The Crow's Inn tragedy

By Annie Haynes

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Crow's Inn tragedy
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Crow's Inn tragedy

Author: Annie Haynes

Release date: February 7, 2025 [eBook #75307]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1927

Credits: Brian Raiter


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROW'S INN TRAGEDY ***


The Crow's Inn Tragedy

by Annie Haynes

Copyright, 1927, by Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc.



CHAPTER I

The offices of Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner took up the whole of the
first floor of the corner house of Crow's Inn Square. Bechcombe and
Turner was one of the oldest legal firms in London. Their offices were
dingy, not to say grimy-looking. The doors and windows had evidently
not had a coat of paint for years. There were no lifts in Crow's Inn.
Any such modern innovation would have been out of place in the tall,
narrow-casemented houses that stood square round the grass—grass which
was bound and crossed by stone flagged walks. The front door of the
corner house stood open; the tessellated floor of the hall was dulled
by the passing of numberless footsteps. The narrow, uncarpeted stairs
went up just opposite the door.

A tall, grey-haired clergyman, who was carefully scrutinizing the
almost illegible doorplate, glanced round in some distaste as he went
up the worn stairs. At the top he was faced by a door with the legend
“Inquiries” written large upon it. After a moment's hesitation he
knocked loudly. Instantly a panel in the middle of the door shot aside
and a small, curiously wrinkled face looked out inquisitively.

“Mr. Bechcombe?” the caller said inquiringly. “Please tell him that
Mr. Collyer has called, but that he will wait.”

The message was repeated by a boyish voice, the panel was pushed into
its place again, a door by the side opened and Mr. Collyer was
beckoned in. He found himself in a small ante-room; a door before him
stood open and he could see into an office containing a row of desks
on each side and several clerks apparently writing busily away. Nearer
to him was another open door evidently leading into a waiting-room,
furnished with a round centre-table and heavy leather chairs—all with
the same indescribable air of gloom that seemed to pervade Messrs.
Bechcombe and Turner's establishment.

The boy who had admitted Mr. Collyer now stood aside for him to pass
in, and then departed, vouchsafing the information that Mr. Bechcombe
would be at leisure in a few minutes.

With a sigh of relief the clergyman let himself down into one of the
capacious arm-chairs, moving stiffly like a man afflicted with chronic
rheumatism. Then he laid his head against the back of it as if
thoroughly tired out. Seen thus in repose, the deep lines graven on
his clean-shaven face were very noticeable, his mouth had a weary
droop, and his kind, grey eyes with the tiny network of wrinkles round
them were sad and worried.

The minutes were very few indeed before a bell rang close at hand, a
door sprang open as if by magic and the same boy beckoned him into a
farther room.

Luke Bechcombe was standing on the hearthrug with his back to the open
fireplace. The head, and in fact the sole representative, of the firm
of Bechcombe and Turner, since Turner had retired to a villa at
Streatham, Luke Bechcombe was a small, spare man with grey hair
already growing very thin near the temples and on the crown, and a
small, neatly trimmed, grey beard. His keen, pale eyes were hidden
from sight by a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles. His general appearance
was remarkably spick and span.

He came forward with outstretched hand as the clergyman entered
somewhat hesitatingly.

“Why, Jim, this is an unexpected pleasure! What has brought you up to
town?”

The clergyman looked at him doubtfully as their hands met.

“The usual thing—worry! I came up to consult you, to ask if you could
help me.”

The solicitor glanced at him keenly, then he turned to the revolving
chair before his desk and motioned his visitor to the one opposite.

“Tony again?” he questioned, as his visitor seated himself.

The clergyman waited a minute, twirling his soft hat about in his
hands as he held it between his knees.

“Tony again!” he assented at last. “It isn't the lad's fault, Luke, I
truly believe. He can't get a job that suits him. Those two years at
the War played ruination with the young men just beginning life. Tony
would make a good soldier. But he doesn't seem to fit in anywhere
else.”

“Then why doesn't he enlist?” Luke Bechcombe snapped out.

“His mother,” Mr. Collyer said quietly. “She would never have a
moment's peace.”

Luke Bechcombe pushed back his glasses and stared at his
brother-in-law for a moment. Then he nodded his head slowly. The Rev.
James Collyer's statement was true enough he knew—none better. Mrs.
Collyer was his sister; the terrible anxiety of those last dreadful
days of the Great War, when her only son had been reported wounded and
missing for months, had played havoc with her heart. Tony Collyer had
had a hot time of it in one of the prisoners' camps in Germany; he had
been gassed as well as badly wounded, and he had come back a shadow of
his old self. His mother had nursed him back to health and sanity, but
the price had been the invalid couch that had stood ever since in the
Rectory morning-room. No. Tony Collyer could never enlist in his
mother's lifetime. The same applied to emigration. Tony must get a job
at home, and England, the home of heroes, had no use for her heroes
now.

There had been times when Tony envied those comrades of his whose
graves lay in Flanders' soil. They, at any rate, had not lived to know
that they were little better than nuisances in the land for which they
had fought and died. He had had several jobs, but in every one of them
he had been a square peg in a round hole. They had all been clerkships
of one kind or another and Tony had hated them all. Nevertheless he
had conscientiously done his best for some time. Latterly, however,
Tony had taken to slacking. He had met with some of his old companions
of the Great War and had spent more money than he could afford. Three
times already his father had paid his debts, taxing his resources to
the utmost to do so. Each time Tony had promised reformation and
amendment, but each time the result had been the same. Small wonder
that the rector's hair was rapidly whitening, that every day seemed to
make new lines on his fresh-coloured, pleasant face.

His brother-in-law glanced at him sympathetically now.

“What is Tony doing just at present?”

“Nothing, most of the time,” his father said bitterly. “But I hear
this morning that he has been offered a post as bear leader to the
younger brother of a friend of his. I gather the lad is a trifle
defective.”

“Must be, I should think. His friends too, I imagine,” Luke Bechcombe
barked gruffly.

The implication was unmistakable. The rector sighed uneasily.

“I have faith, you know, Luke, that the boy will come right in the
end. He is the child of many prayers.”

“Umph!” Mr. Bechcombe sat drumming his fingers on the writing-pad
before him. “Why don't you let him pay his debts out of his salary?”

The clergyman stirred uneasily.

“He couldn't. And there are things that must be met at once—debts of
honour, he calls them. But that is enough, Luke. I mean to give the
boy a clean start this time, and I think he will go straight. He has
an inducement now that he has never had before.”

“Good heavens! Not a girl?” Luke Bechcombe ejaculated.

Mr. Collyer bent his head.

“Yes, I hope so. A very charming girl too, I believe.”

“Who is she?”

“I do not suppose I shall be betraying confidence if I tell you,” the
clergyman debated. “You will have to know soon, I expect. Her name is
Cecily Hoyle.”

“Good heavens!” The lawyer sat back and stared at him. “Do you mean my
secretary?”

“Your secretary,” Mr. Collyer acquiesced. “She is a nice girl, isn't
she, Luke?”

“Niceness doesn't matter in a secretary,” the lawyer said gruffly.
“She types and takes shorthand notes very satisfactorily. As for looks
she is nothing particular. Madeline took care of that—always does! In
fact she engaged her for me. Still, she is a taking little thing. How
the deuce did Tony get hold of her?”

The clergyman shook his head.

“I don't know. He only spoke of her the other day. But it will be good
for the lad, Luke. I believe it is the genuine thing.”

“Genuine thing! Good for the lad!” Luke Bechcombe repeated scornfully.
“Tony can't keep himself. How is he going to keep my secretary?”

“Tony can work if he likes,” his father maintained stoutly. “And if he
has someone to work for I think he will.”

“Girl won't take him. She has too much sense,” growled the lawyer.

“Oh, I think she has given Tony some reason to hope.”

“She is as big a fool as he is then,” Mr. Bechcombe said with
asperity. “But Tony isn't the only one of the family on matrimony
bent. What do you think of Aubrey Todmarsh?”

“Aubrey Todmarsh!” repeated the rector of Wexbridge in amazed accents.
“I should have thought matrimony would have been the last thing to
enter his head. His whole life seems to be bound up in that community
of his.”

“Not so bound up but that he still has a very good eye to the main
chance,” retorted Luke Bechcombe. “He is not thinking of a penniless
secretary! He's after money, is Mr. Aubrey. What do you think of Mrs.
Phillimore?”

“Mrs. Phillimore! The rich American widow! She must be much too old
for him.”

“Old enough to be his mother, I dare say. She is pretty well made up,
though, and that doesn't matter to Aubrey as long as she has got the
money. She has been financing these wildcat schemes of his lately. But
I suppose he thinks the whole would suit him better than part.”

“But are they really engaged?”

“Oh, nothing quite so definite yet. But I am expecting the
announcement every day. Hello!”—as an intermittent clicking made
itself heard—“there's your future daughter-in-law at work. That's the
typewriter.”

Mr. Collyer started.

“You don't mean that she has been able to hear what we have been
saying?”

Mr. Bechcombe laughed.

“Hardly! That would be delightful in a solicitor's office. She sits in
that little room at the side, but there is no communicating door and
of course she can't hear what goes on here. The door is in the top
passage, past my private entrance. I didn't expect to hear her
machine, but there is something particularly penetrating about a
typewriter. However, it is really very faint and I have got quite used
to it. Would you like to see her?”

The clergyman looked undecided for a moment; then he shook his head.

“No, I shouldn't care to do anything that might look like spying. Time
enough for me to see her when there is anything decided.”

“Please yourself!” Luke Bechcombe said gruffly. “Anyway if I had to
choose between Tony and Aubrey Todmarsh I should take Tony.”

“I wouldn't,” Tony's father said. “The lad is a good lad when he is
away from these friends of his. But he is weak—terribly weak. Now
Aubrey Todmarsh—though I haven't always approved of him—is doing
wonderful work in that East End settlement of his. He is marvellously
successful in dealing with a class of men that we clergy are seldom
able to reach.”

“Umph! Well, he is always out for money for something,” said the
solicitor. “He invades this office sometimes almost demanding
subscriptions. Will he expect his wife to go and live down at this
Community house, I wonder? However, I believe the settlement is an
attraction to some silly women, and to my mind he will want all the
attraction he can get. I can't stand Aubrey myself. I have no use for
conscientious objectors—never had!”

“There I am with you,” assented the clergyman. “But I think Aubrey is
hardly to be judged by ordinary standards. He is a visionary, an
enthusiast. Of course I hold him to have been mistaken about the War,
but honestly mistaken. With his dreams of reforming mankind I can
understand——”

Mr. Bechcombe snorted.

“Can you? I can't! I am jolly glad your Tony didn't dream such dreams.
Two conscientious objectors in the family would have been too much for
me. I never could stand old Todmarsh. Aubrey is the very spit of him,
as we used to say in Leicestershire.”

“Oh, I don't see any resemblance between Aubrey and his father,” the
rector dissented. “Old Aubrey Todmarsh was a thoroughly self-indulgent
man. I don't believe he ever gave a thought to anyone else in the
world. Now Aubrey with his visions and his dreams——”

“Which he does his best to get other people to pay for,” the solicitor
interposed. “No use. You won't get me to enthuse over Aubrey, James. I
remember him too well as a boy—a selfish, self-seeking little beast.”

“Yes, I was not fond of him as a child. But I believe it to be a case
of genuine conversion. He spends himself and his little patrimony for
others. Next week he goes to Geneva, he tells me, to attend a sitting
of the League of Nations, to explain the workings of——”

“Damn the League of Nations!” uttered the solicitor, banging his fist
upon his writing-pad with an energy that rattled his inkstand. “I beg
your pardon, James. Not but what it went out of fashion to apologize
to parsons for swearing in the War. Most of them do it themselves
nowadays—eh, what?” with a chuckle at his own wit that threatened to
choke him.

The rector did not smile.

“I look upon the League of Nations as our great hope for the future.”

“Do you? I don't,” contradicted his brother-in-law flatly. “I look to
a largely augmented Air Force with plenty of practice in bomb-throwing
as my hope for the future. It will be worth fifty of that rotten
League of Nations. Aubrey Todmarsh addressing the League of Nations!
It makes me sick. I suppose they will knight _him_ next. No, no more
of that, please, James. When I think of the League of Nations I get
excited and that is bad for my heart. But now to business. You say you
want money for Tony—how do you propose to get it? I should say you
have exhausted all ways of doing it by now.”

“How about a further mortgage on my little farm at Halvers?”

The solicitor shook his head.

“No use thinking of it. Farm is mortgaged up to the hilt
already—rather past it, in fact.”

“And I can't raise any more on my life insurance.” Mr. Collyer sighed.
“Well, it must be—there is nothing else—the emerald cross.”

“Oh, but that would be a thousand pities—an heirloom with a history
such as that. Oh, you can't part with it.”

“What else am I to do?” questioned the clergyman. “You said yourself
that I had exhausted all my resources. No. I had practically made up
my mind to it when I came here. I had just a forlorn hope that you
might be able to suggest something else, though as a matter of fact I
want your assistance still. I am deplorably ignorant on such matters.
How does one set about selling jewellery? Can you tell me a good place
to go to?”

“Um!” The solicitor pursed up his lips. “If you have really made up
your mind, how would you like to put the matter in my hands? First, of
course, I must have the emeralds valued—then I can see what offers we
get, and you can decide which, if any, you care to accept. Not but
what I think you are quite wrong, mind you!”

“I shall be enormously obliged to you,” the clergyman said haltingly.
“But do you know anything of selling jewellery yourself, Luke?”

Mr. Bechcombe smiled. “A man in my position and profession has to know
a bit of everything. As a matter of fact I have a job of this kind on
hand just now, and I might work the two together. I will do my best if
you like to entrust me with the emeralds.”

The clergyman rose.

“You are very good, Luke. All my life long you have been the one to
help me out of any difficulty. Here are the emeralds,” fumbling in his
breast pocket. “I brought them with me in case of any emergency such
as this that has arisen.”

“You surely don't mean that you have put them in your pocket?”
exclaimed the solicitor.

Mr. Collyer looked surprised.

“They are quite safe. See, I button my coat when I am outside. No one
could possibly take them from me.”

Mr. Bechcombe coughed.

“Oh, James, nothing will ever alter you! Don't you know that there
have been as many jewels stolen in the past year in London as in
twenty years previously? People say there is a regular gang at
work—they call it the Yellow Gang, and the head of it goes by the name
of the Yellow Dog. If it had been known you were carrying the emeralds
in that careless fashion they would never have got here. However,
all's well that ends well. You had better leave them in my safe.”

The rector brought an ancient leather case out of his pocket.

“Here it is.”

Mr. Bechcombe held his hand out for the case.

“So this is the Collyer cross! I haven't seen it for years.” He was
opening the case as he spoke. Inside the cross lay on its satin bed,
gleaming with baleful, green fire. As Mr. Bechcombe looked at it his
expression changed. “Where have you kept the cross, James?”

The rector blinked.

“In the secret drawer in my writing-table. Why do you ask?”

Mr. Bechcombe groaned.

“A secret drawer that is no secret at all, since all the household,
not to say the parish, knows it. As for why I asked, I know enough
about precious stones to see”—he raised the cross and peered at it in
a ray of sunlight that slanted in through the dust-dimmed window—“to
fear that these so-called emeralds are only paste.”

“What!” The rector stared at him. “The Collyer emeralds—paste! Why,
they have been admired by experts!”

“No. Not the Collyer emeralds,” Mr. Bechcombe contradicted. “The
Collyer emeralds were magnificent gems. This worthless paste has been
substituted.”

“Impossible! Who would do such a thing?” Mr. Collyer asked.

“Ah! That,” said Luke Bechcombe grimly, “we have got to find out.”



CHAPTER II

The Settlement of the Confraternity of St. Philip was situated in one
of the most unsavoury districts in South London. It faced the river,
but between it and the water lay a dreary waste of debatable land,
strewn with the wreckage and rubbish thrown out by the small
boat-building firms that existed on either side.

Originally the Settlement had been two or three tenement houses that
had remained as a relic of the days when some better class folk had
lived there to be near the river, then one of London's great highways.
At the back the Settlement had annexed a big barnlike building
formerly used as a storehouse. It made a capital room for the meetings
that Aubrey Todmarsh and his assistants were continually organizing.
In the matter of cleanliness, even externally, the Settlement set an
example to the neighbourhood. No dingy paint or glass there. The
windows literally shone, the front was washed over as soon as there
was the faintest suspicion of grime by some of Todmarsh's numerous
protégés. The door plate, inscribed “South London Settlement of the
Confraternity of St. Philip,” was as bright as polish and willing
hands could make it.

The Rev. James Collyer looked at it approvingly as he stood on the
doorstep.

“Just the sort of work I should have loved when I was young,” he
soliloquized as he rang the door bell.

It was answered at once by a man who wore the dark blue serge short
coat and plus fours with blue bone buttons, which was the uniform of
the Confraternity. In addition he had on the white overall which was
_de rigueur_ for those members of the Community who did the housework.
This was generally understood to be undertaken by all the members in
turn.

But Mr. Collyer did not feel much impressed with this particular
member. He was a rather short man with coal-black hair contrasting
oddly with his unhealthily white face, deep-set dark eyes that seemed
to look away from the rector and yet to give him a quick, furtive
glance every now and then from beneath his lowered lids. He was
clean-shaven, showing an abnormally large chin, and he had a curious
habit of opening and shutting his mouth silently in fish-like fashion.

“Mr. Todmarsh?” the rector inquired.

The man held the door wider open and stood aside. Interpreting this as
an invitation to enter, Mr. Collyer walked in. The man closed the door
and with a silent gesture invited the clergyman to follow him.

The Community House of St. Philip was just as conspicuously clean
inside as out. Mr. Collyer had time to note that the stone floor of
the hall had just been cleaned, that the scanty furniture, consisting
of a big oak chest under the window and a couple of Windsor chairs at
the ends, was as clean as furniture polish and elbow-grease could make
it. His guide opened a door at the side and motioned him in.

A man who was writing at the long centre table got up quickly to meet
him and came forward with outstretched hands.

“My dear uncle, this is a pleasure!”

“One to which I have long been looking forward,” Mr. Collyer responded
warmly. “My dear Aubrey, the reports I have heard of the Settlement
have been in no way exaggerated. And so far as I can see this is an
ideal Community house.”

Todmarsh held his uncle's hand for a minute in his firm clasp, looking
the elder man squarely in the eyes the while.

“There is nothing ideal about us, Uncle James. We are just a handful
of very ordinary men, all trying to make our own bit of the world
brighter and happier. It sounds very simple, but it isn't always easy
to do things. Sometimes life is nothing but disappointments. But I
know you realize just how it feels when one spends everything in
striving to cleanse one's own bit of this great Augean mass that is
called London—and fails.”

His voice dropped as he spoke, and the bright look of enthusiasm faded
from his face, leaving it prematurely old and tired. For it was above
all things his enthusiasm, a sort of exalted look as of one who
dreamed dreams and saw visions not vouchsafed to ordinary men, that
made Aubrey Todmarsh's face attractive. Momentarily stripped of its
bright expression it was merely a thin, rather overjowled face, with
deep-set, dark eyes, noticeably low forehead, and thick dark hair
brushed sleekly backwards, hair that was worn rather longer than most
men's.

The clergyman looked at him pityingly.

“Oh, my dear Aubrey, this is only nerves, a very natural depression.
We parsons know it only too well. It is especially liable to recur
when we are beginning work. Later one learns that all one can do is to
sow in faith, and then be content to wait the issue in patience,
leaving everything to Him whose gracious powers can alone give the
increase.”

Todmarsh did not speak for a moment, then he drew a long breath and,
laying his hand on the rector's shoulder, looked at him with the
bright smile with which his friends were familiar.

“You always give me comfort, Uncle James. Somehow you always know just
what to say to heal when one has been stricken sorely. That idea of
sowing and waiting—somehow one gets hold of that.”

“It isn't original, dear Aubrey,” his uncle said modestly. “But for
all Christian work I have found it most helpful. But you, my dear
Aubrey, the founder of this—er—splendid effort—might rather have cause
for—er—spiritual exaltation than depression.”

