begins from a manuscript of a Gospel."

"I shouldn't say it was comedy," Reggie murmured. "Tragic possibilities."

Briosco's face exhibited sardonic incredulity. "You believe that?" he laughed. "Forward, then, forward, my friend."

"No use pressing. I could pass them any minute."

"That I do believe," said Briosco, sneering at the little noisy car in front. "In fact, it is not a chariot of fire the lady has chosen."

They were on the dull and busy Siena road. After some miles Treverick slowed down and could be seen pointing up to a hill on which, above the waving grey - green of olives and dark ranks of cypresses, rose a grim mass of stone. "Tcht!" Briosco spluttered. "He shows his lady the monastery. There is a gay beginning for an elopement! Let me confess, I do not understand how you mingle things, you English. But it is incomparably interesting."

Treverick did not long continue his exposition of the monastic. The little car was sent on at its best speed; turned from the main road and roared over the hills between one valley and another by lonely tracks on which they met nothing but waggons drawn by meditative white oxen. "Will you tell me where he is going?" Briosco exclaimed. "This is no way to anywhere. Does he show off to her the powers of his rattle of a car?"

They came down from woodland into a wide valley of vineyards and maize - fields, but crossed it, crossed railway and main road and climbed towards a city set on a high hill, a walled city with a diadem of towers. "The devil!" Briosco laughed. "He has a merry way of love - making, the gallant. He carries off his beloved to a national monument."

"What is the place?"

"San Gimignano of the Beautiful Towers. Oh, a gem of the Gothic, my friend. The whole town is scheduled as an antiquity. There is a nest for lovers!"

As they came to the gate in the walls through which Treverick's car had passed they were stopped by an ox - waggon lumbering out. When at last they slid under the archway, the little car was gone out of sight.

"Onward and upward," Briosco chuckled. "That is the motto of this comedy. Make for the tallest tower. It is the centre of everything here; there is the so noble cathedral, the hall of Dante, all the spiritual joys."

But when they drew up in the open space by the great tower of the town palace, Treverick's car was not there. Briosco swore, sprang out and talked to a man in the black uniform of the National Militia, and came back to the car. "Yes, he has been here, but he did not stop: he went the devil knows where in this little maze."

"I think I know," Reggie said. "He went towards Siena. Which way is that?"

"Down there," Briosco pointed and then turned to Reggie a condescending smile. "One must confess, you have ideas, and you believe in them marvellously. Dare one ask how you make them?"

"I don't. I haven't. Not the slightest idea. But I believe evidence. He was enquiring of a hotel porter about the hill roads round Siena."

"For you to hear, eh?" Briosco sneered.

"No. You're a natural infidel, Briosco. He didn't know I was present."

"And will you tell me, then, why he comes all round Tuscany to go to Siena?"

"I can't. No. I didn't say he was going there. Might be showin' the lady the wonders of the world. Might be just joy - riding. I don't know what he's doing. However. I'd like to."

Briosco laughed. Briosco put on an expression of happy contempt. "My friend, is it so difficult? I can tell you. We have been unjust to this gallant. He was not taking his beloved to inspect antiquities. He was shaking us off. Let us applaud him. He has done very well. The gallant triumphs, as he should in a comedy."

"You think so?" Reggie sighed.

"Oho, you are truly English!"

"Yes. And, as they should be in a comedy, the policemen are ridiculous."

Briosco frowned majestically. "I do not find myself here on duty," he announced.

Beyond the gate to the Siena road they saw the cocked hats of two carabinieri. "Stop, if you please." Briosco touched Reggie's arm and asked them if a small British car had passed that way. "Forward, then." He flung himself back in his seat. "You heard? He has gone to Poggibonsi, not to Siena. But let us play out your comedy."

"I never said he was going to Siena," Reggie said mildly.

Briosco made a spluttering noise, sat back in his seat, folded his arms, and scowled at the universe. When they came to the dozing little town of Poggibonsi in the valley, he jumped out for more enquiries, and was some time about them and came back to explode. "Asylum of the blind - and of imbeciles. There is an infant child who thinks a little foreign car went up to Castellina."

"That is in the hills back of Siena, isn't it?" Reggie murmured. "I was thinking of going that way."

"Oh, if you please. On to the wilderness, then."

They climbed out of the valley into bluff waves of hills. A castle of four towers loomed against the sky. Briosco gave out a short, sardonic laugh. "There! The gallant seeks antiquities again. It is in Dante, that 'Montereggion di torn si corona.' A honeymoon there, eh? Bliss of the most mediaeval."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured, and stopped the car in the little upland village of Castellina. It seemed to have no inhabitants awake. The only interest displayed in them was by goats, which bleated from a steep pasture above. "More work for the expert intelligence!" said Reggie.

Briosco snorted. As he was getting out, a man wheeled a motor - bicycle from behind one of the cottages, adjusted goggles, mounted, and started his engine. Briosco shouted; held up a hand; went to question him. No, he had not seen any car; he had stopped only a moment to drink a glass of wine at the osteria. He roared away. Briosco turned into the village wine - shop.

When he emerged, his face announced profound and fierce meditation. "Oh, my dear fellow!" Reggie protested.

Briosco dropped into the seat so heavily that he bounced. "Is it all to make game of us?" he exclaimed. "Is it the fatuity of paltering lovers? Is it some subtle plot? I declare to you, I cannot tell. They have been here, yes. And for what in this hamlet of hedgehogs and badgers? They left their car in the road here. They took a walk on that mule - track over the hill, which goes, it seems, nowhere but to another scrap of the village. They returned to the car; they drove away by that road over the hills."

"Well, well," Reggie sighed. "Take them back to Florence, wouldn't it?" He turned the car.

"Certainly. It would take them to Florence, if they survived. But it is the devil of a road. And will you explain to me why they should come to this nothing of a place to find a villainous way back to Florence?" Briosco laughed bitterly. "Perhaps he takes her on a test of endurance of his senile car?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "However. We will now try mine."

It slid into speed; it swayed over a surface like a dry torrent bed, casting up at itself a hail of pebbles, but surged on up and down the steep saw - tooth hills, over blind crests into invisible shadows of wood. . . . Briosco laughed. "I give it to you. You have faith, my friend. Great faith. What is this - sixty miles an hour - not a hundred kilometres? No more? It feels like two hundred. Forward, forward. There is no one else in the world."

"Yes, there is," Reggie said. A small cloud of dust appeared in front.

"That will be the motor - cyclist. No matter. You will jump him, eh?" The cloud slowed and diminished. The cyclist was revealed; he drew to the side of the road and dismounted, and they saw just beyond him a small car. That also had stopped.

Briosco swore happily. "Yes, it is; it is the car of the elopers."

"I had noticed it," Reggie sighed, and slowed down.

"What now then? Do they conclude with a picnic? Do they make a night of it in the woods? A romance!" Treverick and the cyclist were talking together beside the car. Its bonnet was open. Both men bent over it, but looked up again at the purr of the other car approaching them.

Reggie stopped and got out. "Can I be of any assistance?" he asked in Italian. "Oh, Mr. Treverick, isn't it?" He reverted to English.

"Hallo," Treverick frowned at him. "You can't do anything. She's dead."

"What? Mrs. Bross? How then?" Briosco roared.

"Oh, no. No. He means the car," Reggie said. "There's Mrs. Bross all right." He took off his hat.

She was sitting in the wood a little way from the roadside with a picnic basket. She was smiling. "How very kind of you to be here, Mr. Fortune," she said, and rose with leisurely grace and came towards them.

Briosco made a bow, satirically emphasised, and strode to the defunct car, into the bowels of which the cyclist was still looking. "Come, what is wrong here?" be demanded. "Let me see."

The cyclist gave way, adjusting his goggles. "If you please," he shrugged. "It is an English car. I do not understand."

"No spark. That's what's wrong." Treverick came alongside Briosco. "The ignition's given out."

"Permit me." Briosco waved him away and examined the engine.

"Do you set up to be a mechanic?" Treverick growled.

"We are perhaps not incompetent, Mr. Treverick." Briosco turned and beckoned to Reggie.

"I am not needed, then," said the cyclist. "My regrets." He bowed and rode on.

Reggie and Briosco put their heads together over the bonnet. . ..

Together they turned to Treverick. "As you say -" Reggie looked through him with closing eyes -" the ignition system. Beyond me."

Treverick laughed disagreeably. "I thought Briosco was going to do us a lightning repair."

"You misjudge me, sir," Briosco showed him the face of a strong man playing with a victim. "Briosco will have the pleasure to bring Mrs. Bross and Mr. Treverick back to Florence in honour. Briosco will provide for your so unfortunate machine the care that it requires. Come!" He waved imperiously to Reggie's car. Treverick stood still, scowling.

Mrs. Bross came forward and took his arm. "Don't be glum, Tony. Poor baby, she's done very well." She gave the little car an affectionate glance. "Such a hard run for her! You can send out from the first garage." She turned to Reggie, and her smile was enigmatic. "How wonderfully lucky for us that you came this way, Mr. Fortune." Reggie was gazing dreamily into the infinite.

"Happy to assist," he murmured.

"Come!" Briosco commanded. When they were in the car, Mrs. Bross and Treverick found him between them at the back. "Stop at the first telephone, my friend," he instructed Reggie. He sat back and turned an inquisitor's stare on Treverick. "You are no doubt aware how this happened?" 

"Of course I am. Ignition wires broken. It's an old car."

"All the more you would be careful to examine it. In fact, you examined it before you started?"

"Yes, I did," Treverick said loudly. "There was nothing wrong then. It's these vile roads."

"Certainly the roads you have chosen for this most interesting run, they are not good. A great pity. But I do not think those wires would have broken from the bad roads which you chose if they had not first been weakened. With a knife, I think, Mr. Treverick, eh?"

"What?" Treverick roared. "What do you mean? Nonsense. Why should anybody?"

"That is what I ask you." Briosco showed most of his teeth. "Why should anybody desire your car to break down on a lonely road in the hills where not one car comes in a day?" 

"It's imbecile," Treverick said.

"I do not find it so," Briosco answered softly. "What would you have done, Mr. Treverick, if, by this miracle of luck, my friend Fortune and I had not come after you?"

Mrs. Bross laughed. "Ah, what indeed, Signer Briosco! We should have been left like the babes in the wood, and the nightingales would have sung us to sleep."

"Oh, the romance!" Briosco kissed his hand to the skies.

Treverick, flushed and embarrassed, was looking at Reggie's back hair. He cleared his throat. "I should have told that cyclist fellow to send a car out," he said stolidly. 

"You permit me to enquire why you conducted the lady this strange way?" Briosco sneered.

Treverick turned with a jerk to stare at him. "Have you been following us?"

Briosco chuckled. "It has been most interesting. San Gimignano, Poggibonsi, and then Castellina!"

"Only seeing some of the out - of - the - way places," Treverick growled. "What is it to do with you?"

"Your efforts to be at last alone. Most ingenious. Believe me, I have enjoyed every moment."

Treverick said something about beastly impudence and told him to keep a civil tongue.

"Signer Briosco is very flattering to us both, Tony," said Mrs. Bross in a silky tone. "But we mustn't accept his compliments. You had better tell him."

"All right," Treverick nodded at her. "It's no business of yours, Briosco, but we went out to Castellina to buy a manuscript."

Briosco laughed loud. "Admirable! My felicitations. A manuscript, beyond doubt, of the Gospel of St. John."

"Well, it was. What then?" Treverick growled.

Reggie was slowing the car into a village. "Here's your telephone," he said over his shoulder.

Briosco sprang out. "I will provide for your car, Mr. Treverick. I promise you it shall be in Florence to - night just as it is." He ran into the post office.

Reggie turned in his seat and asked meekly, "May I see the manuscript?"

"How kind of you to be so interested," said Mrs. Bross, and took out of her bag a little packet in soft paper.

Reggie opened it and saw a small, thin volume bound in dark leather, on which figures of men had been stamped. The pages were of parchment, yellow from age, inscribed with neat writing in brownish - black ink. He turned them over. "Pretty script," he murmured.

"Are you an expert?" Treverick asked contemptuously.

"Not me. No." Three - quarters of the way through the volume, Reggie stopped turning the pages and looked close at a hole in the parchment, then moved in his seat to look at Treverick. "Well, well," he said. "You are, aren't you?" He closed the volume, wrapped it up again, and gave it back to Mrs. Bross.

Briosco returned. "Forward, my friend, forward." He lowered himself between the man and the woman. "Your car will be towed in immediately, Mr. Treverick. And when you have presented your manuscript to Mr. Bross, we will show him also your car. It is a Bross car, is it not? He made it."

"You are marvellous, sir," Mrs. Bross said. "You think of everything. You know everything."

Reggie sent the car on through the long, darkening shadows like a projectile. "I know a little perhaps," Briosco laughed. "But he there" - he pointed to Reggie's back - " admire him, he goes by faith." . . . The twilight rushed by ... they came to the high road, swept through its traffic in scrolling curves, and slowed through the Roman gate again into the evening rush of Florence, turned from the bridge to the hotel.

"Thank you very much, Mr. Fortune," Mrs. Bross gave him a bow and a smile and went in. Treverick followed without a word.

"And now -" Briosco made a knowing grimace at Reggie. "Is my lord the husband waiting? Let us see."

They crossed the hall to the lounge and looked through the glass doors.

Bross was there, sitting alone in a corner, watching the door. He saw his wife, he heaved himself up and made for her. She went swiftly to meet him, holding out her hand. But it was her shoulder he gripped. "Come back, have you? You wanted to rest to - day, didn't you?" The words came in a confused hurry. His heavy face was distorted with passion.

"My dear!" She put up her hand to the hand which shook her. "You shouldn't have worried. I meant to be back before you. But we've had the most wonderful adventures."

Bross made a choking sound. "Go to your room. I'll talk to you."

Yes, do. Let's go up, dear," she said gently. 

"Get on with you," he pushed her away, and she gave a little smiling nod and went out, looking back to beckon him. But he swung round on Treverick. "You - you wait here till I send for you, see?"

"I wasn't going away," Treverick told him. "Better take hold of yourself, sir, or you'll be sorry."

Bross clenched a fist. "You wait, you dog," he said thickly, and stood glaring.

"You'll find Mrs. Bross - -"

"Don't you talk about Mrs. Bross, you - -" Bross broke off with something like a groan and stumbled away. Reggie held the door open for him, but he did not seem to see Reggie or Briosco; he went on as if he were blind, rang for the lift, turned away the next moment and went heavily upstairs.

"Oho," Briosco said in Reggie's ear, "your comedy is well made. The jealous husband reacts beautifully."

"I wonder." Reggie's round face was troubled.  "Reactions very violent. Is your little man Taddi still upstairs?"

"He should be. What then? You expect - - "Reggie ran upstairs, and as he went heard a scream. He reached the door of the Bross suite and came into a sitting - room which was empty. The door of a bed room beyond stood open, and there by the dressing - table Mrs. Bross lay on her face. In the corner by the fixed wash - basin Bross was kneeling over another woman's body. There was a bleeding wound on her brow. "Get up," Reggie said. "Stand back."

Bross's face was pale and glistening with sweat, and his eyes stared fear. "You!" he gulped. "Well, you are a doctor, aren't you?" He gave way, moving along the floor on his knees. "It's my daughter."

"Yes, this is." Reggie bent over her. . . .

"Is she dead?" Bross said hoarsely. Reggie did not answer. "You can tell me, can't you, doctor? Tell me, for God's sake! It was an accident." Reggie turned from the girl's body and went to her mother's.

Bross watched him, gave a groaning cry, "Oh, my God!" bid his face in his hands, and sobbed.

Briosco had come into the room. He stopped short as he saw the two women; he swore under his breath; he glided to Reggie's shoulder. "So your tragedy is arrived," he said in a hissing whisper. "I confess you a true prophet," he glanced sidelong at the huddled, weeping Bross. "He has been swift, the animal."

Reggie looked up. "Oh, you have come," he said. "Now you might as well go away. Removing him." He resumed his examination of Mrs. Bross.

"If you please," Briosco stiffened into offended dignity. "When you have done your work on these unfortunates, I shall require you, sir." He marched upon Bross, dragged him to his feet, and hustled him out of the room. Reggie moved away from Mrs. Bross. In front of the dressing - table her handbag had fallen. It was open, and close by was soft paper and a thin volume in dark leather. He picked that up; holding it by the edges, he turned the yellow parchment pages delicately, and frowned at the book and wrapped it again in the paper to make it just such a packet as Mrs. Bross had given him in the car, and laid it on the table. Then he went to the telephone and rang up his wife. 

On the twin beds in the room lay Rachel and her mother. Reggie was at work on the wound on the girl's brow and her mother watched him with dull anxious eyes. . . . Mrs. Fortune passed him a bandage. . . . "There. I'm afraid that hurt," Reggie said. "However. Finish. And I don't mind promisin' you, it won't show."

"Won't it?" The girl gave a miserable laugh. "Oh, Rachel," her mother put out a hand to her. "He doesn't promise unless he's sure," said Mrs. Fortune. "No. I am slow," Reggie murmured. "But quite careful." He came round to Mrs. Bross. "Please." He examined her neck, on which there were purple marks; felt about her head. "Yes. A good deal of aching pain, what? Yes. You mustn't worry. That'll pass. No serious injury. Rather dazed still?"

"I don't know. It's like a queer dream."

"Yes. It would be. How did it begin? Is that clear?" 

The broad brow frowned. "It's horribly clear. I came in; I went to the dressing - table. A hand caught hold of my throat and choked me; I couldn't make a sound; something hit me on the head and then I don't know any more - not anything."

Rachel cried out, "Didn't father come up with you?"

"No, he didn't, dear; no."

"He was here when I came in," Rachel said. "I heard a noise here; I ran in, and you were lying on the floor and he was standing over you. I said, 'Whatever have you done?' and he caught hold of me and flung me away, and I fell."

"My dear! He didn't mean to," her mother cried. "You must have hit your head somehow. Didn't she, Mr. Fortune?"

"Yes. On the basin. Yes. Thanks very much. That's how it happened. You mustn't think any more now." Reggie turned away, and was busy with tablets and water. "You'll just drink this up and go to sleep; Joan's standing by." He took the packet from the table and went out.

Briosco had established himself in an apartment which was the pride of the hotel, a room all gilding and mosaic and marble, imitating the baroque splendours of the Palazzo Pitti. His handsome face was set against the purple brocade of a high chair - back and went very well with the decorations. It declared melodramatically that he was masterful, ruthless justice; it contemplated with a gloating pleasure the misery to which Bross had been reduced as one of the municipal police led him away to an inner room.

Reggie was admitted by another policeman, and asked wearily, "Well? What have you been doing?"

"I have had him upon the rack," said Briosco. "He is broken. Pah, it is a whining hypocrite even in confession. Listen, my friend." He waved Reggie to a humbler chair opposite him. "He confesses that he struck down his daughter. He pretends that he did not mean it; he loves her dearly. Why did he strike her, then? Because she ran in to help her mother. And who was attacking her mother? He pretends that he does not know. He could not have hurt his wife; he is devoted to her - yes, he talked religion to me. He swears by his God that she was lying there before he came to her. But how - but why - who should wish to hurt her but him? Oh, he cannot tell. He has not even a lie. What did he mean by his passion when he met her? Why did he order her to go up that he could deal with her alone? Oh, God forgive him. God forgive him. That is all!" 

"Yes. Some forgiving is required," said Reggie. "Not only for Bross. Where's your little man Taddi?" 

Briosco snorted angry contempt. "The rogue is gone; they cannot find him. I will have his jacket off for leaving his post. But, after all, what could he have done? It was not for him to be in the bedroom of husband and wife."

"No. Things have been mucked up. I said we needed forgiveness. However. Bross was probably telling you the truth. In spite of the rack. They're not dead." Briosco made a muttering noise, and his black brows came down. "Yes. I know you're disappointed. But they're conscious and recovering. And what they say fits with what Bross said." Reggie repeated it. "See?"

"I do not see." Briosco was vehement. "The girl declares that Bross flung her down; the woman - the woman is lying to conceal that her husband tried to murder her." He gave Reggie a sneer. "Are you so innocent? They always do so, the wives."

"Oh, no. No." Reggie sighed. "There isn't anything wives always do. Certainty about this wife not yet possible. And you won't get it by ignoring the evidence."

"What? Have I done so? Instruct me then, sir."

"The evidence is, Mrs. Bross wouldn't go out with her husband, but went out secretly with Treverick to buy husband a manuscript in Castellina."

"You believe that?" Briosco laughed. "You will believe anything."

"No. It's not belief that's required, but investigation. She had a manuscript of St. John when we took her into the car. She showed it me. There was also a manuscript of St. John on the floor of the bedroom." He held it out to Briosco, who glanced at it superciliously and put it aside. "Yes, you may be right. However. Further evidence about this expedition curious. Car tampered with so it should break down. Why?"

"Oh, that is a hard question!" Briosco laughed again. "To give the lady and the gallant an excuse to be out all night."

"Meaning Treverick arranged it, with or without the consent of Mrs. Bross. Yes. It could be. Another possibility: failure of ignition arranged by somebody else to compromise them."

Briosco knit his brow. "I concede that," he announced. "It is very possible. By the jealous husband, then, by the wretched Bross, that he might have cause of action against them. And so, when we brought them home in honour, his fury was because her reputation had been saved. Yes, that is very possible. You are subtle, my friend."

"Not me, no," Reggie gazed at him with dreamy wonder. "Simple faith that facts have a meaning. When found. We might try to find it. Have you talked to Treverick?"

"He waits," Briosco showed his teeth in a cruel grin. "It frets the nerves away to wait. He should be ready by now."

Treverick was brought in and exploded at them: "What the devil are you up to? What's happened?" 

"And what did you expect, sir?" Briosco answered. But Reggie went on suavely: "Mrs. Bross is quite all right. Also Miss Bross. And we have their account of things. Which I want to compare with yours, Mr. Treverick. Why did you arrange to take Mrs. Bross round to Castellina without her husband's knowledge?" Treverick scowled at him. "If she's told you, you know."

"Yes. As you say," Reggie murmured. "Bross was annoyed with you for telling him Bussone's manuscript was a forgery - in spite of you he bought it - was then further annoyed at its, being stolen from him. Very unpleasant all round. You told Mrs. Bross someone at Castellina had a genuine manuscript, and fixed up with her to go out and buy it privately - Bross would have turned you down good and hard if he'd been told - she was to pacify him by presenting this genuine article. Is that right?" 

"Absolutely. I knew there was a genuine manuscript at Castellina. I'd seen it when I worked on the Etruscan tombs there. It belonged to a chap who used to be a doctor in Siena, and when he died he left everything to his old housekeeper."

"So you bought it from her?"

"Mrs. Bross showed it you in the car."

"She did. Yes. When I asked her. I am careful. And what are your ideas about the car breaking down? Somebody arranged that."

Treverick frowned. "You mean the wires were cut? If they were, I don't know when nor why. Some dirty trick."

"And whose, my friend?" Briosco cried. "Who would gain by keeping you and the lady out there in the wood all night?"

"That's a foul question," Treverick said fiercely.

"Not nice, no," Reggie sighed. "You examined your car this morning. Bross examined it too, didn't he?"

Treverick's mouth came open. "He wouldn't play a trick like that."

"Oh, you are generous," Briosco sneered.

"Let's have Bross back, please," said Reggie, and Bross was brought shambling in, to stop and glower at Treverick. "Mr. Bross -" Reggie spoke, and he turned with a start "- your wife's doing well. And your daughter. You'd better know that."

Bross quavered out a hysterical laugh. "You're playing with me. It's not true."

"Oh, yes. Quite true. I don't say what isn't."

"Doctor!" Bross came to him unsteadily and held out an unsteady hand. "Thank 'e, thank 'e. Thank God!"

"Enough of that," Briosco exclaimed. "What did you do to the car this morning?"

"The car?" Bross repeated. He stared at Treverick. "Your car? I didn't touch it."

"I never said you did," Treverick growled.

"No. But there's another point," said Reggie. "Treverick took Mrs. Bross to buy you a genuine manuscript of St. John. This is the manuscript I found beside her in your room." He took the thin volume from the table and put it into Bross's hands.

Bross fumbled with it; turned the pages, looking at them with slow, puzzling care. Then he gave a groan, and flung it down and turned to Trcverick. "You cur!" he said thickly.

"Oho!" Briosco laughed. "What is the matter then?"

"That's the manuscript I bought from Bussone. The one Treverick said was forged. The one that was stolen from me." Treverick snatched up the volume, opened it, pored over it. "And now, Mr. Treverick?" Briosco sneered.

Treverick flung it down. "It is the forged one." He glared at Bross. "It isn't the one we bought to - day."

"So then!" Briosco cried. "Will you tell me why this is the one which Mrs. Bross had?"

"It isn't, I tell you," Treverick said. "Don't you see? This is the one Mr Bross said was stolen. And where did you find it? In his room!"

"Very well, very well," Briosco laughed loud. "Away with them both. Keep them apart." And his men bustled them out. He swung round on Reggie. "That is brilliant, my friend. Certainly either one is a rogue or both. Bross pretends the robbery to make a plot against the wife and the gallant. Or the gallant steals the manuscript to lure the wife into buying it again and so have his will of her."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie murmured. "And other permutations and combinations of the same. We haven't been very brilliant yet." He gazed at Briosco with closing eyes. "I should say we're not trying. Where is your little man Taddi? If he isn't here he ought to be somewhere else."

"Tcht!" Briosco spluttered impatience and took a telephone and spoke to his headquarters. "What do you say?" He swore. "Why was I not told then?" He threatened ferociously, he clashed down the receiver. "The animal! He has been in an accident, he is in hospital, he was run down."

"By a motor - cyclist, what?" Reggie murmured. "Have they got his number?"

For once Briosco's face changed its expression without intention. He looked stupid. "A motor - cyclist it was." he said slowly. "How - -" He interrupted himself with an oath. "You think of the cyclist on the road!"

"Yes, I do. The singular and opportune cyclist. Been thinking of him for some time."

Briosco started up. "Come then, let us see. The cyclist is in hospital too."

"Good for little Taddi. We did want somebody to be efficient."

Briosco, majestically offended, sat silent with folded arms and a Napoleonic calm while they drove to the hospital. When they reached it he was tempestuous, working up to hurricane force over the staff's polite refusal to take him to Taddi. At last the surgeon in charge was brought down, and he met a temper as bad as his own.

"I am not to be troubled like this, sir. The authority here is mine. And I tell you what you ask is impossible. We have had to operate upon the man Taddi. A fracture of the knee. He is not yet out of the anaesthetic. And the motor - cyclist whom he was trying to arrest, he has a concussion. I tell you, you - -"

"Oho. You do tell me something. Why was I not told before? Taddi has made a statement, yes? Repeat it to me."

"I have done so," the surgeon snapped. "He said that he was arresting the fellow. That is all he said. He was in agony; his injury was serious."

"Fracture of one knee - cap and shock?" Reggie's voice was gentle. "Speaking professionally - successful operation?" 

"Perfectly." The surgeon was not pacified. "His prospects are good. But, understand me, you may not question him till I give the word."

"Oh, yes. Quite," Reggie purred. "I suppose you've had a lot of people bothering you?"

"It has been intolerable. Here has been a man demanding to see the cyclist, if you please. A relative, he says. And then asking to be shown his clothes that he may be sure who it is."

"Well, well!" Over Reggie's face came a small, benign smile. "Did you let him?"

"Pah! Preposterous!"

"Absolutely, yes. But you wouldn't mind letting Signer Briosco have a look at them?"

"Certainly you will not," Briosco thundered. "I warn you, you dare not refuse, sir."

"Your tone is offensive, sir," the surgeon told him, and strutted out. "These experts," Briosco snorted. "Puffed - up frogs!"

"You think so? Yes. Experts and officials very hard to live with," Reggie sighed. "However. Quite clear, isn't it?" 

"Clear!" Briosco showed him a face of fierce disdain. "You have wonderful sight, then. But you have foreseen everything, have you not?"

"Not quite. Only some things. Poor little man, Taddi. I put him there. You ought to promote him for this. He's done the job."

A porter came in and led them away to a cupboard of a room in which lay the dusty, stained clothes of the motor - cyclist. Briosco turned them over. "Yes, our man all right," Reggie murmured, and felt in the pockets and drew out a thin volume bound in dark leather.

Briosco swore. "It is the same one!"

Reggie was turning the parchment pages quickly. He stopped and looked at a hole in one of them, and gave a little sigh of satisfaction. "Oh, no. Chapter seventeen. With hole. This is the manuscript Mrs. Bross had in the car. As expected. All clear now. The cyclist was out to get it. He cut the ignition of their car when they'd left it in Castellina, thus ensuring they'd have a breakdown on that lonely road where he could rob 'em quiet and comfortable. But we came up behind. Nothing doing. So he was civil and correct, and buzzed off to Florence. Went into the hotel, lurked about for Mrs. Bross, followed her into the room, garotted her and knocked her out, took the Castellina manuscript and left in its place the forged manuscript sold by Bussone. He failed to allow for little man Taddi. Taddi ran after him down the back stairs, and collared him as he got his bike going. Finish."

Briosco stood frowning. "That is a brilliant reconstruction, I grant you," he said slowly. "But, then, what is behind it all?"

"My dear sir! Oh, my dear sir," Reggie sighed. "Your respectable merchant of antiquities, Signer Bussone. He got his price from Bross for a forged manuscript. He knew it would be challenged by Treverick, to he stole it back. Been done before, what?" 

"Everything has been done before!" 

"Oh, no. No. You underrate Signer Bussone. He has original genius. So he arranged to steal the other manuscript and substitute for it his forgery. And he nearly brought it off. If this hospital hadn't been good and strict, he would have. Hospital rules have their uses, Briosco."

"You mean it was Bussone who came here to search the clothes?" Briosco cried. "We identify him and we have our case! Excellent! Come then!"

"Not me. No. Your job. Get on with it. But you might tell your fellows to let Bross and Treverick go to bed."

Briosco laughed. "Oho, the poor creatures! They have had enough. I give them - how do you say? - the all clear."

In the afternoon of the next day Reggie followed Briosco into the sitting - room of the Bross suite. Briosco entered as the conquering, beneficent hero. Reggie's round face was pensive. Treverick sat beside Bross, nervously ill at ease, but Bross had recovered his self - assurance. Only a deeper heaviness of the pouches under his eyes betrayed that he had been suffering. His wife, relaxed in languor and something paler than her wont, had again a faint flaccid smile of eye and mouth. She was sitting at the head of the couch on which her daughter lay, bandaged about the brow but eagerly interested.

Briosco sent bows in all directions. "I permit myself the honour -" he informed them, " if I have appeared stern to you, you will now perceive that it was necessary You set before me a case of difficulties which you constructed yourselves. I am now happy to congratulate you that I have solved them all. Give me, ladies and gentlemen, your attention." Magniloquently and at length he told them what Reggie had told him the night before. "Now I have the rascal Bussone arrested. He has no defence, his denials are imbecile. I shall be able to confirm each detail, I promise you. Thus I can felicitate you all upon my work, which will, I dare to hope, restore the most perfect confidence among you. Sir -" he fixed his eyes on Bross "- my word of honour, it should do so."

