MR FORTUNE HERE
H.C. BAILEY, 1940

THE BOTTLE PARTY

FEW ARE THE cases which have given Mr. Fortune so pure a pleasure.

When Carteret Square was built on a swamp, our ancient aristocracy bid against each other for its mansions and put their horses and carriages into a foul mews on the eastern side. The square is now a colossal quadrangle of flats inhabited by the new rich. The stables of the mews have been rebuilt to make garages for some of them and little houses for those who live upon them and renamed, to preserve the dignity of all, Carteret Place.

It is a narrow, prim street, empty, when the children of the chauffeurs dwelling over the garages have been put to bed, unless some knowing creature has left a car parked in one of the bulges provided to give a turning circle for the chariots of the past. But behind the curtains of the neat houses there is often some noise at night, and policemen stroll by from hour to hour.

About eleven on a misty autumn night a constable was pacing along Carteret Place from the southern end when he heard a police whistle blow at the other. He ran upon the sound and, reaching the northern end, found another breathless officer who had heard the whistle, but no one else. They hunted highways and byways in vain. The neighbourhood is prolific in bright young things who delight to take a rise out of the police.

About one o'clock he came down Carteret Place again. The little houses were quieter than usual. But by one of them a man bumped into him and when rebuked knocked his helmet off. They had a scuffle, the man fell, the constable picked him up and dragged him off, wambling in his walk, to the station, and charged him with assault. The man seemed dazed or drunk. With difficulty the inspector got a name out of him, which was Antony Cray, put him in a cell and sent for a doctor.

At nine o'clock next morning Mr. Fortune was, as usual, in his bath. Mrs. Fortune opened the door and exhorted him to come out. "Why?" He sank deeper into the water. "Why are wives?" She turned on the cold shower. "Not for that, no," he moaned.

"A lady has called to see you," she said severely. 

"My dear girl! Have a heart. Not before breakfast." 

"Parker says she wouldn't go away. And she's been here nearly an hour. Her name is Valerie Milburn." 

"Not guilty. Means nothing in my young life." 

"You've seen her. She plays the blondes that gentlemen prefer."

"An actress? Before nine a.m.? Oh no, Joan." 

"I didn't say she could act," said Mrs. Fortune. The secret of his eminence, he likes to explain, is a capacity to dress quicker than any man, thus making time for higher things. He ate half a cold partridge before he went to his consulting - room and yet half - past nine had not struck when Valerie Milburn sat down in front of him.

The silly, pretty face of the enchantress of light comedy was not at its best. Without make - up her fair complexion looked insipid. She tried her popular, yearning glance, but the smile on the pale lips was a spasm.

"Oh, Mr. Fortune, how kind you are!" She used the drawl of allure with which she spoke all her parts, though her voice could put no life into it.

"Not kind, no. Only curious. Who sent you to me, Miss Milburn?"

"Nobody. I came of myself."

"Oh! Had a bad night?"

She laughed, rather too long. "There's nothing the matter with me. It's someone else. Tony Cray, Antony Cray, you know, he's the nephew of Lord Frome."

"I don't. Is he ill?"

"I believe he is, Mr. Fortune. It's like this. I live in Carteret Place, you know the dinky little houses there. I had a bottle party last night, starting ten o'clock. Tony - Mr. Cray was there on the dot. I'm sure he shouldn't have come at all. You can back him to be on top of the world at any show, but last night nobody could get a rise out of him. He just sat and gloomed. He owned up, about one, he didn't feel too good, he'd go home. Then the ghastly thing happened. Just outside my door a policeman barged into him, the silly brute, got rough with him, said he was drunk and ran him in. They've kept him at the station, they're going to charge him this morning. But he wasn't drunk, Mr. Fortune. He couldn't have been. He wouldn't have a spot. He was sickly sober. But you know what the police are. If they get him convicted it'll break him. He hasn't a bean, except what he gets from Lord Frome. The old man was just going to wangle a Foreign Office job for him. That's right off, suppose Tony's in the news for drunk and scragging policemen. You see?"

"I wonder," said Mr. Fortune.

"You could stop it, you could, couldn't you?" she panted. "He wasn't drunk, he's never violent. Do help him, do save him."

"The police won't stop for me. Mustn't count on me to save anybody. Miss Milburn. Feeling this rather a lot, aren't you? However. Curious case. Interestin' case. As you put it. I'll see if they'll let me look it over."

"Oh, thank you so much," she started up and ran round the table to clutch his hands.

"Don't do that," Mr. Fortune withdrew them and rang the bell. "Don't hope too much." Valerie was shown out gurgling laughter and tears.

Mr. Fortune rang up the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. "Fortune speakin', Lomas. Most improperly. To foul the springs of justice. Any objection?"

"I've been pining to catch you at it for years, Reginald. Go on."

"The woman tempted me. One Valerie Milburn." He paused for a reply. None came. "Know her?"

"Not officially," said Lomas. "On the stage, yes. The delight of callow youth and aged rips. I thought you had better taste. When did she tempt you? And how? If it's fit for my ears."

"When? She's only just gone."

"Good God! Are you talking in your sleep? It's very early for temptation - and for you to be up."

"I've been up an hour."

"And fallen for a pretty lady already. Fie!"

"Didn't say fallen. Miss Milburn was woe on the top note. But points did emerge. Her trouble is one Antony Cray. Ever heard of him?"

Again the answer was delayed for some moments. Then Lomas repeated. "Cray? Do you mean a nephew of old Lord Frome?"

"That's the fellow. Miss Milburn says you've pinched him for drunk and assaulting the constabulary which you didn't ought." Reggie related precisely all that Valerie had told him. . . .

"Do you believe her, Reginald?"

"What the lady said isn't evidence. However. Statement could be true."

"Quite," Lomas admitted. "Some of these cases are the devil. It's hard measure to ruin a young fellow's career because he had a rough and tumble with the police. And if this fellow was seedy!"

"As you say," Reggie murmured, but he contemplated the telephone with a small, satiric smile. "Very fair, Lomas. Very human. May I look the case over?"

"By all means," Lomas said heartily. "You'd like to see the boy before he's charged?"

"Yes, please. And the police doctor. And the policeman."

"I agree. I'll send Bell to meet you at the police station." Lomas rang off.

"Well, well," Reggie sighed to the dead telephone. "'Barkis is willin'.'"

Ten minutes later he entered the station and met the solid form of Superintendent Bell. "This swift attention from the higher powers is gratifyin'," he returned thanks. "Are you going to tell me things?"

"I don't know any more about the case than you do," said Bell stolidly. "But it wants checking up. This way, please." Reggie was taken to the cell which contained Antony Cray.

He was dirty and tousled and of a yellow pallor, his eyes red rimmed and swollen, his shaking, twitching hands had bled from the knuckles. Yet reason for Valeria's interest in him could be detected. In good condition he might have been a fine fellow, at least a woman's man. He had long legs and a good pair of shoulders, the blurred features of the sickly face were well cut by nature.

"Sorry about this, Mr. Cray," said Reggie. "I'm a doctor."

"What do you want?" Cray's voice was hoarse. "I'm not drunk. I wasn't drunk. The policeman did this," he held out his damaged hands.

"No drink taken last night?"

"A small whisky at dinner. That's all."

"Anything besides drink?"

"Yes. I had a splitting headache. I took some phenacetin tablets. They made me all the worse. I couldn't stand the row of the party. When I went out I was dizzy, and stumbled into the policeman, and he said I was drunk and beat me up."

"Oh. Phenacetin. Often use that?"

"When I get a head."

Reggie felt his pulse, murmuring: "Any sickness? No? Rather depressed, what? Did you see things normal last night?"

"With a sick headache? Who does?"

Reggie looked into the swollen eyes and with his fingers on the chin tilted the head back.

Cray jerked it aside. "Look out! My head's devilish sore."

"Yes. It would be. That's all, Mr. Cray." Reggie left the cell.

The police doctor, he found, had been told the same tale, and sardonically pronounced it a good story.

"You don't believe it?"

"I never believe 'em. The young rascal wasn't drunk when I saw him, but he smelt of drink. He'd had more than one."

"That could be, yes. But something else also, what?"

"I dare say. Certainly, I thought him rather down than up."

"Still is. Not a drunk. No. Nerves all wrong."

"Well, of course, your opinion is decisive, Mr. Fortune," the doctor was quick to answer. "If I say neuralgic condition and an overdose of some sedative, that would be about right, I take it?"

"Yes. As near as we can get," Reggie sighed. The doctor bustled out. "Everybody loves me," Reggie complained to the empty room.

Bell entered. "The doctor tells me, sir, you and him are agreed Cray was a sick man?"

"Why this kindly joy, Bell?"

"No joy from me one way or the other. I just want things straight."

"What about the assaulted constable?"

"You want to talk to him, sir? Very good."

An uncomfortable policeman was brought in. "This Mr. Cray," Reggie asked, "How did he collide with you?"

"Sort of staggered into me, sir. But I have to own he wasn't noisy. He caught hold of me, I reproached him. Then he got excited and hit out wild and I had to take him along."

"Did him proud, didn't you?"

"Sir?" The policeman was aggrieved.

"Bruise under the chin?"

"Then it must have come from his falling down, sir. He did fall heavy. He barked his knuckles proper."

"Well, well. Nothing more, thanks."

The constable departed and Bell asked: "Is that all right, Mr. Fortune?"

"My dear Bell. Splendid. Great force, the police force. However. I'd like to see this through."

"Very good, sir. Come along into court. Cray's case'll be on any minute."

It went with a rush. The policeman was mild, the doctor masterfully sympathetic. Reggie had hardly made out the wan face of Valerie watching Cray tell his tale of headache and phenacetin before the magistrate dismissed the charge with soft, paternal words.

"Sort of thing that makes England what she is," Reggie murmured to Bell as they went out.

"We do know how to be fair," Bell answered. "Now would you come along with me? There's a big case turned up."

Reggie looked up with wide, plaintive eyes. "Big? What is big? Murder?"

"I want your opinion on that. There's a woman dead."

"Where?"

"In the Westminster mortuary. Only five minutes' walk."

"Walk?" Reggie's voice went up. "My car's here."

It brought them into the yard of the mortuary. A smaller car stood there, a coupe of class. "She's inside that," said Bell.

Reggie gave one glance within and turned. "Why is she?" he complained.

"I couldn't say, sir."

"Cautious fellow. Couldn't say whether it was murder! Look again."

"I leave it to you, Mr. Fortune," Bell recoiled.

The woman's body lay huddled between the seat and the instrument board. Under that her head lolled back, the cheeks, the closed eyes bulged, the nose and lips spread flat. All the face was livid but for purple and yellow marks of bruising. A squirrel coat covered her from bent knees to chin. Reggie drew back its collar. Round the full neck bruises were black to the knot of red bronze hair behind. 

He opened the coat wider. Beneath it was a green evening dress. He contemplated that with a pensive gaze which slowly extended to survey the whole of the car's interior before he turned to Bell.

"You don't want to look at her again? Not a cheering sight. Not a perfect world. Get your fellows to take her into the mortuary. When she's gone you might bear to look into the car. The higher intelligence could work out a fact or so."

Bell glowered at him. "I reckon I'll finish with the car before you're through. If you come back to the station I'll be there."

Some hours later Reggie entered the bleak room where Bell sat writing, subsided on the only other chair and lit a pipe. "Not to spoil the story," he murmured and blew smoke rings. "Dead woman was forty or so, in good health, well preserved. Married woman as per wedding ring. Cause of death, asphyxia from throttling with human hands. She died hard. Fought it out."

"Ah. Clear case of murder," Bell grunted.

"Oh yes. Not a nice murderer - or murderers Things are what they seemed. On that point. Hands were almost clenched. Between the fingers of right hand light yellow hairs, from bobbed or shingled woman. On her teeth some scraps of human skin, colour indeterminate, bitten off assailant. Dress and other clothes not torn, not pulled about, but body and leg heavily bruised. She was on her back and somebody knelt on her to kill her. Murder therefore was not committed in the car. Time of murder indefinitely before midnight. That's the medical evidence. How do you like it?"

"Not so bad, Mr. Fortune."

"Always happy to gratify the higher powers. What is the story you're composin'?"

"I was just putting things together in order."

"Order is a felt want. Yes. Got it?"

"Well, sir, fairly clearly. That car was found at three - fifteen this morning in Carteret Place."

"Oh! Where Valerie Milburn gave her bottle party. Where Cray had his scrap with the policeman."

"That's right. At least in a manner of speaking. The car wasn't at Miss Milburn's house but some way up the street, in a little sort of dead end. The constable who arrested Cray says it wasn't there when he went up Carteret Place at eleven p.m. We can fix the time it was left between eleven and three."

"As near as that! Better than me."

"Ah! We might get nearer yet," said Bell. "At three another constable spotted the car. He didn't bother with it, being no obstruction. He came back about five and it was still there. Thinking that queer he looked in and saw the woman."

"Oh my Bell!" Reggie protested. "You haven't put things in order. How did it begin? Who is she?"

"Yes, sir. She's been identified. She's Mrs. Arundel, a lady living just by where the car was found, and it's her car."

Reggie blew one smoke ring inside another. "Who is Mrs. Arundel? What is she, that someone strangles her and dumps her in her own car by her own house? Is there a Mr. Arundel?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Bell solemnly, "but she has had three real husbands."

"Rather careless with spouses, what?"

"She was no better than she should be, Mr. Fortune. A fast woman, half in society, more than half out."

"The lady's friends?" Reggie drawled. "Are they known to the police?"

"She lived in a rackety crowd."

Reggie smiled. "Yes, Bell, Carteret Place was having frequent visits from the police at night - eleven, one, three, five. Why?"

"We don't like that street, sir. We have nothing hard, but there is reason to believe it has snow falls. Cocaine, you know."

"I do. Yes. Though not mentioned when I was introduced to your friend Cray. So Mrs. Arundel was suspect of dope dealing?"

"We had her in view. But there have been other reasons for watching Carteret Place, complaints of rowdy parties there and spots of trouble in the neighbourhood. Only last night there was one." He related the vain pursuit of a police whistle by the eleven o'clock constable.

Reggie sat up. His round face was plaintive and reproachful. "My Bell! Oh my Bell! Is this puttin' things in order? No. Carteret Place was deprived of the eleven o'clock police inspection. Curious and interestin' fact. Yet I had to pull it out of you with forceps." 

"I'm sorry, sir. It don't signify. The constable went right along the street at eleven and he swears no car was in it. I told you."

"But he left the street clear. So the car could have been brought along. The woman may have been killed some time before. He didn't come back till one and then he got busy arrestin' Cray. So we don't know whether she and the car were there then. Pity."

"I grant you there is a look of tricks," Bell frowned. "But whistling to get a rise out of the police is a common game with the bright young things round there. I am giving you all the facts, Mr. Fortune. When I went over the car I found this - - "He displayed a scrap of pale blue silk. "It was caught on the edge of the door the driver's side. From a woman's dress and not Mrs. Arundel's dress. Hers was green."

"As you say," Reggie murmured. "Not her colour. Dress probably worn by a blonde. Same like the hair in the fingers of the deceased. And Valerie of the bottle party is a blonde. Did you get her to look at Mrs. Arundel?"

"Why no, sir. Mrs. Arundel was recognised by the constable and then identified by her servant - she kept a house man, no maid, that was her style. I have no reason to think Miss Milburn was a special friend."

"Till this," Reggie held up the blue silk. "Further conversation with Miss Milburn is required." 

"I was going to," said Bell.

"My dear chap, we do agree beautiful." Reggie stood up and looked at his watch. "Help! Have you got a car? Mine has to go home." He strolled out and, with brief instructions, sent his chauffeur away.

Bell joined him. "We can walk it as quick as drive, sir."

"Not me," Reggie protested, hailing a taxi. But he stopped it at the beginning of Carteret Place. "Walkin' is only justified when you can't get what is wanted otherwise. As now. In this nasty, neat little street. Where you have to show me things. Mrs. Arundel's house. Dead end in which Mrs. Arundel's car stood. After that, house of Miss Milburn."

At that hour of the afternoon, the narrow street was a playground and a mixed club. Children of the chauffeurs who lodged over its garages sported across the roadway, chauffeurs and their wives clustered about the garage doors in gossip.

"That's where the car was found." Bell glanced at a bulge in the roadway which went up between two houses to a blank wall. "Used to be a turning circle when this was a mews, often used for parking."

"Handy," Reggie murmured, "yet out of the way. Good and dark after dark."

"That's right," Bell nodded. "Now the next house but one is Mrs. Arundel's."

It had an emerald green door and russet window frames and curtains of brown netting. "Suits her complexion," Reggie murmured. "By the way, when did she leave the house yesterday?"

"Ah! You're asking something," Bell grunted. "Her man servant don't know. He was taking his weekly day off yesterday, and had leave for the night, he says. He went out at two o'clock, went to see his old dad at Kingston and didn't get back till eight this morning."

"Do you believe him?"

"I have no reason not to. He hasn't been with Mrs. Arundel long - only a month - and he's given us a story we can easily check."

"Will aged father say son was with him at time of murder? Some check! However. Let's try Miss Milburn."

"There's her house," Bell pointed. It was some fifty yards from Mrs. Arundel's on the same side, a little larger, double fronted, its door, and everything else that could be painted, white. All the windows had boxes of white flowers, geraniums and petunias. The door was opened by an oldish maid who glared.

"If you please." Bell stepped into the hall. "Tell Miss Milburn I want to see her at once." He held out his card.

"Madam's not at home." The maid was shrill.

"Do as you're told," Bell growled, and she slunk away into a room on the right and slammed the door, came out again looking malice sideways and went upstairs. She was not gone long. From the landing she beckoned them.

They were taken into a small room on the first floor, which was entirely white and cream but for two people in it. Valerie shimmered silver grey as she glided to meet them. The man behind her had put his lumpy form into bright blue tweeds and a honey - coloured beard, and side whiskers grew on his large pink face.

Valerie was flushed out of insipidity. "Superintendent Bell?" she smiled and the upward glance of allure had a gleam in it.

"Me too, Miss Milburn," said Reggie.

"Oh, Mr. Fortune. How too kind of you. It was splendid about poor old Tony."

"Has he been here?"

"No, did you want him?"

"I wonder. Let's see. About your party last night, Miss Milburn - -" Reggie stopped and glanced at the bearded man.

"I was here, sir." The man's voice was high.

"You don't know each other," Valerie giggled. "How futile! On the left Mr. Fortune, on the right Ned Patten."

"Friend of Mr. Cray's?" Reggie asked.

"I think so," the man answered.

"Seen him since?"

"Since the party? No."

"Mr. Fortune!" Valerie cried. "Has something happened to Tony?"

"What could happen? Charge dismissed. Revertin' to the party - -" Valerie was staring at the stolid menace of Bell. "Please - -" Reggie waved her to a chair and sat down beside her. "You told me it began at ten. When did Cray arrive?"

"With the first bunch," Patten answered. "So did I."

"Many bunches? Lot of people?"

"Quite a crush," said Patten.

"All in here?" Reggie looked round the little room.

"Heavens no," Valerie giggled. "The state apartments are beneath."

"Oh! Do you mind - like to look at actual scene."

"Why?" Valerie gasped.

"Want to make sure where Cray was all the time."

"But - but Tony's out now. You just said so."

"Yes. He is. However." Reggie moved to the door.

Valerie sprang up, slid past him downstairs and flung open the doors on either side the hall. Through one was a narrow dining - room of different gold shades, the other opened upon a lounge, with walls, carpet and furniture all white.

"There you are," she cried. "Now you know the worst, Mr. Fortune. The lily house. Decor by Ned. Spirit by me." She made him a curtsey, looking up under her eyelashes.

"Charmin' harmony. Yes." Reggie glanced at the gold room and went into the white lounge. "Bottle party buzzed about, what? But the main body here. Were you here all the time, Patten?"

"In and out from the gold room. That's where the drinks were."

"And you, Miss Milburn?"

"I was here in the lounge from start to finish."

"Where was Cray?"

"Down and dumb in the corner over there," Patten pointed.

"Poor old Tony," said Valerie. "He was sick and hating himself for it."

"Yet he stayed. Stayed from ten till one."

"I couldn't shift him," Valerie cried.

"Silly dam' fool," said Patten. "I tried to push him off."

Reggie looked from one to the other. "Who else was here?"

Valerie broke out laughing. "Who wasn't? Hordes! Half my crowd."

"Mrs. Arundel among 'em?" Reggie asked.

That froze them both. Patten spoke first. "Mrs. Arundel was here hours."

"It seemed like years," said Valerie. "She didn't go till after Tony's row with the policeman."

"Oh. She was still here when he'd been arrested? Quite sure?" Reggie's eyes were set on Valerie.

"Absolutely." Valerie stared back unflinching. "She ragged us about it."

Reggie strolled across the room to a settee. Its rough silk cover showed marks at one end as if it had been scraped by something hard. He bent over it, Bell came to look, they exchanged a glance. Valerie met them as they turned and gasped: "What, what's the matter?"

"When did she go?" Reggie drawled.

"Mrs. Arundel? Some time after Tony."

"About ten past one," said Patten.

"How?"

"What do you mean?" Patten scowled at him.

"On her own legs?"

"Of course," Valerie gasped. "She didn't have far to go - her house is only a few doors off."

"I've seen it. So you say Mrs. Arundel walked out of your house soon after one. Cray bein' then in the hands of the police. Who remained here?"

Valerie and Patten consulted together with their eyes. "I did," said Patten.

"Nobody else?"

"Me of course," Valerie cried. "Only me."

"And then?"

"Then I sat some time with Val and went home," Patten answered.

"Which way?"

Patten was silent for a moment and grew pale before he answered: "I live up the street."

"Beyond Mrs. Arundel's house. So you passed it. When did you know Mrs. Arundel had been killed?"

"My housekeeper told me this morning."

"Oh yes. Yes. But passin' Mrs. Arundel's house last night, didn't you give an eye to her car?"

"I didn't see any car."

"Of course we didn't," Valerie giggled. "We were only seeing ourselves."

"Oh. You were with him?"

The giggle faded in a languishing smile. "It is so hard to say good night. Hasn't anyone ever told you that, Mr. Fortune? Give them a chance."

"I have," Reggie sighed. "Good night. Miss Milburn." He went out.

"You'll be required to make a further statement, miss, and you, sir," Bell told them. "I warn you what you have said will be tested."

Reggie had shut the door behind him, and when Bell emerged came from the inner recesses of the hall. "This bein' thus," he murmured. "Passed to you."

Bell did not answer till they were in the street. "A pretty couple!"

"As you say." Reggie stopped and contemplated the house.

"That minx with her goo - goo eyes!"

"Cloyin' damsel. Yes. Cloyin' house. All overdone." Reggie made a weary gesture. "Even the side door white."

"Ah, overdone is right," Bell chuckled. "Such silly lying, they didn't know where to stop."

Reggie looked up at him with pensive wonder. "That is so. We do agree, Bell."

"Ah! You got 'em over the car. They knew all about it."

"One or both. Yes. Lies not so good on that. Smash the rest and all is gas and gaiters. Check the beastly bottle party." Reggie hailed a taxi and drove off in it.

That night the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department found him solitary at supper in one of their sprightlier clubs. A bottle of champagne was on his table, he was eating marrow bones.

"Reginald!" Lomas rebuked him. "And you a married man! Is this domestic virtue?"

"No. Debauch. To preserve sanity. Sufferin' from a public dinner. Mass production food and speeches. On top of your distressful case. The mind was hysterical."

Lomas sat down with him and ordered a devilled sole and brandy and soda.

Reggie sipped his champagne. "You may be right. Both equally coarse. Only a wine in name. What's your trouble?"

"Nothing but fatigue. We've done very well. We roped in some of the bottle party and got out of 'em it was an uncomfortable show. Valerie and Mrs. Arundel on the edge of a flare up all the time. They've always been cats to each other, but last night well above themselves. They've had Cray in common for a boy friend and he funked both women hard. Mrs. Arundel fed the party brimstone scandal about Valerie and Patten. When Cray left he looked dead to the world. On his scrap with the policeman the party broke up. The last of Mrs. Arundel comes from a fellow who heard her ragging Valerie and Valerie scolding back. Not too clean, he says. So there's the motive. Then we have the damage to the settee. If the woman was thrown down and strangled there, her heels would have made marks like that."

"As you say," Reggie sighed. "Strikin' and suggestive, the double scrape. Any more evidence?"

"That hair in Mrs. Arundel's fingers matches Valerie's. The scrap of pale blue silk in the car was torn from the dress Valerie wore last night. We found finger - prints on the door and window of the car and they're Patten's."

"Careless animal. Futile liar. So you've taken his prints and searched her lily house. Charged 'em?"

"Not yet," Lomas smiled. "We got their prints on statements we handed them to sign. They are detained for enquiries. They'll be charged tomorrow."

Reggie drank up his champagne. "End of a perfect day," he murmured. "Began by gettin' one rackety fool off a twopenny crime, went on to lag two lying fools for murder. In sweet agreement with the higher intelligence." He gazed at Lomas with heavy eyes. "Pleasant dreams. Do you dream? I never could." He wandered out.

Before eleven next morning Lomas heard his voice again. It came over the telephone. "I want Bell," it said. "Bell in a fast car. With another hefty man or so. At the Oval tube station. Now."

"Good Gad!" Lomas exclaimed. "What - -" 

"I said now," said Reggie, and rang off.

But when the car stopped by the Oval station, he was not there. Bell fumed for some minutes before a taxi crossed all the traffic lanes and Reggie sprang from it, ran to the police car, slammed the door which Bell opened and thrust himself between the driver and the other man in front. "Camberwell Road. Let her out." Between buses and trams the driver did wonders, but Reggie fidgeted and lifted up his voice. "I asked for a fast car." The driver flushed and scared all traffic over three busy miles.

Then he was directed into a glum, suburban avenue. "Slow. Stop," Reggie ordered. Bell frowned at rows of small houses, each asserting that it was different from the other but of a blinding uniformity.

A man loitering by the corner of a side street turned to look and went on looking.

"Come along, Bell," Reggie jumped out.

Bell caught him up before he reached the comer, and received a wink from the man standing there. "My oath!" he muttered, for he knew the man as Reggie's chauffeur. "What's the idea, Mr. Fortune?"

"All present and correct," said the chauffeur out of the corner of his mouth.

"To see Killarney," said Reggie. "Leave your men here." He turned down the side street.

The houses there were of still bleaker gentility and detached. Scrawny hedges of privet, laurel and aucuba protected each from neighbours and the vulgar world.

Killarney had its name in gold on a red gate. Inside that a monkey puzzler rose over straggling rhododendrons through which a curving path led to the lurid stained glass of the front door. Some noise came out of the house, petulant voices talking together. On a sudden both fell to silence. Reggie took Bell's arm and drew him from the door to a window beyond.

They looked in round aspidistras, upon a dowdy drawing - room and a woman and a man standing close together. Reggie pushed up the window. "Thanks very much, Cray," he laughed.

Cray shrank and sagged and stumbled away from the woman. She stood fast. Her purple dress suited the maroon drawing - room, came near matching the mottled flush of her cheeks, but made a cruel discord with the bronze red hair above. She looked from Cray to Reggie and Bell, and they saw her eyes gleam dark.

"Good morning, Mrs. Arundel," Reggie cried, "this is a pleasure."

Bell thrust head and shoulders through the window She clutched the table beside her, a table on which lay some woollen knitting. She looked again at Cray who was white and dumb.

"Yes, kind of Cray to bring us along," said Reggie. "Superintendent Bell did want you."

She picked up the knitting, she turned and flung herself at Cray and drove the needles into his face, into his throat.

Bell shouted; Bell clambered into the room. Cray had fallen and she was upon him, stabbing at him with the bestial strength of frenzy.

Bell dragged her off. She kicked and bit, till his men came through the window and mastered her. Reggie was kneeling by Cray. "Don't be rough," he said over his shoulder. Handcuffs were put on her, her legs were tied.

"She has done you proud," he said to Cray, whose throat was welling blood. "However." He rose and came to Mrs. Arundel. "Allow me." He drew her long sleeves back from the handcuffs. On the right arm the skin had been torn and dents showed red. "Oh yes. Where sister bit you," he murmured, and the woman shrieked. "Take her away. Me for the other victim."


That afternoon he came into Lomas's room dreamy d benign. "One of your larger cigars is indicated." He helped himself and sank down in the easiest chair. "Pleasin' case."

Lomas took up his telephone. "Come along, Bell. Mr. Fortune's here at last."

"My dear old thing!" Reggie protested. "Only paused for a simple lunch."

"Till half - past three," Lomas rebuked him. Bell strode in. "What about Cray, Mr. Fortune? Is he going to come through?"

"He thinks not. I didn't tell him he was wrong."

"My oath!" Bell muttered. "Had a confession from him?"

"Yes, sir. Him believing he wouldn't live."

"Last dying speech," Reggie smiled. "Anything like the truth?"

"It's a queer story. He says Mrs. Arundel was in the dope business, and broke him down teaching him to take snow. She told him the dead woman was her sister and lived on her, passed her the dope and blackmailed her over it. The trade was bad lately. Money ran short and this sister turned nasty, threatened she'd give the whole game away. She came to Mrs. Arundel's house day before yesterday. Mrs. Arundel 'phoned him, and when he got there the woman was dead. Mrs. Arundel said she'd had to kill her, the only way to stop her mouth; she was going to split on 'em both, but it would be all right if he helped get the body taken for Mrs. Arundel's, she'd go off and pass as her sister. But he wouldn't stand for it; he wouldn't do a thing, and he quit. Then this morning he had a telegram: ' Come Killarney," and he didn't dare not go for fear of her."

"Fearful fellow. Yes. That's why he's such a brute He helped to strangle the sister. Hence the bruise under his chin. Any confession from Mrs. Arundel?"

"Not a word."

"There will be. When she hears his. However. Don't matter. Been over Mrs. Arundel's house yet?"

"We have, sir. What are you thinking of?"

"Oh my Bell. Settee, divan or bed. Scratches thereon same like the white settee of Valerie."

"That's pretty good." Bell smiled grimly. "We didn't find anything scratched. But Mrs. Arundel's house man says there's an old Persian rug gone from the couch in the drawing - room."

"Splendid," Reggie purred. "Pleasin' case. Subtle female, Mrs. Arundel. All clear."

"Clear!" Lomas exclaimed. "You flatter yourself, Reginald."

"Not myself. No." Reggie sank down in his chair. "Do I flatter you? Surely not."

"We can convict these two beauties now, but we don't know how the thing was worked."

"Oh my Lomas. Think again. Believe the evidence. Cray and the Arundel strangled Mrs. Jones and she left her mark on both of 'em, some time before ten. I told you she died earlier than midnight. Cray went off to Valerie's party at ten. The Arundel stripped dead sister and put on the body clothes of her own, evenin' dress matchin' the one she wore herself at the bottle party. Not a nice job. Not a nice woman. Twisted some of Valerie's hair in the dead fingers. Next event. Eleven o'clock constable called out of Carteret Place by a police whistle. No doubt Mrs. Arundel blew that from her car. Him being gone, Cray slunk out of Valerie's lily house - I showed you the side door, Bell, it opens on a passage where the cloak room is. The Arundel brought her car round, Cray helped her put the body in the car, covered it with the missin' rug, so it wouldn't show and came back to party via side door and cloak room. The Arundel then arrived by the front door. 

Either of 'em could easily get a bit torn off Valerie's blue dress to shove in the car, easily scratch the settee like the heels of the woman scratched the rug when they murdered her. When the one o'clock constable was due Cray barged out and got himself arrested, thus fakin' a perfect alibi for the murder of Mrs. Arundel, then alive. After puttin' up a row with Valerie to make more evidence against her, the Arundel went off, dressed herself in dead sister's clothes, removed the rug from the body, proceeded to Killarney and became the sister. She is just like sister - to those who haven't had close ups of both. Cray was sweetly confident Valerie would swear he'd never left the party and Patten would back her through hell. Kindly nature, Cray's. Perfect trust in his friends. Patten took his good night walk with Valerie. They saw the car, knew it was Mrs. Arundel's. They looked inside. Patten leavin' his fool prints on the door, and saw a dead woman. I should say he didn't recognise her. Not easy to sec in the dark, not nice to investigate that face. They wouldn't think of it being Mrs. Arundel as she'd only just left 'em. But there was a very dead woman in her car. Cray had behaved queer at the party, funking Valerie, lurking. They knew he might have slunk out and done the kill. They hated Mrs Arundel, they liked him, they knew she had him on a string. All they cared for was to save him. They left the woman for somebody else to find, and fixed up they'd give Cray his alibi, and Valerie came round bright and early to rub it in on me he was a poor, sick fellow under her eye all the time till arrested. Dear fools, Valerie and her Ned. Made for each other. Must have hit 'em cruel hard when they heard the dead woman was Mrs. Arundel. And yet they stuck to their story. Very good effort. Bless 'em. Nice people. Hope you haven't charged 'em, Lomas?" Reggie smiled.

"We have not," said Lomas with dignity. "They were let go this morning."

"Splendid. Not a blot on the official scutcheon. Now. I have my uses, Lomas."

"Confound your impudence." Lomas made a grimace. "How did you know the Arundel woman had a sister?"

"By believin' evidence. Try sometime. I told you the dead woman was in good health, well preserved. Too good, too well for a woman who'd led a nasty life, as alleged of the Arundel. She shows wear and tear. Dead face so distorted, identification could only be from general likeness, hair, clothes and what not, and the identification was not made by intimates. So I pondered. I sent my chauffeur, Sam, to browse among the children of Carteret Place. Observant animals, girl children. They told him Mrs. Arundel wasn't always smart - quite shabby when she went on the buses. Some' of 'em spotted her the day before descendin' from a Lewisham bus. Not the first time. Sam tried the Lewisham bus conductors, and heard of a lady like the Arundel who got on in those parts and got off at the stop by Carteret Square. Then the local milkman and postman gave him the glad news she was Mrs. Jones, of Killarney. Quite the lady, kept herself to herself, most respectable, though only using a charwoman two days a week. Sam called as a tout and looked her over. Me too, from the adjacent aucubas. On which I 'phoned for the higher powers. There you are. All clear, as I said."

"Is it?" Lomas put up his eyeglass. "Why did Cray go to her?"

"My dear old thing!" Reggie stared back with large reproachful eyes. "Use the evidence. Cray told you in his confession. He got a telegram: 'Come Killarney.' The Arundel had the wind up. Probably failed to like Sam's face. He will grin."

"Failed to like Cray when he came," Lomas answered. "That's what broke her."

"It could be," Reggie murmured. "Don't suppose he was comfortin'."

"Who sent the telegram?" Lomas demanded.

"Oh my Lomas! Futile question. Answer obvious. Mrs. Arundel."

"She'll deny it."

Over Reggie's face came a pensive smile. "She may yes. Nobody'll believe her."

"Why should she telegraph? She was on the telephone."

"Yet she couldn't get Cray? Nor Cray her? Only wrong numbers. Too bad."

"The line's broken on the wall of the house, Reginald. Who did that?"

"Take the goods the gods provide. Telegram's right. Pleasin' case."


THE PRIMROSE PETALS

IN HIS DARKER hours Mr. Fortune is wont to derive comfort from the case of the primroses. He will maintain that it proves the power of the human spirit against the most diabolical inhumanity. The professional opinion of the police force pronounces his work on it a miracle. But in the beginning neither he nor the police found anything which they could do about it.

Inspector Underwood faced him across a table on which lay a small shoe. "The exhibit has been in sea water some days," said Mr. Fortune, "rubbed about on a beach of pale, fine sand. Was worn by a child of three or four, if a normal child. That's all I can tell you. Any use?"

"It fits as far as it goes, sir. Could you say whether the shoe was washed off him by the sea?"

"I could not. I'm only a man of science not a magician. Action of the sea might have removed shoe from foot. Equally possible it didn't. Children's shoes common objects of the seaside. What is this case, Underwood?"

"Last week a child of four, Jonathan Flambard, disappeared from the beach of Broadmouth Bay, Wessex. His mother had taken him down there to play. She went off after her dog. When she came back she couldn't find the kid. That's her story. He hasn't been found since. There weren't many people about. It's early spring for visitors. Nobody noticed the child or her. The county police could hardly believe the child had been drowned. It's not a dangerous beach, though the tide comes in fast at this equinox season. They didn't find his spade and bucket nor his shoes. Of course there's no knowing what a small boy would do left alone on a beach. Two days ago, that's four days after he vanished, this shoe was washed up and identified as his."

"By his mother?" Reggie murmured.

"No, sir, she's had something like a stroke, half off her head with the child's loss. But the identification is all right."

"So what? The child was drowned by accident or made away with otherwise and somebody threw in a shoe for evidence of drowning. Any known reason for anyone to murder or kidnap him?"

"No, sir. The Flambards have lived down there for generations. Comfortable but not rich. The child was an only son, but nobody stands to gain by his death. As for kidnapping - well, I ask you! We don't have it. Besides, there's been no demand for, ransom."

"Yet the county police are hot and bothered."

"They stick at accidental drowning, that's why the put the case up to us."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Stricken mother was rather modern, wasn't she? Left small son to go after her dog."

"Some women will," Underwood agreed.

"What can I do about it?" Reggie was shrill. "No evidence." He took up the shoe. "The child!" he murmured. . . .

A year after, almost to the day, an aeroplane, fighting equinoctial gusts, flew over the pale beach of Broadmouth Bay, and made a difficult landing on the football ground of Broadmouth. "Now we're down, I'll say we're lucky, Mr. Fortune," said the pilot.

"More than I deserve," Reggie answered. "Thanks very much. Come on, Underwood."

A police car took them down to the beach and they were met by a brisk man who said that he was Captain Brooke, the Chief Constable of the county, and it was devilish good of Mr. Fortune to come down so quick.

"Not quick, no," Reggie sighed. "A year late."

"You mean the Flambard child." Captain Brooke's deep - set eyes gleamed. "This case is damnably like. I begin to think we have a maniac to deal with. It was just this time of year Jonathan Flambard vanished; just such a day as this."

"Oh. Gale then, too?" Reggie glanced at the breakers storming the beach.

Captain Brooke gave him the condescending smile of a sailor for a landsman's weakness. "I suppose you had a bumpy flight, Mr. Fortune. This isn't a gale, nothing more than squalls. The sea was as flat as your hand this morning. So it was when the Flambard boy was lost."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "One small boy lost without trace by a peaceful, safe sea last March and a second this March."

"That's the problem." Brooke's notable chin thrust out. "I can give you another queer thing. The child lost this morning was a boy rising five, the same age as Johnny Flambard. His mother, Mrs. Corder, took a house here a fortnight ago. She's a naval officer's wife just back from the China station. The boy, Arthur, ran down to the beach this morning about nine. She was coming after with her baby girl. When she brought baby down about ten she couldn't find the boy anywhere. There were only a few people about, there never are many at this time of year. Mrs. Corder asked everybody she met if they'd seen the boy, some thought they had, none of 'em could tell her whereabouts. Then she ran back and 'phoned us. My fellows had the gumption to put it through to me at once, and I sent an S O S to Scotland Yard. This is a job for experts. My fellows have questioned every dam' creature they can trace being on the beach; they can get nothing hard about the child, nothing of anyone acting suspiciously. We've been over each last yard of the beach, we've found plenty traces of children's play, castles, sand pies and what all, and an old spade and bucket which Mrs. Corder says were Arthur's, but they were yards above high water mark. There are no foot - prints you can trace near by. It's all dry, loose sand. The child's disappeared off the earth, like Johnny Flambard, and no clue, no motive, just damned mad."

The wonted genial confidence of Reggie's round face was lost in cold, hard curiosity. An expression known to Underwood and others as Mr. Fortune's hanging look. "Show me," he mumbled, "place where spade and bucket were found."

Captain Brooke made off with short, quick strides. "Here you are." He stopped as he sank deep in a sand slope which rose to rough herbage.

Reggie looked about him. Caught up by the gusts, flurries of sand moved like mist along the bank. He wandered on the firmer beach below and after a while stood still where shells had been put in a pattern, disturbed or incomplete.

Brooke came to him. "I've seen that, Mr. Fortune, and others like it. A common child's game."

Reggie was picking more shells out of the sand. He added them to the gaps and the letters A - T - H appeared, but before and after them the broken pattern was still meaningless.

"That's damned clever," Brooke exclaimed. "Arthur! The child was spelling out his name. They do, of course. But it doesn't take us any further. We knew he was playing here."

"Oh yes. I didn't say he was writin' his name. Do they, at risin' five? Was this his name? Something before ATH, something after. What about Jonathan? Jonathan Flambard."

"Why the devil should anyone put his name on the beach now?"

"I wonder." Reggie stood up and went back slowly to the place where the bucket and spade were found, he moved to and fro across the wind - blown sand and picked something out of it and, shielding what he had gathered in cupped hands, showed it to Brooke.

"Flower petals." Brooke stared at him.

"That is so. Petals of primrose. Quite fresh. Where Arthur Corder was this morning. Which way did he come to get here?"