“There is cause enough for depression sometimes, I assure you,” Aubrey
returned gloomily. “Much of our work is done among the discharged
prisoners, you know, Uncle James. Different members of our Community
look after those bound over under the First Offenders' Act, and those
undergoing short terms of imprisonment. With those who have had longer
sentences and the habitual offenders I try to deal as much as possible
myself with the valuable help of my second-in-command.”

“I know. I have heard how you attend at police courts and meet the
prisoners when they come out. I can hardly imagine a more saintly work
or one more certain to carry with it a blessing.”

“It doesn't seem to,” Todmarsh said, his face clouding over again.
“There is this man, Michael Farmore, the case I was speaking of. He
was convicted of burglary and served his five years. We got hold of
him when he came out and brought him here. In time he became one of
our most trusted members. If ever there was a case of genuine
conversion I believed his to be one. Yet——”

“Yes?” Mr. Collyer prompted as he paused.

“Yet last night he was arrested attempting to break into General
Craven's house in Mortimer Square.”

Todmarsh blew his nose vigorously. His voice was distinctly shaky as
he broke off. His uncle glanced at him sympathetically.

“You must not take it too much to heart, my dear Aubrey. Think of your
many successes, and even in this case that seems so terrible I feel
sure that your labour has not really been wasted. You have cast your
bread upon the waters, and you will assuredly find it again. You are
fighting against the forces of the arch-enemy, remember.”

“We are fighting against a gang of criminals,” Aubrey said shortly.
“We hear of them every now and then in our work. The Yellow Gang they
call them in the underworld—they form regular organizations of their
own, working on a system, and appear to carry out the orders of one
man. Sometimes I think he is the arch-fiend himself, for it seems
impossible to circumvent him.”

“But who is he?” the rector inquired innocently.

Aubrey Todmarsh permitted himself a slight smile.

“If we knew that, my dear uncle, it wouldn't be long before this wave
of crime that is sweeping over the Metropolis was checked. But I have
heard that even the rank and file of his own followers do not know who
he is, though he is spoken of sometimes as the Yellow Dog. Anyway, he
has a genius for organization. But now we must think of something more
cheerful, Uncle James. I want you to see our refectory and the
recreation rooms, and our little rooms, cells, kitchens. Through
here”—throwing open a glass door—“we go to our playground as you see.”

Mr. Collyer peered forth. In front of him was a wide, open space,
partly grass, partly concrete. On the grass a game of cricket was
proceeding, the players being youths apparently all under twenty. On
the concrete older men were having a game at racquets. All round the
open space at the foot of the high wall that surrounded the Community
grounds there ran a flower border, just now gay with crocuses and
great clumps of arabis—white and purple and gold. The walls themselves
were covered with creepers that later on would blossom into sweetness.
Here and there men were at work. It was a pleasant and a peaceful
scene and the Rev. James Collyer's eyes rested on it approvingly.

“There are always some of us at play,” Aubrey smiled. “These men have
been on night work—porters, etc. You know we undertake all sorts of
things and our record is such—we have never had a case of our trust
being betrayed—that our men are in constant request.”

“I do not wonder,” his uncle said cordially. “It is—I must say it
again, Aubrey—wonderful work that you are carrying on. Now what have
these men been before they came to you?”

Todmarsh was leading the way to the other part of the house.

“Wastrels; drunkards most of them,” he said shortly. “Discharged
prisoners, sentenced for some minor offence. I told you that we meet
prisoners on their release. Many of them are the wreckage—the
aftermath of the War.”

The rector sighed.

“I know. It is deplorable. That terrible War—and yet, a most righteous
War.”

“No war is righteous,” Aubrey said quickly. Then his expression
changed, the rapt look came back to his eyes. They looked right over
his uncle's head. “No war can be anything but cruel and wicked. That
is why we have made up our minds that war shall stop.”

Mr. Collyer shook his head.

“War will never stop, my boy, while men and women remain what they
are—while human nature remains what it is, I should say.”

Todmarsh's eyes looked right in front of him over the Community
playing fields.

“Yes, it will! Quarrelling there will be—must be while the world shall
last. But all disputes shall be settled not by bloodshed and horrible
carnage, but by arbitration. Every day the League of Nations' labours
are being quietly and ceaselessly directed to this end, and I think
very few people realize how enormously the world is progressing.”

“Your Uncle Luke does not think so. He does not believe in the League
of Nations,” Mr. Collyer dissented. “He, I regret to say, used a
lamentably strong expression—‘damned rot,’ he called it!”

“Oh, Uncle Luke is hopeless,” Aubrey returned, shrugging his
shoulders. “The League of Nations means nothing to him. He is one of
the regular fire-eating, jingo-shouting Britons that plunged us all
into that horrible carnage of 1914. But his type is becoming scarcer
every day as the world grows nearer the Christian ideal, thank
Heaven!”

“Sometimes it seems to me to be growing farther from the Christian
ideal instead of nearer.” The clergyman sighed. “I am going through a
terrible experience now, Aubrey. I must confess it is a great trial to
my faith.”

Instantly Todmarsh's face assumed its most sympathetic expression.

“I am so sorry to hear it, Uncle James. Do tell me about it, if it
would be any relief to you. Sit down”—as they entered the
refectory—“what is it? Tony?”

But the rector put aside the proffered chair.

“No, no. I must see all I can of the Settlement. No, it has nothing to
do with Tony, I am thankful to say. He is to the full as much
bewildered as I am myself. It is the emeralds—the cross!”

“The Collyer cross?” Aubrey exclaimed. “What of that?”

“Well—er, circumstances arose that made it—er—desirable that I should
ascertain its value. I took it to your Uncle Luke, thinking that he
might be able to help me, and he discovered that the stones were
paste.”

“Impossible!” Aubrey stared at his uncle. “I cannot believe it. But,
pardon me, Uncle James, I don't think that either you or Uncle Luke
are very learned with regard to precious stones. I expect it is all a
mistake. The Collyer emeralds are genuine enough!”

“Oh, there is no mistake,” Mr. Collyer said positively. “I had them
examined by a well-known expert this morning. They are paste—not
particularly good paste, either. If I had known rather more about such
things, I might have discovered the substitution sooner. Not that it
would have made much difference! You are wrong about your Uncle Luke,
though, Aubrey. He has an immense fund of information about precious
stones. He told me that he was about to dispose of——”

“Hush! Don't mention it!” Aubrey interrupted sharply. “I beg your
pardon, Uncle James, but it is so much safer not to mention names,
especially in a place like this. But what in the world can have become
of the emeralds? One would have been inclined to think it was the work
of the Yellow Gang. But they seem to confine their activities to
London. And how could it have been effected in peaceful little
Wexbridge? Now—what is that?” as a loud knock and ring resounded
simultaneously through the house. “Tony, I declare!” as after a pause
they heard voices in the hall outside.

A moment later Hopkins opened the door and announced “Mr. Anthony
Collyer.”

“Hello, dad, I guessed I should find you here,” the new-comer began
genially. “Aubrey, old chap, is the gentleman who announced me one of
your hopefuls? Because if so I can't congratulate you on his phiz.
Sort of thing the late Madame Tussaud would have loved for her Chamber
of Horrors, don't you know!”

“Hopkins is a most worthy fellow,” Aubrey returned impressively. “One
of the most absolutely trustworthy men I have. There is nothing more
unsafe than taking a prejudice at first sight, Tony. If you would
only——”

“Dare say there isn't,” Tony returned nonchalantly. “You needn't pull
up your socks over the chap, Aubrey. I'll take your word for it that
he possesses all the virtues under the sun. I only say, he don't look
it! Come along, dad, I have ordered a morsel of lunch at a little pub
I know of, and while you are eating it I will a scheme unfold that I
know will meet with your approval.”

The rector did not look as if he shared this conviction.

“Well, my boy, I have been telling my troubles to Aubrey. The
emeralds——”

“Oh, bother the emeralds, dad! It is the business of the police to
find them, not yours and mine or Aubrey's.”

Anthony Collyer was just a very ordinary type of the young Englishman
of to-day, well-groomed, well set up. There was little likeness to his
father about his clear-cut features, his merry, blue eyes or his
lithe, active form. The pity of it was that the last few years of
idleness had blurred the clearness of his skin, had dulled his eyes
and added just a suspicion of heaviness to the figure which ought to
have been in the very pink of condition. Tony Collyer had let himself
run to seed of late and looked it and knew it. To-day, however, there
was a new look of purpose about his face. His mouth was set in fresh,
strong lines, and his eyes met his father's firmly.

“I hoped you would both lunch with me,” Aubrey interposed hastily. “I
am sure if you could throw your trouble aside you would enjoy one of
our Community meals, Uncle James. The fare is plain, but abundant, and
the spirit that prevails seems to bless it all. You would find it
truly interesting.”

“I am sure I should, my boy. I really think, Tony——”

“That is all very well, Aubrey,” Tony interrupted. “I'm jolly well
sure your meals are interesting. But it isn't exactly the sort of
feast I mean to set the Dad down to when he does get a few days off
from his little old parish. No, I think we will stick to my pub—thank
you all the same, Aubrey.”

“Oh, well, if you put it that way——” Todmarsh shook hands with his
visitors.

The rector's expression was rather wistful as they went out. He would
have liked to share the simple meal Aubrey had spoken of. But Tony
wanted him and Tony came first.

At the front door they paused a minute. Tony looked at his cousin with
a wicked snigger.

“I'm really taking the Dad away out of kindness, Aubrey. There is a
car standing a little way down the road, and a certain bewitching
widow is leaning out talking to a couple of interesting-looking
gentlemen. Converts of yours, recent ones, I should say by the cut of
them.”

“Mrs. Phillimore!” Aubrey came to the door and looked out. “It is her
day for visiting our laundry just down the road.”

Mr. Collyer smiled.

“Well, she is a good woman, Aubrey. We are dining with your Uncle Luke
to-night. Shall we meet you there?”

“Oh, dear, no! My time for dining out is strictly limited,” Aubrey
responded. “Besides, I do not think that Uncle Luke and I are in much
sympathy. It is months since I saw him.”



CHAPTER III

For a wonder the clerks in Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner's offices were
all hard at work. The articled clerks were in a smaller office to the
right of the large one with a partition partly glass between. Through
it their heads could be seen bent over their work, their pens flying
over their paper with commendable celerity.

The managing clerk had left his desk and was standing in the gangway
in the larger office opposite the door leading into the ante-room.
Beyond that again was the door opening into the principal's particular
sanctum. Most unusually his door stood open this morning. Through the
doorway the principal could plainly be seen bending over his letters
and papers on the writing-table, while a little farther back stood his
secretary, apparently waiting his instructions. Presently he spoke a
few words to her in an undertone, pushed his papers all away together
and came into the outer office.

“I find it is as I thought, Thompson. I have only two appointments
this morning—Mr. Geary and Mr. Pound. The last is for 11.45. After Mr.
Pound has been shown out you will admit no one until I ring, which
will probably be about one o'clock. Then, hold yourself in readiness
to accompany me to the Bank.”

“Yes, sir.”

The managing clerk at Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner's glanced keenly at
his chief as he spoke.

“It is quite possible that a special messenger from the Bank may be
sent here in the course of the morning,” Mr. Bechcombe pursued.
“Unless he comes before twelve he will have to wait until one o'clock
as no one—_no one_ is to disturb me until then. You understand this,
Thompson?” He turned back sharply to his office.

“Quite so, sir.”

The managing clerk had a curious, puzzled look as he glanced after the
principal. Amos Thompson had been many years with Messrs. Bechcombe
and Turner, and it was said that he enjoyed Mr. Bechcombe's confidence
to the fullest degree. Be that as it may, it was evident that he knew
nothing of the special business of this morning. He was a thin man of
middle height with a reddish-grey beard, sunken-looking, grey eyes,
like those of his principal usually concealed by a pair of
horn-rimmed, smoke-coloured glasses; his teeth were irregular—one or
two in front were missing. He had the habitual stoop of a man whose
life is spent bending over a desk, and his faintly grey hair was
already thinning at the top. As he went back to his desk both
communicating doors in turn banged loudly behind Mr. Bechcombe.
Instantly a change passed over his clerks; as if moved by one spring
all the heads were raised, the pens slackened, most of them were
thrown hastily on the desk.

Percy Johnson, one of the articled pupils, emitted a low whistle.

“What is the governor up to, Mr. Thompson?” he questioned daringly.
“Casting the glad eye on some fair lady; not to be disturbed for an
hour will give them plenty of time for—er—endearments.”

Thompson turned his severe eyes upon him.

“This is neither the place nor the subject for such jokes, Mr.
Johnson. May I trouble you to get on with your work? We are waiting
for that deed.”

Mr. Johnson applied himself to his labours afresh.

“It is nice to know that one is really useful!”

The morning wore on. The two clients mentioned by Mr. Bechcombe—Mr.
Geary and Mr. Pound—duly arrived and were shown in to Mr. Bechcombe,
in each case remaining only a short time. Then there came a few
minutes' quiet. The eyes of the clerks wandered to the clock. At
twelve o'clock the first batch of them would depart to luncheon.

Amos Thompson's thoughts were busy with his chief. Some very important
business must be about to be transacted in Mr. Bechcombe's private
room, and the managing clerk, though usually fully cognizant of all
the ins and outs of the affairs of the firm, had no notion what it
might be. He would have been more or less than mortal if his
speculations with regard to the mysterious visitor had not risen high.
Just as the clock struck twelve there was a knock and ring at the
outer door, and he heard a loud colloquy going on with the office boy.
In a minute Tony Collyer came through into the clerks' office. It
showed the upset to the general aspect of the managing clerk's ideas
that he should go forward to meet him.

“Good morning, Mr. Anthony. I am sorry that Mr. Bechcombe is engaged.”

“So am I,” said Tony, shaking him heartily by the hand. “Because I
want to see him particularly and my time is limited this morning. But
I suppose I must wait a bit. Get me in as soon as you can, there's a
good old chap!”

Thompson shook his head.

“It won't be any good your waiting this morning, Mr. Anthony. We have
orders that no one is to disturb Mr. Bechcombe. It would be as much as
my place is worth to knock at the door.”

“And how much is your place worth, old boy?” Tony questioned with a
laugh, at the same time bringing down his hand with friendly
heartiness on the managing clerk's back. “Come, I tell you I must see
my uncle—honour bright, it is important.”

“It's no use, Mr. Anthony,” Thompson said firmly. “You can't see Mr.
Bechcombe this morning. And, pardon me, but it may be as well in your
own interests that you should wait until later in the day.”

Anthony laughed.

“What a quaint old bird you are, Thompson! Well, since my business is
important, and I don't want you to lose your berth—wouldn't miss the
chance of seeing your old phiz for anything—I shall go round and try
what I can make of my uncle at his private door. I'll bet the old
sport has some game on that he don't want you to know about, but he
may be pleased to see his dear nephew.”

“Mr. Anthony—you must not, indeed—I cannot allow——”

Anthony put up his hand.

“Hush—sh! You will know nothing about it! Keep your hair on,
Thompson!” With a laughing nod round at the grinning clerks he
vanished, pulling the door to behind him with a cheerful bang.

A titter ran round the office. Anthony Collyer with his D.S.O. and his
gay, irresponsible manners was somewhat of a hero to the younger
clerks.

Amos Thompson looked grave. He knew that Luke Bechcombe had been
intensely proud of his nephew's prowess in the War, he guessed that
his patience had been sorely tried of late, and he feared that the
young man might be doing himself serious harm with his uncle this
morning. But he was powerless. There was no holding Tony Collyer back
in this mood. Presently Thompson, listening intently, caught the sound
of a distant knocking at his chief's door, twice repeated, then there
was silence.

He shrugged his shoulders, imagining Mr. Bechcombe's wrath at the
intrusion. After a smothered laugh or two the clerks applied
themselves to their work again and silence reigned in the office. The
managing clerk watched the clock anxiously. He could imagine Mr.
Bechcombe's reception of his nephew, but, knowing Tony as he did, he
felt surprised that he had not returned to report proceedings. Then
just as the office clock was nearing the half-hour a messenger from
the Bank arrived. The waiting-room was reserved for clients, so the
Bank clerk was shown into a little office that Amos Thompson used
sometimes when there was a press of work, and the managing clerk went
to him there.

“Is there anything I can do? Mr. Bechcombe is unfortunately engaged
until one o'clock.”

“No, thank you!” the young man returned. “I was charged most
particularly to give my message to no one but Mr. Bechcombe himself. I
suppose I must wait till one o'clock if you are sure I cannot see him
before.”

The managing clerk looked undecided. His eyes wandered from side to
side beneath his horn-rimmed spectacles.

“I will see what I can do,” he said at last.

He went back to his own desk, selected a couple of papers, put them in
his pocket, and went through the outer office. In the lobby he picked
up his hat, then after one long backward glance he went towards the
outer door.

The time wore on. The first contingent of clerks returned from their
luncheon. Their place was taken by a second band. The clock struck
half-past one; and still there was no sign of either the principal or
his managing clerk. The messenger from the Bank went away, came back,
and waited.

At last the senior clerks began to look uncomfortable. John Walls, the
second in command, went over to one of his confrères.

“I understood the governor said he was not to be disturbed, until one
o'clock, Spencer, but it's a good bit after two now, and Mr. Thompson
isn't here either. The waiting-room is full and here's this man from
the Bank back again. What are we to do?”

Mr. Spencer rubbed the side of his nose reflectively.

“How would it be to knock at the governor's door, Walls? He couldn't
be annoyed after all this time.”

John Walls was of the opinion that he couldn't, either. Together they
made up their minds to beard the lion in his den. They went through
the ante-room and knocked gently at Mr. Bechcombe's door. There came
no response.

After a moment's pause Mr. Walls applied his knuckles more loudly,
again without reply.

He turned to his companion.

“He must have gone out.”

The fact seemed obvious, and yet Spencer hesitated.

“You didn't hear any one moving about when you first knocked?”

“No, I didn't,” responded John Walls, staring at him. “Did you?”

“Well, I expect it was just fancy, because why shouldn't the governor
answer if he was there? But I did think I heard a slight sound—a sort
of stealthy movement just on the other side of the door,” Spencer said
slowly.

“I don't believe you could hear any movement except a pretty loud one
through that door,” the other said unbelievingly. “But it is very
awkward, Mr. Thompson going out too. I don't know what to do.”

“The governor did say something about Mr. Thompson going to the Bank
with him,” Spencer went on. “I wonder now if Mr. Bechcombe went out by
the private door, and Mr. Thompson and he met in the passage and they
went off to the Bank together.”

“I don't know,” John Walls said slowly. “It is a funny sort of thing
anyway. I tell you what, Spencer, I shall go round and knock at the
private door.”

“What's the good of that?” Spencer objected sensibly. “If he's out it
will make no difference. And if he is in and won't answer at one door
he won't at the other.”

“Well, anyway, I shall try,” John Walls persisted. His rather florid
face was several degrees paler than usual as he went through the
clerks' office. Man and boy, all his working life had been spent in
the Bechcombes' office, and he had become through long years of
association personally attached to Luke Bechcombe. Within the last few
minutes, though there seemed no tangible ground for it, he had become
oppressed by a strange feeling, a prevision of some evil, a certainty
that all was not well with his chief.

The private door into Mr. Bechcombe's office opened into a passage at
right angles with the door by which clients were admitted to the
waiting-rooms and to the clerks' offices.

John Walls knocked first tentatively, then louder, still without the
slightest response.

By this time he had been joined by Spencer, who seemed to have caught
the infection of the elder man's pallor. He looked at the keyhole.

“Of course the governor has gone out. But I wonder whether the key is
in its place?”

He stooped and somewhat gingerly applied his eye to the hole. Then he
jerked his head up with an inaudible exclamation.

“What—what do you see?” Walls questioned with unconscious impatience.
Then as he gazed at the bent back of his junior that queer foreboding
of his grew stronger.

At last Spencer raised himself.

“No, the key isn't in its hole,” he said slowly. “But I thought—I
thought——”

“Yes, yes; you thought what?”

Both men's voices had instinctively sunk to a whisper.

Spencer was shorter than his senior. As he looked up his eyes were
dark with fear, his words came with an odd little stutter between
them.