"You're very good," said Bross. "I'm much obliged to you."

"A nothing." Briosco made a disdainful gesture. "When I came to work upon your confusion of facts, all was speedily clear to me." He stood up. "Sir!" He bowed to Bross. "Ladies, your humble servant." Mrs. Bross held out her hand, and he kissed it; he kissed Rachel's. "Mr. Treverick." He gave Treverick a knowing smile with a bow.

"Thanks very much," Treverick muttered.

"My dear friend," Briosco turned to Reggie with affectionate condescension.

"Splendid, yes," Reggie shook hands. "Good - bye." And Briosco marched out.

Reggie sat down again. "About the two manuscripts," he murmured, and looked at Treverick. "That's the one sold by Bussone. That is a forgery, what?"

"Not a doubt," Treverick told him, gave a sidelong glance at Bross, and demonstrated. The decorations were not genuine, the script was a poor imitation..."

"Yes. All right. And this is the one you bought at Castellina. Date of it?"

"I can't be exact, you know. Probably ninth century; certainly not later than the tenth. The script is of the French style, from the revival of learning under Charlemagne. They had - -"

"I've heard of it, yes." Reggie sighed. He took the book from Treverick and turned the pages to the seventeenth chapter and pointed to the hole in the parchment. "See that? That's how I knew the manuscript left in Mrs. Bross's room wasn't the manuscript Mrs. Bross bought. But what about it?"

Treverick frowned over the hole, and Reggie watched him dreamily. "That's all right," Treverick told him, smiling superiority. "That's a proof of age. It comes from a mouse gnawing the parchment and so the word has been eaten away. You often get that in real old stuff. You see, it should read 'hina he agape' - 'that they love' - but a mouse has eaten the last letters and you get only ' hina he ag - - '"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie sighed. "No. Nothing like that. Not proof of age. Proof of fake. Hole wasn't made by a mouse. Natural hole. This parchment is skin from a sheep's head, and that hole's where the eye was. So the letters weren't eaten away. They were never written. Why? Because the fellow who did write this had got hold of some ancient bits of parchment and thought the eyehole was made by a mouse. So he dropped the letters. Thus constructing a sham antique."

"Then this is a forgery too!" Rachel cried, and began to laugh. "Oh, Tony! Priceless."

"Don't be silly," Bross rebuked her. "You can't be sure of a thing like that, Mr. Fortune. It's just your idea."

"What do you say, Treverick?" Reggie asked.

Treverick was flushed and fidgeting as he pored over the page. "I own it's a possibility - if you're right about the hole being a sheep's eye." He gave Bross a look of ashamed humility. "I ought to have been more careful, sir. It might be a Renaissance fake. They did do this sort of thing. When manuscripts got valuable, you know."

"Renaissance," Bross repeated stolidly. "Well, that's old, isn't it? That's good enough for me."

"My dear!" Mrs. Bross laughed.

"Well, well." Reggie surveyed them benignly. "That bein' that, that is all."

"How funny!" said Mrs. Bross.

THE HOLY WELL

One of the favourite maxims of Mr. Fortune is this: the case of the holy well ought to be thoroughly studied by all judges and criminals. He will argue, whenever allowed, that if every aspirant to the bench or the dock were required before accepting the responsibilities of those posts to show competent knowledge of the story of Mrs. Prout, the standards of crime and justice would be much elevated.

The judge who tried the case, Sir Sylvester Holt, never took that argument well, and in the first flush of irritation at it was heard to say that nobody knew the whole of the story but God and Mr. Fortune.

Of all the strange things in the case, the strangest, in Mr. Fortune's opinion, is that the process of discovering the truth was started by a Sunday paper. It had no such intention; it desired only to fulfil the purpose of its existence by splashing crime. And it splashed widely.

The report of the trial was written up in gasps of fervent horror. Walpole Robinson, Our Crime Commissioner, had in all his vast experience (he said so) never felt his heart palpitate to such a crepuscular tragedy of the mystery of the agonies of womanhood. His headlines were the only element of precision in the narrative. "Widowed Mother Murders Only Son" streamed across the page. Under that came: "Ghastly Mystery of the Holy Well - Death's Head on the Water - A Last Carouse? - Thin Cord of Murder - Judge Hides His Face before Black Cap - A Stern Prayer - 'No Mercy on Earth' - Mother Meets Doom Unmoved." From the turbid prose of Our Crime Commissioner it was difficult to extract what the evidence had been. He had filled most of his space with a fantasia on the emotions which he imputed to the mother in the dock, having a free hand, for the theme beneath the variations was " a blood - curdling calm."

This work of the imagination would not in any other week have come before Mr. Reginald Fortune's eyes, but he was driving back with Superintendent Bell from the long and difficult investigation of the cockles and the town clerk, he was wrapped in pensive content, and he persuaded Bell to stay the night at a country inn which had given them tea in a garden with sweet - peas of distinction. If the yellow sweet - peas there had not been so big and so dark, it is probable that he would never have applied his mind to the doom of Mrs. Prout.

The only paper of the day which penetrates to that inn is the Sunday News. When the twilight faded, when they could no longer see the yellowness of the sweet - peas, Bell proposed to take a stroll for the stretching of their legs. "My dear chap!" Reggie was shocked. "Oh, my dear chap! Have we risen from out the beast to fall into the beast again? No." Bell marched off, and Mr. Fortune entered the inn, sank into its easiest chair on the small of his back, took up the Sunday News and yawned over its lurid pages. But when Bell returned, he was sitting up; he was looking through the smoke of his pipe with a steady gaze into the darkness beyond the open window. "What's the matter?" Bell asked. "Have you seen a ghost?" 

Reggie turned upon him wide, melancholy eyes. "Yes. Two. Of the livin' and the dead. Not nice. Bell. No. Look at that." He held out the Sunday News, open at one of its pages of pictures. Half the page was given to a photograph entitled, "The Holy Well of Siran." There was not much well, but a great deal of landscape. Bare moorland rose to a whale - back ridge. In the bottom of the picture some masses of tumbled stone lay about a small black pool marked by a white cross. "Cross indicates the well of the virgin saint where Jonathan Prout's body was found," the Sunday News explained, and put in a panel about the unknown life - story of St. Siran and the traditional magic of her well. On the other half of the page were photographs of Mrs. Prout's home, a stark cottage lonely on the edge of the moor, of Mrs. Prout, of the judge who sentenced her to death, of the girl who found her son's dead body, of lawyers and policemen.

"Oh, that Cornwall murder," Bell grunted. "Old stuff. She was convicted days ago. How they hash things up in these Sunday blood - and - thunders! There never was anything in it."

"You think not? No. Nor did I. The usual murder for gain. But I only saw the respectable report in a respectable paper. And was respectably satisfied. However. Look at that rag."

Bell turned the pages and frowned over the columns of Our Crime Commissioner, and gave Reggie a puzzled stare. "Lot of guff and gush, isn't it? The facts are plain enough. This widow woman, Mrs. Prout, had her son come back from South Africa where he'd been working in the gold mines. Nothing queer about that. Lots of Cornish miners have gone out to Johannesburg and done very well."

"This one came back," Reggie murmured. 

"Of course he did. Quite common, when they've made a bit. Very keen on the old country, Cornishmen are."

"As you say. Jonathan Prout came back to home and mother: 'With his heart so full of glee, my boys, and his pockets full of gold, and his bag of drugget, with many a nugget, as heavy as he could hold.' Only it wasn't. Less than a hundred pounds."

"Quite enough too," said Bell. "Many a murder's been done for a trifle. You know that."

"I do. Yes. The point was, a hundred pounds isn't much to come back and live on. Why did Jonathan come back?"

"You have to think of men according to their class, Mr. Fortune," Bell instructed him. "A hundred pounds saved is wealth to a poor fellow."

"Oh, my Bell!" Reggie gave him a sad smile. "To a miner in Johannesburg?"

"Well, anyway, he did come back," Bell was impatient. "With his bit of money. No use fussing about why. Maybe he was homesick for the old country - -"

"Homesick. Yes," Reggie murmured. "'And darkness took the land his soul desired.'"

"Or fed up with the new country," Bell went on. - "What's it matter? He came back to his mother's house, there's no doubt about that. He'd only been there  a few days when he was found strangled in that holy well. The doctor said he was full of whisky; the well's close by his mother's cottage. She'd ordered whisky in when he came. She gave no notice he was missing. When the police asked her where he'd gone to, not telling her they'd got his dead body - -"

"Yes. The police didn't like her, did they?"

"I don't know. Quite a fair question. And look what she answered. She said he'd gone off - he'd told her he was going - she didn't know where. And then they found his things hidden away, and his hundred pounds in South African notes under her bed. Isn't that a clear case? She knew it was. She didn't dare go in the witness - box at the trial. Her counsel hadn't really got any defence, only a lot of blether about a poor lonely woman and wicked gossip and foolish superstition and witch - hunting and what all. She hadn't a word to say for herself."

"No. ' Blood - curdling calm.' No. 'Mother Meets Doom Unmoved.' Interestin' paper, this paper. Very picturesque."

"Picturesque!" Bell snorted. "They've made a film of it."

"That was the idea. Yes. However. Facts do emerge. Death's - Head on the Water.' Did you notice that?"

"It's all so mucked up to get thrills," Bell glowered at the columns of Our Crime Commissioner. "This holy - well stuff. What is the holy well? Just a little deep pool on the hillside, and so they hand you a lot of bunk about its being sacred from time immemorial to the maiden St. Siran that nobody knows a thine about, and its working magic down the ages, and the local people still believing there's fairies in it, and if you wash in it you'll never be hanged, and if you drop a pin into it and watch, you'll see your lover's face. Facts! My oath!"

"No. I shouldn't swear to all that. The usual holy - well folk - lore. However. Our Crime Commissioner has his uses. You notice, the damsel who found the dead body did go up to the holy well at dawn. Reason not stated. Probably she was going to wish herself a lover. What is stated is that she saw a death's - head on the water."

"Well, this reporter says so," Bell grunted. "Are you asking me to believe it?"

"Oh, yes. One of the things I do believe. Nobody invented that. Grace Knill looked into the well and saw 'a great death's - head floating upon a clot of dark slime.'"

"And then he explains it was a moth - just a dead moth," Bell snorted. "Silly girl's talk worked up. What's a moth - if she did see it?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Not silly, no. Precise description. Death's - head moth is a well - known species, marked with sort of orange skull and cross - bones on black thorax. I should say Grace Knill is an accurate observer."

"Would you? I should say she had the horrors, seeing the dead man's face floating there under water. Any moth would be a death's - head to her. Don't you know how these tales grow?"

"Yes. I think so," Reggie murmured. "And the clot of dark slime?"

"How can I tell what would come up on the water where a man's body was chucked in?" Bell glowered. "Do you reckon you can?"

"I wonder." Reggie looked at him with closing eyes. "It might have been treacle."

Bell's mouth came open. "I don't get that, Mr. Fortune," he complained.

"No. The local police didn't, Mr. Justice Holt didn't. But he hadn't seen this beautiful paper. You have. Look again. Picture of holy well."

Bell puzzled over it. "How do you mean?" He frowned. "There isn't anything. Just landscape."

"As you say. Very empty landscape. Not a tree. Miles of moor and not a tree. Further to that, picture of Mrs. Prout's cottage. No trees."

"That's right," Bell said slowly. "But what about it? What are you working to, sir?"

Reggie's eyes were almost closed. "I haven't the slightest idea," he answered, and stood up bit by bit. "I am now going to bed. Subsequent, I think I am going to annoy Mr. Justice Holt." He sighed. "A good judge too. As they go. . . ."

On the afternoon of the next day he sat in the room of Eddis, the legal adviser of the Home Secretary, and Eddis was highly official with him. "You must allow me to say, Fortune, if I had seen any reason to require your opinion on the case, I should have asked for it. I do not."

"No. Your error. Have you read the evidence?"

"Certainly I have. The judge's notes on the trial were of course submitted at once. I find the evidence conclusive. And I may tell you the judge has no doubt of the justice of the conviction."

"Yes. I know that. Poor old chap. He told her not to hope for mercy in this world."

"Are you suggesting that Holt is cruel or unfair?"

"Oh, no. Neither. Only conventional. Sufferin' from the usual judicial ignorance of things in general."

"There is no sounder judge on the bench," Eddis announced.

"I'm afraid not. No. Sad lack of general knowledge in the legal profession."

"What is your point?" Eddis asked, with the superior person's reproof of irreverence.

"Presence of moth. With black slime. Did the judge's notes mention the moth?"

The amazement which broke through Eddis's supercilious composure showed that they did not. He produced them, and turned them over. "Evidence of Grace Knill," Reggie prompted. "Damsel who found the dead Jonathan in holy well."

"Nothing about a moth - or slime," said Eddis. "I presume the judge thought it trivial and irrelevant."

"Yes. I fear so. Yes. Exhibit A: Judge's notes with omission of strikin' and important evidence. Exhibits B and G: Photograph of holy well and district. Photograph of Mrs. Prout's cottage." He handed Eddis the picture page of the Sunday News.

"What on earth do you produce this for?" Eddis exclaimed.

"My dear chap! Evidence for the defence. Weighty evidence ignored by Mr. Justice Holt. Establishin' probability the late Jonathan Prout was not murdered anywhere near the holy well in which he was found. Exhibit D - on same page: Photograph of Mrs. Prout. Oldish and frail. Indicatin' Mrs. Prout could not have carried a man's body any distance."

"I don't follow you," Eddis said. "You seem to put it to me that the presence of a moth and dark slime on the water proves the man was not murdered on the spot. Surely that's fantastic?"

"Oh, no. You omit the pictures. Taken altogether, strong evidence the murder was done elsewhere and by someone else, or with someone else's assistance. Doesn't amount to proof. But a probability ignored by judge. Well - meanin' man; did it all for the best. Only you mustn't hang Mrs. Prout on his trial of her."

Eddis was officially horrified. "I can't accept that, Fortune. As you state your argument, there is no substance in it. What is the connection between a dead moth and some slime with the man's murder? What is the relevance of the landscape photographs?"

"Yes. Those are the crucial questions in the case. Mr. Justice Holt didn't ask 'em. And he heard the evidence. We'll have to go over it with him, Eddis. Is his lordship in town?"

"He came back from circuit last week," said Eddis. "We must have this in order. Assume that I have asked for your opinion and put it on paper: you must make your points clear."

"Oh, yes. Rather. Words of one syllable. For the legal mind." Reggie came to the table and sat down to write. . . .

Sir Sylvester Holt was of handsome and venerable aspect: abundant white hair waved above a face ascetic, shrewd, and yet kindly. He rested it upon a hand to the beauty of which several rings drew attention. "I am at your service, Mr. Eddis." His smile at Reggie was bleak. "I have always been glad to have the assistance of expert witnesses. They often put opinions which I should never have thought of."

"Thanks very much," Reggie purred. "That is what we're for. However. Not a question of the evidence I might have given, but of the evidence which was given."

"Quite so." Sir Sylvester turned to Eddis. "You desire some explanation?"

"There does seem to be a point of magnitude," said Eddis uncomfortably. "Arising from the evidence of the witness who found the body, Sir Sylvester. She is reported to have said she saw in the water of the well a moth floating in dark slime. Would you confirm that?"

"Certainly," Sir Sylvester raised his eyebrows. "There is no mention of it in my notes, because it is of no conceivable relevance. She was a voluble witness, a young woman of the type which enjoys the importance of giving evidence. She told an interminable story. She was clearly a creature of low intelligence, emotional, imaginative, superstitious. I had to listen to her reasons for going to this holy well at dawn. She went to wish; she went to have the well tell her fortune. Some love - affair, no doubt. These traditions are still alive in Cornwall. She explained that she did not wish, because she saw a great death's - head in a slime. It was elucidated that she meant a moth. After this apparition, she perceived the dead man's face. Whether there ever was moth whether there is a Cornish habit of calling a moth a death's - head, I venture to think insignificant."

"Oh no. No," Reggie struck in. "You miss the point, Sir Sylvester. Death's - head moth well - known species. Presence of it in well with dark slime curious and interestin'. Didn't anybody ask her about the slime?"

"It had no interest for the prosecution or for the defence. I cannot say that I am surprised."

"Didn't interest the judge either? Well, well. What about the other evidence? Did anybody report any slime or viscous stuff on the body of the dead man?"

Sir Sylvester sat back and played with his rings. "I recall that the police evidence mentioned some dark stain on his coat - apparently jam or treacle."

"Apparently!" Reggie murmured. "Oh, my hat!" He gazed gloomily at Sir Sylvester. "Didn't anybody take that up?"

Sir Sylvester's old eyes met his with a stare of reproof. "Neither the police, nor the medical witness, nor counsel on either side suggested any significance in it. I see no reason to differ from them, Mr. Fortune."

"Well, well." Reggie turned to Eddis. "New fact - sticky stuff on coat - possibly treacle - confirmin' inference from other facts." Eddis frowned and fidgeted.

"You have the advantage of me, gentlemen," said Sir Sylvester, with cold wrath.

"I beg your pardon," Eddis answered in a hurry. "The position is this, Sir Sylvester. Mr. Fortune has submitted an opinion that this moth in the slimy matter suggests the murdered man having been in contact, shortly before death, with a tree on which some collector had put the preparation of treacle commonly used for catching moths. As he has just pointed out the sticky dark stain on the man's coat is confirmatory evidence."

"Most ingenious," Sir Sylvester drawled. "Mr. Fortune should certainly have been called as an expert witness for the defence. I should have examined him on his theory with pleasure. But I do not think that I should have advised the jury to consider it of any importance, even if they chanced to believe it."

"No. I suppose you wouldn't." Reggie smiled. "You haven't seen the place where the body was found, have you? Exhibits B, C, and D." He put into Sir Sylvester's reluctant hands the picture page of the Sunday News. "Observe the landscape."

Sir Sylvester looked at it with disgust. "The landscape appears to be composed of background," he said primly, but, when he raised his eyes to Reggie's, his face was alert and wary.

"Yes. Background was a felt want," Reggie murmured. "Not produced at the trial."

Eddis intervened hastily. "Mr. Fortune's argument is that the man was murdered where treacle had been put on trees for catching moths, that there are no trees anywhere near the well, and that Mrs. Prout's physique is too feeble for her to have moved the dead body any distance."

Sir Sylvester examined his beautiful hands. Then he spoke with careful precision. "I agree that is a theory which might have been argued for the defence. I do not agree that it is of decisive value. Suppose the murdered man bad been in contact with a tree with treacle and moths, it constitutes no proof that he was murdered there."

"Oh no. Not proof," said Reggie briskly. "Only ability. Trees are treacled for moths to get on 'em at night. So he was out at night where such trees are - which isn't near his mother's cottage. And he was dead in the well at dawn. Would you advise that she ought to be hanged, when those facts weren't considered by the jury and the judge who condemned her?"

Sir Sylvester raised his eyebrows. "I conceive that I am not here to give you an answer, Mr. Fortune." He played with his rings. "There are other points in the case which must be considered. Mrs. Prout did not go into the box to tell her story. We are not justified in using her silence as evidence against her. On the other hand, there were facts from which her guilt may reasonably be inferred. She did not report to the police that her son was missing. She had hidden his clothes and money. She had obtained whisky on his arrival - a great deal had been consumed, and he was full of liquor. Witnesses stated that she had never told them he was coming back to her from South Africa, and when questioned she answered that he would soon be gone. It was clear that she is thought an unpleasant woman."

"Oh, yes. What did you think of her?" said Reggie. Sir Sylvester took time to answer. "I have seldom found it so difficult to decide what I thought of a prisoner. The impression which she gave was of indifference. That is not uncommon in the dock when the case is clear. Whether it came of a callous brutality or from despair or sheer exhaustion, I am still uncertain. She gave no sign of sorrow. Sometimes I thought she was content to be at the end."

"Content," Reggie repeated. "I wonder." Sir Sylvester turned on him. "You may wonder, Mr. Fortune." It was said with some energy, some bitterness. "The case was horrible. I do not find that you have made it easier." He stood up. "I will write my opinion on these representations, Mr. Eddis."

Eddis showed him out with more than official deference, but then turned upon Reggie a grimace quite unofficial. "Confound you, you've shaken him."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured. "He has a conscience. He has a mind. Active when stimulated. Very uncomfortable qualities. Did you know? He has my sympathy. I am confounded, Eddis. Not a nice case. Content, he said. Mother content to be hanged for murdering son. Guilty or not. The reporter man said 'blood - curdlin' calm'. I wonder." He gazed at Eddis with large, wistful eyes like a bewildered child "I'll have to go down there." His voice rose to a high note of pathos.

Behold him next driving a small car, which was not his own, on the road across the moor above the village of Siran. The car was stopped; he surveyed the landscape with the aid of a map of large scale. On every side stretched flat curves of heath, which sloped down eastward to the green of pasture and crops and some woodland in a valley. Through its hollow he made out a gleam of the blue of the sea. To the south a film of smoke showed where the village was hidden. The map marked a cart - track coming up from the valley and crossing his road to the village. It went close by the inscription, in Old English type: "St. Siran's Well."

He ran his car on to the heath, slung about himself a botanist's collecting - case, and trudged along the cart - track towards the well, pausing now and then to gather for his case a sprig of heath, a sundew, a scrap of moss. The track was rough, bare crystalline rock or the grit of rock for the most part, with black patches of peat here and there. Where one of these had dried he saw the marks of motor - tyres. Again and yet again he found them before he reached the well, where heath and turf had been trampled by many feet and littered with picnic refuse.

"'I wish I liked the human race,'" he moaned, "'I wish I liked its silly face.' Yes. My fellow - creatures would flock here. Probably made tea with the well water." He picked his way through the mess, through the ruins of what had been an oratory, by the stone altar, strewn with toffee paper, and gazed down into the well. The water was only a foot below the verge, clear water but for the paper which was sodden in it down to a dark depth. He wrapped a small stone in white paper, slipped it in, and watched it sinking till it faded out of sight.

Then he turned, and for a little way followed the track towards the village. Over that many cars had left tyre - marks fresh. He went no further than Mrs. Prout's cottage, a grim, granite box with a scrap of garden in which the weeds were smothering her vegetables. She had not grown flowers.

Reggie trudged back up the track to the high road and, crossing the road, followed the track still on its sweep down to the valley. There, too, he found from place to place where mud had dried tyre - marks and also hoof - prints. But as he returned to the road he was nearly obliterated by a car which was taking an abundant, exuberant family over the moor to the murderous holy well.

"Oh, my hat!" he complained. "Fellow - creatures make life so difficult." He came to his own car, and drove away by the road to the village of Siran.

It was a cluster of whitewashed stone set about with luxuriant gardens, a balmy paradise after the barren wind - swept moor. Reggie still talks of the blaze of the begonias under the cottages of Siran. But it had no inn.

The post office gave an invitation to teas and mineral waters. He accepted with the cold courage of duty. He was put into a sealed room, which smelt of paraffin and geraniums and looked like a china shop. But he was repaid. A fat little woman brought him, with the scones which she called splitters, clotted cream and bilberry jam, and her tongue also was profuse.

Yes, indeed, she did set herself to give folks a good tea. Only most was carrying their own in their cars nowadays. Folks didn't care what they ate, now they had cars, seemly. Of all of them driving over from all parts to see where the murder was, you wouldn't believe how few would come in for their tea.

"Murder?" Reggie stopped applying jam to cream. "You don't mean to say you've had a murder in this dear little place?"

"Bless you," Mrs. Keigwin beamed upon his innocence. "Yes, surely." And she told him all about it, while he exclaimed appropriately.

He heard nothing new to him except her biography of Mrs. Prout. Old Mother Prout was always one to keep herself to herself. She had no kith nor kin left, and she married with a stranger sailorman what never kept house with her. He would come and go, and he'd died somewheres foreign a while back. Eh, she was a queer one. She made out she wanted naught of anyone but to be left alone in that little house up under the moor. Seemly, she was frighted everyone was after her bit o' money. Eh, eh, a close woman. She had money put by, sure enough. She'd been in good service over to Trecarrack, and old Squire Carrack and his poor lady did cherish her so, you'd wonder at it. Married from there, she did, and then they had her back again for nurse. Ay, ay, she thought herself a great madam, and you'd feel it, if she had a spite on you. There's them as says she could ill wish you till naught would go right with you.

Mrs. Keigwin would never speak to that herself, it was old, fearsome folly. But a hard, fierce woman for sure. It was her temper wouldn't let her man live with her and drove the poor lad Jonathan away out over the sea.

"Dear me. It is all very dreadful," said Reggie, through cream. "Why did he come back?"

"They will come back to the old place, the lads," Mrs. Keigwin shook her head. "God bless 'em for it, says I. But Mother Prout - ay, ay - she'd want none to live by her, not even the son of her body. I told you how she did with him. Eh, sir, a cruel, hard woman."

"Well, well," said Reggie. "I don't like it at all."

"No, to be sure, it makes your flesh creep. You'll be going up along to see the well where she put him?"

"Good gracious! Not me!" Reggie was appalled. "I didn't come here looking for horrors. I'm just searching for flowers and plants and such, A naturalist you know." He reached for his case and opened it. "Such a beautiful heath this, and quite rare, really." He demonstrated, and Mrs. Keigwin lost interest in him. "No, don't go, my dear lady. I wonder, could you tell me about the butterflies here? What is the best place? Is there anyone here who collects?"

Mrs. Keigwin sniffed. "We ain't no time for such, sir. There's nobbut the children chasing them for play. Eh, and young Master Arthur - he do be out wi' a net often; he makes grave work of it. Like you and your bits of flowers. He's a simple, solemn one."

"Just like me, yes," Reggie said. "Who is he?" 

"Master Arthur Carrack, I'm telling you." Mrs. Keigwin stared as if everyone must know. "Oh. Son of the Squire of Trecarrack?" 

"No, no. What are you saying? Mr. Robert Carrack is the Squire. Young Master Arthur is nobbut his cousin."

Reggie, the eager naturalist, sought more information about Arthur Carrack and got it. Master Arthur had ought to be at school, but his mother couldn't bear to let him go. Mrs. Carrack was a war widow, pool soul; and the boy born after her man was killed, you couldn't blame her for being soft wi' him. But she did surely have him tied up in her apron - strings. She had Parson Smith to Lantic over for his schooling. Where did they live? Oh, down along to Treeve - the manor - house time was, but a sad little place nowadays. She was left poor, Mrs. Carrack was, dear soul.

Reggie made his way down along. A bridle - path turned off the road into a thicket of gorse and bramble, met a stream which came from the moor, climbed above it where it made a ravine, and so took him to a shrubbery garden and a small house built in the lee of rising ground which took the western winds. Only a coat of arms cut in the stone above the door - four legless birds - suggested that it might have been the home of any person of importance. Reggie knocked and knocked again, and was not answered. He was knocking a third time when a voice behind him asked, "What is it?"

He turned to see a woman in a blue cotton dress, crumpled and earthy, in a faded sunbonnet which was awry, which showed under curling wisps of fair hair a square, pale face. "I beg your pardon," said Reggie, in his meekest voice. "I hoped to have a talk with Mr. Arthur Carrack."

"I am his mother." She came a step nearer, and her eyes were hostile. "Well?"

Reggie gave a nervous giggle. "My dear lady, so pleased. I'm a naturalist, you know. They told me Mr. Arthur Carrack knew all about the butterflies round here. So - -"

"What nonsense!" she interrupted. "Who told you?"

"It was at the post office, when I was asking them where there were good places for moths." For a moment Mrs. Carrack's determined face betrayed emotions. Then she said, "Mrs. Keigwin!" in a tone of angry contempt. "Didn't she tell you Arthur's only a boy? He isn't a naturalist; he doesn't know what it means."

"Ah, but he does go butterfly hunting, doesn't he? Boys are sometimes very good. Could I just have a talk with him."

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid you can't," Mrs. Carrack said brusquely. "He's not well."

"Oh, dear," Reggie condoled. "Nothing serious, I hope?"

"We hope not. But he's never been strong. Good day," said Mrs. Carrack. 

"Thank you so much," Reggie murmured. "I do hope it'll be all right." Mrs. Carrack did not answer, but stood still, watching him depart. When he was out of sight he stopped to listen. Mrs. Carrack, or someone else, was moving rapidly. He returned to the lane, and climbed the rising ground till he could see house and garden. Mrs. Carrack came out from the back of it on to the hillside, and he heard her calling. After a little while a boy appeared from the hill - top. He was looking up into the sky, his hands were busy. Reggie made out a kite and the string of a kite.

Mrs. Carrack drew near. There was talk. The boy wound up his kite - string, and went back with her to the house.

"Oh, my aunt!" Reggie muttered, and sidled along the hill as near as he dared. The boy was of some height, but very slim. He might have been almost a man. He might have been no more than fifteen. In face, as in figure, he was unlike his mother. A dark aquiline face, but thin and fragile, handsome in a delicate way.

"I wonder." Reggie sighed, went down again to the lane and back to the village. Then he drove his car round by the road to the valley in which he had seen woodland.

The moor sloped down, heath ended, and rough pasture began. He came on a small herd of ponies, which fled, more in fun than fear, and chose to gallop in front of the car till he edged them off where placid Jersey cows were browsing. He slowed to a walking pace, and where the track which he had already traced came down through the field from the moor he stopped and got out of his car.

On the track he found again marks of tyres where mud had dried, of bicycle - tyres as well as motor - tyres and hoof - prints. He turned back into the wood, and wandered this way and that. The trees, birch and ash most of them, had been left to grow as their luck served among moss - grown rocks, with ferns and foxgloves luxuriant about them. Many were stunted and contorted, some of dignified magnitude. After a while he came upon ash trunks which showed, about the height of his chest, dark - brown stains. The stains were almost dry, but still sticky to the touch, and upon them were fragments of moths. He made out a body with black bars upon yellow, and cut it out of the hard treacle and put it in a pill - box in his case.

With a sigh of dreary satisfaction he continued his search. A good many trees had been treacled at one time or another, but he could find none on which the treacling was fresh. All were within a little distance of the road. A path led among them from the point where the moorland track came down. He found beside it a place where foxgloves had been picked, and the leaves which were left had been flattened. Close by, there was an ash on which the treacle - stain was smeared far down the trunk. He examined that; he pored over the ground all about, and his round face was intent with patient gloomy care. "Well, well," he murmured, and very slowly went back to the road.

A red sunset glowed above the whale - back of the moor. He gazed into it plaintively. "God help us," he said, rare words with him, he trudged on along the road. By the gate of a drive which curved through the wood stood a cottage. He rapped at its door, and a gaunt woman, with eyes like little black buttons, stood before him. "I'm so sorry to trouble you, but could you tell me if this is a good place for moths?"