"Mrs. Corder said he ran straight down." Brooke climbed from the beach to hillocks covered with rough herbage. "You won't find any primroses here. They don't grow on sand dunes."

"As you say. However. Continue to Arthur's house."

Brooke marched across the dunes to the road. On the landward side it was lined with new houses. He stopped short opposite one of them. "That's Mrs. Corder's."

Reggie crossed the road and looked over the tamarisk hedge into sandy waste, which had just been dug.

"No primroses there," said Brooke.

A woman ran out of the house crying: "What is it? Captain Brooke! Have you - have you found him?"

"No, I'm sorry." Brooke bit his lip.

She flinched, she drew back, sinking, dwindling "Why - why do you come then?" she gasped.

"We're working this out, Mrs. Corder," said Reggie gently. "I wanted to ask you - have you any primroses in the house?" [

"Primroses? Good God, no. What do you mean?"

"I don't know yet. But we try everything." He took her hand, "Believe that. Come on. Captain." He drew Brooke out of the garden. "Now then. We know the fresh primroses shed by Arthur's bucket and near the name of Arthur or Jonathan weren't brought by Arthur. Where do primroses grow hereabouts?"

"Everywhere," Brooke snorted. "The banks in the lanes are covered with them."

"Any lane leadin' from the beach to Jonathan's house?"

"Jonathan? The Flambards' place?" Brooke exclaimed and looked at him with something like dread. "My God, what's in your mind? You think Johnny Flambard's mother - -"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! Have you only just thought of her?"

"It's devilish, it's mad."

"Yes. Both elements suggested. Hard to distinguish. However. Come on."

"There isn't really a lane," said Brooke. "It's a bridle track goes up by the Brayle river, that's the short cut from the beach to the Flambards' place, Mallyon."

"Short cut Jonathan and mother took a year ago?"

"They did, according to Mrs. Flambard. They would naturally. Do you want to see her?"

"Go ahead," said Reggie, and though Brooke set a furious pace, kept level, the faithful Underwood at his heels.

The Brayle river pierced the dunes in shallow pools between banks of ooze left bare by the ebb tide. Half a mile up it became, though still tidal, a narrow stream running through a dense wood of birch and beech and oak, their boughs gay in the first leaves of spring. The bridle path cut straight across its windings, now deep between moss - grown slopes bright with primroses now back at the water's edge.

A little beach of boulders and silver grey sand broke the steep bank. Where it was dry just below the bank it bore some marks of digging. Nearer the water lay a child's spade. Brooke stopped short. "That's devilish odd!"

"I wonder." Reggie looked along the slow, clear stream.

Underwood picked up the spade. "Brand new, sir. And used here lately."

Reggie went on and came to another beach which was all boulders. Among them lay the body of a small boy.

It was face downwards, its clothes were wet. He turned it and saw the brow bruised, he felt at it, put his ear down upon it, then tore off his coat. "Go get a car, Brooke," he cried, wrapping the coat about the little body. "End of this path. Warn your hospital." He put the body across his shoulder as Brooke ran off. "See what you can find, Underwood." He tramped away with his burden. . . .

Some time afterwards he came into a room of the hospital where Mrs. Corder sat still as stone. "Good hope for your boy," he said gravely. "You may see him. He's not conscious yet. But I think he'll come through."

She started up and caught his hand. "Is it true?"

"Yes." He met her eyes and ushered her out to the waiting nurse.

"God bless you," she whispered, and was taken away. "Haven't deserved it," Reggie murmured with a wry smile. "However." He crossed the hall to the office where Captain Brooke was pacing to and fro like a caged animal. "Yes, I feel the same. Come along back to Underwood." Brooke followed him to the car. "What about the boy?"

"Concussion, shock, chill. But he'll do."

"What the devil do you make of it?"

"I should say he was beguiled by the kind lady who wore primroses from the sea beach to go play on the little beaches up the river. When she got him there time would be ten or so, tide about full up the river. The child fell or was pushed into it. Kind lady then departed. Her day's work bein' done. If she'd had luck he'd have been drowned. But he went in among the boulders, hit his head on 'em and was stunned, got stuck in 'em so the stream wouldn't sweep him away and the ebb left his head well out of water so he couldn't drown. Provisional hypothesis accountin' roughly for known facts."

"It's damned clever. I don't doubt you're right. What a fiend of a woman, a child killing maniac! God, I'd like to get my hands on her!"

"One does feel that way. But we're not near her yet."

"When the child comes to his senses, he'll be able to tell us about her."

"It could be," Reggie murmured.

They were out of the car marching up the bridle path again. Through the shadow of the trees loomed a large constable. Underwood came suddenly into sight as if he had risen out of the earth and met them by the boulders on which the child was found. "Look a bit further up," he said, and took them to another beach which was broader, which was all sand. Above the high tide mark, a castle had been begun. Below it, a bucket lay half full of water. "The bucket's brand new, you see, same as the spade on the first beach. Perhaps the child just began to play there, didn't think the sand was good enough and came on. to this one. Or he may have been lured on, the water's deeper here. Then something happened. There's a mess of footprints in the dry sand though you can't read 'em, and sand has been brought up on the grass of the bank. Looks like a bit of a scrap. His bucket got sunk here, his spade floated away and was left by the falling tide down below. He went into the water and was caught in the boulders between there and here."

"Yes. Quite good," Reggie smiled. "Confirmin' the provisional hypothesis with corrections. Not so rough now, Captain. However. Hypothesis still inadequate."

"How is the boy, sir?" Underwood asked eagerly

"My dear chap!" Reggie's tone was a melancholy rebuke. "Don't bear talking about." Brooke stared a him. He shook his head, he linked arms with Brooke and Underwood and drew them away from the ears of the local constable. "Boy's not too bad, no," he murmured. "But we don't play that card yet. Goin' to give me any more, Underwood?"

"I think I am, sir." Underwood turned back to the sandy trampled grass. "Look, those seem to be heel prints."

Reggie pored over the marks. "They are, yes."

"And the boy wore sandals," said Underwood. "No heels to them."

"As you say. Presence of some other person indicated. With small heels. Female heels. Further confirmin' our hypothesis of the lady who wore primroses."

Underwood nodded. "There's a bit more too." He went round the flattened grass and pointed to an alder bush hanging over the stream. "See that?" On the twigs was a woman's dirty handkerchief.

Reggie's eyes narrowed as he glanced from it back to the beach where the bucket lay and on to the boulders in which Arthur Corder had been found. "Betwixt and between. Suggestin' exact point boy Arthur was pushed in." He moved to the handkerchief, going delicately, watching each step. "Oh!" He stopped short. "Lady with heels was here also. High heels."

"Yes, sir," Underwood agreed. "Just left one print in that soft patch."

"Though she was so careful," Reggie murmured. "They can't be careful enough when you're on the job, Underwood." He picked up the handkerchief. "Smudged with damp sand. As from the beach. Embroidered with the letter S. Brooke, do you know any lady who - -"

"The devil!" Brooke exclaimed, "Mrs. Flambard's name is Sylvia."

"More confirmation of the hypothesis." Reggie looked about him with a bleak, curious stare. "Well, Underwood? Anything else?"

"There is, sir. This way." Underwood walked up stream some yards and showed in moss - covered mire prints of high heeled shoes. "I've measured 'em. They're about size seven. And going up stream, you see."

Reggie turned on Brooke. "Where Mrs. Flambard lives. We'll go up also, Captain. Send your constable back to bring the car round there. Collect the bucket, Underwood."

Brooke and Underwood caught him up at the foot of a sharp slope in the path, where the tide flow ended, blocked by a weir over which the stream came with a shimmering fall.

"Anything occur to you?" He looked from Brooke's keen, stern face to the meditative calm of Underwood.

"The more we get, the more it's like a maniac's crime," Brooke growled.

"I wouldn't deny that," said Underwood. "But I don't understand why we found no footprints below where the child was." His grave eyes consulted Reggie. "Nor why they're all going up."

"My dear chap!" Reggie purred. "Crucial questions. However. There they are again. High heels sunk deep. But three heels now. Four."

Underwood whipped out his measuring tape. "All these prints are the same size as no matter, a woman seven."

"Two women comin' up from unconscious child. Feet the same size. Curious and interestin'."

"You can't be sure there were two," Brooke objected. "All the prints may have been made by one."

"Excuse me, sir, no," said Underwood. "The heels are different."

"That is so. Yet both sets of prints point up," Reggie murmured. "Interestin' and curious. Come on."

After a little way they found no more prints. The track was hard and bare and passing a gate became a gravelled path lined with rhododendrons. Soon it brought them into the garden of a grey stone house. Turning round the lawn to the door they passed a French window.

In the room behind it a man sat with two women, one grey - haired, one younger. The younger started up, the man turned as they went by, they heard a woman's voice cry: "That was Captain Brooke."

"Who is your lady friend?" Reggie whispered, stopping Brooke before they came to the door.

"I don't know which of them spoke," Brooke frowned. "I didn't look in. There are three women in the family, Mrs. Flambard, Mrs. Courtenay, Flambard's aunt, and her daughter Caroline."

"Oh. Two only in that room. With one man. I want Mrs. Flambard. Underwood will deal with the servants."

Brooke went on and rang the bell. Reggie took the child's bucket from Underwood, talked soft and fast into his ear and received a look of sagacious and gratified understanding.

The old butler who opened the door was visibly distressed and quavered at the bark of Brooke's demand for Mrs. Flambard. He was sorry, the mistress was not well, but Mr. Flambard was at home. He showed Brooke and Reggie into the room with the French window. Underwood stayed behind in the hall. Flambard, a lean, brown man, rose stiffly. "I am here on duty, Flambard," Brooke told him. "This is Mr. Fortune, the expert of the Criminal Investigation Department."

"Investigatin' a case of murder," Reggie drawled. His hands were behind him holding the bucket. He looked from Flambard's wretchedness to the younger woman, a stalwart creature of comely but vapid countenance. "Mrs. Flambard?" he enquired. She giggled.

"No, no. My cousin. Miss Courtenay," Flambard stammered. "My aunt, Mrs. Courtenay."

Reggie bowed to them. "I beg your pardon." He met the eyes of Mrs. Courtenay which did not forgive him. "I have to see Mrs. Flambard."

"My poor niece is very ill, sir," said Mrs. Courtenay. 

"Oh! How long has she been like that?"

"She has never been well since her son was drowned." Mrs. Courtenay turned to Flambard. "Has she, Bevil?"

"No, she's not been herself," Flambard muttered. "Too bad. A whole year. Almost exactly a year since the boy was - er - drowned." Reggie moved forward, brought the bucket from behind his back and put it on the table. Caroline Courtenay gave a shrill cry. Her mother leaned forward, lips parted, eyes dilating. "Flambard," said Reggie, "ever seen that before?"

Flambard approached it unsteadily, took it up as y it hurt him. "It's just like Johnny's," he groaned. "But it's new, quite new." He dropped it.

"As you say. Another child - disappeared - this morning. Just like your son Johnny. I said we were investigatin' murder. Did - -"

"Who?" Mrs. Courtenay interrupted.

"A child, same age as your boy, Flambard, was decoyed from the sea this morning. Arthur Corder. Did you know him?"

"I never heard of him," Flambard muttered.

"Known to you ladies?" Reggie asked.

Caroline shook her head. "I have no acquaintance with anyone called Corder," said Mrs. Courtenay.

"And your wife, Flambard?"

"She doesn't meet anyone, she doesn't go anywhere. She's not fit."

"But she does go out," Reggie drawled. "She went out to - day, what?"

Flambard sank into a chair and turned his face to the wall.

With cold curiosity Reggie looked at Mrs. Courtenay and her daughter, looked them over from head to foot and on their feet his glance lingered. "Some other woman was down by the Brayle river this morning," he drawled.

"I was," said Mrs. Courtenay. "Dr. Pero has warned us that Sylvia should not be out alone, she has dangerous fits of melancholy. A little after breakfast I was told that she had left the house. She does sometimes, poor thing. She will try to go to the sea again. I walked down the path by the river. I came upon her by the weir, in a hysterical condition. I could hardly get her back to the house. When she was back she collapsed in one of her worst fits of depression. I put her to bed and sent for Dr. Pero and he brought a consultant, they are both with her now."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Did you see small boy near Mrs. Flambard?"

"She had no one with her when I found her."

"You didn't see the bucket either?"

"Certainly not. Of course I thought of nothing but Sylvia."

"Naturally." Reggie turned to Flambard. "I'll talk to your wife now."

Flambard's haunted eyes looked round. "She can't tell you anything," he muttered.

"I wonder. Take me up." Flambard did not move. "Your mistake," said Reggie, and rang the bell.

Flambard started up. "Don't do that. This is my house. She's my wife."

 "Keep your head, Flambard," Brooke struck in. "I must have Mr. Fortune see her."

Flambard scowled, muttered that he would ask the doctors, and went out.

Reggie, moving to the door, said over his shoulder to Brooke, "Want to know about this bucket, Captain, want to know who was down by the sea the day Johnny Flambard vanished. Ask the ladies."

Flambard stumbled upstairs and along a corridor in which a maid stood waiting. He went into a room and shut the door in Reggie's face. Reggie and the maid contemplated each other. She was of middle age or more, flat - bosomed, her face drearily smug.

Flambard came out again with the two doctors. "You know who I am?" Reggie murmured.

"Certainly, Mr. Fortune." The elder of them, a little, fussy fellow, shook hands. "My name is Pero. I have attended Mrs. Flambard ever since she was married. This is Dr. Sennor, whom I consult in all my - ahem! - mental cases." The imposing presence of Sennor deigned to bow.

"Oh yes," Reggie smiled. "You understand the position? I have to examine your patient."

"We must be present, sir," Sennor told him.

"By all means." Reggie turned. "Send that maid downstairs, Flambard. Now then."

Pero took him into Mrs. Flambard's room. The curtains were half drawn. He pulled them back, he looked all over the room before he went to the bed. The face on the pillow did not open its eyes. It was livid white, cheeks sunken, lips pale and drawn down in an expression of misery. It seemed as small as a child's. About it brown hair was tumbled, lustreless, uncared for.

Reggie sat down beside her. He raised one of her eyelids and saw the blue iris dull, the pupil tiny. She gave no sign of consciousness. He lifted her head, turned it this way and that, moving the hair aside. Sennor raised his eyebrows at Pero in supercilious surprise. But Reggie worked over the small, emaciated body from head to heel. She made no movement, her breathing hardly lifted her breast. . . .

Reggie rose and gave a gesture to the door. Pero opened it and Sennor went out first. The corridor was empty.

"What were you going to tell me?" Reggie asked. 

"I was first consulted by Dr. Pero on the patient a year ago," Sennor began to lecture, "when she lost her only son by a mysterious misadventure. I formed the opinion in which Dr. Pero fully concurred that she was suffering from melancholia. It is always difficult to determine the exact degree of mental disorder in such cases. I have since been called in twice. The patient's physical condition has become steadily worse, fits of loss of control have recurred. When I reached the house to - day I found the patient in a fit of melancholic mania. She was weeping continuously and from time to time she screamed that her son was dead and that she had killed him, she killed everyone. I administered a sedative - -"

"Thanks. I did notice it," Reggie murmured. 

"An acute observation." Sennor was sarcastic. "This afternoon I found the patient calmer but in the deepest depression. She would answer no questions on the cause of her fit, except by again accusing herself of murdering her child. A little while ago she lapsed into unconsciousness."

"Your sedative havin' taken effect. Gave her a stiff dose, what?"

"If you had seen her earlier, Mr. Fortune - -"

"Sorry I didn't. However. What's your conclusion? Prepared to certify she's insane?"

Sennor cleared his throat. "Dr. Pero is in agreement with me. For her own safety, as well as the safety of others, she should be removed from home and placed under control."

"Well, well." Reggie smiled awry. "Told her husband? How did he take it?"

"Mr. Flambard was naturally distressed. But he realised the unfortunate necessity."

"Wise of him."

"I am happy to find your opinion coincides with my own." Sennor was patronising.

"I didn't say that. No. Necessary to remove her - for her own safety. Told me all you observed in your patient?"

"Everything relevant, Mr. Fortune." Sennor was haughty.

"My dear doctor! Oh, my dear doctor. Omittin' the essential. Large bruise on the back of the head. Somebody hit her only a few hours ago. Say this morning. She's not safe in this house. She must go to hospital at once, Pero. Don't you leave her a minute till she's there. You're responsible. I'll send an ambulance. Good - bye." Pero gaped at Sennor and bustled back into the bedroom.

Reggie ran downstairs to the telephone in the hall, called up the hospital, gave his instructions. Then the hospital talked to him. . . .

"Thanks. Good - bye." He looked along the hall to the old butler who was hovering within earshot. "Where's my Inspector Underwood?"

"I couldn't say, sir. The gentleman has left house."

"Has he!" Reggie went out. A car with a police driver was waiting. The large constable who had been sent to fetch it stood on the doorstep. He gave Reggie a folded page torn from a notebook.

"Handed me by Inspector Underwood for you, sir."

The epistle was: "Sevens. Mrs. C., Miss C., Mrs. C.'s maid, Davies. Mr. F. fours." This written neatly, a scrawl followed: "Davies quit. Following. Will ring P.S."

Reggie returned to the room with the French window. Brooke stood, silent and grim. Mrs. Courtenay was talking fast. Reggie caught the words: "Poor Sylvia" before she stopped at the sight of him. "Yes as you say," he drawled, "Dr. Pero has arranged for her to go to hospital at once, Flambard."

"Ah, it's the best thing, isn't it, Mr. Fortune?" Mrs. Courtenay cried.

"The only thing," said Reggie. "Come on, Captain.' He hurried Brooke away to the car and told the driver "Police station. Quick." He gave Brooke Underwood epistle. "That's why."

"Mrs. Courtenay, her daughter and her maid," Brooke frowned.

"Yes. Mother and daughter both fine large feet."

"Mrs. Courtenay owned she went to the river."

"She did. Havin' seen me look at her feet. Besides, half the household must have seen her bring Mrs. Flambard back. Good story, her story. Told all the truth she thought we were bound to get."

"It's an infernal mystery. She did find Mrs. Flambard by the river. Mrs. Flambard was with the boy there and yet she left no footprints."

"Nor did the high heels, till they were draggin' her back. She wouldn't. She's as light as a feather. She wore heelless rubber shoes, as a sensible woman would, goin' to the beach. I saw them in her bedroom wet and sandy."

"Sensible!" Brooke protested. "She decoyed that child to drown him."

"Decoyed, yes. Poor soul. She didn't mean to drown him, Captain. She took him for her own."

"Mad!" said Brooke.

"Not sane now, no. God help her," Reggie murmured, rare words from him. "She was hit on the head this morning. Captain. I found the bruise though these useful doctors didn't. Hit from behind. Enough to stun her."

"By one of the other women?"

"Oh yes. Yes. What did you get out of mother and daughter?"

"About the bucket and one of them being down by the sea when Johnny was drowned? I'll take my oath that girl Caroline knows something queer. She had the jitters while Mrs. Courtenay was out of the room. When she came back she did all the talking, talked me deaf about Mrs. Flambard's delusions."

"Came back," Reggie repeated, "so Mrs. Courtenay left you while I was up with Sylvia Flambard? To push off the maid? I wonder."

Brooke saw his lips parted, his eyes wide and eager, he sat up tense and alert. "What is it, Fortune?"

"I don't know," Reggie spoke in a voice of dreams. The car stopped at the police station. He ran in, Brooke at his heels. "Any message from Inspector Underwood for Mr. Fortune?"

"Yes, sir. Just come through. 'She booked to Townmouth by six - fifty. Will ring police station there.'" Reggie ran back to the car.

"You're devilish keen," said Brooke as they drove away into the dark. "What do you expect to do with the maid?"

Reggie made no answer for a while, then he said softly as if he was talking to himself: "It could be. Yes, it could be. Sorry, Captain. Haven't done much yet. The boy Arthur, I heard from the hospital, he's conscious again and he don't remember a thing after he was playing by the sea. Probably won't, for a long time anyway. A lot of cases of concussion go like that. Sylvia Flambard - when she comes out of the morphia, we shan't know whether she's talking facts or delusions. Mrs. Courtenay - no evidence. But the maid's going to be caught in an act." . . .

The car climbed over moorland into roaring gusts which brought a deluge of rain, they could see nothing but the gleam of the headlights on the downpour, hear nothing but the storm for long miles.

When the last of the squall passed, a glimmer shone against the sky. The car rushed switchbacks and slowed down a long hill into gleaming, busy streets and stopped. A man in plain clothes came to the door of the police station. "Hallo, Jenkin," Brooke greeted him. "Any message from Inspector Underwood?"

"Yes, sir. He got a constable to 'phone for him. "'She is in 37 Pool Lane.' That's a low quarter."

"Come and get her," said Brooke.

Jenkin directed the car through empty business streets, pulled it up in a pungent odour of docks and went down a narrow lane, ill lit but for the glare from a noisy tavern at the far end.

Reggie was suddenly aware of Underwood at his elbow saying: "Next house. The maid came straight there. A woman let her in. No one's come out since. All dark."

Jenkin rang and knocked at the door, flashed a torch on the fat, frowsy woman who opened it. "We are police officers," he pushed her back and strode into the dirty passage. "You have a woman here, name of Davies. I want her."

"Don't you shove me about, in my own house too, you ain't got no right," she blustered, but she was short of breath.

"Your house, is it? What do you use it for?" Jenkin asked, and Underwood thrust past her, shone his torch into one room and went on to another.

"Here you are then," they heard him say. "Did you think you could get away with this? I'll show you." He dragged out into the passage Mrs. Courtenay's flat chested maid, no longer smug but in a fury.

"You leave me be," she screamed. "I'll have the law of you."

There was some movement overhead. Reggie snatched Jenkin's torch and turned it up the stairs. "Who's there?" he called, but there was no answer. He tried a door and found it locked, he flung himself against it and burst in. The torch light shone upon little, dirty faces, upon children cowering together in a corner. The room stank. The floor was spread with mattresses, gaping straw. The children were in rags, the rags of day clothes. They had nothing else to cover them for the night.

Brooke stood in the doorway. "A damned baby farm!" he exploded, and the children whimpered.

"All over now," Reggie laughed. "Nothing to be afraid of any more. We're friends. Goin" to take you all away from this horrid place. Jonathan! Johnny Flambard! Johnny!"

A wisp of a boy, all eyes, started forward and shrank back and began to cry. Reggie picked him up. "There's a man! You've got 'em all out, Johnny."

Brooke plunged downstairs. A police whistle blew....

It was close on midnight before a constable took Davies, the maid, out of the room at the police station in which Brooke and Underwood and Reggie had dealt with her and her friend, the baby farmer of Pool Lane.

"What devils," Brooke growled.

"Yes. Better out of the world, all of 'em," Reggie answered. "However. We can make it safe from 'em for a while."

"I'll make 'em pay, too," said Brooke fiercely. "But that woman, Mrs. Courtenay, she must be mad."

"Don't worry. Captain, she won't get off on that. Not if I know my British jury. We found Johnny starved in a baby farm where children die quick and often. Davies was on the premises and Davies is Mrs. Courtenay's maid. Plenty more to make a jury see red. The baby farmer says Davies planted Johnny on her, as a friend's child, name James Smith, paying twenty pounds to be rid of him for ever and then turned up to - night askin' her to get rid of him quick for another fifty. Which she wouldn't hear of, not she. Davies' story, Mrs. Courtenay had a hold on her. Which may be true. Probably she has a past, possibly a baby who was also farmed out. So she was made to help kidnap Johnny. Mrs. Courtenay drove her down to the beach last year, she stole Sylvia Flambard's dog and shut him up in the boot of the car. While Sylvia was huntin' him Mrs. Courtenay told the child mother had gone off with father and he was to come home with her. When they got him in the car, Mrs. Courtenay doped him and let the dog out and drove over here and left Davies to plant the child on the baby farm. Next day Mrs. Courtenay sent her to drop a shoe of his in the sea. 

Probably all true. The torturin' brain is Mrs. Courtenay's. After which, says Davies, Mrs. Flambard was very hard to live with. Seems to have hated her more for sufferin'. Not a nice woman, Davies. The year went round. Mrs. Flambard, half off her head, took to playin' with a new bucket and spade like Johnny's. We shan't get evidence who put them in her way. But daughter Caroline knows. It was Mrs. Courtenay. Not mad. Oh no. Only lovin' to torture, watchin', and hopin' to shut up Sylvia in a mad house if she couldn't hang her. The spring came again, the day Johnny vanished. Sylvia went pickin' primroses down to the sea with her new bucket and spade to find him. She wrote Jonathan's name in the sand. She found the boy Arthur, thought he was her own, brought him away from the cruel sea to play with the beautiful bucket on a safe river beach. And there Mrs. Courtenay came on 'em from behind, knocked her out, flung boy Arthur in the river. Davies won't own to know about that. Don't matter. Don't need the boy Arthur case now. But it happened. 

Davies' tale, she met Mrs. Courtenay near the house with Sylvia in wild hysterics. Then we arrived and made trouble. Underwood was talkin' of murder to the servants. We talked murder to Mrs. Courtenay. You were askin' was she out, was her daughter out when Johnny vanished. She ran away from that. She was scared cold. So was Davies. I'd given her a jerk when I found her eavesdroppin'. Davies says Mrs. Courtenay came to her and told her to rush over to the baby farmer and wipe Johnny out for good and all."

"Devilish woman," Brooke growled. "And you tell me she's not mad!"

"I do, yes. She hated Sylvia for daring to marry the man she wanted her daughter to marry. Common emotion in mothers. Mrs. Courtenay acted on it, that's all. Being by nature devilish cruel, as you say. Natural regret we can't hang her. Only a smashin' sentence for kidnappin'. Pity. However. First duty to save life. We have." . . .

A day or two after Reggie brought Johnny Flambard into the room where Sylvia lay still and listless. The child faltered and shrank behind him. "She's all right," said Reggie. Sylvia's heavy eyes turned to look. "Do you remember this great big man, Mrs. Flambard?" He drew the child forward. "Ah!" She gave a quivering cry, she started up and flung her arms wide. "You've come! You've come! It is you!"

"Yes." The child drew near her timidly. "Don't cry, Mummy."

"No, of course not." She gathered him to her bosom. "I'm for you."

THE SPIDER'S WEB

IT WAS A scene of vain ambition. Darius, Mr. Fortune's blue Persian cat, sat with the carnations on the window table, his golden eyes gazed out and up at pigeons fluttering by the parapet opposite. He opened his mouth and, with a small but exceeding bitter cry, called them to come down and be caught.

Mr. Fortune awoke from meditation on the mystery of life and 1924 claret and reasoned with him. The telephone then rang. Darius, who will never tolerate that, leaped down and stalked majestically to the door.

The chair of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department was empty when Mr. Fortune entered his room, but after a minute or two he arrived violently. "Good fellow, Reginald. This is the devil of a business."

"Oh my Lomas! Recover calm. What business?"

"Damme, haven't you heard? It's all over the town. The papers have got it by now. Joe Locke's disappeared. You know him, Sir Joseph Locke, the Judge. We couldn't keep it quiet. He ought to have been sitting in Court this morning. He didn't turn up, not a word from him. They had a rare to - do. And all we have is that he went walking in his grounds last night and this morning couldn't be found."

"Judge of the High Court eloped, kidnapped or - murdered and body abolished. You are goin' it. But Joe Locke! The weakest old bird on the bench."

"Certainly not a hanging judge," Lomas frowned. "Most humane man, always did his best for the prisoner."

Reggie smiled awry. "As you say. Sometimes tempered mercy with justice. And he vanishes - phut. Plungin' into scandal or the victim of brutal crime. Who'd have thought it?"

They both had a vision of Sir Joseph Locke's prim, effeminate face, recalled his thin voice piping reproofs and homilies. "It is damnable," said Lomas vehemently.

"Shakes confidence, yes. Lived in the country, did he?"

"A few miles out, near Elstree. He didn't care for London, he was a keen gardener."

"Joe Locke?" Reggie sat up. "No! Often walked in the garden these autumn nights?"

"It was his regular habit after dinner. He did everything by rule."

"Oh yes." Reggie's tone was satiric. "A little study would show how to catch him alone. Any trace of action in his garden?"

"I have Underwood out there now."

"Any wife or what not?"

"Locke was a bachelor. I don't believe he ever thought of a woman in his life."

"Not as such, no. All this bein' thus why send for me? What is the official theory? That his mind's given way? It could be. Not much mind. Too much conscience. Sometimes an explosive mixture. That all has been discovered and he's flown?"

"Nothing of the sort. Locke's as cool as a fish. He's never had a doubt he was right."

"As a judge? No, not he. Happy nature. Stood no nonsense from evidence. What then? Was he made away with by some expert witness he wouldn't believe? It wasn't me."

"There's no time to be facetious, Reginald."

"I'm not. Thinkin' of the Esther Rose murder. You remember - five years ago. Girl found in the Regent's Canal, head smashed. My evidence, injuries inflicted before death by hammer with chipped head. Good police work proved one Stephen Gallagher had had an affair with the girl and a hammer as described was missing from the house where he lodged. Defence, the girl drowned herself and her head got crushed by tugs and barges. Which was impossible. Joe Locke told the jury they shouldn't take any notice of me, and they made Mr. Stephen Gallagher not guilty."

"Of course I remember. The case depended on your opinion."

"Oh no. No. Not a matter of opinion. Matter of fact. Joe Locke don't know the difference. Hence a gross miscarriage of justice."

"I dare say you're right," Lomas shrugged, "but what's the point of bringing up the Esther Rose case? A murderer Locke let off is the last man on earth to make away with him."

"Reasonable inference," Reggie sighed and his eyelids drooped. "Well?"

"A fellow whom Locke didn't let off came out of prison a fortnight ago. Locke had given him seven years for burglary and assault. Wilson's his name, he was caught coming out of a little jeweller's shop in Kensington, he hadn't got much for his pains but he beat up the two policemen who caught him, and Locke never was lenient to that."

"Something he could understand. Seven years. Quality of mercy not on in that piece. So Wilson is your suspect."

"Look at these, Reginald." Lomas passed him two envelopes. Cuttings from the telephone directory pasted on addressed them to Sir Joseph Locke at his chambers in the Temple. The post - mark of both was Highbury, the first a week earlier, the second four days later. Both contained sheets of cheap shiny paper. The first, smaller and dirtier than the second, bore a message written with purple indelible pencil in a large, laborious scrawl.

"You durty Dog you dont git off with it you lay to that now. He have My Corn bak on you for good and All so your Frens the cops wont never know your Leery dile agen."

The second was written with black pencil and even more laboured.

"You done the durty on Me now I Corn agen you Leery Dog git your cop Frens to lay for Me He have your dile off."

"Well, well." Reggie looked from one letter to the other. "Man of few words. And the same words."

"Quite. Common form. The illiterate crook has a very small vocabulary."

"Like the politician. Short on ideas too. Who is your crook of one idea, threatening of dirty dog with leery dial, alias Joe Locke?"

"We have no doubt he's Wilson. There are no clear finger prints but the writing is his, we have it in the records, and he is illiterate. You see the dates are soon after his release. He's the only man just out of gaol from a sentence of Locke's, and that was for violence."

"Letters passed to you by Locke?"

"By Locke's clerk. Locke had a rule that he must not be shown threatening letters."

"How like him! And you? Rule of yours not to bother about threats to judges?"

"We only got these two days ago. We went after Wilson and ran him to earth this morning."

"Splendid. Thus nailin' the probable thief soon after the horse was stolen. Yet he hadn't the animal with him?"

Lomas did not allow himself to be irritated. "What do you think of the letters, Reginald?"

"My dear chap! Always believe evidence. Your handwriting people quite good. First letter no doubt from Wilson. But! Paper's been cut down. Neither letter has Joe Locke's name. Curious and interestin'. Second letter contains only two syllables not in first. Interestin' and curious. Possibly traced from the first.

But again! Though many plain men have a grudge against Joe Locke, same like me, we've never done anything about it. Question the violent Wilson on the epistles."

"He's been questioned. He denies having written either." Lomas made a grimace. "Don't tell me he would. Your time is coming. Wilson went straight from prison to stay with a retired bookmaker, a man with no criminal record, plenty of money in a small way and always well thought of. But Mr. Harris lives in Highbury, where the letters were posted. The snag is, Reginald, Wilson says he's been in bed with sciatica since Friday, the Harris household confirm that and the Harris family doctor."

"So that's what I'm wanted for. Has our Wilson spoofed the doctor? It could be. Some spoof is indicated. Give me a chaperone."

With Superintendent Bell Reggie drove up to the door of Mr. Harris. The house was in a road once opulent, and remained spruce amid the decay of its neighbours. In its front garden dahlias made a blaze behind which the garage was almost hidden.

The woman who opened the door had the remains of prettiness, the bow of her mouth, the form of her face still kept a simple charm, but her cheeks were sunken, the big brown eyes had no life in them.

Bell gave his name and told her he had come to see Wilson. "I'll ask Mrs. 'Arris, sir." She left them on the mat.

A fat old woman rustled along the hall, like a barrel in black silk hung with gold chains, crowned by a pile of white hair. From a yellow face, beady eyes gleamed at them. She sniffed, she spoke with the thickness of adenoids. "You gentlebed police? Cub and see by sud."

"Who was it opened the door, Mrs. Harris?" Reggie asked.

"Eh? By lady help, Bissis Wilsod."

"Here I am, mother," a hoarse voice spoke behind her. Down the stairs came a man under middle size but broad shouldered and big of head, aquiline, heavy browed. "Superintendent Bell? Pleased to meet you." He held out a hand on which two diamond rings flashed. "What's your game now, super? Your blokes have put Wilson through it once and he's a sick man."

"I've brought a specialist to see him."

"You're very kind." Harris looked past Bell at Reggie. "Won't you introduce me?"

"Mr. Fortune," said Bell.

"How do you do, sir?" Harris put out his hand to Reggie, his straight wide mouth split in a smile which had no mirth. "Honoured, I'm sure. I'll take you right up." He opened the door of a bedroom. "Here's the police special medico to see you, Bert, Mr. Fortune."

'"Strewth!" came a groan from the bed. The man in it raised himself on his elbow. Reggie saw his eyes wide in a bewildered stare which turned away to Harris.

"You'll be all right with him," said Harris and went out.

Reggie sat down by the bed. Wilson, with a beard of some days' growth, was not attractive. The heavy jaw and chin, emphasized by dark stubble, made his long face ferocious, but his eyes gazed up at Reggie wonder and bovine patience.

"Where is the pain, Wilson?"

"Gawd! Where ain't it, doctor? But it's my blinking right leg reely. I got it in Princetown. Them fogs from the moor are that cold." Reggie examined him. . . .

In a gaudy lounge downstairs Harris gave Bell his opinion of the horses in the Cesarewitch. As Reggie came out of the bedroom Mrs. Wilson shrank away from the door. "'Ow is 'e, doctor?" she panted. "I know 'e's cruel bad, but 'e's that brave to me."

"He'll get over this, Mrs. Wilson," said Reggie.

Harris heard his foot on the stairs and came to meet him. "Finished, Mr. Fortune? Is there any tip you can give our doctor?"

"Oh no. No. Keep Wilson in bed. That's all. His wife's not too good. Worry?"

"What do you think? She's lost years of her man and then prison turns him out to go sick on her hands."

"Hard for her. Has she been with you long?"

"She came here to help mother soon after Wilson was jugged."

"You knowin' about him. Kind of you."

"Don't you believe it. Ellen's handy in the house and she's straight. I can't afford to be kind."

"Sad life." Reggie contemplated him, and met a brooding gaze. The eyes and the bold features were denuded of any expression. As Harris let them out Reggie stopped, looked across the dahlias to the garage.

Bell took the hint. "When did you use your car last, Mr. Harris?"

"Saturday, going to Kempton," Harris answered. "Why?"

"This is Monday," Reggie murmured, and went slowly towards the garage.

"Did anybody have the car out last night?" Bell demanded.

"Nobody. The garage is locked and I keep the key myself."

"Open it up, will you?"

Reggie had stopped close by the garage and was looking at the overgrown luxuriance of the dahlias which narrowed the approach to it. He held up his hand against Bell and Harris as they neared him. They found him in contemplation of a spider's web.

It stretched from the dahlias on one side to red ampelopsis on the garage wall. Many lines of the gossamer network glistened with dew. The spider who owned it was weaving fresh strands of support.

"What's the matter, Mr. Fortune?" Harris asked. "Did you want the super to see her? She is in his line of business."

"Instructive creature, yes. Go on." Reggie made way for him to pass.

Harris unlocked the garage doors. As he pulled one back Bell stopped it and glanced at Reggie. If it had been opened wide enough to let the car out, it would have broken away much of the spider's web.

Harris looked over his shoulder. "Hullo, have I spoilt the spider?"

"Oh no, no. She's all right. Point is well made," Reggie answered. Bell went round the door into the garage with Harris. When they had disappeared Reggie gathered from the dahlias some broken strands of web laden with dew, put them into a flat metal box, detached from the web one of the fresh dry strands just woven, and consigned that to another box. With both in his pockets he entered the garage.

Bell had the doors of the car open and was examining its interior. Harris stood well away from it, his wide mouth curved in a sneer.

The car was big and new, but the outside had not been recently cleaned. Reggie put his head inside. Neither the seats nor the mats showed any mark. He turned away. Bell took up the mats.

"Go on, strip her right down," Harris jeered.

Reggie loitered about the garage, stooped to retie a shoelace and while he did so removed with one finger from the concrete floor something white and spongy. He vanished round the half open door and scraped the white spongy stuff from his finger into a third box. Then he strolled back to the waiting police car. As he reached the front of the house he saw a face at an upper window, the wan face of Mrs. Wilson on watch, her hand over her mouth.

Bell and Harris strode up together. "Good day, super. Good day to you, Mr. Fortune," Harris gave them his mirthless smile. "I suppose I'll know what it was all about some time."

"Sorry Mrs. Wilson's been troubled," Reggie answered.

"Wait for it, Harris," said Bell, and they drove away. "He's a hard case, Mr. Fortune."

"Oh yes, yes. Strong, silent man. Don't think much of the world. I wonder."

"What did you make of Wilson? Is he really sick?"

"No. Swingin' the lead. He knows what sciatica's like. When I handled his thigh he said I hurt him in the right places. But pressure on 'em, if he were bad, would increase the heart's action. And it didn't. Our Wilson could have been up and about last night. And he's a hefty fellow."

"Then his shamming sick makes him all the more suspect."

"As you say."

"There's no doubt his wife's in a rare funk." Reggie's eyelids drooped. "She is. Yes."

"Well and taking all that with the threatening letters to Sir Joseph Locke in Wilson's writing, it looks like he did the job."

"What job?" Reggie's eyes opened wide. 

"Sir? I mean he made away with the old man."

"Oh ah. If Locke was made away with, Wilson could have done it. However. No evidence Locke was or Wilson did. The threatenin' letters only threatened damage to Locke's leery dial. One kind of crime to smash a man's face. Quite another to abolish the body. Where are we goin', Bell?"

"Back to the Yard of course."

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! Reference was to our thoughts, if any. Why the obliteration trick? Not a common trick for the vengeful convict?"

"I grant you," Bell frowned. "But the whole thing's out of the common. We often have a judge threatened. It don't lead to anything once in a lifetime. I - hallo!"

Another police car ranged alongside and signalled. They did not go back to the Yard. They drove off to Sir Joseph Locke's house at Elstree. Lomas met them on the doorstep. "I think we've found the place where the old man was kidnapped, Reginald. You'd better look at it."

"Oh! Kidnapped?" Reggie murmured. "Why?"

"Or murdered, if you like. The body is gone, anyway."

"Is that so? Well, well. Still thinkin' of our Wilson?"

"What did you make of him?"

Reggie explained. ... "Damme, that's fishy," Lomas chuckled. "Here we are."

They were among dwarf trees of many colours, dark cypresses, crimson maples. Reggie looked up at an artificial mountain. Among its concrete boulders grew chunks of bamboo and yuccas and out of them rose statues, a Venus, an Apollo, a Mercury, a Psyche, very white and naked but coy.

Reggie was profoundly affected. "Oh no! No," he moaned and shrank from them. "You have deceived me. You said Joe Locke liked a garden."

"This is it." Lomas grasped his arm and drew him on unwilling to a low hedge of berberis, which had been bent and broken. "Look!"

"Damage quite recent, yes," Reggie sighed. "Somebody fell into the berberis after the dew came down last night." He studied the ground. They were upon close shorn turf, almost dry but here and there showing marks of pressure. It rose in a gentle slope to the roads and on the slope were banks of rhododendrons. He wandered about. He came back to Lomas. "Well. Somebody walked this grass last night. Wearin' rubber shoes. Probably male. Goin' heavy at times. Could have lurked behind the shrubs, come on the old man and laid him out. With the usual blunt instrument. No sign of struggle, no blood or skin. I should say they got him from behind and he fell forward dead to the world and was then taken away. Done very careful. Is that what you wanted?"

"You're losing your nerve, Reginald," Lomas smiled, "I expected you to tell me who they were."