“I—I expect I was mistaken—I must have been. You look yourself, Walls.
But I thought I saw a queer-looking heap over there by the window.”

“A queer-looking heap!” Without further ado the other man pushed him
aside.

As he knelt down Spencer went on:

“It—there is something sticking out at the side—it looks like a leg—a
leg in a grey trouser—do you see?”

There was a moment's tense silence. Then Mr. Walls raised himself.

“It is a leg. Suppose—suppose it is the governor's leg! Suppose that
heap is the governor! He may have had a fit. We shall have to break
into the room. Just see if Thompson has come back. If he hasn't get
hold of two of the juniors quietly. Send another as fast as he can go
to the nearest doctor, and get some brandy ready. It's a strong door,
but together we ought to manage it.”

There was no sign of Thompson in the office, but one of the articled
pupils was a Rugby half back. Spencer returned with him and one of his
fellows and the Rugby man attacked the door with a vigour that had
brought him through many a scrum. It soon yielded to their combined
efforts, and then with one accord all the men stood back. There was
something at first sight about the everyday aspect of the room into
which they gazed that seemed oddly at variance with their fears. Then
slowly all their eyes turned from Mr. Bechcombe's writing-table with
his own chair standing before it, just as they had seen it hundreds of
times, to that ominous heap near the window.

John Walls bent over it, then he looked up with shocked eyes.

“He—I am afraid it is all over.”

“Not dead!” Spencer ejaculated; but one look at that ghastly face upon
the floor, at the staring eyes, and wide open mouth with the
protruding tongue, drove every drop of colour from his face. He turned
to Walls with chattering teeth. “It—it must have been a fit, Walls. He
looks terrible.”

“Is there anything wrong?”

It was a woman's voice. With one consent the men moved nearer the
private door so as to shut out the sight of that ghastly heap.

“Is there anything wrong?” There was an undertone of fear about the
voice now.

John Walls turned.

“Mr. Bechcombe has been taken ill, Miss Hoyle—very ill, I am afraid.”

The sight of his white, stricken face was more eloquent than his
words. Cecily Hoyle's own colour faded slowly.

“What is it?” she questioned, looking from one to the other. She was a
tall, thin slip of a girl with clear brown eyes, a nose that turned up
and a mouth that was too wide, a reasonably fair complexion and a
quantity of pretty, curly, nut-brown hair that waved all over her head
and low down over her ears, and that somehow conveyed the impression
of being bobbed when it wasn't. Ordinarily it was a winsome,
attractive little face, but just now, catching the fear in Walls's
voice, the brown eyes were full of dread and the mobile lips were
twitching. “Can't I do anything?” she questioned. “It must be
something very sudden. Mr. Bechcombe was quite well when I went out.”

John Walls laid his hand on her shoulder.

“You can't do anything, Miss Hoyle. We can none of us do anything. It
is too late.”

Cecily shrank from him with a cry.

“No, no! He can't be—dead!”

A strong hand put both her and John Walls aside.

“Let me pass. I am a doctor. What is the matter here?”

John Walls recognized the speaker as a medical man who had rooms close
at hand.

“I think Mr. Bechcombe has had a fit, sir. I am afraid it is all
over.”

“Stand aside, please. Let us have all the air we can.”

The doctor bent over the man on the floor, but one look was
sufficient. He touched the wrist, laid his hand over the heart. Then
he stood up quickly.

“There is nothing to be done here. He has been dead, I should say, an
hour or more. We must ring up the police, at once. You will understand
that nothing is to be moved until their arrival.”

“Police!” echoed John Walls with shaking lips.

“Yes, police!” the doctor said impatiently. “My good man, can't you
see that this is no natural death? Mr. Bechcombe has been
murdered—strangled!”



CHAPTER IV

The first floor of 21 Crow's Inn was entirely in the hands of the
police. Two plain-clothes men guarded the entrance of the corridor,
others were stationed farther along. Both the big waiting-rooms were
filled, one with indignant clients anxious to go home, the other with
the clerks and employés of the firm.

Two men came slowly down the passage. Inspector Furnival of Scotland
Yard was a man of middle height with a keen, foxy-looking face, at
present clean-shaven, and sharp grey eyes whose clearness of vision
had earned him in the Force the sobriquet of “The Ferret.” His
companion, Dr. Hackett, carried his occupation writ plain on his
large-featured face and his strictly professional attire.

Both men were looking grave and preoccupied as they entered the
smaller office which had been little used since Mr. Bechcombe's
partner retired. Inspector Furnival took the revolving chair and drew
it up to the office table in the middle of the room. Then he produced
a notebook.

“Now, Dr. Hackett, will you give me the details of this affair as far
as you know them?”

“I can only tell you that I was summoned about two o'clock this
afternoon by a clerk—Winter, I fancy his name is. He told me that his
employer was locked up in his office, that they thought he had had a
fit and were breaking the door open, and wanted me to be there in
readiness as soon as they had forced their way in. I hastily put a few
things that I thought might be wanted into my bag and hurried here. I
arrived just as the door gave way and found matters as you know.”

The inspector scratched the side of his nose reflectively with the
handle of his fountain pen.

“Mr. Bechcombe was quite dead?”

“Quite dead. Had been dead at least two hours, I should say,” Dr.
Hackett assented.

“And the cause?” the inspector continued, suspending his pen over the
paper.

“You will understand that you will have to wait until after the
post-mortem for a definitely full and detailed opinion. But, as far as
I can tell you after the examination which was all I could make this
afternoon, I feel no doubt that the cause of death was strangulation.”

“It seems inconceivable that a man should be strangled in his own
office, within earshot of his own clerks,” debated the inspector.
“Still, it is quite evident even at a casual glance that it has been
done here. But I cannot understand why Mr. Bechcombe apparently
offered no resistance. His hand-bell, his speaking-tube, the
telephone—all were close at hand. It looks as though he had recognized
his assassin and had no fear of him.”

“I think on the contrary that it was a sudden attack,” Dr. Hackett
dissented. “Probably Mr. Bechcombe had no opportunity of recognizing
his murderer. The assassin sprang forward and—did you notice a sweet
sickly smell that seemed to emanate from the body?”

The inspector nodded.

“That was the first thing I noticed. Chloroform, I suppose?”

“Yes,” said the doctor slowly. “I should say the assassin sprang
forward with the chloroform, or perhaps approached his victim
unobserved, and attempted to stupefy him, and then strangled him. That
is how it looks to me. For anything more definite we must wait for the
post-mortem.”

The inspector made a few hieroglyphics in his notebook, then he looked
up.

“You say that death took place probably about two hours before you saw
the body, doctor? and you were called in about two o'clock. Therefore,
Mr. Bechcombe must have died about twelve o'clock. You are quite
definite about this?”

“I cannot be more exact as to the time,” Dr. Hackett said slowly. “I
should say about twelve o'clock—certainly not much after. More
probably a little before.”

The inspector stroked his clean-shaven chin and glanced over his
notes.

“Just one more question, Dr. Hackett. Can you tell me just who was in
the room when you got there?”

Dr. Hackett hesitated a moment.

“Well, there was Mr. Walls, who seems to be managing things in
Thompson's absence, and three other men whose names I do not of course
know, and the late Mr. Bechcombe's secretary, whose name I understand
to be Hoyle—Miss Hoyle.”

The inspector pricked up his ears.

“I have not seen Miss Hoyle. What sort of a woman?”

“Oh, just a girl,” the doctor said vaguely. “Just an ordinary-looking
girl. I did not notice her much, except that I thought she looked
white and shocked, as no doubt she was, poor girl!”

“No doubt!” the inspector assented. “How was she dressed, doctor?”

“Dressed?” the doctor echoed in some surprise. “Well, I don't take
much notice of dress myself. Just a dark gown, I think.”

“No hat?”

“No, I don't think so. No, I am sure she hadn't.”

“Do you know where she works?”

“Didn't know such a person existed until this afternoon. I know
nothing about her,” the doctor said, shaking his head.

The inspector coughed.

“Um! Well, that will be all for the present, doctor. It is probable
that you may be wanted later, and of course possible that Mrs.
Bechcombe may wish to see you.”

“I suppose she has been told?”

“Of course,” the inspector assented. “We phoned to the house at once,
and I gather she was informed of the death, not of course of the
cause, by a relative who was there—a Mr. Collyer, a clergyman. I shall
go round to see her when I have finished here. I hear that she
collapsed altogether on hearing of her loss.”

“Poor thing! Poor thing!” the doctor murmured. “Well, inspector, I
shall hold myself at your disposal.”

Left alone, the inspector looked over his notes once more and then
sounded the electric bell twice. One of his subordinates opened the
door at once.

“Tell Moore and Carter to take the names and addresses of all the
clients. Verify them on the phone and then allow them to go home. If
any of them are not capable of verification, have them shadowed. Now
send John Walls to me.”

The clerk did not keep Inspector Furnival waiting. He came in
hesitatingly, dragging his feet like a man who has had a stroke. His
face was colourless, his eyes were dark with fear.

“You sent for me, inspector?” he said, his teeth chattering as if with
ague.

“Naturally!” the inspector assented, glancing at him keenly. “I want
to hear all you know about Mr. Bechcombe's death. But, first, has Amos
Thompson returned?”

“N—o!” quavered Walls.

“Can you account for his absence in any way?” the inspector questioned
shortly.

“No, I have no idea where he is,” Walls answered, gathering up his
courage. “But then he is the managing clerk. I am not. I very seldom
know anything of his work.”

The inspector did not answer this. He drew his brows together.

“When did you see him last?”

“About half-past twelve, it would be. He went out of the office. I
have not seen him since. But he did go out to lunch early sometimes.
And he may have gone somewhere on business for Mr. Bechcombe.” Walls
wiped the sweat from his brow as he spoke.

The inspector looked at him.

“I understand that Mr. Bechcombe was heard to tell him to be in
readiness to go with him to the Bank at one o'clock?”

“I—I believe Spencer said something about that,” Walls stammered. “But
I did not hear what Mr. Bechcombe said myself. My desk is farther away
than Spencer's and I was busy with my work. All I heard was that Mr.
Bechcombe was not to be disturbed on any account. He slightly raised
his voice when he said that.”

“Did you gather that Mr. Bechcombe had business of an important nature
with a mysterious client?”

“I didn't gather anything,” said Walls with some warmth. “It wasn't my
business to. If Mr. Bechcombe did have an important client he must
have admitted him himself by the private door. The last one that went
to him in an ordinary way came out in a very few minutes.”

“Before twelve o'clock?” questioned the inspector sharply.

“Oh, yes. Some minutes before the clock struck—about a quarter to, I
should say. I noticed that.”

“Because——” Inspector Furnival prompted.

“Oh, well, because I heard it strike afterwards, I suppose,” Walls
answered lamely. “There are days when I don't notice it.”

“Um!” the inspector glanced at him. “Do you know the name of the last
client who saw Mr. Bechcombe?”

“Pounds—Mr. Pounds, of Gosforth and Pounds, the big haberdashers. He
came about the lease of some fresh premises they are taking. I happen
to know that.”

“Ah, yes.” The inspector looked him full in the face. “But you don't
happen to know why Mr. Anthony Collyer wanted to see his uncle,
perhaps?”

The sweat broke out afresh on Mr. Walls's forehead.

“I don't know anything about it.”

“You know that Mr. Collyer came,” the inspector said with some
asperity. “Why did you not mention it?”

Walls glanced at him doubtfully.

“There wasn't anything to mention. Mr. Anthony wanted to see Mr.
Bechcombe, and he couldn't, so he went away. He talked to Mr.
Thompson, not to me.”

“You did not hear what he said when he went away? Your desk seems to
be most inconveniently placed, Mr. Walls.”

“I heard him talking a lot of nonsense to Mr. Thompson.”

“Such as——” The inspector paused.

“Oh, well, he said he must see Mr. Bechcombe and he said he would, and
Mr. Thompson——”

“Be careful!” warned the inspector. “Don't make any mistakes, Mr.
Walls, I want to know what Mr. Anthony Collyer said.”

“He said—he said—if Mr. Thompson didn't let him in he would go round
to Mr. Bechcombe's private door,” the man said, then hesitated. “But
it—it was just nonsense.”

“Did he try to get into the room through the private door?”

“I don't know,” Walls said helplessly. “I didn't see him any more.”

The inspector drew a small parcel wrapped in tissue paper from his
breast pocket and, opening it, displayed to the clerk's astonished
eyes a long, white _suède_ glove.

“Have you ever seen this before?”

John Walls peered at it.

“No. I can't say that I have. It—it is a lady's glove, inspector.”

“It _is_ a lady's glove,” the inspector assented. “Where do you
imagine it was found, Mr. Walls?”

“I'm sure I don't know,” Walls said, staring at him. “It—I think a
good many ladies wear gloves like that nowadays, Mr. Furnival. I know
Mrs. Walls——”

“This particular glove,” the inspector went on, “I found beside Mr.
Bechcombe's writing-table this afternoon.”

“Did you?” Mr. Walls looked amazed. “Well, I don't know how it came
there. All Mr. Bechcombe's clients were men that came to-day.”

“Except perhaps the one that came to the private door,” suggested the
inspector.

“I don't know anything about that,” Walls said in a puzzled tone. “I
never heard anything of a lady coming to-day.”

The inspector folded the glove up and put it away again.

“That will do for the present, Mr. Walls. I should like to see Mr.
Thompson if he returns, and now please send Miss Hoyle to me.”

Walls looked uncomfortably surprised.

“Miss Hoyle?”

“Yes, Miss Hoyle—Mr. Bechcombe's secretary!” the inspector said
sharply. “I suppose you know her, Mr. Walls?”

“Oh, yes,” Walls stammered. “At least, I couldn't say I know her. I
have spoken to her once or twice. But she didn't make any friends
among us. And her office was quite apart. She didn't come through our
door, or anything. She is a lady—quite a lady, you understand, and her
office is next to Mr. Bechcombe's own.”

“Indeed!” For once the inspector looked really interested. “Well, I
should like to see Miss Hoyle without delay, Mr. Walls.”

“Very well. I will tell her at once.”

Miss Hoyle did not keep the inspector waiting. He glanced at her
keenly as he placed a chair for her.

“Your name, please?”

“Cecily Frances Hoyle.”

“How long have you been with Mr. Bechcombe?”

“Just over a month.”

“Where were you previously?”

“At school. Miss Arnold Watson's at Putney. I stayed there until I was
nineteen as a governess-pupil. Then—I hadn't any real gift for
teaching—I took a course in shorthand and typing. Mr. Bechcombe wanted
a secretary and I was fortunate enough to get the job.”

“Um!” The inspector turned over a new page in his notebook. “Now will
you tell me all you know about Mr. Bechcombe's death?”

Cecily stared at him.

“But I don't know anything,” she said helplessly. “I never saw Mr.
Bechcombe after he called me into his office about a quarter to
twelve.”

“At a quarter to twelve!” The inspector pricked up his ears. “You saw
Mr. Bechcombe at a quarter to twelve?”

“At a quarter to twelve,” she confirmed. “He sounded the electric bell
which rings in my office, and I went in to him. He told me that he
should have some important work for me later in the day, but that at
present there was nothing and that I could go out to lunch when I
liked. When I came back there were some letters to be attended to, and
then he said I was to wait until he rang for me. That was all.”

“You saw and heard nothing more of Mr. Bechcombe until you came on the
scene when the door was broken open by the clerks?”

“I did not see anything.”

The slight emphasis on the verb did not escape the inspector.

“Or hear anything?” he demanded sharply. “Be very careful please, Miss
Hoyle.”

“I heard him speak to some one outside very soon after I had gone back
to my office, and I heard him moving about his room after I came from
lunch,” Cecily said, her colour rising a little.

The inspector looked at her searchingly. “To whom did you hear Mr.
Bechcombe speak?”

Cecily hesitated, the colour that was creeping back slowly into her
cheeks deepening perceptibly.

“Someone was knocking at the door,” she stammered. “I think Mr.
Bechcombe spoke to him. I heard him say he was engaged.”

“Who was he speaking to?”

The girl twisted her hands together.

“It was his nephew, Mr. Anthony Collyer.”

“How do you know?” The inspector fired his questions at her rather as
if they had been pistol shots.

Cecily looked round her in an agony of confusion.

“He came to my office—Mr. Anthony, I mean.”

“Why should he come to your office?”

“He asked me to go out to lunch with him,” Cecily faltered. Then
seeing the look on the inspector's face, she gathered up her courage
with both hands and faced him with sudden resolution. “We are
engaged,” she said simply. “We—I mean it hasn't been announced yet,
but his father knows; and we shall tell mine as soon as he comes
home—he is abroad now—we are engaged, Anthony Collyer and I.”

The inspector might have smiled but that the thing was too serious.

“Did Mr. Bechcombe know?”

The girl hesitated a moment.

“I think he guessed. From the way he smiled when he mentioned Mr.
Collyer in the morning.”

The inspector looked over his notes. He was inclined to think that
Cecily Hoyle's evidence, if it could be relied on, would put Anthony
Collyer off his list of suspects. Still, he was not going to take any
chances.

“I see. So you went out with Mr. Anthony Collyer. Where did you
lunch?”

“I said he asked me,” Cecily corrected. “But I didn't say I would go.
However, we were talking about it and walking down the passage
together when Mr. Bechcombe called Tony back—‘I want to see you a
minute, Tony,’ he said.”

“Well?” the inspector prompted as she paused.

“Tony did not want to go back,” the girl said slowly. “But I persuaded
him. ‘I will wait for you in St. Philip's Field of Rest,’ I said. He
ran back, promising not to keep me waiting for a minute.”

“Field of Rest,” the inspector repeated. “What is a Field of Rest?”

“At the back of St. Philip's Church—just over the way. It is the old
graveyard really, you know,” Cecily explained. “But they have levelled
the stones and put seats there, and it is a sort of quiet recreation
ground. I often take sandwiches with me and eat them there.”

The inspector nodded. There were many such places in London he knew.

“And I suppose Mr. Anthony Collyer soon overtook you?”

“No. He didn't. He—I had to wait in the Field of Rest.”

“How long?”

“I don't really know,” Cecily said uncertainly. “Perhaps it wasn't
very long. But it seemed a long time to me.”

The inspector looked at her.

“This is important. Please think, Miss Hoyle. This is very important.
How long approximately do you think it was before Mr. Anthony Collyer
joined you in the Field of Rest?”

“Twenty minutes perhaps—or it might have been half an hour.”

The inspector looked surprised.

“Half an hour! But that's a long time. What excuse did Mr. Collyer
make for being so long?”

“He said he couldn't find the Field of Rest. He hadn't been there
before, you know.”

The inspector made no rejoinder. He turned back to his notes.

“What time did you come back to the office, Miss Hoyle?”

“We were a little over an hour,” Cecily confessed. “After half-past
one, it would be.”

“Did Mr. Collyer go back with you?”

Cecily shook her head.

“Oh, no. He walked as far as Crow's Inn—up to the archway with me.”

The inspector was drawing a small parcel from his pocket. Laying back
the tissue paper he slowly shook out the white glove he had shown to
John Walls.

“Have you ever seen this before, Miss Hoyle?”

The girl leaned forward and looked at it more closely.

“No, I am sure I have not.”

“It is not yours?”

Cecily shook her head.

“I could not afford anything like that. It is a very expensive
glove—French I should say.”

“That glove was found beside the writing-table in Mr. Bechcombe's
private room this afternoon,” the inspector said impressively.

Cecily looked amazed.

“What an extraordinary thing! I don't believe it was there when I was
in this morning. I wonder who could have dropped it?”

“Possibly the murderer or murderess,” the inspector suggested dryly.

Cecily shivered back in her chair with a little cry.

“It cannot be true! Who would hurt Mr. Bechcombe? He must have had a
fit!”

“Miss Hoyle”—the inspector leaned forward—“it was no fit. Mr.
Bechcombe was certainly murdered, and Dr. Hackett says that death must
have overtaken him either a few minutes before twelve or a few minutes
after.”

“What!” Cecily's face became ghastly as the full significance of the
words dawned upon her. “It couldn't——” she said, catching her breath
in a sob. “He—he was quite well at twelve o'clock, and when I came
back from my lunch I heard him moving about.”