She gave a gulp of amazement, the gleaming little eyes stared wrath. "What d'ye mean? I don't have no moths." 

Reggie giggled. "Not in your nice cottage, course not. I mean in your woods."

"They ain't my woods. They belong to Mr. Carrack to Trecarrack. This here is his lodge."

"Oh, quite, yes. But, you see, I collect moths, and I saw people had been treacling the trees for them."

"Ah, that'd be young Master Arthur. That's different. You're a stranger. I couldn't give you leave to go in the woods. They're private. I'm telling you, see?"

"Dear, dear." Reggie sighed. "No one comes treacling but young Master Arthur?"

"That's right. He's the family." She shut the door.

Reggie went back to his car, and drove away to the big hotel at the popular watering - place where nobody knew who anybody was. In his private sitting - room there, Superintendent Bell was waiting. "Oh, my Bell " he moaned. "Don't look brisk and competent. It is not so, nor 'twas not so, but God forbid it should be so." He dropped himself into a chair. "What were you going to tell me?"

"It's working out well, sir," Bell assured him. "Haven't you heard? The Home Secretary's decided to reprieve Mrs. Prout. That isn't official, but I had the tip from headquarters. I brought up a wire for you."

Reggie stretched out a languid hand for it, and read:

"Holt accepts your argument. Action follows. Congratulations. Eddis."

"Judge came down on your side, I'm told," said Bell.

"Yes. That is so. Quite a good judge. He had to." Reggie squirmed on to the small of his back. "Oh, my aunt!" he complained. "Not a nice case, Bell."

"Ah! That old lady was fixed for the rope, if you hadn't butted in. Wonderful bit o' work, Mr. Fortune."

"Oh, no! No." Reggie was plaintive. "Only obvious destructive criticism."

"You saved her from being hanged for what she didn't do, when nobody else would have. That's good enough."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap. Painful commentary on the adequacy of our criminal trials. Also on the efficiency of the police force. Nothing more. Are we down - hearted? Yes."

Bell was pained with him. "I don't know what you mean down - hearted. You put us on the right line as soon as you went over the evidence. And I'm not admitting the trial was so bad. Anyway the police work's been all right. They put in everything they knew, and now, when I took up your points with 'em they were anxious to help. I can tell you, sir, I've got stuff from 'em that justifies you absolutely."

"Thanks very much. Well?" 

"Take the death's - head moth. That's genuine. The girl pointed it out to the police when they came, and they saw it themselves, but she was half - hysterical and they didn't think anything of it. Then the black slime. Their recollection is, that's right too. And, also, they're quite clear they found dark, sticky stuff on the man's coat. The doctor says he had some on his side hair too, like very thick treacle, and agrees it might quite well have been treacle mixed with brown sugar, like what is used for catching moths. Then, beyond that, the police found no mess of spilt treacle or jam or anything in Mrs. Prout's cottage. So there's your case for the man having been where trees were treacled just before death."

"Oh, yes. No doubt about that. Never was. However. What about cause of death?"

"The doctor's clear the fellow was strangled before he was put in the water. There was some scraping of the face and a bruise on the other side of the head. Most probably knocked down when half drunk or so, and then throttled and shoved into the well."

"I agree. Yes. And the ' thin cord of death'?" 

"The cord round his neck? It was very thin string doubled. They haven't kept it."

"No, they wouldn't." Reggie sighed. "However. Very thin. Sort of string that might be used for flying a kite?"

Bell was surprised. "I didn't ask 'em that. I suppose it would be. Why, what's the idea, Mr. Fortune?"

"Have they kept a photograph of the corpse?"

"Oh, yes, I've got some prints." Bell opened his attache - case. "Here you are, sir. You can make out the treacle - stain. And you'll notice the side - pockets of his coat are torn. The police believe that was done stuffing 'em with stones to sink the body, but the stones were too big and fell out, so he floated after all."

"Quite likely. Yes," Reggie examined the prints. The face which he saw, though swollen from strangulation, had a clear likeness to the aquiline, small - boned face of Arthur Carrack. The body, like Arthur's, was narrow - shouldered and slim. Reggie put the prints on the table. He lay back in his chair and gazed at Bell, and his round face was pale and the muscles round the jaw stood out.

"What's the matter, sir?"

"I have a new exhibit. Boy sixteen or plus. And the deceased Jonathan Prout resembles him. Boy who treacles for moths. Boy said to be the only local moth collector, stated by his mother to be so ill he couldn't talk to me. Boy who was nevertheless out flying a kite." He told Bell the story of his day's work. 

"My oath!" Bell muttered. "That gives things a new turn, don't it?"

"Yes. What turn?" Reggie asked drearily. "We know where Jonathan Prout was murdered. We know how he was murdered. We're not an inch nearer knowing why he was murdered, or who murdered him."

"I grant you, I don't see my way," Bell grunted. "But this woman, Mrs. Carrack, she's queer stuff; she wants looking into."

"Yes. That is so. Several possibilities of investigation quite clear. I should like to look into Mrs. Prout's cottage. And other things."

"What's your point about the likeness of this boy Arthur Carrack and the murdered man?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. No. The mind is almost wholly impotent. I should say we may find out who did the murder. I can't see how we're ever going to prove it. Are we down - hearted? Yes. Absolutely. My only aunt! I want a bath. How I want a bath!" . . .

Next morning Reggie came down to breakfast late, and his blue eyes were dull and wistful, his manner vague, as if he walked in his sleep. Bell, who had long finished eating, rose from the lounge and went back to the dining - room after him. Reggie was talking to the waiter about porridge, bitterly, and went on to distinguish between mackerel fresh and mackerel not so fresh. "'The little more and how much it is! The little less and what worlds away.' See that? Yes. Coarse and toxic or an inspiration to the higher intelligence. Well - grilled. And I want some tarragon vinegar. The mind is inert. Go on." The waiter fled.

"Have you had a bad night, sir?" Bell sympathised.

"No, no. Unconsciousness was profound. And is persistent." His eyelids drooped. "I wonder what they make the coffee with here? A sad world. We shall never know. Is the universe ultimately irrational, Bell? - Methought I saw a hieroglyphic bat' - that's the tragedy of man. Yes. It's all in the coffee."

Bell cleared his throat. "I see the reprieve of Mrs. Prout is announced in the papers, sir."

"Is that so?" Reggie's eyes opened a little. "What a comfort is the daily Press."

"She'd have heard before," said Bell. "You've given her a good night, anyway."

"Wasn't thinkin' of givin' people good nights," Reggie mumbled. "You're horrid full of energy. I want to see the doctor who attends Master Arthur Carrack - or not. Go and find out about him."

Bell departed and the mackerel arrived, and, after some fervent adjurations, the tarragon vinegar. Reggie tasted, and his dull eyes gave a gleam of surprise and he ate with satisfaction. An earnest appeal then produced for him raspberries and clotted cream. He left the waiter with a qualified blessing. "Speakin' judicially, nothing could atone for the coffee. Tell 'em so. But you have a heart."

He had to wait for Bell, who was still shut up with the telephone, and emerged to say: "I've got the doctor's address from the police, sir. But he's out on his rounds now. Of course we're a bit late."

"Late!" Reggie murmured. "Of course we're late. We're policemen. Murder was done months ago. Mrs. Prout was unjustly convicted of it last week.

Then we began to look into it. However. I wasn't goin' to the doctor first. We will now call on Mr. Robert Carrack of Trecarrack. Cousin of Arthur Carrack. Owner of woods where Arthur did his treacling."

Reggie drove his car again to the lodge in the valley and hooted, and the woman came out and opened the gate of the drive. It was a green tunnel through the wood which opened suddenly upon a garden of rampant roses. Behind that, out of ample robes of roses and all kinds of clematis and jasmine, oriel windows gleamed, looking south over the violet sea. "Some place, I'll say," Bell grunted. "Rather good, yes." Reggie stopped the car. Over the doorway, in the foliage of a wistaria, he saw the same coat of arms, with four legless birds, as that on Mrs. Carrack's little house.

A fat and wheezy manservant did not know if Mr. Carrack was in. They were left in a hall of the sixteenth century. Reggie looked about it, appreciating the timbered roof, the dark panelling, the pictures. He wandered from one to the other. Not many pictures, none modern: an Elizabethan dame, all ruff and long wasp waist, an opulent matron, with a Charles II bedgown falling off her, a towering, powdered head, which had no face to speak of - not good pictures; no men. There were spaces in which the panelling showed that other pictures had once hung.

"Sold off the ancestral portraits, what?" Reggie murmured, turning to Bell.

Bell frowned. Somebody was coming. He came, a heavy - footed man, gaitered, in loose, dirty tweeds. "Sorry to keep you," he said gruffly. "I was going round the yards. What can I do for you, Superintendent?"

"It's about this Prout case, sir," Bell told him. 

"How do you mean?" Carrack asked. "I read in the paper Mrs. Prout had been reprieved. Isn't that true?"

"Oh yes. Absolutely." Reggie nodded. "But not conclusive. What was your opinion?"

"I don't follow," Carrack said. He had a heavy face, with a lot of brow and nose and jaw; he looked dull, and he spoke slowly. "You mean about her being guilty? It was a bad business, but you do want to have proof. That's how I felt. I'm no lawyer."

"Very sound, yes. Did you know Mrs. Prout?"

"She was here when I was small. She'd been my mother's servant. That's some time ago - " Carrack's big mouth twisted into a rueful smile -" as you may see. She left long ago, in my mother's time."

"You didn't know the dead son?"

Carrack shook his big head. "I may have seen him as a boy. He'd been abroad for years, you know. I've no recollection of him."

"And the late Mr. Prout?"

"Her husband, you mean?" Carrack frowned. "I don't know that I ever saw him. He was a sailor. I think he was hardly ever at home with the old woman."

"I see, yes. What's your opinion of Mrs. Prout?"

Carrack frowned. "That's rather hard to answer. I never had her in mind till this case began. My mother thought well of her. I was a very small kid when she left. So far as I remember, I liked her. You mustn't go by the village gossip. The country people round about here always think an old woman living alone is a witch. But I don't know what you're driving at. She's been pardoned, hasn't she?"

"She won't be hanged, no. What's going to happen to her isn't settled."

"You mean she might be kept in prison or let out?"

"That is so, yes. The case has to be gone over again."

"I see. Well, what do you want to ask me?" 

"You have some cousins living over at Siran, Mr. Carrack?"

Carrack showed surprise. "Certainly I have. My cousin's wife and her boy. I let her have the old dower house. How do they come in?"

"Did they know Mrs. Prout or Jonathan Prout?" 

"I couldn't tell you. I suppose they would know the old woman, in a way. You'd better ask Priscilla."

"Mrs. Carrack? Yes. About the boy. What sort of boy is he?"

Carrack laughed a little. "Oh, Arthur's not a bad kid. The only son of his mother, you know; never left home and so on. Rather queer; what people call neurotic. But I've always found him behave himself."

"He collects moths, doesn't he?" 

"God bless my soul, he plays all sorts of odd games like that. He's not been to school, you see."

"You let him treacle the trees in your woods?" 

"Treacle? Oh, for his moths, you mean. I believe he does. There's no question of letting him. He's my cousin."

"I see. Yes. Could you tell me when he was here last?"

"I could not! That treacling business doesn't bring him up to the house. I shouldn't think he's been here lately. He's been ill - or Priscilla says he has."

"Thanks very much," Reggie murmured. 

"But what's all this about?" Carrack frowned. "I don't follow you at all."

"I'm sorry. The reference is to the condition of Jonathan Prout when found. Some treacle on him."

"Good God Almighty! You don't think - -"

"Not thinkin' at present. No. Material inadequate. Good - bye." They drove away. "Not much like his cousin, is he?" Reggie murmured.

"How do I know?" Bell complained. "Oh, you mean, his saying the boy was queer and neurotic. I grant you, nothing neurotic about this fellow."

"No. There is not. Solid and stolid. But I didn't mean that. Cousin Arthur resembles Jonathan Prout. Small pretty face. Cousin Robert, big face, lot of bone. And elsewhere. Bony hands. Uncommon big feet. Herring - boxes without topses were the shoes of Clementine. However. Next question. Alleged illness of Cousin Arthur. Where's the family doctor? At St. Ude. All right. We will now disturb his lunch. Why should he have lunch? No. Man was born to suffer."

Dr. Penberth did not take disturbances well. He was an old young man, stiff with professional dignity. The conversation opened with a lecture from him on the sin of coming without appointment and the magnitude of his duties. "Yes. That's what I was going to talk about," Reggie drawled. "Duty as a medical man, and duty as a citizen. Is Mrs. Prout a patient of yours?"

Dr. Penberth, chewing the words with relish, said Mr. Fortune must surely be aware that a medical man was bound to treat his practice as absolutely confidential. "Oh, no. No. Overridin' duty. That justice should be done. That the innocent should not be hanged. You forgot that." Dr. Penberth spluttered wrath. Was it suggested - - "Yes. It is. She was your patient, wasn't she? You knew her physical condition. Was she capable of overpowering an adult male and conveyin' his dead body any distance?" Dr. Penberth wiped his mouth. He must point out that there could be no certain answer to such questions. "I suppose you had formed an opinion," Reggie drawled. "You didn't give it to the police." Dr. Penberth said that he had not been asked. "Oh. Patient of yours charged with murder by violence. You offered no evidence of her feeble state. Next point. Was Mrs. Prout's husband your patient at any time? You never saw him? Oh. And the murdered son? Never saw him either? Very well. Now what about Arthur Carrack? Have you attended him recently?"

"I attend Mrs. Carrack and her son professionally."

"Yes, I knew that. What have you been attending him for since the murder of Jonathan Prout?"

Dr. Penberth took off his spectacles and wiped them. "I make a protest against that question."

"Reluctance to answer noted. Do you refuse to answer?" 

"I protest against the implication, the insinuation, the innuendo."

"What is that?" Reggie snapped. 

"Really, Mr. Fortune! You imply - -" Penberth stopped.

"Not me, no. I'm asking you plain questions. You make the implication. What is it? Do you think you have knowledge which might bear upon the murder?" Dr. Penberth stammered that the suggestion was unfair and improper. Professional confidence - - 

"Oh, no. Not again. No." Reggie sighed. "Professional confidence don't justify obstruction of the course of justice. However. You still want to. Good day. Dr. Penberth. You won't succeed."

As he turned to the door, Penberth started up. "Just a moment, Mr. Fortune - -"

"No, thank you. You've delayed us too long already." Reggie took Bell away.

When they were outside: "But you'd got him worked up so he was just going to give us the goods," Bell protested.

"Yes, I think so," Reggie smiled and got into the car. "Yes. However. He'll do very well as he is. And I want my lunch. I don't think Dr. Penberth would have given us lunch. He's going to get busy. Let it work. The felt want is an inn. A real inn. If any. What about the local police headquarters? They ought to keep one in workin' order. Thus the body's simple cravin' and duty could be satisfied together."

"The beer's all right at Brea," said Bell.

It was the only element in the lunch which comforted Reggie. The inn was in a state of coma between market - days, and with reluctance produced two of its domestic pasties. "Mutton and onions and apple and dough" were blended in a soggy confusion. Reggie ate only bread and salt with his beer.

"Yes. The flesh bein' thus mortified, let's see if duty has any better luck." With the face of a weary martyr he led Bell to the police station and gazed aggrieved wonder at the ample and rubicund superintendent in charge of the district. "Do you like your Cornish pasties?" he moaned.

"Rare good stuff, Mr. Fortune, when you have 'em right.";

"It could be." Reggie sighed. "Yes. We didn't. We don't get anything right. What do you know about the late Mr. Prout?"

"Sir?" The inspector was startled. "The murdered man, do you mean?"

"Not him, no. Papa. Ever met him?" 

"I can't say as I have, sir. He was a seaman, you know. Only came to the old lady between voyages. I don't think anybody hereabouts could tell you much about him. He wasn't a native in these parts. Plymouth man, I believe."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "When exactly did he die?"

The superintendent suffered fresh surprise; the superintendent rubbed the back of his neck and thought with visible labour and difficulty and consulted records. "I can't tell you exactly," he concluded. "You see that didn't ever arise. My recollection is, Mrs. Prout's been known as a widow for years. The husband didn't die at her place at Siran, but while he was away at sea."

"None of your fellows knew him?" 

"I don't call to mind," the superintendent said slowly. "I'll make enquiries. If you could tell me what you want, it might be easier, Mr. Fortune."

"Yes. It would. Much easier. But I don't know what I want. Anything about the late Mr. Prout. Try your men. I suppose you've kept the key of Mrs. Prout's cottage?"

"I have, sir. But we searched it, you know, and I can tell you we found no papers nor anything to signify - only her son's clothes, and his money hidden." The superintendent coughed. "You don't mind my saying, Mr. Fortune, I can't see myself how that fits in with her being innocent."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Secretive woman. That's fundamental. And the one thing certain about the murder is, she didn't do it. However. More is needed. Push along with your enquiries and we'll go on to the cottage."

As they drove back to Siran: "I don't know what you expect, sir," Bell grunted.

"Nothing. They didn't find anything to signify. That's what's significant."

The lock of the cottage door groaned, and they went in to dank, musty air. Everything was old, but not old enough for beauty: shabby furniture of last century, odds and ends of china, threadbare carpets, darned curtains, oleographs on the walls - a home carefully kept, but without comfort or grace.

"Lived hard, didn't she?" Bell said. "Not a chair to be easy in, and these beds - like planks."

"Yes. That is so. Not a kind house. Something else. Neither kind nor kin. She hasn't got a portrait of anybody. That's very unusual. No relations, no friends; not even the husband of her youth, nor herself." Reggie wandered from place to place, poking even into the kitchen stove, where the fire of the morning of the murder had burnt itself out, opening the cupboards. From one of them he drew out a little store of old newspapers, kept for fire lighting. He spread open the papers and picked out a scrap, something dirtier and much more frayed than the rest. "Well, well," he smiled. "Brea Gazette. Of August last year."

"What about it?" Bell grunted. "Just an odd bit - headlines and advertisements!"

"As you say. Yes. Only a bit. Why did Mrs. Prout still possess a bit of the local paper a year old? Bafflin' question." He looked at his watch. "Back to Brea and its intelligent superintendent. Not its pub. No."

The superintendent received them with pride in his port. He'd dug up a pensioner who'd been at the Fronts' marriage. That was more than thirty - five years ago. Prout was a good - looking fellow then; fair and well set up. His missis and him went off to Plymouth for a bit; but she came back in a year or two, to do nurse at Trecarrack when Mrs. Carrack had her baby. Mrs. Carrack was wild to have her, being in bad health, and Jessie Prout cared for the Carracks more than anything else in the world. Prout was away at sea, and Jessie left her own kid behind in Plymouth and took on service again.

Afterwards, when Mrs. Carrack died, Jessie pretty well ran the place for years till Mr. Robert was big enough to go to school. Then she put in a spell at Plymouth, and afterwards, when old Mr. Carrack died and left her the cottage at Siran and a bit of money, she set up there. All alone. Her son Jonathan got a job in the mine - Wheal Brea - and worked there till he went off to South Africa. Prout was only home between voyages. He'd got to be a surly, heavy sort of chap, saving nothing to nobody - might have caught it of his wife. Matter of three years ago he was last in Siran. Two years back, or thereabouts, Mrs. Prout heard he'd died somewhere foreign.

"There you are, Mr. Fortune," the superintendent concluded. "I don't know what more you could expect unless you get Mrs. Prout herself talking."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Did anything happen here last August?"

The superintendent scratched his head. "Concerning the Prouts, you mean? Not as I know of. Not a thing. What are you after?"

"I can't think." Reggie sighed. "Matter of imagination. I haven't any. Thanks very much. Good - bye."

He took Bell to the offices of the Brea Gazette, which consisted of a cubby - hole behind the shop of the printer and stationer who owned it. The file for the preceding August was dug out of its dust. The Brea Gazette produced eight pages a week. They were severely arid. On one of them, however, was a photograph. The Lord Lieutenant had visited Brea to open a cottage hospital. His lordship and local gentry were depicted in a group. Among them could be made out the heavy face of Mr. Robert Carrack. Reggie pointed to it.

"Yes, that's him all right," Bell agreed. "Just the sort of thing the old woman might have kept by her for a bit. A big local show with the Squire in it."

"As you say." Reggie continued to look at the photograph. "Come on."

"Where to?"

"My dear chap! Mrs. Carrack. Mother of Arthur Carrack. She ought to have heard from her very confidential doctor by now. Let's see the reaction."

The sun was setting as they drove back to Siran. But Reggie did not stop by the bridle - path to the old manor - house, he went on through the village, by Mrs. Prout's cottage and beyond to the holy well. There he got out of the car, stood for some time gazing solemnly into the black water, and then wandered round about it. His last glance was from the well to the desolate cottage. He shivered a little.

When they returned to the village, the sun was behind the high ground to seaward. They left the car by the entry to the manor - house path, and walked on up the ravine through dark shadow.

Mrs. Carrack herself opened the door to their knock, not untidy, as Reggie had seen her before, but in neat precision. Her fair hair was smooth and sleek, her black frock a garment of ceremony. She showed no surprise. "Yes? What is it?" she asked.

"You will remember me," said Reggie. "This is Superintendent Bell. We are investigating the murder of Jonathan Prout."

"You didn't tell me that before," she answered. "You pretended to be collecting butterflies."

"No. I asked for information about butterflies from your son. You told me he was too ill to see me. And at that time he was out flying his kite. Is he in now?"

"No, he is not," she said, and her square face set with a flush. 

"We'll come in, please," Reggie told her, and she gave way and led them into a comely bare drawing - room. "You will have heard from your doctor that information is required by me police about your son's illness."

"Dr. Penberth has told me that he refused to give you any information." She flushed. "You had no right to ask him."

"You think so? Did you instruct him to keep the cause of your son's illness a secret?"

"A doctor can't talk about his patients."

"I ask you what the cause was."

"Arthur had a fall on the moor. He was bruised and shaken, and he's not strong. It was a severe shock, and I can't have him worried about it."

"Oh. The shock havin" occurred on the night of the murder of Jonathan Prout?"

"I don't know when Prout died. Nobody knows."

"Oh, yes. Quite certain. On the night before his body was found. When did your son come home shaken and shocked?"

She bit her lip and frowned at him.

"Why wasn't Dr. Penberth to tell me?"

"He didn't know."

"Really! You didn't call him in till afterwards?"

"No. I didn't. There's no mystery about it at all. I thought Arthur wasn't much hurt and he'd soon be quite well. But he was feverish, and I sent for the doctor. It's all perfectly simple. I couldn't bear to have Arthur worried about this horrible thing. It's a dreadful place for gossip, and Arthur is so nervous. I can tell you exactly what happened. Arthur often goes out for moths to the Trecarrack woods. He went over in the early evening and treacled the trees, and came home to supper. Then, just as it got dark, he cycled over again to collect the moths, as he'd done hundreds of times.

But that night - -"

"One moment. That was the night of Jonathan Prout's murder?"

She swallowed. "It was the night before the body was found."

"Thank you. Yes? What did Arthur tell you when he came back the second time?"

She gave a gasp. "You're brutal. There was nothing - nothing. He came back walking, with his bicycle all bent. The ponies from the moor had run over him - they'll gallop over anything when a drove is startled; they're like mad things. That's all that happened. Everything. It was only because it was that night I didn't want it talked about. I couldn't bear to have him dragged into this dreadful affair."

"As you said. Where is he?"

"He isn't here. He isn't, really."

"Oh. Out flying his kite?"

"No, he isn't. He's gone over to stay with his tutor at Lantic."

"You sent him there? After Dr. Penberth told you we were enquiring about him?"

"Yes, I did," she cried. "He couldn't tell you any more than I have."

"You've not been very wise, Mrs. Carrack. Good night." She opened the door for them without a word. When they were out of the garden, when they were in the dark twilight of the overgrown ravine: "That wants a lot of verifying, eh?" Bell grunted. "Yes, as you say." Reggie spoke slowly. "Curious and suggestive. Very suggestive. Mind your step!" His voice rose; he snatched at Bell's arm, but it was torn from him as Bell's weight stumbled forward and fell over the edge of the path with a rending of bushes, crash of stones, and thud. Reggie looked over the edge, and saw the rolling body come to rest clutching at a birch growing out of a cleft in the rock. "How is it?" he shouted.

Bell got both hands to his tree. "All right," he roared. "You stand fast." He began to climb back, dislodging stones that clattered and splashed into the stream.

A patter of feet came along the path. Reggie turned to see Mrs. Carrack. "What is it?" she panted. "What has happened?" Bell's hatless head rose up out of the gloom. "How did he fall?"

Reggie pointed to a string tied across the path something less than knee high. "That's how he fell, Mrs. Carrack." She gave a cry; she stooped to look at it.

"Some toss, I'll say," Bell grunted, back on the path again. "Trip line, was it?"

"Yes, that is so," Reggie murmured. "Please." He put Mrs. Carrack aside, and untied the knots from the trees on either side. "Very thin cotton twine." He held it out on his hand.

"My oath!" Bell growled. "Just like the stuff Prout was strangled with."

Reggie was peering through the gloom to the hillside above. "Oh, yes. Yes. Just like," he said. He turned and looked at Mrs. Carrack.

She was shaking. "I didn't - I don't know how it could be," she said unsteadily. There was fear in her eyes.

"You didn't put it there, no," Reggie answered. "Go home. Stay at home." He watched her till she vanished. He waited till he heard the door of her house shut. "Stand by, Bell." As he had done before, he climbed up through the thicket till he could see the level hilltop. But no one was in sight. He came back to the path. "Well, well. All this bein' thus, the telephone is strongly indicated. Come on."

The post office at Siran had closed at seven o'clock. They knocked up the woman who kept it; they shut themselves in with the telephone and rang up the superintendent at Brea. "Mr. Fortune speaking. For Superintendent Bell. He's had a fall." Reggie described it. "Oh, yes. Foul play. Send a man out here to watch Mrs. Carrack's house to - night. Another man to watch the parson's house at Lantic where she says her son is. Yes. That's the idea - make sure neither of 'em gets away. Also make sure neither of 'em has anybody come to 'em. All right. Ring up your chief constable and say I'll be speaking to him later. You know where we are - Channel Hotel, Porthkew. Good - bye." He rang off. "Come on. Bell. Bath and dinner. Oh, my hat! A bath!" 

"Do you think she'll try a break - away?" Bell asked.

"It could be. Not a wise woman."

"Wise, I don't say. Clever as a cat, though. And that boy of hers. Do you reckon she's using him, or he's a devil on his own?"

"I wonder." Reggie drove the little car on through the shadows at the best of its speed.

"That string, again! Kite - string, eh? And if you hadn't checked me and we'd both gone over, him and his blessed mother they'd have done us in easy."

"Yes it could be. Not without risks - our trade. However. Are we down - hearted? No. Drawin' a little ahead."

"Eh? I don't see it. Barring the string, there's nothing like proof."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Stiff and sore? I'm sorry."

"I'm all right," Bell growled. "I don't see my way, that's all."

Reggie drove on furiously. When they came to the hotel he went into its telephone - box and stayed there some time. He emerged with vague and dreamy eyes, and sought his bath and lay in it long.

Bell knocked at his bedroom door, and found him lying down in nothing but a silk dressing - gown.

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap." He stood up with a swirl of pink legs. "In five swift minutes. The mind required repose."

"Anything fresh?" Bell said gloomily.

"Yes." Reggie's head went into a vest and came out again. "I rang up the governor of Mrs. Prout's prison. She isn't going to talk, Bell." He put on his trousers. "Since they told her she'd been reprieved, she's refused food."

"My oath!" Bell exclaimed.

"A bad business. Yes. They've tried forcible feeding. But the doctor's afraid of it. Her heart's weak. He thinks she'll go out."

"That's a facer, isn't it?" Bell frowned. Reggie was tying his tie. "Rather it hadn't been like that," he mumbled. "However."

"Upsets the whole case, don't it? Means she knows she's guilty or it means nothing. I'm sorry, sir. But it does look like we've been too clever."

"Not me, no." Reggie brushed his hair. "Not so, but far otherwise. She didn't murder her son. That's impossible."

"Why does she want to die, then?"

"Yes. New problem. Only new version of old problem. Why was her son murdered? Complex and difficult problem."

"If she starves herself to death after reprieve, you'll never convict anyone else."

"Not easy, no." Reggie put on his coat.

"What do you mean to do?"

"I'm going to drain the holy well. I told the Chief Constable. Sticky, but ultimately docile. Seven ack emma to - morrow. Poor Reginald. Come on. Dine and forget. We'll have to remember soon enough." . . .

The sea had flung a pall of mist inland over the moor when they drove out in the morning. Though it was thinning under the July sun, the men who moved about the well were like shadows in a silvery haze. Reggie went delicately over the drenched grass to the superintendent in charge. "Sorry, and all that. Beastly hour to work."

"I don't mind the hour, sir," he was told. "If I'm doing any good. I may tell you, I'm informed Mrs. Prout won't live the day out. Not a chance."

"No, I thought not." Reggie sighed. "Difficult matter to play with souls."

"The woman set herself to commit suicide as soon as she knew she wasn't going to be hanged. If that isn't a confession she did the murder, I don't know what you want."

"I want the truth."

The superintendent made a contemptuous noise. "I think we had it from the first, Mr. Fortune. You put up a very clever case, I own, but you can't deny now it's all gone west."

"Hush! Oh, hush!" Reggie murmured. "My dear fellow, you mustn't say things like that. Hopeful murderer still at large. Somebody tried to wipe out Bell and me last night."

"That was queer stuff, I grant you." The superintendent lowered his voice. "More like a boy's nasty trick than a real attempt on your life, though. I'm afraid Arthur Carrack has been up to something. He's not normal, that lad."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "However. About the well. Can do, what?"

"We can empty it, I'm told. But I don't see any use, myself. What are you trying to find?"

Reggie's eyelids drooped. "The truth. Tryin' everything. Faint, yet pursuin'. Let's get on. We're late."

The superintendent turned on his heel and stimulated activity. Pick and crowbar and shovel made a cut into the hillside some ten feet below the black pool. . . . Countryfolk gathered by twos and threes to watch and chatter till there was a little crowd for the policemen in uniform to keep back. "Devilish quick things get known," the superintendent grumbled. "You can't keep a secret in the country."

"No. So I see," Reggie was watching a man on horseback approach across the moor. The mist had boiled away, leaving a heavy air and a grey sky under which the sea at the valley's end gleamed dark.

The horseman came nearer, and Reggie saw the big bony face of Robert Carrack. With a distressful exclamation the superintendent strode off to meet him. "Good morning, superintendent," Carrack said. "What's all this?"

"Draining the well, Mr. Carrack."

"So I see. You should have applied to me first. My ground, you know."

"Of course, that's recognised. But you wouldn't wish to delay police work."

"What are you after?"

"Just as well to clear up the whole case," the superintendent told him. "Anyway, the well should be emptied. You see that."