"I have no imagination. I only use evidence."

"Do you think Wilson's the man?"

"He could be. With or without the hospitable Harris. However. No proof. Bafflin' case. No answer in the evidence to the fundamental question."

"Which is that?"

"Oh, my Lomas! Why was Locke taken away?"

"You haven't a theory?" Lomas quizzed him. "You are not yourself. We must see what we can do without you. Look at this." He gave Reggie an envelope.

"My only aunt!" Reggie moaned. "More correspondence. Another epistle to Joe Locke. Where did you get this one?"

"From Locke's butler. It came with the second delivery to - day."

The envelope bore the post - mark of Paddington. The address and the letter were in an old - fashioned feminine hand.

"SIR.

"I wrote you before, didn't you get it, for God's sake take notice of this. The man Stephen Gallagher you let off for killing Esther Rose, God forgive you, he goes by the name of William Smith, keeping a shop in Back Lane, Paddington, and no one knows him, the devil that he is. You have him up again sir. It is you will answer for it on Judgment Day, his hands are dripping blood again and nothing done. Likely he has heard I wrote you. Look to him."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Somebody besides me hasn't forgotten Esther Rose." He gazed at Lomas with wistful eyes. "I wonder."

"Underwood's gone to check it," said Lomas. "Common enough for people who have a grudge against an acquitted man to pitch in letters to the judge or the police. About as common as threats from the convicted or his friends."

"Like the Wilson letters. Yes. Joe Locke gets it both ways. Interestin' and curious. Especially the conjunction. Wilson's just out of gaol. He couldn't threaten before. But this lady friend of Esther Rose, why did she wait years to have her fling at Gallagher? Why wait till Wilson was free?"

They had almost reached the house. Bell hurried to meet them. "Message just come through from Underwood, sir. The man William Smith has been recognised as Gallagher."

"Well, Reginald?" Lomas smiled. "Still Wilson?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. However. Pleasure to meet Gallagher again. Unexpected pleasure. If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. Same like the spider." Reggie glanced at Bell and Bell's stolid face was disconcerted. . . .

Two cars stopped simultaneously at either end of Back Lane, a narrow, mean street. Several men in plain clothes got out of them and strolled along till they came to the shop window which, under the name of W. Smith, displayed second - hand furniture.

The shop stood at the corner of a still narrower street in which were the gates of its yard. Another car drove up the side street. Bell emerged from it, entered the shop and, at the back of it, found Inspector Underwood talking to a man who cringed.

Reggie also came out of the car, but he turned to contemplate the yard gates before he followed Bell into the shop.

"This man has stated that his real name is Stephen Gallagher," Underwood was saying, "and he called himself William Smith for business reasons. He wanted to avoid publicity from the case of Esther Rose in which he was found not guilty."

"That's right, that's putting it fair, Inspector." Gallagher's voice was fruity. He had run to flesh in body and face but the heavy moustache hardly concealed a jut of upper jaw and teeth which, for all the full cheeks, was like a monkey's. His eyes, mingled black and brown and very bright, gazed at Bell with a singular, yearning intensity.

"As to last night," Underwood went on, "his statement is he went to a friend's house on Saturday and didn't get back till this morning."

"Lady friend?" Reggie drawled.

Gallagher looked round Bell and saw him and shook. "Here, who's this, one at a time, what do you mean?" he stammered.

"The name given by Gallagher was Robert Clarke, Matcham 2314," Underwood continued. "I have rung up that number from here but no answer."

"He's out. Inspector, I told you he'd be out," Gallagher explained.

"Very likely," said Bell. "I have a warrant to search your premises, Gallagher."

"What for? I haven't a thing in the place but what I got honest, super," Gallagher broke into dramatic indignation. "I'm just in a small way, but the business is right as rain. It's not fair to come down on me like this. Who's told you anything against me?"

"Who would?" Bell asked. "Give me your keys."

"You won't need keys. I keep nothing locked up."

"Bring him along, Underwood." Bell strode out of the back of the shop and into the yard. Half the space there was covered by a shed, garage or store. Bell tried the door and could not open it. "So you were lying." He turned on Gallagher. "Where's the key of this?"

"I wasn't. I told you the truth," Gallagher became vehement. "The shed isn't locked. I never lock it. There's no need. I lock the gates to the street, that's enough."

"Open this door then."

Gallagher pulled at it and turned tragic eyes on Bell. "It is locked. I swear I never did that. I never do. I haven't been out here since I shut up shop Saturday night. I only got back ten this morning, I haven't had time to look round. There's been some dirty trick played on me."

"Give me the key."

"It's hanging up in the kitchen. I'll get it." Gallagher bustled away and Underwood went with him.

"Did you see his eyes, Mr. Fortune?" Bell muttered.

"Seen 'em before."

"Sort of soulful. Turns my stomach, that kind."

"The hypnotic lady killer. Yes." Gallagher came back breathless. "The key's been pinched, some swine must have got in while I was away yesterday."

"To lock up your shed for you? Likely story," said Bell, and Underwood brought two men into the yard.

They worked at the keyhole, they drew the door back and Bell entered the gloom of the shed. It had a pungent, sickly odour. Bell sniffed.

"You do notice it?" Reggie smiled awry.

"Smells like stale mushrooms."

"That is so. However. Not mushrooms. Merulius lacrymans. Look." Over part of the shed's floor white spongy patches glimmered.

"Dry rot," Bell grunted. "I see."

"Yes. The commonest dry rot. One element."

The shed contained nothing but some broken furniture and old iron and a heap of matting.

Reggie turned back to the men who kept Gallagher outside the door and asked for a torch.

Bell and Underwood had reached the matting. They pulled one piece after another from the heap. Reggie swept the beam of the torch across the white fungus on the planks to planks which were bare. "Mr. Fortune!" Bell spoke in a hoarse whisper.

Reggie shot the torch light that way as the last of the matting was drawn from a man's body. He came to it and turned it over and saw the small, prim features of Sir Joseph Locke smeared with dirt and blood. The blood had flowed from above the left ear and was clotted about a dent in the sparse, white hair.

"Like that," Reggie murmured and looked up at Bell. "As with the late Esther Rose."

"My oath!" Bell gasped. "Is he dead, sir?"

"No. Phone my hospital. Tell 'em I'm bringing a depressed fracture of skull."

Bell and Underwood strode out and Reggie knelt down by the unconscious judge. He heard Bell growl at Gallagher. "Do you know what I found in your shed?"

"I do not, super. There was nothing there but a bit of old junk when I left it, I'll swear there wasn't. If you found anything else it's been planted on me. I told you I been away since Saturday and some crook broke in and stole the key."

"That's the story! You'll be charged with attempt to murder Sir Joseph Locke, the judge."

"I never did, sir," Gallagher panted. "I never seen Judge Locke since I was up before him, and a fair deal he gave me. I wouldn't hurt him for the world, why should I?" He was dragged away whining and whimpering. 

Bell entered the shed again. "You heard that, sir? Will it be only attempted murder?"

"This? Yes, I think so. Locke should come through. Unlike Esther Rose." Reggie stood up. "Otherwise strikin' similarity. Blow in same place, same kind of weapon, and as before weapon is missing." He swept the beam of the torch over the floor. "I wonder." He shifted his weight from foot to foot and made a plank near the body move. "Weapon might have been put underneath."

"It might," Bell frowned. "But if you come to that, Gallagher might as well have hidden the body under the floor."

"Longer job." Bell tried the plank. "This is rocky," he agreed, walked along and stamped on one end. That went down and the other jerked up. On the earth beneath lay a heavy carpenter's hammer.

Reggie turned the beam of the torch to it. "Same sort of hammer as applied to Esther Rose. Wedge side of head used once more. Which retains grey hairs and skin. Wonder if Locke will think the evidence sufficient this time." He knelt and put the rays of the torch under the floor and peered after it, then searched the upper side of the floor with the torch light and let it rest on the largest patch of dry rot.

He looked at Bell. "Curious and interestin'."

"I don't get it, sir."

"Oh my Bell! Rich growth of merulius lacrymans. Why didn't Gallagher have his floor up and stop it? Silly name, dry rot. Commonest cause, damp. With lack of ventilation. But this shed's dry and the floor has a foot of air space above the earth. Except - -"

"The ambulance is here. Superintendent," a detective announced.

"One moment. Good air space, Bell, except where the earth has been disturbed and is touchin' the planks. Which is just about under the biggest patch of merulius lacrymans. The start of it. Look into that dug earth. Smell the smell. Not all a mushroom fragrance. Good - bye."

In the evening he drove away from the hospital to dine at that club of his which the other members only use for lunch. He sat long over beef and burgundy before he went with dreamy, wistful eyes to a telephone box and rang up Lomas. "Fortune speakin'. About old man Locke. Fracture relieved. Should make good recovery. Only other injury, blow on back of skull. From the usual blunt instrument. Might have been head of hammer. The blunt side. Injury not dangerous but enough to stun. That's all."

"You deceive yourself, Reginald," Lomas answered. "I want you. We've been trying to get you for the last hour."

"No deception. On the contrary. Expected you'd be callin' me. Hence my seclusion. Minds innocent and quiet take this for a hermitage."

"Come out to Gallagher's shop at once. How long will you take?"

"Go and see," said Reggie and rang off. He got out of a taxi at the shop door. He lit a long cigar. The shop shutters were up, but the door opened as he came to it and from the darkness behind Underwood's voice said: "They're all in the yard, Mr. Fortune."

They passed through the shop. The yard seemed full of men. The door of the shed was shut, but light glimmered beneath it. "Come on, Reginald," said Lomas. Bell pulled the door back and Reggie sauntered in.

Oil lamps burnt on the floor. The air was thick and foul, smell of the dry rot, paraffin vapour and smoke of strong tobacco were mingled with other odours, the acridity of damp soil and a sickly reek of decay.

The lamp light showed a mound of earth and the cavity from which it had been dug. Bell picked up two lamps to hold them over the dark hole. They revealed a woman's clothes and something which had been a face.

Reggie went down into the hole and worked on what he found. . . .

He stood erect, cigar smoke veiled his face. "Thanks very much. Bell. Now you know why Gallagher wouldn't have his rottin' floor repaired. Your hand, Lomas." He pulled himself out of the hole by it. "Well. That was a young woman. Under thirty. Blonde. Been dead more than three months. Fracture of left temple. Same like Esther Rose. Man of regular habits, Gallagher. Send me the remains. Congratulations, Bell. End of a perfect day." He threw away his cigar and lit another and strolled out.

Three days afterwards Lomas found him eating muffins at the only club which, in his opinion, knows how to toast them. "Same for you?" Reggie rang.

"At this hour?" Lomas gasped. It was not four o'clock. "Heaven forbid."

"Feeble fellow. Russian tea for Mr. Lomas," Reggie told the waiter. "Very weak."

"We've straightened it out, Reginald. The woman you described has been traced. She was a shop girl who disappeared six months ago. Her panel doctor cut out that ingrowing toe - nail. Another girl in the shop swears to seeing Gallagher wait for her. Good enough!"

"Yes. As Locke won't try the case. However. Anything about the letters?"

"You mean the letters in Wilson's writing which threatened to smash Locke," Lomas smiled. "They are curious."

"I said that," Reggie moaned.

"We've made enquiries at the prison. Towards the end of Wilson's time an old fence was sent there.

Wilson had always been a good prisoner, but he got into trouble for talking to this fellow, and lost marks. The old fellow went down with bronchitis. Before he died he asked to see the Governor and told a tale - he spoke to Wilson first, he wanted to warn him the rat who put up the job Wilson was caught on was laying for him again. The old fellow wouldn't give the name. But we've found stuff in Gallagher's shop that's stolen property. So Gallagher's real business was putting up burglaries and dealing in the goods."

"Murder of young women just a hobby. I think not. Remember the hypnotic eye."

"Quite. The woman killing type. But you see how this all fits in. If a burglar or fence gave trouble, Gallagher saw to it they went to gaol. He would be nervous when Wilson was coming out. I take it the first threatening letter to Locke was a letter Wilson sent to Gallagher before he was caught. That's why the paper was cut down. Gallagher had to cut his name off it. He knew Wilson's writing was on our records. The second letter was traced from the first. That's why the words used were the same."

Over Reggie's face came a drowsy smile." My Lomas! How you do think of things."

"Camarad," said Lomas. "I know these are the points you made. Does the explanation satisfy you?"

"My dear chap! Absolutely. Those letters were sent by Gallagher so you should go after Wilson."

"And when he made away with Locke, put it down to Wilson. Devilish cunning."

"Devilish is the word." Reggie lay back. "And the other letter? Letter which reached Locke's house after he was removed to Gallagher's nasty shed. Letter which directed us to Gallagher and said his hands were drippin' blood."

"Obviously some woman who had suffered from Gallagher wrote that. God knows who."

"Yes. There might be several."

"I take it Gallagher got to hear this woman was appealing to Locke. That was his motive for murdering the old man. She says in this letter she'd written to Locke before. I want to ask him about that. When will he be fit?"

"Fit enough now," said Reggie.

Sir Joseph Locke lay prone in bed and yet looked much the same as he was wont to look on the bench. A bandage covered the top of his head with an effect like that of the judicial wig. His small - featured face had lost nothing of its usual expression of prim assurance.

Lomas was cordial with regrets and sympathy. Sir Joseph made plain that courtesy was an effort. "I am obliged, Mr. Lomas, I am told that I owe my rescue to your efforts. I must regret that they were necessary."

"So do we," Reggie murmured. "However. This time Gallagher will not be acquitted. Lomas wants to know what you remember about him."

Sir Joseph pursed his thin lips. "I have a perfect recollection of Gallagher's trial, Mr. Fortune. The evidence against him was of no weight. It is inconceivable that he should attempt to murder me because at my direction the jury found him not guilty."

"We found you in Gallagher's shed, Sir Joseph," said Lomas. "Can you tell me how you got there?"

"I cannot. I remember nothing from the time that I was walking in my garden till I recovered consciousness in this room. You must realise, Mr. Lomas, that Gallagher had no reason in the world to desire my death."

"My information is, you had been told of his change of name and of further crimes of his," Lomas retorted brusquely. "I have here a letter to you, delivered at your house the morning after you disappeared. It says: 'I wrote you before,' and it goes on to give Gallagher's address and tell you 'his hands are dripping blood again and nothing done'."

Sir Joseph pursed his thin lips and said: "Preposterous. You amaze me, sir. Surely you are aware that anonymous letters of wild accusation not infrequently come to a judge."

"I didn't say this was anonymous," Lomas snapped, and Sir Joseph flinched. "So you had received a similar letter before you were attacked?"

Sir Joseph took time to think before he answered: "I have no recollection of such a communication."

"If you did get one, if you had passed it to the police you would have escaped Gallagher's murderous assault. But that doesn't matter now. He will never be tried for his attempt on your life. He has murdered another young woman. He buried her in the shed to which he took you."

"Hard on her he got off before," Reggie murmured. "However. This time he won't. Some consolation to you, Sir Joseph."

Below the bandage Sir Joseph's eyes gleamed baleful. When he found voice, he spoke in his most precise tone of reproof. "I need no consolation, sir. This is a terrible story which you submit to me. I am not to give an opinion upon it. In the former case I had a clear duty. I did it."

"Sorry," said Reggie.

They left Sir Joseph, and Reggie took Lomas' arm. "Come along to my room."

"The old man was lying," said Lomas as they sat down before the fire. "He'd had a letter or two on Gallagher before."

"Yes, I think so. Good thing the writer sent that one after Locke's removal. Otherwise - where should we be now?"

Lomas shrugged. Lomas lit a cigarette. "Trying to make a case against Wilson."

"As you say. Well. No matter now. As you told Locke. Nobody will stand in the dock for breaking his head. Which is roughly just. Satisfied with the thank you. However. It wasn't Gallagher who smashed his head and put him in the shed. Must have been a nasty blow. Gallagher merely had to hide the body under the matting there till he could put it away. And the letter to Locke we did get was sent to make sure the expert police would go over the shed thorough."

"Good Gad!" Lomas groaned. "What a mind you have! The case is perfectly clear, so you must start inventing fancies to muddle it."

"Not me. No. Case against Gallagher for murder of the girl Locke himself couldn't muddle. But I believe evidence. I should say the old fence who died in prison passed to Wilson a good many tips about Gallagher. What he called himself, where he lived and his game with this second girl. Wilson came out and handed the glad news to our Mr. Harris. Strong, silent man. Broodin' gaze. Broodin' mind. If we could dig things up we might find Mr. Harris had a likin' for Esther Rose, Gallagher's first known victim. No other reason for Mr. Harris to take a hand. 

Well, the broodin' Harris planned to get even with Locke and Gallagher. Found out Locke's habit of walkin' in his awful garden after dinner. Found out when Gallagher left his shop at night. Got a woman to write to Locke about Gallagher. Took Wilson in his car on Sunday night, Wilson havin' shammed sciatica to the family doctor. They waylaid Locke in the garden, stunned him from behind, the first bloodless blow, carried him to the car, dumped him in Gallagher's shed and fractured his skull, same like Esther Rose, the blow which bled. Harris must have enjoyed that. Then posted another letter to Locke so that police should find him and anything else there was to find in the shed. There you are."

"Good story, Reginald." Lomas lit another cigarette. "One of your finest fancies."

'"Tisn't fancy." Reggie was hurt. "Facts. Only way it could have happened. Believe the evidence."

Lomas burst out laughing. "I do. What evidence is there for your wonderful story? You thought Wilson's sciatica was a sham. I daresay you're right. He would put up an alibi when he heard of Locke's disappearance."

"My Lomas! That don't go. Sham sciatica certified before Locke vanished. Ready to make alibi for Sunday night."

"Well, if it was a sham!" Lomas shrugged. "But you forget Bell found a dewy spider's web across the door of Harris' garage on Monday morning. He was sure the door couldn't have been opened during the night."

"He was. Yes." Reggie went to a steel cabinet and came back with three small boxes. "Harris made that point well. With web as found on Monday, door could not be opened wide. And the web had been woven some time. Same like Harris's web of plot. But spider was repairin' the web on Monday. It had been broken. Exhibit A," he opened the boxes, "old strands still wet from dew. Exhibit B, long strand dewless, fresh from spider. The garage door was open to let the car in and out Sunday night. Exhibit C. Final and conclusive exhibit. Scrap of merulius lacrymans found on floor of garage by me. Dry rot. Picked up by shoes of Wilson or Harris in Gallagher's beastly shed."

Lomas made a grimace. "You win. It is evidence. Do you suggest we can use it? We have Gallagher for the murder of the girl buried in the shed. Would any jury believe he was innocent and Hams and Wilson guilty of smashing Locke as she was smashed I and hiding him in the shed with her?"

Over Reggie's face came a small, benign smile. "Not likely. No. Better not try. Joe Locke don't like evidence."

He emptied the boxes into the fire.

Some months after Gallagher was hanged and Sir Joseph Locke had resigned, Reggie saw in the list of subscriptions to his hospital the name of David Harris. Mr. Harris had sent £500.

THE FIGHT FOR THE CROWN

MR. FORTUNE is still taken by his wife to the private view of the Royal Academy. He calls this wanton exercise of dominion, for the crowds in which everybody is somebody drearily weaken his desire to live and let live. Mrs. Fortune says that she must pretend, in spite of everything, he is a respectable husband.

At the private view which produced this story he did misconduct himself deplorably. They were in the room of the most fashionable portraits, he was not looking at them more than he could help, but the portrait of a bishop insisted on catching his bewildered eyes.

It used every trick of the trade. The bishop, with detail of apron and gaiters and episcopal ring on ethereal hand magnified and sharp, stood out of the canvas, a lean figure some seven feet high, though bowed with care. From the bloodless, fleshless face his eyes turned up so that their sorrowful yearning could be displayed in the shimmer of sunlight from a window beyond which stretched an impressionist vista of mean streets presided over a church.

Mr. Fortune burst out laughing. The bishop was too like a burlesque of all that bishops should be.

"Reggie," his wife rebuked him in a whisper. But he continued to look and laugh, and she left him to his iniquity.

After a minute or two he became aware that others disapproved of him. Three ladies of imposing presence, of assured importance swept upon the picture. "Here it is, Tessa!" the smaller blonde announced. "Sir Robert has just admitted it is the picture of the year, hors concours."

The larger blonde made connoisseur's grimaces. "Michael has certainly never done so fine a male portrait. Such power of emotion. Quite an El Greco intensity. How he has advanced, Tessa!"

Tessa, who was dark and still handsome, posed between them. "It's a striking picture." Her accent was less refined. "He has something and it works free now. But where's the charm? Michael won't get anywhere if he can't deliver that."

The blondes, talking critical jargon, took her away, much admired.

A scrap of Gilbert and Sullivan hummed in Reggie's head. "If you're anxious for to shine in the high aesthetic line - -" He knew the important ladies by sight, a fate none could escape who looked at the picture papers. Lady Crandon, the large blonde, Mrs. Mapes the smaller, stars of the first magnitude in the patronage of fashionable art, had recently condescended to take up the handsome brunette, Mrs. Tessa Roland, an Argentine millionairess without encumbrance.

Who was Michael, the painter of the bishop, the painter they delighted to honour? Reggie is not a student of the art of the Academy. He chuckled at the picture again. Foully clever. A masterpiece of reeking sentiment. But a fellow who could paint as well as that, he should have known it was naughty stuff. Reggie turned over the catalogue. The painter was Michael Tyrrell, R.A. He had some other pictures in the show. Reggie went to look at them - portrait of the bride of the season, portrait of the K.G. with the highest fees, both very tense, ineffably sweet and fierce, mighty clever work, slick, showy, false.

Michael Tyrrell was only showing one other picture and the title of that was "Naked to Laughter."

"Well, well. Can't be a portrait anyway," Reggie consoled himself as he sidled through the crowd into one of the smaller rooms. "I should like to see Tyrrell's notion of a laugh."

It was not amusing. The picture consisted of sun in a wintry sky, scattered cloud and a fading rainbow and a vague dark earth. "My only aunt!" Reggie murmured. Michael Tyrrell had been much more than clever on that canvas. It was nothing but light and shadow, but in the wild, bleak pattern of the sky was something like an elfish face, child's or woman's, and through the gloom beneath dim rainbow colour mocked at the white body of a man.

Oh ah," Reggie remarked to himself. "'Naked to Laughter.' As in the book of the words. You are more than somewhat, Mr. Tyrrell. My error."

He turned from people who were saying how futile of Tyrrell to turn freakish, and observed his wife in conversation with a man who had a honey - coloured beard and soulful eyes. The combination gave him profound alarm. Mrs. Fortune has an aptitude for finding lame dogs which are not lame to help them over stiles which do not exist. Her only fault as a wife, but incorrigible. He heard her say: "But of course I will come, Michael," in the tone which has made all sorts and conditions of men adore her.

Reggie moaned and slunk away to comfort himself with another laugh at Michael Tyrrell's bishop. He found the portrait beset by a dense throng. On the outskirts thereof he was elbowed by a beautiful young man with side whiskers and the rest to match, who had on his arm a girl in something like a sky blue nightgown and a prehistoric big hat. The man obtained for her a view of the bishop and said: "Mike has sold it to the mob this time."

"Oh gosh!" The girl retreated upon him. "Come away."

The man turned up his eyes in the bishop's sanctimonious manner. "But what genius, dear child," he intoned.

She glared, she giggled. "You are a beast, Adrian."

She took him away and as she passed Reggie beheld a thin face, fresh coloured without help of powder or paint, half sad, half naughty, altogether elfish, like the phantom of Tyrrell's "Naked to Laughter."

When rediscovered by Mrs. Fortune, Reggie lay on a couch in her drawing - room, the tea tray beside him, its plate of cream cakes half empty.

"Well!" She put a passion of outraged wifehood into the one word. He bent over the last of an eclair, he raised his head to contemplate her with cold curiosity. "Woman, tell me the worst."

"I have an impossible husband." She swept upon him. She rumpled his hair. "Worthless, helpless, hopeless. For ever and ever the wholly immoral small boy."

"This abuse is vain," Reggie sighed. "I could grow a beard if I had no mind. Tell me all, woman. How far have you gone with it?"

Mrs. Fortune compressed her pleasing lips. "I loathe you. And the tea is cold."

"Yes, I think so. And the eclairs are gone. My other name is Nemesis, Joan."

"Ring the bell."

"That is only one of a husband's functions," said Reggie as he obeyed. "His major duty is to hear confessions. Who is Tyrrell, what is he that I mustn't laugh at him?"

"Did you behave abominably? Yes. Why should you make an exhibition of yourself to guy - - "Mrs. Fortune broke off her sentence as the parlourmaid came in.

"More tea, please," said Reggie, "And some sackcloth and ashes."

When the maid, unperturbed, had gone, "That was detestable," Mrs. Fortune told him.

"Oh no. Parker took it as a bit of our conversation Which it was. You were about to say I guyed Tyrrell's bishop. Not me. Him. Who is Tyrrell?"

"Michael Tyrrell's a genius."

"My dear girl! Oh, my dear girl! Not with bishops."

"It was brilliantly painted."

"That is so. Yes. And all conscious or unconscious humbug. Which is your Michael?"

"Everyone who succeeds shows off, doesn't he, darling? "Her voice was sweet and low. "All the headline people go to Michael."

"And he gives 'em what they want. An advertiser for the advertisers. Why?"

"Because he can paint."

The maid returned with fresh tea. "He can, yes. You're shirking Joan. I asked you, conscious or unconscious humbug? Has he sold his soul or hasn't he got one?"

Mrs. Fortune waited till the maid was gone, then she said gently: "That isn't like you, Reggie. Why do you hate him?"

"Darling!" Reggie sat up. "As bad as that? Hate? Not me, no," he smiled awry. Havin' no use for same."

"If you had seen his other picture you couldn't have asked if he'd sell his soul."

"The 'Naked to Laughter' fancy? But I did." Reggie's eyelids drooped. "What's it mean?"

"It's from a poem of Shelley's on the passing of love: 'Bright reason will mock thee, like the sun from wintry sky; leave thee naked to laughter, when cold winds come.'"

"Yes. I have read that," Reggie sighed, "In my riffle. But I was wonderin' - the elf lady in the wintry sky, is she vanishin' love or bright reason or who?"

"Mrs. Fortune's brow puckered. "You can't take such a picture so, it's not of people, it's emotion."

"As you say. Evidence of a state of soul. Tyrrell felt when he did it. You're worried, Joan. You've been listenin' to the story of his sad life."

Mrs. Fortune's amber eyes gazed surprise and reproach. "There isn't a story, Reggie. Michael has only lived to paint. He was the marvellous youth of the schools. He never had a struggle. He's been somebody since his twenties, not famous, but a painter's painter. He could do anything, but he had plenty of money and he only did what he liked, till he was elected an R.A. Then Lady Crandon and Mrs. Mapes took him up and made him the rage for portraits. Last year, he's more than forty, he married a child of eighteen. Her name was Catharine Gray. She was singing a small part at a choir festival near his place in the country, he had never seen her before, he married her next month."

"Sudden fellow. And now love is passin'? Very sudden."

"I didn't say so. Michael is the gentlest creature."

"Oh! You don't like the child wife."

"I have never seen her."

"But you will, won't you?" Reggie purred.

"Yes, I'm going to stay with them for the Whitsun week."

"Without bein' asked by the child wife? My dear girl. Not done."

"Of course she'll write to me."

"Under orders from Michael. You havin' engaged yourself to him previous. Thus conjugal bliss is restored."

"Don't be horrible. There is nothing unusual. They have a house party and Michael asked me."

"Oh! A party. Who?"

"I don't know. Michael said Adrian Dale would be there. He didn't mention anybody else."

"Thus concentratin' your nice mind on the man Adrian. As the destroyer of conjugal bliss, the villain that drove out love and left Michael 'Naked to Laughter.' And your job is to drive out Adrian. My poor Joan."

"How clever, how silly," said Mrs. Fortune. "Adrian Dale doesn't matter. He's nothing but a tame cat."

"What does matter?"

"Michael," she answered. "He mustn't crash."

"Which is the crash? Paintin' fashionable bishops to take the town or paintin' well?"

"Michael is helpless with women."

"I did gather that," Reggie smiled awry. "Where's the wicked enchantress? Lady Crandon and Co. makin' him the fashion or the child wife makin' him go all creepy?"

"Suppose he is torn between them?" said Mrs. Fortune.

Reggie looked at her wide, serious eyes and moaned. "Oh, my poor girl! Poor me. I'll have to go with you."

"Of course, darling." Mrs. Fortune rose and kissed the top of his head and went out, looking over her shoulder to say: "I told Michael you would."

Reggie gave an exceeding bitter cry.

He tells her now from time to time that the case is the supreme example in his practice of the capacity of the virtuous woman for leading others to sin.

Valry Grange, Michael Tyrrell's house, stands in the smiling peace of the Wye valley and itself smiles, a studied benign harmony of black oak and white plaster, rising by stories which thrust out their diamond - paned casements to overhang further and further till they reach the merry, mellow gables of the roof. What was once a moat and is now a Japanese garden surrounds it.

In the blaze of a cloudless evening their car brought Mr. and Mrs. Fortune to the door. He got out slowly and surveyed house and garden. "Well, well," he murmured. "Which is your Michael, Joan? The jolly old house, home of good will, or the tricky garden squiggles?"

"It's a wonder of a garden," she rebuked him.

"As you say. Nightmare fairyland." Reggie gazed across its dwarf contortions. Through the fragrance of the little wistarias trained into mushroom shape he sniffed at the pungent odour of a scented cigarette. He made out in the deep shadow cast by the house a woman in a hammock, a man sitting beside her.

The door was still unopened. Reggie rang again. At last they were let in by an imposing butler who seemed surprised at their existence. "Mrs. Fortune has been kept waiting," Reggie drawled. "Go and tell your mistress."

"I beg pardon, sir." The butler retreated across the hall, bowing them to chairs. "If you please - Mr. Tyrrell is in the studio." He glided away.

The strains of a piano playing succulent music came to them. "My only aunt!" Reggie groaned.

Tyrrell, arrayed in a blouse the honey colour of his beard, hurried across the hall, kissed Mrs. Fortune's hand, stammered apologies. "Pray forgive me, I was painting, but we are not to be forgiven. Catharine should have been here. Catharine should have told me. I don't know where she is. I - -"

"You have never met my husband," Mrs. Fortune interrupted.

"No. How do you do?" Reggie stood up and shook hands.

They quelled Tyrrell's incoherence, they induced him to take them to their room. It was of a gracious shape with moulded ceiling and linen - fold panelling, but very small.

"Well, well." Reggie surveyed its scanty extent. "The more we are together the happier we shall be. The guests somebody did not want."

"Don't be hostile," she admonished him.

"Oh no. No. Interestin' position." He wandered to the window and looked down at the shadows of the Japanese garden. The man and the woman who had been smoking there were not to be seen. "The mind is quite open." He turned and went out.

On the south and west of the house was a paved terrace from which steep green slopes fell to the sunken garden some twenty feet below. He found, by the big windows of the drawing - room, a flight of stone steps and went down them to stroll among the dwarf trees and the pools till he came to the hammock in the shade. Beside it he found the stubs of cigarettes. He picked them up and smelt them. In his round face the line of the jaw stood out as he put them into an envelope in his pocket - book.

When Mrs. Fortune and he came down to dinner, Lady Crandon and Mrs. Mapes occupied the drawing - room, dressed and posed as grandeur condescending to simplicity. Tyrrell hurried in and was nervous to everybody. Mrs. Roland undulated across the room, stridently handsome in gold and too many diamonds. Adrian Dale glided in to be suave and facetious. "Dear me," Lady Crandon's voice filled the room. "Catharine is too inconsiderate." And the butler announced dinner.

Mrs. Fortune gave Tyrrell a look of amazement. "No, wait, Grove," he stammered. As the butler bowed and retired Mrs. Tyrrell pushed past him.

She wore a high grey frock, as plain as a schoolgirl's, her thin face was flushed. "You are always late, Catharine," Lady Crandon rebuked her.

"Please," said Mrs. Fortune, "Michael!"

"I'm so sorry," Tyrrell stammered, and presented Catharine to her and Reggie, who were vouchsafed only muttering and a glimpse of eyes dull black.

They suffered a dreary dinner. Reggie sat beside Catharine. To his efforts she was dumb as a sulky child. Adrian Dale, on her other side, had inanities enough to say for six. Mrs. Fortune found Tyrrell distraught between her and Mrs. Roland, and the commanding voice of Lady Crandon rose above all. It was she who led the women out.

Left with Tyrrell and Dale, Reggie let Dale do all the talking. When they reached the drawing - room Catharine was not there. Lady Crandon commanded a bridge table and made it up with Mrs. Roland and Tyrrell and Mrs. Fortune. Mrs. Mapes talked music to Reggie and Dale vanished. Mrs. Mapes went to the piano. Then Reggie fled. Mrs. Fortune did not see him again till his face looked at hers in the bedroom mirror as she sat brushing her hair. He kissed her solemnly. "Woman, beware women."

"Which?"

"No limit. Did you get anything out of the child wife?"

"Nothing at all. She only stayed a few minutes in the drawing - room. They are abominable to her. Do you know where she went to?"

"Yes. As you guess. She went to your Adrian on the terrace. She smoked a cigarette or so with him. Not a nice man, Adrian. You were right on that. However. Other factors. Not nice women. I should say the women are the problem, the patroness women."

"They were loathly."

"Very managin', yes. Common vice, managin' other people's lives, especially in the female. Don't yield to it Joan, or you might be like 'em. Might even give me a dinner like that. Fussy garbage in masses. And the claret!"

"Reggie," she looked up at him, "what can we do?"

"Bless you," he kissed her solemnly. "To - morrow is another day. Come to bed."

But next morning he deserted her. Only half the house party came down to breakfast. Lady Crandon and Mrs. Mapes performed a duet of regret that Catharine never did, and Michael squirmed apologies and defence.

"Why should you?" Mrs. Fortune asked. "It's such a temptation, being first down. One feels too righteous."

"Bad for the soul, yes," Reggie murmured. "Several of us not been led into temptation. Mrs. Roland and Dale as well as Mrs. Tyrrell. I wouldn't have been, only I have to run away. Must go talk to an old boy in a laboratory at Birmingham."

"I suppose you have many calls." Lady Crandon dismissed them and him as beneath her. "I hope we may see you again, Mr. Fortune."

"Thanks very much. Don't know when I'll be back." He went out, and Mrs. Fortune followed him. "All right, Joan. Playin' the game," he said in her car. "Back this evening. Which you don't know. If anything breaks before, ring me." He gave her a piece of paper on which were two telephone numbers, one at Birmingham, one at the county town. "I'm leavin' Sam here." It was the name of their chauffeur. 

Late that afternoon Mrs. Fortune sat in the studio watching Tyrrell paint. He was at work upon a portrait of Mrs. Roland. His labours had been arranged in a setting of ceremony. Yellow light suffused the studio. Lady Crandon in a high backed chair, like a throne, presided over it, Mrs. Mapes at a grand piano made glutinous music.

The light was concentrated on Mrs. Roland, who lay voluptuous on a couch. Only its golden legs were visible beneath the purple robe which draped her, but the robe clung revealing about her body. An ivory sheen came from her bare arms and bosom. The hard beauty of the face displayed a smile of triumph. About her black hair gleamed a crown of antique design, a broad circle of gold set with diamonds and rubies.

Tyrrell also was theatrical, painted furiously, stood back from his canvas, looked at Mrs. Roland, rushed on the canvas again. The door was flung open. Catharine in sky blue trousers and shirt stood staring at the performance. "Lord, what a fug!" Her voice was shrill. She looked at the canvas, she looked at Mrs. Roland. "That's the goods, Michael. Title of picture, Cleopatra. Royal Egypt. 'Give me my robe, put on my cer - rown. I have immortal longings in me.'"

"Catharine!" Lady Crandon began to scold.

"You - -"

Catharine made a comic curtsey and skipped out. "Really, Michael," Lady Crandon spread out her bands.

"I'm very sorry. Catharine doesn't think, pray forgive me. I - I was just in the vein," Tyrrell stammered and dabbed at his palette.

"My dear Michael," the smile on Mrs. Roland's face deepened, "let us go on."

Mrs. Fortune left them to it, but Catharine had disappeared. Knocking at the door of her room brought no answer, and the door was locked. Reggie had not come back. Mrs. Fortune rang up the two telephone numbers he gave her and each told her that he had been there but he had gone away. She sent for Sam, the chauffeur. The butler reported that he was not to be found.

When she had dressed for dinner she thought she heard Sam's cockney voice in the region of the back stairs. She called him. He did not come. No one came. The stairs were silent and dark.

They went in to dinner two short. Not only Reggie but Catharine was missing. On his absence Lady Crandon and Mrs. Mapes condoled, Tyrrell was so sorry. Mrs. Roland languished, "Bad man," Adrian Dale smirked, "Now we have our chance, Michael." Nobody had a word to say of Catharine. Lady Crandon took her place at the table. With Mrs. Roland claiming Tyrrell's eyes and ears, Mrs. Fortune was not inclined to ask what he had done with his wife.

Tyrrell and Dale were back in the drawing - room almost as soon as the ladies. Lady Crandon established her bridge table, summoning Mrs. Mapes from the piano, for Mrs. Fortune declined to take a hand.

"How sweet of you, dear lady." Dale came behind her chair. "It's delicious to hear someone refuse the Great White Queen." He ogled Lady Crandon's imposing proportions. "And to stop the pianist too. Joy making! I want to believe you did it for my sake. Could I?"

"I have no idea what you can believe." Mrs. Fortune picked up a book. Dale left her and glided away through the French window. Mrs. Fortune moved to another chair from which she could see something of the terrace and the steps leading from it to the sunken garden.

All the lights of the room went out. From the darkness she saw the pallor of moonshine on the terrace suddenly brighter, saw Dale close by the window. As Lady Crandon's voice rose, commanding Michael to ring the bell, the lights flashed on again.

Round the drawing - room a thin shape flitted. It was all grass green, tights and doublet and hood. From its shoulders bat wings shimmered. On its head were little horns. Its face was chalk white. A naughty fairy of the stage, hobgoblin, Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream. But something glittered in its hands.

It sang shrill one of the songs of Puck:

"' Up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down, I am fear'd in field and town.'"

"Catharine!" Lady Crandon boomed. "Gatharine! Really, Catharine!" Tyrrell wailed. She gave them Puck's laugh. "'Ho, ho, ho! Come hither, I am here!'" She danced round the table, holding out to them and twirling away from them the jewelled circle of Mrs. Roland's crown. She sang again:

"'Yet but three? Come one more! Here she comes, curst and sad. Cupid is a knavish lad Thus to make poor females mad.'"

She put the crown on Mrs. Roland's black head and snatched it off again, she waved it before Tyrrel's eyes.

'"When thou wakest, Thou takest True delight In the sight Of thy former lady's eye!'"

She crowned Mrs. Mapes, let the diadem rest on those frozen pale waves a moment, then cried: "No," and whirled off with it singing:

"'That every man should take his own In your waking shall be shown. Jack shall have Jill, Nought shall go ill, The man shall have his mare again and all shall be well.'"

She jammed the crown on the yellow pile of Lady Crandon's head and danced away to the open French window. Lady Crandon started up, booming rebuke, swept upon her, caught at her as she ran out of the window, and vanished, pursuing her into the moonlight.

Mrs. Fortune made haste to follow. She heard Mrs. Roland acrid behind her. "That's a nasty little devil, Michael."

She saw shadowy figures in action together on the terrace. They separated. The smallest of them swayed on the edge of the terrace and fell to the gloom of the garden below. She heard a creaking of branches, a thud.

Then Reggie's voice came to her in its coldest tone: "You shouldn't have done that. Who are you?"

"I am Lady Crandon." The answer was furious. "Take your hand off me, man. Michael, Michael!"

Reggie flashed a torch into her face. "Well, well. Lady Crandon it is. Why so violent?"

The torch light showed her large face distorted by passion, her mountain of yellow hair falling sideways.

"Blanche!" Mrs. Roland screamed at her, "where is my crown?"

Lady Crandon put both hands to her head. "Catharine took it," she gasped.

"You don't make sense," said Reggie, keeping the light on her. "Crown? Catharine? The lion and the unicorn fighting for the crown? Was it Mrs. Tyrrell you knocked over the edge? Stay where you are." He ran down the steps to the sunken garden.

They saw the beam of his torch move among the dwarf trees. He climbed slowly up to the terrace, the light turned in front of him. He had almost reached them before they saw that Catharine lay across his shoulder, her head lolling unconscious.

"I want you, Joan," he said.

"Is - is she badly hurt, Mr. Fortune?" Tyrrell pressed upon him.

"Concussion," Reggie snapped. "May be worse. 'Phone for her doctor. And nurses."

"Where is the crown?" Mrs. Roland cried.

"Question for Lady Crandon," said Reggie over bis shoulder. . . .

A little while after he rose from Catharine's bedside. "That's all right, Joan. She'll do. Stay with her, do you mind?"

"My dear," said Mrs. Fortune.