“Could you hear what went on in his room in yours?”

“Oh, no. Absolutely nothing. But as I passed his door when I came back
from lunch I distinctly heard him moving about. I was rather surprised
at this, because I don't remember ever hearing any sound from Mr.
Bechcombe's room before.”

“What did you do after you went back?”

“I finished some letters that had to be ready for Mr. Bechcombe's
signature before he went home. I was still busy with them when I heard
them breaking into Mr. Bechcombe's room.”

“Now one more question, Miss Hoyle. Did you notice anything particular
about Mr. Anthony Collyer's hands when you first saw him?”

Cecily stared.

“Certainly I did not. Why?”

“He did not wear gloves?”

“Oh, dear, no!” Cecily almost smiled. “I should certainly have noticed
if he had. I have never seen Tony in gloves since I knew him.”

The inspector's stylo was moving quickly in his notebook.

“You are prepared to swear to all this, Miss Hoyle?”

“Certainly I am!” Cecily said at once. “It is absolutely true.”

“Your address, please.”

“Hobart Residence, Windover Square. It is a club for girls,” she
added.

“But your permanent home address,” the detective went on.

There was a pause. The girl's long eyelashes flickered.

“I—really I haven't a settled home at present. My father is away on
some business abroad; when he comes back we shall look for a cottage
in the country.”

“Oh!” The inspector asked no more questions, but there was a curious
look in his eyes as he scrawled another entry in his book.

“That is all for the present, then, Miss Hoyle. The inquest will be
opened to-morrow, and you may be wanted. I cannot say.”

He rose. Cecily got up at once and with a little farewell bow went out
of the room.

The inspector stood still for a minute or two, then he opened the door
again.

“Call Mr. William Spencer, please.”

Ordinarily Mr. Spencer was a jaunty, self-satisfied young man, but
to-day both the jauntiness and the self-satisfaction were gone and it
was with a very white and subdued face that he came up to the
inspector.

“Well, Mr. Spencer, and what have you to tell me about this terrible
affair?” the inspector began conversationally.

“Nothing; except what you know. I heard the governor tell Mr. Thompson
not to let anyone into his room, and I heard no more until Mr. Walls
asked me to go round to the private door.”

“You were the first to see the body, I understand.”

“Well, looking through the keyhole, I saw a heap and I told Mr. Walls
I thought it was the governor.”

“Exactly!” The inspector looked at his notes. “You were right,
unfortunately. Now, Mr. Spencer, have you ever seen this?” suddenly
displaying the white glove he had previously shown.

Mr. Spencer's eyes grew round.

“I—I don't know.”

“What do you mean by that?” the inspector questioned. “Have you any
reason to suppose you have done so?”

Spencer stared at it.

“I met a lady with long gloves like that coming up the stairs when I
went out to lunch.”

“What time was that?”

“About half-past twelve, it would be, or a little later, I think,”
debated Spencer.

“Ah!” the inspector made a note in his book. “What was she like—the
woman you met?”

“Well, she was tall with rather bright yellow hair and—and she had
powder all over her face. The curious thing about her was,” Spencer
went on meditatively, “that I had an odd feeling that in some way her
face was familiar. Yet I couldn't remember having seen her before.”

“Did you notice where she went?”

“No, I couldn't. It was just where the stairs turn that I stood aside
to let her pass, and you can't see much from there. But I thought I
heard——”

“Well?”

“I did think at the time that I heard her stop on our landing and go
along the passage——”

“To Mr. Bechcombe's room?” said the inspector quickly.

“Well, it would be to his room, of course,” Spencer said, his face
paling again. “But I dare say I was wrong about her going down the
passage. I didn't listen particularly.”

“Do you know that I found this glove beside Mr. Bechcombe's
writing-table when I went into the room?” questioned the inspector.

Spencer shivered.

“No. I didn't see it.”

“Nevertheless it was there,” said the inspector. “Mr. Spencer, I think
you will have to try to remember why that lady's face was familiar to
you. Had you ever seen her here before?”

“No, I don't think so. I seem to——” Spencer was beginning when there
was an interruption, a loud knock at the door. Spencer turned to it
eagerly. “Mr. Thompson has come back, I expect.”

The inspector was before him, but it was not Amos Thompson who stood
outside, or any messenger from the offices; it was a tall, thin
clergyman with a white, shocked face—the rector of Wexbridge to wit.
He stepped aside.

“I must apologize for interrupting you, Mr. Inspector. But I represent
my sister-in-law, Mrs. Luke Bechcombe. I had just called and was
present when the sad news was broken to her. I came here to make
inquiries and also to arrange for the removal of the body. And here I
was met by these terrible tidings. Is it—can it be really true that my
unfortunate brother-in-law has been murdered?”

“Quite true,” the inspector confirmed in a matter-of-fact fashion in
contrast with the clergyman's agitated tone.

“But how and by whom?” Mr. Collyer demanded.

“Mr. Bechcombe appears to have been attacked, possibly chloroformed,
deliberately, and strangled. His body was found in his private
office.”

The rector subsided into the nearest chair.

“I cannot believe it. Poor Luke had not an enemy in the world. What
could have been the motive for so horrible a crime?”

“That I am endeavouring to find out,” the inspector said quietly.

“I can't understand it,” the clergyman said, raising his hand to his
head. “Nobody would wilfully have hurt poor Luke, I am sure.”

“It is tolerably evident that somebody did,” the inspector commented
dryly.

Mr. Collyer was silent for a minute; putting his elbow on the table,
he rested his aching head upon his hand.

“But who could have done it?” he questioned brokenly at last.

The inspector coughed.

“That also I am trying to discover, sir. When did you see Mr.
Bechcombe last, Mr. Collyer?”

“Last night. I dined with him at his house in Carlsford Square. Just a
few hours ago, and poor Luke seemed so well and happy with us all,
making jokes. And now—I can't believe it.”

He blew his nose vigorously.

“Was your son one of the dinner party?” the inspector questioned.

Mr. Collyer looked surprised.

“Oh, er—yes, of course Tony was there. He is a favourite with his
uncle and aunt.”

“Did you know that he was here this morning?”

Mr. Collyer's astonishment appeared to increase.

“Certainly I did not. I do not think he has been. I fancy you are
making a mistake.”

“I think not,” the inspector said firmly. “Your son was here this
morning just before twelve o'clock. He appears to have caused quite a
commotion, demanding to see his uncle and announcing his intention of
going to the private door and knocking at it himself.”

Mr. Collyer dropped his arm upon the table.

“But—— Good—good heavens! Did he go?”

“He did. He also saw his uncle,” said the inspector. “And now I am
rather anxious to hear your son's account of that interview, Mr.
Collyer.”



CHAPTER V

“It is the aftermath of the War,” said Aubrey Todmarsh, shaking his
head. “You take a man away from his usual occupation and for four
years you let him do nothing but kill other men and try to kill other
men, and then you are surprised when he comes home and still goes on
killing.”

“Don't you think, Aubrey, that you had better say straight out that
you believe I killed Uncle Luke?” Tony Collyer inquired very quietly,
yet with a look in his eyes that his men had known well in the Great
War, and had labelled dangerous.

Instinctively Aubrey drew back. “My dear Tony,” he said, with what was
meant to be an indulgent smile and only succeeded in looking
distinctly scared, “why will you turn everything into personalities? I
was speaking generally.”

“Well, as I happen to be the only man who went to the War and who
profits by my uncle's will, and who was at the office the day he was
murdered, I will thank you not to speak generally in that fashion,”
retorted Anthony.

His father lifted up his hand.

“Boys, boys! This terrible crime is no time for unseemly bickering,”
he said, in much the same tone as he would have used to them twenty
years ago at Wexbridge Rectory.

The three were in the dining-room of Mr. Bechcombe's house in
Carlsford Square. They had been brought there by an urgent summons
from the widow of the dead man. Mrs. Bechcombe, prostrated at first by
the news of her husband's death, had been roused by learning how that
death had been brought about, and, in her determination that it should
be immediately avenged, she had insisted on her husband's
brother-in-law and his two nephews coming together to consult with her
as to the best steps to be taken to discover the assassin.

In appearance the last twenty-four hours had aged the rector by as
many years. His shoulders were bent as he leaned forward in his
chair—the very chair in which Luke Bechcombe had sat at the bottom of
his table only the night before last. There were new lines that sorrow
and horror had scored upon James Collyer's face, even his hair looked
whiter. Glancing round the familiar room it seemed to him impossible
that he could never see again the brother-in-law upon whose advice he
had unconsciously leaned all his married life. He was just about to
speak when the door opened and Mrs. Bechcombe entered. She was a tall,
almost a regal-looking woman, with flashing dark eyes and regular,
aquiline features. To-day her beautiful formed lips were closely
compressed and there was a very sombre light in the dark eyes, and
there were great blue marks under them.

Mr. Collyer got up, raising himself slowly. “My dear Madeline, I wish
I could help you,” he said, taking her hands in his, “but only Our
Heavenly Father can do that, and since it is His Will——”

“It was not His Will!” Mrs. Bechcombe contradicted passionately. She
tore her hands from his. “My husband was murdered. He did not die by
the Will of God, but by the wickedness of man.”

“My dear aunt, nothing happens but by the Will of God——” Aubrey
Todmarsh was beginning, when the door opened to admit a spare, short,
altogether undistinguished-looking man of middle age.

Mrs. Bechcombe turned to him eagerly.

“This is my cousin, John Steadman. You have heard me speak of him, I
know, James. He is a barrister, and, though he does not practise now,
he is a great criminologist. And I know if anyone can help us it will
be he.”

“I hope so, I am sure,” Mr. Steadman said as he shook hands. “This is
a most terrible and mysterious crime, but there are several valuable
clues. I do not think it should remain undiscovered long.”

“I hope not!” the rector sighed. “And yet we cannot bring poor Luke
back, we can only punish his murderer.”

“And that I mean to do!” Mrs. Bechcombe said passionately. “I have
sworn to devote every penny of my money and every moment of my life to
avenging my husband.”

“Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” murmured Aubrey Todmarsh.

“Yes, I never professed to be of your way of thinking,” Mrs. Bechcombe
returned with unveiled contempt. “I prefer to undertake the vengeance
myself, thank you.”

Mr. Steadman looked at Anthony. “I understand that you called at the
office yesterday morning.”

“Yes, I did,” returned Anthony defiantly. “And, when old Thompson told
me I couldn't see Mr. Bechcombe, I was fool enough to say I would go
round to the private door and get in to him that way.”

“And did you?” questioned Mr. Steadman quietly.

“Yes, I did, but I did not go in and murder my uncle,” returned
Anthony in the same loud, passionate tone.

“Did you see him?” Mr. Steadman inquired.

“Yes. He came to the door and told me to go away. He was expecting an
important client.”

“Tony, you did not ask him for money?” his father said piteously.

Anthony's face softened as he looked at him. “I was going to, but I
didn't get the chance. He wouldn't listen to me. I went on to ask a
friend of mine in the next room to come out to lunch with me. As we
were passing my uncle's room he came to the door. ‘I want you, Tony,’
he said sharply. My friend went on, telling me to follow to the Field
of Rest. Uncle Luke kept me a few minutes talking. He told me that if
I had a really good opening he would go into it, if it were really
promising the lack of money should not stand in the way. He said I was
to come and see him that night and talk things over. I meant to go, of
course. But then I heard this——” and Anthony gulped down something in
his throat.

“Did you keep your friend waiting?” inquired Mr. Steadman.

“Yes, I did!” Tony answered, staring at him. “Uncle Luke kept me a
minute or two. But then I missed my way to the Field of Rest, and was
wandering about the best part of half an hour. I suppose you don't
call that a very satisfactory alibi,” he added truculently.

“Oh, don't be silly, Tony!” Mrs. Bechcombe interposed fretfully. “Of
course we are all sure that you would not have hurt your uncle. We
want to know if you saw anyone—if you met this wicked woman——”

Tony stared at her.

“What wicked woman? What do you mean, Aunt Madeline?”

“The woman who left her glove in his room, the woman who killed my
husband,” Mrs. Bechcombe returned, her breath coming quickly and
nervously, her hands clenching and unclenching themselves.

“My dear Madeline,” Mr. Steadman interrupted her, “I do not think it
possible that the crime could have been committed by a woman.”

“And I am sure that it was,” she contradicted stormily. “Women are as
powerful as men nowadays and Luke was not strong. He had a weak
heart.” And with the last words she burst into a very tempest of
tears.

Her cousin looked at her pityingly.

“Well, well, my dear girl! At any rate the police are searching
everywhere for this woman. The finding her can only be a matter of a
few days now. I am going to send your maid to you.” He signed to the
other men and they followed him out of the room. “Do her all the good
in the world to cry it out,” he remarked confidentially when he had
closed the door. “I haven't seen her shed a tear yet. Now I am going
to see Inspector Furnival before the inquest opens. That, of course,
will be absolutely formal, at first. Can I give any of you a lift?”

“I think not, thank you,” Mr. Collyer responded. “There must be
some—er—arrangements to be made here and it is quite possible we may
be of some real service.”

Both young men looked inclined to dissent, but the barrister proffered
no further invitation and a minute or two later they saw him drive
off.

He was shown in at once to Inspector Furnival, who was writing at his
office table, briskly making notes in a large parchment-bound book. He
got up as the door opened.

Mr. Steadman shook hands. “You haven't forgotten me, I hope,
inspector?”

The inspector permitted himself a slight smile. “I haven't forgotten
how you helped me to catch John Bassil.”

“Um! Well, my cousin—Mrs. Bechcombe is my cousin, you know—has
insisted on my coming to you this morning,” Mr. Steadman went on,
taking the chair the inspector placed by the table. “This is a
terrible business, inspector. It looks fairly plain sailing at first
sight, but I don't know.”

The inspector glanced at him. “You think it looks like plain sailing,
sir? Well, it may be, but I confess I don't see it quite in that way
myself.”

Mr. Steadman met the detective's eyes with a curious look in his own.
“What of Thompson's disappearance?”

The inspector blotted the page in his ledger at which he had been
writing and left the blotting-paper on.

“Ay, as usual you have put your finger on the spot, Mr. Steadman. What
has become of Thompson? He walked out of the office and apparently
disappeared into space. For from that moment we have not been able to
find anyone who has seen him.”

“The inference being——?” Mr. Steadman raised his eyebrows.

The inspector laid his hand on a parcel of papers lying on the table
at his elbow.

“There wasn't much about the case in the papers this morning,” he
said, replying indirectly to the barrister's question, “but the one
that comes out at ten o'clock—Racing Special they call it: selections
on the back page, don't you know—in almost every case gives a large
space on its front page to ‘The Murder of a Solicitor in his Office,’
and every one of them mentions the disappearance of his managing
clerk. The inference, though the paragraphs are naturally guarded in
the extreme, is unmistakable.”

Mr. Steadman reached over for one of the papers.

“Don't take any notice of these things myself; they have to write up
the sensation. Um! Yes! No doubt what they're hinting at, but they're
generally wrong. What should Thompson want to kill his employer for,
unless——”

“Ay, exactly; unless——” the inspector said dryly. “That was one of my
first thoughts, sir. John Walls is going through the books with an
auditor this morning. And Mr. Turner, who was in the firm until last
year, is going over the contents of the safe. When we get their
reports we shall know more.”

The barrister nodded. “Thompson had been with the firm for many
years.”

“Eighteen, I believe,” assented the inspector. “He seems to have been
a great favourite with Mr. Bechcombe, but it is astonishing how little
his fellow-clerks know of him. Only two of them have ever seen him out
of the office, and none of them appear to have the least idea where he
lives.”

Mr. Steadman did not speak for a moment, then he said slowly:

“The fact that so little is known seems in itself curious. Is there no
way of ascertaining his address?”

“One would imagine that there must be a note of it somewhere at the
office,” the inspector remarked, “but so far we have not been able to
find it.”

“How about the woman visitor?” the barrister inquired, changing the
subject suddenly.

“We haven't been able to identify her at present.” The inspector
opened the top drawer at his right hand, and took the white glove that
had been found by the murdered man's desk from its wrapping of tissue
paper. The most cursory glance showed that it was an expensive glove,
even if the maker's name had not been known as one of the most famous
in London and Paris. About it there still clung the vague elusive
scent that always seems to linger about the belongings of a woman who
is attracted by and attractive to the other sex.

Mr. Steadman handled it carefully and inspected it thoroughly through
his eyeglasses. “Yes. We ought to be able to find the mysterious woman
with the aid of this.”

“Ah, yes. We shall find the wearer,” the inspector said confidently.
“But will that be very much help in solving the mystery of Luke
Bechcombe's death?”

The barrister looked at him.

“I don't know that it will. Still, why doesn't she come forward and
say, ‘I saw Mr. Bechcombe the morning he was murdered. My business
with him was urgent and I saw him by special appointment.’ She is much
more likely to be suspected of the crime if she refuses to come
forward. Mrs. Bechcombe seems certain of her guilt, and women do have
intuitions.”

“I'm not much of a believer in them myself,” remarked Inspector
Furnival, shrugging his shoulders. “I would rather have a penn'orth of
direct evidence than a pound's worth of intuition. And I don't believe
that Mr. Bechcombe was murdered by a woman. A woman doesn't spring at
a man and strangle him. She may stab him or shoot him, the weapons
being to hand, but strangle him with her hands—no. Besides, this was a
premeditated crime. There was an unmistakable smell of chloroform
about the body, faint, I grant you, but unmistakable. No, no! It
wasn't a woman. As to why she doesn't speak—well, there may be a dozen
reasons. In the first place she may not have heard of the murder at
all. It doesn't occupy a very conspicuous place in the morning's
papers. It will be a different matter to-night. Then, she might not
want her business known. And, above all, many a woman—and man
too—hates to be mixed up in a murder case, and won't speak out till
she is driven to it.”

“Quite so!”

The barrister sat silent for a minute or two, his eyes staring
straight in front of him at nothing in particular. Inspector Furnival
took another glance at his notes.

“Spencer, the only person we have been able to trace so far who has
seen this mysterious woman, fancies that her face is familiar to him,
but does not know in what connexion. I have suggested to him that she
is possibly an actress, and he is inclined to think that it may be so.
I have sent him up a quantity of photographs to see if he can identify
any of them. But don't you see, Mr. Steadman, Mr. Spencer's evidence
tends rather to exonerate Thompson. Spencer went out after Thompson
and met this woman on the stairs. It therefore appears probable that
Thompson was off the premises before the woman came on.”

Mr. Steadman shook his head.

“It isn't safe to assume anything in a case of this kind. We do not
know that Thompson went off the premises. We do not know where he went
or where he is.”

“Very true! I wish we did,” asserted the inspector. “At the same
time——”

The telephone bell was ringing sharply over his desk. He took up the
receiver.

“That you, Jones? Yes, what is it? Inspector Furnival speaking.”

“Thompson's address has been found in one of Mr. Bechcombe's books.
There are several other of the clerks' addresses there all entered in
Mr. Bechcombe's writing, and all the others we have verified.”

“What is it?”

“Number 10 Brooklyn Terrace, North Kensington.”

“Um! I will see to it at once.” And the inspector rang off sharply.



CHAPTER VI

“Can't hear of Brooklyn Terrace anywhere, sir.” The speaker was Mr.
Steadman's chauffeur.

He had been going slowly the last few minutes, making ineffectual
inquiries of the passers-by. Inside the car Mr. Steadman had Inspector
Furnival seated beside him.

“Better drive to the nearest post-office and ask there. They will be
sure to know.”

“Call this North Kensington, do they?” the barrister grumbled, as the
car started again. “Seems to me in my young days it used to be called
Notting Hill.”

The inspector laughed. “Think North Kensington sounds a bit more
classy, I expect. Not but what there are some very decent old houses
hereabouts. Oh, by Jove! Is this Brooklyn Terrace?” as the car turned
into a side street that had apparently fallen on evil days. Each house
evidently contained several tenants. In some cases slatternly women
stood on the doorsteps, shouting remarks to their neighbours, while
grubby-faced children played about in the gutter or crawled about on
the doorsteps of their different establishments. It scarcely seemed
the place in which would be found the missing managing clerk of
Messrs. Bechcombe and Turner's establishment.