Carrack's large hand went up to his large chin. "I'm not objecting. But you've had time enough to put it up to me. What's the hurry all of a sudden?"

"Just to wind up the whole thing quietly. There's crowd enough as it is."

"What did you expect?" Carrack frowned at the people. "Hallo! There's Priscilla." He took off his hat to her. "I shouldn't have thought she'd turn out for this." The superintendent gave a stare at Mrs. Carrack's pale face and strode off. . . .

Water came streaming down the cut. Reggie stood by the well - side watching the slimy rock walls come into sight deeper and deeper down. A black ooze appeared in which were stones and scraps of rubbish, rusty metal and rag. Two men in gum - boots went down and pailfuls of rubbish and mud were emptied upon the turf.

"Decayed vegetable matter," Reggie murmured, spreading it out, "empty cans from recent picnics - many pins from wishing damsels - two large stones - probably from pockets of late Jonathan Prout - more stones - oh " - he turned and called down the well - " careful with the shovels, please." A sputtering oath came up in answer. "Yes. As you say." He came back to the last pailful of ooze.

"What the devil's this?" the superintendent muttered in his ear.

"Bone from human hand. Right thumb, top joint. Other bones of hand. Very interestin' bones. Pail of water, please." He washed them in it, he arranged them on clean turf. . . fragments of two hands. ...  "Keep the populace well back," he mumbled. . . . Pails came up in which were more bones than mud, and he washed them and pored over them and set them out bit by bit. The pattern of a skeleton took gruesome shape on the dewy grass. . . .

From the depths of the well came a roar. A skull was sent up. Reggie cleaned the mud out of its cavities and put it in its place.

"Good God!" the superintendent groaned. "Ghastly, isn't it? Who the devil will this be?"

"Man. Sixty plus. Any ideas?" Reggie contemplated him with closing eyes. "No? Mr. Carrack, please." Carrack rode his horse nearer. "See that?" Reggie lifted a finger at the skeleton. "Oldish man. Heavy man. Put in the well some years back. Anybody occur to you? Marked growth of hands  - feet - jaw. You see?" He picked up the skull and demonstrated. "Jaw - bone uncommon thick - came on with age" - he stared at Carrack's big jaw, his narrowed eyes glanced down at Carrack's big hands and feet - "look at the skeleton hands - and the toes - huge toes - well - known tendency - often runs in families - Mrs. Prout - "

Carrack swung up his riding - crop and struck. Reggie fell down upon the skeleton in a heap. Carrack drove in his spurs and galloped away down the valley. . . .

Reggie opened his eyes to dim light. He saw that he was lying in a room where the curtains were drawn. "My only aunt!" he said hoarsely. "Give me air." The curtains were drawn back. He saw sunshine on trees. He turned his head and looked up at the prim face of Dr. Penberth. "Here we are again." His dry lips curved in a faint smile. "Another little drink wouldn't do us any harm." A woman bent over him with a glass of water. His dull eyes opened wider. "Thanks very much, Mrs. Carrack. Brought me to your house, did they? Sorry you've been troubled. Not wholly my fault. You should have trusted me. I'm not quick, but quite trustworthy."

"Oh, don't talk so," she said faintly. "You mustn't talk."

"That's all right. Quite all right." He waved his hand - he looked up at Penberth and laughed a little. "My dear chap! That bedside manner. Portentous." He felt his head; he winced; he wriggled. "Don't worry. Painful, but not alarmin'. Reactions all present and correct. Lot of bone in my skull too. Though not acromegalous."

"My dear sir, you must be still," Penberth protested.

"No intention of movin'. More water, please. Lots of water." Mrs. Carrack ministered to him again. "Thank you. Where is my Bell? The active and intelligent Bell."

"You really must not talk, Mr. Fortune," said Penberth anxiously. "You know that."

"I shall talk. I want Bell. Go on, get him. Patient's mind must be put at ease. First principle of medicine. Go on."

Penberth tripped out of the room, and brought back Superintendent Bell with a worried face.

"Oh, my Bell!" Reggie giggled. "Not like that, no. I'm all right. What about the alleged Mr. Robert Carrack?"

"He's finished, sir."

"I know that. How did he finish?" Bell glanced at Penberth. "Come on. Never mind my confidential physician."

"I can't forgive myself, sir," Bell said. "He rode right through us. He got clear away. And it's the queerest thing in my time. He rode off hell for leather down the valley, cross country, and we hadn't any horses, only cars. We couldn't keep near him. But he went straight for the sea. When we got down to the cliffs, there was his horse on the strand below, and his coat and boots, and him swimming out, out, and out till he sank. I can't understand it."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Quite simple. Quite natural. He didn't want us to get hold of his body. He didn't mean us to match it with his father's bones. Very human reticence."

"His father's?" Bell exclaimed.

"Yes. The late Mr. Prout's. That's all right. You did quite well. He did very well. And I haven't done so bad myself. Finish. Go away. Everybody go away. Patient must sleep." . . .

Two days afterwards he was sitting in a deck - chair in the shade of Mrs. Carrack's garden. "They're all hot and bothered in London," Bell told him. "You know Mrs. Prout died - heart failure, from starving herself. I had a message from Mr. Lomas: love to you, but the Home Office is as sore as hell scratching their heads."

"Havin' no other use for same," Reggie murmured. "I'll write to 'em. Words of one syllable. Quite a simple case. When you have it all. Mrs. Prout, nursing the heir to the Carrack estates, had a baby of her own. She changed 'em. Thus her son by the late Mr. Prout grew up in purple and fine linen as Robert Carrack, and the Carrack child was set to earn his living in the mines as Jonathan Prout. Beautiful emotion, motherly love. Unfortunately sons sometimes take after fathers. Robert Carrack grew up big - boned like old Prout. As he got on towards middle age, bones of head and hands and feet developed. Matter of glands. Often runs in families. Call it acromegaly. Father and son both had it. Jonathan Prout had the Carrack physique - see it in this boy Arthur. So Mrs. Prout got him out of the country. Robert abolished the portraits of his male ancestors; Mrs. Prout took care to have no portrait of Prout. Then Prout came home, saw Robert had grown desperate like himself, and suspected and got nasty. So he was murdered, and the body hid in the well. Whether Mrs. Prout put that through on her own, we can't tell. I should say she did. Robert may have known - probably did. That went all right. Nobody was going to worry about Prout's disappearance. Quite easy to give out he'd died abroad. The trouble began when Robert Carrack's photograph got into the local paper. You can take it that went out to South Africa, and showed Jonathan how like father Prout Robert had grown, while he wasn't. Set Jonathan thinking. He came home. With newspaper. He began to be dangerous. He went over to Trecarrack to have a showdown with Robert. And Robert knocked him out in the wood, and throttled him and took him over to the well - that's how the ponies were frightened and ran down Arthur. But Robert didn't manage as well as Mrs. Prout. The stones to sink the body fell out of the pockets. So Jonathan floated with his moth and his treacle. However. The luck still ran right for Robert. Mrs. Prout was ready to die for him. Fine force, the love of a mother. He'd have been safe for ever - in this world - if I hadn't seen that Sunday paper. Incalculable and tiresome for him. He was naturally annoyed. But he played a losing game very well. That cord across Mrs. Carrack's path was a good stroke. Whether we smashed ourselves or not, official minds ought to have been convinced the neurotic Arthur did the trick. They would have been, wouldn't they. Bell? Yes.

Instructive case. Inadequate creatures, judges and lawyers. Same like criminals. Very little general knowledge. Small capacity to distinguish crucial facts. I'll point that out to the Home Office. Standard of education in both cases deplorably low."

THE WISTFUL GODDESS

MR. FORTUNE lay in a hammock. The spreading lime - tree which supported it and gave him shade was golden and fragrant, and rustled with the multitudinous murmur of bees. Thus lulled, he contemplated his wife's pleasing neck and the cream and red roses behind it, and their framework of lilies and delphiniums. The neck, which had been bent to write a letter, became erect. "Bless you," he approved. "Quite perfect, Joan"; and then ejaculated, "Oh, Peter!" as he saw why she had looked up. She turned for a moment to give him a little grimace of sympathetic woe, and was again serene, a benign hostess. "Woman, woman," he reproached her.

The lilies were obscured by a man - a lanky man of swinging arms and legs and a gaudy taste in clothes. He waved his hand; he gave a bleat of a laugh. "What - ho! What - ho!" he called. 

"He has a silly face!" Mrs. Fortune gurgled. It was a face which sloped sharply from the hair to the point of the long nose, from the nose point to the neck, which looked at the world with puzzled craving for a good time.

"How kind of you to come down here to us, Bertie." Mrs Fortune held out her hand. 

"Oh, lady! Not so. Thanks very much and all that. Bad lad. Only come for what I can get. Jolly old luck finding the great man." He turned on Mr. Fortune a sheepish stare. "I've had a spot of bother, sir, do you mind? Real hard knock. Absolutely. Broke me right up. Definitely."

"You, Bertie?" Mrs. Fortune lifted her eyebrows. "Yes, lady. Jolly old Bertie. Thought it was a tough old nut, what, what? Me too. And he's cracked. Believe me. I wouldn't have. But here's Bertie. All in bits. Just like that. It's a girl. Laugh, won't you? Don't mind me. I've been laughing."

"Have you?" said Mrs. Fortune gently. 

"Go away, lady," he muttered, and looked at the ground. But when she rose: "No, I don't mean that" - he caught her arm - "'s nothing like that; "s all right; you know what I mean?" He was desperately earnest. "Straight doings. Honest to God!" 

"Tell me." Mrs. Fortune sat down again. 

"I say, you don't mind, sir?" He turned to Reggie. "It's this way. A little girl I met at the Upsidown - -"

"Night - club?" Reggie asked.

"Now, don't get me wrong. Yes, it is. And some torrid stuff about, I grant you. But Pearl's not in that push. She used to drop in just for a cheerio. Some of the best do it, what, what? I mean to say, when not the merry old self, a spot of racket, don't you know?" He found no sympathy in Reggie's sleepy face, and went on nervously: "That's how it was with Pearl, I give you my word. She told me so. And I didn't need telling. Only had to look at her. I'm hard - boiled. I've no use for 'em unless they're merry and bright. But Pearl's different. Knew I was out of my class with her at sight. There was a look in her eyes." Bertie swallowed. "Kind of praying - know what I mean? Brown eyes, she has, large and sad, and - what is it? - worship, don't you know? Like a dog's." His emotions held him up. "Such a little thing." He gulped.

"Oh, yes. And then?" Reggie asked.

"I don't know. That's where it is. I say, let me give you the way things happened, won't you? Or you'll be just thinking I'm bats in the belfry. What you have to begin with is, Pearl wasn't the usual. Absolutely not. See what I mean? No gold - digger. I can't help knowing the girls are after me, eh, what? Sorry, lady; forget it. She was not. Handed me the frozen mitt whenever I pressed. But she got not to mind me. And then just lately - well, like I said - trustful. Lovely. So we came to the real genuine goods. Last week. She was all set, quiet and sad, and I said what was the worry, and she said she wanted to get away from it all. My chance, what, what? I went for it good and hard, believe you me. Right there I had her fixed to do the big act. In the morning I took her away to a peach of a pub - Luddington - off the map in the Downs - 's all right, lady. On the level. Absolutely. You see, she was out of a job, the little girl! Hadn't a bean. Typist - on two quid a week, don't you know. I didn't stay with her. All set for her to live there and me just run out every day and see her while we were waiting for the jolly old licence. Good enough, what? But it isn't. It's all wet. Tuesday we fixed up. Wednesday I planted her out in the pub. Thursday I was there all day. Friday I went and she wasn't there. Gone. Absolutely." Bertie's fish - like eyes gazed plaintively at Reggie. "Ruddy awful, sir."

"Not nice, no," Reggie agreed. "Did you know anything about her?"

Bertie was hurt. "Well, I mean to say! I told you. Just sweet. Like mother makes 'em. Honest to God."

"Didn't tell me her name," Reggie murmured. *' Didn't tell me where she was a typist. Didn't tell me where she lived."

"Sorry. Name's Pearl Bancroft. Don't know where she worked. She was out of a job, you see. She lived in Bloomsbury. Lodgings - Rachel Place. I fetched her from there."

"No known job. Any known friends - except you?" Bertie's receding brow puckered. "Some of the push at the Upsidown. Not to say friends. She's so quiet. Shy, don't you know?"

"Yes, that is indicated. Any money?"

"She hadn't a bean."

"Well, well. So, having been taken to your pub off the map without money, she departs leaving no explanation of rash act. Did she take her things?"

"Her things are gone. She only had one little case."

"Well, well. Any reason for exit?"

"Dam' all," Bertie groaned. "That's why I came to you. I told the police down there she'd gone, and they wrote it all down and sniggered. Blinking inspector told me girls would be girls. As if she'd just bilked me. Curse him."

"Yes. Cynical mind, the police mind." Reggie's eyelids drooped.

"But you don't believe that, sir?" Bertie protested. "Bilking a man - she couldn't - and besides, don't you see, it's just what she didn't do. She hadn't had a dam' thing out of me."

"As you say. The strikin", significant fact. The only thing we do know about her." His eyes opened again. "Photograph?"

"I haven't got one." Bertie was doleful. "I was always asking her. But she said she'd never been taken. I can tell you what she looks like. Can I not!" He did so lyrically, and nothing definite emerged but that Pearl was small and slight with bobbed brown hair and dark brown eyes - great big eyes in a little face.

"Not too good," Reggie murmured.

"Oh, I say!" Bertie wailed. "Isn't there anything you can do, sir?"

"I haven't the slightest idea." Reggie slid out of the hammock. "However. Some effort is required." He looked down pensively at Bertie's woebegone face. "I'll go and phone. Most exhaustin' effort." He left Mrs. Fortune to comfort Bertie - who felt a worm, every kind of worm, and thought him tough - if she didn't mind. She did. She had to put in some of her best work, and as a consoler of the helpless she excels.

Reggie's parlourmaid had some difficulty in getting through to the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, and he smoked half a meditative pipe before she called him to the telephone. In that process, he maintains, the essential fact of the case became dear to him. This is considered by the department a flight 01 Mr. Fortune's fancy: for he did not then know that the real case had happened, unless he has, as Superintendent Bell will suggest, second sight or something. Mr. Fortune's answer recommends the habit of believing evidence - advice which, applied to this case makes Bell restive. When Reggie reached the telephone, he said wearily: "Fortune here. Is that Lomas? Your busy day, I gather. Do you know Bertie Gray - yes, the brewer's orphan child - the golden nut? That's the fellow. No, I wouldn't say that. Not wholly imbecile. Instincts of a man and brother. I have him here. Poor me, yes. You should see his plus fours. Paralysing."

"What is this?" Lomas enquired. "Are you making conversation, or will there be a point?"

"My dear chap! Not a good listener. This is the atmosphere. Bertie Gray has lost his girl. His last girl. Seems to be a real girl. Curious and interesting. What do you know about that?"

"I don't want to know anything," said Lomas.

"Hold on. You will. Better know now. You might. do something in time. For a change. Bertie havin' arranged to marry the girl - -"

"You're telling me," Lomas sneered.

"I am. If you listen. He doesn't lie. Marriage bein' fixed, she vanished pronto."

"Wise girl," said Lomas. 

"Oh, my dear chap! Have you a mind? I said she'd vanished. Disappeared. In the wilds of Downshire. And the Downshire police sniggered when told. You'd better not. Listen." He repeated Bertie's narrative.

"Good gad!" Lomas interrupted. "Typist, you say? Bertie doesn't know whose typist? Has he got her photograph? Damme, can't he give a description?"

"He can. Nay, more, he did." Reggie repeated it, and contemptuous sounds came over the wire. "Yes, as you say. However. Little girl with large brown eyes is gone. On the eve of marriage to genial wealth. Vanished. Reft away. Up to you."

"The devil it is!" Lomas laughed. "You want my opinion, Reginald? If the man was anybody in the world but that silly young ass I should say he knew where she'd gone to. And I'm not sure he doesn't now. Bring him along. I can do with you too. Begad, you've asked for it. Come right on."

"What? The mind has formed a thought? My Lomas! Tell me all." But the telephone was dumb. Reggie gazed at it with bitter loathing. He is always ready to prove that none of man's inventions has so increased the power of folly. This is one of his favourite examples.

Lomas could not again be reached. Reggie ordered his car and told Bertie that the little tin gods had deigned to be interested in his trouble and wanted to see him. Bertie was boisterously grateful and roared away ahead of Reggie's limousine in a sports car louder than his tweeds.

Not much more than two hours later, though he had travelled over a hundred miles, Reggie dropped into the easiest chair in Lomas's room. "Well?" he asked wearily. "Anything from the Downshire police?"

"Oh, we've verified your friend Bertie. He did give information."

"My only aunt!" Reggie's eyes opened wide. How do you do it, Lomas? Marvellous capacity for futility. Have they got to work? Are they looking for her?"

"Everybody's looking for her," Lomas told him.

"The girl's gone. And all her clothes. Did the bright Bertie happen to mention that?"

"He did. Yes. Also mentioned nobody saw the departure. You might have heard that hours ago. You might have been actin' on it. If you had any grasp of the essential. Get on. Put the fear of God into Downshire."

"Thank you. They're busy. We're all quite busy. You don't yet know what you're talking about, Reginald."

"Oh, yes. Talkin' of the inefficiency of the British police and the peculiar futility of the Criminal Investigation Department. Stubborn refusal to listen to evidence."

"What the deuce do you mean?"

"My poor Lomas! Is anybody of intelligence enquiring how Pearl Bancroft's suitcase got out of the Luddington pub?"

"Damme!" Lomas jerked back in his chair. "That's your point," he muttered, frowning. "You think the suitcase significant?"

"No. Not the suitcase. The fact that nobody saw her go, though it's gone. Pub's off the map. No transport but car. Yet the pub people didn't notice departure of girl and case. Strikin' fact."

"I agree." Lomas smiled. "Your friend Bertie has a car. Did it occur to you he might not be telling the whole truth?"

"Oh, my Lomas! Cut that out. He told all the truth he knew, poor infant. Act on it."

"We are acting. Would you be surprised to hear that a typist described as like Bertie's damsel has been badly wanted for three days?"

"Three days," Reggie repeated. "Tuesday she wanted to get away from it all. Wednesday Bertie took her to Luddington. Thursday she was still there. Friday she vanished. This is Saturday. Well, well. What made you want her on Wednesday?"

"On Wednesday morning a burglary was reported. In the flat of Harold Robins, an Australian - wealthy man; collector of antiquities. The big thing taken was a statuette in gold and ivory, four thousand years old or so, insured for 25,000 pounds. Robins employed a typist - secretary called Miss Bancroft, who didn't turn up on Wednesday, and sent no excuse for absence. She'd been inside all his business, and had the run of his flat. Very well. The flat was burgled on Tuesday night - which is when Bertie's Pearl Bancroft fixed up to elope with him. Robins is a dreamy fellow - he's vague about the secretary - but his servants give a description of her which would do for Bertie's Pearl. We'd done some work on her before you butted in. She's uncommon like the young woman who was Lady Bruncker's secretary when the Bruncker diamonds were taken. Now you see where we are - -"

"Not me. No. You aren't anywhere."

Lomas smiled. "There's a trifle more, Reginald. I have a job of work for you. A fellow was murdered last night out in St. Pancras. Queer case. Reason to believe he was a fence and putter - up. But we never had evidence we could use. I'd like you to have a look at him. Everything's been held for you."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Last night. Night of the day Pearl Bancroft vanished. Deceased being in the burglary trade. I wonder." He rose bit by bit. "All right. My job, as you say. But do yours, Lomas. Do yours. You're missing everything. Send a fellow with a brain to that pub."

"My dear Reginald, no one has a brain but you," Lomas scoffed. "I want to talk to your friend Bertie. Do your stuff. As quick as you can, please."

"Quick!" Reggie stood gazing melancholy wonder. "My only aunt! Quick!" He wandered out, and Lomas had the distressful Bertie brought in and reduced him to incoherent fury.

Reggie dismissed his chauffeur, Sam, with exhortations of some length. Then a police car bore him off to a drab villa which had been suburban fifty years ago and still had a large shrubby garden. Between the lace curtains of a ground - floor window the square face of Superintendent Bell looked out and came to open the door. "Sorry to bring you up from the country, sir, but we can do with you."

"You haven't. You can. If you will," Reggie said bitterly. "Where is he?"

Bell led the way to a room which was lit by electric light, for the shutters were closed. "See them, sir. Backed with iron. Same in the other front - room. And the kitchen and scullery windows behind have iron bars. He took care of himself, did Joe Manning. And there he is."

A smallish man lay face downwards on the couch, exposing a bald head with a fringe of carroty hair. His clothes were in disorder, his collar burst open. What could be seen of his face was livid. The lean neck was bruised dark and scratched. His tongue protruded, swollen, and the velveteen of the couch by the mouth was damp. Reggie examined him. . . .

"Quite simple. Cause of death - asphyxia and shock. Strangled by hand. Large hands. Died easy. Oldish man. They do sometimes, feelin' they're for it."

"Ah, I dare say he did." Bell nodded. "Large hands, you said."

"Yes. Suggest somebody to the expert mind? Further particulars. The operator may have been damaged while operatin'. Face scratched. Fragments of skin in nails of victim." He removed them.

"That's good." Bell grinned.

"You think so? We try to please." Reggie gazed at the couch, bent down to pore over a scrape on it by the dead man's thighs, and then opened his clothes. The back showed a bruise. "Oh, yes." He sighed satisfaction. "'Where my caravan hath rested.' That's where the operator put his knee. Scrape is where he had his foot. Indicatin' he wasn't a tall man. About the height of deceased."

"I believe you," Bell grunted.

"Oh, my Bell! How gracious! Somebody in the expert eye? Let us try to confirm." He stooped over the couch again. "Not too good. However. Operator may have had grey hair."

"I wouldn't mind betting on it," Bell chuckled.

"Yes, you might. Some male with grey hair has been round this awful velveteen lately." Reggie collected the hairs from its surface. "So that is that." Once more he examined the couch. "And that is all."

He turned to survey the room; he wandered about it. "It'll do," Bell assured him. "Man with big hands, grey hair, short, and light weight, eh?"

"What?" Reggie looked over his shoulder from an easy chair which he was contemplating. "I didn't say anything about weight."

"Oh, well, you said a little man."

"I said short," Reggie murmured.

"That's all right. Excuse me. I won't be a minute."

"My dear chap! Speed is the felt want. Act on the evidence. What a change!"

Bell strode out, and Reggie resumed contemplation of the chair. It had a loose cushion on the seat, which was much flattened. On the arm lay cigar ash. He bent and sniffed at it; he smelt the back of the chair. His round face had a look of dreamy curiosity as he turned away and moved slowly about the room to stop at a table on which was a decanter of whisky, a siphon, and some glasses. The glasses were empty, dry, and clean. The siphon was nearly empty.

Bell came back. "Well, well." Reggie smiled. "Search for short man with big hands, grey hair, and scratched face now ordered?"

"It was going on already." Bell grinned. "All but the scratched face. I just wanted to hand 'em that too."

"Splendid. You do believe evidence. Rare and beautiful habit. But I was merely auxiliary. You were after a fellow as described already. Why? Any fingerprints?"

"There isn't a trace. Except Joe Manning's own and his sister's. But that's useful too. It shows the chap who did the job took pains to leave none. That means he knew a thing or two. I'm taking it he was in the trade; used to working in gloves. And that fits well. He didn't break in. Manning must have opened the door to him. So they knew one another. And Manning was in with cracksmen. The way I see it, a burglar who'd done business with Manning came along and did him in. That fits, eh?"

"Yes, as you say. Fits very well. However. No fingerprints. Yet somebody had a drink lately." Reggie pointed to the siphon. "Although the glasses are clean."

"How can you tell?" Bell frowned. "The siphon may have been used before."

"No certainty, no. Not without domestic evidence. What is the domestic evidence?"

"Manning's sister. They lived alone, with a woman coming in daily. Miss Manning says she went to bed as usual about ten, leaving Joe here, went to sleep and heard nothing. When she took a cup o' tea to his bedroom this morning he wasn't there. She came down again to look for him; found him dead and cold, and ran off for the police. Got to the station about nine o'clock. She swears she didn't know of anybody coming to see him - nobody ever did at night; he never told her anything about his affairs; she can't think why anybody should want to hurt him; he was a dear good brother - and so on. She's lying, of course. Couldn't live with him without knowing he was crooked. But I don't believe she has any idea how it happened. She's been all dithering and hysterical. I'll take my oath she was fond of the little devil."

' Yes, I should believe you." Reggie gazed at him dreamily. "You're quite good with people. But I'd like to see her." He moved to the door, opened it, went into the hall and stopped. "Well, well," he murmured, and sniffed. A warm, sweet, fruity smell was in the air. He passed to the kitchen. A wisp of a woman with sandy grey hair was skimming a large pan which steamed on the stove. "Makin' jam. Miss Manning?" Reggie asked. 

She started round with a spoonful of scum. Her face, flushed from the fire, had a gruesome resemblance to the dead, distorted face on the couch. "Yes, sir." She was shrill and voluble. "I had to. The fruit came in - it was ordered - I couldn't let it spoil; we've always had to live so careful, me and Joe. Did you want anything? In a minute - I can't take it off the boil."

"Oh, no. That's all right. Just wanted to ask you about the glasses. Nobody had a drink last night?"

"Glasses! What glasses? Oh, you mean in the parlour. I don't know; I haven't touched 'em. I couldn't bear to look at anything after I saw poor Joe."

"Very natural. Yes. Was the siphon full last night?" 

"I couldn't tell you. Oh, dear, fancy asking me a thing like that now! Poor Joe always looked to his drinks himself. But he'd make a siphon last a week or more. He was a sober man."

"Thanks very much. That's all." Reggie wandered out of the kitchen, through the hall, out of the house, and then turned and looked at Bell with a reproachful smile. "She was lying," he murmured. "She wasn't hysterical."

"Oh, well, upset," Bell protested. "You mean she must be a hard case to go on with her jam? I wouldn't say so. Women do stick to their housework in the worst trouble - I've often seen it. They're like that."

"Dear old Bell," Reggie said affectionately. "Keep an eye on the devoted housewife. She might be useful."

"She'll be kept here," Bell assured him. "All right. Now we'll get on. You won't be doing the post - mortem?"

"Not me, no." Reggie gazed at him with horror. "Give it to the divisional surgeon. Nothing in it. I want to get on to you. I want to get on to Mr. Lomas."

"Ah." Bell's eyes were curious. "Very good. Half a minute and I'm with you."

They drove away, and Reggie sank down in his corner and said nothing, till after five minutes of silence Bell asked him: "What's in your mind, sir?"

Reggie squirmed, gave a look of bewildered fear. "My God! The girl," his voice was high. "Nothing else matters."

"You mean that typist of Mr. Robins'?" Bell grinned. "I heard you worried Mr. Lomas about her. But you're not linking that business with this business, are you?"

Reggie groaned. "Same to you. Secretive force, the police force. Silly, secretive, futile force."

"I wasn't pulling your leg, sir," Bell apologised. "I don't mind owning, if you do think she was behind Manning's murder, I'd say you're not so far out. Looks to me, both jobs are the same job and she was in it up to the neck. But I'd like to hear how you got to that. You don't know what I know."

"I do not. And I don't much care. I want to know what you're doing."

"We're looking for her," Bell assured him. "General enquiry out for Miss Bancroft. And for Nosy Parker, her dear old dad."

"Oh. Father of vanished girl known to the police?"

"He is that." Bell chuckled. "And you described him proper when you described the chap who croaked Joe Manning. Good work, sir."

Reggie's eyes opened wide. "You think so?" he murmured. "Not a nice case, Bell."

"We'll get 'em all right," Bell assured him. "It's all over except the shouting."

The car arrived at Scotland Yard, and Reggie sprang out before it stopped and came explosively into Lomas's room. "Any news of the girl?" he demanded. "Any results from Downshire?"

"Good gad!" Lomas put up his eyeglass. "This is not like you, Reginald. Tumultuous fellow. I don't care for it."

"Didn't come to please you," Reggie snapped. "Only to do your job for you."

"Much obliged. You want to do everybody's job but your own." Upon this painful dialogue Bell arrived and cleared his throat with an admonitory, reproving noise. 

"Yes, as you say," Reggie agreed. "Childish, Lomas. I told you to put somebody of intelligence on the Luddington pub. What about it?"

"You weren't necessary. The Downshire police are quite intelligent. I have a conclusive report. The people at the inn saw the girl go out early on Friday morning, and they are quite sure she didn't take any luggage with her. That's the last they saw of her. Bertie Gray came down about lunch - time, professed himself very surprised she wasn't in, and waited. As she didn't turn up he went into her room, and then all her things were gone. He drove away to the police. The inn people are sure he didn't remove the suitcase. They say it was quite possible for the girl to come back to the pub and get out again without being noticed. Of course that's what she did. And somebody in a car picked her up with suitcase. It might have been your precious friend Bertie. His grief is quite unconvincing."

Reggie grasped his brow. "Oh, my head! What a thought! Believe anything except evidence, won't you?"

"I take the evidence as a whole." Lomas smiled. "You only have bits, Reginald, and you make up the rest from your imagination."

"No." Reggie was aggrieved. "Not so. Far otherwise. I haven't any. My one great weakness."

"You have a deuced disorderly mind, then. Now, let's get things clear. What about Joe Manning's murder?"

"He was murdered," Reggie said. "Though you thought so."

"Mr. Fortune's done very well," Bell struck in. "He's made out the murderer must have been a chap just like Nosy Parker." And the details were explained.

"Splendid. You have your uses, Reginald," Lomas chuckled.

"Sorry I can't say same to you," Reggie answered, with a look of dislike. "Did you happen to think you had things clear? You deceive yourself. Rub it out and begin again. From the beginning. Mr. Robins, his statuette."

"Well, I suppose you know what everybody knows about Robins." Lomas was superciliously official. "Australian millionaire or so. Spends half his time here in a Mayfair flat. Always in the market for curios, especially antiquities. Piling up a collection for his Australian palace. In the spring he bought this statuette from a refugee of the last Greek revolution. The thing was dug up in Crete somewhere and smuggled out. Robins gave 5,000 pounds for it. I'm told it's worth what any collector chooses to pay. Four thousand years old, and only about two like it in the world. There you are." He gave Reggie a photograph, which depicted a woman with bare arms and bosom holding out gracious hands. Her hair flowed to her shoulders. She wore a tall cap of three tiers. From her small waist flowed a bell skirt of flounces and pleats, with something like an apron in front of it. Her face was of a calm and wistful beauty.