"Not too bad, no," Reggie murmured, and ran downstairs.

In the hall his chauffeur Sam was waiting for him. They went out together and then Sam spoke. "The 'tecs got the bloke cold, sir. Copped him jumping into his Gor - bly - me sports car and they reckon they've got the doings. But they found something else they want you to see. They're holding him in the garage workshop."

"Splendid," Reggie purred. "Lead me to it." Sam marched on round the house. Down in the Japanese garden lights moved, women's voices were strident.

Outside the garage, light from the workshop window fell on a cream - coloured car and showed its luggage compartment open and empty. In the workshop stood Dale, clothes awry, shirt front crumpled. He leaned perforce against a bulky man who had possession of his right arm and, as he moved at the sight of Reggie, growled: "None 'o that now." He flinched, his face quivered in a grin of pain and rage.

Two other men stood by a table, on which lay some open baggage and a brown fur coat. Reggie came to them and was shown a flat gold cigarette case. "I found that in his pocket, Mr. Fortune. And this box packed with his clothes."

Reggie took a cigarette from the gold case, smelt it, lit it, inhaled and blew smoke rings at the two men "There you are, Inspector. That's the stuff." He pinched the cigarette out, put it back, took another from the box and repeated the process. "Oh yes. Also doped. Same dope. Carry on."

The Inspector swung round. "Take the fellow away, Sergeant." Dale struggled and swore, and then let himself be shouldered out and laughed as he went. "You crashing fool, Fortune, you won't get away with this, you'll never hear the last of it."

"Gentleman now found his tongue," Reggie murmured.

"He's a nasty bit of work, sir," said the Inspector.

"Just see what he had in the car. Gent's suit case, that's his own. The other's a dressing case with lady's things in it and the initials C. T. Then there was this fur coat. Could you tell me who C. T. is?"

"I can guess. Mrs. Tyrrell's name is Catherine. Mink coat probably hers too. Well, well. Not only a dope merchant but a thief, your Mr. Dale. Anything else?"

"Yes, sir, there is." The Inspector drew out gingerly from a handkerchief wrapped round it something which gleamed and flashed. It was Mrs. Roland's crown, bent out of shape.

"My dear chap!" Reggie's soft tone, his wide - eyed gaze displayed a reverent surprise. "Looks priceless. Looks as it had been handled rough. What is it?"

"I hoped you could tell me, sir. If it's real gold and diamonds and so on it's worth a pot of money. And Dale has done some rough stuff with it. When we nabbed him, he'd got it buttoned under his coat - Is it Mrs. Tyrrell's, do you know?"

"I don't. Never saw it before. However. Somebody in the house party must own the thing. Come along with it and bring Dale to meet 'em. There was a bit of a scuffle on the terrace just before I returned and somebody knocked out Mrs. Tyrrell. I found her unconscious. She will be for a bit."

"My Lord, this is a case," said the Inspector with gusto. "She was hurt in Dale's rough stuff, eh?"

"Reasonable inference," Reggie murmured. "Some of the party should know."

They went back round the house, Dale in the grip of the sergeant behind them. The lights which had been searching the sunken garden were gone, no sound came from it, but the drawing - room still poured a flood of light across the terrace, and through the open window came an uproar of women's voices. Reggie stopped and the sergeant held Dale some way behind.

In the drawing - room Lady Crandon, her majesty impaired by the lopsided tumble of her castle of yellow hair, Mrs. Roland, skirts bedraggled by the garden dew, were both talking at once, quarrelling with each other and scolding Tyrrell. Mrs. Mapes supplied a feline accompaniment. What Tyrrell added in ejaculations was drowned by their din.

Reggie moved into the light and made himself heard, announcing: "Inspector Grigg of the county police." The spiteful voices sank suddenly to silence, the furious faces glared at him and at Grigg's bulk. He went on with his introductions. "Mr. Tyrrell, whose house this is, Inspector. These are his guests. Lady Crandon, with her Mrs. Mapes. And Mrs. Roland. The Inspector wants some information. How long have you known Adrian Dale, Lady Crandon?"

For a moment Lady Crandon was speechless with bewildered rage, then she exploded. "You are impertinent, sir."

"Oh no. Necessary question. And it will be answered. Tyrrell! How did you get to know Dale?"

"I met him at Lady Crandon's," Tyrrell muttered.

"Well, well," Reggie smiled. "And so you felt sure he was all right. Your mistake."

"This is insufferable," Lady Crandon started up.

From Mrs. Roland came a strident cry. "Why are you asking about Mr. Dale?"

"Because he has been arrested," Reggie drawled. The three women were frozen. Mrs. Roland recovered to give a crow of laughter and demand:

"What for?"

Inspector Grigg had been watching them with stolid disapproval. "Put it up to 'em," said Reggie.

Grigg took from behind his back the crown and displayed it in the light. "I want to know who is the owner of this."

Mrs. Roland screeched. "How did you get it?" She sprang at it. Grigg put it behind him again and held her off with one big hand. "It's mine," she cried. "Give it me."

"You wait, if you please." Grigg drew back. "Is that right, Mr. Tyrrell, it's the property of this lady?"

"Yes, certainly, it belongs to Mrs. Roland," Tyrrell answered in a nervous hurry.

"Very good," Grigg grunted. "Then I hand it to you for inspection, ma'am."

"What do you mean?" Mrs. Roland snatched at it.

"It's been bent out of shape. Was it like that when you had it last?"

"Of course not. Where did you find it?"

"I found it hidden on the man Dale, who was just going to drive off in his car."

"Dale?" Mrs. Roland muttered, and her face worked and she glared at Lady Crandon.

"That's what I said." Grigg looked from one to the other. "And what is there between you two ladies? How did it come into Dale's hands?"

"You should ask Lady Crandon," Mrs. Roland hissed.

"I am asking," said Grigg.

"I know nothing about it," Lady Crandon gasped.

"That's your statement. Mrs. Roland states the article is hers. Very well." Grigg turned and called: "Sergeant, bring the man in here."

Dale came with as much of a swagger as the sergeant's grip allowed and laughed and bowed. "Dear ladies, the last act of your play. Revelations!"

"I've had some, Dale," Grigg told him. "Mrs. Roland says this bit of jewellery is hers. On that you may be charged with stealing it. Anything you say I may take down and use in evidence. D'ye want to say anything?"

Dale looked from him to Reggie and shrugged and smiled at Mrs. Roland. "What animals these are, Tessa. Was I stealing your crown?"

Her dark brows came down. "No, of course not," she answered slowly.

"Explain a bit more then," said Grigg. "What was the game, Mrs. Roland? How did the thing get handled rough, why was he hiding it, why was he going off with it?"

She laughed. "You should ask Mrs. Tyrrell. She stole it from my room to dress up and make an idiotic scene with it here. She put it on Lady Crandon's head and ran away through the window. Lady Crandon went after her." She turned to Dale. "I suppose you took it from them, Adrian?"

"You are perfectly right, dear lady," Dale grinned. "Those rival queens were fighting for your crown so madly I had to rescue the treasure."

"Is that so, Lady Crandon?" Reggie drawled.

"I was not fighting," Lady Crandon cried. "Someone snatched the crown from my head. I suppose it was Catharine."

"Catharine?" Tyrrell exploded with sudden violence, "She wouldn't, she couldn't!"

"The faithful husband," Dale jeered.

"Lady Crandon," said Reggie, "was it you struck Mrs. Tyrrell - or Dale?"

"I didn't touch the child. She was behaving like a lunatic. She must have fallen."

"So that's going to be the story," Reggie smiled awry.

"I told you you were making a fool of yourself, Fortune," Dale laughed.

"You did, yes. Your mistake. Mrs. Roland! You just said Mrs. Tyrrell stole the crown, but she left it on Lady Crandon's head. Which of 'em do you charge with theft?"

Lady Crandon made an angry noise. Mrs. Roland glared at him. "I don't charge anyone. The whole affair was Catharine Tyrrell's idiocy!"

"That won't do," Reggie murmured. "Can't hush things up now. There is a charge against Dale. Grave charge. Possession of dangerous drug. Cannabis indica. You may call it hashish. Excitin' stuff. Dale had it in his cigarettes. You introduced him to the Tyrrells, Lady Crandon. Did you know he purveyed drugs?"

"I did not," Lady Crandon cried, and turned on Mrs. Roland, purple with rage. "You brought him to my house."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Roland hissed, "I found him there. He was your own tame cat, Blanche."

"The boy friend of both, dear ladies," Dale laughed. "That will be my defence. I was an innocent child when you taught me the charms of hashish. You corrupted me and employed me to win sweet Catharine from her husband's arms that one of you might have him. That is going to be the story, as our fool Fortune would say. That is the story, dear Blanche, dear Tessa, I give you joy."

"Now you know, Tyrrell," said Reggie softly. He made a gesture at the women's dumb fury, and Tyrrell looked and cowered.

Grigg surveyed them with disgust. "A nice story it is," he growled.

"Delicious," Dale laughed.

"That'll do from you," Grigg swung round on him. "Come on. You're for it anyway." He and the sergeant shouldered Dale out.

Reggie went after them to detain Grigg and whisper: "Mrs. Tyrrell's case and coat. Leave 'em with my chauffeur. I'll see to 'em."

He came back, crossed the room to Tyrrell and put a hand on his shoulder. "My dear chap. Finish with these ladies. What about your wife? Doctor come yet?" Tyrrell rushed out.

Reggie turned to the three women. "Good - bye." He smiled and followed Tyrrell.

The doctor had come. The doctor and a nurse were with Mrs. Fortune in Catharine Tyrrell's room. Reggie left Tyrrell outside.

Some time after the doctor emerged, swelling professional pride with Reggie solemn at his elbow. "I am happy to relieve your anxiety, Mr. Tyrrell," he cleared his throat and lectured. "I find Mrs. Tyrrell is suffering from a concussion. She may be unconscious for some time. But Mr. Fortune's great experience confirms my opinion that she is in no danger. Yet the case is grave, sir. I am bound to tell you that there is a complication. Some narcotic has been administered to Mrs. Tyrrell. Mr. Fortune advises me that it was cannabis indica, vulgarly hashish, or bhang, an oriental intoxicant, a most dangerous drug. I have to impress on you that she must be protected against anything of the kind. The administration, the mere possession of such a drug is a criminal offence. I am leaving the nurse with her. She needs the most careful care."

"Given that, she'll be all right, Tyrrell," said Reggie. "Up to you."

"To me," Tyrrell gulped. "God help me!"

"He will, yes," Reggie murmured. "Help yourself too. Help her."

"May I go to her?" Tyrrell muttered. "She must not be disturbed, Mr. Tyrrell," the doctor admonished him.

"Oh no. No. However." Reggie opened the bedroom door. "You can watch with the nurse." Tyrrell slunk in and knelt down by the bed. "Watch and pray," Reggie murmured as Mrs. Fortune came out to him. "They'll do. Thanks very much, doctor. The police have got the rascal who drugged her. All clear."

"Good gracious me!" The doctor became human. "I am very glad to hear that. Someone in the house, Mr. Fortune?"

"Yes, fellow called Dale. He gave it her in cigarettes. Sort of lounge lizard brought by Tyrrell's lady friends."

The doctor made noises of shocked dislike. "Poor child, I have often thought she was most unfairly treated. This is abominable."

"Cruel trick, yes. Not nice ladies. But Tyrrell knows that now. He'll find his soul again." . . .

Mrs. Fortune stood at the door watching the doctor take an affectionate leave of her husband, who came back to her as the car drove off and murmured: "Good fellow, that fellow."

"Yes," she took his arm. "Reggie, who hit the child? Which of them?"

Reggie gave her a slow, benign smile. "Me, Joan."

"You?"

"Yes. She was goin' to bolt with Dale. I'm a husband myself. Hadn't you noticed that?"

THE POINT OF THE KNIFE

MR FORTUNE HAS RECOMMENDED that this case should be studied by all lawyers, policemen and other casual minds as a lesson in the duty of believing evidence.

The woman in the dock wore black. The court was crowded, but few people except the burly judge and the nervous jury listened to the speech of prosecuting counsel, Sir Matthew Brock, a lean man of drab countenance. They had read all the evidence that his passionless, flat voice recounted. They wanted to see how she took it. She was an actress.

Not of any fame, a small part musical comedy actress, unknown outside the profession. Lily Barton touched the great heart of the public when the papers published her photograph on her arrest for the murder of her husband. She was handsome in a large, buxom way. Sitting bowed in the dock, she let no one see anything of her shape or her face.

Of her husband, Howard Neville, even the newspapers had been unable to discover anything of interest. He also was of the stage, but only a chorus man. The pictures of him, taken from group photographs of choruses, made him a vapid choric smirk.

Sir Matthew's first witnesses were brief. A bookmaker related that Lily Barton lived in a top flat in Brixton, he and his wife in the flat below. On a Saturday, after midnight, they heard a scream from above. They opened their door and met Lily Barton coming downstairs. She told them her husband had been killed and she was going for the police. The bookmaker asked why she did not telephone, but she ran on and out. So the bookmaker telephoned himself and went up to her flat.

Lily Barton had left the door open. Her husband lay on the floor of the hall, his face gashed and covered with blood. The bookmaker had only just found him when a man came in who asked: "Here, my lad, what's to do?" A man whom he recognised as an actor, Mr. Gus Troop, a friend of Miss Barton's. Soon afterwards detective officers arrived in answer to the telephone call and later Miss Barton appeared with a policeman.

She told the Detective Inspector she had not been able to find one for a long time, she didn't know why she didn't use the telephone. She had come back from the theatre and found her husband dead. She didn't expect him to be there at all. He had been away some time. The Inspector pointed out that the table in the living - room was laid with two places for a supper of cold chicken, and asked whom she expected. She told him Mr. Troop was coming to supper. Whereupon Troop said: "And I have come, laddie. What about it?"

The Inspector remarked that there was a carving fork on the table but no carving knife, and asked Miss Barton if she didn't use one. She said of course she did, and opened the sideboard drawer and showed him a carving knife quite clean and bright.

A police surgeon came next to give his opinion that Howard Neville had been dead about an hour when be saw the body at a quarter to one. Then Sir Matthew called Mr. Fortune.

Reggie Fortune, ineffably neat and sedate, made a slow progress to the witness box and contemplated him with dreamy melancholy and spoke softly. "The cause of death was a wound from a pointed weapon driven into the back of the neck which penetrated the cervical vertebrae. The blow was delivered from behind. Death was instantaneous. In the wound I found a thin fragment of steel. I produce that." It was shown to the judge and jury.

"This must have been broken from the weapon used, Mr. Fortune?" Sir Matthew asked.

"From a weapon driven into his neck," said Reggie slowly.

"What was the weapon?"

"I think this point came from a carving knife. It may have been broken against the vertebrae, which bear marks of a sharp weapon, or in pulling it out from between them. The wound was wide and the tissues much torn. In the man's face were three wounds, both cut and stabbed, on the cheeks and the nose. It is impossible to determine whether they were inflicted before or after death, but they may have been made with a carving knife."

"If the wounds in the face were made before death there must have been a struggle? "Sir Matthew asked.

"I couldn't say that. The man's arms and body showed no signs of struggling."

"If the face was slashed after death that would point to a murder of violent passion?"

Lily Barton looked up for the first time and the crowd who had come to see her rustled and whispered. She gazed at Sir Matthew and Reggie, they saw her face quivering in an agony of fear.

"Not a question for me," said Reggie.

"I will leave it there," Sir Matthew's flat voice announced.

Reggie endured with weary patience cross - examination from Lily Barton's counsel, "Turkey" Munt, a laborious old practitioner, who struggled in vain to make him say that the fatal blow could only have been delivered by "a strong man, not a weak woman."

The sightseers stared at Lily Barton. She had sunk again into huddled calm but even so her big frame did not look weak. Reggie came from the witness - box to sit by Sidney Lomas, the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, who said behind his hand: "So that's the line. The woman's going to put it on Troop."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. From his other side Superintendent Bell looked at him curiously.

The next witness was a detective - sergeant who had searched the front garden of the flats on the morning after the murder and found there a carving knife, a poultry carver. He produced it. The blade was stained. The point was broken off.

"If the jury will examine this knife," Sir Matthew droned, "they will see that the fragment of steel found by Mr. Fortune in the dead man's neck fits exactly into the broken end." They did, they goggled at the knife. And they heard an analyst testily that the stains were of human blood.

On him followed the woman who came daily to Lily Barton's flat. Sir Matthew could by no means induce her to recognise the knife found in the garden as Lily Barton's. "I don't know it, there!" she defied him, "nor I ain't going to say I do. That's my last word if I stay here all day and all night. One knife's just like another." Reggie stirred and gazed after her with wide eyes as she flounced out.

Another detective sergeant followed. He had searched Lily Barton's flat. It showed no trace of a forced entry, robbery or struggle, everything was tidy except for blood on the hall floor, but he found in a drawer in the bedroom a number of letters. They were read out, letters to "Beautiful - Lovely Lil - My Lil bird," love letters in a style by turns facetious, treacly and ardent. The sightseers listened greedily, and gloated over Lily Barton's bowed head and heard that the letters were signed "Your own Gee - gee" or, Sir Matthew's drone added amid stifled titters, with the drawing of a horse.

His next witness was Gus Troop. Necks craned to see him, a short, square man with a face made by nature to be droll, fish - eyed, pug - nosed, mouth from ear to ear, but as he glanced at Lily Barton, who would not look at him, it was dreary and yearning.

He turned on Sir Matthew with a snarl and grabbed the letters handed up to him. Yes, he wrote them. Yes, he knew Miss Barton was a married woman. And straight. Did she answer with letters of the same kind? No, she didn't, never a line but just friendly.

"But she kept your letters. Was she in love with you?"

"Nothing like it. She had nothing for me."

"Did you ever ask her to leave her husband?"

"You bet I did. Umpteen times. Not a hope. That's the way she's made."

"How often have you had supper with her in her flat alone?"

"Every once in a while."

"Never with her husband there?"

"Yes, I have, when his majesty chose to spend a night at home."

"On the night of his murder," Sir Matthew droned, "you came into the flat and found him dead?"

"That's right."

"You had not been there earlier that night?"

Troop hesitated and then roared: "I wish to God I had!"

"When you did come - did you see this knife there?" Sir Matthew held up the poultry carver.

"No!" Troop's mouth shut with a clash of teeth.

"It was not you who hid it in the garden?"

"I told you I never saw it." 

There followed small fry of the theatrical profession, who, not very willingly, related that they had heard Howard Neville swear his wife was any man's woman but his, she would be the death of him. "And that is my case," said Sir Matthew.

Lily Barton's counsel, grown fat and purple in the defence of many criminals, toiled stertorously with bombast and sob stuff, made her a much - enduring angel, Howard Neville a monster of vice, preying upon her, his murder no crime in the eye of justice, human or divine. But also he instructed the jury they could not believe it was a weak, suffering woman who struck that terrible fatal blow, who slashed the dying face. Some strong, fierce man did those dreadful deeds in the fury of a struggle.

He was there to protect innocence not to discover the guilty, but the jury would hear evidence, which the prosecution should have called, proving that a man committed the murder, whatever his motive, vengeance or robbery.

"Oh my Lomas!" Reggie whispered, "what is this?"

"The old man's in a cleft stick," Lomas shrugged. "He means the jury to put it on Troop, but he's afraid the woman will fall down in the witness - box."

"He said evidence," Reggie murmured, and looked reproachfully at Superintendent Bell.

"I don't know what he's got," Bell frowned. "He said robbery. Nothing was taken from the flat, and Neville had wallet and money and keys on him."

Then Munt surprised all three of them. They expected him to make lily Barton the first witness in her own defence. He did not. He called Miss Daisy Bud.

The court rustled at the unexpected name. Daisy Bud was then the brightest of the particular stars of revue. A tiny woman, she came into the box as if she had shot up a trap, like a pantomime fairy. Lily Barton sat up to look at her, and received her famous dazzling smile. Then she turned to Munt, all eyes and fierce. One question, whether she knew Lily Barton, set her off in a tirade.

"There isn't anything about her I don't know. I was her bridesmaid. That's the only thing she has to be sorry for, she married Howard Neville. He lived on her from then, when he wasn't living on other women, and she stood for it. I've sweated blood to make her divorce him, she could have got a decree any day these ten years, but not she, he had to be mothered. Now you have people swearing she murdered him. It's mad! Lily - she never hurt a soul in her life - a waster, a rotter, she was always out to give 'em a lift - and Howard Neville, she gave him all she had and was set to go on giving though she knew" - the shrill voice broke - "though she knew."

Munt had the wit not to break the silence while the jury watched the tears well from Daisy Bud's big eyes, while she sent a heart - rending look at Lily Barton, put out a little trembling hand and said: "Now - now she'll never forgive me."

"I need not ask you any more, Miss Bud," said Munt. Sir Matthew stood up and put cautious questions to suggest that she had her own grudge against Neville, of jealousy, slighted passion.

She answered with searing laughter. "Nothing like it. I knew him. Call anybody else who did. Why haven't you?"

"Relevant question." Reggie spoke to Lomas's ear.

Lomas frowned. "Clever little devil."

"Yes. Played us off the stage. However. Wasn't all art. She's a woman. We're officials."

Lily Barton moved from the dock to the witness - box as if she could not see and had to grope her way through darkness. Sightseers jostled each other for a glimpse of her face, and saw it glistening white, her eyes almost closed. Munt spoke in the tone of a kind old man questioning a child. Her answers were whispered.

She married Howard Neville ten years ago when they were both in the chorus. He had always been in the chorus. No, he hadn't always an engagement. Perhaps not often. Yes, she had been more successful.

"Have you supported him ever since you were married?"

"What I had was his, of course."

"Was he kind to you?"

"Howard never meant to be unkind."

"He used your flat as his home?"

"Of course."

"How many nights in the past year has he been with you?"

She swayed. "I don't know." Her voice could hardly be heard.

"I am sorry to ask you this" - Munt paused - 'Had he affairs with other women?"

She did not answer. 

"Think of yourself now, at last, for God's sake!" Munt made a theatrical appeal.

"He - he was my husband." She began to cry. "He had been away from you some time before the night of his death? A month or more?" She nodded. "You did not expect him back that night?" She shook her head. "You had two performances that day? You left your flat at one o'clock, you did not get back till after midnight, when you came in there were no lights on and you stumbled over his body? That is all you know of his death?"

"Yes," she whispered, and shuddered.

Sir Matthew began his cross - examination truculently. "Your counsel suggested your husband lived with other women. Do you make that charge?" She shook her head. "You say now it is not true?" She would not answer. "I ask you - will you give me the name of any woman - -"

"No!" she cried, "I won't."

"Very well. Your story is, then, you had no grievance against your husband. But he was killed in your flat with your knife. Why did he come there?"

"It was his home," she whispered.

"A home in which you were going to have supper with another man. I suggest that he had learnt of your affair with Troop, that he came to accuse you."

'He couldn't!" she cried. For the first time she stood erect, she flushed, her eyes blazed. "Oh, you're vile!"

"Control your temper," Sir Matthew droned with a glance at the jury. "Why did you submit to receive those amorous letters from Troop? Why did you keep them in your bedroom?"

"Mr. Troop is my friend," she said, "I - I was sorry for him."

"A very warm friend," Sir Matthew sneered. "I put it to you, your husband accused you and you stabbed him with the knife on the table."

She shook her head, she swayed and sank upon the rail of the box. A wardress moved to support her, but she raised herself and with hands held out before her, trembling, faltered her way back to the dock.

"Poor old Munt," said Lomas, "the woman has let him down."

"You told me so, yes," Reggie sighed.

But Munt had other witnesses.

A dowdy old lady appeared who said that her daughter lived in a ground floor flat in the same block as Lily Barton. She knew Howard Neville because he sometimes came home drunk and noisy. Her daughter was in the country. On the evening of the murder she had been at the flat tidying up. As she went away about ten o'clock she passed Howard Neville coming in and saw another man loitering outside.

A young fellow who had spent the evening with a maid on the third floor, in the absence of her mistress, remembered that as he went away about eleven a tall man came down from the top in a great hurry. The subtlest efforts of Sir Matthew failed to shake them.

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Somebody's done some work on this case." And Superintendent Bell glowered at the universe. . . .

Reggie leaned back, his round face pale and wistful as a tired child's, watching the painful attention of the jury when the judge began to sum up.

A still, small voice from so burly a man, surprised jury and sightseers. But what it said was clear enough. It told the jury that Mr. Fortune's evidence must convince them Neville was murdered. They must give full weight to the other evidence of facts, the knife, the love letters on one side, the presence of another man at the time of the murder on the other. . . . If they were satisfied of the guilt of the prisoner, they must give that verdict whatever their feelings. If they felt any doubt, she was entitled to the benefit.

"Fair minded man. Did it all for the best," Reggie sighed. "Same like us."

The jury went out of court. Lomas rose. "Let's have a breath of air."

"Oh no. No." Reggie sat still. "Wait. They won't be long."

They were not. They filed in close on each other's heels, solemn as mourners and sat fidgeting. The judge came back to the bench. Lily Barton was helped to her feet. The foreman rose and gave the verdict: "Not Guilty."

"Lord have mercy upon us," Reggie murmured. Lily Barton gave a strange laughing, moaning cry and fell forward across the rail of the dock. The crowd which had come to watch her feelings decided to give a half - hearted cheer as she was carried away.

Lomas made haste out of the court. In a quiet corner of the corridor Reggie detained him. "And the next thing, please?"

"We must have a conference."

"Oh yes. Yes. But don't let her slip through your fingers."

"Good Gad! We can't do any more with her now."

"My dear old thing! Watch her."

"You mean she might give us a line on the man?"

"It could be."

"I think Mr. Fortune's right," said Bell.

"Very well. See to it," Lomas nodded. . . .

In their conference at Scotland Yard Sir Matthew Brock was ferocious on the sentimentality of juries and the carelessness of the police.

"You told me you were sure of a conviction," Lomas shrugged.

Reggie lit a pipe. "Also sure she's guilty, Brock?"

"I have never had any doubt. Do you propose to go back on your own evidence now?"

"Oh no. No. Man was stabbed with her poultry carver. No probable, possible shadow of doubt. I never said she stabbed him."

"Do you suggest the woman is innocent? Why did she keep Troop's love letters? Why did she run out after her husband's murder? To call the police? Nonsense. She went out to hide the knife."

"I wonder. Not wise to keep the letters. Not wise to run out. But take the other evidence - she wasn't a wise woman. She'd sacrificed herself to a beast of a husband. If another man was kind - some comfort. If she found the husband a ghastly mess - might lose her head."

"The jury had no good evidence he was a beast."

"Damme, they might have had plenty," Lomas made a grimace, "if you'd chosen to put it in."

"Oh!" Reggie sat up. "Relevant evidence not called because inconvenient. Your error, Brock. And the jury got it from the other side. The punishment fits the crime."

Brock flushed. "Whatever the man's conduct, it does not excuse his murder. The police work has been deplorable. What sort of investigation was it that left me without any knowledge of these people who swore to another man being in the flat with Neville?"

"You'll excuse me, sir," Bell growled. "We took statements from everyone living in the flats. These two didn't, and they didn't come forward. We never heard of 'em till to - day."

"Then their evidence was invented," Brock said fiercely, "and they got her acquitted. I don't remember a worse miscarriage of justice."

"My poor Brock!" Reggie surveyed him from under drooping eyelids, "Try again. Evidence you called knocked holes in your case. Remember me. I said carver found in garden left a bit of itself in the man's neck. I didn't say it was the only knife used. I couldn't. Remember the daily maid. She said 'one knife's just like another.' Rather strikin'. We may have missed the point of the knife."

"Good Gad, do you suggest two knives were used?" Lomas exclaimed.

"It could be. Wound in the neck dragged about. As I said."

"You mean the woman and someone else did the murder together - the woman and Troop?"

"We can't fix anything on Troop," Bell broke in. "He has an alibi right up to the time he got to the flat; he was coming back from his theatre with friends."

"That leaves the woman and some other man," said Lomas. "The unknown man we heard of to - day who went up with Neville and came down alone."

"This is preposterous," Brock rose in wrath. "Because of false evidence produced at the last moment Fortune is ready to alter his own. I wash my hands of the case." He stamped out.

"Fierce fellow. Don't like being baulked of blood," Reggie murmured.

"He thinks you led him up the garden, Reginald," said Lomas, "I don't know that I blame him."

"Don't you?" Reggie's blue eyes gleamed. "Think. He tried to lead me. And I wouldn't go. I told him the truth. Before, in court and now. He wanted to make it mean more than it does. Man was murdered. That poultry knife was broken in the wound. I don't know how. The wound was botched. I told you so. I told the jury."

"You agreed there was a case against the woman."

"There was. Yes. We had to put it. Duty, stern daughter of the voice of God. Cruel old lady. However. Have we done our job? No. To it again. Believe the evidence this time. Lily Barton's legally innocent. Morally - God knows. Consider the young fellow who swore to a man coming downstairs about eleven. That man may have left Neville alive for Lily to murder. But if the lad was put up to tell a lie, why not a better one? Why not swear he met the man at midnight, just as Lily got home? I should say the man did call on Neville."

"Damme," Lomas was exasperated, "what do you believe? What is your theory?"

"Time for belief not yet come. Except in myself. What I said was true. No theory. Remember what Daisy Bud said. 'Call anybody else who knew him." Why didn't you?"

"We did, sir," Bell protested. "Several stage people, and they all said Neville talked of his wife having lovers."

"They did. Yes. Only that and nothing more. Strange economy of information about the late Howard Neville. Who was he, where did he come from, what was he living on before he lived on Lily? Dig up his horrid existence."

"What do you suggest we can get? "Lomas shrugged.

"I haven't the slightest idea." Reggie rose wearily. "'Hell is hell, and when there study to improve.' Which we have not. Far otherwise. That woman!" He looked down at Lomas with a cold, intent stare. "Watch her," he muttered and went out.

"Funny how he feels things, sir," said Bell. "I don't know what he has in his head, but he takes hold of you."

"Confound him," Lomas frowned. "We haven't shone. We shall hear of it. Go after these two new witnesses. ..."

Reggie went to dine at the noisiest of his clubs, which contains a larger percentage of purveyors of gossip than any other. He sat down with two of them and they chaffed him on the flop of the Barton trial. He was forthcoming. He said nothing which they could quote, but his silences were pointed, and afterwards in the smoking - room he heard one of them tell the editor of The Daily Life that the police were on to something new about Howard Neville.

The Daily Life is always zealous to be different, however absurdly, from other papers. So next morning when the others splashed sentiment over Lily Barton's cruel ordeal, its front page lead was: "HOWARD NEVILLE. THE TRUTH."

Not that it had any truth to tell, but it hinted things so mysterious that no man could guess what they were, and in its top notes exhorted the police to follow up the clues it had given. Reggie, calling upon Lomas, was told morosely: "We've checked on those infernal witnesses who swore to the other man. They're poor as church mice and they're mixed up with stage people in Troop's show. It looks devilish like Brock was right, they were hired to tell the tale."

"Brock right? Horrid thought. However. Not yet compulsory. Done anything on Howard Neville? I gather from our enterprisin' press you have clues."

Lomas condemned the press. The harvest of the enterprise of The Daily Life, so unfair in this world, was reaped by its chief rival, The Daily Gazette, by the production five days later of a distinct photograph of Howard Neville, excavated from the files of the agency which, ten years before, had found him his first engagement. The agent's recollections of him were written up into a description of a miracle of male beauty and a man of mystery.

This picture came before Reggie's eyes as he talked with his wife at breakfast. His share in the conversation grew incoherent.

Half an hour later the heads of Lomas and Bell turned together from consultation to hear him say:

"Great power, the press." He put the paper on the table between them. "Would you have recognised the late Neville?"

"I should not, sir," said Bell. "I only saw him after death with his face cut up."

"So what?" Reggie smiled.

"I don't know."

"Oh my Bell! Might be the reason why his face was cut up. Which I always wondered."

"Damme!" Lomas exclaimed. "Do you mean the man who was murdered wasn't Neville? That's crazy. His wife must have known him. The bookmaker recognised him at once in spite of the wounds. So did Troop."

"As you say. The dead man was Neville. But with his features cut up, we couldn't photograph him: couldn't publish his face. Impedin' discovery who was he, where did he come from. Possible object of the slashin'. Probable object."

Lomas studied the photograph. "The stage is crawling with creatures like this - one more male lovely."

"Sad and true. But look at the nose. Fat nostrils, wide nostrils. Just what was obliterated. The one individual, characteristic feature."

"Well - it may be," Lomas admitted. "How does that help us to trace his double life?"

"My dear chap! He's broadcast now. What about our active and intelligent police force? Any forrarder?"

"Yes. Troop's alibi isn't too good. We've put his precious friends through it again and shook 'em on the time. He might have been in the flat before midnight."

"Troop. I wonder. Anything about Neville?"

"I have what might be a line," said Bell. "We found Neville's favourite pub. One of the barmen told us he used to raise money on a showy gold watch, pawn it when broke and get it out again when he was flush. Common dodge, of course. The barman put us on to the pawnshop he used and the chap there remembered Neville and the watch all right. It was an old watch, but first class, family heirloom sort of thing. English made, hall mark of 1870, name of the maker on the dial, John Poole, Norwich, number on the case 273. Neville had taken it out of pawn the very day he was murdered. And yet you know it wasn't on him, nor in the flat. So that does look like robbery after all."

"As you say. Further obliteration of Neville's other life. Watch removed to conceal his connection with Norwich."

"Guessing on guesses," Lomas shrugged.

"Oh no. No. Believin' evidence. Which you will not do."

"If he did come from Norwich, what has that to do with his murder?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie purred. "Up to you. Efforts to conceal who he was had a reason. Find it."

Bell looked at Lomas. "We might send Underwood down to see what he can get."

"Very well. Try it," Lomas agreed wearily.

"My dear old thing. Try everything," Reggie exhorted him. "You haven't omitted to keep a bright eye on Lily Barton?"

"She's being watched all right," Bell was grim. "She's gone down to Daisy Bud's country cottage, Mr. Fortune. Though Miss Daisy said Lily would never forgive her. That was a stunt."

"It could be. Where is the cottage?"

"In Kent, little place called Wassenden."

"Daisy with her?"

"Took her down on Sunday, came back Monday, having to be at the theatre every night."

"All alone. I wonder," Reggie frowned. "Watch her Bell. Watch - and pray." He rose slowly and gazed at them with dull eyes. "I am not happy," he told them. . . .

The papers continued to work hard on the hidden life of Howard Neville, producing a good deal that skirted round the law of libel about women but, apart from this stimulus to the public interest in him, achieved nothing. Twice a day Lomas was annoyed by Reggie's plaints over the telephone, asking for news from Norwich. On the evening of the third he replied with sardonic pleasure that Norwich was a flop. John Poole, the watch maker, Underwood reported had been dead some forty years. His son died in 1925 and the business then closed down. Underwood had not found anyone who recognised Howard Neville's photograph or traced the name in Norwich.

On the next day, which was Sunday, the telephone demanded Reggie just before lunch and Bell's voice spoke to him. "Lily Barton has been stabbed, sir. I want you to - -"

"You do," Reggie snapped and rang off.

Fifteen minutes later he drove his car away from Scotland Yard with Bell beside him and questions and reproaches rattled from him like machine - gun fire. "Is she dead? How was it? I told you to have her watched. Why didn't you?"

To be driven by Reggie in a hurry has made many brave hearts quail. Bell's story came confused and interrupted by frozen stares ahead.

Lily Barton was not dead but unconscious from loss of blood and shock in the Wassenden cottage hospital. She had been stabbed in the throat, like Howard Neville. Two good men had been watching her. One of them, Sergeant Moon, reported she'd been to early morning Communion, came back to breakfast and stayed in till ten. Then she went out again and met a little car on the road. Troop was in it. He stopped he walked with her, talking very intimate. They turned off on a footpath which crossed an open common. Moon couldn't follow them close without being seen, so he dropped behind. Then the path entered a copse and about halfway through that Moon heard footsteps and hid. Troop passed him, alone, in a great hurry, looking sick. Moon went on after Lily Barton. Beyond the copse the path turned along the side of a hop - field. He couldn't see Lily. He ran on. He found her lying under the hedge bleeding, with the knife still in her.

"What sort of a knife?" Reggie snapped.

"Moon didn't describe it, sir."

"Nothing more from these two bright men?"

"Moon had to get the woman to hospital," Bell protested, "He couldn't go after Troop. But we'll catch the fellow good and quick."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "And your other man?"

"He was off duty till twelve."

"Splendid." Reggie lay back with shadowed eyes, but he drove the more furiously, and the sensations of his cut between converging charabancs into the by - road to Wassenden still haunt Bell's bad nights. . . .

In the hall of the cottage hospital Bell was conferring with Moon when Reggie came down from Lily Barton's bedside. "She should live. Wound at the side and low. Missed the spine, missed the carotid and the jugular. Not so good, the man with the knife, this time. But the knife is. What the cutlers call a hunting knife. Curious and interestin'. She's just conscious. Says she don't know what happened to her. Show me, Sergeant." Moon gaped at him. "The place. Come on." Reggie hustled them into his car. . . .

They reached the hop - field. Its hedge was hazel, kept narrow and grown high to make a screen for the hops. "That's where the woman was." Moon pointed to bloodstains.

But Reggie looked at the hedge. The path ran close by it, there was a small gap in it five or six feet above the ground. He put his head through the hole. The loose brown earth on the other side showed footprints, deep and confused beneath the hole, clear in strides across the field.

"There you are. Bell. She was stabbed through the hedge. That's why the blow wasn't so good. By some man who watched her ways and lurked here." Reggie marched off to his car.

"There hasn't been a man near her," Moon protested.

"You haven't seen one. Too bad. Where's your colleague?"

"I can't think what Tomlin's up to," said Moon. "Not a word from him. I sent to our lodgings and he's not there." On the road a cycling constable stopped them to explain the silence of Tomlin. Some hikers had found him in the ditch of a green lane not far away. His head was bleeding, they thought he was dead. There were fresh tyre marks in the lane, he seemed to have been run down by a car, though it was no road for cars. They'd just got him to the hospital. . . .

Reggie took Bell out of the room where Tomlin lay. "Sorry," he said, but his eyes were bleak and fierce. "Bad fracture of skull. A bare chance. He was run over. Also hammered. Probably first. Want to look at his clothes." The buttonholes of the collar and shirt were torn. "As I said. A struggle. He was hammered first. Did the hammerer empty his pockets?"

"His warrant card's gone. Poor chap, you can take it he just showed that and the killer went for him. But here's his notebook." Bell turned the pages.

"Good fellow!" Reggie gave a mirthless smile. "Look at that."

"I see. He'd just taken the number of a car."

"Yes. The car. And it's a Norwich registration, Bell."

"My oath! Are you sure?"

"My dear chap! I looked up the Norwich letters days ago."

Bell plunged away to the telephone and told Scotland Yard to ring Norwich for the owner of the car, get him and hold him.

Bell will recount that it seemed like years, such was the terror of Reggie's driving through the dusk, and it was incredibly but eighty minutes, before they reached the Yard.

They were told that Mr. Lomas wanted to see them. They found him satiric. "I am much obliged for your instructions about a Norwich car, Bell. Norwich has traced its owner as far as possible. His name is Adam Miggs. He died six weeks ago. His present address is unknown."

"We are not amused," Reggie said sharply. "Where's his car?"

"It may be anywhere. All his things have been sold. Now I should be glad to hear why you recur to the Norwich wild goose chase."

Reggie told him with cold fury. "Good Gad!" Lomas lit a cigarette. "Do you conceive yourself to understand this, Reginald?"

"Not yet. No. More facts required. Get 'em."

"All the facts point to killing from passion. That means Troop. We have him. He broke down when he was told Lily Barton had been stabbed. He was put through it, why he went to her, what passed between them, why he rushed off and he wouldn't utter. I - -"

An Inspector came into the room. "Further message from Norwich, sir. They've got in touch with Adam Miggs' solicitor. He states the car was not sold but taken over by Miggs' son, Joseph Miggs, who lives in Hendon, 72 Goldsmith Walk."

"At last!" Reggie cried. "Come on now."

"Excuse me, sir," said Bell, "I'll take a police car this time."

It brought them and two of Bell's men to a silent suburban dead end, and they walked on to pick out of the little uniform houses number 72.

One of the curtained windows showed a light. Coming to the door, they heard voices. Bell rang and the talk broke off, then came a laugh and the sound of movement and a man spoke loudly: "Who's that? Let's see, Miggs."

There was a thud and a scuffle. Bell and his man put their shoulders to the door. The light was switched off. They broke in, they flashed torches on a man who lay writhing, on another kicking at him.

They fell upon the kicker and crashed him down. Reggie held a torch to his face. "Mr. Joseph Miggs, I think? Yes. Delighted to meet you. See the likeness, Bell? Howard Neville without slashed nose. Fat, wide nostrils as in photograph."

Joseph Miggs spat at him.

The other man raised himself and gasped: "That's the fellow, Mr. Fortune."