No. 10 was a little tidier than its neighbours, that is to say the
door was shut and there were no children on the doorstep.

The chauffeur pulled up.

“This is it, sir.”

Mr. Steadman eyed it doubtfully.

“Well, inspector, I expect this really is the place.”

“It is the address in Mr. Bechcombe's book right enough, sir. As to
whether Mr. Amos Thompson lives here—well, we shall soon see.”

He got out first and knocked at the door, the barrister following
meekly. The car waiting at the side was the object of enormous
interest to the denizens of the street. There was no response to the
knock for some time. At last a small child in the next area called
out:

“You'll have to go down, they don't never come to that there door!”

Mr. Steadman put up his glass and peered over the palings. A
slatternly-looking woman was just looking out of the back door.

“Can you let us in, my good woman?” the barrister called out. “We want
Mr. Thompson.”

The woman muttered something, probably scenting a tip, and presently
they heard her clattering along the passage.

“Mr. Thompson, is it?” she said as she admitted them. “His room is up
at the top.”

“Is he at home?” Inspector Furnival questioned.

The woman stared at him. “I don't know. If you just like to walk up
you will find out.”

The stairs were wide, for the house had seen better days, but
indescribably dirty. Up at the very top it was a little cleaner. There
were several doors on the landing but nothing to show which, if any,
was Thompson's. As they stood there, wondering which it could be, an
old man came up behind them.

“Were you looking for anyone, gentlemen?” he asked, in a weak,
quavering voice that told that, like the house, he had fallen on evil
times.

The inspector turned to him. “I want Mr. Amos Thompson.”

The old man pointed to the door just in front of them.

“That is his door, but I doubt if you will find him in. I haven't seen
him since yesterday morning. I don't think he slept here.”

“Do you often see him?” the inspector questioned as he applied his
knuckles to the door.

The old man looked surprised at the question. “Why, yes, sir, I have
only been here a month, but I have found Mr. Thompson a remarkably
pleasant gentleman. He always passes the time of day with me and often
stops for a word over the day's news. An uncommonly nice man is Mr.
Thompson. It has often crossed my mind to wonder why he stayed here,
where there is no comfort to speak of for the likes of him.”

The inspector and Mr. Steadman wondered too, as they waited there,
while no answer came to the former's repeated knocking.

A room in No. 10 Brooklyn Terrace certainly seemed no fitting home for
Amos Thompson with his handsome salary.

“We must get in somehow,” the inspector said to Mr. Steadman. Then he
turned to the old man opposite who was watching them with frightened
eyes. “Has anyone else a key to these rooms, a charwoman or anybody?”

The man shook his head.

“We all do for ourselves, here, sir. We don't afford charwomen and
such-like. As for getting in—well, I expect the landlord has keys. He
is on the first floor. But I do not think he would open Mr. Thompson's
door without——”

“Is this landlord likely to be at home now?” the inspector
interrupted.

“He is at home, sir. I saw him as I came upstairs.”

The inspector took out his card. “Will you show him this and say that
Mr. Thompson cannot be found. He disappeared under peculiar
circumstances yesterday and, since he is not here, we must enter his
room to see whether we can find any clue to his whereabouts.”

The man visibly paled as he read the name on the card. Then he rapidly
disappeared down the stairs. Mr. Steadman looked across at the
inspector.

“Queer affair this! What the deuce does the fellow mean by putting up
at a place like this?”

“Well, he isn't extravagant in the living line!” the inspector said
with a grin.

John Steadman raised his eyebrows. “Not here!”

At this moment the landlord arrived with the keys. Quite evidently his
curiosity had been excited by the advent of the visitors to his
lodger. Probably he had been expecting his summons. He held Inspector
Furnival's card in his hand.

“I understand I have no choice, gentlemen.”

“None!” the inspector said grimly.

The landlord made no further demur, but unlocking the door he flung it
open and stood back. The others waited for a minute in the doorway and
looked round. At first sight nothing could have been less likely to
give away the occupier's secrets than this room. It was quite a good
size with a couple of windows, and a small bed in a recess with a
curtain hung over it; an oil lamp stood before the fireplace. The
floor was covered with linoleum, there was no carpet, not even a rug.
A solid square oak table stood in the middle of the room and there
were three equally solid-looking chairs. The only other piece of
furniture in the room was a movable corner cupboard standing at the
side of the window. The inspector went over and threw the door open.
Inside there was a cup and saucer, a teapot and tea-caddy, a bottle of
ink, and a book upon which the inspector immediately pounced. He went
through it from end to end, he shook it, he banged it on the table; a
post card fell from it; the inspector stared at it, then with a
puzzled frown he handed it to Mr. Steadman. The barrister glanced at
it curiously. On the back was a portrait of a girl—evidently the work
of an amateur.

“Do you know who that is?” questioned the inspector.

Mr. Steadman shook his head. “It is no one that I have ever seen
before. Do you mean that you do?”

“That is a likeness—very badly taken, I grant you—but an unmistakable
likeness of Miss Hoyle, the late Mr. Bechcombe's secretary.”

Mr. Steadman was startled for once. “Good Lord! Do you mean that he
was in love with her too?”

“Oh, I don't know,” said the inspector, taking possession of the post
card once more. “Elderly men take queer fancies sometimes, but I
haven't had any hint of this hitherto. However, I will make a few
inquiries with a view to ascertaining whether Mr. Tony Collyer has a
rival.”

“Poor Tony!” said the barrister indulgently.

He took up the book which the inspector had thrown down. It was a
detective novel of the lightest and most lurid kind, and it bore the
label of a big and fashionable library. He made a note of it at once.
The inspector went on with his survey. Beside the bedstead, behind the
curtain, there stood a small tripod washing-stand with the usual
apparatus. The bed in itself was enough to arouse their curiosity.
Upon the chain mattress lay one of hard flock with one hard pillow,
and an eiderdown quilt rolled up at the bottom. Of other bedclothing
there was not a vestige, neither was there any sign of any clothing
found about the room, with the exception of a pair of very old
slippers originally worked in cross stitch, the pattern of which was
now indecipherable. The inspector peered round everywhere. He turned
over the top mattress, he felt it all over. He moved the wash-stand
and the corner cupboard, he looked in the open fireplace which
apparently had not been used for years, but not so much as the very
tiniest scrap of paper rewarded him. At last he turned to the
barrister.

“Nothing more to be done here, I think, sir.” He took up the book and
the slippers and moved to the door.

John Steadman followed him silently. His strong face bore a very
worried, harassed expression.

Outside the landlord stopped them.

“Gentlemen, I hope it is understood that I have no responsibility with
regard to this raid on Mr. Thompson's property?”

“Quite, quite!” assented the inspector. “Refer Mr. Thompson to me if
you should see him again.”

“Which I hope I shall,” the landlord pursued, following them down the
stairs. “For a better tenant I never had; punctual with his rent, and
always quiet and quite the gentleman.”

Inspector Furnival stopped short. “How long has he lived with you?”

The man scratched his head. “A matter of four years or more, and
always brought the rent to me, I never had to ask for it. I wish there
were more like him.”

“Did you see much of him?”

“Only passing the time of day on the stairs, and when he came to pay
his rent which he did regularly every Saturday morning.”

“That room does not look as if it had been slept in or eaten in,” John
Steadman said abruptly.

The landlord stared at him.

“Well, we don't bother about our neighbour's business in Brooklyn
Terrace, sir. But, if he didn't want the room to sleep in or live in,
why did he rent it?”

“Oh,” said the barrister warily, “that is just what we should like to
know.”

With a nod of farewell the two men went on. They got into the waiting
car in silence. With a glance at the inspector John Steadman gave the
address of the library from which Thompson's book had been procured.
Then as the car started and he threw himself back on his seat he
observed:

“Admirably stage-managed!”

The inspector raised his eyebrows. “As how?”

“Do you imagine those people know no more than they say of Thompson?”

“They may. On the other hand it is quite possible they do not,” the
inspector answered doubtfully.

“That room had been arranged for some such emergency as has arisen,”
Steadman went on. “Thompson has never lived there. But he came there
for letters or something. He has some place of concealment very likely
quite near. I have no doubt that either of those men could have told
us more. I expect they will give the show away if a reward is
offered.”

“If——” the inspector repeated. “I don't quite agree with you, Mr.
Steadman. I think those men were speaking the truth, and I doubt
whether they knew any more of Thompson than they said. The man, who as
you say, has so admirably stage-managed that room would hardly be
likely to give himself away by making unnecessary confidants. But now
I wonder for whose benefit this scene was originally staged?”

The barrister drew in his lips. “Don't you think Luke Bechcombe's
murder answers your question?”

“No, I don't!” said the inspector bluntly. “Thompson was a wrong 'un,
but at present I do not see any connexion with the murder at all! They
are at it now, full swing!” For as they neared Notting Hill Gate they
could hear the voices of the newsboys calling out their papers—“Murder
of a well-known Solicitor. Missing Clerk!” Up by the station the
newsboys exhibited lurid headlines.

They bought a handful of papers and unfolded them as they bowled
swiftly across to the library. In most cases the murder of the
solicitor occupied the greater part of the front page. The
disappearance of the managing clerk was made the most of. But in
several there were hints of the mysterious visitor, veiled surmises as
to her business and identity. Altogether the Crow's Inn Tragedy, as
the papers were beginning to call it, seemed to contain all the
materials for a modern sensational drama.

At the library they both got out. The section devoted to T's was at
the farther end. A pleasant-looking girl was handing out books.
Seizing his opportunity the inspector went forward and held out the
volume.

“I have found this book under rather peculiar circumstances. Can you
tell me by whom it was borrowed?”

For a moment the girl seemed undecided; then, murmuring a few
unintelligible words, she went round to the manager's desk. That
functionary came back with her.

“I hear you want to know who borrowed this book, but it is not our
custom to give particulars——”

“I know it is not.” The inspector held out his card. “But I think you
will have to make an exception in my case.”

The manager put up his pince-nez and glanced at the card, and then at
the inspector. Then he signed to an assistant to bring him the book in
which subscribers' names were entered, and spoke to her in a low tone.
She looked frightened as she glanced at the inspector.

“It was borrowed by a Mr. Thompson, sir, address 10 Brooklyn Terrace,
North Kensington. He is an old subscriber.”

“Did he come for the books himself?” the inspector questioned. “Can
you describe him?”

“There—there wasn't much to describe,” the girl faltered. “He had a
brown beard and some of his front teeth were missing, and he nearly
always wore those big, horn-rimmed glasses.”

“Height?” questioned the inspector sharply.

“Well, he wasn't very tall nor very short,” was the unsatisfactory
reply.

“Thin or stout?”

“Not much of either!” The girl twisted her hands about, evidently
wishing herself far away.

The inspector deserted the topic of Mr. Thompson's appearance. He held
up the book.

“When was this taken out?”

The manager glanced at a list of volumes opposite the subscribers'
names.

“Last Thursday. I may say that Mr. Thompson always wanted books of
this class—detective fiction, and he literally devoured them. He
always expected a new one to be ready for him, and he was inclined to
be unpleasant if he had for the time being exhausted the supply. He
generally called here every day. This is an unusually long interval if
he has not called since Thursday.”

“Um!” The inspector glanced at Mr. Steadman. Then he turned back to
the manager. “I am obliged by your courtesy, sir. Would you add to it,
should Mr. Thompson call or send again, by ringing me up at Scotland
Yard? The book we will leave with you.”



CHAPTER VII

“Extensive defalcations. A system of fraud that must have been carried
on for many years,” repeated Aubrey Todmarsh. “Well, that pretty well
settles the matter as far as Thompson is concerned.”

“I don't see it,” contradicted Tony Collyer. “Thompson is a defaulter.
That doesn't prove he is a murderer. I don't believe he is. Old chap
didn't look like a murderer.”

“My dear Tony, don't be childish!” responded Todmarsh. “A man that
commits a murder never does look like a murderer. He wouldn't be so
successful if he did.”

“Anyway, if Thompson is guilty, it pretty well knocks the stuffing out
of your pet theory,” retorted Tony. “Thompson didn't go to the War.”

“No, but the lust for killing spread over the entire country,”
Todmarsh went on, his face assuming a rapt expression as he gazed over
Anthony's head at the little clouds scudding across the patch of sky
which he could see through the windows above. “Besides, there were
murders before the War, and there will be murders when, if ever, it is
forgotten. But I do maintain that there have been many more brutal
crimes since the War than ever before in the history of the country.
Teach a man through all the most impressionable years of his life that
there is nothing worth doing but killing his fellow-creatures and
trying to kill them, and he will——”

“Oh, stow that—we have heard it all before,” Tony interrupted
irritably. “According to your own showing the murder might just as
well have been committed by one of your own dear conchies as anyone
else. Anyway, I don't believe Thompson killed Uncle Luke. Why should
he? He had got the money. He had only to make off with it. Why should
he kill the old chap?”

“Well, Uncle Luke may have taxed him with his shortcomings and
threatened to prosecute him, perhaps he tried to phone or something of
that sort. And Thompson may have sprung at him and throttled him.”

“Don't believe it!” Tony said obstinately.

Todmarsh's eyes narrowed.

“I wouldn't proclaim my faith in Thompson's innocence quite so loudly
if I were you, Tony. I imagine you have no idea who the world is
saying must be guilty if Thompson is innocent.”

“I imagine I have,” Tony returned, his tone growing violent. “I am
quite aware that the world”—laying stress on the noun—“is saying that,
if Thompson didn't murder Uncle Luke, I did, to gain the money my
uncle left. But I am not going to try to hang Thompson to save my own
neck. By the way, I come into some more money when Aunt Madeline dies.
You will be expecting me to murder her next! You had something left
you too. You may have done it to get that!”

Aubrey Todmarsh shook his head.

“My legacy is a mere flea-bite compared with yours. And I trust that
my life and aims are sufficiently well known——”

Tony turned his back on him deliberately.

“Bosh! Don't trouble to put it on for me, Aubrey. I have known your
life and aims fairly well for a good while. Take care of your own
skin, and let everything else go to the wall. That's your aim.”

His cousin's dark eyes held no spark of resentment.

“You do not think that, I know, Tony. But, if the world should
misjudge my motives, I cannot help it.”

The cousins were standing in the smaller of the two adjoining
waiting-rooms in the late Luke Bechcombe's flat offices. The inquest
had been held that morning and the auditors' report on the books that
had been in Thompson's charge and the contents of the safe had been
taken. Their statement that there had been a system of fraud carried
on probably for years had not come as a surprise. The public had from
the first decided that Thompson's disappearance could only be
accounted for as a flight from the charge of embezzlement that was
hanging over him. Ever logical, rumour did not trouble to account for
the chloroform and the covered finger-prints or the lady with the
white gloves.

The auditors' report had brought both Aubrey Todmarsh and Tony to the
office this afternoon, and as usual the cousins could not meet without
contradicting one another or quarrelling. Inspector Furnival and Mr.
Steadman had also given their account of their visit to Thompson's
room and the mystery mongers were more than ever intrigued thereby.
There could be no doubt that, whatever might be their opinion of his
guilt, Thompson's disappearance was becoming more and more of an
enigma to the police. Not the faintest trace of him could be
discovered. When he left the clerks' office in Crow's Inn, he
apparently disappeared from the face of the earth; no one had met him
on the stairs, no one had seen him in the vicinity of the square.
After an enormous amount of inquiry the police had at last discovered
a small restaurant where he generally lunched, but he had neither been
there on the day of the murder nor since, and the railway stations had
been watched so far without success. In fact, Inspector Furnival had
been heard to state that but that they could not find the body he
would have thought that Thompson had been murdered as well as his
chief.

Thompson was described at the restaurant as always taking his meals by
himself and speaking to no one, and always at the same table. Then the
waitress who had waited on him for the last two years had never heard
him say more than good morning, or good afternoon. He always lunched
_à la carte_, so that there was no ordering to be done. Still with the
precautions taken, with his description circulated through the
country, it seemed that his capture could only be a matter of time.

But the inspector was frankly puzzled. At every point he was baffled
in his attempt to discover anything of the real man. The very mystery
about him was in itself suspicious.

The inspector and Mr. Steadman were in Mr. Bechcombe's private room
this afternoon. Everything remained just as it had been when the
murder was discovered, except that the body had been removed to the
nearest mortuary now that the inquest had been adjourned, and the
funeral was to take place at once.

The inspector had been over the room already with the most meticulous
care. To-day he was trying to reconstruct the crime. The dead man's
writing-table was opposite the door into the ante-room, which opened
into the clerks' room. The door into the passage opened upon Mr.
Bechcombe's usual seat. Supposing that to have been unlocked, it
seemed to the inspector that, when Mr. Bechcombe had received his
expected visitor, he might have been thinking over some communication
that had been made to him, and the assassin might have entered the
room silently from behind, and strangled him before he was aware of
his danger. But there seemed no motive for such a crime, and the
inspector was frankly puzzled. There was no view from the window, the
lower panes being of frosted glass, the upper looking straight across
to a blank wall. The safe was locked again now as it had been in Mr.
Bechcombe's lifetime. Mr. Turner had finished his examination. But,
try as the inspector would to reconstruct the crime, he could not
build up any hypothesis which could not be instantly demolished, or so
it seemed to him. Mr. Steadman stood on the hearthrug with his back to
the ashes of Luke Bechcombe's last fire. For the lawyer had been
old-fashioned—he had disliked central heating and gas and electric
contrivances. In spite of strikes and increasing prices he had adhered
to coal fires.

At last the silence was broken by Mr. Steadman:

“You have the experts' opinion of the fingerprints, I presume?”

The inspector bent his head.

“It came this morning. It was not put in at the inquest, for it is
just as well not to take all the world into our confidence at first,
you know, Mr. Steadman.”

“Quite so,” the barrister assented. “Do you mean that you were able to
identify them?”

“No,” growled the inspector. “They will never be identified. The
murderer wore those thin rubber gloves that some of the first-class
crooks have taken to of late.”

“Phew!” Mr. Steadman gave a low whistle. “That—that puts a very
different complexion on the matter.”

The inspector raised his eyebrows. “As how?”

“Well, for one thing it settles the question of premeditation.”

The inspector coughed.

“I have never believed Mr. Bechcombe's murder to have been
unpremeditated. Neither have you, I think, sir.”

“Well, no,” the other conceded. “The crime has always looked to me
like a carefully planned and skilfully executed murder. And yet—I
don't know.”

“It is the most absolutely baffling affair I have come across for
years,” Inspector Furnival observed slowly. “It is the question of
motive that is so puzzling. Once we have discovered that I do not
think the identity of the murderer will remain a secret long.”

“The public seems to have made up its mind that Thompson is guilty.”

“I know.” Inspector Furnival stroked his clean-shaven chin
thoughtfully. “But why should Thompson, having robbed his master
systematically for years, suddenly make up his mind to murder him? For
he didn't have the rubber gloves and the chloroform by accident you
know, sir.”

“Obviously not.” Mr. Steadman studied his finger nails in silence for
a minute, then he looked up suddenly. “Inspector, to my mind absolute
frankness is always best. Now, we do not know that Thompson went to
Mr. Bechcombe's room at all on the morning of the murder. But there is
another whose name is being freely canvassed who certainly did go to
the room.”

“Ay, Mr. Tony Collyer,” the inspector said, frowning as he looked over
his notes again. “The obvious suspect. Motive and opportunity—neither
lacking. But here the question of premeditation comes in again. Young
Collyer would not have known he would have the excellent opportunity
that really did occur. Would he have come on chance provided with
chloroform and rubber gloves? Would he not have fixed up an
opportunity when he could have been certain of finding Mr. Bechcombe
in? And also when his fiancée, Miss Cecily Hoyle, was out of the way?
Then, when he did put his rubber gloves on is a question. According to
Miss Hoyle's testimony he had not got them on when she left him. He
could hardly bring them out while Mr. Bechcombe was talking to him.
No, so far as I can see nothing conclusive with regard to either of
these two is to be found, Mr. Steadman. What do you think yourself?”