"Yes. An artist did that," Reggie murmured. "Minoan goddess, I'm told. It's passed the experts. Ivory, with gold at the waist and on that apron thing and the hair. Robins insured it for 25,000 pounds. Quite reasonable, they say. He's never had a loss before, though he keeps his things very casual. Lot of these fellows do. Well, early this spring he engaged your Bertie's Pearl Bancroft as his secretary. References were all right - they always are. Robins won't believe she was a crook now. He's a decent old sort. But there's no doubt about her. She's Nosy Parker's daughter, and she worked inside the houses in some good old hauls.

Well now, our Pearl fixed up to elope with Bertie on Tuesday, and that night the flat was burgled. Robins was away in the country. His two servants, man and wife, heard nothing. They're all right. They swear they bolted the door. It wasn't bolted in the morning. The window of the big sitting - room was open. First floor. Any fellow could get to it up the drain - pipe, and that's quite in Nosy Parker's style. He knew where to find what he wanted. Cabinet in which the statuette was kept forced by a jemmy. Statuette taken, and some old gold stuff that was with it. Nothing else. Close by, outside, we found a neat little jemmy and a pair of big gloves. Nosy has big hands. You've found that, what?" Lomas chuckled. "There's some more against Nosy too. The porter of the flats remembers a little fellow with a small broken nose loafing about the entrance, kept an eye on him as a doubtful character, and saw him speak to your Pearl when she came out. She seemed to get excited, and they went off together. So - -"

"When?" Reggie interrupted.

"On the Tuesday," Bell answered. "The porter says Nosy was loafing about all day."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "So what, Lomas? Go on."

"The porter's straight, sir," Bell told him.

"Oh, yes. I'm accepting that. Accepting all the evidence. And then?"

"Damme, it's clear enough," Lomas cried. "Nosy planted his daughter on Robins to get inside information for a burglary. As soon as she could give him news of Robins being away for a night he arranged to do the job and told her to quit and vanish. So she used the precious Bertie. Nosy passed the swag on to Joe Manning, and then they had a row. Probably Manning tried to do him down. And he replied by doing Manning in."

"That's it," Bell nodded. "Fence corpsed by the thief he was cheating. Not the first by a good few."

"You think so?" Reggie said. "Yes, it could be. You have got things clear."

"Sorry to disappoint you, Reginald." Lomas laughed unpleasantly. 

"You don't. Your usual form. Snatchin' passionate at the obvious."

"Yes, we prefer common sense," Lomas hit back with gusto.

"What's worrying you, Mr. Fortune?" Bell interposed.

"The evidence," Reggie sighed.

"Damme, I like that!" Lomas exclaimed. "You're a perverse animal, Reginald. You bring us evidence that it was Nosy Parker who murdered Manning. Perfectly sound evidence. And then you blow up because we believe it. Do you propose to go back on yourself?"

"Oh, no. No. I can't," Reggie said.

"I'm glad. Some remnants of a sense of responsibility," Lomas sneered.

"Responsibility!"' Reggie moaned. "My only aunt!" He turned to Bell. "Any reason to think your friend Nosy is a killer?"

"There is," said Bell. "A bit. He's just out of prison from a long stretch - penal servitude for burglary. While he was in Dartmoor he nearly killed another convict. Got him by the throat and half strangled him before the warders pulled 'em apart. You see - just like he did to Joe Manning."

"Well, well." Reggie sank lower in his chair. " - Why?"

"I don't know." Bell frowned. "They never found out. The chap he went for swore he'd never done a thing to Nosy, and Nosy wouldn't say a word. Some old grudge. Don't matter to us why. It shows Nosy's temper, that's the thing."

"My Bell! Oh, my Bell!" Reggie gave him a sorrowful smile. "Snatch the obvious, ignore the rest. That's how you made this awful muck."

"What are we ignoring?" Lomas cried.

"Most of the evidence. Look at it. Evidence proves Nosy is an efficient, experienced burglar. Evidence also proves he showed himself so anybody could spot him loafing round a flat where his daughter was. Is that the way an expert would work if he was going to burgle that flat? I ask you."

"Not likely," Bell frowned. "I don't mind owning I wouldn't expect it. But the cleverest crooks make silly slips. As often as not that's how we get 'em. You talk about ignoring evidence, Mr. Fortune. It's you that's doing that. We've got more than the porter against Nosy. The job was done just in his style, and the gloves dropped with the jemmy are uncommon big, like his hands."

"Yes. Strikin" evidence. As you say." Reggie smiled. "Oh, my Bell. Think. Doesn't work against Nosy. Works for him. You want to argue that a cunning old crook left behind him the very articles which would best identify him. I thank you. I am taking none. No. Style of the job was arranged, and the big gloves were left for you, so you should snatch at the obvious and go after Nosy."

"Ah," Bell grunted in profound meditation. "I grant you, it does seem a bit too good to be true. Nosy's one of the last men I'd expect to give himself away like with those gloves. I never could understand why he should drop 'em outside, and the jemmy too. But fellows do get rattled. And Nosy's not as young as he was."

"Well, well. Theory of crime changed. Our expert burglar and killer now sufferin' from senile decay. Curiouser and curiouser."

"You want to make out the whole thing's faked to put it on Nosy?" Bell said slowly. "That won't work, to my mind." 

Lomas had been fidgeting and making contemptuous noises. "Damme, I've had enough!" he exploded. "Of course it won't work; Mr. Fortune knows that. Thank you, Reginald. Brilliant display of the art of being too clever. I never heard you more ingeniously futile. The crucial facts stand. Nobody faked Nosy's record or the girl's; nobody faked their relationship or his visiting her; nobody faked your report on the murder of Joe Manning; and you say the murderer was Nosy."

"Oh, no. Not me. I said murderer was a short man with big hands, probably with grey hair and a scratched face. No more exact identification from me."

"That's quite enough," Lomas told him triumphantly. And Bell nodded. "Nosy Parker all right, Mr. Fortune."

"You think so?" Reggie stared at their complacency without admiration. "Don't add anything."

"What do you mean?" Lomas was fierce.

"Bell inferred murderer was a little man. I didn't. I shan't - if I go into the witness - box. I said short. There was a man in Manning's awful sitting - room last night who wasn't little. Large and heavy rear. Left his imprint on an easy chair. Man who had scented oil on his hair. Left the smell. Man who smoked a cigar. No cigar - box in the room. I gather your friend Nosy has not an ample behind. Do you think he scents his hair? Do you think he carries cigars? Take in all the evidence. Siphon in room nearly empty; whisky decanter far from full, though glasses were clean. The jam - boiling Miss Manning declined to know anything about that. I should say she knows a fellow with a heavy stern did call on Manning last night, and she has her reasons for keeping it dark. There you are. There's that part of the case. And none of it matters a damn. Where's the girl?"

"Good gad!" Lomas muttered, and scowled at him; and went on, loud and furious: "What the devil do you think you're doing?"

"Tryin' to make you do your duty." Reggie also was vehement.

"Duty! Damme, you have a rare sense of duty. You've kept back evidence," Lomas snorted. "If it is evidence."

"I say," Bell broke in. "Excuse me, sir. That's not quite right. Mr. Fortune did put it to me the murderer wasn't a light - weight - and about the drinks and Miss Manning. She's lying all right, and we're on to her."

"Are you? Acting on Mr. Fortune's orders. Devilish kind of you. You're not here to work for his young friends."

"I beg your pardon, sir." Bell stiffened.

"I don't," Reggie said sharply. "My poor Lomas! Temper, temper. Lost your head. Losin' everything. Where's that girl? You won't look. I shan't forgive that, if she goes. Nobody will."

Lomas flung himself back. "Do you conceive yourself to be threatening me?"

"Oh, no. Tellin' you what will happen if you have your way. No sort of consolation." He gazed at Lomas with gloomy wonder. "My only aunt! Most pernicious creature in the world, official who won't officiate. You've left undone everything you could have."

"I never heard you make such a fool of yourself," said Lomas. "All this fuss about the girl is a sentimental obsession. She's a cunning little rogue, and she's done a clever break - away. But every police force in the country is looking for her by now, and we'll pick her up in time. She's of no importance. She didn't do the burglary. She didn't murder Manning. It's her father we want. And we shall get him all right, what?" He turned to Bell, who had cleared his throat.

"I hope so," said Bell. "But you have some idea of your own, Mr. Fortune. Would you like one of our own men to work this Downshire pub?"

"Now?" Reggie gave a little dreary laugh. "Oh, yes. Always shut stable - door when horse is stolen. Find what you ought to have found when it was some use. Educative for you."

"You are a bit hard to work with in this case, sir," Bell reproached him.

"Yes. Very distressing to you. Because I do work and you won't."

"Now what is being left undone?" Bell asked patiently. "Do you mean Miss Manning? I hadn't forgotten her. I'll have her put through it, I promise you."

"Splendid. No use. She won't put you on to the girl."

"In fact you haven't a single practical suggestion," Lomas cried.

Reggie gazed at him. "These be your gods, O Israel. This is the high official intelligence. Lomas, my Lomas! What about the night - club, the one known resort of the girl? Have you done anything with that? No. Why did she go there? Who knew her there? The Criminal Investigation Department is not interested." He rose slowly. "Good night. Pleasant dreams."

"Half a minute, sir." Bell put a hand in his way and turned solemn eyes on Lomas. "I'd say that is an idea. We might have Inspector Neve up."

"If you like." Lomas frowned, and Bell used the telephone and Reggie sank into his chair again.

Inspector Neve, the expert in night - clubs, arrived, and Reggie blinked at him. He had an appearance so insignificant that he could hardly be seen as a man. He was something vaguely sleek.

But a brain in him worked with precision. The Upsidown, sir? Yes, back of Regent street, Soho side. Started four to five years back. Run by a fellow known as Angelo. Dancing the main line. Mixed crowd. Pretty cheap stuff and some heavily gilded, and quite a few bright young things. Some of 'em like rubbing shoulders with outsiders and riff - raff. Not much of a drinking shop. Not rowdy. Only gay. But not too good. Lomas nodded. "Just the sort of place for a crook's decoy bird?"

"Bunch of birds use it who might be anything," said Inspector Neve. "I have no line on any of 'em."

"The man Angelo," Reggie murmured. "Owner or man of straw?"

A ripple passed across Inspector Neve's smooth face. "Angelo is registered as proprietor. So you might take it he isn't. There's nothing against Angelo. Unless you wonder how he got there. He used to be behind the bar in a Chelsea pub."

"Yes." Reggie glanced at Lomas. "You do us good. Mr. Lomas is wondering. Wondering hard. The man Angelo was called from the bar to keep a night - club used by the daughter of an old crook and a bunch of other birds who might be anything. 'And Maisie wonders why.'"

"You're telling me, sir," said Inspector Neve. "If you mean it's the sort of place set up to get information for crooks and rooks, I wouldn't say no."

"Well?" Reggie turned on Lomas. "What do you say?" He spoke with some ferocity. "All a wonder and a wild desire, what? Go to it. Raid the place, pull in the man Angelo and the whole crowd, and put the fear of hell into 'em."

Lomas made a grimace. "Neve has no evidence to justify a raid."

"You have. Evidence place was the haunt of a girl wanted as accessary to burglary and murder."

"Good gad! What a whirligig you are, Reginald. A little while ago you wouldn't accept that she was."

"But you do. So you're bound to act on it."

"I'll say that's right, sir," Bell struck in. "We can bring in the lot of 'em on suspicion. And we ought to."

Lomas scowled and meditated, and, after a while, said angrily: "Very well. Raid the place to - night. And we shall look dam' silly to - morrow."

"Yes. It could be," Reggie murmured.

"There's your gratitude. Bell," Lomas laughed.

"But not so silly as you have been," Reggie said, in his silkiest voice.

Bell interrupted hastily to make arrangements for the raid. While he was talking the telephone rang. Lomas snarled into it, listened, and his scowling irritation melted into complacency. "Good. . . . Smart work. . . . Quite. . . . Yes, in a quarter of an hour." He clashed the receiver down and leaned back and chuckled. "All right, Neve. Run away and play."

"Do I carry on, sir?" Neve asked, without interest.

"Oh, fix it up. But hold everything till further orders." Neve went out. "I doubt if he'll get 'em, Reginald." Lomas smiled. "The effete police force has done the trick - Nosy's caught."

"Fancy that!" Reggie murmured. "Girl in his hip - pocket?"

"The girl wasn't with him. Of course she wasn't."

"As you say. But full confession in his left boot?"

"Why play the fool?"

"My poor Lomas. I'm not. I'm asking the crucial questions. Any answers? Has the Nosy man admitted anything? Has he mentioned his daughter?"

"He won't speak," Lomas answered. "What did you expect?"

"Nothing. You seemed to think you'd got something. Illusion, my Lomas, all illusion."

"We've got the murderer," Lomas said. "Come on, Bell. You'd better come too, Reginald, confound you. I want you to look at his face. It is damaged."

"Yes, I must." Reggie sighed. "A sad world. Difficult world. However."

They drove away. Nosy Parker had been found in the kitchen of a house of no repute in Hoxton. A pickpocket, supporting his old age as a 'copper's nark', brought news of him to the local detectives. The lady of the house swore, with many oaths, that he had not been out of doors for a week and desired to eat the liver of the informer. Nosy said nothing.

In a dingy room at the police station he was brought to Lomas and Bell and Reggie. They saw a short, slight man, who looked active but not strong, unless there was strength in his long arms and large, bony hands. His head was bald but for a fringe of grey hair. The thin crumpled face met them with a stare schooled to have no meaning. But nature and life had given the face a queer expression. Its nose must have been small before the bridge was broken in to leave only a blob above a button of a mouth. The result was a look half miserable, half comic, in spite of the blank vacuity of the grey eyes. The face was shaven clean. On the right cheek was a broad red patch of dry blood, with tufts of cotton wool in it.

Reggie gazed at it, and his eyelids drooped.

"That's about right, eh?" Bell muttered. Reggie waved a languid hand. "Well, Nosy, here you are," Bell began. "You know me. I give you a straight deal. Anything you say we may have to use in evidence. But - -"

"Cut it out, Mr. Bell," Nosy squeaked. "I'm saying nothing. I've had some."

"You haven't heard what you're here for, but you've made up your mind to say nothing, eh? That don't help you, my lad. Now listen. I haven't charged you. I haven't decided to charge you yet. You're detained on suspicion concerning two charges. First, burglary of Mr. Harold Robin's flat. Second, murder of Joe Manning. I'm asking you if you can give me an account of your doings this week."

Nosy showed his teeth like a snarling dog. "Meaning you ain't got no evidence against me. I believe you. Nor you won't find none. Not honest."

"Manning was lulled Thursday night. Where were you then?"

"In bed. I make a habit of it at night."

"Turned over a new leaf since you came out of prison."

"There you go. Same old game. Had me jugged once, so you're out to get me again. That's all I got to say to you, Mr. Bell."

"Manning was an old pal of yours, wasn't he?" 

"Nothing doing."

Bell leaned forward and looked hard at him. "Who scratched your face, Nosy?" 

"Coo!" Nosy guffawed. "That's a dud." Reggie rose, wandered round the room behind him and came close.

"And what are you sniffing at?" Nosy snarled.

"All right," Reggie murmured, looking at his face with pensive curiosity. "Yes. Any idea what's become of your daughter?"

"Slimy!" Nosy spat at him. "Slinking, fat tripe - hound."

"Here, none of that," Bell roared.

"Well, well. I'm sorry," Reggie said gently, and went back to his chair.

"Asked for it, didn't you? And you blinking well got it." Nosy was still furious. "You - -"

"Shut your mouth," Bell ordered. "There's the mess you're in, my lad. Now then. Do you refuse to give any explanation?"

"Give you nothing. I want a lawyer for you."

"You have a right." Bell nodded. "You see where you're putting yourself. You'd rather be charged with murder than make a statement."

"That won't wash." Nosy showed his teeth again. "My statement is, you're doing the dirty on me. Write that down. And I want a lawyer. Mr. Clunk, I'll have."

"Send for anyone you like," Bell said. "I'm through with you." And Nosy was taken back to the cells.

"' Slinking, fat tripehound,'" Lomas repeated softly. "I rather liked that, Reginald."

"Not a bad effort." Reggie was pensive but placid. "Fat - well, well. Slinking hound - yes, my melancholy vocation. Tripe - can't complain - one is judged by the company one keeps." He shook his head at them. "Come along."

"Here, half a minute, sir." Bell was perturbed. "You put me on to Nosy yourself. You don't tell me now that was tripe."

"No. Not what I said. Way you're taking it."

"Come now," Bell remonstrated. "You said the murderer had his face scratched. And look at Nosy!"

"I did. Damage to his face, cut while shaving. Scrape of razor - blade."

"Oh, very likely. Done to hide the scratch."

"Yes, it could be," Reggie said slowly. 

"One of the oldest dodges," Bell snorted. "You know that. And your description of the murderer, now you've seen Nosy, what's different? Wasn't that him to the life - little man, big hands, grey hair?"

"I said short man," Reggie murmured. "Not little. Not light. If you ever putt me in the witness - box, I shall say there was a man in Manning's room, not Nosy. Man with a bigger stem than Nosy. Man who used hair oil. And Nosy's mainly bald. Man who carries cigars. Nosy chews."

"My oath!" Bell growled. "Taking that, that has torn it."

"Torn up his own evidence," Lomas corrected. "That's all. He'll do it again. Pretty Fanny's way."

"Oh, no. Evidence stands and is verified. Want a man of large behind and oily taste. Want the Pearl girl. Always did. Nosy don't know where she is. Nosy's worried about her. Poor beggar. So am I. My God, so am I. Come along." He wandered out.

After a minute they joined him in the car. "What's the idea now, sir?" Bell said gloomily.

"That raid," Reggie moaned. "Get on. Want my chauffeur, want my dinner" - and sank down and closed his eyes while they drove back to Scotland Yard.

In a sleep - walking manner he followed the offended Lomas and Bell to Lomas's room, and there, before Lomas could speak, asked the secretary if his chauffeur had rung up. "Yes, sir. He said would you ring him. Downham 31." Reggie ran to the telephone and sat down to it.

"Damme, don't mind me!" Lomas cried. 

"Hush. We're working," Reggie murmured. . . . His part in the conversation was an accompaniment of assent. He put the receiver back and looked up at Lomas's disgust with a smile. "Hatin' yourself? Yes, you should. I sent Sam down to Luddington. And he's got what you ought to have got yesterday. Grateful and comfortin'. In the morning, after the girl went out of the pub, a big blue car stopped there. Man and woman came in and had drinks. Oldish, fattish man; woman a big blonde, wearing a long coat. Woman retired to the lavatory upstairs. Man had another drink. Woman called to him from the car. Nobody saw her come down. Maid having dinner. Landlady in the pantry. Landlord buzzing between the tap and the saloon bar. So that's how the suitcase was removed."

"What a genius, Reginald," Lomas sneered. "If you happen to be right, you're no sort of use. Accepting this guess, it only means people came in a car and picked up the girl and her baggage. Thank you very much. Simple as you see me, I thought she'd arranged her departure. I didn't suppose she had been taken to heaven in a chariot of fire."

"Do you think?" Reggie gave him a bleak stare. "No. Oldish, fattish man came luxurious to collect girl's baggage privily and by stealth. And there was a fattish cigar smoker of oily taste in Manning's room. Well?"

Lomas sat silent and then exclaimed, "Damme, you may be right! We ought to have tried Downshire. I give you that. But what is there to work on? Suspicion of a fat old fellow in a big blue car with large blonde. Mean anything to you. Bell?"

"Nothing at all." Bell shook a gloomy head.

"Oh, yes. Painful and bracing for you. Compels action. How was the girl in touch with this opulence? Not through father Nosy, poor beggar. What about the night - club? Get on with it."

"My oath!" Bell grunted. "That might be. But these people wouldn't be showing up there now."

"No. But the night - club should know 'em. Get on. We're late. My God, we are late!" They got on. . . .

Reggie dined alone in the club which he favours when woeful, because no one there speaks to anyone except the waiters, and its beef and burgundy are of solemn virtue. He consumed them amply while his parlourmaid laboured on the telephone with Bertie Gray.

It was late when he entered his house in Wimpole Street. Bertie was there, folded together, elbows on knees, head in hands. "My poor chap," Reggie woke him. He opened himself out, and gaped and gulped. "I say, I say. Eaten of worms and eating 'em. Absolutely. What do you want me for now? What are you going to give me? Have your jolly old bobbies run her in?"

"Nothing like that. No. Not yet found. But now being looked for with some zeal."

"Gosh!" Bertie gave a miserable cackle of laughter. "You're telling me. So did they. You have done me proud, sir. Made her into a regular right - down wrong - un. A crook's vamp! Old at the game!" 'S nice!"

"I'm sorry," Reggie said. "She was born in it."

"Thanks awfully. Don't mind me."

"You don't believe it?"

Bertie's foolish face was contorted in a desperate glare. "Dam' all," he squeaked. "Told your Lord High Muck - a - muck with the glass eye. 'Go to it,' I said, 'Rake up your muck. You're a ruddy fool,' I said. ' I don't care what you can put on her. I know what she is.'"

"My Bertie!" Reggie murmured.

Bertie made a noise of disgust. "Hand me pity! That's the perishing limit." He started to his feet. "Hell to you, Mr. Fortune - -"

"Oh, no. No. Your mistake. Wasn't feelin' superior. Humble. Ashamed. We haven't found her. Confession of futility. However. We are looking now. They're raiding your precious night - club to - night. I want you to look over the inmates as they're brought in and tell me if any of 'em used to talk to her. Come on. It's the best bet. The only bet."

Bertie was persuaded. Bertie stood beside him at the police station while the mixed revellers of the Upsidown arrived, recalcitrant, protesting, scared, and merry.

"That bird," Bertie whispered. "The platinum blonde. She was always buzzing round Pearl. A blight. See what I mean?"

"Yes. Anyone else?"

"Bloke with the shiny face. The dinner - jacket with the waist. Used to give her the glad eye, blast him!"

Reggie slid away.

In the charge - room he sat down with Bell and Inspector Neve. "I don't know the lady, sir," Neve said. "The man is Angelo, the registered owner."

"Ladies first," Reggie murmured.

The platinum blonde led off with impudence which collapsed when Bell told her he was investigating a criminal conspiracy and there would be serious charges. She proceeded to whine that she had always been respectable. Bell hoped so, and what could she tell him about Mr. Angelo and Miss Pearl Bancroft? She denied passionately knowing anything of either. Neve shook his head at her and smiled. "Come along, my dear. Come clean." She began to fence. Mr. Angelo, well, he was the manager, of course, that's all she knew - and everybody knew that. Neve laughed. "Yes, but we know a bit more, my lady. Do you want us to take it you're in Angelo's pocket? Not healthy for you."

"What have you been doing with Pearl Bancroft?" Reggie asked.

She licked her glaring lips; she looked away and whined that she didn't know what he meant, she didn't know any Pearl.

"We're dealing with a matter of murder," Bell told her. "What about it?"

Under the paint and powder her sharp face paled to mauve grey.

"Ah. You know about Joe Manning. You know Pearl Bancroft's gone," Bell boomed. "Where do you stand?"

"Manning?" she gasped. "I saw about that in the paper. I never heard of him before." Her eyes stared fear.

"You say so," Reggie drawled. "What was your share in the girl?"

She gave a scream. "I never did anything to her. Swear I didn't. Angelo said to get on to her, because he had the tip she was doing the dirty on him. You know what I mean. Spying on his old club for the cops. Sorry. But there, that's straight."

"So you did get on to her. And what did you fix up to do with her?" Bell glowered at her.

"Didn't fix anything. I just told him she was in with that nut Bertie Gray and hooked him to bolt with her. That's all. I take my dying oath."

"You told him," Reggie murmured, and turned to Bell. "Get on. Get on!"

The woman was taken whimpering away and Angelo brought in. He slid along with a smirk of assurance, though his face glistened. "Good evening, gents. What's the idea, Mr. Neve? This isn't treating me right. You've never had anything on my little place. Nor you haven't got anything now."

"Only a case of murder, Angelo," said Neve.

"One or two," Reggie drawled, and his eyes searched the man. "How many are you making it? What have you done with Pearl Bancroft?"

"Here, give a fellow a chance," Angelo said thickly. "You know very well this isn't the way to do. I have my rights, if you please. I don't know what you're talking about. Am I being charged with something?"

"You will be - unless you clear yourself." Bell glowered at him. "Want your chance or not?"

"That's a bit better." Angelo grinned. "And what's the charge you had in mind, sir?"

"Reason to believe murder has been planned at your club. Heard of Joe Manning, haven't you? Heard of Pearl Bancroft. And you know where she was taken. Now then. What are you going to tell me? I've got your woman's story already."

Angelo muttered a name for her.

"What do you want to be called?" Reggie asked him.

"I give you my word, I don't know what it's all about." Angelo cringed and wiped his face. "I haven't got anything to hide. I've always run the club straight - Mr. Neve knows that. This Bancroft girl you're asking about, I thought she seemed to be fishy, and I don't want that sort, so I just set that cat Gerty to keep an eye to her. And Gerty told me she was off with Mr. Gray, poor fish. That's the whole of it."

"Oh, no," Reggie said. "You told somebody else. And they took action."

Bell banged the table. "Come on. Are you in it with them or not? What do you say?" 

"Here, one at a time." Angelo shrank back.

"One murder? Oh, yes!" Reggie laughed. "That is so. Why did he want the girl too?"

"Who - who do you mean?" Angelo stammered.

"You know," Reggie said. "Real owner of club. Your owner."

And Bell boomed, "Bought and sold, aren't you? Now then, I asked you if you wanted a chance. Here you are. Clear yourself - or not."

Angelo wilted and cowered and was voluble. "I haven't done a thing, sir. You've got it quite right, I am only the manager. I have to go by the guv'nor's orders. He told me to have the Bancroft kid watched, she might be crooked. And I just passed up to him what Gerty got. That's all, reely it is."

"You -" Reggie stopped on a word. "Expect us to believe you? You know what your owner's up to."

"That I don't, sir - not if you mean anything dirty. Always the gent with me, Captain Hirst is."

"Captain Hirst," Reggie drawled.

"That's his name, sir - Captain Randolph Hirst."

"Is it? Go on. Tell us some more. What's he like?"

"Well, I don't know how to say."

"I believe you," Bell growled. "Try the truth, my lad."

"I do, sir. I am trying." Angelo was servile. "He's a bit short and stout, not so young as he was. Looks very smart."

"Does he? Oils his grey hair, what?" Reggie gave a mocking laugh. "Isn't that nice. Bell?"

Bell glowered at Angelo, who muttered, "That's right, sir. I don't know what the joke is."

"You will," Reggie said, and laughed again. "Where is he now?"

"I couldn't tell you, sir. He lives in Bayswater - Rudolf Villas. But he's often away. He has a country cottage up the river at Wisham. I haven't seen him since Wednesday."

"Since you sent him down to Luddington." Reggie started up. "Come on. Bell."

"I'm with you." Bell bent to Neve and whispered, and followed Reggie out.

Behind them Angelo's voice rose wailing: "Here, how do I stand?" And they heard Neve answer genially: "God knows, George. You're held. Better come clean. Quite clean."

Two police cars drove away to Rudolf Villas. In one of them Bertie Gray sat, an unhappy bodkin, between Reggie and Bell. Whether he recognised in the description of Captain Randolph Hirst anyone he had seen at the Upsidown he could not be sure. He babbled miserably.

Captain Hirst was not at home. To the disgust of a smug manservant, detectives made sure of that. He could not say whether the Captain had gone to the country cottage. His offer to telephone and enquire was declined. They left a detective to make sure that he should not, and went on to Wisham.

As they slowed to its police station an inspector came out: "Your phone message received. Reason to believe there is somebody in the cottage. I've put men on it. No movement so far. I - -"

"Come on, show us the way," Reggie cried.

In the half dark of a moonless, clear summer night the cars passed from the town and the velvet of the river to a hillside on which thickets stood black between glistening hollows. They turned into a lane no wider than the cars.

The inspector was talking. "Cottage is up here. Stands by itself. Old place, done up."

"Ah. Lonely." Bell grunted.

"That's right. We don't know these people you're after."

"I believe you," said Bell, and was flung forward by the jerk of hard braking. In the beam of the headlights a policeman stood, holding up his hand. He came to the car.

"Hallo, Taylor." The inspector spoke softly. "Anything doing?"

"No, sir. Not so far. Nobody gone nor come. Not gone to bed. Still a light downstairs. Look."

"All right." Bell emerged and stood beside him, peering through the gloom. "Don't show much. Don't see it."

"By gum! They've put it out," the policeman muttered. "That's just this minute, since your cars came."

"Get on, Bell. Get on." Reggie pushed at him, and, as he turned to his men, ran past him up the lane.

Beyond the black hedge, against the dim hillside, the cottage loomed out, under the darkness of its thatch, a vague, grey shape, the windows like holes in it.

Reggie reached the gate, and a hand grasped his arm. "Oh, my Lord," he panted. "I'm police too. Don't be a fool."

"That's right, Clarke" - the inspector arrived. "Let him go."

"More haste less speed, sir. We'll handle it." He strode on to the door and knocked with fist and foot.

Reggie went along the side of the cottage, flashing a torch at the windows. All the casements were shut and opaque curtains drawn. Under the search of the torchlight a curtain moved. Reggie thrust a gloved hand through the glass, pulled the curtain aside, and brought the ray of his torch into the room.

A woman was held in the light a moment as if she were a statue. He saw her, gross, big - bosomed, before she vanished with a scream. He found the latch of the casement, opened it, and scrambled through, calling: "Come on. Bell."

His torch swept round a large, low room in which there was no one. He ran to the door, and it was held against him. As he dragged it open the bulk of the woman fell upon him. He broke from the clinging mass into the hall. Somewhere above a light glimmered.

Not on the first landing. A narrow steep staircase, like a hatchway ladder, rose beyond. The light was up there. He climbed into an attic, and flung himself at a man who held a candle and a paraffin lamp. Only the candle was alight. The oil from the lamp was being poured on the floor, on the bed.

"Come along. Bell," Reggie roared. His rush had sent the man staggering back from the bed, he clutched at the candle but it was thrown from him and lay guttering close to the spilt oil, and the man had him by the throat.

Bell and his forces thudded upstairs. "Stamp on that light," Reggie gasped. A constabulary foot put it out. The stinking darkness was lit by torches. "My oath!" Bell grunted, as he fell upon Reggie's man. Reggie broke away and ran to the bed.

"That'll do for you," Bell told his capture, now held by many hands. The torchlight showed him a short, full - bodied fellow with sleek grey hair. "Captain Randolph Hirst, I presume. Choking a man again, eh? Thank you kindly."

"Come on," Reggie called. "Give me some light here."

Bell followed him to the bedside. His hands were at work on a girl's body. A beam of light discovered her face. It was haggard and of a queer, brown colour, the lips cracked in grey scales, the sunken eyes bloodshot. She tried to speak, and the mouth opened and the tongue came out yellow, and she retched.

"My God!" Bell muttered.

"Yes, as you say." Reggie laughed and ran out. He came back with a glass of water.