Reggie swung the torch on him and knelt down beside him. "Good man. Lie back now. Steady."

"What?" Bell roared. "Underwood!"

"Here, sir." Underwood laughed and retched. . . .

On the third day after Lomas held another conference. It was already talking when Reggie strolled in, sleepily benign, lapsed into an easy chair and contemplated Sir Matthew Brock's drab visage, which was intent but hostile.

"Dismiss passion from your mind, Brock," Lomas instructed him, and Reggie hid a smile of pure delight. "That motive is eliminated. Lily Barton is a side issue."

"Inhumanly speakin'," Reggie murmured. "Comfort for us, Brock - and her."

"I am speaking officially," Lomas glared. "We have the case quite clear now. It was a murder for money. The origin is in the affairs of the Miggs family. Adam Miggs, the father, had an old established cutler's business in Norwich. His elder son went into it and so acquired a special knowledge of knives. When the old man retired with a small fortune, Joseph carried on the business until a few years ago it went down. Then Joseph sold out, and with what he got for it came to London and plunged on the Stock Exchange. The younger son, Benjamin Miggs, was in the shop too till he got a girl into trouble and the old man, a hard shell Puritan, turned him adrift. He tried the stage, the only market for what he had, his looks, You can see why he changed his name to Howard Neville and kept it very dark. He was really Ben Miggs. He had nothing to hope for from his father or his brother. But the father soured on Joseph over the sale of the family business and died leaving a will which divided his fortune between the two brothers, though it made Joseph executor. Everything would go to Joseph, you see, if he got Ben, unheard of for years, presumed dead. Joseph had to put him underground before he could hear of father's death. The death wasn't advertised in the London papers, Joseph tracked him to Lily Barton's flat and did that neat murder - used a hunting knife to kill, took Ben's old family watch and slashed his face with Lily's poultry carver to hide the family likeness and snapped the carver in the neck wound to put the murder on Lily. With a little luck he would have had her hanged. That was necessary, or she could have claimed Ben's half of the estate as his widow. But her trial went wrong for Joseph."

"Well done, Brock," Reggie cried, and Brock made a petulant noise.

"Lily Barton was out," Lomas went on complacently "and Joseph found our hunt running the true line, who Howard Neville really was. Any minute we might get that, and even if we didn't convict him of murder. Lily would get her money. So he tried to kill her, and he made another neat bit of work. She'd have been dead, he'd have left a clear case against Troop, Troop rushing down to make love to her, rejected, stabbing her in despair, if our men, watching her, hadn't cramped his style. There was only a minute or two to do the job, he had to strike from behind a hedge while Moon was coming along, he had to leave his knife. And still Tomlin nearly got him as he went back to his car. He smashed Tomlin, but Tomlin had the car number. All the while Underwood was working away in Norwich on the trail of the watch. Underwood's as good as we make 'em. What a hope he had! Not a sniff of a scent in days. But on Saturday he ran down an aged daughter of John Poole, the watchmaker, who'd kept her father's books. He found the gold hunter was sold to Silas Miggs and she told him the Miggs family were cutlers in Norwich. Saturday night and Sunday he worried the old stagers of the place about 'em. Silas was Adam's brother, uncle of Joseph and Ben, that's how the watch passed to Ben. Underwood got an outline of the family, got Joseph's London address from the auctioneer who sold up his father's furniture and was on to him just as we came in from our end. Not bad work, Brock."

"Now," said Brock bitterly, and compressed his lips.

"My Lomas!" Reggie purred admiration. "Wonderful! How do you do it? I only felt we missed the point of the knife."

VI THE BROWN PAPER

AT EIGHT O'CLOCK Ann Stubbs, who was twelve had walked a brisk hour on her round with the morning papers and not had any breakfast.

But blackbirds laughed at her from the trees on the heath. The green hillside was glistening and fragrant in sunshine after rain. She turned away from home and breakfast to the gold of the kingcups about the ponds. Not knowing the words her heart beat to the tune -  "The year's at the spring, God's in his heaven All's right with the world." And if she were awfully lucky she would see the kingfisher again.

Nobody who knew her - they were few - ever thought of her having any luck in life. Shabby and down at heel, a long - legged wraith of a child, she stood very still among the budding hawthorns on the verge of the biggest, deepest pond. Chaffinches fluttered bright about her in courtship. A wren and a robin sang against each other. Her pale face, all brow and eyes, drank in the beauty of sight and sound, hut the eagerness grew wistful. The kingfisher did not come. He wouldn't come. There was a beastly man. That pond is a swimming pool for men, but few men use it on cool spring days. Ann had a right to be angry. The beast ran along and turned a somersault into the water, which was exciting, and he surged through it as she never dreamed anybody could. Then he was on that concrete scaffolding they dived from, only most of them never went above the first bit. He shot up like an angel to the very top. He stood there, it was awfully high and he looked wonderful, better than that lover in the film, ever so strong and handsome, all of him shining and rippling in the sunlight and ooh, what a dive! Beautiful body, curved to swoop like the swallows did! It cut into the glittering water and he went down as if he would never come up.

At last she saw him again a long way off, big brown arms breaking out through the waves he made and cut through with his head. He clambered out and ran away.

She wanted him dreadfully to dive again and waited. But he didn't. He came round the pond in a sweater and trousers. Even so he was still wonderful and she had to smile at him.

"Same to you, kid," he grinned.

"You dive awfully well," said Ann.

"Sweetheart. Do you come here often?"

"I didn't come to see you."

"Slap my face. That's right." He offered it to her a face not handsome but jovially impudent.

"I don't want to. I hated your being here. I came to see the kingfisher."

"Golly, that's a new one."

"There is a kingfisher," Ann insisted. "I believe there's a pair, and he loves this pond when no men are about."

"Don't you like men?"

"You're only a boy."

"And you're my baby sister," he laughed at her.

She flushed. "I'm not." They went on telling each other more about what they were.

This encounter Mr. Fortune has described as an example of one fundamental principle in crime, the one which provides that the forces of nature always bring out facts discovering the criminal if anybody takes the trouble to notice them. His proposal to write a simple handbook on the subject adapted to the comprehension of police, lawyers and judges has caused irritation.

Many strange visitors ring at his door. The two who came on a Thursday afternoon in May surprised a parlourmaid of mature experience. They were a young girl and a big lad who had his arm round her. He looked common, he was awkward and humble but quite sure Mr. Fortune would see him. "My name's Hay, miss. He don't know me, though, Mr. Fortune don't, nor nothing about me. You say to him I got something he'd like to hear of, please."

She reported this to Reggie Fortune, who was at tea and in argument with his wife and Darius, his blue Persian cat, over consumption of the last cream cake. He gazed plaintively at the parlourmaid. "Why?" he moaned.

"It seemed peculiar to me, sir."

"If you say so," Reggie sighed and Darius put two paws on his knee and licked the cake. "Sinful," he said bitterly and abandoned his plate and rose bit by bit, "in a sinful world."

The young man and the girl came into his consulting - room hand in hand and sat on the chairs they were given as close as they could get. "Mr. Fortune, sir?" the man asked.

"I am, yes." Reggie inspected them with pensive curiosity which mellowed as it dwelt upon the girl. She was not graceful, a thin, limp child, all arms and legs. She was not pretty, too much brow over the little features, but she had eyes worth looking at, big, dark as deep water and glowing, though they were dim and scared. Uncommon dark for a complexion as fair as that. No colour in it till she flushed under his inspection. Then she was crimson to her mop of honey hair.

The man had not been embarrassed. Reggie catalogued him as a hefty young barbarian, of the perky, simple cunning which street life breeds. But the girl and he made other little discords. His clothes were cheap and flashy, hers dreary, threadbare respectability.

Through Reggie's survey he talked fast. "My name's Hay, sir, Jim Hay, and this young lady is Miss Ann Stubbs. We live out at Lenham. I drive Smithers' van, that's the grocer's out there, and Miss Stubbs her uncle, Mr. Ward, keeps a paper and baccy shop. I have to tell you because of course you wouldn't know about us, but I couldn't help knowing of you, Mr. Fortune."

"More people know Tom Fool than Tom Fool knows," Reggie smiled.

"I'm not fooling, sir, I give you my word. I got something right up your street for you."

"And Miss Stubbs?" Reggie asked.

"That's right. The young lady's in it."

Reggie stood up, came round the table to her and asked: "Have you been hurt?" as he put a hand on her head and bent it sideways. She shrank back. "I'm a doctor, Miss Stubbs. Didn't you know?" He bent over her and saw where the hair fell away from her right temple the darkening of a bruise.

"That's right, we knew," Jim Hay's cockney voice chattered on. "But it ain't only you being a doctor, Mr. Fortune. It's the kind of doctor. You ain't half been in the papers. I read about you often. That there cat burglar trial, that's what came into my head. I said to the young lady, Mr. Fortune's the gentleman as we want for this, I said. He's a flyer and no error, I said. Didn't I, Ann? And look now, he saw your poor head right away, though it don't hardly show at all, my dear, and we hadn't told him a word."

Through this oration Reggie's fingers moved gently about the girl's discoloured temple and a swelling in the hair above it. "No, you hadn't told me," he said, turned away and went back to his chair. "You'd better begin. From the beginning. How long have you known Miss Stubbs?"

Hay grinned at her. "How long is it, my girl? It seems like I never didn't know you."

Her big eyes were set on Reggie and welling tears, but she answered quickly: "It was only last month Mr. Hay spoke to me first. It was Tuesday, April the 16th. It was a lovely morning."

Hay laughed. "That's quite right. I'll say it was lovely. Here, I'll tell you, Mr. Fortune. I was having a morning dip in the pond. Miss Stubbs, she came along there looking for a kingfisher. She's sweet on wild birds and such. So am I, but I don't know half what she does. We got talking, and after that, well, of course I'm grown up and she ain't left school but I've been going out with her, going on the heath in the evenings. It's perfectly all right, sir. Just we both like the sort of open and the trees and things and she's sort of in with 'em. Now then, last night, after she'd took her evening papers round we met same as usual and went up to the High Wood for to see if we could see the old badger what has a hole there. She'd seen him rolling once as it got dark. We waited for him, but he didn't come, and that made us a bit later than what I like for her. I ought to have took her right home, I been kicking myself all day, but we'd settled not to, so there shouldn't be any talk, see?"

"It wasn't you," said Ann. "I wouldn't ever let you. Mrs. Light would have talked."

"Who is Mrs. Light?" Reggie asked.

"The lady who comes in to do for uncle and me."

"Oh! She'd have told your uncle - and he wouldn't like you to be out with Mr. Hay?"

"He doesn't like me to be with anybody. Oh, but Uncle Alf's awfully kind."

"Well, well. So you went back from the badger's lair in the dark alone?"

"No, Mr. Hay came with me till we were off the heath on Lenham Hill, then I wouldn't let him come any further. I went on along Park Grove, that's a short cut home, and I saw a man - - "She faltered and looked at Hay.

"Go on, my girl," he prompted her. "You saw man coming out of a house and he barged into you and knocked you down, didn't he?"

"Yes, he did. He hit me with a stick or something. Her big eyes turned back to Reggie. "That's how it was, sir, really."

"Ever seen the man before?"

"Not to know. I didn't know him at all," she stammered. "He just came on me and hit me and I went faint and the next thing I was lying by the hedge and I ran home as quick as I could."

"Did you tell your uncle about it?" Reggie asked. She shook her head. "Because you didn't want him to know you'd been with Mr. Hay?" She nodded.

"But you ain't told Mr. Fortune what got you going," Hay struck in. "It's like this, sir. Ann knew the people in one of the houses there were away because they have their papers off her. That made her think. She couldn't rightly remember what house the dirty dog came out of, being dazed like, but when she did her paper round in the morning she had a look and saw where she fell on the privet hedge by number 12 and that is the house what's been left empty, see?

"Oh yes. Yes," Reggie answered. "Suggests man who knocked her down had no right to be comin' out of it. You thought that, Miss Stubbs?"

"I thought he was a burglar, sir. I went straight to the police and told 'em everything." She clasped her thin hands and looked at him with tremulous eyes.

"That was the thing to do," Reggie agreed.

"And what do you think the cops did to her?" Hay broke out. "They kep' her at the station all the morning putting her through it fierce, a kid like her, why didn't she tell 'em at once, and who was she with last night, and what was she doing out so late, and what was her uncle up to, and what did she know about the blinking house and what all."

"Police have to ask questions," Reggie murmured. "Miss Stubbs, did you tell them you were with Hay?"

"No. I told them I'd been on the heath, sir." She blushed.

"Don't you worry, Mr. Fortune." Hay also was red. "I told 'em straight, as soon as ever I heard, I went round and give the sergeant a bit of my mind, fat - headed bluebottle. It's like this. When they let Ann out at last and she went home the cops had pinched her uncle. She came round to me then and I buzzed off to the police station and pretty near had a rough house there. They don't want to get the truth of it they don't. They're out to put it on Ann and her uncle."

"It wasn't Uncle Alf," Ann cried. "He's straight, sir, and he's kind."

"Now you see, Mr. Fortune," Hay banged the table, "I said it was right up your street. It is, ain't it?"

"Thanks." Reggie smiled awry. "What were you going to do, Ann? Stay at your uncle's shop? The woman who does for you, Mrs. Light, is she kind?"

"She's good to me, sir."

"What's the address? I shall want to see you again."

"Thank you, sir." He could hardly hear her voice as she was crying, "17 Condor Street, off the Lenham Road, just a little shop." 

"All right." He stood up. "Good - bye for now, Ann." He put his hand on her shoulder. "Watch it, Hay."

"I will, Mr. Fortune." Hay met his sideways glance with a knowing nod. "I done well to come to you."

Reggie subsided into an easy chair with the telephone and called the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. "Question of etiquette, Lomas. A pushful lad's brought me one of your patients. Do you mind?"

"What's the case?"

"A girl child. Just in her teens or so. Blow upon the right temple. Her boy friend didn't like your treatment of it. So he said. If true, not good. Reference, Lenham police station. Name Ann Stubbs. Niece of Alfred Ward. I want a consultation with the Lenham Inspector. At once, if not sooner."

"Do you mean the child's in danger?"

"She may be. If so, bad for the police."

"Hold on," said Lomas, and after an interval told him to come round in half an hour.

Reggie spent ten minutes over a map of Lenham. He strolled into Lomas's room, took a cigar and the biggest chair and murmured: "Thanks very much."

"What do you suppose you can do with this case?" Lomas demanded.

"I haven't the slightest idea." Reggie blew smoke rings.

"The Divisional Inspector, Capes, is a sound man. He's been in touch with us already. I approve what he's done."

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap!" Reggie sighed. "And what he hasn't done?"

"I'm not aware of anything more he could have done."

"Did he call a doctor to examine Ann?"

"Why should he? The child came to him quite fit."

"Oh no. She came and told the police she'd been kocked down. First question for him, was it true? He took no evidence. So she was brought to me. And it is true. Well?"

Lomas frowned. "Capes is here now on the case. He'll be up in a moment. What did the girl say to you?"

"Lots of things. She and the boy friend who brought her." Reggie related them. . . .

"Queer story." Lomas made a grimace. "You fell for that?"

"My dear old thing! No. I never believe what people say. Not even policemen. Till proved. Cunning lad, the Hay lad. As you were goin' to point out. However. Story could be true. I should say Ann's part was."

"Kingfishers and badgers!" Lomas sneered.

"Yes. Most persuasive part. Not the sort of thing Hay would invent. Pure nature. Like the conjunction of the sharp lad and the girl child. Very useful, the forces of nature. Why not use 'em?"

"What's up your sleeve?" Lomas was annoyed "What do you think you can make of the case?"

"I haven't the slightest idea." Reggie blew one smoke ring inside another. "That - -" He was interrupted by the entry of Inspector Underwood, whom he likes, followed by a smug man beaming self - satisfaction. "- that is the humour of it," he finished his sentence.

"Now, Capes," said Lomas briskly, "what are you going to tell me?"

"The finger - prints are Alfred Ward's, sir, as I thought," Capes announced. "On that I consider I have ample to convict him. I propose to search his place at once for the stolen property."

"Let me have an account of the case from the start." Lomas sat back. "Mr. Fortune may put a point to you." Capes gave Reggie a respectful salute, surprise at the bringing of the scientific expert into the case expanding his importance. "At half - past eight this morning, sir, I received information that a side window in 12 Park Grove was broken and open, the family being away on holiday. It's a street of some of our best houses. Proceeding there I found the window mentioned was a casement giving on a cloak - room. One pane had been broken from the outside which would enable the catch to be turned. The casement when open wasn't big enough for a man to get through but a child could easily. I formed the opinion that it was a case of burglary of the old, common type with a child assistant put through a window to open a door. I effected an entrance and found evidence of robbery. A locked buffet in the dining - room had been forced open and ransacked, only electro plate and linen left. Similarly with a locked cabinet in the drawing - room. In that only china remained. On telephoning the family I was informed that they had left some old silver in the cabinet and a little collection of miniatures framed in gold, but they'd sent the canteen of silver from the dining - room to the bank. People will behave like that. They value the miniatures at six hundred pounds, painting and gold together. On the drawing - room floor I found a piece of brown paper as might be torn off making a parcel." He showed it, blurred with marks of finger - prints in white powder.

Reggie took it. "Lots of finger - prints," he murmured. "And all the same hands, Mr. Fortune," said Capes with triumphant emphasis.

"Is that so?" Reggie's eyelids drooped. 

"But if you'll allow me I'll put things in order" Capes went on. "Returning to the station I was informed that a girl, name of Ann Stubbs, had come in with a story of her having seen a man leave 12 Park Grove by the front door last night. We have some knowledge of this Ann Stubbs. She passes for twelve years of age but looks older. She's an orphan child kept by her uncle, Alfred Ward, who has a little paper and tobacco shop in one of the poor streets. She delivers the papers for him at the houses and she's out and about all hours. When questioned on her story she gave me no description of the man and no definite time she saw him. She stated that he knocked her down and she came over faint, so she never got a real sight of him and couldn't say how long she took to get home, but when she did it was after eleven, because her uncle had gone to bed and Mrs. Light called out to her from next door for being so late. Mrs. Light is a woman who comes in daily to keep house for Ward. Asked what she'd been doing out so late, the girl told me she'd been on the heath, looking for a badger." Capes paused to sniff. "A badger, sir! Asked how she knew her uncle was in bed, she said he always went up sharp at eleven. I put it to her why had she waited till morning to tell the police she'd been attacked; why not come to the station last night? She became confused, talked about being frightened and wanting to get home and not really knowing what had happened. But when she went out with her papers in the morning, doing the round along Park Grove, she recognised the house which the man had come out of and, knowing the people there were away, it struck her he might have been a burglar, so she thought she ought to tell the police. That was her explanation. Now see where we are - -"

"I should like to," said Reggie.

"This girl didn't bring her tale of a burglar at the house till after we knew from other sources there had been a burglary. Then she came along to make out she'd seen him and it wasn't anybody she knew and at the time of the burglary her uncle, Alfred Ward, at home in bed. Further to that she had knowledge the house was empty. Her account of why she was out late at night isn't reasonable. I came to the conclusion she had put up a story to cover herself and her uncle."

"So I have gathered." Reggie blew smoke rings. "Any reason for your conclusion?"

"There is, Mr. Fortune," Capes said sternly. "The finger - prints on the brown paper found by me in the drawing - room of 12 Park Grove are those of Alfred Ward. You see that's not merely a reason, that's proof."

"Proof Ward handled the brown paper. Yes. It is. How did you verify his prints?"


"They're on record," Capes grinned. "Ward has been in prison, and for much the same kind of robbery."

"Oh! Interestin' and curious. However. Have you asked Ward what he was doing last night?"

"Naturally I have, sir. As soon as I formed my suspicions of the girl I sent for him. When I'd finished with her and dismissed her, I had him in. He was very sullen. Some old lags are, when you get 'em again. I remember him talking our heads off the first time he was charged. Not to - day. He'd hardly utter. What I dragged out of him comes to this: his defence is he was at home all the evening reading, and went to bed sharp at eleven. The snag for him is he had to own Mrs. Light left his place before ten. That leaves him plenty of time to do the burglary with the girl, if Mrs. Light did see her come home about eleven. He'd only want the girl to get through the window and let him in. Mrs. Light went off to the pub till closing time so he could have slipped away easy without her knowing. There's only the girl's word for it he was in bed when she came back."

"You have worked it out," Reggie purred. "Did you ask Ward to account for his finger - prints?"

"No, sir, I did not. I have only just verified them. I detained him on suspicion for further enquiries."

"Suspicious case, yes," Reggie murmured. "What was the other one - the one that put him in prison?" 

Capes approved this interest. "A matter of five years ago Alfred Ward was doing well in Bourne's, the oldest estate agents in Lenham. It's a funny thing, he came out of the poor streets up the hill and he's drooped back there. Old Mr. Horace Bourne, the head of the firm, took a fancy to him as an office boy and pushed him on. He was a sharp fellow, he got to be confidential clerk to Mr. Bourne and well in with the family. Then one day he was sent to make an inventory of the contents of a house owned by one of Mr. Bourne's old friends who died suddenly. The house was shut up and the keys in the office. When Mr. Bourne looked over the inventory he found Ward had left out a portfolio of old French drawings. Ward denied there was any such thing in the house. Mr. Bourne went round himself and found it wasn't, but he knew it had been when he locked things up after his friend's death, and only Ward had had the keys. He called the police. 

"Ward blew up, raging at him and trying to bluff us with his good reputation, but going over his room at the office we came on a drawing caught between the drawers of a roll top desk. It was crumpled up, a bit of cream paper with a faint silvery drawing of a woman crying. Mr. Bourne identified it as one of the best his friend had, hundreds of years old, he said. He was furious at it being spoilt. Afterwards we dug out bits of leather board from the dust bin and pieced 'em together and there was the portfolio. Ward swore himself black in the face he knew nothing about anything, he wouldn't give us a line what he'd done with the other drawings. They were valued at a thousand pounds. So the judge handed him five years in gaol. He earned a remission for good conduct and when he got out he had the face to come back to Lenham, to the back streets where he was bred, and set up this shop. I've had my eye on him naturally, but never anything definite till now, except he takes in letters for anybody, so much a time you know, which is often cover for something crooked."

"That's the case for the prosecution?" Reggie asked. "And you think he'll be convicted?"

"I make bold to say he will, Mr. Fortune." Capes was unctuously pleased with himself. 

"Well, well. What is the theory? Ward put his niece through the window of the house and she let him in and then he came out and knocked her down?"

"Really, sir," Capes protested, "you don't suppose I believe anybody knocked her down? That's a plain fake."

"Oh! But she was knocked hard. With a thin blunt weapon which might have been a jemmy. I've examined her."

"Beg your pardon, sir, that I had not been informed of." Capes looked injured. "But you'll notice it fits into my case perfectly well. Ward sent the girl with a tale of seeing a burglar she didn't know, so he shouldn't be suspected. He had to give her a bruise on the head for proof of her story. I may tell you that sort of thing's old stuff."

"Theory number two," Reggie murmured. "Theory one, nobody knocked her down. Theory two, Ward did. Neither makes sense, Gapes. She was hit on the head, not this morning when you'd heard of the burglary but last night when you hadn't. The bruise is that old. It wasn't made by Ward to confirm her story. She didn't show it you and you didn't see it.

Natural inference, probable inference, her story is true."

"Her story!" Capes snorted. "Walking the heath at night to see a badger!"

"Only time she could see a badger. They don't show till dark. You wouldn't believe her because it sounds strange to the town detective ear. Your error. She's the natural child. She likes birds and beasts. She's the natural girl. She likes big boys. She took one to see her badger and the badger didn't show up. That's why she was out late in Park Grove. It's her short way home from the heath. Didn't you know that, Capes?"

Capes cleared his throat. "She said nothing to me about being with a boy friend."

"Her natural modesty," Reggie smiled. "The boy friend was with her all right. He brought her to me. His name is Jim Hay, and he drives a van for Smithers, your Lenham grocer. Is he also known to the police?"

"I know Smithers, first - class shop. I don't know the errand boys." Capes showed temper. "What's the use of all this, sir? I have Ward's finger - prints on the paper found in the house."

"The prints on the brown paper, yes." Reggie's eyes were shadowed. "Curious and interestin'."

"He can't get round that." Capes turned to Lomas. "By your leave, sir, I'll go ahead and search Ward's premises."

"Oh yes, yes," Reggie murmured. "For the stolen property. You found some of the other in his desk. I'll go with you." He looked sideways at Lomas.

"That's all right, Capes," said Lomas, "You carry on. Underwood will bring Mr. Fortune along." But when Capes had gone, "What do you conceive yourself to be after, Reginald?" he demanded.

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! What is missing? The truth."

"There's nothing against Capes."

"No. Correct fellow. Keeps all the rules. However. Why so many prints? Why any brown paper?" Reggie rose languidly. "Gentle shepherd, tell me why. Capes didn't. Come on. Underwood. My car's here."

He drove himself, which cramped Underwood's desire for conversation. Through the trolley buses of Lenham Road he cut into a shabby genteel by - way and stopped. "On your left Lenham New Town. So called because it isn't. Region of poor streets at the bottom of the opulent hill where Alfred Ward was bred, from which he rose and to which he has fallen. Second to the left Condor Street, where he set up shop."

"You know your way about here, sir," Underwood remarked.

"I read the map. After readin' Ann Stubbs. Before readin' Capes. Instructive about both. Come on. Don't want Capes to get to the shop first."

Condor Street was composed of dingy little houses in which every window had lace curtains, and Ward's shop, the window of which was all cigarette packets, the door draped in wire racks of papers. Beyond it a large man loitered. "Capes is taking no chances," said Underwood under his breath.

"I wonder," Reggie murmured.

A car shot past them and stopped. The man came to it as Capes got out. "Nothing to report, sir," he said. "Except - -" He looked at Reggie and Underwood.

"Here we are again, Capes," Reggie smiled. "Go to it."

"Very good." Capes was brusque. "I'll do this my own way, if you please." He strode to the shop, the large man let Reggie and Underwood by and blocked the door behind them. A bell rang as Capes opened it, but some minutes passed before a fat woman bustled through another door at the end of the counter, minutes which Reggie passed in gazing round the shelves.

"Well, what is it?" she wheezed at Capes.

"Are you Mrs. Light?"

"That's my name." Her bleary eyes were afraid of him.

"I am a police officer, Inspector Capes. I've come to search these premises."

"Lorlummy!" She gave a gasping squeak. "You ain't got no right to do a thing like that."

"You know I have. Don't you give me any trouble or - - "He jerked his thumb at the man filling up the doorway. He lifted the flap of the counter and came to her. "Stand aside now."

Ann Stubbs ran in from the room at the back crying: "Mrs. Light, what is it?"

"Police, dearie," the woman gulped.

Capes had opened the desk, which contained nothing but small change and some thin account books.

"Don't you touch my uncle's things." Ann caught hold of him and he turned on her.

Reggie leaned across the counter to put a hand between them saying: "Steady, Capes. She's a girl. Let him be, Ann. He has to do his job."

"Oh!" she gasped; she was white, her big eyes blazed at Reggie.

"Yes. Told you I should see you again."

"You told me!" Her voice was piteous, she shrank from him.

"That's enough from you." Gapes swung round and looked along the shelving. Below the array of little tins of different tobacco lay some letters and a brown paper parcel. "You - Mrs. Light," he barked. "What do you know about this?"

"Only just seen it!" Reggie whispered to Underwood. "Well, well." He moved along the counter.

"Them there?" Mrs. Light was answering. "We take in letters and parcels to be called for, penny a time."

"Do you?" Capes looked at the parcel. "This didn't come by post. Who brought it?"

"I don't know. The shop bell rang when I was having my elevenses after your blokes took Mr. Ward away. When I come in I found that parcel on the counter. People do just leave things sometimes."

Reggie was looking over Capes's shoulder. "Address in printed letters: 'Mr. J. Walker'," he remarked. "Has anything ever been left for J. Walker before?"

"No," said Ann.

"Not as I know of," said Mrs. Light.

"That's the story," Capes sneered. "Now then - - " He picked up the parcel by the string.

"My Capes!" Reggie chuckled. "Splendid! You haven't forgotten the finger - prints?"

"What do you think!" Capes was gratified. He brought the parcel to the desk, cut the string, and taking the brown paper by the corners unfolded it. A wad of tissue paper was inside, he opened that, he found some quaint little objects of silver, a dog drawing a cart, a stork, a boy with a goose under his arm and four miniatures framed in gold. "Here we are, Mr. Fortune."

"Yes. Speakin' roughly," Reggie murmured. He contemplated the contents of the parcel with affection. "Bits of Dutch silver. Not worth much. Miniatures, English seventeenth. Quite good. Correspondin' with provisional schedule of articles stolen. However. A little more work required. Take 'em on to the station and we'll be with you."

"Much obliged," said Capes with heavy sarcasm. "I know there's a bit of work to be done." He folded up the parcel gingerly and went out.

Reggie followed him to say softly: "Leave your man here."

"I was going to," Capes muttered. "Someone may come for this swag. I'd thought of that."

Reggie went back into the shop, leaned over the counter and beckoned to Ann. She shrank back and shook her head. "Oh yes," he told her, "Jim Hay said he 'done well to come to me.' He was right, Ann. Just wanted to ask you - does the dustman come through to fetch your waste paper or do you put the bin outside?"

She stared at him between misery and amazement, and decided to say: "We put it out every night."

"Good." Reggie smiled. "And this won't be the last time you'll see me, Ann." He marched Underwood out, and when they were past the watchful detective asked: "Well, young fellow?"

"I saw your point about the paper, sir. Very neat and nasty."

"Yes. That is so," Reggie purred. "Anything else occur to you?"

"It's all too easy."

"My dear chap!" Reggie pressed his arm affectionately. "Pleasure to work with you."

"But it is a case still."

"More and more. Fascinatin' case." They found Capes at the police station happier than ever. "I rather think I've done my bit of work, Mr. Fortune," he announced. "Look at this." He displayed the brown paper of the parcel marked with powder outlining finger - prints. "Now compare them with the prints identified as Ward's on the bit of paper found in the house." He produced it. "If they aren't the same I'll eat my hat."

"You won't have to," Reggie murmured, looking from one set to the other. "Noticed anything else?"

"Yes, Mr. Fortune, I hadn't missed it. The parcel paper and the bit in the house are the same sort. If you remember, I said from the first that bit was torn off in packing a parcel."

"You did," Reggie sighed. "You were meant to."

"Sir!" Capes sat up glowing indignation.

"My Capes! Don't be cross. It was the obvious inference from the brown paper in the burgled room. However. Why should a burglar pack up his swag in a parcel? Not the custom of the trade, what?" He looked at Underwood.

"No, sir," Underwood said slowly. "I wouldn't put much on that though. It has been done."

"Of course I know it's unusual," Capes triumphed. "But it was done. There's no use arguing a crook wouldn't make a mistake when he has."

"I wasn't," Reggie murmured. "Grateful and comfortin' his mistakes. Only want you to notice 'em all. Consider the paper, the smooth, thin, brown paper. Takes finger - prints beautiful. Also the man Ward has any amount of this paper. Parcels of cigarette packets on his shelves wrapped in it."

"You have a sharp eye, sir." Capes spoke with condescending approval. "I'm glad you saw that for yourself. The paper was Ward's."

"Oh yes. Yes. It was," Reggie purred. "But every night Ward's waste paper goes into a bin put outside for the dustman. Not so good, Capes."

"I don't follow you," Capes frowned.

"Try again. Lots of Ward's prints on the bit of paper in the house. Lots more on the parcel paper. Prodigal with his fingers for a man packin' up stolen goods. Why? No conceivable answer. But he would handle the paper on a parcel of cigarettes freely, he'd handle it some more bundlin' it up to put in the dust bin. Hence many prints of all his fingers."

"Very likely. I dare say you're right," Capes answered. "That just confirms it was his paper."

"My Capes! Of course it was. Once. But put outside his shop anybody could take it."

"There's the snag, old man," Underwood smiled. 

"You mean to say you believe that!" Capes turned on him.

"I'd say a jury might."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured. "Try once more. Why should Ward leave some of the swag packed up on a shelf in his shop where anybody could spot a parcel first glance? No rational answer. You did spot it as soon as you looked."

"Too easy. Capes." Underwood shook his head.

Capes snorted. "It seems easy to you because I was quick on the job."

"Try yet again," said Reggie. "Were you quick? When did you post your man to watch Ward's shop?"

"I sent him as soon as I'd heard all Ward could say for himself."

"Oh. So the man didn't get there till long after Ward had been taken to the station. Then there is no possible answer to Mrs. Light's statement that the parcel was put on the counter by somebody unknown."

"Answer?" Capes was scornful. "It don't need any answer. It's a plain fake."

"Steady on, old man," Underwood protested. "You can't turn everything down that won't fit the charge."

"My Capes!" said Reggie plaintively. "Keep trying. Owner of stolen property telephoned you he had a small collection of miniatures in his cabinet. You found four in the parcel. Would he call four a collection? Very small. Phone him again and ask him how many he had."

"I can't," Capes frowned. "I mean I don't know where he is. He said this morning he was motoring back at once but he couldn't get here till to - morrow. I'll have Ward's place searched again if you like. Why ever didn't you put this to me before, Mr. Fortune?"

"Because I felt sure there's nothing to be found except what was put for us to find. I took no chances. I told you to keep a man watching Ward's place. However, I think the burglar is now sittin' pat. Don't you remember the robbery for which Ward went to prison? Portfolio of old drawings stolen. One found where you couldn't miss it on search of Ward's room. Others never found. Well?"

"You mean the drawing was planted on him," Underwood cried, "like these things have been?"

"That is indicated, yes," Reggie smiled. "Happy days for Ward, what? You said he was sullen this morning, Capes. Fancy that! Life smashed up, years in prison, and then he's caught for another crime that wasn't his. Somebody is having fun with him. Somebody does love him."

"That's not fair to me, Mr. Fortune." Capes was red.

"Fair!" Reggie laughed. "My only aunt! Sorry Capes, I happen to be thinking of Ward. Try it Other strikin' similarities of these two robberies. Old stuff taken in both. Only one article from the first robbery in Ward's desk. Reason to believe only part of the second in Ward's shop. Well?"

The indignation of Capes gave way to puzzled respect. "I don't see what you're getting at, sir."

"The thief. Fellow who knows what old stuff will fetch a price. Fellow with some expert knowledge of antiques. Further to that I should guess the things planted on Ward are things not safe or not worth while to sell. Only a guess. However. Can soon be verified. Let's go see Ward's employer, the old estate agent Bourne."

"Mr. Horace Bourne? Why, sir, how can he help?"

"He was the man who discovered the disappearance of the drawings. Havin' welcomed Ward to his house he got Ward convicted for stealin' 'em. He must know a thing or two about them."

Through the starlit dark they drove up Lenham Hill and turned from it into a lane of trees. On one side large houses loomed, on the other white posts marked the verge of the heath.

The car swung through open gates and stopped at the door of a sprawling grey mass. "I will enquire," said the maid when she was told that Inspector Capes wanted to see Mr. Bourne; she left them, and it was some time before she came out of a room to beckon to them and say: "In here, please."

The light of one vase lamp showed them a drawing room of old - fashioned comfort, a woman standing by the fire. She came forward and Reggie saw a young, slight figure. The low zone of lamplight did not reach her head. "Inspector Capes?" She turned from one man to the other.

"Good evening, Miss Bourne," said Capes. "I needn't trouble you, if you'd just tell your grandfather I'm here on business."

"He ought not to be disturbed so late." Her voice was low, but she spoke fast. "What is it?"

"I beg your pardon, miss. It's a matter of duty."

She swept out of the room.

"That's a proud piece," said Capes.

"We are not loved, no," Reggie murmured. "However. We seldom are."

A long time passed before the door opened again, and then it was the maid who called to them: "This way, please."

She took them along the hall to a room of dark panelling on the upper half of which pictures hung. The lower half was hidden by books. Over the table poured a flood of light from a globe in the ceiling and a reading lamp. This brilliance encircled the heavy grey head of a man in a velvet jacket, discovered sagging wrinkles of jowl and cheeks. But Miss Bourne sat outside the glare.

He waved a hand at her. "That's all, Rosalind." 

She rose wearily, she crossed the circle of light watching him, and Reggie saw her face white and miserable. He opened the door for her, he watched her go down the hall, slow and faltering.

"Well, Capes, I suppose I know what you've come for," her grandfather spoke huskily. "It's that wretched fellow Ward again, eh?" His hand tapped the table.

"I do want to ask you a question or two about Alfred Ward," said Capes, and Reggie lifted an eyebrow at Underwood.

"But how did you know that, Mr. Bourne?" Underwood took his cue.

"What?" Bourne scowled at him. "Parslow told me you'd arrested Ward for the burglary in Park Grove."

Capes shook his head. "That's going too fast, sir. Ward has not been charged, only detained for enquiries. I'm here to get some information."

"I can't tell you anything about Ward you haven't heard before. I know nothing of this Park Grove affair."

"No, sir, naturally you don't. But there's a point or two on the other case."

"Who is Parslow, Mr. Bourne?" Reggie asked.

Bourne swung round upon him. "My partner, managing partner. I have practically retired." He turned to Capes. "Who are these gentlemen assisting you? They don't seem to know much about Lenham?"

"They're from headquarters, sir. Mr. Fortune and Inspector Underwood."

"Very well." Bourne fidgeted. "Go on, Capes. What do you want?"

"It's like this, sir. You knew Alfred Ward from a boy. Would you say he had any expert knowledge of antiques?"

"Of course not. Ward was a clever lad, but he came from a poor house, he picked up what education he had as he went along, he had no mind for anything but business and the main chance."

"Yet you thought well of him once," Reggie murmured.

Bourne made a petulant movement. "I said he was clever. I gave him opportunities. I encouraged him. But you asked if he had taste and knowledge. Nothing of the sort. He had no culture, no background."

"So you never were friendly with him?"

Bourne's big veined hands could not keep still. "That never arose," he said angrily.

"Rather odd," Reggie drawled. "Ward didn't know his way about antiques - yet the charge was he picked out old drawings to steal. Curious and interestin'. Sure the drawings were old, Mr. Bourne?"

"Certainly they were. It was a drawing of the French fifteenth century Capes found in Ward's desk."

"Oh my aunt!" Reggie's eyes opened wide. "Drawing of a weeping Madonna. Silver point on cream. Marmion did some like that."

Bourne's hands contracted. "It is ascribed to Marmion. When did you see it, Mr. Fortune?"

"Haven't seen it. Only heard a description. It would fetch big money, what?"

"Certainly."

"Yes. If a thief could find a buyer. Not so easy. The thief didn't."

A moment passed before Bourne answered. "Ward crumpled it in hiding it, ruined it."

"And the other drawings?" Reggie drawled. "Not known where any of them went?" Bourne shook his head. "Also old?"

"Some were."

"Oh! Insured?"

"The collection was insured for 1,000 pounds; much less than its value."

"And you collected the money?"

"The money was paid to the executors of the estate, sir."

"Oh yes. Yes. Have you a list of the drawings?"

"Not here. There should be one at the office."

"We want that. Send it round to Capes to - morrow, will you?"

"Certainly." Bourne's hands began twitching again. "Do you hope to recover the drawings?"

"I wouldn't say that. No." Reggie's eyes contemplating him grew vague. "However. There are points. Good - night."

As they drove away: "What points did you mean, Mr. Fortune?" Capes asked eagerly.

"My Capes! You saw. Grand - daughter worried to death. Grandfather strong, stern man, but after a small dose of us nerves twitterin'. And grandfather collects drawings. Half a dozen hanging in that study. Couple of portfolios on the shelves."

"Good Lord, sir, you don't suspect Mr. Bourne stole the drawings himself?"

"I wonder. That would make sense of the case."

"But he's quite a wealthy man - and there's the burglary too."

"As you say. He has money. These little things don't make much difference. He has also pride. Of a sort. How old is Miss Rosalind Bourne, would you say?"

Capes was dumb with astonishment. "Might be thirty," said Underwood.

"No, she can't be as much as that." Capes recovered himself. "I know she was a war baby, because her father was killed on the Somme just as she was born and her mother died. Twenty - three at most."

"Yes. Looks old for her age," Reggie murmured. "Eighteen when the drawings were stolen. I wonder." He sank down in his corner and gave a bitter cry. "My ghost! I am empty. It's past ten. What have I done for thee, England, my England? I haven't had any dinner."

He took Underwood into town, Capes refusing, for a supper of oysters and tournedos Rossini with Richebourg 1904 and the crepes Fortune which are the sweetest of sweets. This lasted long, and next morning Underwood woke late and thirsty with confused memories of talk about Rugby football and Persian cats. Then the voice of Reggie coming over the telephone startled him into action.

It was a morning of leaden skies and northerly wind. Reggie, huddled over fire and pipe, parried his wife's exhortation to come and walk in the park by the plea which she did not believe, that he had an appointment.