“Personally I shall find it always a very difficult matter to believe
Tony Collyer guilty, strong though the evidence seems against him,”
Mr. Steadman said frankly. “Thompson, I must confess, seems a very
different proposition. Then we must remember the third person in the
case, the lady of the white gloves.”

“The owner of the white glove did not strangle Mr. Bechcombe,”
Inspector Furnival said positively. “Though she may have been an
accomplice. The experts' evidence decided that the fingers of the hand
that killed Mr. Bechcombe were considerably too large to have gone
into that white glove.”

“So that's that!” said the barrister. “Well, it is a curious case. It
seemed bristling with clues at first. And yet they all seem to lead
nowhere.”

“One of them will in time, though,” the inspector remarked
confidently. “The thread is in our hands right enough, Mr. Steadman.
We shall find the other end before long.”

“You don't mean——” the barrister was beginning when there was an
interruption.

There was a knock at the door. Mr. Steadman put up his pince-nez as
the inspector opened the door. To their surprise Aubrey Todmarsh stood
in the passage. He stepped inside, his face paling as he glanced round
the room in which his uncle had met his death.

“Ugh!” He shivered. “There is a terrible atmosphere about this room,
inspector. Even if one did not know it, I think one would
unconsciously sense the fact that some horrible crime had been
committed here.”

“Um, I am not much of a believer in that sort of thing,” Mr. Steadman
answered. “It is easy enough to sense crime, as you call it, when you
know that it has been committed.”

Aubrey shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, I don't know. You may be right, but I shall stick to my
convictions. There are subtler emotions that cannot be shared by
anyone. But I am here on business to-day. One of my men, my most
trusted men—Hopkins by name—has been doing some work in the East End
up by the docks. He met with a man whom he believes to have been
Thompson.”

“When?” Mr. Steadman questioned sharply.

“Two days ago.”

“Then why didn't he speak out sooner?”

“He did not see any description of Thompson until this morning. Then
he saw one outside a police-station and he remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

“This man,” Aubrey responded impatiently. “A man that answered to
Thompson's description. He came down to the docks and tried to get a
job on some distant cargo boat. Said he could do anything; but Hopkins
noticed that his hands were smooth and carefully manicured. Like a
gentleman's hands, Hopkins described them.”

“Did he get his job on the cargo boat?”

“Hopkins thinks that he did, or, at any rate, if not that he managed
to get taken as a passenger. He went off somewhere.”

“Where was the cargo boat bound for?” Mr. Steadman seemed more
interested than the inspector who was making notes in a desultory
fashion.

Aubrey shook his head.

“Hopkins doesn't know. You see he had no particular reason to notice
anything about the man. He would not have done so at all but for the
hands, I think.”

“You said just now that Hopkins recognized him from the description
when he saw it,” Mr. Steadman pursued. “I must say I thought it
delightfully vague. A study in negatives, I should call it.”

“It wasn't very definite, of course. And Hopkins may have been
entirely mistaken. But he said he particularly noticed the short brown
beard and the defective teeth.”

“Um!” Mr. Steadman stuck his hands in his pockets. “I am inclined to
think Hopkins' identification a flight of the imagination. The
police-station description tells what Thompson was like when he left
here. I should look out for a clean-shaven man with regular teeth
now.”

Todmarsh did not look pleased.

“I suppose I am particularly stupid, but I really fail to understand
why the police should circulate a description when they want something
entirely opposite.”

“My dear man, you don't imagine that a man who could hide his traces
as Thompson did would be foolish enough to leave his personal
appearance unprovided for? No. We must have every cargo boat that left
the docks overhauled at its first stopping-place, but I don't fancy we
shall find Thompson on any of them.”

“Well, he has managed to get away somehow, and I thought you might be
glad to hear of something that is a possible clue,” Todmarsh said
sulkily.

At this moment the telephone bell, Mr. Luke Bechcombe's own telephone
bell, rang sharply. Todmarsh stopped and started violently, staring at
the telephone as if he expected to see his uncle answer it.

The inspector took up the receiver; the other men watched him
breathlessly.

“Yes, yes, Inspector Furnival speaking,” they heard him say. “Yes, I
will be with you as soon as it is possible. Detain her at all hazards
until I come.”

He rang off and turned.

“What do you think that was?”

“Thompson caught at the docks,” Aubrey Todmarsh suggested.

Mr. Steadman said nothing, but a faint smile crossed his lips as he
glanced at the inspector.

“The message is that a lady is at Scotland Yard asking to see the
official who is in charge of the Bechcombe case,” Inspector Furnival
said, glancing from one to the other of his auditors as if to note the
effect of his words on them. “A lady, who refused to give her name,
but who says that she saw the late Mr. Luke Bechcombe on the day of
his death.”

His words had the force of a bombshell thrown between the others.

Aubrey Todmarsh did not speak, but his face turned visibly whiter. He
moistened his lips with his tongue. Even the impassive Mr. Steadman
started violently.

“The lady of the glove!” he exclaimed.

The inspector caught up his hat.

“I don't know. I must ascertain without delay, Mr. Steadman.”



CHAPTER VIII

Dismissing his taxi at the Archway, Inspector Furnival made the best
of his way to his office. Outside a man was standing. He touched his
forehead respectfully.

“Glad to see you, sir. The lady has just been to the door to say she
can't wait more than five minutes longer.”

The inspector paused.

“What is her name, Jones?”

The man shook his head.

“She wouldn't give one, sir. She said her business was with the
detective in charge of the Bechcombe case, and with him alone. I was
on tenterhooks all the time, sir, fearing that she would be gone
before you came.”

The inspector nodded and went on.

He turned the handle of his door quietly and entered the room as
quickly and noiselessly as possible. If he had hoped to surprise his
visitor, however, he found himself disappointed.

She was standing immediately opposite the door with her back to the
window. She did not wait for him to speak.

“Are you in charge of the Bechcombe case?” she demanded, and he
noticed that her voice was powerful and rather hard in tone.

The inspector glanced keenly at her as he walked to the chair behind
his office table. Standing thus with her back to the light he could
see little of his visitor's face, which was also concealed by the hat
which was crushed down upon her forehead and overshadowed by an
uncurled feather mount. But he could tell that she was fashionably
gowned, that the furs she had thrown back from her shoulders were
costly.

He answered her question and asked another.

“I am Inspector Furnival, and I am inquiring into the circumstances of
Mr. Bechcombe's death. May I ask why you want to know?”

His interlocutor took a few steps forward, clasping her hands
nervously together.

“You know that a white glove was found by Mr. Bechcombe's desk?”

“Yes.”

“It was my glove. I left it there!”

The inspector did not speak for a minute. He unlocked a drawer and
took out an official-looking notebook.

“Your name and address, madam?”

“Is that necessary?” There was a quiver in the clear tones. “I have
told you that I was there—that the glove is mine. Is not that enough?”

“Scarcely, madam. But”—waiving the subject of the name for a
moment—“why have you not spoken before?”

“I didn't hear at first.” She hesitated a moment, her foot tapping the
floor impatiently.

And now she was nearer to him he could see that her make-up was
extensive, that complexion and eyes owed much of their brilliancy to
art, and that the red-gold hair probably came off entirely. But it was
a handsome face, though not that of a woman in her first youth. The
features, though large, were well formed, and the big blue eyes would
have been more beautiful without the black lines with which they were
embellished.

“I don't read the papers much, at least only the society news and
about the theatres—never murders or horrors of that kind, and it was
not until I heard some people talking about it, and they mentioned Mr.
Bechcombe's name, that I knew what had happened. I did not realize
at first that it—the murder had taken place on the very day which
I had been to the office, and that it was my glove that had been
found beside the desk. Even then I made up my mind not to speak out
if I could help it. Mr. Bechcombe was alive and well when I saw
him. I couldn't tell you anything about the murder. And I couldn't
have my name mixed up in a murder trial, or let the papers, or
certain—er—people get to know what I had been doing at Mr. Bechcombe's
office.”

“Then why have you come to us now?”

“Because I thought, if I didn't tell you, you would be sure to find
out,” was the candid reply. “And—and if I came myself I thought you
might call me Madame X, or something like that. They do, you know, and
then perhaps—er—people might never know.”

The inspector smiled.

“I am afraid you are too well known and the illustrated papers are too
ubiquitous for that, Mrs. Carnthwacke.”

She emitted a slight scream.

“Oh! How did you know?”

The inspector's smile became more apparent.

“I was a great admirer of Miss Bella Laymond on the Variety stage. I
had the pleasure of ‘assisting’ at her marriage with the American
millionaire, Cyril B. Carnthwacke—that is to say, I was passing a
fashionable church, saw a large waiting crowd, and was lucky enough to
get in the first rank and obtain a good view of the beautiful bride. I
could not help remembering a face like that, Mrs. Carnthwacke. And now
I want you to forget that I am a detective, and just think that I am a
friend who is anxious to help you, and tell me all the story of your
visit to Mr. Bechcombe.”

He pushed forward a chair as he spoke.

She looked from it to him undecidedly for a minute. Then, as if coming
to a sudden resolution, she sat down and pulled the chair nearer to
his desk.

“You promise not to tell my—husband what I am going to tell you?”

“I promise,” the inspector said reassuringly. “Now, first please, why
did you come to Luke Bechcombe's office on the day of his death?”

“Well, I dare say you know my husband is very rich?”

The inspector nodded. Cyril B. Carnthwacke's name and his millions
were well known to the man in the street.

“When we were married he gave the most gorgeous jewels,” Mrs.
Carnthwacke went on. “And he made me an enormous allowance. Americans
are always generous—bless you, I thought I was going to have the time
of my life. But I—I had never been rich. Even when I got on on the
stage and had a big salary I was always in debt. I suppose I am
extravagant by nature. Anyway, when I was married it seemed to me that
I had an inexhaustible store to fall back upon. I spent money like
water with the result that after a time I had to go for more to my
husband. He gave it to me, but I could see that he was astonished and
displeased. Still, I could not change my nature. I gambled at cards,
on the racecourse, on the Stock Exchange, and I staked high to give
myself a new excitement. Sometimes I won, but more often I lost and my
husband helped me again and again. But more and more I could see I was
disappointing him. At last he told me that he would pay no more for
me; he hated and mistrusted all gambling and I must make my huge
allowance do. I couldn't—I mean I couldn't give up gambling. It was in
my blood. And just as I was in a horrible hole the worst happened. A—a
man who had been my lover years ago began to blackmail me. I gave him
all I could but nothing satisfied him.” She stopped and passed a tiny
lace-trimmed handkerchief over her lips.

“Why did you not tell your husband?” the inspector inquired. “I guess
Mr. Carnthwacke would have settled him pretty soon.”

“I—I daren't,” she confessed. “And I have been an awful ass. He—this
man—had letters. They were silly enough, goodness knows, and they
might have been read to mean more than they did, and my husband is
jealous—terribly, wickedly jealous of my past. At last he—the man—said
that if I would pay him a large, an enormous sum, he would go abroad
and I should never hear of him again. If I did not he swore he would
send the letters to my husband in such a fashion that the worst
construction would be placed upon them. What was I to do? I hadn't any
money. I dared not tell my husband. I made several attempts to pull
off a grand _coup_, and only got worse in the mire. I made up my mind
to sell my diamonds and substitute paste. A friend of mine had done so
and apparently had never been suspected. But I couldn't take them to
the shop myself—we were too well known in London. And, when I was at
my wit's end to know what to do with them, I happened to hear a woman
saying how she had disposed of hers quite legitimately and openly
through a solicitor, Mr. Luke Bechcombe. I thought perhaps he might do
something for me, and I rang him up.”

“Well?” the detective said interrogatively; his face was as
expressionless as ever, but there was a veiled eagerness in his
deep-set eyes as they watched Mrs. Carnthwacke's every movement.

“I told him what I wanted. And he said it would be necessary to have
them valued. We talked it over and made an appointment for two days
later, the very day he was murdered. I was to take them to him myself.
And he told me to go down the passage to his private door so that none
of his clients should see me, because I explained that it must be kept
a real dead secret.”

“What time was your appointment for?” the inspector asked.

“A quarter past twelve,” Mrs. Carnthwacke answered. “But I was late—it
must have been quite half-past when I got there. He looked at the
diamonds and said that they were very fine and he would have them
valued at once and get them disposed of for me if I approved of the
price. He was to ring me up at twelve o'clock the next day. But of
course he didn't, and I couldn't think what had happened, until I saw
this dreadful thing in the papers. Oh, you will keep my name out of
it, won't you?”

She broke off and looked appealingly at the inspector. He did not
answer. For once in his long experience he was thoroughly taken aback.
The woman had told her story calmly and convincingly enough, but—and
as the inspector looked at her he wondered if she had no idea of the
horrible danger in which she stood.

“I will do my best for you in every way,” he said at last. “But you
must first answer all my questions straightforwardly. You have at
least done the right thing in coming to us now, though it might have
been better if you had come earlier. Now first will you tell me
exactly what time you reached Mr. Bechcombe's office?”

“Well, as I say, I ought to have been there at a quarter past twelve,
but I dare say it was half-past, or it might have been a quarter to
one.”

The inspector kept his keen eyes upon her face; not one change in her
expression could escape him.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, do you know that the doctors have stated that Mr.
Bechcombe died about twelve o'clock—sooner rather than later?”

“Twelve o'clock!” Her face turned almost livid in spite of its
make-up, but her blue eyes met the inspector's steadily. “It's no use,
inspector. I suppose doctors make mistakes like other folks sometimes.
Luke Bechcombe was alive, very much alive, when I went in about
half-past twelve.”

The inspector did not argue the question, but his eyes did not relax
their watchful gaze for one second as he went on.

“How did Mr. Bechcombe seem when you saw him? Did you notice anything
peculiar about his manner?”

“Well, I had never seen him before, so I couldn't notice any
difference. He just seemed an ordinary, pleasant sort of man. He
admired my diamonds very much and said we ought to get a high price
for them. He was to have had them valued the next day. Now—now I am in
pressing need of money and I want to have them valued myself if you
will give them back to me.”

For once Inspector Furnival was shaken out of his usual passivity.

“You—do you mean that you left the diamonds there?”

“Well, of course! Haven't I been telling you so all this time?” Mrs.
Carnthwacke said impatiently. “Mr. Bechcombe gave me a receipt for
them, and locked them up in his safe—like that one!”

She pointed to the wall where a large cupboard was built into it.

“The—the executors will give them to me, won't they?”

The inspector went over and stood near the door.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, when the door of the safe was opened in the
presence of Mr. Bechcombe's executors and of the police, there were no
diamonds there.”

“What! You do not—you cannot mean that my diamonds are lost!” Mrs.
Carnthwacke started to her feet. “Mr. Bechcombe put them in the safe
himself, I tell you.”

“That was not a safe. It is just an ordinary cupboard in which papers
and documents of no particular importance were kept. And when the safe
was opened there was no sign of diamonds there,” the inspector said
positively. “It may be possible that Mr. Bechcombe moved them before,
otherwise——”

“Otherwise what?” she demanded. “Heavens, man, speak out! My diamonds
are worth thousands of pounds. Otherwise what?”

“Otherwise they may have provided a motive for the crime,” the
inspector said slowly. “But no—that is impossible, if you saw him lock
them up.”

“Of course I did, you may bet I watched that.” Mrs. Carnthwacke calmed
down a little. “Besides, I have got the receipt. That makes him, or
his executors liable for the diamonds, doesn't it?”

“Have you the receipt here?” the inspector asked quickly.

“Of course. I thought it might be wanted to get back my diamonds. The
fact that your firm might deny having them never entered my head.”

She opened the vanity bag which hung at her side and took out a piece
of paper crushed with much folding.

“There! You can't get away from that!”

The inspector read it.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke has entrusted her diamonds to me for valuation and I
have deposited them in my safe. Signed—Luke Francis Bechcombe,” he
read.

The paper on which it was written was Luke Bechcombe's. There was no
doubt of that. The inspector had seen its counterpart in Mr.
Bechcombe's private room. But his face altered curiously as he looked
at it.

“Certainly, if this receipt was given you by Mr. Bechcombe, the estate
is liable for the value of the diamonds,” he finished up.

“Well, Mr. Bechcombe gave it me, safe enough,” Mrs. Carnthwacke
declared. “I put it in this same little bag and went off, little
thinking what was going to happen. It struck one as I came out.”

“One o'clock!” The inspector was looking puzzled. If Mrs.
Carnthwacke's story was true it was in direct contradiction to the
doctors'. “Did you meet anyone on the stairs?”

Mrs. Carnthwacke looked undecided.

“I don't remember. Yes, I think I did—some young man or another. I
didn't notice him much.”

“And you didn't notice anything peculiar in Mr. Bechcombe's manner?”

“Nothing much,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said, holding out her hand for the
receipt. “I'll have that back, please. You bet I don't part with it
till I have got my diamonds back. The only thing I thought was that
Mr. Bechcombe seemed in rather a hurry—sort of wanted me to quit.”

The inspector felt inclined to smile. Half an hour in the busiest time
of the day seemed a fairly liberal allowance even for a millionaire's
wife.

“Now, can you tell me how many people know that you were bringing the
diamonds to Mr. Bechcombe?”

“Not one. What do you take me for? A first-class idiot?” Mrs.
Carnthwacke demanded indignantly. “Nobody knew that I had the diamonds
at all—not even my maid. I kept them in a little safe in my
bedroom—one my husband had specially made for me. Great Scott, I was a
bit too anxious to keep the whole business quiet to go talking about
it.”

“Not even to the friend that told you that Mr. Bechcombe had helped
her out of a similar difficulty?”

“No, not a word! I didn't think of asking Mr. Bechcombe while she was
with me, and the next day she went off to Cannes and I haven't seen
her since. The receipt, please?”

The inspector did not relax his hold.

“You will understand that this is a most valuable piece of evidence,
madam. You will have to entrust it to me. I will of course give you a
written acknowledgment that I have it.”

The colour flashed into Mrs. Carnthwacke's face.

“Do you mean that you will not let me have it back?”

“I am afraid I cannot, madam.”

She sprang forward with outstretched hands—just missed it by half an
inch. The inspector quietly put it in his notebook and, snapping the
elastic round it, returned it to his pocket.

“You may rely upon me to do my best for you, madam. I shall make every
possible search for the diamonds and will communicate with the
executors, who will of course recognize their responsibility if the
jewels are not found. And now will you let me give you one piece of
advice?”

“I don't know. I guess I am not a good person to give advice to.”

Evidently Mrs. Carnthwacke was not to be placated. Her eyes flashed,
and one foot beat an impatient tattoo on the floor.

The inspector was unruffled.

“Nevertheless, I think I will venture upon it. Tell your husband
yourself what has happened. He will help you more efficiently than
anyone else in the whole world can. And Mr. Carnthwacke's advice is
worth having.”



CHAPTER IX

“Good morning, Miss Hoyle.” Inspector Furnival rose and placed a chair
for the girl, scrutinizing her pale face keenly as he did so.

Cecily sat down.

“You sent for me,” she said nervously.

The inspector took the chair at the top of the table that had been
Luke Bechcombe's favourite seat.

His interview with Cecily Hoyle was taking place by special
arrangement in the library of the murdered man's private house, where,
by special desire of Mrs. Bechcombe, Cecily was now installed as
secretary to her late employer's widow.

The canny inspector had taken care to place the girl's chair so that
the light from the near window fell full upon her face. As he drew his
papers towards him and opened a capacious notebook he was thinking how
white and worn the girl was looking, and there was a frightened glance
in her brown eyes as she sat down that did not escape him.

The door opened to admit John Steadman. After a slight bow to Cecily
he sat down at the inspector's right.

“Yes,” the inspector said, glancing across at Cecily, “I want to ask
you a few questions, Miss Hoyle. It may make matters easier for you at
the adjourned inquest if you answer them now.”

“I will do my best,” Cecily said, looking at him with big, alarmed
eyes. “But, really, I have told you everything I know.”

John Steadman watched her from his lowered eyes. She would be a good
witness with the jury, he thought, this slim, pale girl, with her
great appealing eyes and her pathetic, trembling lips.