The girl tried to rise, and fell with a whimper and sobbed. Reggie lifted her head, helped her to drink, and she sucked noisily, greedily. The head jerked back, like a sated baby's; she sighed and her eyes closed.

"What's he done to her?" Bell whispered.

"Tied up, gagged, starved," Reggie murmured. "Take the beast away."

With vigour Captain Hirst was removed, and Bell brought Bertie Gray up to the attic. "Now, sir, gently does it. Is this your Miss Pearl Bancroft?"

"What, what, what?" Bertie babbled. "Where? Oh!" He saw her; he made queer noises; he dropped down on his knees by the bed, flung an arm across her and drew her to him, and upon the drawn, brown face pressed his own.

Reggie ran downstairs. . . .

It was about noon on the next day when Lomas and Bell came to his house and found him in bed with a tray of breakfast. "My poor Bell," he murmured. "Wouldn't he let you sleep? What a life!" He gazed disgust at Lomas. "You gentleman of England who sits at home at ease. We've been working."

"Great work, Reginald. All congratulations. One of your best things. I grovel," Lomas said. "I was ashamed to dig you out. But you know what Bell is. Dam' fellow won't rest till a case is finished."

"It is finished," Reggie answered, and went on eating his mushroom omelette.

"Not quite." Lomas smiled. "I don't see my way through it. We haven't got the girl's story. When we rang up your hospital, we were told she wasn't fit to be questioned."

"Yes. You would be. My orders. She isn't."

"Has she said anything at all?"

"No. Not rational. What would you be saying if you'd been tied up without food or drink for days? Having been stunned to start with."

"Poor thing." Lomas frowned. "Will you bring her through?"

"I hope so. Yes. I'm in charge, Lomas. I'll tell you when she's ready to talk."

"That's all right," Lomas assured him. "Leave it to you. Meanwhile we're held up. Why the deuce did Hirst play this game with her? As he meant to wipe her out, why hadn't he done it before you got there? There's no sense in keeping her in his cottage to kill her slow."

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap. Quite sensible. He is. The beast. He wanted something out of her. So he took her and tortured her to get it. Good torture, thirst. But I don't think he had got it. Only when he saw the game was up that it suited him to wipe her out. Hence the ingenious attempt to fire that attic in the thatch on arrival of police. Resourceful beast. With a bit of luck he'd have brought it off. That top storey would have gone up like a bonfire. We'd have found her remains. And our Captain Hirst would have said a girl staying with him must have knocked over the lamp in her room. You wouldn't believe it, but you'd prove nothing."

"Quite. I agree. Very clever devil." Lomas smiled.

"We should have been in the soup without you, Reginald. But what do you suppose it is he wanted to get out of her?"

"I don't know. Might be the missin' goddess."

"Ah. You mean the gold and ivory statuette?" Bell grunted. "I believe you. You think she knows where it is?" 

Reggie ate cherries with elegance. "I didn't say so," he murmured. "Said that was his idea. Said she hadn't told him."

"What are you giving us, then?" Bell frowned at him. "This chap Hirst knew all about the burglary - say he put it up, him and Manning - -"

"You may. Yes." Reggie bent over his cherries. "I did describe a fellow present in Manning's room on the night of his murder. Fellow not Nosy Parker. Fellow just like our Captain Hirst."

"I grant you, he fits," Bell said. "Smelly hair oil. Cigar smoker and all. And he tried to throttle you. So you make out now it was him scragged Manning and not Nosy? Well, I've got to own that works pretty much as well as the other way. You only said the murderer was short and grey - haired - -"

"Good gad! it works better," Lomas exclaimed. "We have Hirst caught in the act of murdering the girl who must know something about the case. That damns him."

"Yes, I think so." Reggie smiled. 

"I'm not saying it don't," Bell grumbled. "You leave out that bit about the scratched face. Well, Nosy's got his answer to it. But how does this theory work out? Hirst thought the girl knew where the statuette had gone. All right. I believe that. Then why should he want to kill Manning?"

Reggie selected a cherry with care. "My dear old Bell! Ask Miss Manning."

"You mean Hirst believed Manning had done him down? All right. Now look. The burglary's fixed up. The girl gives the information. Nosy does the job - -"

"Oh, no. I don't believe that. Never did. Job was done by somebody who meant to put it on Nosy. Probably Manning himself."

"Quite good, Reginald," Lomas chuckled. "And then Hirst went round to Manning to collect the statuette and Manning double - crossed him - said the girl or Nosy had got the goods - something like that. Bluffed him. Threatened him. Any one of the crowd could round on him and ruin him. So Hirst blew up. And exit Mr. Manning. Never heard of anything like that before. Bell?"

Bell struggled with thought. "I have, sir. This don't satisfy me, though. Who's the real double - crosser? Hirst seems to have thought it was the girl or Nosy, by what he was doing with her - not Manning."

"Sticky, aren't you?" Lomas said. "Obviously he thought it was Manning and the girl."

Reggie beamed upon him. "Good for you, Lomas."

"Well, if you both take things like that -" Bell's puzzled face turned from one to the other - "then where is the thing?"

"Have you asked Miss Manning?" Reggie smiled.

"Ah!" Bell gave a grunt of gloomy satisfaction. "That's your idea. It won't do. The house has been combed out. Nothing. And nothing's been buried in the garden. Ground not disturbed. And she hasn't been off anywhere since the murder."

"Since she reported the murder," Reggie corrected. "You don't know what she did first when she found her brother dead."

"Hid the swag before she called the police, eh?" Bell glowered at him. "Making her out a cold - blooded vixen, aren't you?"

"Yes, I think she is. She did wipe the whisky glasses. She does know a man who was with her brother the night he was murdered. And she didn't give him away. Why? Because he would have given her away. She went and boiled jam. Why?"

"My oath!" Bell's mouth stood open.

"Dear Bell! Such a good housewife! Statuette of goddess about six inches high. And the good housewife had seven - pound jam - pots. I seem to remember a fellow who popped a necklace into the soup tureen. And he got away with it. Yet you didn't comb out the jam."

"Well, you might have put it to me." Bell was hurt. "But anyhow - soon see." He strode out.

Lomas laughed. "Poor old Bell! Confound you, Reginald, I could hope you're wrong for the good of your soul."

"Soul's all right. Got the girl. That was my job." Reggie rolled out of bed. "Everything else trivial."

"Quite. Only the hanging of a few people."

"Passed to you," Reggie said over his shoulder, and went into his dressing - room.

When Lomas and he entered Miss Manning's kitchen, her jam - pots stood empty on the floor, and in a zinc bath beside them lay a mass of jam. Bell, with two of his men, coats off, sleeves rolled up, was at work on two sticky red packets.

These were of oiled silk. Out of one came some old gold - work - rings, a brooch, and a string of beads. From the other Bell extracted a statuette. Its ivory was yellow with the stain of ages, the gold - work upon it dented and dull.

Bell scowled at it. "My Lord! This is the article. But twenty - five thousand quid! And men's lives!"

"Why not?" Reggie murmured. "She's lovely." He stood contemplating her gracious offered hands, her calm, sad smile. "Yes. Divine. And woman."

' Raised hell, hasn't she?" Bell growled.

"Not the first time, I expect," Lomas chuckled.

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "However. Not only hell. We've saved the girl."

"H'm," Bell grunted. "I don't know. What we have got is this Manning woman."

"Yes, I think so." Reggie smiled. "In the room where brother was murdered, what?"

"Gentle spirit." Lomas made a grimace. "All right."

The shutters of the room were open - sunshine lit up the shabby couch on which Manning had been strangled. His sister was thrust in and the door shut behind her. She stood by it, her clothes askew, her sandy hair tousled, and she sniffed, red of eye and red of nose. It was no pretence that she had been crying. Bell gave her a long grim stare. But she did not look at him, she looked at the couch. "What do you bring me here for?" she whimpered. "It's cruel."

"Oh, do you mind?" Reggie asked. "You did a good deal in here." He wandered away to the tray of siphon and decanter and glasses, and put it by the chair where the cigar ash had fallen. "Is that about right?"

Her lips went in and out and made no words till she spluttered: "Don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do," Bell told her. "You've been lying hard, and you're caught. Now then. Were you here when he was killed?" She screamed denial. "Still say that. But you know who was with him." She cried out oaths that she didn't.

"Then why did you wipe the glasses?" Reggie murmured. She swore that she hadn't. She never touched them. It was wicked cruel to say so. Joe had been a dear good brother to her, and she wouldn't have hurt him for the world. Only wished she knew who did, she'd make him pay. Couldn't think of anybody who would - she snuffled, and the red eyes looked from one unsympathetic face to the other - "Unless it was that old devil Nosy Parker," she said, watching the effect.

"Ah. And who's your Nosy Parker?" Bell asked.

She shook her head. "A chap Joe used to know that's gone to the bad. He worried Joe a lot. Never could tell when he wouldn't turn up, cadging. He's a terror. I believe he's a real criminal, sir. A dreadful man."

"Is he?" Bell sympathised. "Too bad. Why did you keep in with him?"

"I never did," she squeaked. "I always hated him."

"Yes, I believe that," Reggie said sharply, and she flushed. "Honest Joe hated him. Captain Hirst hated him."

She caught her breath and choked. "We've got Captain Hirst," Reggie murmured.

"Come on," Bell barked at her. "Do you say Nosy Parker was here that night?"

She wiped her face. "He's the only one I can think of," she muttered.

Bell moved a cushion and took from beneath it the statuette of the goddess. "Why did you hide this in your jam? Where did you get it from?"

"Not from Nosy Parker," Reggie put in. "She's always hated him."

"Half a minute, sir." Bell held up his hand and turned on the woman. "See where you are. You've been caught concealing stolen goods. Your jam - making! Your brother was murdered, and the first thing you thought of was hiding this swag. I have reason to believe you're concealing what you know about the murderer. Unless you can clear yourself, you'll be charged. That's how you stand."

She made hysterical laughter. "Charge me! With - with poor Joe! Oh, God! Ain't that funny?" She giggled. She sobbed. "Oh, you are so hard on me, you gentlemen. I never did a thing. What could I do? It was all done. I always told Joe he'd come to no good with the Captain."

"Did you! And he hasn't, eh? Nor you haven't. Tell the truth now."

"Oh, I will. Don't frighten me so. I'll tell you everything." She took a long time, twisting and confusing the tale with emotions for cover to futile, obvious lies about the Manning past, desperately eager to show herself no friend of Captain Hirst.

Captain Hirst had been coming off and on for a good while. Joe wouldn't ever tell her what his business was. She knew Joe didn't like it and she hated him, but it was as if poor Joe couldn't help himself, the Captain was such a devil. The other day Joe showed her that statue thing and the rest, and said to put the lot away and hide it; him and her would be ruined if it was found - the Captain meant to round on 'em. That night the Captain came and Joe sent her to bed, and the last thing she heard was the two argufying. Then, in the morning, she found poor Joe dead and cold. She was that broke up she didn't rightly know what to do. She was that scared of the Captain, he might be putting anything on her. So she just hadn't the strength to say a word, couldn't think of anything but hiding the stuff like Joe said.

"Ah. Ready to swear all that?" Bell asked. "That's the whole truth and nothing but the truth? H'm. Then why did you bring in Nosy Parker just now?"

"Be careful," Reggie drawled.

She looked furtively from one to the other. She decided to say, "I only thought of him, being a chap who worried Joe. It's all true what I told you, every word."

"You say so. Very well. You'll be held for enquiries." Bell ordered her away.

"Sweet creature." Lomas lit a cigarette. "Loving sister, what? Sorry we can't get her too. But she's made a case of it. She'll send Hirst to the hangman all right."

"Are you satisfied, Mr. Lomas?" Bell frowned. "I've got to own I'm not."

"My Bell! What's the trouble?" Reggie reasoned with him. "Manning had the stolen goddess - told her to hide it - Hirst came to call and they quarrelled, and she found him dead. That's her evidence, fitting all other evidence. Obvious inevitable inference: Hirst and Manning contrived the burglary, arranging to put it on Nosy Parker and daughter - Hirst found Manning meant to do him out of the swag and scragged him."

"I don't see it," Bell said stubbornly. "Hirst killed Manning - then why did Hirst go after the girl? Because he thought she knew where the swag was? Then he thought she was in with the Mannings. And what about her father - Nosy?"

"My dear chap! Nothing about him. Miss Manning yearned to drag him in. And yet she couldn't."

"Quite." Lomas nodded. "That's decisive."

"I'd like to hear what the girl says," Bell persisted.

"Don't worry. You shall." Reggie smiled. "Goodbye."

Lomas chuckled at Bell's dour gloom. "Nasty fellow, isn't he? So deuced right." But Bell was not comforted.

In a pleasant hospital room Pearl Bancroft was propped upon pillows. Her little face had lost its brown aridity, cheeks and lips were smooth again, but it was wan and thin and looked distress. From their hollows her eyes, looming big and dark, watched the door.

Reggie came in. "You'll be here with me?" she asked. "Rather." He sat down by the bed and put fingers on the pulse. "Yes. You're all right. Quite a good girl."

Bell and Lomas were brought in by a nurse, who gave them chairs and went away. "I'm glad to see you better, miss," Bell said austerely. "Now I'd like to hear what you've got to say."

There came a rush of words: "You know I'm Mr. Parker's daughter - Jenny Parker, really. I have to begin with that - that's the beginning; when dad was sent to prison, I was at school; he put me with friends. ..." She went on telling of being sent out to work and the friends getting into trouble, and the arrival of an unknown woman, a Mrs. Jones, who took her away.

Bell asked what she was like, and the description of Mrs. Jones was a description of Miss Manning. But there was no more of the Mannings in the story - a familiar story, as the tired smile of Lomas acknowledged, the story of a girl being trained and used for a thieves' accomplice, half - guessing, half - innocent, altogether helpless to save herself... a maze of sordid detail . . . after the burglary at Lady Bruncker's, she was sent away without a character. She was just eighteen. "I didn't know what to do, and I was trying at a registry office for anything when I met Gerty Montagu - -"

"Our platinum blonde," Reggie murmured, to Bell's stolid severity. "Getting warm. Go on, child."

"Gerty said she could fix me a job, if I played up. That was when I took the name. Father used to call me Pearl for fun, and there was a clergyman called Bancroft. I thought it would be good. Gerty took me round to an office; some sort of agents they were - Calder & Clark - and I typed there for a bit." Bell cleared his throat, and Reggie glanced at him. "They weren't bad to me," the girl went on. "Mr. Calder was nice in a way. He took me to the Upsidown. I'd never had anything like that before. I liked it. I don't know. Gerty seemed to be nice too. I never thought she - -" the words died away in a shudder.

"Steady, steady," Reggie murmured.

"I'm sorry. . . . Well, then Mr. Calder said he couldn't keep me any more, but he'd give me a very good character and he rather thought he knew of a place for me. He got a gentleman to write a letter to Mr. Robins. And so Mr. Robins took me on." 

"Name of gentleman?" Reggie prompted.

"Mr. Demetrius, he was called. I never saw him."

Reggie lifted an eyebrow at Bell, and said, "Go on."

"Well, Gerty used to ask me all about the place and so on, and I suppose I talked," she said. "But I didn't really tell anything - I'm sure I didn't. I didn't like Gerty so much. She wasn't nice about Mr. Gray. And then that Tuesday night dad met me outside the flat. Oh, I couldn't believe it was him at first. I'd never seen him since I was a kid. He told me to take him to where I was living and he'd tell me a thing or two. Then he let go. He was mad with me - poor dad. He said he'd heard in prison I'd got in with a lot of crooks, and he'd been combing London to find me. He'd rather strike me dead than have me go his way. He made me tell him everything, and he said I was being used for cover and I must get out of it all quick. So I promised I would and I knew how, and I went back to the Upsidown and met Mr. Gray. You see, he had been wanting me to go with him. And - and - well, you see. He did want me. And then I went back to my room and told father, and it was all right; and father stayed with me till the morning, to make sure I was off safe."

"Oh. You say your father was with you the night of the burglary?" Bell asked.

"Yes, he was. He stayed all night. In case anybody came."

"All right. Go on."

"Then - then Mr. Gray took me down to Luddington till we could get married - but he didn't sleep there, you know. And then, on the Thursday morning, I was out walking, and I was hit on the head and knocked down. The next thing I know I was in that dreadful attic, all aching and stiff and tied up. I tried to scream, but I couldn't - my mouth was stuffed with cloth. Then the fat woman came and asked if I'd like a drink of water. Oh, that made me cry, and she laughed and said, ' All right, dearie!' and the Captain came. I knew him by sight. I didn't know his name. I'd seen him at the Upsidown. People just called him Captain. He told me I could have my belly full of water if I told the truth, and he asked me where Mr. Robin's statuette was; said it had been stolen and I must have done it - I must know who had it. Then he took the cloth off my mouth, and I could only say I'd never touched it - I didn't know a thing. He swore at me and put the cloth back. They came again, after a long time, and brought some water and held it near me. Oh, that did hurt so all over." She broke off, gasping. "And he did it again!"

"Yes, I know. Finished now. You're safe." Reggie reached for a glass of water.

"Oh!" She shivered and drank, and sighed and fell back. . . .

Reggie shepherded Lomas and Bell out of the room. "Now you know," he said.

"Yes, thanks. That'll do nicely." Lomas smiled. "Poor little thing."

"She has been through it," Bell said slowly.

You think so!" Reggie gave a short, little laugh. "Make sure these devils get theirs."

"With pleasure," Lomas chuckled. "Happy days!" . . .

It was several days after that Bell appeared in the library where Reggie was writing his report - not on this case, but on the case of the admiral's tortoise, one of the darkest mysteries of destiny.

Bell also looked dark and destined. "My dear old thing," Reggie offered anxious sympathy. "Men are we and must grieve. Yes. What's your woe now?"

"I wanted to speak to you about the Hirst case, sir."

"Oh, Peter!" Reggie sat up with a jerk. "You haven't foozled it? You couldn't!"

"Haven't we?" Bell growled. "I'm asking you! Oh, we've got a big haul. A regular organised gang. And we've fixed it good and well Hirst murdered Manning. Mr. Lomas is satisfied, the Public Prosecutor's satisfied. Not a doubt we can hang Hirst on the evidence. But I ask you straight, do you believe it was him throttled Manning?"

Reggie's eyelids drooped. "Always believe evidence."

"Just so." Bell stared hard at him. "That's my trouble. You remember Nosy Parker nearly throttled a man in gaol. I've found out why. That bloke chipped him the Mannings had got hold of his daughter. You remember she said he was mad with her. Then the burglary was done, and he'd hear about big gloves being left and the thing being faked in his style to put it on him. Isn't it likely he'd see red and go and do Manning in? And then - his cut face. You said the murderer's face was scratched. Hirst's face wasn't."

"Oh, no. I didn't say murderer's face was scratched. Shouldn't dream of saying so. Only said might have been. Not evidence. The evidence is: Hirst was there and no one else. Also that Hirst does go for the throat. You saw him scrag me."

"I know." Bell nodded. "And a jury will lap that up. But do you believe he murdered Manning?"

"Wrong number." Reggie smiled. "Not a question for me."

THE DEAD LEAVES

IN HIS FIRST dreamy meditations over the case, Mr. Fortune remarked that it suggested one answer to the hard question why boys should be boys. He remains of that opinion.

The month was March. A day of sunshine had come after weeks of gloom. Gus Carter, a lusty twelve - year - old, felt the call to play truant, and took little Ernie Brooks with him that he might have a slave for teasing. They went to Richmond Park. It was, of course, Ernie whom the keeper caught when the deer were frightened. Dismissed in tears, Ernie found Gus exuberant with merry jests at a cry - baby. He could not bear it. He announced that he was going home. Gus snatched his cap, ran away, and threw it into one of the coverts which fences protect from small boys and other enemies of natural beauty.

Ernie scrambled over the palings to get it back, distracted by threats from Gus that the keeper was coming, and forced his woebegone way into the thicket. He found the cap, and he found something else - a woman. He saw what had been her face.

A scream frightened the joyous Gus. Ernie came back through the bushes, fighting at them with wild arms, stumbled to the fence, clutched at it, and was sick. That is the manner in which the death of the woman became known to the police. But for the diversions of Gus Carter it would not have been discovered till less was left of her - it might be still a secret. Even now it is classified as a case unsolved and insoluble. Mr. Fortune admits the justice of this decision, and yet maintains that Gus had his uses in the scheme of the world.

Mr. Fortune stood in his laboratory. A porcelain dish on the bench contained some little dry yellowish matter. His assistant watched while he let fall on it two drops of a colourless fluid. The pale yellow colour changed to a glaring purple - red, which soon became violet and then blue and changed no more.

"That's definite enough, sir," said Jenks, the assistant, with satisfaction.

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap." Mr. Fortune sighed. He turned away. He contemplated some large glass jars which contained all the rest of the dead woman that could still be any use on earth. "Send 'em on to Anneler. Let him estimate. It's no good. However!" He wandered out.

An hour afterwards Jenks came into the room behind the laboratory. Before the electric - fire, Mr. Fortune sat in an easy chair, on the small of his back. His feet were on another chair, and his knees as high as his head. On his thighs a woman's leather bag lay open. He was gazing at it with eyes half closed. "Will there be anything else, sir?" said Jenks.

"What?" Mr. Fortune's eyes opened to look at him as if he were a curiosity. Jenks repeated the question.

Mr. Fortune held out to him the bag. "Smell that," he said. "Centre."

The bag had been of brown leather, but was much discoloured. It was of a common pattern, in several compartments, of which the inmost was a silk pocket for small intimate possessions.

Jenks smelt and smelt again. "Just mouldy, isn't it?" he asked.

"You think so?"

Jenks applied his nose a third time. "Something faintly aromatic," he announced.

"Yes. The nose is not wholly effete." Mr. Fortune got out of his chair in one squirming movement. "Put a name to the smell?"

"No, I can't, sir." Jenks frowned.

Mr. Fortune went to the table and took the stopper from a small, wide - mouthed glass bottle in which there was a twig of some dead leaves. "And that?" He held it out.

Once more Jenks smelt. "It's aromatic," he decided. "Very faint, though."

"Not exact, Jenks," Mr. Fortune complained. "The nose is not adequately scientific. Use the eye."

Jenks took up a magnifying - glass. "Why, it's bog myrtle, isn't it?" he ventured.

"Yes. That is so. And the other exhibit?" Reggie presented a second bottle, containing a smaller sprig with smaller leaves.

Jenks sniffed. "I get no smell at all. Oh, just faintly the same."

"Yes. You would. Are they the same?" Jenks applied the lens. "No, they're not. This isn't bog myrtle. It might be willow."

"Not so bad. Which willow?"

Jenks stared at him and puzzled over the twig. "I don't know," he said at last. "It's so small and fragile. Is it willow?"

"Oh, my dear chap!" Mr. Fortune reproached him. "Don't hedge. Back your mind."

"Well, I'll say it's a bit of a very young willow," Jenks declared.

"Not young, no. Dwarf. Salix herbacea - the arctic willow. Smallest tree in the world."

The sharp face of Jenks exhibited a certain stupor. "I know." He grumbled resentment. "Never saw it before, though. Arctic willow - with bog myrtle!"

"Yes. That is so. One small sprig of each in bag of deceased female. Curious and interestin'. But the only useful things she left us. Poor woman." He gazed at Jenks with round dreamy eyes. "No, there isn't anything else, Jenks. Good night."

Mr. Fortune took up the house telephone and asked plaintively for China tea and muffins for two, applied himself to the other telephone, and was put through to the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. "Fortune speaking. From laboratory. Work of science now concluded. Passed to you for requisite action. Act - act in the livin' present. Same like the poet says. Are you livin', Lomas? Come round."

He rang off. He switched on a higher power of heat in the electric - fire, and fell again to the depths of his easy chair.

The second muffin was being consumed when the Hon. Sidney Lomas came in swift and sprightly. "Well, Reginald, what are you going to tell me?"

"Chair," said Reggie, through mastication, and pointed with a foot. "Tea?" His foot twisted to the tray on the hearth. Lomas poured himself a cup, without milk or sugar. "Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie sighed. "Muffin? They do butter 'em here." Lomas made a grimace. "Well, well. Sad life, your stomach's life. However. Let us then be up and doin". The woman died not less than three, not more than six, months ago."

"You have it as near as that!" Lomas was satirical. "Marvellous. Any time between September and December. Thanks so much."

"She was over thirty. Not a lot. About five foot nine, slim, rather wasted, in poor health. Fair woman, yellow - brown hair with red in it. Done some walking. Not a single woman. Had no children. Cause of death, probably morphia. There was morphia in her. Anneler's doing an estimate of the amount - which will be quite unreliable - owing to processes of putrefaction. I should say the dose which killed her wasn't the first she had. The hypodermic syringe found by the handbag had contained sulphate of morphia. That's the medical evidence."

"Very clear, Reginald. Very useful." Lomas smiled. "The conclusion is: she was a drug addict who went into that covert and gave herself a final dose some time last autumn."

"Yes, it could be," Reggie said slowly. "Your conclusion. Not mine."

"What is yours, then?"

"I haven't one. No conclusion possible on the medical evidence. Other evidence curious and interesting."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, my Lomas!" Reggie complained. "Think about it. Woman's clothes completely French. Hypodermic syringe also of French make. French money in handbag. But no name anywhere, no papers. Why not? Why should a Frenchwoman come to Richmond Park to kill herself carefully anonymous, but emphasisin' she was French? Bafflin' questions. Take in the medical evidence. Body suggests English rather than French. Probability, therefore, is she was made up French to confuse our intelligent police force. Involvin' probability she did not kill herself."

Lomas lit a cigarette, inhaled the smoke, and gave him a condescending, tolerant, patient smile. "Admirable, Reginald. One of your best efforts at seeing what isn't there."

"Not me, no. I never do. Only insisting you should see all there is. That's what annoys the official mind."

"I am only amused," said Lomas gently. "You do like to be brilliant, don't you? But what is your genius giving me now? A masterpiece. The woman was tall and slight and fair, so she was English. And, because she was English, her French clothes were put on to deceive. Therefore she was murdered." He chuckled. "I should like to hear you putting that rational argument to a jury. But I'm afraid I never shall, Reginald."

"No. You won't. It isn't an argument. It's a provisional hypothesis. Probable hypothesis. Passed to you for proof. The police will have to do a little work. Sorry to trouble you."

"Probable!" Lomas scoffed. "My dear fellow, look at the foundation of it. A tall fair woman must be English!" 

"Merely silly, yes. But you said that, not me. I said, body suggests she was English. General physical type rather English than French, and feet and legs show she was a walker. Women who walk hard more common in England than France. Take in other evidence not medical" - he stretched out from his chair and passed the two wide - mouthed bottles to Lomas. 

"Dead leaves?" Lomas frowned at them. 

"Correct. Dead leaves. Found in woman's bag: old and treasured souvenirs; sprigs of bog myrtle and arctic willow."

"Arctic!" Lomas exclaimed. "Good gad! Do you suggest the woman was an arctic explorer?"

"My poor Lomas! Education very defective. Arctic willow not confined to the polar regions. Dwarf tree found on British mountains above 2,000 feet or so. Bog myrtle is common in our mountain districts. A woman who goes mountain walking is much more likely to be English than French. So putting things together we have strong probability deceased was an Englishwoman fond of mountains and somebody wanted her to pass for French when she was dead. There you are. Action, action, and again action. You only have to get news of a woman as described sunk without trace since last September, and find the man who had a motive for murdering her."

"Is that all?" said Lomas, and lit another cigarette and meditated. "I agree you've worked out something, Reginald. But it's queer stuff. Somebody - it may have been herself, you know - somebody did take care that no sign of her name or origin should be found. Great care. Admitted. Then how can you make a clue out of dead leaves found in the handbag? If they had any value as evidence, they would have been removed. Everything else significant was. The bag itself needn't have been left - it wouldn't have been if it gave anything away."

"Oh, yes. Bag was necessary. Didn't you notice that? It contained the syringe and case. That had to be with her to indicate suicide. The dead leaves weren't removed because they weren't noticed. Very small sprigs, you see, much same colour now as brown silk of pocket. I didn't notice 'em till I smelt the myrtle."

"It's an answer," Lomas admitted, and smoked his cigarette out. "Well, accepting everything you say - what then? We put her down as an Englishwoman, fond of mountains, found dead, poisoned by morphia. We shall never be able to prove that she didn't kill herself. It wouldn't be the first time that a woman has hidden herself in a copse and taken poison. Common case. Your evidence is, this woman was in poor health and probably a morphia addict. Just the type for such a suicide. We may find that a woman as described is missing and get her history. We might - long odds against - but we might be able to prove somebody had a reason for wanting her dead. And then, Reginald? A million to one we can't get any further. We're months late. It's a hopeless case."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. His eyes closed. His round face was pale and wistful. "A hopeless case," he drawled sleepily. "Yes. Looks like that. Looks just like suicide - as you say - not the first time, just the type - and it wasn't. What about the other times? Useful little people, aren't we? The reasonably efficient murderer has us beat. Every time and all."

"My dear fellow," - Lomas gave an impatient laugh - "that's fantastic. The moans of wounded pride. You're very able, but not quite omniscient. Your failure to prove a crime doesn't mean that the criminal escapes. It may be there wasn't one."

"Pride!" Reggie's eyes opened. "Oh, my hat! Pride!" He moaned. "Not me, no. Thinkin' about that woman - and what she was thinkin' of when she picked her mountain plants - when she looked at 'em and smelt her myrtle the last time. I wonder." He gazed solemnly at Lomas.

"God knows, poor wretch." Lomas was uncomfortable.

"Yes. He does. Yes. What are we for?"

"For all you can ever tell, she may have been just driven to suicide."

"It could be," Reggie said slowly. "One way of murder."

"Very well, then. It's a useless enquiry," said Lomas.

"Feeling pleased with yourself? I am not. I object to being useless. It annoys me. Let's annoy the murderer."

"What the devil can we do?"

"Advertise her. Appeal for information about a woman as described. Any objection?"

"Oh, that - of course!" Lomas shrugged. "That will be done; that's routine. Do you think it will bother your hypothetical murderer? You deceive yourself. If he exists, he's covered good and well, and he knows it."

"You think so? Yes. It could be. I hate you. However. Do your stuff. He doesn't know everything. He doesn't know me."

So every newspaper in the country announced that the woman found dead in Richmond Park was five foot nine and slim and of fair complexion, with bobbed hair of yellow red, and asked that anyone who knew of the disappearance of such a woman since September should give information to the police.

Several people did, and several women were sought for and found alive and indignant, but nothing was heard of a woman who could not be found.

As Lomas rose one morning, his telephone rang, and said: "Fortune speaking. Are you up? Sorry. Meant to disturb your slumbers. Reference, woman of Richmond Park. Any results?"

With a bitter gusto Lomas told him what they were. "There you are. Dead end. Absolutely. Hopeless case. I told you so."

"You did. Yes. As answered the end of your bein' created. And acted according Seen the Daily Life this morning? You should."