But after effort he made one. By noon, pink and morose, he sat in the office of the insurance assessor who had dealt with the stolen drawings. "There's the list, Mr. Fortune. A Marmion which was found ruined. The others are later, a Natoire, a Lancret and some good nineteenth - century stuff. We paid, without dispute."

Reggie smiled awry. "You would. Much under insured, what?"

The assessor chuckled. "They might have fetched two thousand at a good sale. I don't wonder the thief wouldn't give away where he hid the rest. He'd never get their value, of course, but he might do well if he knew the ropes. He's been out of gaol a year or more you said. We haven't traced any of them on the market yet."

"Marmions are rare, aren't they?"

"Very. Nobody would pay half what that's worth but a thorough expert, and he'd be shy. Some of the other old ones might be difficult. The moderns - easy money. Do you give me any hope of getting them back, Mr. Fortune?"

"I couldn't say that. No. However. Things are not what they seem. Good - bye."

Reggie, taking no risks that day, ate an early lunch before he drove to the Lenham police station. He was received by Capes with impatience. Capes hoped he'd have been round earlier. The owner of the stolen miniatures had come back and stated that the four found were his, the oldest in his collection, but there were a dozen missing.

"Fancy that!" Reggie murmured.

"I know you suspected something of the sort," Capes eyed him resentfully. "I thought you had an idea of following it up."

"Oh yes. Yes. Bourne was goin' to send you a list of the stolen drawings. Has he?"

"No, sir. He has not. I rang him up just now and he said he hadn't been able to find it, it must have been destroyed."

"Well, well." Over Reggie's face came a small, benign smile. "Curious and interestin'. I got a list from the assessor. Strikin' similarity of the two robberies confirmed. Each time the oldest, rarest things planted on Ward. Those easier to sell vanish. A heart to heart talk with the man Bourne is required. Come on."

"Has Underwood dropped out, Mr. Fortune?"

"Oh, no, no. Underwood's runnin' his own line. Collected Ann Stubbs to take her round to Bourne's house and see if she recognises the man who knocked her out."

"Underwood's laying for Mr. Bourne?" Capes was horrified.

"Underwood won't make a mistake. Careful fellow. Same like me."

It was a quarter to two when they reached Bourne's office. The clerks declared that he had gone out, and supposed that he had gone home to lunch. At a turn in the lane which led to Bourne's house Reggie stopped his car suddenly. He saw Jim Hay lurking under the trees. Underwood and Ann Stubbs were not visible. He slid out of the car. "Fancy meeting you, Hay," he smiled.

"You told me to watch it, Mr. Fortune." Hay's sharp eyes looked past him. "So I am. What's that bloke up to with Ann?"

"Friend of mine. Seen anybody else?"

"Not to notice."

Reggie's face was overcast. He made haste on, Capes and Hay, shunning each other like distrustful dogs on his heels. Underwood met them. "Bourne hasn't shown up yet, sir," he said.

'"Strewth! It's old Bourne you're laying for!" Hay grinned. "He wouldn't come back from his office this way. He uses the back gate on the hill."

"Oh my aunt!" Reggie moaned. "Is that so, Capes?"

"Might be," said Capes sullenly. "I don't know."

"A way in is a way out. Get round there and stop it quick."

"I'll show you, guv'nor," said Hay. "Buck along." He scurried off, an angry Capes lumbering after.

"Better rush it now, Underwood," said Reggie. "Come on, Ann." He strode up the drive and rang the bell.

Bourne himself flung the door open. He recoiled and stood in a tremulous, red rage, croaking: "What the devil do you want?"

"You," said Reggie. "About those drawings - -"

"Damn the drawings!"

"Who destroyed your list of them?"

"How should I know?"

"Didn't it occur to you I could get one from the insurance people?"

"Get it then."

"I have. Show me your collection of drawings."

During this vehement dialogue Underwood had put Ann in front of him. She watched Bourne with an intent, puzzled gaze.

"My collection?" Bourne's voice was faint.

"Yes. Go on." Reggie bustled him down the hall into the study, crossed to the bookshelves and stopped before two portfolios. "Well, well," he murmured. "Just been goin' over "cm. Bourne?" One was not squarely in place.

"I have not," Bourne said hoarsely. "Somebody's been meddling."

"You say that?" Reggie glanced round the room.

Bourne pulled out the crooked portfolio, laid it on the table and opened it. He turned the drawings over with hands that fumbled and shook. Reggie grasped at them as they came to a sheet on which, in black and red chalks, a young girl was drawn with a doll. His head and Bourne's came together to look. "A Natoire," Reggie murmured. "There was a Natoire in the stolen collection. And the next one, please." That was red and black, too, a woman dancing. "Lancret," said Reggie. "A Lancret was also stolen. Bourne. These were in the list. Though your copy has been destroyed. 'Tille avec poupee - Charles Natoire.' 'Danseuse - Nicolas Lancret.' Don't you remember?"

Bourne was scattering the rest of the portfolio. He looked up at Reggie, his mouth moved but no sound came for a moment, then: "The others - all mine." He spoke in jerks. "Those two - don't know how they came here - -"

"Planted on you? Same like the Marmion was planted on Ward? Want us to believe that?"

Bourne made mouths at him. "Oh God, I don't know."

"What were you up to at the door when we came?"

Bourne staggered into a chair. "Rosalind's gone," he groaned. "She's not in the house. I was at the telephone ringing up her friends."

"When did she go?"

"They didn't see her. She's always in for my lunch."

Reggie moved away to one of the French windows which was open. "You came by the back gate," he remarked. "Did you come in this way, Bourne?"

"What do you say? Of course not," Bourne stammered, but the call of a whistle tore through the words.

Reggie plunged out, and Underwood came pelting after him. From one clump of shrubs to another a man in an overcoat ran and disappeared. Gapes lumbered into sight, pursuing. Reggie cut across to the far side of the shrubs, found a leg dangling from the fence and flung himself upon it. As the man came down with flailing arms Underwood arrived and put the force of his rush into a scientific body blow.

The man collapsed and writhed. "Thanks very much." Reggie bent over him. "Mr. Parslow, I presume." Capes thudded up to them. "Lord Almighty!" he panted. "Parslow!"

As he spoke someone whistled again, the note was sharper, the piercing shriek, long drawn out of fingers in a mouth.

"Blast him!" Capes gasped. "That's not police, sir. It's that young devil, Hay."

Reggie was running towards the sound. "Hold your roan, Capes," said Underwood, and followed.

The second whistle had come like the first from the back of the grounds. They passed the rhododendron clumps to a tennis lawn and still saw no one, though through the orchard beyond they could see the back wall. But below the orchard smoke rose, white cloud rolling above cloud flecked with sparks.

The smoke poured from a shed. Flame leapt up through it. Out of the smoke a smoking figure staggered heavily laden and fell.

They came to it, it rose and they saw it was Hay black of face and scorched. "Lor' love you." He shook with coughing. "Her blinking clothes are afire."

They tore off coats and wrapped them about Rosalind Bourne. . . .

A gardener shambled down through the orchard. "Here!" Reggie called to him, and pointed at the blazing shed. "What's that place, what's in it?"

"That's the wood shed, pea sticks and such. However did it catch light? Blimey, you got missy there!"

"Bring a hurdle," Reggie snapped. "Quick!"

He drew the coats away from Rosalind's charred clothes. She lay still. Hay leaned over his shoulder and whispered: "Mr. Fortune, is she - -"

"Not dead, no, thanks to you."

"The ruddy swine," Hay muttered.

"As you say." Reggie felt about Rosalind's arms which were behind her. He drew from the wrists charred strands of fibre and held them up to Underwood. "See? Hands tied with withies from the pea sticks. Ankles the same. Thoughtful brute, Parslow."

The gardener brought a hurdle and Underwood and he carried Rosalind up to the house. "Let's see your hands, my lad." Reggie turned to Hay.

"They're all right, sir."

Reggie took them. "I thought so. Done to a turn. You're rather good, Jim. Come on."

Ann sat on the edge of a chair in the hall crying. Underwood and a man she didn't know came downstairs with Jim Hay between them. One of his arms was in a sling, the hand of the other was bandaged. "Cheerio, kid," he grinned at her. "These gents are just running me round to the hospital. Be good."

She stood up, she moved unsteadily towards him. "'S all right, my dear," said Jim. "I'm fine. You buck along home. She can go home, can't she, guv'nor?"

THE BROWN PAPER 189

Underwood put a hand on her shoulder. "I'll send her home straight away. She'll have the home fires burning good and bright now."

"Thumbs up, Ann," Jim laughed. "I'll be seeing you."

Underwood shepherded them out, Jim to an ambulance, Ann to a car, and being a man of heart, he went with her.

Half an hour later in the morning - room of Bourne's house Capes was telling him all about it. "I got round to the back gate; I hadn't hardly got there when I saw a bit of smoke and smelt something burning, as it might be garden rubbish. That set me thinking. I said to young Hay, what are they doing with a fire in the orchard and this time o' year too, late spring. Then I heard footsteps inside the wall and the gate was opened a bit. I shoved it back quick and there was Parslow. 'Hallo, Mr. Parslow,' I said. 'It's you. And what might you be doing here?' Then he did a bunk and I blew my whistle for you and went after him. You did very well, Underwood."

"Think so?" Underwood was not grateful.

"I do. I was glad to have your assistance. That idea of Mr. Fortune's and you bringing Ann Stubbs to identify Mr. Bourne as the Park Grove burglar - no good of course."

"Wasn't it? Parslow saw her when he was being marched off and he nearly flopped on your hands."

"I know he did. He recognised her, but she can't swear to him. She owned it. She goes for nothing. Just useless bringing her in. I could have told you so. I never did believe Mr. Bourne did any dirty work like Mr Fortune fancied. Parslow's the man. He'd marked down that miniature collection, having information the owner was away. He knew all about Ward. He got into the house with a key - easy for a house agent to wangle that. Then he broke the little window to make a show of an old style burglary done with a kid. He had paper stolen from Ward's shop to leave Ward's prints and he planted the stuff he couldn't sell on Ward. Foxy devil."

Underwood became impatient. "You know it all, Capes."

"I've worked things out," said Capes with satisfaction.

"Pity you didn't work 'em sooner."

"I may say I'm a judge of men. I was very willing Mr. Fortune should come down hard on Mr. Bourne. That was bound to make the old gentleman think a bit and talk to Parslow about the stolen drawings. Parslow was his manager when they were stolen, and very smart about antiques."

"How long have you known that?" Underwood cried. "Did you know it when Ward was convicted?"

"It didn't come into the case," Capes retorted. "Parslow was on holiday at the time."

"My Lord!" said Underwood.

"You remember it was Mr. Bourne charged Ward," Capes went on unruffled. "But look now, the way I handled this new case put Parslow in an awkward fix. Mr. Bourne bothered him about the drawings and he was up against it, we had suspicions on them and we'd seen through his tricks to put the robbery of the miniatures on Ward."

"You have seen through things."

"Not too bad," Gapes smirked. "Well, there was Parslow nearly caught. I give it to him, he's the trickiest customer I ever put the cuffs on. That was a master - piece to plant some of the drawings on Mr. Bourne, poor old gentleman. See how neat Parslow timed it. In at the back gate before Mr. Bourne came home and while the servants were having their dinner so nobody would be about. Real hard luck Miss Rosalind happened on him. Even then he wasn't beat. He knocked her out, tied her up in the wood shed and set fire to it, the devil, and he'd have got away without a trace if I hadn't nipped round to the back gate."

"I don't think!" Underwood exploded, and said a little of what he did think.

During that process Reggie was watching Rosalind Bourne come to herself. Her swathed head stirred. Her eyes opened and saw him, their darkness quivered. "All clear now," he said gently, "at last. You've saved him."

Her eyes opened wider and were piteous. "He didn't," she whispered.

"I know. It's proved now."

Reggie went silently out of her room and interrupted the pungent thoughts of Underwood on Capes. "Leavin' it at that," he said. "Where is Ward, my Capes?"

"I have been considering his position, sir."

"What?" Underwood rasped. "You have him at the station still! You - -"

"Not now, no," Reggie murmured. "Go back, Capes. Tell him he's a free man. Ask him if he'd be kind enough to come here for a few minutes on his way home. And bring him. With apologies."

"I have nothing to apologise for," said Capes. "But I don't mind if I do. Ward has had a hard time." He went importantly out.

"I'm sorry, sir." Underwood turned to Reggie: "Capes will be pleased with himself in hell."

"Yes. The perfect official," Reggie sighed. "He can do no wrong."

"His hide's pig skin. And his size in hats! He means to be fair and his work's sound in a way. But what do you think he was handing out to me? He's the man that saw through everything, managed everything, cleared everything up. It was all Capes. You weren't in it, sir."

"Not much, no."

"One of the best things you ever did, Mr. Fortune. And I've seen some."

"Wasn't me," Reggie shook his head. "The fellow who did the job is Jim Hay - with him, Ann and the nature of things. I only took what was handed me, nearly droppin' same. A lad and a girl and the spring - and the devil is confounded - in spite of officials. I'll go break the news to grandfather."

Bourne sat in the study, a book on his knees, grey head lolling and jerking awake again. "What is it?" he dragged himself erect. "Mr. Fortune! Do you want me?"

'Yes. About Miss Bourne."

"Is there anything? How is she?"

"Shock. Some bad burns. Much pain. You owe her rather a lot."

"I do not need that you should tell me that," Bourne said huskily.

"You owe more than you can pay," Reggie went on. "You've stolen years from her. Ward gave you good service, you made him welcome here and then gave him no chance when Parslow threw suspicion on him. You knew what that meant to Miss Bourne. You had no mercy, no thought. You let yourself be Parslow's dupe. Parslow - you knew he was the one man in your office who understood old art, you knew he desired Miss Bourne. You shut your eyes. You let him ruin Ward, gave him his chance to break her and get her. He couldn't. He struck at Ward again. We stopped that. So he put the crime on you. He'd have broken you if she hadn't seen him in the study - she saved you. In spite of yourself. Are you proud, Bourne? I'm bringing Ward to see her. She wants hope. She has a right to life."

Bourne sat silent, looking at him and looking away. "You are bitter, Mr. Fortune."

"Oh no. No. Not concerned with you. Only with her and Ward."

"Will Rosalind live, sir?"

Reggie turned away at the sound of a car. "Matter for her," he answered over his shoulder. "And Ward." He went out.

A thin, bent, shabby man stood in the hall between Underwood and Capes. Underwood had hold of his hand, talking with friendly tact, but the man's unshaven face was set in a sullen stare.

"Mr. Ward?" Reggie came to him. "My dear chap! At last. Want you to come and see Miss Bourne." He took Ward's arm and led him away upstairs. "She needs you." He spoke softly. "She's hurt, you know. Help her. Cheer her. You can. Now. She must have that. Rather badly burnt and shock. But she can get well, if you hold her up. Your job." He opened the bedroom door and Rosalind's eyes turned to it. "Yes." He smiled at her, and Ward thrust past and fell on his knees by the bed. "Only a little while now. But to - morrow and to - morrow and to - morrow," said Reggie as he shut the door.

The chestnuts had lit their candelabra white and red above the big pond. Jim Hay stood on the top stage of the diving platform. His comely brown body did exercises. Out of the long grass between the hawthorns at the pond's far end rose Ann's mop of honey yellow hair. She watched him dive and swim to the shore and vanish. She lay down again, her nose to a clump of meadow - sweet.

He came whistling round the pool and did not see her till he was close upon her long, thin legs. "Hallo! How did you know?" he grinned.

She squirmed round and sat up. "Know what?"

"I'd be performing."

"I didn't. You ought not to. Your arm's not well yet."

"Says you." He did shadow boxing; she made the disapproving noises of a mother to a baby. "Stop it, you'll hurt yourself." He swung her to her feet. "Great big bully. I didn't come here to see you show off. I came to see the kingfisher."

He laughed. "What a game, ain't it? Mr. Fortune, he said something like that. He said everything was just you and me."

They sat down together to watch for the kingfisher.

THE GILDED GIRLS

No DECEPTION," SAID Mr. Fortune, "she has a heart."

He had come to the town of Carbury to examine a disreputable old woman. That corner of Molsetshire was shocked by a robbery from the house of its wealthiest inhabitant. Towards the end of the annual day on which Stephen Ross bountifully entertained all the town and countryside in the grounds of Carbury Place, his housekeeper, coming into the hall, saw Mrs. Hook slink across it and tumble down and lie like a log.

None of the commonalty should have entered the house. Mrs. Hook was a slattern who lived by sponging and, in the general belief of Carbury, by pilfering. The housekeeper's drastic remedies for a sham faint extorted no sign of consciousness, so Mrs. Hook was sent to hospital. After that the housekeeper decreed a search of the main rooms. Upstairs the jewel case on the dressing table of Jean Ross, Stephen's sister, was found empty.

Ministrations at the hospital made Mrs. Hook capable of speech. She explained that the heat made her feel that weak she went into the house to get a bit of shade and cool and then came over queer and she didn't know no more.

The police doctor did not believe in the faint. Though Mrs. Hook had none of the jewels upon her, Superintendent Giffard concluded that she had stolen them and passed them to one of her familiars.

But his cautious nature desired the highest authority on the health of her gross body, and an odd question about a poor creature under suspicion will bring Reggie Fortune anywhere.

This first help which Reggie gave him in this case was the assurance that Mrs. Hook's heart had such a rhythm, such weak muscles, she might flop any time, she was probably telling the truth when she said heat made her feel faint, she was certainly incapable of running up and down stairs to accomplish a swift robbery.

Giffard had just been convinced when Jean Ross was brought to his room. "Good morning, Mr. Giffard, I couldn't help coming to see you about Mrs. Hook."

"She's better this morning," Giffard answered slowly.

"I'm so glad!" Jean Ross cried.

"That's kind of you," said Giffard, and Reggie surveyed her earnest face with benign interest. It was comely and mature, but still had the freshness of youth.

"Kind?" she answered. "Oh dear no. I couldn't bear to think of the poor old woman being tormented."

"We don't treat 'em like that, Miss Ross," Giffard protested. "As a matter of fact I asked an expert to see her - Mr. Fortune." Reggie bowed and Jean smiled on him. "He tells me she really is in bad health. I'm sorry about your loss, but Mrs. Hook can't have been the thief."

"Don't be horrible. My loss - I wasn't thinking of that. It's so cruel we harried the old creature just because she fainted."

"You've no call to worry over her, Miss Ross. But now see where we are about your jewellery. Can you tell me of anyone suspicious about the house yesterday?"

"Heavens! "Jean laughed. "Everybody in the world was there. I don't know who to suspect." She made a sound of disgust. "How could I?"

"The thief was somebody familiar with the house," said Giffard.

"Do you mean a friend?" Jean said. "No, I won't have that." She started up. "Pry over friends for a thief among them? I should be vile."

"What about one of the servants?" said Giffard.

"Nonsense! Our people are perfectly honest," she flashed at him. "Please don't worry them, Mr. Giffard. Good morning." She sped out.

"Fine spirited young lady." Giffard turned to Reggie.

"As you say. Yes. What was her stolen jewellery worth?"

"Matter of two hundred pounds. Not much to her but - -"

The telephone rang and occupied him for some minutes. "I'll be over at once," he concluded, and rose with a worried visage. "That's the last thing I'd have expected, Mr. Fortune. We don't reckon

THE	GILDED GIRLS

on thieves getting away with real valuables down here. And now on top of Carbury House yesterday, Christow's been robbed this morning."

"Well, well. Curiouser and curiouser," Reggie murmured. "May I go with you?" Giffard was much (and solemnly) obliged.

As they drove through the sleepy streets of Carbury a young man in flamboyant tweeds and an antique sports car shot past them grinning widely. Giffard showed annoyance. "Known to the police?" Reggie asked.

"You're very sharp. I haven't any use for him. He's a young blood trying to be a gentleman farmer, but no farmer and not quite the gentleman. Francon's his name. Seeing him here gave me a start, because Mrs. Francon was in this Christow business."

"My dear chap! Excitin' but bafflin' to a stranger. Tell me all."

Giffard was thorough. "This place Christow is an old house, nothing to match it in the county. The estate's not so good. Captain Danvers, he's a naval officer, came into it last year when his uncle died and he has his work cut out to keep it up. He lives very quiet, running the house with a short staff. There's some worth while stuff in it, not ordinary jewels and plate, but old things. Well, these Francons seem to have clicked with Captain Danvers. I don't know why. Francon's wife isn't out of the top drawer. The gossip is she ran a dancing school before he picked her up. She's had another bright young thing staying with her, name of Diana Lee," Giffard looked a question.

Reggie shook his head. "Not my line."

"Well Danvers was called away to Plymouth yesterday. He told his butler he'd fixed up with Mrs Francon to show her and Miss Lee over Christow this morning, he'd let her know he might not be back. They came along and the butler took 'em round. When the butler was drawing the blinds again in a room he noticed that two gold figures which stood there had gone. So he got on to me at once."

"Not on to Danvers?" Reggie murmured. "Normal to tell his master before telling the police."

"Danvers was away."

"Oh yes. Yes. Absence of Danvers very marked. Vanishin' of the gold figures also marked. Both events coincidin' with the visit of the two bright young things, arranged by Danvers. Interestin' and curious. Was Danvers in the happy party at the Ross's house yesterday before he left for Plymouth so sudden?"

"I believe he was. The two young women were."

"All Jean Ross's friends - same which we mustn't suspect."

"In a way Miss Ross is friendly with everybody. They're not her class."

"Not little ladies. And Danvers one of the poor rich."

"What are you getting at, Mr. Fortune?"

"Nothing. Nowhere. Nohow. 'All a wonder and a wild surmise'." Reggie sank down on the small of his back and gazed at the landscape.

They were nearing the scarp of a mass of hills that spread in long, dark waves till the horizon closed upon them. But the lower slopes of this range, the Carwens, were not grim. Cleft deep by streams which flowed bright steel and turquoise over grey - green rock, they smiled in pretty chaos of pasture and wood, flowering like a fairy paradise.

Amidst these combes stood Christow. Open gates of a desolate lodge admitted the car to a park which was growing a crop of hay spangled with ox - eyed daisies. But the house was of sedate splendour. Its long range of mellow stone burgeoned into towers at the middle and each end and between was wrought in lace work carving about the manifold symmetry of casemented bow windows which glowed here and there with the colours of heraldry.

As Giffard stopped his car at the door an old man opened it. His black coat was of last century cut and threadbare, his crumpled face sour. "God bless my soul!" he snarled. "So you have come at last. I'll be telling the captain what a time you took."

"You'll be telling a lot before I'm done with you," said Giffard. "Show me the room you say was robbed."

The butler shuffled on through a noble hall and opened a door beside its dais. "Here you have the great chamber." His husky voice had lost its malignity and took the didactic tone of a guide. "Queen Elizabeth held a council here in - -"

"Cut it out," said Giffard. "She didn't pinch the gold figures. Where were they kept?"

"Over there on the court cupboard."

"Splendid piece," Reggie murmured. It was richly carved and inlaid with ivory and tortoiseshell. Upon it stood some silver cups and bowls. He inspected them with affection. "Lovely. However. Something else was with 'em. See?" He pointed a finger and Giffard saw patches of dullness on the polished wood.

"That's where they stood," the butler croaked "Just there, the gold girls with nothing on." He leered. "Very handsome."

"Your story is you showed 'em to Mrs. Francon and Miss Lee," Giffard glowered at him.

"I did. And they hung about when I went on. I had to call to 'em from the solar, the next state room. I didn't think anything of their staying behind, them being taken round by the captain's orders. But when I'd got rid of 'em and came back here, I saw the gold figures had gone."

"The way you tell the tale you mean the ladies stole the things," said Giffard. "How is it you didn't notice they were carrying 'em?"

"Talk sense," the butler retorted. "The figures aren't that big, not six inches high, easy to hide in women's clothes."

Reggie had wandered away. He stood by the windows looking up to the many - coloured light which came through the coats of arms blazoned across fixed glass above the casements.

He turned and asked: "Are these windows always kept shut?"

"Of course they are," the butler answered. "I leave the state rooms open to the weather."

Reggie looked at Giffard. "Hear that?"

"I heard what he said. Why?"

"Oh, my dear chap. Hush! Listen!" Through the silence came a buzzing, "There you are. Look." He pointed to the top of a window. "That's a bumble bee. Bumbling in here. Though the windows are never opened. Some error. How did the bumble get in?"

"Now then!" Giffard turned on the butler. "Tell the truth."

"So I have," the old man snarled. "What's a bee?" But he shuffled to the windows.

"Don't bother." Reggie stopped him and moved along from casement to casement. He put a hand on the middle of one and pushed and it opened.

"It wasn't latched." The butler's voice rose to a squeak.

"As you say," Reggie murmured, but he was watching Giffard examine the casement.

"That's how they did it then," the butler went on. "The cunning besoms. They unlatched the window and dropped the figures out when I'd gone into the next room, and shut the window again before they came on. That's why I didn't notice them having the things!"

"Finished?" said Reggie to Giffard.

"I'll have a finger - print man to this." Giffard drew back.

"Oh yes. Useful. Though the ladies may have worn gloves."

"They did have gloves on," said the butler.

"Life is like that," Reggie smiled. "However." He took the casement by the frame and pulled it back into place, glanced at Giffard and pushed it open again. Then he swung a leg over the window sill and sat astride. Some three feet below was a moss - grown gravel walk. He looked back at the butler. "Did the ladies come in a car?"

"No, they didn't, but I heard Mrs. Francon talk of her load of trouble picking 'em up at Barrow Cross, she meaning her husband."

"Well, well. All this bein' thus - -" Reggie brought his other leg over the sill and jumped down. He stood gazing at the wall and the ground while Giffard clambered after him; he wandered to and fro. "Anything occur to you?" he asked.

"There's no marks."

"As you say. Why would the ladies go to Barrow Cross - if they did?"

"It's on the way to Barrow Farm, Francon's place. There's a short cut to it across the park, half a mile against two by road. Though I'd say Mrs. Francon's no walker."

"A sister soul. But I can do half a mile at duty's call. There may be traces. Send the car round."

Through the hay crop of the park a narrow path was trampled. Its damp turf showed some fresh footprints. "Women have been here, goin' both ways," Reggie murmured.

"And that don't help us much," said Giffard.

"Oh yes. Shows our genial butler was tellin' some of the truth."

"Didn't you believe him?"

"The mind was quite open."

They came out of the park upon a road which turned and fell into a deep combe. Beyond the bridge over the stream at the bottom stood a three - way sign - post. "That's Barrow Cross," said Giffard. "There's my car waiting."

"Thank heaven," Reggie sighed, and stopped on the bridge to rest in the cool of the stream which flowed from eddying shallows to still pools. Between alder clumps, iris and mimulus shone gold upon the water. "Women stood there," he said.

"I see." Giffard frowned at prints on the mossy bank. "What of it?"

"My only aunt!" Reggie murmured. While Giffard gaped, he ran down to the bank, cut a hooked stick out of the alders and fished a pool. Giffard came to him as he stooped to land his catch. "Why - let's have a look, sir - Lord, it is, it's one of the gold figures from Christow."

"Yes, I thought that," said Reggie slowly. He washed muddy sand from the smooth golden gleam of the statuette of a girl with nothing on but a girdle of little gems. "Charmin' damsel." Reggie turned her over. "Italian. Cinquecento. Fine work. Though not gold. Silver gilt."

"That old butler would say gold," Giffard sniffed. "Still even so, with those jewels in it, the thing must be worth a pot o' money."

"The jewelled girdle." Reggie's eyelids drooped as he examined it. "Rather showy. However. Renaissance Italians not wholly nice."

"But two figures were stolen. Do you suppose the other's in the water here too?"

"It could be. Though not visible. And the stream's clear. You'd better have it dragged. Try every thing."

"I will. But I want to get on to Mrs. Francon and her friend now. What's your idea about them putting this figure in the stream?"

"No fixed idea. Might have been startled by someone while inspectin' the swag and dropped it. Might have thought the stream a good hidin' place. The mind is still open."

Three slow miles of winding road brought the car to Barrow Farm, a low house of weather - beaten stone and thatch, the doors and windows of which had been painted pink, the garden made all lawn and crazy paving.

The lawn displayed a scarlet mattress on which a woman, back bare to the waist, lay face downwards. Beside her a man was stretched in a long chair. Another woman sat writing.

She looked up as Giffard opened the garden gate, she rose and Reggie saw a tall form of austere beauty, a face clear - cut and handsome but coldly refusing any sign of what she thought or felt. "Caro! People," she said.

The woman on the mattress rolled over, sat up and patted her black curls and ogled Giffard and giggled and said: "Gosh!" She stretched out a brown arm to tweak the ear of the man in the long chair. "Horry, you owl! Look who's blown in."

"What's that?" The man opened his eyes. "Hallo, hallo, hallo! Giffard? My dear old bean! What'll you drink?"

"Nothing, thank you. I'm here on duty."

"Snakes! Curly ones!" Francon hid his face.

"You precious!" Mrs. Francon gurgled at Giffard. "Do sit down." She made room for him on her mattress.

"No, thanks. I - -"

"He's afraid of me!" She went off into peals of laughter.

"I'm glad I caught you at home," Giffard scowled at her, "And Miss Lee with you. The theft of two gold figures from the great chamber at Christow this morning has been discovered."

"What ho! And again what ho, what?" Francon cried, "Another blinking robbery! Busy days for you, old bean. Have you copped the thief who got away with Jean Ross's whatnots?"

Giffard and Reggie watched the women. Caroline Francon was looking up at her friend with a frown and a grin. "Fancy that, Diana!"

Diana's lips parted, but she did not speak.

"You should worry, Di," said Francon.

Caroline swung round to Giffard. "Has Captain Danvers come back?"

"Not yet," Giffard answered.

"Too bad," she laughed.

Giffard became fiercely official, but she declined to remember any gold figures or anything about the great chamber. The whole place was a fusty curiosity shop and she was bored to tears.

"I thought the house beautiful," said Diana when Giffard assailed her. "I don't remember the things in it particularly. There were so many."

"Don't you remember this?" Reggie held out to her the gilded girl.

She stared at the figure, and for the first time her calm face expressed some feeling, dislike, repugnance. "The butler showed us things of that sort." Her cold voice was contemptuous.

Caroline laughed. "Luscious stuff, Danvers has. This his?"

"You don't recognise it?" Giffard barked at her.

"No one I know," she giggled.

"There were two figures like this the butler showed you and - -"

"Two? Where's the other?" she cried.

"I wonder," Reggie murmured, and looked from her gay impudence to the darkening flush on Diana's fair cheeks.

"After you left the house," Giffard went on, "the butler found both figures were gone. Did you ladies open a window in the great chamber?" Caroline told him they opened nothing. "Why did you go down on the bank of the stream by Barrow Cross?"

"Isn't it marvellous?" Caroline jeered. "My good owl, Horry was picking us up there and of course we had to wait for the perisher. And then what?"

"I have to tell you I'm not satisfied," said Giffard, "Good day."

"It's a wow," Francon called after him.

"They're a nice lot," Giffard grunted to Reggie.

"As you say. Deeper and deeper yet. We do not know where we are. Something to know that. Bafflin' woman, the woman Diana."

"She's a handsome piece. But what a poker face!"

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! Like Greek sculpture. Her eyes, though. She did show 'em once. Tragic. When Caroline said: 'Luscious stuff Danvers has.'"

"That was a give away," Giffard chuckled, but discussing the case as they drove back to Carbury found Reggie vague.

Reports which awaited him there did not clarify thought. The latch of the casement at Christow bore no finger - print. Dragging the stream at Barrow Cross proved that no other figure was there.

Upon his disappointment broke Captain Danvers demanding: "What the devil have you been up to at my place?"

"Is that a complaint?" Giffard retorted. "I don't care for it, Captain. You'd better tell me how much you know about this robbery."

Reggie watched Danvers with a curious smile. The man seemed likely to burst. But he obtained control of himself, he lowered the pressure and sat down. "I don't know that there has been a robbery," he spoke with sharp precision.

"Your man told me two gold figures were taken from your house this morning. Don't you believe him?"

"Two statuettes are missing. Lake can't be certain when they were taken, nor can I. His duty was to inform me, not you. Your duty was to wait for instructions from me."

"When a crime is reported to me I take action at once. And your duty is to assist the police. Lake said he showed two figures to Mrs. Francon and Miss Lee and after they'd gone, the figures were gone. Do you tell me they were stolen before this morning?"

"Lake is an old man. He makes mistakes. Those two ladies came to see Christow on my invitation. If I hadn't been called away on service business I should have shown them round. They are friends of mine." He fixed on Giffard a glare of command. "That means there can be no suspicion of them, Superintendent."

Giffard produced the gilded girl found in the stream. "Is this one of your figures, Captain?"

Danvers took it and examined it. "There were two like this in the great chamber." He looked up, frowning. "Where did you get this from?"

"The other one exactly like?" Reggie drawled.

"Yes, another girl in a jewelled girdle, just the same."

"Is that so?" Reggie murmured.

"Have you got the other?" Danvers was breathing fast.

"Not yet, Captain," said Giffard complacently. "This one was found in the stream by Barrow Cross, just where Mrs. Francon and Miss Lee had been waiting about on the bank."

"It's impossible!" Danvers exclaimed.

"Only it was," Reggie sighed.

"Listen to me." Danvers started up. "All this is absurd, Superintendent. You know very well there's some infernal thief going about. You had the robbery at the Ross's place yesterday. Do your duty and find the rascal. You'll take no action against these ladies. I have complete confidence in them."

"Do you know Miss Lee well?" Reggie asked. 

"I have told you so." Danvers glared at him. 

"I wonder," Reggie murmured, and thought he was going to be knocked down. But after a moment Danvers turned and strode out. "Fierce fellow," said Reggie.

"He's a bully," Giffard answered. "You got him on the raw then. Do you suppose he's in love with that stony - faced beauty - or the sunbathing minx?"

"It could be." Reggie lit a pipe. "Lots of possibilities."

"I believe you. He was crooked."

"Not a simple sailor man, no. Detonatin' violently in all directions. There wasn't a robbery. It wasn't this morning. The thief wasn't either of the pretty ladies. But was the same thief that attended the Ross's party. Which they all did, the ladies and him."

"That's right. There was only one thing he stuck to - ordering me to hush it up. Blast him."

"As you say. Insolent and offensive challenge," said Reggie, and suddenly sat up. "My dear chap! We're agreein'. We're echoin' each other like verses in a psalm. This is highly unprofessional. Turn over a new leaf. Why was our Danvers so cross? Possibility number one, he's fallen for one of the ladies. Second possibility, he had a hand in the theft himself and he don't want you to spoil his game."

"Stole his own stuff? It don't make sense," Giffard protested.

"Oh yes. Attractive possibility. He's hard up, for a man with a big house. To fake a robbery and collect insurance - common gentlemanly crime. You notice he called the figures gold, same like Lake, makin' the most of 'em. Though the one we found is only silver gilt."

"It's too clever, Mr. Fortune," Giffard shook his head.

"Try again. Danvers managed to be away when he'd invited the ladies. Service business, keen naval officer, all very proper. But you found something at Christow suggestin' the ladies' visit might be a blind."

"I don't know what you mean."

"My dear chap. Oh my dear chap! The window. I showed you the window, careful and particular. It was shut but not latched. If one of the pretty ladies opened it and dropped the figures out, why didn't she latch it again? And the window don't fit close. Easy for someone outside to slip a knife under the latch, push it up, open the window, get in, pick up anything and get out. But impossible to fasten the latch again. Suppose someone who knew when the ladies would be in the house keepin' the butler busy chose that time to do the robbery. Do you like that?"

"I can't believe it. It's too clever again. Too clever by half, if I may say so. Look at the risk. A thief coming in while they were in the house would have them and the butler on him as likely as not."

"Suppose the thief was someone they knew."

"Are you thinking of Francon? I've always had my suspicions of him. He could have done it. He was buzzing about in his car at the time."

"Yes. The facetious Francon is one of the possibilities. As it worked out his women are on the carpet. But who could guess the butler would spot the figures were gone at once? Consider the Danvers possibility again. If the pretty ladies and the butler did catch him in the great chamber - why, he'd come back sooner than he expected. If they didn't, nobody would suspect him of stealin' his own stuff. Except pestilent policemen butting in."

"Do you really believe he took the things himself?"

"Not yet, no. The mind persists in bein' open."

"Would he drop one of the figures in the stream on the women's way home? There's no point in him doing it except to put the robbery on the women. And that don't go with his ordering me to stand off 'em."

"You think not? He also told you that the thief was the thief of Jean Ross's jewels. Which could be true. The women or him."

"You're thinking he's a ruddy cur."

"Oh no. Judgment reserved. Efforts of Captain Danvers full of interest. Why did he nearly kill me when I asked if he knew Diana well? I don't know. But I'm thinking of her eyes. Some pain behind that marble brow. He was keen to know whether we'd found the other figure. Which was most interestin'. When we can tell why only one figure was dropped in the stream, we'll have finished this case."

Giffard stared at him. "I don't see how." Reggie's eyes were dreamy. "Nor do I. Conclusion invisible. Way to it clear. Find the person who has the other golden girl." He stood up bit by bit.

"Thanks," said Giffard bitterly. "You leave it at that?"

"Don't be cross. Fascinatin' case. But I had better vanish. I cramp the criminal style." . . .

As dusk fell a lonely inn on the Carwens which expected no visitor so early in the summer received one who liked the trout which the landlady fried for him and the mutton ham which she had in cut and said he would stay on.

He was a vague, shy person, but he confided to her that he had been ordered quiet and he wanted to be where he could collect flowers and he thought the flora of the Carwens delicious.

Giffard received a letter which stated: "He dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Lark, A man whom there were none to praise And nobody to mark.' By R. Fortune, botanist.

Giffard thought him frivolous and, descrying him some days afterwards not far from the Francons' house in a combe cut by the river Lark, made for him and told him bitterly that he might like to hear they were making no progress at all. The second figure could not be discovered, nothing could be heard of the Ross jewels. It was established that Diana had left the Ross's party before the Francons. Everybody was carrying on as usual. Danvers had called on them and Miss Ross too. You might think there hadn't been any robberies.

"Oh no. No," Reggie protested, "That's the one thought we mustn't think. Work on, my Giffard."

"May I ask if you're working on anything yourself, Mr. Fortune?" Giffard retorted.

"My dear chap! I botanize. I have found the rare and valued bladder wort." Reggie produced from his botanist's case a plant of paltry yellow flowers. The leaves swelled into bladders the stickiness of which had caught flies.

Giffard was speechless.

"You don't like it? But it's a moral lesson. It shows what even a vegetable can do by trying. Continue to try."

With malevolence Giffard watched him wander away up the combe, then, returning to the road, observed a woman get off a bicycle. She vanished with it among the trees.

She was not a woman at whom the normal male or female would look twice. She was of any age and feature and complexion, no sort of figure and a mass - production dowdiness. Yet Giffard did try to see her again, because his trained memory recorded that he had seen her before round Francon's place and she was a stranger.

Moving stealthily, he had another glimpse of her where the side of the combe was a jumble of rocks. She sat among them, hardly distinguishable from them in the deep shade. She seemed to be watching the swift foam of the river below. Then he made out people on the bank, the stately height of Diana Lee, Francon's lurching swagger beside her. They stopped where the rocks came down to the water and talked. After a while he went back down the combe alone.

The woman on the rocks moved and disappeared, but soon Giffard caught sight of her again coming up the river bank towards Diana. They spoke together as if they knew each other. Then Diana followed Francon and the woman climbed the combe side.

Giffard made haste to reach the road, but when he did neither the woman nor her bicycle was to be seen. He called at Francon's farm and found nobody there.

Condemning himself and the case he drove back to Carbury and composed a description of this infernally indescribable woman for circulation among his men orders to discover who she was, where she was and what she was up to.

At the end of the next day when he sat at tea the telephone complained in the voice of Reggie: "You neglect me, my Giffard. Have you no more?"

"I have my eye on a dark horse," Giffard answered, "Another woman, Mr. Fortune. She's been hanging round the Francons'. She's a stranger and yet she knows Diana."

"Curious and interestin'. Who is the female, what is she?"

"She was first seen down here just after the Christow robbery. She's now staying at a bed and breakfast cottage near Barrow Cross, name of Miss Smith, on a cycling holiday, she told the people. I'm having her looked after."

"That's the spirit. Continue to continue. Goodbye."

Three days after but in the morning Reggie's voice came over the telephone again and said: "You're like a ghost. Don't speak till you're spoken to. Are you continuing?"

Giffard hardly controlled his emotions. "I have nothing any ruddy use."

"Too bad. I'll be in Lark combe by two o'clock. Same place. Pleasure of your company," said Reggie and rang off.

Giffard, though telling himself he was a fool and Mr. Fortune a flibbertigibbet, drove out to the combe, walked down into it above the Francons' house and saw a handkerchief wave from among ferns. Marching that way, he beheld Reggie reposing on the only level patch in the combe side, a market basket covered with a napkin beside him.

"What did you bring me out here for?" Giffard demanded.

"My dear chap! Behold the basket of my landlady. Lunch."

"Thanks, I've had my dinner."