“A few curious sidelights have arisen in connexion with Mr.
Bechcombe's death,” the inspector pursued. “And I think you may be
able to help me more than you realize. First, you recognize this, of
course?” He took from its envelope of tissue paper the picture post
card he had found in Amos Thompson's room in Brooklyn Terrace and
handed it to her.

Cecily gazed at it in growing amazement.

“It—it looks like me! It _is_ me, I believe,” she said
ungrammatically. “But how in the world did you get it?”

“I found it,” the inspector said slowly, watching every change in her
mobile face as he spoke, “in Amos Thompson's room in Brooklyn
Terrace.”

Cecily stared at him.

“Impossible! You couldn't have! Why should Mr. Thompson have my
photograph? And where was this taken, anyway?”

“That is what I am hoping you may tell us.”

“But I can't! I don't know!” Cecily said, still gazing in a species of
stupefaction at her presentment. “It—it is a snapshot, of course, but
I never saw it before, I never knew when it was taken.”

“You did not give it to Amos Thompson, then?” the inspector
questioned.

“Good heavens, no! I knew nothing about Mr. Thompson. I have just seen
him at a distance in the office. But I have never spoken to him in my
life. I should not have known him had I met him in the street.”

“You can give no explanation of his treasuring your photograph then?”

Cecily shook her head. “I can't indeed. I should have thought it a
most unlikely thing to happen. I cannot bring myself to believe that
it did. This thing”—flicking the card with her forefinger—“must have
got into his room by accident.”

The inspector permitted himself a slight smile.

“I really do not think so.”

Cecily shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I give it up. Unless—unless”—an
accent of fear creeping into her voice—“he wanted to implicate me, to
make you think that I had been helping him to rob Mr. Bechcombe.”

“In that case he would surely have thought of some rather more sure
plan than leaving your photograph about in his room,” said the
inspector. “You do not think it likely that seeing you so much in the
office, he has taken a fancy to you—fallen in love with you, in fact,
as people say.”

“I do not, indeed!” Cecily said impatiently. “As I tell you, I know
nothing of Mr. Thompson, and he did not see much of me in the office.
I never went in to Mr. Bechcombe's room through the clerks' office. I
never had occasion to go there at all. My business concerned Mr.
Bechcombe, and Mr. Bechcombe only, and by his wish I always went to
him by the private door.”

“I see.” The inspector studied the photograph in silence. “You know
where this was taken?” he said at last.

Cecily looked at it again.

“It looks—I believe I am sitting in my favourite seat in the Field of
Rest. I suppose I must have been snapshotted without my knowing it—by
some amateur probably.”

“Mr. Thompson?” the inspector suggested.

“I do not know!” Cecily tip-tilted her chin scornfully. “It was a mean
thing to do, anyway.”

The inspector wrapped the photograph in its paper.

“No use bothering about that any more,” he said somewhat
contradictorily putting it away carefully in his pocket as he did so.
“Now, Miss Hoyle, once more, you adhere to your statement that you
heard someone moving about in Mr. Bechcombe's room when you passed the
door on your return from lunch—that return being some little time
after one o'clock.”

“Half-past one, I dare say,” Cecily corrected. “As I came down the
passage I heard the door into Mr. Bechcombe's room close rather
softly, as I have heard Mr. Bechcombe close it heaps of times. Then
just as I passed I heard someone move inside the room distinctly. It
was a sound like a chair being moved and catching against something
hard—table leg or something of that sort.”

“And you are aware that the doctors say that Mr. Bechcombe's death
must have occurred about twelve o'clock?”

“I have heard so. You told me so,” Cecily murmured, then gathering up
her courage, “but doctors make mistakes very often.”

“Scarcely over a thing of this kind,” the inspector remarked. “I
suppose you realize the inference that will be drawn from your
testimony?” he went on.

A little frown came between Cecily's straight eyebrows.

“Inference? No, I don't!” she said bluntly.

“If Mr. Bechcombe died at twelve o'clock, and you heard someone moving
about when you came back about half-past one o'clock,” the inspector
said very slowly, giving due weight to each word, “the inference is
that the person you heard moving about when you came back was the
murderer.”

Cecily shivered as she stared at him.

“Oh, no, no, surely it could not have been! I do not believe it
could!”

The inspector made no rejoinder. He glanced at his notebook again.

“Most probably you will be among the first witnesses called at the
adjourned inquest on Friday, Miss Hoyle. I think that is all for
to-day. Your name and address, please.”

“Cecily Frances Hoyle, Hobart Residence, Windover Square.”

The detective wrote it down.

“I think that is only a temporary address, though, you said, Miss
Hoyle. Will you let me have your permanent one, please?”

Cecily hesitated in obvious confusion.

“I—I—that is my only address—the only one I have at present. I came to
Mr. Bechcombe straight from school.”

The inspector scratched the side of his nose with his pencil.

“That is rather awkward. It will be necessary that we should be in
touch with you for some time. And you might leave Hobart Residence at
any moment.”

“Then I could let you know,” Cecily suggested.

“That would not quite do,” the inspector said mildly. “No. Just give
me some address from which letters could be forwarded to you. Some
relatives, perhaps!”

“I don't know any of my relatives—yet,” Cecily faltered, a streak of
red coming in her pale cheeks. “But Miss Cochrane, Morley House,
Beesford, Meadshire, would always forward letters.”

The inspector wrote the address down without further comment.

Cecily got up. “If that is all, I think Mrs. Bechcombe wants me,
inspector.”

“Yes, thank you.” The inspector and Mr. Steadman rose too. John
Steadman moved to the door.

“I must introduce myself, Miss Hoyle,” he said courteously. “I am the
late Mr. Bechcombe's cousin and, as your post with Mrs. Bechcombe is
of course only temporary, it has struck me that you might possibly be
looking out for another engagement. Now, a friend of mine is in urgent
need of a secretary, and we thought you might like the post.”

The red streak in Cecily's cheeks deepened to crimson.

“I—I don't mean to do anything else at present, thank you.”

John Steadman looked disappointed.

“Oh, well! Then there is no more to be said. Should you change your
mind perhaps you will let us know,” he said politely.

When he had closed the door behind Cecily he looked across at the
inspector.

“Well, you were right.”

“I was pretty sure of my ground,” returned the inspector. “What do you
think of young Mr. Collyer's choice, Mr. Steadman?”

“Well, she looks a nice girl enough,” the barrister returned somewhat
dubiously.

“It is easier to look nice than to be nice nowadays,” the inspector
returned enigmatically. “What do you make of this, Mr. Steadman?”
throwing a torn telegram form on the table. “And this, and this,”
placing several odd pieces of writing paper beside it.

The barrister bent over them. The used telegraph form had been torn
across and crumpled, but as the inspector smoothed it out the writing
was perfectly legible.

“Do not mention home address. Father.”

“Um!” John Steadman drew in his lips. “Handed in at Edgware Road
Post-Office at 12.30, March 4th,” he said. “Well!”

He turned to the scraps of paper. The inspector leaned forward and
pieced them together. The whole made part of a letter.

“Will see you as soon as possible. In the meantime be very careful. A
chance word of yours may do untold harm. Say as little as possible—all
will be explained later. Further instructions will reach you soon.”
Then came a piece that was torn away, and it ended in the corner—“5
o'clock, Physical Energy.”

John Steadman's face was very stern as he looked up.

“It is obvious the girl knows—something. How did you get these scraps
of paper, inspector?”

“One of our most trustworthy women agents has been doing casual work
in Hobart Residence,” said Inspector Furnival with a quiet smile.
“These were found in Miss Cecily Hoyle's room there, in the
waste-paper-basket.”

“Have you taken any steps in the matter?”

“Not yet! Of course we have had ‘Physical Energy’—the statue in
Kensington Gardens, you know—watched since yesterday morning, but so
far there has been no sign of Miss Cecily Hoyle, or of anyone who
could be identified as the writer of that letter.”

“Have you any idea who that is likely to be?”

“Well, ideas are not much use, are they, sir? It is not young Mr.
Collyer's writing, so much is certain, I think.”

Was the inspector's reply evasive? Used to weighing evidence, John
Steadman decided that it was. He made no comment, however, but bent
his brows over the paper once more.

“Of course the temporary help has been chatting with the regular staff
at Hobart Residence,” the inspector pursued. “But there is little
enough to be learned of Miss Hoyle there. Hobart Residence is a sort
of hostel, you know, sir; all the inmates are supposed to be ladies in
some sort of a job. They have a bedroom varying in price according to
its position, and there is a general dining-room in which meals are
served at a very reasonable price. Miss Hoyle usually took her
breakfast and dinner there and was very seldom absent from either
meal. She was looked upon as a very quiet, well-conducted girl, but
she made no friends—and nothing was known of her private life. It was
impossible to get at her home address there. Then I rang up Miss
Watson, her old schoolmistress, but found that Cecily Hoyle's father
had always paid her school bills in advance. He is an artist and has
never given any settled address; sometimes he took his daughter away
in the vacation. If he did not Miss Watson was asked to arrange a
seaside or country holiday for her. Miss Watson only knew the Hobart
Residence address.”

“Extraordinary! I should have thought Cecily Hoyle one of the last
girls about whom there would be any mystery,” was the barrister's
comment.

“Well, having drawn both those coverts blank, yesterday I made an
exhaustive search of her room at Mr. Bechcombe's offices,” the
inspector proceeded. “For a long time I thought I was going to have no
better luck there. There were no letters; no private papers of any
kind. Then just at the last I had a bit of luck. Right down at the
bottom of the drawer in Miss Hoyle's desk I found a time-table. I ran
through it, not expecting to discover anything there when I noticed
that one leaf was turned down. It was a London and South Western
Railway Guide, I may mention, and it was one of the ‘B’ pages that was
turned down. I ran down it and saw in a minute that some one had been
doing so with a lead pencil—there were several marks down the page—and
one name, that of Burford in the New Forest, was underlined.”

“Burford, Burford!” John Steadman repeated reflectively. “Why, of
course I have been there for golf. There are some very decent links.
My friend, Captain Horbsham, rented a house in the neighbourhood, and
I have been over the course with him.”

“Many burglaries down there?” the inspector said abruptly.

The barrister emitted a short laugh. “None that I ever heard of. Why,
do you suspect Miss Hoyle——?”

“I don't suspect anybody,” the inspector returned. “It isn't my place
to, you know, sir. But I am going down to Burford to-morrow morning.
Do you feel inclined to come with me?”

“I don't mind if I do,” said the barrister cheerfully. “I can always
do with a day in the country. We will drive down in the car, and I
might take my clubs.”



CHAPTER X

“Just one o'clock. We have come down in very decent time. Tidy old
bus, isn't it?” John Steadman replaced his watch and looked round with
interest as his car slowed down before the “Royal Arms” at Burford.
Rather a dilapidated “Royal Arms” to judge by the signboard swaying in
the breeze, but quite a picturesque-looking village inn for all that.
There was no station within five miles of Burford, which so far had
preserved it from trippers. Of late, however, two or three of the
ubiquitous chars-à-bancs had strayed through the village and there
appeared every prospect of its being eventually opened up. This, with
other scraps of information, was imparted by the garrulous landlord to
Mr. Steadman and his companion, Inspector Furnival. But, though he
talked much of the village and its inhabitants, the inspector did not
catch the name for which he was listening. At last he spoke.

“I used to know a man named Hoyle who lived somewhere in this part. I
wonder if he is still here?”

“Oh, I should think that would be Mr. Hoyle of Rose Cottage,” the
landlord said at once. “A very nice gentleman. He has been here some
years. He is an artist, as no doubt you know, sir. And I have heard
that some of his paintings have been exhibited in London in the Royal
Academy. Oh, we are very proud of Mr. Hoyle down here.”

“He is a good deal away on his sketching expeditions, though, isn't
he?” the inspector ventured.

“Well, naturally he is,” the landlord agreed. “Sometimes he's away
weeks at a time. But he is generally here on a Sunday to take the
collection in church. He is a sidesman and takes a great interest in
parish matters. I did hear that he was far away the biggest subscriber
to the new parish hall that our vicar is having built. Oh, a very nice
gentleman is Mr. Hoyle. Mrs. Wye, his housekeeper, can't say so often
enough.”

“I think that must be the man I used to know,” said the inspector
mendaciously. “I think we must drive up and pay him a visit, Mr.
Steadman. It isn't far, you said, I think, landlord?”

“Get there in ten minutes in the car, sir. Rose Cottage, straight up
by the church. You can't miss it. But, there, I doubt if you will find
Mr. Hoyle at home. I was at church on Sunday morning and I noticed he
wasn't. He usually is when he is at home. I can't always say the same
myself!” And the landlord shook his fat sides at his own pleasantry.

“Well, I think we will try anyway,” the inspector concluded. “Perhaps
Miss Hoyle may be at home if he isn't.”

“Miss Hoyle?” The landlord looked puzzled for a moment then his face
cleared. “Oh, Mr. Hoyle's daughter you mean, sir. No. She is away at
school, though Mr. Hoyle did say she would be coming home ‘for keeps’
this year.”

“Anyhow I shall leave a message and Mr. Hoyle will know I have looked
him up,” said the inspector pleasantly. “I expect he would think me a
good deal altered, for we haven't met for something like twelve years,
and we none of us grow younger, you know, landlord.”

“We don't, sir, that's a fact. Not but what Mr. Hoyle is as little
changed as anybody I know. Just the same pleasant-looking gentleman he
is as he was the first time I saw him. A nice cheerful gentleman is
Mr. Hoyle—always ready with his joke.”

The inspector nodded.

“Oh, ay. Just the same, I see. Well, well, we will be off. As likely
as not we shall come in here on our way back. Anyhow, I shall not
forget your Stilton in a hurry, landlord. I haven't had a cut from a
cheese like that since I was a boy in Leicestershire. By the way, what
was that I heard of a burglary down this way last week?”

The landlord scratched his head.

“It is funny you should ask that, sir. I haven't heard of anything
lately. I was talking to a couple of gents this morning about a
robbery there was about this time a year ago—a couple of robberies I
might say. Squire Morpeth over at the Park, and Sir John Lington at
Lillinghurst were both broken into and hundreds of pounds' worth of
goods—silver and what not—taken. Nobody was ever brought to account
for it either, though there were big rewards offered.”

“Dear, dear! One doesn't expect to hear of such things in a quiet
little place like Burford,” the inspector observed contradictorily.
“Well, so long, landlord. See you again later.”

It did not take long, following the landlord's instruction, to run the
car up to Rose Cottage, but just as they were nearing it John Steadman
looked at his companion.

“I think you're running off on a side track, you know, inspector.”

“I'm sure I am!” the other returned cheerfully. “But, when the
straight track takes you nowhere, one is inclined to make a little
excursion down a side path, right or wrong.”

Rose Cottage looked quite an ideal dwelling for an artist. It was a
black and white timbered cottage standing back from the road, its
garden for the most part surrounded by a high hedge. Over the walls
creepers were running riot. Later on there would be a wealth of
colour, but to-day only the pyrus japonica was putting forth
adventurous rosy blossoms. A wicket gate gave access to the gravelled
path running up to the rustic porch between borders gay with
crocuses—purple and white and gold.

“Evidently cars are not expected here,” John Steadman remarked as he
and the inspector alighted and walked up to the front door.

There was apparently no bell, but there was a shining brass knocker.
Inspector Furnival applied himself to it with great energy.

The door was opened by a pleasant-looking woman, who was hastily
donning a white apron.

“Mr. Hoyle?” the inspector queried.

“Not at home,” the woman said at once.

The inspector hesitated. “Can you tell me when he will be at home?”

The woman shook her head. “I cannot indeed. He is away on a sketching
expedition, and one never knows when he will be back. It may be a week
or a month or longer.”

“Oh, dear!” The inspector looked at Mr. Steadman. “This is most
unfortunate! I was particularly anxious to see him to-day. However, I
suppose I must write. I wonder if you would let me just scribble a
line here? I should esteem it a great favour if you would.”

For a moment the woman looked doubtful, then after a keen glance at
the two men she led the way to a sitting-room that apparently ran from
back to front of the house. She indicated a writing-table.

“You will find pens and ink there, sir.”

The inspector sat down. “A very pretty room this,” he began
conversationally. “I wonder if I am right in thinking that you are
Mrs. Hoyle?”

“Oh, dear, no, sir.” The woman laughed. “I am only Mr. Hoyle's
housekeeper. I have lived with him ever since he came to Burford.”

“And that must be a dozen years or more ago now. And I haven't seen
him a dozen times, I should say,” the inspector went on. “Dear, dear,
how time flies! His daughter must be grown up, I suppose,” he went on,
examining the pens before him with meticulous care.

“Miss Cecily? Oh, yes; a fine-looking young lady too. She will be here
for good very soon.”

Meanwhile John Steadman, standing near the door, was glancing
appraisingly round the room. It was essentially a man's room. The
chairs, square solid table, sideboard and writing-table were all of
oak, very strong, the few easy chairs were leather covered and
capacious, there was nothing unnecessary in the room. Near the French
window looking on to the garden at the back of the house there stood
an easel with an untidy pile of sketches piled one on top of the other
upon it. A table close at hand held more sketches, tubes of paint, a
palette and various paint brushes. Steadman walked across and took one
of the water-colours from the easel.

“I like this,” he said, holding it from him at arm's length. “It is a
charming little view of one of the forest glades near here, taken at
sunset. Is there any possibility of this being for sale?”

“Well, I don't rightly know, sir,” the housekeeper said, coming over
to him. “Mr. Hoyle do sell some of his pictures, I know. But it is
always in London. I have never known him do it down here.”

John Steadman smiled.

“Well, I shouldn't think there would be many customers down here. But
I could do with a couple. This one—and another to make a pair with
it.”

“Well, sir, perhaps you will write to Mr. Hoyle about it,” the
housekeeper suggested. “I couldn't say anything about it.”

“Of course not,” the barrister assented. He looked very closely at the
picture for a minute, and then put it back on the easel. “Well, I must
leave it at that; and hope to persuade Mr. Hoyle to part with it when
he comes back.”

As he spoke there came a loud knock at the door. He looked at the
housekeeper.

“It's all right, sir,” she said composedly. “It is only the baker's
man for orders, and my niece will go to the door. She always comes up
twice a week to give me a hand with the work. Me not being so young as
I might be.”

“We none of us are, ma'am,” the inspector said with a chuckle as he
sealed his letter and placed it in a conspicuous place on the
writing-table. “Not that you have much to complain about,” he added
gallantly as he rose.

The housekeeper smiled complacently as she saw them off to the little
garden. The inspector was in an expansive mood and stopped to admire
the crocuses as they passed.

“Well?” Mr. Steadman said as they seated themselves in the car before
starting.

The inspector waited until they had started before he replied, then he
said quietly:

“Well, Mr. Steadman, sir?”

“Well?” the barrister echoed. “I hope you have found what you
expected, inspector.”

“I hardly know what I did expect,” the inspector said candidly.
“Except that, if matters are as I suspect, Hoyle is certainly not the
man to give himself away.”

The barrister coughed.

“And yet I noticed one small thing that may help you, inspector. You
saw that water-colour sketch?”

“The one you are going to buy,” the inspector assented with a grin.
“Ay. I should like to have had a good look round at those drawings.
But that blessed housekeeper wasn't giving us any chances.”

“Not that she knew of,” John Steadman said quietly. “Did you notice
the big ‘Christopher Hoyle’ in the left-hand corner of the painting,
inspector?”

“I saw it,” said the inspector, “but it didn't tell me much.”

“No. That alone did not,” John Steadman went on. “But I looked at that
and I looked at several of the others. And I am as sure as I can be
without subjecting them to a test that in each case that big
flourishing Christopher Hoyle has been scrawled with a paint brush on
the top of another signature. One, moreover, that from the little I
could see of it bore no sort of resemblance to Christopher Hoyle. What
do you make of that, inspector?”

“Is Mr. Christopher Hoyle a man with two names?” the inspector
questioned. “Or has he some reason to wish to appear to be an artist
in simple Burford society when in reality he is nothing of the kind?”

“The latter, I imagine,” John Steadman said after a pause. “Because—I
don't know whether you know anything of painting, inspector?”