"What the deuce have you been up to?" said Lomas angrily.

"He only does it to annoy, because he knows it teases," the telephone gurgled. "You wouldn't. Good - bye."

Lomas snatched at his papers. The Daily Life had a streamer headline: "Woman of Richmond Park." It gave a portrait of her, over the black caption: "Do You Know Her?" The article printed round it picturesquely elaborated the official description of her, and explained that the portrait had been drawn by Our Special Artist from exclusive information. He had given her a background of melodramatic mountains. The Daily Life was able (exclusively) to announce that the police had in their hands evidence which proved that murder had been committed and concealed with diabolical cunning. Startling revelations might be expected at any moment. The Daily Life appealed to its millions of readers for help. "Have you seen her on the mountains?" a cross - head demanded. It was explained that the woman had been fond of mountain walking. Photographs of scenery in Wales, in Scotland, in the Lakes were printed with flamboyant description and a gush of sentiment about the devotion of mountain - lovers. Another question was then set out: "Where could she get this?" Beneath it was a picture from a botany book of a plant of arctic willow, and information, not unnecessary, of what that rare and minute vegetable really looks like. In this passage only the Daily Life showed a cautious restraint. It did not say that the dead woman had got any arctic willow; it did not state the narrow limits within which the plant can be found, but concluded with a curt order that anyone who knew anything must speak out or be suspect of complicity in the murder.

Two days afterwards, Mr. Fortune strolled into Lomas's room, after lunch, with a benign smile which was not returned. "Like a ghost, aren't you?" he murmured, and deposited himself in the largest chair and took a cigar. "Don't speak unless you're spoken to. Poor Reginald! Only waitin' for one kind word."

"I didn't know you considered yourself responsible to me," said Lomas.

"Oh, my Lomas! Absolutely. As to incarnate justice. With scales and sword complete. But blind!What's the matter? Wonderin' how do these things get into the papers, same like the late Mr. Crummles? My dear chap! You approved usin' our invaluable Press to discover identity of woman. Well, it's been used. And, finally, used right. Object - to annoy the murderer. I should say he has been annoyed. Quite an effective bit of tump. Our murderer will be thinkin' rather hard. Has the interested public sent you anything about his thoughts?"

Lomas snorted. "We're snowed under with nonsense, confound you. Deuced subtle, aren't you? You may be surprised to hear that the mountain districts swarm with thin ginger - haired women, and scores of people feel we'd like to know they've found your infernal vegetable all over Europe."

"Yes. It would be like that. Who's dealing with the stuff?"

"The wretched Bell. I may tell you my note on his report this morning. 'Fool answered according to his folly.'"

"My dear old thing," said Reggie affectionately. "That must have made you feel better. Now let's have Bell in."

"By all means. I expect he'll wring your neck. I hope so.

Superintendent Bell came in, and gave Reggie a solemn, reproachful salutation. "Tell him just what you think of him, Bell," Lomas exhorted. "He needs it."

Bell shook his ample head. "I've got to say, it's my experience we never do get anything to the purpose out of a newspaper stunt." He sat down and opened a folder. "More letters this morning, sir - same sort of chit - chat; nothing to work on; not worth putting before you - except one queer bit of goods." He gave Lomas two quarto sheets of paper. "And that's right off your line, Mr. Fortune," he admonished Reggie.

"Yet disturbin' to the expert mind, what?" Reggie came to look at the letter.

"It don't tell us anything about your arctic plant," said Bell severely. "Nor it don't help us to who the woman was. Another case altogether. You never know what you'll bring up if you start the Press going."

"I didn't. No," Reggie answered. He read the sheets, his hand on Lomas's shoulder. "Well, well," he murmured. "I have brought something, haven't I?"

At the top of the first sheet was pasted a newspaper cutting of the first description of the woman's body in the copse. Then came the lines from the Daily Life which stated that she had been fond of mountain walking. There followed typing, headed with a reference to a paper of ten years ago: the report of an inquest on a woman found dead in a wood in the mountains of North Wales."

Her husband. Professor Loram of Cambridge, who was much distressed, gave evidence that his wife had not been in good health. She suffered from insomnia, and her doctor had advised a holiday in mountain air. She had told him she was much better, and he had gone off for the day to climb on Tryfaen. At her suggestion.

She was not allowed to walk far. She promised to rest. When he came back, in the evening, she was not to be found. No one at the farmhouse where they were staying had seen her go out. He organised a search at once, but it had not occurred to him to look in the wood in which she was found two days later. He was not surprised that she had a tube of medinal with her. She had been recommended to use it.

The medical evidence was that she had died from exhaustion and exposure (the month was September, the nights had been cold). From the condition of her shoes, it appeared she had walked some distance. Medinal was found in the body, but not a fatal quantity. Conclusion - she had taken a tablet, found herself unable to sleep, become restless, gone walking, and then been overcome by fatigue and the drug and slept till she died. The coroner and the jury agreed, and recorded their deep sympathy with Professor Loram.

Lomas looked up from the typescript into Reggie's face, and gave him a complacent, contemptuous smile. "I pointed out to you that the woman who hides herself with a narcotic and expires is a common type of hopeless case."

"You did, yes. Recreations of the Hon. S. Lomas. Pointin' out to grandma that eggs have been sucked. Answer of grandma, not mine, thank you. I'm in this case. Perhaps you hadn't noticed that."

"Indeed I have. Brilliant work. Amassing evidence; there is no case."

"My only aunt!" Reggie's eyes opened wide. "You did read this genial little contribution, didn't you? You have a brain, have you? Or not?"

"Thank you. It still functions. I know anonymous spite when I see it. We see a good deal here, Reginald. You may be surprised to hear that it's common, when we have a Press stunt about a mystery, for kindly souls to pitch in suspicions at large. Ask Bell."

"Spite," Reggie repeated. "Yes, it could be."

And Bell spoke: "That's right. We've got to allow. But I want to say there is another thing to think of. Remember the brides in the bath case, Mr. Lomas? That fellow went on doing his wives in quite comfortable, verdict letting him out every time, till somebody sent us the report of an inquest on a wife killed same way as his last. Then we got on to him. That's what I thought of when I read this."

Reggie beamed upon him. "Yes. You do think. The common case all too common."

"Damme, there's no similarity at all!" Lomas exclaimed. "In your brides in the bath case, who all the women were was known - and their connection with the man. There we had signed information. Here we haven't a scrap of evidence who the woman was connected with. And this effort to connect her with Loram - the one thing which sticks out of it is that the author daren't show."

"Signs of returnin' consciousness," Reggie murmured. "Yes. Shyness of author is indicated. However. I shouldn't say that's the strikin' thing. What strikes me is the similarity of the two deaths. Faculty of imitation very strong in mankind. And monkeys."

"Your usual form, Reginald. When you've made a beautiful theory you'll believe anything to maintain it. This Professor Loram murdered his wife, made a success of it, and imitated the method with a woman nobody's missed!"

"One of the possibilities. Attractive possibility," Reggie murmured.

"And so probable - a professor whose profession is murdering women." Lomas turned to Bell. "What about this alleged inquest?"

"I've had it verified, sir. The report is genuine. We have no clue to the sender, except being somebody who knows a bit about Professor Loram and has a down on him. Postmark on the letter - London, E.G.; address typed."

"And what do you know of Loram?" Reggie asked. "Professor of some branch of useless knowledge, what?" He reached for a book of reference. "Oh, yes. Mediaeval economics. Well, well. Medievally economic Loram was at his second wife at date of publication. One daughter. By first wife. I wonder." He shut up the book; he gazed at Bell, and his eyes were pensive and dreamy. "Beautiful life, university life! All members one of another. And livin' accordin'. Everything against anybody joyously cultivated."

"Quite," said Lomas heartily. "Hot - beds of scandal. And this is the result." He pointed to the typescript.

"So nothing means anything, and all is gas and gaiters." Reggie's eyelids drooped. "I thank you, I am taking none. World not really irrational." He rose slowly. "Bad luck, Lomas. Good - bye." He went out.

Then Lomas said to Bell that he was an offensive fellow when ineffective, and Bell coughed.

At dinner that night Mrs. Fortune's amber eyes laughed when she tasted the claret. "My dear, majestic!"

"Yes, right word, Joan. Mouton Rothschild 1900."

"Libation for a triumph?" 

"Oh, no. No. Just fortifyin' the mind." He sat long, finishing the bottle; he was silent; he smoked a cigar with his eyes closed. Then he went in a sleep - walking manner to a bookcase, and took out a fat book, bound in grey morocco, and began to turn it over.

Mrs. Fortune looked over his shoulder. "Wordsworth! My child!" He had stopped at a page on which she read about Mr. Wordsworth's perfect woman - " nobly planned, to warn, to comfort, and command."

"Darling!" she gurgled, and kissed his nose.

"Thanks very much. Wasn't readin' that." He recited from the poem below:

"I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills - -"

"Lonely?" Mrs. Fortune interrupted. "Pig. Floating on high? No, dear, not Reginald. Not the figure. What a cloud!"

"Have you a soul, Joan?" he reproached her, and continued to murmur:

"When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze."

He gazed at her. "It's April. They'll be dancin' now. Beside the lake. I think we'll go to the Lakes, Joan. Sound man, the Wordsworth man. Fundamentally."

"Yes?" Mrs. Fortune smiled. "Go to the Lakes and read Wordsworth. How like you, Reggie."

"Daffodils along the margin of a bay. Pretty good, what? Let's go off to - morrow. Can do?"

"Bless you," said Mrs. Fortune maternally. And then sang to him something which Wordsworth did not write: "'The flowers which bloom in the spring - tra la - have nothing to do with the case!'" She showed him the tip of her tongue.

"Know everything, don't you, Joan?" Reggie sighed.

"Heaven forbid!" she said, as she went out.

"Yes, I hope so," Reggie murmured, to the empty room. "However." He took the telephone and rang up Lomas. "Fortune here. Oh, hush. This is to - night's bedtime story. A fool, a fool - I met a fool in the club. A Cambridge fool, a solemn fool. You know. Cambridge man yourself. Fierce and earnest. I gather the medievally economic Loram is not good enough for Cambridge. A sad dog - as they go there. A lion among ladies. Also, he's a marrier of money. Wife number one had a nice, warm fortune. Wife number two brought some more. And Loram does himself much better than professors ought to. A naughty, luxurious liver. But popular with youth, alas! So's his daughter by wife number one. A darling red - haired minx. Rather in father's line. Lots of affairs. The university was kindly hoping she'd thrown her cap over the windmill with one of father's research students, a bright lad called Elliot. But father put a flea in his ear and he dropped out. So they say. Well - -"

"Damme, I don't want to listen to the gossip of the combination rooms!" Lomas exploded. "Go to bed."

"One moment. Our Professor Loram has cut a mediaeval conference and buzzed off to the Lakes. Me too. That's all. Good - bye."

"Hold on," Lomas cried. "What the devil do you think you're going to do?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Reggie, and rang off.

Behold him, two days later, driving his car through the mists of the Kirkstone Pass down to the sunlight which shone on daffodils dancing, as Mr. Wordsworth saw them, beside the sparkling waves of Ullswater. He stopped in the dappled shadows of trees from which the buds broke bright green and orange and crimson. "There you are, Joan. A host of golden daffodils, beside the lake, beneath the trees. No deception."

Mrs. Fortune looked at them a long time. "Happy," she said, and turned to look at him. His round face had a sleepy solemnity. "'And then your heart with pleasure fills. And dances with the daffodils,'" she quoted. "It does not!" She gave a little shudder. "Go on, then."

"Yes, I think so," said Reggie. "Difficult world. But there are daffodils, Joan."

He drove on, away from the lake to bleak upland common, and Mrs. Fortune endured one of his most staccato fantasias of speed, a wild surge over switchbacks and round corkscrew curves, suddenly checked to crawl through narrowing villages and as suddenly let go again. It was when they had threaded the needle's eye of Keswick, swirled over the flat beyond to stop dead before a blank wall and a lorry at an impossible turn and then shot forward up a long steep climb, that she spoke: "' Like the devil came through Athlone, in standing leaps.'"

"What? Sorry. I was thinking," Reggie said.

She laughed. "Oh, I know that."

But he has always maintained that no man drives more rationally than he. They swept down from the sombre fir - clad heights of the Whinlatter no faster than they had gone up. When they turned into a road which gave no room for anything else between its rough stone walls he was content with a maximum of forty, and slowed gently to its gates and the blind corners which came when it turned under cliff above Crummock Water. That lake lay black beneath the steep, red slopes on either side, and the high mountains ahead rose sharp and dark to wisps of fleeting cloud.

Crummock was lost and Buttermere came in sight, pale, lucid green in its frame of pasture and springtime woodland. On the peaks above the wood, sunlight and shadow played, making a crimson glow on the shoulder at one end, mysteries of grey and purple about the crags, and the streams which fell headlong down to the lake gleamed and flashed in the lacework of their foam between still, dull white and gloom.

Reggie stopped at the door of a hotel, and got out of the car and stood surveying all this. "Good place." He sighed. "Well, well." He glanced at the people sitting about, a rubicund and ample cleric with attentive females, and entered. The hotel was genially hospitable. Yes, their room was quite ready - a room with a view, yes. If he would register. ... He did so, and saw that Professor Loram and family had registered four days earlier. He made small talk: supposed they had a good many clergy and school and university people; wondered if there was anybody he knew. Archdeacon Smith was suggested to him; Doctor Tones; Professor Loram. Was that a thin, scraggy man with a beard, rather shy? Oh, dear, no. A stout gentleman, clean shaven and full of his fun. No, Reggie did not know him. That room? - Oh, charming - a romantic view, what, Joan? . . .

The door was shut. "So it is Professor Loram," said Mrs. Fortune.

"Sorry," Reggie answered. "I have to."

She looked out at the lake and the heights. "Romantic," she repeated.

"Yes. 'Comfortress of unsuccess, to bid the dead good night.'"

She turned to him, her eyes dark, and put her hand in his. "Dear." He kissed it. "Well, well. A pleasant pub."

He confirmed that over a tea of hot scones and bilberry jam and pipes smoked outside with the ample archdeacon, who had been coming there for fifty years and was eager to tell the story of every one of them, a genial, soothing man, without a drop of gall in his flow of gossip. "Regular meetin' place of old friends," Reggie prompted him. "Very jolly. Count on one another bein' here, what?" The archdeacon feared, with a professional intonation, some were missing as the years went by. Some had new claims, new calls. But then - he cheered up - there were pleasant surprises. A dear old friend would break in unexpected - like Professor Loram only the other day. Did Mr. Fortune know Loram? - quite one of the old guard in the Lakes; a great climber in his day - - 

"Loram - professor," Reggie said sleepily. "No, I'm Oxford. Not there, I think " - and thus discovered that the archdeacon had never heard of Mr. Fortune or failed to connect him with crime. It became clear, also, that the archdeacon's simple mind was unaware of any scandal about Loram. He babbled on of missing the man last summer - the first time in years - and being disappointed not to find him that spring till, unexpected, he came. The call of the mountains - no, one couldn't resist it. The archbishop said to him . . .

Reggie withdrew his attention and contemplated the universe.

In cars and afoot people came for tea, and lingered and strolled and departed. After a while he noticed that one man was recurring - a big fellow, seen along the road, now here now there, as though he waited for somebody or something which did not arrive; a fellow with a good deal efface between his scarf and his black hair - gloomy face. Reggie was classifying the expression as, "She cometh not, he said," when the archdeacon exclaimed, "Dear me. Dear, dear!"

"Why is that?" Reggie enquired.

The archdeacon pointed, not to the man in the road, who, indeed, had passed out of sight, but to the mountain ridge beyond the lake. "Do you see those two in Sour Milk Gill? They shouldn't, you know - really they shouldn't."

"Sour Milk Gill? You mean the nearest waterfall; Well, well. Harsh name." Reggie scanned the white water cascading in the darkness of the ravine, and made out two figures climbing down, a man and a woman. "Bein' reckless, are they?"

The archdeacon explained anxiously. It was really dangerous. Of course it was a short cut to the summit of Red Pike and the ridge, and people did use it, but they ought not, and especially when there was so much water coming down. The proper path went round through the wood - perfectly safe, with a far better view. He did think it quite unpardonable to risk a serious accident for a trifle of time.

"Wouldn't fall far, would they?" Reggie asked, watching them. The woman was helping the man down a tall step in the cascade.

The archdeacon assured him, with gusto, that they could fall quite far enough. Only last year a poor fellow was found dead in one of the pools. He had dipped, and lay stunned under the water till he was drowned.

"Too bad," Reggie murmured. "However. This man's watchin' his step." They came down and passed out of sight. "I should say they're all right."

The archdeacon could not understand how people could go that way after such a tragic warning. . . .

Over the slope of the meadow between the hotel and the lake a woman rose into sight, a wild mop of red hair above a slim body in a faded leather jerkin, and stretches of lean pink leg revealed between shorts and fallen stockings. But the bedraggled legs bore her on fast, in a long springy stride. The man who followed her made heavier going. He was bulky; he bent under his rucksack, and his red face shone with sweat. She vaulted the meadow fence, looked up and down the road, and stood waiting for him with a smile which was not kindly.

The archdeacon gave a "tut - tut" of surprised disapproval, and to Reggie's questioning eyebrows explained: "It's Loram and his daughter. I shouldn't have thought it of them."

Daughter and father came on to the hotel, and the archdeacon rose to reprove them. "Molly, my dear! You brought my heart to my mouth. You mustn't take him by the gill."

She tossed back her hair; her lip curled. "Been watching the perilous climb? Thrills for you. The Prof. isn't what he was. Puff, puff." She gave her father a jeering glance. "But he would do it." She vanished into the hotel.

"You're a terrible fellow, Loram," the archdeacon said severely. "It's not fair to lead the child into - -"

Loram interrupted with a hoarse, breathless laugh. "Don't be an old woman. I'm not her leader." He unshipped his rucksack and dropped on to a bench in the porch and mopped his red face. Its fullness was sagging and deep - lined, and the eyes sunken.

"Dear, dear. You're quite exhausted," said the archdeacon. "It's been too much for you. The gill is a terrible place - -"

Loram made an inarticulate exclamation of disgust. "Gill's nothing. Don't be silly." He shook himself together. "What's the matter with you?" He stared, frowning, from the archdeacon to Reggie. 

"Had a good day, sir?"  Reggie smiled. 

"Just a training walk." Loram's eyes dwelt on him. "Up Floutern Tarn way, down over Red Pike. Are you staying here?"

"Yes, a little while. Quite new to me. Interestin' place."

"Bit far from the big things. Are you a climber?"

"Oh, no. No. Passive person." Loram grunted an answer and went in, and Reggie saw him go to the visitors' book before he hung up his hat.

The archdeacon said anxiously that Loram was really a good fellow, one of the best fellows, but a little wild - eh, well, it was difficult to grow old wisely and happily. He became professional, and Reggie remarked that it was getting chilly and went for a walk. His walks are seldom long. This one took him to a knoll commanding a view of the road along the lake. The only wayfarers were sheep. Then, as the twilight darkened, came a small sports car, in which, as it slowed round the corkscrew curves of the little village, he made out the big fellow who had loitered by the hotel. "Not stayin' here," Reggie murmured. "Well, well," and strolled slowly back. The red head of Molly Loram came towards him through the gloom and was in the hotel before him.

The Loram family were incoherently late for dinner. Loram did not appear till the soup had gone round. A flaccid woman, who was beyond doubt his wife, came drifting in on the tail of the fish. His daughter arrived with the mutton. They did not unite in conversation. Loram paid attention to his wife, but she let him labour, and Molly had no interest in father or step - mother, preferring cross - talk with other tables, in which she was sharp and pert. Loram took his share of that eagerly.

"British family bein" very British," Reggie murmured, and, having drunk his beer, reverted to sherry. "One more glass, I think." He finished it, and Mrs. Fortune rose. "Try the drawing - room, Joan," he said, as they went into the hall, and himself turned into the lounge.

There was no one there. He dropped into an easy chair and lit his pipe. The door opened behind him. He heard the high voice of one of the archdeacon's females say: "It will be more amusing in the drawing - room." The door was decisively closed.

"My poor Joan." He sighed, and smoked on with his eyes shut.

He was opening them to fill the pipe again when Loram came in. He mumbled a sleepy salutation, and Loram took a chair on the other side of the fire and said it was a comfortable place. Reggie thought so. Was he down for a rest? Reggie hoped so. Loram supposed his work was rather trying. Reggie always ran away from work. Loram laughed. Mr. Fortune wasn't allowed to hide his light under a bushel, was he?

"What?" Reggie was shocked. "Oh, my dear fellow. The shop is shut. And far away."

Loram begged his pardon. Loram lit a cigar and talked mountains. Reggie displayed a mild, languid ignorance, and Loram let the cigar go out. "That was an extraordinary story in the Daily Life last week,  - Mr. Fortune."

"Which was that?" Reggie mumbled.

"About the dead woman in Richmond Park, said to be a mountaineer."

"Well, well!" Reggie's eyelids drooped. "Wonder what they'll say next?"

"Did you read the stuff?"

"The papers?" Reggie was hurt. "My dear fellow!"

"It was an astounding theory."

"It would be," Reggie mumbled. "What astounded you?"

Loram lit his cigar a second time, and the door was flung open. "Oh, that's where you've got to," Molly snapped at him. "What are you doing? Mother Bunch wants her bridge. Come on." She waited for him to obey, and Loram heaved himself up and went out. The door slammed behind them.

Reggie sank deeper into his chair, and smoke emerged from him in slow, large clouds. Though he sat there till all the hotel was silent, Loram did not come back.. . .

Mrs. Fortune lay in bed, but she had not put out her candle, and she turned to look at her tardy husband. With a sleep - walking manner he kissed her. "My poor girl. How was it?"

"It wasn't anything. The most ordinary small talk and patience and bridge."

"Oh. There was bridge?"

"Yes, quite vigorous. Mrs. Loram became alive then."

"Like that. Well, well. What did you think of the family relations?"

"She - she's just negative: not a person. He's a tired man, but he was very much the husband. And an anxious father. The daughter's fierce, but she's afraid of him all the time. And I think he's frightened of her. They're careful; they hold themselves in."

"You didn't care for 'em?"

Mrs. Fortune's smooth brow puckered. "I don't know." She hesitated. "I haven't a reason. No, I didn't. I thought they were all selfish. But I was sorry for them."

"My dear girl." Reggie smiled and kissed her again.

"You're not?"

"Not me, no. Not my job. But I like you, Joan. Rather a lot. That's all."

He has sometimes speculated how the case would have worked out if Molly Loram had not snatched her father away from him that night. His usual comfortable conclusion is that the desperate fears which determined events were at that stage beyond his control. If Loram had dared to talk, no knowing what he would have said, or what could have been made of it. The end might have been worse.

When he came down in the morning, Loram was packing a rucksack in the hall with Molly's assistance. "Takin' daughter off for another climb?" he asked.

"Not much," said Molly. "I had enough of him yesterday. There you are, Prof. Be good."

"She's a lazy chit," Loram told Reggie. "You're staying on? See you to - night." He strode heavily away.

"Where's he off to, Miss Loram?"

"Search me." She lit a cigarette and sauntered off to the garage.

As Reggie sat at breakfast he saw her drive off alone. A few minutes afterwards another car stopped at the door, and he heard a voice, which he knew, asking for him. "Well, well," he sighed, to his wife's troubled eyes. "The sleepers awake. They won't like that."

He went out to see Superintendent Bell's square face pale and puffy about the eyes. "My dear chap! What a glad surprise! Night in the train? You do go it, don't you?" 

"More than one, sir," Bell grunted. "Never mind me."

"Oh, my Bell! Breakfast?"

"I've had it. You finish yours. Then we might have a stroll."

"Now," said Reggie, and took his arm and walked him out. "The hunt is up, what?"

"I wouldn't like to say that, Mr. Fortune. But you were right about the newspaper stunt. It did fish up something worth looking into, after all."

"No, don't say that. So bad for me. So sad for you."

"Well, sir, a letter came in from a solicitor in Manchester, saying he'd acted for a woman answering to the description, and he thought it right to give information - he felt uneasy about her. She was a school teacher, name of Grace Tyson, living alone; no relations except an old uncle, retired publican, who died leaving her a bit of house property. That's how the solicitor came in - he was the uncle's executor. Well, he wanted her to take over the houses or invest. She wouldn't. She told him she was going to get married and live abroad, and she turned the estate into cash - matter of 4,000 pounds or so - and resigned her school and quit. Now that was about a year ago. So we have a gap between her leaving Manchester and the earliest time the woman in Richmond Park could have died - say the whole summer."

"Her honeymoon," Reggie murmured.

"Ah. That's what I had in mind," Bell growled. "Man takes her and gets all she's got, and then wipes her out. It happens, don't it? And her doings about the money look like she's fallen for just that kind o' man."

"Yes, I think so. Always did think so. Faculty of imitation very strong in the human race. I pointed that out to you."

"You mean, Loram's first wife died convenient for him to have her money?" Bell frowned. "And then this woman - and somebody puts us on to Loram. All very well - but there's pretty big differences. Loram lived with that first wife for years, and everybody knew all about 'em. Then he was living with his second wife all the time this woman was cashing her legacy and vanishing and dying. I grant you, men do live double lives - -"

"I had noticed it." Reggie smiled awry. "Found evidence Loram was doubling?"

"Not to say evidence," Bell grunted. "That's where we get stopped, when we try for firm evidence. The case just conks out with a vague nasty smell about. Loram - they say he is a woman's man; he's thought to live above his means; he did have a spell in Paris last summer, and, beyond that, there's nothing to fix him.

We've done work on the woman, and she's a teaser - one of the lonely ones. Of course they're the sort that give us these cases."

"I know. Yes. The lonely woman." Reggie drew a long breath. "Make the world safe, don't we?"

"The friendless haven't got friends," said Bell profoundly. "There it is. This Grace Tyson don't seem to have let anybody really know her. The teachers at her school, and the people where she lodged - I've put 'em through it, I give you my word, and what have I got? Not one of 'em has a guess who the man was, where she found him, or anything. The other teachers say she had a down on any talk about men, kind of shy and disgusted."

"Oh, yes. Yes. It would be like that." Reggie's round face hardened. "Just the woman to give herself to a brute."

"Maybe. That don't help us, does it? Well, anyway, nobody ever heard a hint there was a man except this solicitor. When she gave notice to leave, she just said she was going abroad, and they knew she'd come into money and thought no more about it. When I told the head mistress Miss Tyson had married, she wouldn't hardly believe me, and one of the young ones told me it was the shock of their lives. Funny, isn't it? Looks to me like there wasn't going to be a marriage. She went off with a man who couldn't marry her." Bell paused and looked keenly at Reggie. "How does that fit in with your ideas, Mr. Fortune?"

"Fits the facts," Reggie murmured. "Always did. Obvious probable possibility."

"Ah. You had that in mind when you were talking to Mr. Lomas over that Professor Loram story. I give it to you, you've been wonderful in this case."

Reggie checked; his eyes grew round. "Me?" he gave a short, bitter laugh. "Not me, no. Somebody's been wonderful clever. Devilish clever. But not on our ride, Bell. I'm the futile, gapin' spectator. And still do gape."

"I wouldn't like to have you gaping on my track." Bell met the pensive innocent stare with a grim face. "What exactly did you come down here for? Just to have a look at Loram?"

"Yes, speakin' broadly. Loram and family. And the place. Recallin' connection of the corpse with mountains and sudden unexpected action of Loram in coming here."

"Have you had any results?"

"Slight comfort to wounded self - respect. Feel sure I was right to look into Loram. Loram has the wind up. Loram's daughter has the wind up. And they're not lovin' each other. Confirmation of Cambridge scandal. She has a young man not approved by father. She is fierce. But that's all. Nothing definite. Same like you said. Facts fade out into a fishy fume."

"Ah." Bell gave him a queer look, searching, suspicious, but respectful. "What about the dead woman's being a mountaineer and Loram nipping off to these mountains? You haven't made anything of that line?"

"Nothing effective. Loram's bothered about me being here. Loram's active on the mountains. That's all."

"Is it? Would you be surprised to hear Grace Tyson was a mountain fan?"

"No. Some further comfort to humiliated mind. However." He gazed at Bell, who was showing a sort of gloomy satisfaction. "My dear chap! You don't mean to say you have a real, reliable fact? Come on."

"I have." Bell nodded. "Seems to be the one thing anybody did know about her private life. Every holiday she was off to these mountains. Always alone, as far as they can say, and moving about, they believe. Hiking. She sent her landlady a card now and then - about sending on clothes, or when she was coming back and so forth - nothing to help. But the old girl remembers pictures of Buttermere and having to address parcels here."

"Well, well." Reggie sighed. "A real fact, yes. Small fact. The mind is not wholly impotent."

Bell glowered at him. "Small! My oath, it gave me a jump when I got it. The way you see through things beats me. You - -"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! I don't. Don't see my way now. Just accept the evidence and act on it. Havin' faith in the human reason."

"It isn't reason," said Bell gloomily, " it's a gift. I said to myself you were just chancing your luck, giving evidence away to the papers, taking up that Loram scandal, following the fellow out to this off - the - map place - and then I get proof it's here we've got to work."

"Gratifyin", yes. Not wonderful. Only showin' evidence is evidence and reason is reasonable. And we haven't got anywhere now." He contemplated Bell. "Oh. Something still up the official sleeve. Tell me all."

"Well, sir, I think I may have a bit of a line," Bell grinned. "The landlady says she sent parcels here to an address - Old Scar. Stuck in her mind, being funny."

"Miss Grace Tyson - at Old Scar," Reggie said plaintively. "Doesn't sound real. However. Try everything." They turned back and proceeded briskly to the post office. The lady who presided there had never heard of any place called Old Scar. She suggested, in the best post official manner, that Bell should try Ulscar, which was a cottage on the track to Floutern Tarn. Reggie, who had remained behind Bell's broad shoulders, went out backwards. Bell caught him up, and demanded, "What do you know about that?"

"Old man Ulph left his mark in the Lakes," Reggie complained. "Place called Ulpha. Lake called Ullswater. And a cottage called Ulscar."

Bell made an impatient noise. "I suppose you've been there already!"

"Never heard of it," Reggie protested. He stopped, and pointed up to the right of the cascade of Sour Milk Gill and the red peak above. "But she said it was on the Floutern Tarn track - which is that way - and last night, when Loram and daughter came down that waterfall, doing acrobatics, he said they'd been round by Floutern Tarn."

"My oath!" Bell grunted. "Looks like we are getting somewhere, don't it?"

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Well, well. Seek duty's iron crown. Come on." He trudged away in earnest gloom between the lakes, along the marshy shore of Crummock, and up by the base of another roaring waterfall over a dull, sodden slope. "Oh, my aunt!" he complained. "The next time you have a walker murdered, don't tell me."

"I didn't," Bell chuckled. "You made this case."