"Sorry. Very sorry." Reggie sat up and removed the napkin. "My landlady sent you a chicken pie. One of her best things. Which is no mean praise. However. Glass of sherry? That is not my landlady's. A poor thing but mine own." He drew the cork and thrust a glass into Giffard's reluctant hand. "You will. Light and cheerful. Which is what we need." He drank. "Happy endin'."

"Thanks," said Giffard again. "I didn't know you you were asking me to a picnic."

"I wasn't. On duty. Official conference. Excuse my eatin' alone." Reggie consumed chicken pie and salad with meditative gusto. "You were goin' to tell me how people take the robberies."

"How do you suppose? Since the Christow figure was found everybody's talking about Diana Lee and the Francons. But that don't help us."

"Have some more sherry." Reggie filled his glass again. "Nobody loves our Diana, what? Any reactions from Captain Danvers on the lady above suspicion?"

"I've heard he went to the Francons the other day and left quick. Either he had a sharp row, I take it, or the pretty ladies were not at home to him."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Are they turning friends away?"

Giffard laughed unpleasantly. "They never had any friends to notice."

Reggie extracted a tin box from the basket and said: "Bless her. Bilberry jam tarts with cream on 'em. My Giffard! Have some. You may have dined. But here's a sweet for you."

"No, thank you," said Giffard with vigour. "I don't take sweets."

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! Your gloomy error. Hence this woeful heart." Reggie spoke from a full mouth. "Hard to eat with grace. But all exquisite things are difficult. More sherry for you. Fill the cup that clears to - day of past regrets and future fears. What about the mystery of the mysterious female?"

Giffard sipped his wine. "Well, I've had a go at her. She seemed a plain, honest woman. She said she knew nothing about Diana Lee, she'd never seen her till she came down here for her holiday, just happened to meet her in this combe once or twice and got into talk. That sounds natural enough. I can't pick a hole in it. I still have the idea she was watching for Diana, but there's no proof, and even if she was - it don't help us without more."

"As you say. Only suggests Diana is to be met in this picturesque combe." Reggie finished the last jam tart and filled Giffard's glass again.

"Which I knew before. I saw her myself with Francon."

"Did you?" Reggie was dreamy.

"That was when I spotted this Miss Smith here. Diana and Francon were by the river. He left her and she hung about till Miss Smith went down and talked to her and then she went after him and Miss Smith nipped off."

"Where exactly was our Diana?" Reggie asked.

"I don't know if you can see from here." Giffard turned and discovered that he could, that the level patch of grass which Reggie had chosen for his lunch, though the ferns were dense and tall about it, commanded a view along the combe. "She was by the river, just a little below here, where the tumble of rocks comes down to the water."

"I see. Romantic spot. Swift, sparklin' stream, cliff riven and broken in a fall of grey rock and black holes. Just the place for maiden meditation, fancy free - or not."

Giffard snorted. "Not is right."

"Preserve the open mind."

"Open, my Lord!" Giffard exclaimed. "You'll excuse me, Mr. Fortune." He began to rise.

"No." Reggie detained him. "Hush! Still. Look."

Giffard looked and saw Diana walking slowly up the combe.

"She is to be met here," Reggie murmured.

"How do you mean, met?" Giffard whispered.

"At that romantic spot. Her habit. People would know."

Diana stopped by the rock fall and sat down and looked at the water. Against the shadow of the combe her face was white and still as marble.

A sound of swift footsteps reached them. She turned her head, she rose wearily, and they saw Danvers in a hurry. He came to her, he said something which made her draw back and hold up her hand against him.

Reggie glanced at Giffard with a little crooked smile and one eyebrow cocked.

They heard Danvers say: "I won't have that," as he grasped her hand. "You don't get away from me now. You should know better than to try. What do you think I am?"

Diana stood away from him at the full stretch of her arm. "Will you please go, Captain Danvers?" she cried.

"No," said Danvers. "That's not the way we are."

And then a woman's voice called to them laughing. "What, Diana, are you there? I thought you would be. And Captain Danvers too? How delightful! So this is why you told Caro you couldn't see anybody?"

A grunt came out of Giffard. The trim shape which glided up the combe was the shape of Jean Ross.

Danvers let Diana's hand go, but closed on her so that she could not pass him. "Good afternoon. Miss Ross." He took off his hat. "Kind of you to call on Diana. Give me your congratulations."

Jean stood still, smiling. "Really? I do hope you will be happy. And what a perfect place for it." Diana was red from bosom to brow. "My dear! Don't be embarrassed," Jean laughed at her. "Why, you have dropped your scarf."

"I haven't," Diana put her hand to her neck. "I had no scarf, of course."

"Look, that's yours, my dear," Jean said. "It's your own colour."

It is the professional reputation of Reggie Fortune that he cannot hurry, but nobody can be quicker than he. He was halfway down the combe side before Giffard moved. He was not far behind Diana and Danvers when they reached the place to which Jean had pointed then.

As Giffard followed, his startled eyes saw someone else hurrying down by the rocks - a woman, the mysterious Miss Smith.

Jean and Diana and Danvers were by the foot of the rock fall, looking down at one of the holes in it. Something grey - blue and crumpled lay there.

"It's not mine. How could it be?" said Diana.

"Oh, my dear!" Jean answered. "You never wear any other colour. Haven't you missed it?"

"I - - " said Diana and stopped. Danvers stared at her. Her skirt, her jumper were grey - blue of the same tone, a soft harmony with her eyes, 'greyest of things blue, bluest of things grey.' He bent to pick up the scarf.

Reggie arrived and caught his arm. "Allow me."

"Who the devil are you?" Danvers glared at him. "Heavens! It's the man who came down about my jewels!" Jean cried. "How do you do, Mr. - Mr. Fortune? But how droll to meet you here."

"Yes, rather, yes," Reggie murmured. 

"Have you met Captain Danvers?" Jean divided a smile between them.

"I know him," Danvers growled. "This is my business, Fortune."

"You think so?" Reggie asked. "Wait for Superintendent Giffard."

"Wait for the devil," said Danvers, and pulled at the scarf. The bundle of it opened as it came up, shedding on the rocks things that glittered, jewellery, a jade necklace, a string of fire opals.

"Oh!" Jean gasped. "My things! Oh, Diana!" And Reggie made a swift movement.

The bulk of Giffard thrust in. "What's all this? Your things, Miss Ross? Found here, eh?" He glowered at Diana.

"Yes, but look!" Jean cried.

"Where?" Reggie swung round on her. 

"I saw it. It was there." Jean grew pale. "You saw it, Captain Danvers. Your gold statuette." Her eyes flashed at him. "You must have let it fall into the hole again."

"Nonsense. No statuette in the scarf," Danvers said gruffly.

"Because the scarf is Diana's," Jean laughed. "You had to hide the statuette, poor man." She knelt by the hole and put her arm down looking back over her shoulder with a fixed smile. She brought out a statuette, holding it by the legs. Smirched and dim, it was the twin of the other gilded girl, a figure naked but for the girdle of gems.

Jean rose and came smiling to Diana. "There, my dear. Give it back to him. He'll forgive you."

Reggie slid between them and snatched the statuette by the head and twisted it out other hand. "I want it," he said mildly.

"Ah, you beast," she screamed, and struck at him.

"Not me, no," said Reggie, warding off the blow with the statuette.

She gave a shriek, she flung herself upon him. Giffard pulled her away. She struggled with convulsive fury till, on a sudden, she collapsed and fell and lay livid, unable to rise, but shaken by throes of spasm.

"Take Miss Lee home, Danvers," said Reggie as he bent over Jean's agony.

"Whatever's the matter with her, Mr. Fortune?" Giffard panted. "A fit?"

"No. Not a fit. Acute poisoning. One of the alkaloids. Might be cocaine." Reggie lifted her jerking right arm and felt the pulse. Her spasms were feebler, her breath came in a choking gulp. She was still.

"Is she gone?" Giffard whispered and Reggie nodded. "My Lord, all in a few minutes."

"Yes. Quite swift. Cocaine can be, taken through the skin. That was her idea."

A flat voice spoke behind them. "Could I be of any assistance, Superintendent?" Giffard swung round and saw the ineffable ordinariness of Miss Smith. "The young person does look bad," said she.

"Why have you come here?" he barked at her. 

"After you spoke to me about these people I got interested," Miss Smith answered. "I'm retired now, but I used to be a policewoman in London."

"The deuce you were!" Giffard muttered. 

"I know I'm rusty, Superintendent, I've been on pension some time. But the way you put things it came into my head to keep my eye on Miss Lee. I've been hereabouts all day. Quite early, this young what's her name - Miss Ross - I saw her come along and stuff something in the rocks and make off. I said to myself maybe that's meant for Miss Lee, and I stayed to watch it. When Miss Lee and her Captain were here and Miss Ross came again and got busy with them and you turned up with the other gentleman I made a move to tell you about it, but you didn't see me and I had to follow after. Now would you like me to phone the station for an ambulance? I've got my bike up there."

"Please," said Reggie and she strode away. 

"Lord, she's a cool hand," Giffard muttered.

"Yes. They are, some of these policewomen."

Giffard mopped his face. "I feel half dazed." He looked down at Jean. "Ghastly. You said cocaine - took it through her skin. An injection do you mean, giving it to herself, committing suicide?"

"Gave it to herself, yes. Sort of injection. Didn't mean to. Didn't mean suicide. Meant murder." Reggie lifted Jean's right arm and showed torn skin on the palm of her clammy hand. "Very swift, through torn flesh, cocaine."

"But where did she have the stuff?"

Reggie turned and picked up the statuette. "In this gilded girl. You remember, she held it like this, by the legs. She held it out for Diana to take by the body. Where the girdle is. Look. Among the gems of the girdle, three little points. We will now scratch 'em on something not alive. This smooth stone." He did so and upon the stone lay fluid. "Just taste it. Tiny spot. Bitter, what? Yes. Stiffer than the usual four per cent solution." Still holding the figure by the legs he put his other hand to the head. "You see? She comes apart, unscrewing in the middle where the girdle hides the join. That's how you put your poison in her. Do you remember, I told you when we found out why one gilded girl was left where Diana had been and the other taken away, we should have finished the case? We have."

"What a devilish thing," said Giffard.

"Not nice, no. But ingenious. Some gentleman of the Italian renaissance had a pair of gilded girls made. One harmless, the other with fangs like a snake. When he had a friend to kill he put the poisonous girl into the fellow's hands and stung him. Was there suspicion? Produce the twin girl. Not a fang in her. Neat work they did in those days. Hadn't got cocaine. But aconite would do or nightshade. Well, the ancient family of Danvers acquired the gilded girls and there they stood in Christow, nothing known against 'em, till Jean Ross coveted Christow's new owner and examined his treasures. But our fiery naval officer fell for Diana. She had to be made impossible. First effort. A faked robbery, with Diana on hand to be the thief. Flop of the old lady muddled that. Second effort robbery at Christow. You see how that was worked. Jean Ross got in by the window and removed the gilded girls. Two cards in her charmin' little hand. Prove Diana a thief and, if that didn't win the game, use the poison girl to kill her. Jean dropped the blameless girl where Diana would go. But it didn't win. We bothered about the window and Danvers believed nothing against Diana. Stubborn fellow. He was on to Diana all the fiercer. When Jean saw that she saw red and played her trump. Put cocaine in the other gilded girl, planted the girl and jewels here on Diana's favourite walk and - well, you saw."

"It's hellish," said Giffard. "And such a kindly young lady I always thought her." He looked down at the livid grinning face and shuddered.

"Yes. May have been," Reggie murmured. "Till she wanted the man."

Stretcher bearers came along the combe. Reggie climbed slowly back to the road and found Miss Smith with her bicycle by his car. "Was that all right, Mr. Fortune?" she asked.

"Oh yes. Your best style." Reggie smiled. "Couldn't be better. Couldn't have done without you."

It was not till he had given careful, discreet evidence at the inquest that he met Danvers again.

He was leaving the police station after a final conference with Giffard when Danvers fell into step with him. "I wanted to see you. Diana will too."

"Thanks very much," Reggie murmured. "Some day. I'm just off."

Danvers held out his hand.

"Congratulations," Reggie smiled.

"My God, Fortune!" Danvers gripped him hard. "If you hadn't been on it! The way you kicked that dam' figure down into the hole to make the Ross handle it herself and then pinned her to it - -"

"Me? Kick it?" Reggie's eyes opened wide in shocked reproof. "My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! Mustn't fancy things like that."

THE BLUE PAINT

MR. FORTUNE WAS ONCE persuaded to speak at a world conference on the detection of crime. What he said has been hushed up. But out of the horror of experts from Washington to Tokio it leaks that he told them never to believe they knew what they were doing.

His favourite example of this golden rule is the case of the blue paint into which he came by way of a girls' school.

Twenty years ago, Melford, though not many miles from the last houses of London, was a sleepy country village, embowered in orchards. Now the orchards bloom no longer. Their doom came with the construction of the Melford by - pass. Along it sprang up small factories making the odds and ends of our civilisation. Over the orchards spread a jumble of red brick, rough cast and concrete, this, that and the other garden estate.

Thus Melford came to need health and higher education. The county built it a hospital and a secondary school for girls with the newest ideas of the day before yesterday.

At the end of a Friday morning in March the girls went home to begin the half term holiday. The teachers were detained by the head mistress, Miss Marbury, for a staff meeting.

They proceeded from the midday meal, which was boiled mutton and rice pudding, to drink coffee in the staff room, which they did with the utmost speed, impatient to get away. Miss Marbury did not assist that unworthy purpose. She conducted heart to heart talks in corners. Escaping from her, Miss Hall, the senior science mistress, an untidy woman with the countenance of testy middle - aged manhood, strode up to the easy chair in which sat Miss Johnston, who taught geography and looked like a buxom schoolgirl. "For God's sake," she said gruffly, "get the woman going, can't you? Do you want to be here all night?"

Miss Johnston made a face. "You should worry. She has me booked for the week - end."

"Where?"

"Oxford. Catching the 4.45. Social service conference."

"More fool you," said Miss Hall. She marched back to the head mistress and disturbed her exhortation of another victim by offering her more coffee. The head mistress let her cup be filled. "We might begin the meeting," Miss Hall told her, and the staff assembled round the table.

The head mistress finished the coffee and the victim and, seeing no chance of another, rang for the coffee cups to be cleared away and sat down to lecture on the stimulus of serious purpose among the girls. She had not been talking more than half an hour when she faltered and hoarsely excused herself and withdrew.

In the babble of surprise, one of the English mistresses raised a quavering voice: "The head isn't well. I don't feel well."

Miss Hall stared round the table. "Anyone else?" she demanded. "Some of you do look green. What is it, sickness?"

"Yes, it is," said Miss Johnston, and she also departed, and others followed.

This upheaval still holds the record as the most devastating disturbance of a girls' school known to the police.

Some three hours later Mr. Fortune was in the club which toasts muffins best, eating a plate thereof and annoying a professor of Egyptology about a petrified beetle inside a more modern mummy. The professor is still working out his answer. Mr. Fortune was called away to the telephone.

It spoke with the voice of the police surgeon of the Melford division. "Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Fortune, but I have a case of mass poisoning. Most of the staff of a girls' school went down with gastric pains and sickness soon after the midday meal. Three of them are in hospital. The symptoms suggest arsenic. Could you come down?"

"My dear chap! At once. Wash 'em out. Where is your hospital?" . . .

Reggie's car surged along the Melford by - pass. He watched the proclamations of its factories, the lipstick of Venus Incorporated - the suspenders of Puck's Girdle - the enmeshed cogwheels of Precision Materials, Branton Smith. At that Reggie spoke to his chauffeur. "Steady. First left."

They turned from the roar of the by - pass to a winding road which had grass - bordered footways. Apple trees of the old orchards had been left standing, a quaint frill about the raw nakedness of blocks of flats inscribed Melford Park Court. Next to them was a skimpy pleasure ground. Just before Melford's maze of little houses closed round the far side, the sagacity of the county had built the girls' school and the hospital so that the two smug buildings glared a symmetrical range of windows at each other.

Reggie emerged from his car and contemplated this grim association. "Well, well," he sighed. "Life is real, life is earnest. Break it to the girl child young."

The police doctor, bald but boyish, met him on the door - mat of the hospital. "Mr. Fortune? I am Roger Mearns. I am so glad you were able to come at once. I want you to see the head mistress. I am alarmed by her condition. I find the medical superintendent agrees with me, acute arsenic poisoning. I feel very anxious - -"

"That's what I'm for," said Reggie.

He found Miss Marbury in the half consciousness of exhaustion. Her face was pale and cold and damp. He felt her pulse and sounded her heart ... he was soon done with her.

Outside the room: "Not too bad, Mearns," he said. "Some irritant poison. As you said. However. What have you done?" Mearns explained. . . . "That's all right. Carry on. What about the other cases?"

Mearns took him to the junior English mistress and the senior history mistress. They were languid and sorry for themselves, but more than capable of speech. They told him of the school lunch and the coffee and the general overthrow of the staff.

"Too bad," Reggie sympathised. "Did everybody go sick?"

"I think we were all unwell," said the senior. "Except Miss Hall," said the junior. "Our science mistress," the senior explained. "She never drinks coffee."

Reggie gave them more sympathy and took Mearns out. "They'll do. Same treatment. These are your worst cases, what? And the other ladies?"

"The others were in distress but able to go home. I felt a good deal of concern about Miss Johnston, I asked her own doctor to go round to her. He has sent me a favourable report, though he also suspects poisoning."

"There was, yes. Curious case. Interestin' case. Well. You'll have some stuff for analysis. Get it bottled up. What about the police side? Is there anybody lookin' into the scheme of this Borgia feast?"

"I left a detective sergeant there to collect the remains of the lunch and the coffee and told him to wait."

"Come and introduce me."

The door of the school was opened by a gaunt young man of melancholy countenance. "This is Mr. Fortune, Lewson," said Mearns. Sergeant Lewson stood to attention and gave Reggie a rueful, worried stare.

"Well, sergeant, what have you?" Reggie asked.

"Nothing any good, sir." Lewson pointed to a dish on a bench. "That's all there is left of what the ladies had for dinner, a rice pudding they didn't touch. I got on the job too late. Everything else had been done away with and washed up before I was inside the place, and the cook and the maids all gone, only the caretaker left, and he has nothing to do with the food."

"Life is like that, sergeant. In our trade."

"Yes, sir. Would there be anything else?" said Lewson with gloomy impatience.

"Produce the caretaker," Reggie drawled.

Lewson vanished down the passage.

"Anxious to quit, isn't he?" Reggie murmured, and as he came back with a full - bodied old fellow, told him: "That will be all to - night."

"Very good, sir." Lewson strode out.

The caretaker delayed their progress upstairs with fishing speculations on whatever it could have been upset the ladies. When at last he reached the staff room, Reggie went in with Mearns and shut the door on his prying face. "You were brought to 'em here, Mearns? Room just as it was?"

Mearns frowned. "I couldn't be quite certain. There were no coffee things about. I don't know what you are looking for, Mr. Fortune."

"Nor do I. However." Reggie wandered to and fro, nostrils dilated. "Coffee, yes, of sorts." He moved easy chairs. He dropped on his knees and felt the carpet where one had stood, sprawled and smelt it. "Some lady spilt her coffee here." He stood up and replaced the chairs. He gazed at Mearns, his round face like a child's in wistful curiosity. "There was a science mistress here. She must have a laboratory or so." He wandered out and asked the caretaker where it was.

They were taken to a chemical laboratory. Reggie stopped before closed glass doors. Mearns made him look at a bottle labelled Arsenious Oxide. "That there is the poison cupboard," said the caretaker. "It's always kep' locked, see," he rattled the doors. "Miss Hall she never lets the key out of her own hands."

"Very proper." Reggie turned away. "Your only lab?"

"No, sir. There's biology too."

The biological laboratory was small and its air highly disinfected. Reggie looked at its few bottles with studious attention which brought Mearns fussing round him to protest: "Why these are only the ordinary disinfectants and preservatives."

"That is so, yes." Reggie turned away and asked the caretaker for a telephone. As they went downstairs; "Your science mistress, Mearns," he murmured, "does she live near? Ring her up and ask her to come along." . . .

Mearns found him sprawling on a seat in the school garden, his eyes closed. "Hallo," he spoke without opening them. "Got her? Was she sticky?"

"Not at all. She is coming at once. I don't know why you sent for her, Mr. Fortune."

"My dear chap. Oh, my dear chap! She didn't go sick."

An antique baby car rattled up to the door. Reggie rose in one complex motion and made haste to it. "Mr. Fortune, Miss Hall," said Mearns nervously. "He - -"

"I've heard of him," Miss Hall interrupted. "What do you want me for, Mr. Fortune?"

Reggie gazed at her large, big - boned face. "Would it surprise you to hear your colleagues have been poisoned?"

"No, I thought they had." Miss Hall was gruff. "Something wrong with the food, I suppose?"

"But you're perfectly well. Congratulations. Come up to the staff room, please."

"Why?" Miss Hall stood fast.

"You didn't drink any of the coffee."

"I never drink coffee."

"One of the strikin' facts in the crime," Reggie murmured.

"What do you mean?"

"Was there anyone else who didn't?"

"No," said Miss Hall.

"Come along." Reggie made a gesture and she hurried upstairs in front of him and Mearns. They entered the staff room. Reggie crossed to the easy chair beneath which coffee had been spilt. "Can you think of any reason why anybody should poison the staff to - day? Anybody with any grudge against anybody? Anybody who'd want to knock the rest of the staff out this week - end?"

"It's absurd," Miss Hall answered fiercely. 

"But it was done."

"Poison in the coffee? There was nothing to taste. I gave the head a second cup myself and she drank it."

"Did you? Pity." Reggie leaned across the easy chair. "Can you remember who sat here?"

Miss Hall pushed back her shaggy hair. "Miss Johnston," she answered.

"Oh. Sure of that? She went sick with the rest."

"I know she did. I'm quite sure she was in that chair. I spoke to her about the head, and she said the head was taking her off to a conference at Oxford for the week - end."

"Well, well." Reggie glanced at Mearns, but the face of Mearns showed no understanding. "Now about the coffee. Have a look at - - "The ringing of the telephone interrupted him. "Go to it, Mearns. I was sayin', Miss Hall - see if anything has been taken from the labs."

"That's ridiculous. I keep my poison cupboard locked. What poison have you found?"

"You have two labs. Police will want a full statement," Reggie told her, and pursued Mearns and heard him in much agitation. He rang off and turned. "A man has been found dead in a garage, Mr. Fortune. The police suspect foul play. They want your opinion. Would you mind?"

"Well, well," Reggie sighed. "Busy day in Melford, this day. One dam' thing after another. Tell my chauffeur where to go."

The car plunged into the maze of little houses and stopped, in a short dead end where they stood detached, by one which had just been painted, gates and doors and window frames all blue.

A brisk fellow came out of it. Mearns introduced him as Inspector Bray and he took them into the garage. The man who lay there beside a car was small but plump. His clothes showed not a trace of violence, the fat face bore no mark, but from brow to collar was livid pink.

Reggie and Mearns knelt on either side of him. . . . "Well?" Reggie asked.

"I should suggest inhalation of carbon monoxide gas," said Mearns. "Most likely from the exhaust of the car. It seems a typical case."

"Yes. That is the provisional hypothesis. Also he'd taken some drink and he's been dead less than twelve hours." Reggie sat back on his heels. "Suit you, Inspector?"

"I wish you could tell me some more, sir."

"Not too good? Sorry. One other little thing. Hands rather dirty. Some greasy, gritty muck. Will that help you?"

Bray frowned. "I don't see how. He might have got it messing with the car."

"What made you suspect foul play, Inspector?" Mearns asked. "Isn't this the man's own garage?"

"Yes, doctor, his own place and his own car."

"Very well then. This is a fourteen horse power car, the garage is about ten feet by ten, shut up with the car running the air would be deadly in twenty minutes. He was under the influence of drink. Everything points to death by misadventure."

"You haven't got everything," said Bray. "This man, Barnet's his name, he's a commercial traveller, he's mostly away the inside of the week, and leaves the house empty, having no wife nor family. The woman who does for him is only here Saturday to Monday. She didn't know of his coming home last night. It only happens he was found this afternoon because the house has just been painted and she came round to set things to rights."

"Lots of settin' to rights required in Melford this Friday," Reggie murmured. "No wonder your Sergeant Lewson wore a worried look."

"Lewson? " said Bray sharply. "What about Lewson? You saw him up at the school?"

"Some fleetin' moments."

"In a hurry, was he?"

"A little swift, yes. However. Something more than the school poisoning and Mr. Barnet's decease on your mind? What made Barnet's woman look for him in the garage?"

"She didn't," said Bray. "We did. She rang us up as soon as she went into the house. Come and have a look."

The house smelt strongly of paint. Doors and window frames were glossy with the same bright blue inside as out. Bray turned into a sitting - room, the carpet of which was rolled up and all the furniture crowded together round the table. But on that was an empty whisky bottle and a glass, on the floor lay a suit case with clothes tumbled out of it.

"That's Barnet's all right," said Bray. "See the desk too." He pointed to a roll top desk. The top was pushed back, an empty drawer stood half open. "Nothing left there but tradesmen's bills and books. Looks like somebody worked through that desk and the suit case. It's the same in his bedroom. Everything he'd got has been gone over thorough. There's no private papers anywhere and no money, bar one half crown dropped on the floor. Barnet's keys were by the suit case, but he had no wallet nor pocket - book on him, only some small change. What do you say, Mr. Fortune?"

"Important to somebody, the late Mr. Barnet," Reggie murmured, and wandered away round the room.

"I have no doubt he was," Bray agreed grimly. "Now what about this for a line to work on? Somebody else came to the house last night when he was full of whisky, took his keys and his wallet off him, shoved him into the garage and set the engine running so he'd conk out, and took what was wanted of all he'd got."

"Only line on the present evidence," Reggie murmured. "Any more up your sleeve?"

"You mean finger - prints? The furniture's covered with 'em. The painters', I bet," Bray grumbled. "There are some on the glass. But none on the bottle. That's odd, ain't it? What do you make of it, Mr. Fortune?"

"I should say you'll find the prints on the glass are Barnet's. And somebody else handled the bottle and wiped it clean. Knowin' the ropes."

"Maybe." Bray was gloomier than ever. 

"Yes, I think so," Reggie contemplated him with curiosity. "Nothing else you've noticed?" He pointed to the door. "What about it?" There was a dull mark across the glossy new paint. "Painters didn't leave it like that. Wasn't done to - day. It's dry. Somebody rubbed against it last night. And it wasn't Barnet. No paint on him."

"I know," Bray answered gruffly. "I had seen that mark. There's another one on the window sill outside."

"Well, well. Secretive, aren't you?" Reggie went to look at the window.

"The truth is, I don't want to put you wrong on the case, sir." Bray was embarrassed.

"Thanks very much." Reggie smiled awry. "You won't."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Fortune, I'd be glad if you'd come to the station with me." Bray looked nervously at Mearns.

"All right. You want to get busy on the body, Mearns, what? See you again." Reggie took Bray off to his car, "Now, my friend, what has to be kept dark? Or who?"

Bray cleared his throat. "There are things I didn't care to mention before the doctor. But you're a bit hard on me, I only want to be fair. It's like this. Last Saturday night a tobacconist just shutting up shop had Barnet come in and buy cigarettes and pay for 'em with two half - crowns. On his heels Sergeant Lewson pushed in and changed half a crown buying a packet of gaspers. When the tobacconist went round to the bank on Monday morning with Saturday's takings, the cashier found one of the half - crowns was snide. A first class fake. Old date, 1920, and well rubbed. Along then, the Mint began putting half silver into the coinage. Just the date for a skilled coiner to use. Real money of that date wears rotten and he makes a packet on each half dollar. The tobacconist swears blind the snide coin was one of the three he got from Barnet and Lewson. His reason is they were old and worn, going coppery, like that first early stuff does, and the rest of the silver he'd got was newer. It's only his word, of course. Besides, either Barnet or Lewson might have got the snide perfectly honest. It would pass anybody but a bank cashier. The Yard tell me there is a lot going about. I ought to say, Sergeant Lewson has a clean record and we know nothing against Barnet. I put it to Lewson straight and he was all out to down Barnet, said he'd had his eye on the fellow a long time, Barnet's commercial traveller job was cover for something, he wasn't away half the time he gave out to be, and money flowed from him like water on horse racing and the dogs. I haven't had a chance at Barnet. He was off on his regular rounds by the time I heard of the snide."

"And dead when you called to - day."

"Yes, that looks nasty. There's this too, Mr. Fortune, the half - crown on the floor by Barnet's desk. It was 1920 and worn like the snide one. I sent it along to the bank. But if it is snide, I don't know whether to think it proves Barnet a snide merchant or it was planted on him so we should think he was."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Other things were removed. Only possible reason, they were dangerous to someone else. More evidence required. Have you told Sergeant Lewson of Barnet's untimely demise? Is that why he was in a hurry to get away from the school poisoning?"

"I don't know what hurried him," Bray frowned. "It's funny. He hadn't been told officially. But he should be at the station now."

He was. As Bray and Reggie entered Lewson's lank form rose from a bench, his rueful countenance flushed.

"Wait," said Bray, took Reggie into his office, left him alone there a few minutes and came back with Lewson.

"Sit down, sergeant. Did you come straight here from the school to report?"

"Yes, sir." Lawson was resentful. "Except for asking at the Pied Bull whether Barnet had been in."

"You do a lot of watching out for Barnet," said Bray, and pressed his bell twice. "Were you watching for him last night?"

"I have been all the week."

"Did you go round to his house?"

 "I've been regular night by night. The house was all dark and no answer to ringing." Bray went on with questions under which Lewson grew sullen.	He only stayed by Barnet's house five minutes, looking it over. After that he went straight home to bed. Before, he'd been working round the Imperial Cinema and the Pied Bull for Barnet or any of Barnet's pals. He went into the Pied Bull to listen to the bookies Barnet used. No, he got nothing at all. He didn't hear a word of Barnet being back. . . .

"Are the clothes you've got on what you wore last night?" Bray asked.

"They are, sir."

"Don't you wear an overcoat these cold nights?"

"Yes, I had my overcoat, of course." Lewson was shaken. "Mr. Bray, sir, isn't it my right to be told why you - -"

A man came in carrying a dark overcoat. "This was hanging in Sergeant Lewson's hall, sir."

Lewson started up. "Here, what's the game?"

Bray took the coat and spread it out over the table. On the left sleeve were smears of blue. "Is this the coat you wore last night, Lewson?" he asked.

"Yes, it is." Lewson was defiant. He stopped to look at the smear. "I don't know how this paint got on it."

"Don't you? But you know those marks are paint. I found Barnet's body in his garage. He died last night. His house was ransacked. The new paint in his sitting - room got rubbed while the job was done. It's the colour of the paint on your coat. What do you say now?"

Lewson drew back. "I never was in Barnet's house," he muttered, "not last night, nor never in my life. I must have got the blue on me rubbing some wet paint in the street. Or it's all a frame - up." His voice rose to a hoarse shout. "That's what I say. A ruddy frame - up."

Bray told him he would be detained, and had him taken out, and turned to Reggie. "One of my own men! And a murder charge. Blast him! I've got to admit it, Mr. Fortune, I feel knocked out."

"My dear chap," Reggie said gently, "your men ought to go straight. Not a nice job, this job. However. Must finish it. I'll prove the paint for you." He picked up Lewson's coat.

A constable brought Bray a letter. "Relevant?" Reggie asked.

"It is. It's from the bank manager. He says the half - crown found in Barnet's room is a wrong un; he believes the same make as the one Lewson or Barnet passed on the tobacconist."

"Well, well. One more link. Speakin' of what's relevant - there is also the school poisoning. Put a good man on Miss Johnston. You want to know where she goes."

Bray's mouth came open and then made confused and angry noises. "Miss Johnston? One of the mistresses? Why? You said relevant! How?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie murmured. "But our Miss Johnston catches the eye. She poured her cup of the poisoned coffee on the floor and yet she said she was ill. Curious and interestin'. The head - mistress was going to take her away for the half - term holiday. Poisonin' the coffee stopped that. And Miss Johnston, havin' drunk none, got the long week - end free. The one known gain from the poison. Obvious inference, Miss Johnston wanted her week - end bad. What for? Interestin' question. Fundamental question. Why is Miss Johnston's week - end worth poisonin' her colleagues - just after Barnet's murder? Get the answer. Bray. Good - bye."

In the mortuary behind the hospital Mearns was working on Barnet's body. Reggie entered and surveyed its condition. "So what have you?" he smiled.

Mearns showed him a plate of glass spread with blood. The colour of it was light red.

"Oh yes. Carbon monoxide death. As we said. And he had been drinkin' whisky, what? Any other results?"

"I think this is a small bruise on the back of his head," Mearns demonstrated. . . .

"It is. Yes. Knocked out when in drink. Which accounts." Reggie moved on and examined the dirty hands. "Won't interrupt you. Only goin' to wash 'em." What came from them he put in ajar. "Carry on," he exhorted Mearns. "Send me the usual samples. To - morrow is another day."

Driven back along the winding road he contemplated dreamily the blocks of flats, but when the car approached the by - pass startled his chauffeur by a plaintive cry. "My only aunt! Slow, Sam. Major road ahead. You have been warned."

Sam, used to exhortations for anything but caution, took the turn at an aggrieved crawl. "Splendid," Reggie murmured, gazing up to the sign of two enmeshed cogwheels above the one - storey concrete of Precision Materials, Branton Smith. The car proceeded past Puck's Girdle and Venus Incorporated in slow time. "That will do, Sam. Safety first. But not last. Get on." . . .

A little before midnight he strolled into a laboratory where a large, mild man was writing. "Sorry to keep you up, Anneler."

Dr. Anneler's thick spectacles gleamed up at him. "It is finished. I am afraid I have to disappoint you. In what the poor ladies had swallowed there is no arsenic, no metallic irritant at all."

"My dear chap!" Reggie purred. "I never thought there was. I expected formaldehyde. Is that right?"

"So?" Anneler blinked. "Yes, you are very acute. They had been given formaldehyde, I think the common forty per cent solution."

"I thought that too. As used in the common or school biology lab on the specimens."

"Certainly. But I do not know of a death by formaldehyde."

' "Nor do I. Crucial point. What about the dirt from the dead man's hands?"

"That consists of oil, machine oil, and brass and bronze dust."

"Thanks very much. And the blue on the coat?"

"It is paint. Cobalt blue made up with linseed oil."

Over Reggie's face came a slow benign smile. "It would be," he murmured. "End of a perfect day. Fun to - morrow." He went out, he drove away to the flat of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. In a pink room hung with French prints of the eighteenth century the Hon. Sidney Lomas sat drinking whisky and reading a New York comic paper. "Confound you, Reginald," he said heartily, "what do you want?"

"Only soda." Reggie took some, dropped into an easy chair and lit his pipe and mumbled, "Marvellous are the potentialities of science. Enablin' me to state you can't charge our Miss Johnston with attempt to murder. She only used formalin. Distressful but not lethal. Wary female."

"Good Gad!" Lomas exploded. "You've kept me up to hear that! After you made Bray have her shadowed, and persuaded me he needed more men for the job."

"Yes. She didn't want to kill - this time. But determined to get the week - end free. Must find out what for. The man Barnet was killed."

"You have not a speck of evidence she had anything to do with him."

"Oh my Lomas! Distressin' lack of interest in murder at the Criminal Investigation Department."

"We don't know the man was murdered."

"Sorry to annoy. He was. Bruise found on back of head on which he did not fall. Made drunk, knocked out and put in garage to asphyxiate. However. Can I interest you in the crime of coining? Had much snide lately?"

"The deuce of a lot," Lomas snapped.

"Good. Now you sit up and take notice. Well reason to believe the man Barnet and, or, Sergeant Lewson dealt in snide. But how marvellous are the potentialities of science. Dirt on Barnet's hands was brass and bronze dust and oil. So shortly before death he'd been in a place where they worked on those metals. Just the place for coining. Find it."

Lomas meditated. "You have given us something," he said slowly. "But there's no line anywhere in it."

"Oh yes. Yes. Two lines. Keep touch with Miss Johnston. Do some work on Precision Materials, Branton Smith. Small factory, makin' wheels and gears for gadgets ten minutes from Barnet's house. The only likely place I saw." Reggie stood up bit by bit. "And so to bed," he yawned. "My only aunt! Ten past two. Be at the office early."

Lomas made a grimace and took up the telephone.... Before nine o'clock next morning Reggie settled down in the largest chair of Lomas's room at Scotland Yard to smoke his after breakfast pipe. "'Sweet when the morn is grey,'" he murmured and closed his eyes. He had finished the pipe before Lomas came in. His eyes opened at the sound. "Up already?" he asked. 

"I have been here since eight, Reginald."

"Fancy that. Done anything? Searched the Branton Smith factory?"

"I can't take out a search warrant with no evidence."

"My Lomas! On information received. My information."

"Your guess. No, thank you. Enquiries are proceeding - -"

"Said he, bein' the perfect official. And our Miss Johnston?"

"We've just heard she left her flat at nine with a suit case, went to the Underground station, took a ticket for Sloane Square. She's being followed."

"Sloane Square. Chelsea," Reggie murmured, "I wonder. Have your proceedin' enquiries found out where Branton or Smith lives?"

Lomas stared at him and was putting a hand to the telephone when Superintendent Bell strode in. "Another message just through, sir. Miss Johnston took a taxi from Sloane Square to the Chelsea Registry Office."

Reggie sprang up, turned the pages of the telephone directory and twirled the disc of the 'phone. "Registrar, Chelsea? Scotland Yard speakin'. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department. A Miss Johnston will be at your office. Keep her waitin' till our men get there." He clashed back the receiver. "Come on, Lomas. My car's here." He ran out.

Lomas beckoned Bell to follow. Reggie's driving through traffic does not encourage articulate conversation from his passengers. At the door of the Chelsea Registry Office a coupe stood. As Reggie stopped his car behind it an unobtrusive man loitered by, saw Bell and passed on with a jerk of his thumb at the office.

In the doorway a young fellow stood waiting for them and took them to the room of the Superintendent Registrar. Lomas introduced himself. "You've been good enough to keep Miss Johnston for me?"

"Oh yes, certainly. She is still here. I'm afraid she is annoyed, Mr. Lomas. Young ladies are when there is delay."

"What has she come here for?"

"My dear old thing!" Reggie smiled.

And the Registrar answered, "Were you not aware? Miss Elsie Johnston of Melford Park Court, Melford, that is your young lady, sir? I was to marry her at ten o'clock this morning."

"Who's the happy man?" Reggie asked.

"Mr. David Branton of The Vine House, Chelsea."

"Well, well," Reggie murmured. "Needn't keep 'em waitin' any longer. Have 'em in."

"Certainly, if you will." The Registrar sent his clerk to fetch them.

They entered, a woman in grey fur coat open from a buxom girl's figure, her full face flushed and angry, a big man twice her age, with so much of sallow brow and jaw that his thin lipped mouth looked a colourless slit.

"Thanks very much, Miss Johnston," Reggie bowed, "Mr. Branton - Precision Materials, Branton Smith, what?"

"Who are you?" Branton asked quietly, but his hands clenched and opened and clenched again.

Lomas touched Bell's arm. "I'm a police officer," said Bell. "I shall have to interrupt your wedding, Mr. Branton. I require a statement from you on certain crimes." Branton turned on his bride, caught her by the throat, crushed it with both hands and, as the other men grasped him, flung her away across the room. Her head crashed into the fire. . . .

"Not a nice man, no," said Reggie, arranging himself again in Lomas's largest chair some hours later. "She's still unconscious. Won't be much longer, poor girl. No bad damage but shock, physically. Spiritually - God knows. Speakin' as a policeman, I should say no charge against her will stand up. No doubt she was eager to marry the Branton beast though knowin' a thing or two about him. They will do it, her kind. His reason for marrying her, a wife can't be made a witness against her husband. He had to kill Barnet as soon as Barnet and Lewson got in a mess over snide. Barnet knew enough to give his business away, funked, or blackmailed him. How much did Elsie Johnston know? Probably knew he was using Barnet. Did she help in the Barnet murder? He may swear she did. Won't go with a jury. I should say she didn't. Well. She bein' mad to marry Branton, and he havin' fixed the marriage for this morning, the imperious headmistress booked her to go to a conference. So she put the head out with a dose of formalin. We shall not prove that. Anybody could have got at the formalin bottle in the school biology lab. There's the police side. Speakin' as a man - God help her. Might take a humble hand ourselves."

"Very humane, Reginald," said Lomas. "I agree we can't put the woman in the dock. Did you happen to think we can charge Branton with murder? We have him for an attempt to murder her. We have him for coining. But for the murder of Barnet the strongest evidence we have points to Lewson."

"The coat? Oh yes. The paint on the coat." Reggie's eyelids drooped. "That does point. However. You say you have Branton for coining. So you did get a search warrant. Better late than never. May I see his place?"

"I was going out myself." Lomas stood up. "Paxton says it's the finest plant ever."