"Grrh, I hate you. You shall finish it," Reggie groaned. But in that he was wrong.

Though he walks nowhere unless he must, he came first to the whitewashed cottage of Ulscar. It stood lonely on the drab fell, but it displayed a printed card:

"Teas. Bed and Breakfast." A young, trim woman opened the door to them. No, she could not give them lunch, but she had eggs and bread and butter and tea. She produced these in a kitchen with a stone floor which smelt of soap and mint. Bell talked to her like a father. Very nice and homely - she ought to get a lot of people. Eh, holiday times; a flock at Easter surely, but quiet enough mostly. Nobody much about just now? No, not to count on. Just a few dropping in for tea. There was some yesterday, but then, maybe, wouldn't be none for weeks. Nobody staying? Eh, you wouldn't look for it, only the holidays. Bell wondered if she remembered a Miss Grace Tyson used to come there.

She shook her head. Ah, no, she wouldn't know; her man only took the place last summer, when old John Ritson gave up - his wife dying. She bustled away.

"Like that." Reggie looked at Bell under drooping eyelids.

"It would be," Bell growled. "Hopeless case."

"Yes. The murderer has the luck. All the luck. However. People came to tea yesterday. And Loram and daughter were this way." He glanced about the kitchen, he took a greasy quarto from the window - sill, It was the usual visitors' book of such a place.

People had testified to their eatings and drinkings, been facetious about one another with bad sketches and worse rhymes. Snapshots of the cottage, of scenery, of persons single and very much connected were pasted in. Reggie stopped turning the leaves. "Oh!" He looked up at Bell. "Page gone. Page of summer before last. Recently removed. Well, well."

Bell examined the book. "My oath! That's right," he grunted. "And the Lorams were this way yesterday. I'll have a talk with your Professor Loram."

"Yes. That is indicated," Reggie agreed, and lifted up his voice and asked if they could have some honey.

The woman hurried from her wash - house, apologetic; too bad she hadn't any - she was going to start bees presently. She thrust upon them various confections - apple cake, Eccles cakes, gingerbread - and still apologised. Reggie consoled her - it was a noble spread  - they would have to put their bit in her visitors' book - jolly book - he fluttered the leaves and read out jocose praise, and she beamed upon him. "Hullo! Page been cut out."

"Eh, you don't say." She came to look. She was angry. "Well, now did you ever? There's a pretty thing!"

"Too bad," Reggie sympathised. "Why should anybody?"

She took the book out of his hands. "I lay it was for to steal a picture," she muttered. "There's fine pictures." She turned the pages. "Eh, eh, I don't miss no drawing as I remember. It'll be a photo, likely. Ay, that's it. There was a rare funny photo of two folks straddling the fall up along Sour Milk Gill, and that ain't here no more. What was the words to it now? - funny words, they was. Some'at like 'grace and graceless.' That's gone. That's been stole."

"Well, well," Reggie sighed. "Who'd steal it?" 

"How would I tell?" she exclaimed. "Anybody as comes in might have the book same as you did. Nor I can't be watching 'em."

"No. It would have to be like that," Reggie murmured. "Two folks in the stolen photo, you said. What sort of folks?"

"I dunno." She stared. "Just a man and woman."

"You couldn't recognise 'em?" 

"How could I? They was before my time."

"You haven't had people like 'em here lately?" 

"Eh, I see what you mean," she cried, and pondered. "No, I couldn't say at all. They was just like any visitors. Only it was a funny picture. I reckon that's what 'twas stole for. Folks ha'n't no conscience."

"No. I'm afraid not. No," Reggie said, and they departed.

"Maddening, ain't it?" Bell growled. "We keep on getting a bit and then we're beat. Everything dies on us."

"Yes, you may be right," Reggie murmured. "Are we down - hearted? Yes. Being a feeble folk. However. Not quite dead, this line. Strong reason to believe lady of the photograph was the vanished Grace. And there was a graceless man with her. And Loram and daughter came this way yesterday, returnin' by the fall where Grace and the graceless one straddled. And the photograph has been removed, same like Grace.

"Curious and interestin'. You do want to talk to our Lorams."

"You bet I do," said Bell, and they trudged down to the hotel.

But they were again frustrated. Loram had not come back. Molly Loram had come back but gone out again, taking her mother with her.

"Elusive, aren't they?" Reggie condoled with Bell's gloom. "Yes. My dear old thing. A drop of sleep would do you no harm. You're nearly all in." And Bell, having been compelled to a bedroom, Reggie wandered away to the post office, where he used the telephone to Cambridge. . . .

Behold him, then, recumbent in a deck - chair, at its lowest pitch, contemplating the admirable profile of his wife and a background of golden sunset sky. Molly Loram drove up with her mother, but without her father. The archdeacon was heard remarking on that, and being snubbed. . . .

Bell came out, looking ashamed of himself. "I have had a nap," he apologised. "Getting old, I suppose." He gave Reggie a solemn questioning glance.

"Oh, no. No. Only wise. Same like Napoleon. When nothing to do - sleep till there is."

"I don't know about Napoleon," Bell lamented. "Helpless, I'd say."

"You're so proud," said Mrs. Fortune. "Proud, earnest men. Too much conscience, Reggie."

"Yes. I know. That hampers me." They made fun of each other, and Bell did his best to play that game till it was time to change. . . .

Dinner was begun without any Lorams. Most people had nearly finished before mother and daughter came to their table. The archdeacon made a fuss of asking where the professor was, and Molly answered furiously, - "I should worry. One of his long hikes"; and her mother said he was so thoughtless.

The archdeacon tried to carry on the conversation. Loram said in the morning he was going to revisit the scene of his old exploits. He wondered if that meant climbing.

"Oh, don't bother," Molly laughed. "Leave him alone and he'll come home, bringing his tail behind him." She turned the coldest of slim shoulders on the archdeacon, and ate fast. . . .

Bell and Reggie stood in the darkness in front of the hotel. The archdeacon had gathered a little congregation in the porch, and was preaching on the dangers of the mountains. Reggie glanced back into the light of the hall and gave Bell a nod. Molly and her mother were going upstairs.

Bell followed them. "Excuse me, Miss Loram." He touched her arm as they reached the first floor. "I want to speak to you." She took her mother into a bedroom and shut the door. He tapped at it.

After a minute she came out again. "What is it? Who are you?"

"This way, please." He pointed her across the corridor to a sitting - room, where Reggie stood waiting. She flashed a glance from one to the other, and obeyed him. "I'm Superintendent Bell of the Metropolitan Police, Miss Loram. This is Mr. Fortune. I may tell you that I came here to investigate a case of death."

She stood between them, straining to her full height, slim shoulders up, hands clenched. Her pretty face was drawn and sharp and flushed crimson. She tossed back her mop of red hair. "What death?" she cried.

"I want to know why your father went off this morning," Bell answered.

"Don't be silly. He does a hike every day."

"You went with him yesterday. Why not to - day?"

"He said he'd be going too hard for me."

"Ah. Where was he going?"

"I don't know," she said fiercely. "That's all he told me."

Bell frowned at her. "Funny he hasn't come back by now, eh?"

"Just like him," she declared.

"It don't worry you?" Bell grunted. "Where have you been?"

"Out in the car. I haven't seen him."

"I said where?"

"Oh, over the fell road, Eskdale way, in the morning. After lunch, I took Fran - I took my step-mother to Keswick." There was a glow in her hazel eyes as she stared back at Bell's stolid, intent face. "Anything else?"

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured, and she swung round to confront him. "About yesterday. Miss Loram. You went up to Ulscar with your father. Why?"

She seemed to be startled and puzzled. She bit her lip. "I don't know where you mean. We went up by Floutern Tarn, and came down over Red Pike by the gill."

"I know. I wondered about that. Taking a chance, what?"

She laughed contempt. "Oh, if you listen to that old woman of a parson! It's nothing of a place. The Prof. wanted a scramble - don't blame him - the rest is the dullest drag."

"Then why go that way? Why go to Ulscar?"

"You keep saying Ulscar! What is it? I never heard of it."

"Really? Name of the tea cottage."

"That hole! What about it?"

"The visitors' book," Reggie murmured. "What was on the leaf that's been cut out?"

"I don't know anything about the blinking book," the cried.

"Oh. But you went there. You looked at it. Well?"

"I didn't. The Prof. would stop and have a go of milk. Something about old sake's sake, he said. I don't know what he looked at. I was playing with the dog."

"Well, well." Reggie sighed. "Nothing else you'd like to tell me?"

"There is not!" She was vehement. "What is all this for? You said you were investigating a death. What death?"

"Woman's death. Woman who died last autumn."

"What woman?"

"Did you ever hear of Grace Tyson?"

"No. Nobody I know. Nobody I ever knew."

"I didn't ask that," Reggie murmured.

"Well, I never heard of her," she said defiantly.

"Oh. Did you go to see someone when you drove Eskdale way?"

She frowned at him; she compressed her lips. "Yes, of course I did. A friend of mine's been in Wasdale for a bit and just going back. I wanted to look him up before he went."

"Oh, yes. Friend who looked you up yesterday? Friend of the family?"

"You are being clever," she jeered. "Quite right. One of the Prof's old students - Jock Elliot."

"Not clever, no, only careful." Reggie sighed. "Thanks very much. That's all, Miss Loram." He opened the door for her, and she swept out with a toss of her red head.

"She knows something," Bell growled.

"Quite a lot, yes." Reggie dropped into a chair and lit his pipe.

"Hard - my oath, girls can be hard!"

"You think so?" Reggie let a long stream of smoke out of the comer of his mouth. "'It is fear, O little hunter, it is fear.'"

All night there were lights burning in the hotel, for Professor Loram did not come back. . . .

Soon after dawn Reggie and Bell and a long - legged inspector of the county police tramped away up the valley. The inspector set a brisk pace, but was lugubrious. "I ought to warn you, gentlemen, I have no great hopes of this myself. The one bit of information you've got where he meant to go is the parson telling us he said he was going to look at the scene of his old exploits and remembering he used to climb on the Pillar Rock. That's all very well. But you can bet it wasn't the only place he'd climbed. There's the Gable just as handy, to go no further. And besides, by what you say, seems likely he meant to do a bunk."

Yes, it could be," Reggie murmured. "However. Try everything."

"I grant you, we've got to make a search," the inspector grumbled. "I only say trying the Pillar is - just blind guess - work."

"Oh, no. Rational choice. The archdeacon thought he meant Pillar. And Pillar's the nearest high mountain to Ulscar. Only mountain near where dwarf willow would be likely to grow."

"What's that?" The inspector laboured in thought. "I don't rightly get it. Dwarf willow - the plant you found in the dead woman's bag - very rare, I'm told."

"That is so. Only grows above 2,500 feet. Even then rare. But it might grow on Pillar."

"This is beyond me. Maybe it does. But why the deuce should Loram have gone after it?"

"Take it he was bothered about the dead woman - bothered about a woman who'd been at Ulscar - and wanted to verify - well?"

"All right. If you think you understand, I don't. But we have to search - so we may as well begin this way." The inspector looked with grim humour at Reggie's shape, which is not lithe. "I warn you, you're in for a doing." He strode out.

"The offensive expert." Reggie moaned to Bell's ear. "Despising the natural man."

The inspector vanished into a farmhouse at the head of the lake, and came out again to report that a lad there thought he'd seen a gentleman going up Scarf Gap yesterday morning, alone. "You'll note that don't mean much."

"Nothing does, does it?" Reggie said bitterly.

"I believe you." The inspector went on up the steep stony zigzags of a pass.

When Reggie reached the summit and sank down, panting, he was already far down the other side. "Expert showin' off his futile expertise," he complained, and surveyed the landscape. A deep valley lay below them, and on its far side a mountain, the top of which loomed through fleeting mist like a dome, on whose side stood isolated a tall crag. "Oh, yes. Pillar and Pillar Rock. As in the book of the words. To resume" - he went on down into the valley.

The inspector was seen going into a small cottage. Bell made haste after him. Thankfully Reggie sat down again. They returned. "That place is a Youth Hostel, sir," Bell told him. "There's a couple of lads, hiking, spent the night there. They saw some man round the Pillar Rock as they came up the valley in the evening. That's all they know."

"N.B.G.," the inspector growled. "Well, come on. Best take it from the bottom."

Having trudged some way along the welcome level of the valley, Reggie was led across the stream and up again through a young plantation of firs by a path which steepened sharply. The black crag of the Rock loomed close above, its ledges and gullies scraped pale and red by the scars of boot - nails. He heard through the throb of pulse and lung a hoarse shout, and forced himself on faster.

"My oath, you were right, sir," Bell called to him.

At the base of the Rock, Loram lay, and his head was dabbled with blood, and flies buzzed about it where it was crushed out of shape. Reggie stood still, mopped the sweat out of his eyes, got his breath back, gazed down at the body, gazed up at the Rock. "Right?" he muttered. "You said right. Well, well!" He knelt by the body. . . .

He sat back on his heels and looked up at them, and his face was without expression. "Cause of death, injury to brain from extensive fractures of skull. Also various bones broken. Time of death, round about twelve hours ago. Say yesterday evening."

"That's when the lads saw him at the Rock." The inspector nodded. "There we are. He tried a climb alone, and he fell, eh?"

"Yes, it could be," Reggie murmured. "On the medical evidence." He laughed. "Useful stuff, medical evidence. Just the right kind of death for a fall from that thing. Why are we, Bell?"

"Eh, not much need for a doctor," the inspector agreed cheerfully. "Plain enough. And he's not the first we've had here. Well, I'll go get some people." Off he went.

"Not the first," Reggie laughed. "Woman at Richmond Park wasn't the first."

"You're not satisfied, sir?" Bell frowned.

"Satisfied!" Reggie's voice rose shrill. "God help us!" An invocation he is not wont to use. He bent over the body again and searched the pockets. A wallet came out, with some notes in it; a letter or two, insignificant; a small diary - from that fell a scrap of a twig: tiny buds of bright green leaves, round, serrated. Reggie held it out on the palm of his hand. "Dwarf willow," he murmured.

"Like you said," Bell frowned. "But what then?" 

"He didn't get it on that rock. It wouldn't grow there. He'd been higher. On the mountain."

Bell watched him gaze up at it with a queer wistful look. His round face had the expression of a child wanting the cruel, difficult world to be kind. He wandered away; he vanished, scrambling among boulders round the mountain - side.

Some two hours afterwards Bell reached the flat mossy summit, and peered about through swirls of mist which let him see glimpses of combe and crag only to hide them again. He strode to and fro; he shouted often. At last a faint shout answered, and he strode towards the sound and saw Reggie sitting in a hollow. "My oath! You shouldn't have gone off like this," he complained. "You've given me a nasty half hour. Been wondering if you had taken a toss too."

"My Bell! Sorry," Reggie said affectionately. "Not me. No. I am careful. It's the only use I can be." He gave a queer short laugh. "Just doin' a little botany. Fine natural rock garden, this combe. Sedums, saxifrages, all sorts. Look at that." He pointed to a place where the earth between the rocks had been disturbed and a tiny shrub appeared with a broken twig. "I didn't do that. And it's dwarf willow. The scrap Loram took fits the break."

"Good God!" Bell muttered.

"Yes. As you say. See that too." He pointed to dark flecks on a sedum. "I didn't do that either. And I should say it's blood. Well, well. We will now collect the exhibits." He dug up the little shrub; he cut off the blood - stained leaves.

Bell watched him a moment and turned away to peer down the precipitous combe. Pillar Rock stood close beside. "What can you make of it?" he grunted. "You've got good evidence he was here and had a fall here, but then, where we found him is pretty close below. How are you going to prove he didn't just stumble down here and then fall over?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie mumbled, preparing his exhibits for transport. "I should say we never shall. And yet he didn't stumble. He didn't fall. Not by accident. Isn't that nice? Well, well. On with the dance." He shocked Bell by a performance of some waltz steps. He gave a little shrill laugh. "Just doing our stuff. We've got to."

"What's in your mind, sir?"

As they tramped away Reggie told him, and has always maintained that he told all there was. Bell was then convinced. Bell agreed, but has since had doubts.

The mist darkened and drove at them in cold rain. When they came back to the hotel, the inspector met them with a condescending sarcastic smile for Reggie's sodden weariness. "You have made a day of it, Mr. Fortune. I've been here a couple of hours. Well, I told these poor ladies. They took it very hard, as you'd look for. There's nothing more for me to do here. I'll be - -"

"Yes, there is," Bell interrupted. "You come along with me," and walked him away.

Reggie went upstairs. As he reached the landing, Molly Loram came out of her mother's room. "Well?" she demanded.

"I'm sorry," Reggie said gravely, and pointed her into the sitting - room where she had been questioned the night before.

"He fell from Pillar Rock, didn't he?" She was breathless.

"He was found dead at the bottom."

"Well, then!"

"No. It isn't well."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you heard from Elliot?"

She gasped; she stammered. "How - how could I? He went away yesterday. He's motoring. He wouldn't know."

"You needn't tell him. That's all, Miss Loram." Reggie left her. . . .

In the morning Bell tapped at Reggie's door and brought him out of bed to hear that Elliot had been found: "They picked him up in his rooms in London last night. Told him the police here wanted him for the inquest on Loram. He said he didn't know Loram was dead; he couldn't give any evidence about it. But he didn't refuse to come. He's on his way now. We'll have him in Cockermouth this afternoon."

"And you waked me up to tell me that," Reggie mourned. "Oh, my Bell! Carry on. On with the dance." . . .

Mr. Jock Elliot sat down in a bare room at the police station, and was told portentously by the inspector that the gentleman was Superintendent Bell from Scotland Yard.

"At your service." Elliot nodded, and arranged his heavy frame more comfortably. "But I'd better say at once, I don't see how I can be of any use to you."

"Well, I hope you're wrong," Bell grunted, studying a paper.

Elliot's long face watched him, carelessly, contemptuously. "Go ahead."

Bell looked up. "It must have been a great shock to you, Professor Loram's sudden death."

"Rather. Good man. No better in his own line, and years of work in him. Damnable bad luck. Rotten for his wife."

"He was a great friend of yours?"

"I worked under him. He was very decent to me."

"When did you see him last?"

"Oh, Lord, a long while ago. I haven't seen him for ages. Not since the last time I was in Cambridge. That would be twelve months back."

"Had you got on bad terms with him?"

"Nothing of the sort!" Elliot gave an angry laugh. "What the devil put that in your head?"

"The facts," said Bell stolidly. "My information is, you used to be his favourite student. But you say you haven't seen him for ages. You've just been on holiday here a few miles away from where he was, and yet you didn't care to meet one another. Why not?"

"I don't know about him. I dare say he didn't know I was in Wasdale."

"Why were you?" Bell asked.

"Just snatching a few days on the mountains."

"Ah! Know this country well, don't you?"

"Fair. I like it for a short spell."

"Loram didn't know you were down here, you suggest. But you knew he was. Why didn't you look him up?"

"No dam' time."

"You had time to meet his daughter," said Bell.

Elliot laughed again, but his eyes were watchful. "A fellow makes time to meet a girl."

"That way, was it? You and her have an attachment?"

"What do you take me for? I shan't answer that without Miss Loram's permission."

"Very proper." Bell nodded. "Anyhow, you two did meet. On the morning of the day Loram died she came over to Wasdale to you. The day before he died you went over to Buttermere to her. Now, Mr. Elliot, did anything pass between you to explain Loram's actions down here?"

Elliot's black brows went up in surprise. "I don't understand the question."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Well, what did she say about her father?"

"Nothing much." Elliot sniggered. "Naturally, we didn't talk about him. I gathered he was being rather queer and trying. They never hit it off. Loram could be quite unaccountable. A kink somewhere in him. Always hard going for his women."

"I see. That kind of man." Bell nodded. "Any idea what he was up to on these last walks of his?"

"How do you mean? I don't know where he was walking. Why shouldn't he walk? He always did."

"I take it you want to help us to the truth about Loram, Mr. Elliot?" Bell gave him a solemn, searching stare.

"Of course I do."

"Very good." Bell studied his paper, folded it up and put it away. "I have to tell you we're not satisfied with Miss Loram's account of his doings - the round she had with him the day before he died, or why he went off without her the next day. Now you knew him - no one better. You'd been with him in these parts. I want you to come out with me to Buttermere and go over some of the ground she says they went and give me your ideas. See?"

"I don't see any use in it," Elliot said slowly.

"That's for me to judge."

"All right." Elliot shrugged. "I've no earthly objection. Don't blame me if it's a flop." . . .

In the hall of the hotel at Buttermere a man sat with a camera on his knees. The telephone rang, and he was called to it and took a message for Mr. Fortune.

Reggie knocked at Molly Loram's door. "This is about the time, isn't it?" he said. She came out, thrust past him, hurried out of the hotel, and away towards the lake. He followed her, and the man with the camera followed him. As they did not catch her up she stood still and waited. "Thanks very much," he murmured. "No hurry."

"Oh, you're maddening. For God's sake, let's get it over."

"I meant this was about the time you came down the gill with your father the other day," he drawled. "You quite understand, what? You're going to show me just where he stopped and looked at the waterfall and the rocks. You can't forget. Light's the same now. Then we'll take a photograph of the place. You won't make any mistake, will you? It wouldn't do."

"Do you think you're frightening me?" she cried.

"Not me, no," said Reggie. She made haste on. "We won't go up the waterfall," he told her. "The safe path, please,"; and he followed at his own pace....

Bell and the inspector drove out with Elliot, left their car in the village, and walked away up the path to the cottage of Ulscar. "Do you mean to say Loram spent a day on this sort of thing?" Elliot made a gesture at the featureless, drab slope.

"Didn't Miss Loram tell you?" Bell answered.

Elliot shook his head. "It looks like the dullest trudge in the Lakes. I suppose Loram wasn't in condition and wanted an easy day - training walk, you know - and then felt he'd got himself fit enough to have a go at Pillar. Just the sort of way fellows' minds do work. Everybody wants to go big as soon as they can - and sooner. Poor old chap!"

"Ah! Accidents do come like that," Bell agreed. "You've never been round this way yourself?"

"Not me." Elliot laughed. "I like to get high and stay there."

"Yes, I see what you mean," Bell said. "But Miss Loram says this is the way they did go. I suppose she's telling the truth."

Elliot looked at him. "Why the devil shouldn't she?"

Bell left that without an answer. They tramped on in silence till they were near Ulscar. "She says he went in there and had a drink o' milk," Bell remarked. "Know anything about the place?"

"Never saw it before," Elliot laughed. "Never heard of it."

"Takes visitors, I'm told," Bell grunted. "But you wouldn't know whether Loram had ever stayed there."

Elliot shook his head. "Not for certain. To hear him talk, you'd think he stayed at every shanty in the Lakes."

"H'm." Bell grunted. "There's a visitors' book, but it's been cut about. Pity."

"Why, they generally are. What's it matter?"

"You never know," said Bell. While they were talking, the inspector had fallen behind. "Well, somewhere here Loram and the girl turned up towards that red mountain - so she says. Not a usual round, I'm told."

"Oh, anything does for a training walk," Elliot answered.

The inspector, now out of their sight, went into the cottage.

"I can't see what good it is to go over the ground," Elliot complained.

"Just want to get your ideas about why they picked it," Bell told him. "Might be very helpful." . . .

Reggie came along the mountain - side to the top of the waterfall of Sour Milk Gill. Molly stood there, her small, thin face flushed, her bosom beating fast, her hands clenched. "How feeble you are!" she cried.

"You think so?" Reggie looked at his wrist-watch, turned and surveyed the ravine of the fall. Swollen by the night's rain the stream roared down in gleaming masses of water between clouds of white foam and still, black pools. Rocks broke bare from it, and were hidden again. It vanished to a sheer descent, flashed out again, and again vanished to appear far below, spreading wide and white. "And you went down there," he murmured." You were in a hurry."

"There's more water coming down to - day," she snapped.

"Is there? Yes, you may be right. Well, well." He swung round, gazed at her and beyond her. Two men were coming round the shoulder of the mountain - Bell and Elliot, and Elliot was looking back. "Where was it your father stopped?" Reggie asked sharply. She pointed to a place where the stream was held in a narrow, deep channel between rock walls before a long leap down. "Do what he did, please."

She moved slowly along the rock till she came to the sheer edge. There she stopped and glared at Reggie. "He did that first one side and then the other. Then he stood here, one foot each side."

"Straddled across," Reggie drawled. "Yes. Could you do that?"

"Of course I could." She put out a slim leg.

"Stand fast," he called.

Elliot came plunging down with a cry, "Molly! What the devil are you doing?"

"Mr. Jock Elliot, I presume?" Reggie smiled. "Good. Photographer all ready for you. Stand where Miss Loram is. Straddlin' the stream."

"Give your orders." Elliot scowled at him, scowled at Molly. "I'd like to know what sort of trick you think you're playing."

"You do," Reggie said.

Bell and the inspector came hurrying down with the woman of Ulscar. "Do you recognise this place, ma'am?" Bell was saying.

"Eh, sure enough," she panted. "Here's where the picture was took. Ay, ay, and that fellow" - she pointed at Elliot - " that fellow was up to my place t'other night, in the gloaming, for a tea. I lay it's him as stole the picture from me."

"Do you recognise him for the man in the picture?" Bell asked.

She stood silent, puckering her eyes at Elliot's red rage. "The clothes is different," she said slowly.

"The hell they are!" Elliot roared. "I was never in any dam' picture of yours."

"Don't you think to bully me." She came a step nearer. "Eh, it's the same make o' man, and the long face of him - the long, cruel face. But yon's not the lass."

"No. That was Grace," said Reggie. "Grace who was murdered. Now you know, Miss Loram."

She gave a cry; she shrank back from Elliot with a look of misery and loathing. "Don't be a fool, Molly." He laughed. "It's a muddle - headed bluff. Grace was your father's woman."

"Try again," said Reggie.

"Oho!" Elliot turned, sneering. "She wasn't the first of his women who had bad luck. Don't you know that?"

"You - you beast," Molly gasped, and struck at him. He beat her off with such a blow that she reeled and fell.

"That'll do, thank you," said Reggie, grappling with him. Elliot broke free and plunged away. Reggie dived for his feet. He went headlong down the fall.

"Look after the girl," Reggie spluttered as he rose; he made for the edge of the rocks and lowered himself down. They heard crash and splash, then a shout.

"Can't see him. Got away. No sign of him down here. Cut across to the path. Quick!" The police photographer obeyed.

"Ay, that's the way," the inspector told Bell. "He could never do the Gill with this head o' water." They left Molly to the woman of Ulscar, and lumbered away slanting down the mountain - side. . . .

Through the mists of a chill night Bell came back to the hotel. Mr. Fortune was then spread before the fire in the lounge, an inch of ash on his cigar, his round face sleepily benign. Bell stood before him, dank and muddy to the hair. Mr. Fortune's eyes opened. "My dear chap!" he sympathised.

"We haven't found the fellow," Bell growled. "God knows where he's got to. Nobody seems to have seen him come down. Can't do any more to - night."

"Oh, no. No. All clear."

"What?" Bell glowered. "You mean we're bound to catch him? Of course we are. He hasn't a chance. But what then? Do you see your way? I don't."

"Yes. I think so." Reggie smiled. "Thought so some time. Opinion kindly confirmed to - day by our Mr. Elliot. Course of events now quite plain. Loram did well out of the death of his first wife. I should say that was quite natural. But Loram was left with one fortune and free to marry another. Which impressed Mr. Elliot's nice mind. I don't suppose he ever thought it was a natural death. And, as I was saying, man is an imitative animal. Mr. Elliot found a lonely woman with money. Grace Tyson. Loram had seen 'em together up here at Ulscar. When some thoughtful humorist photographed 'em, Elliot married Grace - or didn't - and took her and her money to Paris. I told you Cambridge can confirm he was there last summer, supposed to be doing research; we know Loram was there too. I should say Loram saw Grace with the graceless one. Confirmin' his lack of love for Elliot as a son - in - law. Elliot made an end of poor Grace neat and skilful, and was ready to take on Molly. Then I bothered him with my little proof Grace was a mountain walker. He put in that bold counter - Loram murdered the first Mrs. Loram. Rather too bold. 

Loram also sat up and took notice when he read about my arctic willow. He wanted to connect Grace with that and with Elliot. But he was frightened too. He knew there was scandal about his first wife's death: not anxious to appear in a case of another woman found dead. Well, he hurried off here to make sure of the evidence, found the snapshot at Ulscar, went up to the Gill where it was taken, and then went off to Pillar to see if Grace could have got arctic willow there - I take it he knew she used to go up that side. All right. But Elliot had his eye very sharp on Loram - heard he'd come here, and followed good and quick. He looked up Molly. She told him about going to Ulscar and Sour Milk Gill. So he nipped up to Ulscar and eliminated the snapshot. Next morning she was meeting her Elliot again. Where was father? Off by himself, most likely Pillar way. That was enough for our Mr. Elliot. He took action. Loram was flung down Pillar, and Elliot went off in his sports car. Rather misjudging my humble abilities. There you are."

Bell stood steaming in front of the fire. "Ah. All very well. I don't doubt everything did happen just like you say. How are we going to prove it?"

"Oh, my Bell!" Reggie laughed gently. "Find our Mr. Elliot. He's all the proof you want."

"I don't see it," Bell growled. "I grant you, he cracked to - day - -"

"Yes, quite nicely, yes," Reggie murmured.

"But that's not evidence to convict him. It's a hopeless case."

"You think so? Well, well. Go away. Go and change. Go and dine. Go and sleep. And to - morrow is another day." Bell went heavily out. . . .

In the morning Reggie was sitting with Mrs. Fortune in the hotel garden where daffodils danced to the music of thrush and willow wren. With a faint smile he gazed across the grey - green lake to the white water in the rocks of Sour Milk Gill. High up there, men were moving. . . .

Bell came slowly back to the hotel, saw Mr. and Mrs. Fortune, and stood still and stared and coughed. Reggie beckoned to him, but he shook his head and waited. "Oh, my hat!" Reggie sighed. "The mysterious expert," and went to him.

"You were wrong, sir." Bell spoke in a low voice, studying him with solemn eyes.

"Oh. When?"

"When you said Elliot had got out of that waterfall. He hadn't. We've found him in the pool just below."

"Well, well. So that is that," Reggie murmured.

"Ah." Bell's eyes were sombrely intent on him. "He was lying there in the water, with some rocks on top of him. I should say he lay there stunned till he was drowned."

"Yes, it could be," said Reggie cheerfully. "Simple medical question. Want me to do the post - mortem?"

"Do you want to?" Bell put grim emphasis on the question.

"As you please. Don't matter who does it. Can't tell you anything. I may as well finish off the case."

"My oath!" Bell muttered. "I'll say you have."

Reggie laughed and went back to Mrs. Fortune. "These experts, Joan!" he murmured. "All over. 'And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.'" She gave him a queer look of awe. "My dear girl! Not like that, no." He smiled at her. "Just the natural man."

THE END