They drove out to the factory under the cogwheels. Inspector Paxton, a grey expert, led them through it. "All up to date, this equipment," he pointed to the lathes and tools. "Genuine business, first rate stuff they turned out."

"Oh yes," Reggie murmured. "And lots of oily brass about. As on the hands of the late Barnet. He caught at a bench or fell here when drunk, when sloshed."

"I found no traces," Paxton told him. "Of course the men were at work by the time I got here."

"Rather late, yes." Reggie glanced at Lomas. Paxton took them into a room at the end of the factory. "This is Mr. Branton's office. I haven't had time to go through the safe. But here," he pushed open a door. "That was locked. I had to force it. Here we have Mr, Branton's private workshop. He used it for experiments the foreman told me. No one ever allowed in but himself and his friends. Experiments! Gas furnace, rolling machine, cutting machine and a press. There's all you need for high class coining. I haven't found the dies yet. But those'll be scraps of silver on the cutting machine."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie agreed. "Easy to verify." He turned away from the machines to a peg on which hung a shabby coat. "And this?"

"His working rig, I take it," said Paxton.

"So do I," Reggie answered. He lifted the right sleeve. "Look, Lomas." The cuff bore a bright blue smear. "Paint. Same like on Lewson's coat. And same like on Barnet's house."

"Damme!" Lomas muttered. "That's got them both then. Branton and Lewson were together in the murder." He stared gloomily at Reggie. "And in the whole game. I suppose you had that in your head all the time. It makes the devil of a case. One of our own men!"

Reggie was smelling the paint. "My Lomas!" he said softly, "this is goin' to hang Branton. Careful fellow. Put on his workin' rig for the messy job of murder and burglary. Got Barnet to his office here, filled him with whisky, sloshed him from behind goin' out through the factory. Not quite careful enough. Failed to notice Barnet got his hands dirty in fallin'. First error. Work still good though. Drove the unconscious Barnet home in his own car, with the glass Barnet had held and the whisky bottle which he hadn't. Dumped Barnet in the garage with car runnin' to die quiet. Took Barnet's keys and suitcase and went into the house. Abolished everything that could link Barnet with Branton Smith's business except the snide half - crown he missed. Second error. Put up the glass and whisky bottle so the intelligent police should infer Barnet drank himself drunk there.

Wiped the bottle clean of his own finger - prints. Third error. In the course of these operations, rubbed his sleeve on the wet paint of the door. Fourth and fatal error. You'll hang him on that."

"Deuced clever, Reginald," said Lomas, but his gloom had deepened. "It's a strong case. And if we hang Branton by the paint we hang Lewson too. They were both in Barnet's house. They did the job together. That's what your case comes to."

"My dear old thing," Reggie purred. "No. Branton hangs alone and by himself. Paint on Branton's coat is made up with varnish. For the inside of houses only, as on the door of Barnet's room. Paint on Lewson's coat with linseed oil, for the outside. Lewson was never inside. He told Bray and me the simple truth. He was trying to find Barnet, he went to the house, he rang and got no answer, he spent some time looking it over. That's how he rubbed the window sill. He just did his duty and he's been put on the rack and nearly hanged because he did. Life is like that. Go and apologise for it."

THE BIRD IN THE CELLAR

THE MONTH WAS May, in which it is the habit of the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department to go fishing. Mr. Fortune was therefore surprised when he entered the library of the gravest of his clubs and saw the man. There he sat, reading a book with concentration almost as woeful as that of the only other inhabitant, a bishop in the throes of composition.

Reggie approached him in silent awe and looked over his shoulder. The book was Latin, Latin poetry. "My dear Lomas!" He spoke affectionately. "Why?"

Lomas showed the shame natural to an Englishman detected in emotion. "Quaint how these old fellows get hold of you." He put the book into Reggie's hands, who read:

"Ibant obscuri sola sub nocte per umbram Perque domos Ditis vacuas - -"

"They went dim under the lonely night through the gloom and through the empty dwellings of Dis."

Reggie laid the book down. "Splendid dead march," he agreed, "but I thought you were catching the festive salmon."

"I had to come back for a friend's funeral," said Lomas.

"My dear chap! Sorry," Reggie apologised.

"Thanks. I don't suppose you've heard of him. Francis Venn." Lomas looked a question, and Reggie shook his head. "I knew him rather well at Eton. We've only met odd times for years, but we didn't forget. That's the sort of fellow he was. He came into money. Then he married a wife. They went to live up in Daneshire, off the map. I'd never been to the house till a week ago. That was after his death."

"Sudden?" Reggie asked.

"Yes and worse. The coroner's jury gave an open verdict. Francis was found dead in a tidal river not far from his house. The doctors were certain about the cause of death - drowning. But his head was bruised and they couldn't tell how or when. The banks of the river are grass and mud. Mrs. Venn said that on the evening before Francis had tea with her and her daughter and Major Bart, a visitor, and then went to his study. That was the last she saw of him. When the dinner bell rang she looked into his dressing - room, he wasn't there, he wasn't in the study, he wasn't in the house. They searched the grounds, they searched everywhere till dark and told the police. In the morning, his body was seen on a mud bank in the river."

Reggie's eyelids drooped. "Well, well. How long between tea and dinner?"

"About three hours. The butler saw him in the garden soon after tea. Mrs. Venn says he often took a stroll while he was reading."

"In the garden soon after tea," Reggie repeated. "Which was soon after Major Bart left. I wonder."

Lomas frowned. "Do you suspect Francis followed Bart and had a quarrel with him?"

"It could be. On the statements. But no cause for suspicion. I haven't any. Open verdict - by me. And you?"

"Quite. There's nothing I could work on." Lomas looked away for a moment then put his hand to the book. "You know how this goes on?"

"Oh yes. Virgil's vision of the world of the dead and the unborn."

"Francis was reading that," said Lomas. "He left a Virgil on his study table, open at the page with 'easy is the way down to hell: all day and night the door of dark Dis stands wide.' I found the Virgil myself. Mrs. Venn and her daughter hadn't noticed it and couldn't read it. You see what it may mean."

"Yes. Francis chose the easy way down. My dear chap. Was he the sort of man?"

"To kill himself? Who ever knows of the other fellow?"

"As you say," Reggie sighed and there the death of Francis Venn was left for months.

Reggie now says he should have done better, speaking professionally: what Lomas gave him sufficed to clear it up: but on the larger view, he wouldn't have done so well if he had.

Both Lomas and he were much occupied that summer. They snatched a holiday in the middle of August and Lomas came to his Cotswold house. On this interlude of calm broke a message which sent Lomas back from the telephone to Reggie with a blank face. "That was the Chief Constable of Daneshire," he said.

"My only aunt!" Reggie moaned.

"Yes. I could have done without him." Lomas lit a cigarette. "As I was a friend of poor Francis Venn he thought I should be informed there had been another mysterious affair at Melton Grange - he talks like a newspaper - that's Francis's house. On Saturday the butler was found in the cellar unconscious. He'd apparently fallen downstairs. He was taken to hospital, right leg so badly fractured they had to amputate. This morning he died of pneumonia following the operation. He was never in a condition to be questioned, he did come to himself on Monday but the nurse couldn't make sense of what he said. She gave him paper and he wrote: 'They murdered me, they murdered master.' Then lost his senses again. God knows whom he meant by his 'they'."

"Yes," said Reggie. "Does the Chief Constable?"

"He hinted at Mrs. Venn and the daughter."

"My dear chap! Better go."

"Good Gad! I want to," Lomas exclaimed. "But it's over two hundred miles. And with this crisis on us!"

"You'd be four hours from London in Daneshire. Two hours here. And the devil's work doin' up there. Drive through the night, we'll be in action to - morrow morning."

"You're a good fellow, Reginald," said Lomas, and looked shy, which would have amazed his department.

That part of Daneshire where Francis Venn lived is never gay. They saw it under a skim milk sky. Drab chalk hills tumbled down to a murky flat expanse in which what was land and what was water could hardly be distinguished but for a broken white line where the muddy North Sea fretted at the mud of the shore.

Few buildings rose out of the marshland. Not till they were close on Melton Grange could it be seen dim in a nook of the hills, above the point at which they came nearest to the sea and a sluggish river turned and made its estuary.

Reggie gazed at the house with melancholy wonder. There was a great deal of it, grey stone, in the style of a classical Italian palace, oddly discordant with the bleak landscape, sheltered from the west and south, its ornate front open to the east wind and the marsh. "Queer choice of site." Reggie sat up. "Must have cost a pile too. Why?"

"It was built a century ago," said Lomas. "Francis bought it for a song. He had a fancy for out - of - the - way places."

Its grounds were scrubby. From yellow grey turf bearing a few mean trees, already crumpled in autumn brown, though the summer had not gone, they crossed a garden where nothing grew two feet high.

But the hall had a marble floor and walls and the room to which a sheepish young footman took them was of stately proportions, with tapestries and pictures on the ceiling. Reggie found it on that raw morning gratefully warm till he discovered that it was also close.

Mrs. Venn kept them waiting some time. When she did come, she ran at Lomas. "Dear Mr. Lomas - such a surprise - so glad - are you staying somewhere - do give us a day or two."

Her black dress was designed to proclaim her a mourning widow. The prettiness of her face had put on pathetic distress. Reggie silently catalogued her as child woman in a jam.

"My friend Fortune and I happened to be motoring this way," said Lomas, which made her gush welcome to Reggie. "I heard of this unfortunate affair of your butler and I thought I might be some use."

"But that is kind!" Mrs. Venn broke out again. "It has been so dreadful. Poor Burton! He'd been with us so long. How did you hear of it, Mr. Lomas?"

Before Lomas answered, her daughter came into the room and shook hands with him. "I have hardly ever seen you. It is nice of you to come."

"Isn't it kind, Julia?" Mrs. Venn was in italics again. "Do make him stay now. And Mr. Fortune too."

Again Reggie was welcomed, but without exuberance. Julia was not like her mother. She had a deep voice, speech and movement glided slow. She did not wear mourning. She was buxom in green. Her full face had beauty but no expression. Ox - eyed, deep - bosomed, sleep - walker, Reggie classified her.

"I hope you will stay," she said. "You haven't come to the end of the world to go away at once."

"It was worth coming to see you, Julia," Lomas told her.

"Was that why you came?" she asked. 

"Mr. Lomas has heard of poor Burton's death," Mrs. Venn answered for him.

"How did you hear?" Julia was repeating her mother's question when a man strode in.

"Oh, Louis!" Mrs. Venn cried and presented to Lomas and Reggie, Major Bart, a lank, red man with a military swagger. "Mr. Lomas was Francis's oldest friend, you know, Louis. He heard about poor Burton and he came at once. Isn't it kind?"

"Very kind," said Bart. "How did you hear, sir?"

"People were talking of it in Daneham," Lomas gave his answer at last. "A sad affair, Mrs. Venn."

"Yes, indeed. I am so glad Louis was with us. He has been such a help," she smiled mournfully.

"I wish I had," said Bart.

"There was nothing you could do," said Julia.

Reggie contemplated the mother and daughter and the man: uncomfortable, all three of them, affectionate hostility pervading: as if each had something on one of the others: but also ties of common funk: "willing to wound and yet afraid to strike" spirit. So he meditated with effort, his mind sluggish under a sense of oppression, of something wrong with the stuffy place. And he heard Lomas asking Bart: "You live near, don't you?"

"I had a little place close by, but I've let it. So when I wanted to run down for a few days I asked myself here."

"You were here when Burton had his accident?"

"It was the night after I came."

"Any idea how it happened?"

"But nobody has!" Mrs. Venn cried. "Poor old man, he'd been shaky for some time. Perhaps I shouldn't have let him go on working. But I hadn't the heart to make him retire, he was wrapped up in the place, it was his life."

"And his death," Reggie murmured: on which followed a heavy silence.

Bart broke it. "I don't know how the old man fell down his cellar stairs," he said with some violence, "but I was the last to see him the night before he was found at the bottom. The ladies had gone to bed. He brought me some whisky in the study. He was talkative, I think he was in liquor and I cut him short - -"

"Talk of anything in particular?" Reggie interrupted.

"No, babble," Bart answered sharply. "In the morning the footman came to my room and said Burton was in the cellar speechless and asked me to give a hand. I found he'd broken his leg and 'phoned the doctor."

"Why should he go to the cellar last thing at night?" Lomas asked.

"For more drink, I suppose," said Bart. "He'd changed out of a tail coat into his cellar jacket."

"Burton had the queerest ways," Mrs. Venn cried. 

"You know there must be an inquest?" Lomas turned to her.

"Of course, it's dreadful. You will stay with us, won't you?"

"I'm afraid it won't be pleasant. We'll stay if we can."

"Oh, but how kind you are! I'm so grateful," she clasped Lomas's hand. "Thank you, thank you."

"Don't - - " Again Reggie had the felicity of seeing Lomas embarrassed. "We must go over to Daneham and pick up our things, Fortune."

When they were in Reggie's car he also clasped Lomas's hand. "My dear old thing," he chuckled. "Still feelin' coy?"

"Confound you!" Lomas drew away.

"Yes, we do want air. Phew! Close in that room. Nasty close. The mind felt faint. My mind. You were very good. Shook me awake when you asked the Bart man how the deuce he came to be in the house. That shook 'em all up. I should say you touched the spot. One of the main spots in Melton Grange."

"It stuck out," Lomas frowned. "Bart was visiting the house just as Francis disappeared and died. Bart lets his own place and comes to stay at the house, and as soon as he's there Francis's butler has a fatal accident."

"Yes. The mind did notice that when you put it. And other little points. Bart said he asked himself and Mrs. Venn said the defunct Burton had the queerest ways. Was she coverin' Bart - or the contrary? I haven't the slightest idea. The mind comin' to itself finds lots of things bafflin'. Why couldn't one of 'em bear us to talk to the others alone? Why did each of 'em ask how we heard of Burton's death? Why are they all so fond of one another and criss - cross distrustful and afraid?"

"I always thought there might be trouble," said Lomas. "Things are going to be infernally awkward. I don't see my way."

"Nor I. No. 'They went darkling through the shadows' same like the people in Virgil your friend Francis was readin' about."

"Good Gad!" Lomas stared. "Do you suppose he was thinking of himself, his wife and this fellow Bart?"

"It could be. I wonder." Reggie sat up and told his chauffeur to stop the car. They were high on the hills. The murk had cleared from the flat pasture below and the tide flowing in the river by Melton Grange gleamed to pallid sunshine. "That's the river where Venn's body was found, what?" Reggie asked. "Do you know the place?"

"You see that ruin" - Lomas pointed to some roofless grey walls in the pasture - "that was the old original grange. You can make out a sort of track from it. Just above where the track reaches the river his body was lying."

"Oh! Very near the house. In a straight line."

"Do you make anything of that?"

"No. Make nothing of anything." Reggie sighed, and they drove on to Daneham.

The Chief Constable of Daneshire, a full - bodied, bustling person, was very pleased to see Mr. Lomas and had a great deal to say in a mixture of official jargon and newspaper cliches. But there was some matter in the monstrous deal of words. Natural repugnance to the man did not prevent Reggie from allowing that Mr. Filson had a nose.

He told a story patched together from the talk of the countryside, pointing out at each section that there was no other evidence than common fame. Julia Venn, said Gossip, was in love with Bart. Her father wouldn't give them any money and her mother was at Bart's orders because she had an old affair with him.

"That's a foul suggestion," said Lomas.

"Your language is not too strong," Filson agreed. "I am fully conscious that it would be against the public interest for such unsubstantiated allegations to be adduced in the coroner's court. Be that as it may, I cannot close my eyes to the fact that the dead man set his hand to a charge of murder as his last act and died. Questions will inevitably be put to the police whether they have discovered any confirmation of his charge. I have no reason to believe that is possible. On the other hand, people will say there is no smoke without fire. We have two mysterious domestic tragedies. We must anticipate that public opinion will pronounce them crimes of passion."

"Whose passion?" Reggie murmured. "Bart's or Miss Venn's or Mrs. Venn's?"

"I have not suggested the case is clear," said Filson. "Far from it. If we should assume that Major Bart murdered Venn because of Venn's refusal to make a settlement on his daughter and then murdered Burton because Burton could testify against him, we are confronted with the objection that Burton held his tongue for months. You may answer, Burton had been paid for silence and was demanding more than Venn could afford. But - -"

"But I shouldn't," said Reggie. "My first answer, no proof anybody murdered Burton. He was left with a broken leg. Not necessarily fatal. Second answer, no proof Venn was murdered. Might have been accident. The coroner's jury couldn't make up its mind."

"Are you of opinion his death was accidental, Mr. Fortune?" Filson was impressively surprised.

"No opinion. Same like the jury."

"Now that we have another mysterious death in the household, I am compelled to take the view that suspicion of criminal action has become almost a certainty."

"Without certainty there was a crime. No. Speakin' as the common man, I should say you'll get the same sort of verdict again."

Filson gave him a frown of official dignity. "In that conclusion, I agree. We are placed in a most unpleasant position, Mr. Lomas. It will be necessary to produce at the inquest on Burton his dying accusation that 'they' murdered him and his master. Though it is unproven, the imputations on Mrs. Venn and her daughter will be severe."

"Things will be said about the police too, Filson." Lomas lit a cigarette. "If it goes like that. How do you propose to handle the inquest?"

Filson shifted his papers. "I desired to have the advantage of your experience."

"Thanks. The obvious course is for the coroner to take medical evidence and adjourn for police enquiries. You needn't produce Burton's note till you've checked it and can say it's sense or nonsense. Has Burton any relatives?"

"He left a daughter, a most respectable woman, who has a dressmaking establishment at Sandbourne."

"How did she take his death?"

"She was, of course, much distressed, but I felt bound to question her at once on her father's accusation. She was completely bewildered. She told me she could not understand it at all. She knew her father was devoted to Mrs. Venn and Miss Venn, and they treated him more as a friend than a servant."

"There's the answer to what he wrote," Lomas shrugged. "Call her when you produce it."

"I am willing to repose on your judgment," Filson announced. "May I expect you to stay for the inquest?"

"I'm at Melton Grange," said Lomas. "I'll stay if I can, but it's a difficult time."

Reggie and Lomas sat down to the lunch of a Daneham hotel. This is a feat in which robust men have quailed. They did. They left it half accomplished and Reggie led Lomas back to his car and told the chauffeur to drive to Sandbourne.

"What did you say?" Lomas asked limply.

"Not completely conscious? My dear old thing! No wonder. I said Sandbourne. Desirin' to observe the dressmaking establishment of that most respectable woman, the orphan Miss Burton. Speakin' broadly, your friend Filson is disgustful to me and yet I like the fellow. Under the swollen official he remains the common man."

"Common enough," Lomas shrugged. "I meant why do you want Miss Burton?"

"I'm a very common man. Hence my fame. He told us the truth. Though he didn't understand it. No more do I. Miss Burton, the bereaved, affectionate daughter, couldn't believe the Venns murdered her father, though that was his last dying word."

"Obviously she believed he was delirious. No doubt he was. And that settles the case."

"Settles the inquest. As you said. Does it settle your mind?"

"Confound you!" Lomas eyed him uneasily. "What can we get from Miss Burton?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Reggie murmured, and Lomas was morosely silent.

Some twenty miles from Melton Grange the marshy coastal plain ends and the hills thrust out a bold headland into the sea. On the cliffs of the bay beyond stands Sandbourne, a flashy watering - place for the industrial towns of Daneshire.

There was no difficulty in finding Miss Burton's shop. It spread big windows along the best street. "Well, well!" Reggie's eyes opened wide as he contemplated the plate glass and frocks and silks. "She's gone big for a butler's daughter."

He got out of the car but he did not go into the shop, he strolled on to a bookseller's and entered that.

Lomas turned to buy an early evening paper from a boy with a bill which proclaimed: "The Crisis - Fleet Moves ..."

"News?" said Reggie at his elbow.

"It's boiling up." Lomas spoke softly. "Don't you mean to see this woman after all?"

"Not to - day. Seen enough. The mind is dazed." Reggie made for the car.

"What the deuce have you been buying?" Lomas poked a foot at two parcels one of which, was an odd shape.

"History of Daneshire - sketch book - camp stool."

"What for?"

"Disguise. Am I the criminal expert on a trail of crime? No. Simple amateur artist drawin' the pretty country."

Lomas frowned. "You want to follow up that scandal about Mrs. Venn and Bart?"

"I don't like followin'." Reggie was plaintive. "Want the truth, don't we?"

"Francis was fond of her," said Lomas slowly.

"My dear chap," Reggie sympathised, "I hadn't forgotten him." And nothing more was said till they reached the edge of the hills above Melton Grange. Then Reggie took his sketch book and his camp stool from their wrappings and stopped the car. "I will now seek the picturesque," he explained. "Don't mention it."

Lomas, looking back, saw him leave the road to go straight down the hillside. He passed out of sight beyond a tangle of bushes. For he was not able to keep the straight line which he had intended to the ruins of the old grange. The bushes, spindle and juniper and brier, masked a sheer drop, some thirty feet. When he had made a circuit, he found that the place was not natural but a chalk pit long disused and overgrown.

A slant across the pasture to his old line brought him close by the river where the track from the ruin reached it. He stopped and looked back. A little up stream, Francis Venn's body had lain. Perhaps on that mud looming out of the ebb. Quite near his house. Might have gone into the river somewhere else and been washed up or down.

Suppose he went in thereabouts. How? Dreary, lumpy walk for a man to take. Open place to do a murder or bring a murdered body. And he was missed before dark.

Reggie contemplated the landscape. The faint path from the ruin kept by the river some way then on a rise in the bank it forked. One branch led to the nook of the hills where the windows of Melton Grange gleamed, the other towards the chalk pit. He strolled back to the division. High bank built up ages ago. Might have been a quay for the chalk pit or the old house. Deep water by it still. Man might have been knocked on the head there and flung in to drown. But how could he be caught there? No cover, flat as a plate all round. Except the Grange not a house for a mile. Farm buildings away down the river. Not a creature but cattle to be seen. Yes, there was. A man moving among the cattle.

Reggie smiled at his camp stool and wandered off to the ruin and sat down and opened his sketch book. He had roughed out a drawing which gave the crumbling walls majesty only to be seen with the eye of faith by the time the cattle lumbered past him with the man at their tails. The man, a big boned, slouching fellow, stopped to say: "Fine day after the rain."

"What? Yes. Nice day." Reggie looked up from his earnest labours.

"Cold to the feet, though, ain't it, sitting down here in the marsh?"

"I didn't notice. Why, you don't call this marsh. It's quite firm."

"'Tis all marsh from the wold to the sea. You're a stranger."

"I am, yes. Motorin' round to do the best bits in these parts."

"An artist." The man looked at his drawing. "That's handsome of the old house."

Reggie emitted a deprecating laugh. "Just outline. But am I on your ground? I didn't know."

"You're welcome. You finish your picture. The wind's backing for more rain." The man plodded after the cattle.

When they and he were indistinguishable Reggie went back to Melton Grange over the hill. The time till the dinner bell he spent in study of his third purchase, the History of Daneshire, and throughout dinner he talked of nothing else, to the general discomfort. The ladies escaped as soon as they decently could. With a baleful eye upon him, Bart passed the port. "Not me, no," said Reggie, who considers port one of the graver blunders of man. "But the claret is noble. One of the Leovilles, what? Leoville Poyferre 1920?"

"Yes, you're right. Mrs. Venn asked me to get up something decent, and I picked on that."

"Good cellar," Reggie murmured.

"Wasted on me," said Bart.

"Well! well!" Reggie sighed and finished the decanter.

On their way to join the ladies he whispered to Lomas: "Which was Venn's study? Bring Mrs. Venn there alone."

The room was lined with books from floor to ceiling. He worked round the shelves to Latin classics and among them a Virgil bound in vellum yellow with age. He sat down with it at the writing table.

Lomas brought Mrs. Venn. She made a strangled sound and recoiled upon him. "What has distressed you?" Reggie enquired.

"Seeing you there," she gasped, "where Francis sat."

"Did he?" Reggie led her to a couch and sat beside her. "Was this the book he left open?"

She looked at it and began to weep.

"Now about the old grange, the ruin," Reggie spoke in a voice of honey, and Lomas stirred. "There's a farmhouse away beyond." She was startled out of her tears. He administered more shocks. "Who is the man? Has he had it long?"

She stared at him. "Darcy? He was there when we came. Why?"

"We have to work things out. Do you know Burton's daughter?" Reggie struck again.

She was speechless for a moment, then words tumbled over one another. "I've seen her when she came to see him, that's all."

"Did she get her money from him?"

"I didn't know she had money."

"Oh. How much was Burton paid - by you?"

Mrs. Venn grew pale. "A hundred a year," she said faintly.

"His wages. Yes. Not all he got, was it? Who gave the Burtons more?"

She shivered, she sank back and hid her face in her hands.

Reggie glanced at Lomas who said sharply: "We must have the truth, Mrs. Venn. That's the only way for you and Julia."

"It wasn't Julia," she sobbed, "it was me. Burton was a wretch after Francis died. He said he knew things about Louis and me and he'd tell if I didn't give him money. There wasn't anything really, but he could have made things up, and I paid him. It would have been so ghastly for Julia."

Reggie went out and went to the drawing - room. Julia and Bart sat there in talk broken off as they saw him. "Your mother wants you. Miss Venn," he told her. "The study." She was there sooner than he, gliding to her mother's side. He shut the door and stood with his back to it. "The point is this. Miss Venn. Did you give Burton money too?"

Mrs. Venn cried out: "No, no, of course not!"

All colour left Julia's face, her bosom rose and fell quickly, she gazed at her mother with piteous eyes. "The answer is yes," said Reggie. "Next question is, why? We know your mother's reason for paying him. What was yours?"

"You are cruel," she answered.

"No. Actin' for your father."

"Burton asked me for money," she said slowly. "He told me if I didn't he would tell the police things about father and mother and Major Bart. They weren't true. I knew they weren't true. But it would have been cruel for us all. I paid him to be quiet."

While Lomas and Reggie exchanged looks of patient long - suffering Mrs. Venn exclaimed: "Julia, my dear, if you'd only told me! Oh, my dearest!"

Lomas turned on them. "If you'd told me - either of you - -"

"Yes. Pity. However," Reggie murmured and picked up the vellum bound Virgil and moved away, beckoning him out.

Bart was still in the drawing - room. "Hallo!" he greeted them. "Where are the ladies?"

"Confidin' in each other." Reggie sat down. "Havin' confided in us. Remember that night when they'd gone to bed and the late Burton came to you. He was talkative, you said. What about?"

"I told you the man was half tipsy." Bart frowned. "He talked a devil of a lot of insolent nonsense till I sent him off. That's all that happened."

"He tried to blackmail you, what?"

"Blackmail nothing. Do you mean he'd - -"

"We're dealing with you now. What did he want of you?"

Bart laughed. "The old fool wanted to get rid of me. He told me I'd better not stay here, he knew too much about me."

"Oh. Why did you come here?"

"That's my business. No, I don't care if I tell you. I came to see Miss Venn."

"And Burton knew that and objected."

"Something of the sort." Bart's red face darkened. "Impudent old rascal. He said I wasn't to think I could set up here, if I didn't pack and go he'd be telling what he knew about me and her mother and father - that sort of stuff."

"Meaning you had a hand in Venn's death?"

"It meant nothing. The old beast always hated visitors and he was in liquor. I told him to go to the devil."

"Is that all there was between you and him?"

"It is. Was he blackmailing Miss Venn?"

"Not a question for me," Reggie murmured. Bart strode out of the room. "Well! well!" Reggie smiled. "I should say that is more or less that, Lomas. Foolish mother, shy, unworldly daughter, rough but simple soldier man and a cunning old sot."

"They've made an infernal mess." Lomas was not comforted. "Do you believe Bart?"

"Speakin' broadly, yes. Probably was a more definite charge of murdering Venn. But I think Bart told him to publish and be damned - same like Wellington."

"You don't believe Bart was the murderer?"

"Of Venn? No. It could be. But I think not. Of Burton? No again. Not certain either death was murder."

"That's where we began," said Lomas drearily. "Not quite, no. Facts have emerged." Reggie lit a pipe and opened the Virgil. 

"Original property of one Gabriel Tunstall, 1780. Tunstall. That's the extinct family which built this palatial place in 1814 leavin' the old grange to fall into ruin. Must have come into money about that date. Venn's last known act in life was to read from G. Tunstall's Virgil the verses about 'Easy is the way down to hell. All day and night the door of dark Dis stands wide.' Here we are. Well, well. Those verses marked with a wavy line. Not by Venn. Ink faded. Earlier verses also marked: 'Quod minime reris' - 'Little as you think it, the first way of safety will open from a Grecian town.' By which in old writing 'ludibria rerum humanarum" - 'the farce of human affairs.' G. Tunstall saw a joke. Curious and interestm". Was Venn lookin' for it?" Reggie turned the pages. "Any jests on the way down through the world of the dead? No. But at the end, 'sunt geminae portae" underlined - 'there are twin doors' - and Gabriel Tunstall wrote beside 'quod minime reris' with a note of exclamation. 'Little as you think it!'" Reggie looked up. "Do you, Lomas? Gabriel had a sense of humour."

"What's the use of all this?" Lomas was impatient. "Ancient japes about Virgil's underworld."

"I wonder," Reggie murmured. "Your friend Francis read 'em - and died." He put down the Virgil. He gazed at Lomas with eyes half closed. "The underworld," he repeated. "And old Burton went down to the cellar - havin' failed to bluff Bart. I also will go down. Havin' changed my coat. Same like Burton. Coming? ..."

The cellar door was beyond the servants' hall at the back of the house. Reggie turned the handle. "Not locked. 'All day and night the door of dark Dis stands open.'" He shone a torch upon a flight of worn stone stairs. "A fellow might take a toss when in liquor." The cellar stretched beyond the torch light, square pillars supporting a roof of many arches all cut out of the native chalk. Wooden shelves clothed the sides from the floor to the height of a man though not all the shelves had bottles on them.

"Built for a thirstier world," Reggie sighed. "We are not now the stuff which in old time matched earth with heaven." He inspected the bottles. "But what there is is good." He swept the torch beam hither and thither. "My only aunt!" he murmured, and stood still and kept the light steady about something brown on the grey chalk floor.

"What is it?" Lomas came to look. "Good gad, it's a bird!"

"As you say. A bird in the cellar. Which is contrary to nature." Reggie bent over it. "A bird that's been dead some days. Speakin' more precisely, a little owl. Which nests in walls and quarries. But not in a cellar. An incredible little owl. However. We have to believe him. While preservin' faith that nature keeps the rules." He moved along the cellar handling each range of the shelves, till in a far corner he came on one which was not quite firm. He felt about it, found bolts and drew them back and pulled. A section of the shelving turned on hinges and he flashed his torch into another cellar.

That also was spacious and hewn out of the chalk, but its sides were bare. The torch light swept over grey emptiness.

"Well, well," Reggie smiled. "Now you see Gabriel's little joke. He did have 'twin doors' to his underworld. For why? He went into the smuggling trade. Hence the sudden wealth of the Tunstalls. Golden age of smuggling about 1800. 'Little as you think it, the way of safety will open from a Grecian city,' that is, the hated foreigner. 'The farce of human affairs,' as he wrote. He ran cargoes and got into a large way of business and built a double cellar to hide 'em and had his private joke about it."

"Very ingenious, Reginald," said Lomas. "I dare say you're right. But it doesn't explain anything. It doesn't help us."

"You think not? Think again. I should say Francis Venn saw the joke and that was the end of him."

"How the devil could it be?"

"My dear chap! Remember the history of Burton. He wouldn't retire though his daughter's well - to - do - in silk. He did his damnedest to stop Bart marryin' Julia, and when Bart called his bluff he went down to the cellar. Why? Smuggling's got going again in our time: silk, drugs, what not. This is still a lonely coast. The cellars are good as Gabriel built 'em. Burton used 'em. Venn came to suspect something wrong, found the clue in Gabriel's Virgil. Burton or some smuggler friends caught him down here lookin' round and finished him. That went all right for Burton. He got Mrs. Venn under his nasty thumb. But he bumped against hard stuff in Bart, and he got the wind up and scuttled down to clear up any awkward evidence left about - the little owl perhaps. But in his tipsy hurry he crashed. There you are."

"One of your best efforts," said Lomas. "Explains everything - proves nothing. But a brilliant work of imagination."

"Grrrh!" Reggie made a spiteful noise. "I hate you." He went on into the further cellar. Searching the floor his torch discovered some scraps of thick oiled paper. "What about it? Parcel wrapping. For long distance transport. For parcels of silk sea - borne. And Miss Burton has a dressmakin' establishment, goin' fine and large. Well?"

Lomas took time to answer. "There have been cases of the sort," he pronounced. "It's possible enough. But proof - damme, we're a long way from that. I said you'd explained everything. I flattered you, Reginald. This second cellar might have been a secret store once, but how the deuce would Burton get smuggled goods into it?"

"My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap! You forget the bird in the cellar. How did the little owl get in? Not through the house. This is old Gabriel's underworld, and it had twin doors to the upper air 'little as you think it.' Two ways. We've only used one. There's another. The way the silk arrived - and the owl."

Again the torch swept round the cellar walls. It fell on a recess in them where a ledge was hewn in the chalk like a seat or bunk. He crossed to it but found no sign of a door and was turning away when he stopped and sniffed and turned the beam to the floor. "What do you make it?" he asked.

"There is a faint smell," said Lomas, "like ammonia."

"Yes, I think so," Reggie murmured, and knelt down and put his nose to the ground. "Ammonia - and something oily - spilt here. Say linseed oil." He sat back on his heels and flashed his torch on Lomas's face which was blank. "Odd mixture, what? Not drugs worth smugglin'."

"You haven't proved any smuggling."

"As you say." Reggie sprang up. "But proved recent use of the place."

He looked round, judging distance and direction from the stairs to the house, he walked on and the torch pierced the gloom of an archway, showed a passage beyond. The end of that widened to a door fastened by three iron cross bars. The bars slid easily back. Reggie switched off his torch. They went out and were in raw, damp air. Lomas stumbled into bushes and swore. "Where the devil are we?"

"Hush! Listen. That's the tide in the river. This is an old chalk pit under the hills. But you're off the track. Which goes down to an old quay for smugglers' little boats to use. Come on and do your stuff."

"I should like to see the case through but - -"

"Of course you would. Don't talk here. Be quiet. Distrust. Ears of the enemy are listening." Reggie led him back into the cellar and shut and barred the door. "That fellow at the farm by the river - Darcy. He don't please me.'"

"Damme, you have a lot in your head. I can't give time to work it out with a European crisis on the boil."

"My dear chap! I know. Must be quick. Come on to Daneham, on to Chief Constable Filson and customs officers and coastguards and all and make their wheels go round. Time's everything."

It was after midnight when they drove away from Melton Grange. Surly was Filson when they got him out of bed and took him to his office. Through the small hours its telephones worked hard.

At the end of the next day when Reggie and Lomas came to him for a report of progress he swelled with condescending importance. "I hope you gentlemen have had some sleep. I've been hard at it all day. I may tell you I'm very well satisfied with the results of the measures taken. The customs people entered Miss Burton's premises first thing this morning. From an examination of her books they find she has been selling silk on a scale much bigger than her purchases account for. She will not be charged till they complete their enquiries, but meanwhile she is under close observation. You understand, she doesn't know that. She believes she only has to deal with the customs, not the police. That's my method, Mr. Lomas."

"You're wise," said Lomas, having dictated it himself.

"I may say, the results are satisfactory. Soon after the customs officers entered her premises she went out to the post office and sent a telegram to John Smith, 37 Mosley Street, Whitfield. 'Many happy returns. G.' Her Christian name is Eliza. I have been in touch with the Whitfield police and they inform me the address is a boarding house and John Smith has been staying there a month or more. When they called, he'd received a telegram and left. I have no doubt he was her agent for the silk and she warned him to go into hiding. But that is not the only message Miss Burton sent. I have given instructions for all communications to the farmer Darcy to be examined."

"Splendid," said Reggie, who had suggested that.

"A telephone message on his line was overheard this morning to the effect 'Feed the cattle.' It came from a call box in the post office here where Miss Burton was seen to enter. I think that is most significant, Mr. Lomas."

"It proves a connection." Lomas frowned. "Do you know what it means?"

"I am not at present able to interpret it," said Filson with dignity. "But I anticipate that it will place the persons concerned in a very difficult position."

"Oh yes. Yes," Reggie smiled. "It will. German thieves' slang. 'Feed the cattle' means 'deceive the police and admit nothing.' Flatterin' to you, Filson."

"I'm much obliged," Filson answered, not looking it. "She won't flatter herself when I've done with her."

"You'll make your case now." Lomas rose. "I'm going back to London in the morning." Filson gave them a majestic farewell.

Labouring through the dinner of their hotel Lomas was called away to the telephone. It was some time before he returned and told Reggie, "I thought so." He sipped his wine. "First train to - morrow for me." He leaned across the table and spoke softly. "It's war this time."

They sat in long silence till the waiter summoned Lomas to the telephone again. "Good gad! What now?" He started up and Reggie followed him. He came out of the telephone box with a grimace. "That was only Filson. He had to tell me one of his men has reported a fellow answering to the description of the Whitfield boarding house John Smith going to Darcy's farm, and the place is being kept under observation. I wished him luck."

"Luck! My only aunt!" Reggie ran to the telephone. "Is that the Chief Constable? Fortune speakin'. About John Smith at Darcy's farm. How many of your men watching the place? One! What a hope! Remember Francis Venn and the river. Send out a car with a hefty crew. Tide's full about midnight. Warn the coastguard. We'll pick you up at the office in two minutes."

It took more than a minute to persuade Lomas, bitter at the prospect, that the case was worth another drive through the night, he was still arguing while Reggie drove him off. But they found Filson uplifted by the shocks administered over the telephone. "I have sent on a fast car, Mr. Fortune. Perhaps I may take a seat in yours. You don't know the country, you will need direction - -"

"Come on," said Reggie, and started before he had shut the door with an acceleration that flung him upon Lomas's bosom.

When they had separated themselves Filson gasped: "You consider this fellow Smith a desperate man?"

"Yes, I think so. Also Darcy," Reggie murmured, and swirled the car round a blind corner at wicked speed.

"Not so desperate as Fortune," said Lomas.

Reggie took the winding climb to the hills furiously, and switched off his headlights as they discovered the police car ahead. "Those your fellows, Filson? Tell 'em to cut out their dam' lights. They show for miles." He drew alongside and passed and shot into a speed through the dark which left Filson no breath to talk.

The road turned and fell to the mist and glimmer of the marsh. He held the speed to the bottom of the hill then shut off his engine. The police car drew up behind. "Side lights out," Reggie hissed.

There was a light in Darcy's farmhouse. As the cars stopped it vanished. "Oh, my hat!" he muttered. "Come on." They rushed after him to the house.

Two men came out of it and ran across the pasture. Another followed them calling: "Mr. Darcy! If you please." He clutched at them, one of them turned, closed with him and flung him down. The other ran on, reached the river bank, dropped into a boat and had cast off and was starting the engine when Reggie fell upon him.

They rolled together, the man fought to get a hand to his hip pocket, and had succeeded when the police came lumbering to help. "His right hand, get his right hand," Reggie panted. But the man flung away what he held and Reggie snatching at it lost it in the bottom of the boat.

Filson arrived. "That was Darcy who knocked out my constable," he announced. "This must be John Smith, Mr. Fortune."

"You think so?" Reggie asked. He was flashing a torch round the boat. He picked up a fat notebook with an india - rubber band. "So that was it." He dandled the book. "Heavy." He opened it. "Oh yes. Slip of lead inside to sink it. But you didn't get it into the river." He turned the torch on the pages. "Quite blank. Where's Lomas? Look. Not a line of writing. Now let's see what a little water will do." He dipped his finger in the river and wetted a page. Words in close, neat script appeared. "Isn't that clever of Mr. Smith? Writes notes of munitions in an ink of linseed oil and ammonia and not a trace when they're dry. Wet 'em again and there they are for the military intelligence department of Mr. Smith's employers." He turned his torch upon the man.

A fleshy face quivered and blinked in the circle of light then jerked back into darkness. Out of the dark it spoke. "I say nothing. ..."

Reggie drove back slowly - for him. "Brave, if a beast," he murmured. "Would I take his risks at any price? I think not. Wonder if he helped murder Venn? He won't say. And Darcy daren't. That crime goes unpunished. However. Not too bad. They'll pay heavy. Quaint old world. The thing which has been is that which shall be. Smuggling always was mixed up with spies. Wonder how many others have gone in and out by Gabriel's cellar."

"You're uncanny, Reginald," said Lomas. "Nobody but you would have found the spill of linseed and ammonia."

"I am careful," Reggie purred. "And then you saw the whole game clear."

"No. I always believe evidence. Which indicated a spy. Wasn't clear till I heard of the Burton woman's telegram. 'Many happy returns.' Then I knew Mr. Smith must not return to Berlin. We have our uses. And so to war. If they will have it."