“Bless you, not a thing!” the inspector said energetically. “If I have
to do with a picture case, I have to call in experts! But you mean——”

“Judging from the three or four sketches I was able to examine I
should say that none of them—no two of them were done by the same
hand. There is as much difference in painting as in handwriting, you
know, inspector.”

“I see!” The detective sat silent for a minute, his eyes scanning the
flying landscape. “Well, it is pretty much what I expected to hear,”
he said at last. “It strengthens my suspicions so far——”

“I can't understand your suspicions,” John Steadman said impatiently.
“This man Hoyle is a bit of a humbug, evidently, but what connexion
can there be between him and Luke Bechcombe's murder?”

“His daughter?” the inspector suggested without looking round.

The barrister shrugged his shoulders. “That girl is no murderess.”

“No,” agreed the inspector. “But she is helping the guilty to escape.”

John Steadman raised his eyebrows. “Who is the guilty?”

For answer Inspector Furnival's keen, ferret eyes looked back at him,
focused themselves on the barrister's face as though they would wring
some truth from it.

But John Steadman's face would never give him away. In his day he had
been one of the keenest cross examiners at the bar. His eyes had never
been more blandly expressionless than now as they met the inspector's
inquiringly.

Defeated, the detective sank back in his corner of the car with a deep
breath, whether of relief or disappointment John Steadman could not
tell.

They were just entering Burford again. Before the car stopped the
inspector said quietly:

“Don't you know, sir?”

“I do not!” said John Steadman, looking him squarely in the face.

“Don't you guess?”

“Guessing,” said the barrister sententiously, “is a most unprofitable
employment. One I never indulge in.”

“Ah, well!” said the inspector as the car stopped before the door of
the inn. “I don't know, sir. And you don't guess. We will leave it at
that. Well, landlord”—as that worthy came to the door rubbing his
hands—“we are back upon your hands for tea. Mr. Hoyle was out.”



CHAPTER XI

Anthony Collyer got out of his bus at Lancaster Gate Tube. He looked
round, but there was no sign of the figure he was hoping to see. He
crossed the road and entered Kensington Gardens, stopping at the gate
to buy some chocolates of the kind that Cecily particularly affected.

Near the little sweet-stall a small ragged figure was skulking. In his
preoccupation Anthony did not even see him. Inside the Gardens he
turned into a sheltered walk on the right flanked on either side by
clumps of evergreens. There was a touch of chill in the wind, but the
sun was shining brightly and through the short grass the daffodils
were already adventurously poking their gay yellow heads. The urchin
who had been lurking by the palings followed slowly. He got over on
the grass in a leisurely fashion and ensconced himself out of sight in
the shadow of the evergreens.

Anthony had time to glance at his watch more than once and even to
grow a little impatient before Cecily appeared.

Then one glance was enough to show him that there was something amiss
with the girl. There were big blue half-circles beneath her eyes, and
the eyes themselves were dim and sunken. All her pretty colouring
looked blurred as she gave her hand to Anthony, and he saw that it was
trembling and felt that it was cold even through her glove. He held it
in both of his and chafed it.

“You are cold, dear,” he said solicitously. “Are your furs warm
enough? The wind is treacherous to-day.”

“Oh, I don't know. Yes, of course I am warm enough—I mean it does not
matter,” Cecily said incoherently. “I—I wrote to you—you know—because
I wanted to see you.”

Tony looked round. No one was in sight. He drew her to a seat beside
the path, knowing nothing of the unseen watcher hidden in the
rhododendrons.

“I hoped you did. I always want to see you, Cecily,” he said simply.

Cecily shivered away from him. “You—you must not.”

Anthony stared at her.

“Must not—what?” he said blankly. “Want to see you, do you mean?”

Cecily nodded.

“Oh, but it is no use telling me not to do that,” Anthony said
quaintly, “I shall want to see you every day as long as I live.”

“You will not be able to,” Cecily said desperately. “Because
now—to-day—I am going right out of your life—you will never see me
again.”

“Oh!” For a time Anthony said no more. His clasp of her hand relaxed.
Very quietly he returned to her the possession of it. “I see,” he said
at last. “You are giving me the chuck, are you not?”

The girl looked at him with frightened, miserable eyes.

“Tony, I can't help it.”

“Naturally you can't,” Tony assented moodily. “You couldn't be
expected to. I never was anything but a wretched match at the best of
times—even with the money Uncle Luke left me—but now, now that every
damned rag of a paper in the country is saying out as plainly as they
dare that I am a murderer, it settles the matter, of course.”

Cecily interrupted him with a little cry.

“Tony! You know it isn't that!”

A gleam of hope brightened Anthony Collyer's eyes.

“Not that? Is it just that you are sick of me then? Heaven knows I
wouldn't blame you for that. I was always a dull sort of chap. But I
love you, Cecily.”

The girl's big tragic eyes looked at his bent head with a sudden wave
of tenderness in their brown depths. “And I love you, Tony,” she said
beneath her breath. “But that does not matter.”

“Doesn't it?” A sudden fire leaped into Anthony's deep-set eyes. “Why,
that is just the one thing that matters—the only thing that does
matter. If you love me, I shall never go out of your life, Cecily.”

“Oh, yes, you will,” the girl said, putting his warm outstretched hand
back determinedly. “And it doesn't matter that we love one another,
not one bit. Because I am not going to marry anyone.”

“Of course you are!” said Anthony, staring at her. “You are going to
marry me. Do you really think I am going to let you back out of it
now?”

“You can't help yourself,” Cecily said, still with that miserable note
of finality in her voice. “It is no use, Tony. You have just got to
forget me.”

“Forget you!” Anthony said scornfully. “That is so likely, isn't it?
Now, dear, what is this bogy that you have conjured up that is going
to separate us? You say it has nothing to do with me?”

“No, no! Of course it hasn't!”

“And you haven't fallen in love with anyone else?”

“Don't be silly, Tony!” There was a momentary irritation in the clear
tones. But something in the accent, even in the homely words
themselves roused fresh hopes in Anthony's heart.

“Then it is something someone else has said,” he hazarded, “or done.”

For a moment Cecily did not answer. She pressed her lips very closely
together. At last she said slowly:

“That is all that I can tell you, Tony. I just wanted to say that
and—good-bye.”

“Good-bye!” Tony repeated scoffingly. “Nonsense, dear! You say that
this mysterious something has nothing to do with you or with me
personally. And for the rest of the world what does it matter? Nothing
counts but just you and me, sweetheart.”

“Oh, but it does!” Cecily contradicted firmly. “We—we can't think only
of ourselves. It—it is no use, Tony. My mind is made up.”

“Then I am going to unmake it,” Tony said with equal decision. “And,
if you won't tell me what you fancy is going to separate us, I am
going to find out for myself.”

Then for the first time Cecily's self-possession really deserted her.

“No, no! You must not!” she cried feverishly. “Tony, you must not—you
do not know what harm—what terrible harm you might do if you did.
Promise me—promise me you will not!” She caught at his arm with
trembling hands, as though to stop his threatened action by actual
physical force. If ever fear had looked out of human eyes, stark,
tragic fear, Anthony saw it then as he met her terrified gaze.

Some shadow of it communicated itself to him. He felt suddenly cold,
his face turned a sickly grey beneath its tan. In that moment he
realized fully that he was up against some very real and tangible
obstacle that stood definitely between Cecily and himself.

“Cecily!” he said hoarsely. “Cecily!”

The girl looked at him a moment, her lips twitching; then, as if
coming to some sudden resolution, she bent forward and whispered a few
words in his ear.

As he heard them he started back.

“What do you say, Cecily? That you—that you know—— But you are
mad—mad!”

“Hush!” the girl looked round fearfully. “No, I am not mad, Anthony,”
she said beneath her breath. “God knows I often wish I were.”

Then Anthony looked at her.

“Cecily! I can't believe it. You didn't——”

“Did you never suspect—that?” she questioned beneath her breath.

“Never! Before Heaven, never! How should I? It is inconceivable! But
the horrible danger——” His eyes voiced the dread he dared not put into
words, and with a stifled cry the girl turned from him.

Tony took off his hat and wiped away the sweat that was standing in
great drops on his forehead.

“It—it isn't possible! Cecily!” he murmured hoarsely. “It—it is a
lie!”

“I—I wish it was!” the girl said beneath her breath. “Oh, Tony, Tony,
I wish it was all a dream—a dreadful horrible dream. Last night I woke
and thought it was, and then I remembered. Oh, Tony, Tony!” She
shivered from head to foot. “I wish I were dead—oh, I wish I were
dead!”

Anthony mopped his forehead again. “In God's name what are we to do?”

Cecily's mouth twisted in something like a wry smile.

“It is not ‘we’ Tony. It never will be ‘we’ again. And I—I cannot tell
what I shall do yet. I must stay at the Residence of course until the
police——” She stopped, her throat working. “Until I am free to go
away,” she finished forlornly. “Then—then God knows what will become
of me! I—I expect I shall live out of England if—if I can.”

“Yes,” said Anthony slowly. “Yes. But that will not be for ever. We
are both young, and we can wait. And some day I will come and fetch
you home again.”

“No, no!” The horror in the girl's eyes deepened. “Won't you
understand, Tony? I shall never come back. I shall never be safe. From
to-day I shall be dead to you! But—but wait, Tony. Sometimes I do not
think that I shall get away—that I shall escape. For everywhere they
follow me. Always I know that I am being watched. They will never let
me go away. It is like a cat playing with a mouse. Just when the poor
little mouse thinks at last it is safe, the blow falls. Even
to-day—to-day—— Oh, Tony, look!” As she spoke, she sprang to her feet.

Anthony turned. At first sight there seemed nothing to account for her
agitation—just a very ordinary-looking man coming towards them from
the direction of the Broad Walk.

But as Tony looked he caught his breath sharply.

Cecily did not wait for him to speak.

“Stop him! Stop him!” she cried feverishly. “Don't let him come after
me. Keep him here until I have got away!”

She sped down the path towards Lancaster Gate.

Anthony went forward to meet the new-comer.

“Good morning, Mr. Steadman,” he said, endeavouring to make his voice
sound as natural as possible.

“Good morning, Tony.” John Steadman shook hands with him warmly, his
keen eyes taking in all the tokens of disturbance on the young man's
face. “I am afraid my appearance is rather inopportune,” he went on.
“Isn't that your young woman beating a hasty retreat down there?” In
the distance Cecily's scurrying figure could plainly be seen.

“Yes, she is in a hurry,” Anthony said lamely.

“Obviously!” The barrister smiled. “But I am glad to have this
opportunity of seeing you, Tony. I have been hoping to meet you.”

Mindful of Cecily's parting injunction Tony turned to the seat behind.

“Have a cigarette, sir?”

The barrister shook his head as he glanced at the open cigarette case.

“De Reszke! No, thanks! You are a bit too extravagant for me, young
man! I always smoke gaspers myself.” He sat down and took out his own
case. “You of course don't condescend to Gold Flake,” he went on. “I
am rather glad of this opportunity of having a chat with you, Tony.”

Tony lighted his cigarette and threw the match away before he spoke,
then he turned and looked John Steadman squarely in the face.

“I dare say you are, Mr. Steadman. So is your friend, Inspector
Furnival, whenever I meet him, I notice.”

The barrister paused in the act of lighting his match.

“You mean——?”

“I mean that, if folks think I murdered my uncle, I would just as soon
they said so straight out, as come poking around asking questions and
trying to trap me,” Anthony retorted bitterly.

John Steadman finished lighting his cigarette and blew a couple of
spirals in the clear air before he spoke, then he said slowly:

“The thought that you murdered your Uncle Luke is about the last that
would enter my head, Tony. No. What I wanted to ask you was, does that
job of yours stand—bear-leader to the young brother of a friend of
yours, I mean. The last time I saw you, you spoke as if it were off.”

“So it is!” Anthony returned moodily. “People don't want a man who is
as good as accused of murdering his own uncle to look after their
children. I might strangle the kid if he got tiresome.”

The barrister paid no attention to this outburst.

“Then I think I heard of something yesterday that may suit you. A
friend of mine has a son who was frightfully injured in the War. Both
his legs have been amputated and one wrist is practically helpless.
Now he wants some one to act as his secretary, for he has taken to
writing novels, passes the time for him, you know, and folks need not
read them if they don't want to.”

“It is very good of you to think of me,” Anthony said gratefully. “But
I don't know that I should make much hand at secretarial work. And
probably he wouldn't look at me if he knew.”

“He does know,” contradicted John Steadman. “And he is quite anxious
to have you. It won't be all secretarial work, though you will be
called a secretary. But you will be wanted to motor with him, to go
with him to race meetings; he is a great motoring enthusiast—keeps two
touring cars. Before the War he was one of our finest amateur jockeys,
and they say he never misses a meeting under N.H. rules now. I believe
he even has a couple of hurdlers at one of the big trainers. You will
have to go with him wherever he wants you. How does it strike you?”

“The question is, how shall I strike him?” Tony countered. “Will he
think he is safe with me?”

“Tony, my lad, you must not get morbid,” reproved the barrister. “My
friends know all about your connexion with the Bechcombes, and are
quite prepared to take you on my recommendation. You would not be
required to live in, and there is a nice little cottage on the estate
near the house that will be placed at your disposal. Your salary will
be good, and with what your uncle left you will make matrimony quite
possible. Now what do you say?”

“Say? What can I say but take it and be thankful,” Tony responded,
trying to make his tones sound as grateful as he could. “Would it be
far from town—this cottage?”

“Oh, not far!” the barrister said at once. “At Bramley Hall, near
Burford, in the New Forest. It is young Bramley, Sir John's eldest
son, you are wanted for.”

“Bramley Hall,” Tony repeated musingly. “I seem to know the name.
Wasn't there a burglary there a little while ago?”

“About eighteen months ago,” the barrister assented. “The house was
practically cleared of valuables in one night. Even Sir John's safe,
which he had deemed impregnable, was rifled. Oh, yes, it made quite a
stir. It was said to be the work of this Yellow Gang that folks are
always talking about, you know.”



CHAPTER XII

“I guess you are Inspector Furnival, sir.”

The inspector, with Mr. Steadman, was just about to enter New Scotland
Yard. He glanced keenly at his interlocutor. He saw a tall,
lantern-jawed, lean-shanked man who seemed in some indescribable way
to carry Yankee writ large all over him.

The detective's face cleared.

“Why, certainly, I am William Furnival, sir.”

“And you are in charge of the Bechcombe case?”

“Well, I may say I am,” the inspector agreed. “And I think you are Mr.
Cyril B. Carnthwacke.”

“Sure thing! And no reason to be ashamed of my name either,” the other
said truculently, rather as if he expected the inspector to challenge
his statement.

The inspector, however, was looking his blandest.

“The name of Cyril B. Carnthwacke is one to conjure with not only in
your own country but in ours,” he said politely. “Did you wish to
speak to me, sir?”

“I did, very particularly,” responded Mr. Carnthwacke. “But”—with a
glance at Mr. Steadman—“this gentleman——?”

“Mr. Steadman, sir, the late Mr. Bechcombe's cousin, and at one time
one of the best-known criminal lawyers practising at the bar. He has
been kind enough to place his experience at our disposal in this most
perplexing case. Will you come into my office, Mr. Carnthwacke?”

“Of course, we can't stand out in the street,” responded the
millionaire.

The inspector led the way to his private room and then clearing a lot
of papers from the nearest chair set it forward.

Mr. Carnthwacke sat down with a word of thanks. John Steadman took up
his position with his back to the fireplace, the inspector dropped
into his revolving chair and looked at his visitor.

“I am at your service, sir.”

Carnthwacke settled himself in his chair and looked back.

“I guess you two gentlemen know pretty well what has brought me here.
Mrs. Carnthwacke is at home laid up in bed with the worry of the past
few days. I calculate she isn't exactly the stuff criminals are made
of. So here I have come in her place for a straight talk face to face.
She has told me all about her doings on the day Mr. Bechcombe was
murdered. And she told me that she had been to you on the same
subject. So I guess you fairly well know what I have come to talk
about.”

“Yes, Mrs. Carnthwacke did come to us,” the inspector assented. “It
would have been wiser to have come earlier.”

“It would,” agreed Mr. Carnthwacke. “But women ain't the wisest of
creatures, even if they are not scared out of their wits as Mrs.
Carnthwacke was when she realized that she was the ‘lady of the
glove,’ that every newspaper in the kingdom was making such a clamour
about.”

“Perhaps it was a good thing for her that she was,” remarked the
inspector enigmatically.

Cyril B. Carnthwacke stared at him.

“I don't comprehend. I wasn't aware you dealt in conundrums,
inspector.”

“No,” the inspector said as he opened a drawer and began to rummage in
it. “Ah, here we are! This is the report of the expert in
finger-prints and it shows that it was impossible for the fingers that
fitted into this glove to have made the prints on Mr. Bechcombe's
throat. They were much too small.”

“I grasp your meaning.” Mr. Carnthwacke sat back in his chair and put
his elbows on the arms, joining the tips of his fingers together and
surveying them with much interest. “But I reckon I didn't need this
corroboration. My wife's word is the goods for me. I guess you
gentlemen have tumbled to it that it is to make some inquiries about
the diamonds that I have come butting in this morning.”

The inspector bowed. “I thought it quite likely.”

“Now, I have made certain that by your laws as well as ours the late
Mr. Bechcombe's estate is liable for the value of Mrs. Carnthwacke's
jewels since he gave my wife a receipt for them, which I believe is
held by you gentlemen now,” the American said, speaking with a strong
nasal accent.

Again the inspector nodded his assent.

“Certainly it is. What do you suppose to be the value of the diamonds,
Mr. Carnthwacke?”

“Well, I couldn't figure it off in a minute,” the millionaire said in
a considering tone. “But a good many thousands of dollars anyway. I
did not buy them all at once, but picked up a few good ones when I got
a chance. Thought to myself diamonds were always an investment. The
gem of the whole lot was the necklace; it was part of the Russian
crown jewels and had been worn by the ill-fated Czarina herself. But
anyhow I guess my wife's diamonds were pretty well known in London and
they were valuable enough to excite the cupidity of this gang of
criminals that have been so busy about London of late. You see, I
suppose, that it was in order to get them that they broke in to Mr.
Bechcombe's office and strangled him.”

John Steadman raised his eyebrows as he looked across at the
inspector. That worthy coughed.

“You are rather jumping to conclusions, it seems to me, Mr.
Carnthwacke. In the first place Mr. Bechcombe's office was not broken
into. The murderer, whoever he might have been, entered in the usual
fashion and apparently in no way alarmed Mr. Bechcombe. In fact all
the indications go to prove that the assassin was some one known to
Mr. Bechcombe.”

“I don't figure that out.” Carnthwacke hunched his shoulders and
looked obstinate. “I will take what odds you like that my wife was
followed and that, unable to get what he wanted without, the thief
strangled Mr. Bechcombe and walked off with the diamonds.”

“The diamonds certainly provide a very adequate motive,” John Steadman
said slowly, taking part in the conversation for the first time. “But
there are some very weak points in your story, Mr. Carnthwacke. You
must remember that the rubber gloves worn by the assassin as well as
the chloroform used seem to prove conclusively that the murder was
planned beforehand.”

There was a pause.

“That may be, but I don't see that it precludes the motive being the
theft of my wife's diamonds,” said Carnthwacke truculently.

“You spoke of Mrs. Carnthwacke's being followed, and of the ‘follower’
assaulting Mr. Bechcombe and strangling him in the struggle. That
rather suggests an accidental discovery of Mrs. Carnthwacke's errand
to me,” John Steadman hazarded mildly.

“It doesn't suggest anything of the kind to me,” the American
contradicted obstinately. “Of course somebody had discovered my wife's
errand, what it was and what time she was to be there, and followed
her there for the express purpose of getting them.”

“I should have thought it would have been easier to snatch them from
Mrs. Carnthwacke than to get them from Mr. Bechcombe,” John Steadman
went on, his eyes watching every change of expression in the other's
face.

“You wouldn't have if you had heard the strength of Mrs. Carnthwacke's
lungs,” Mr. Carnthwacke contradicted. “It would have been devilish
difficult to get the diamonds from her. She only left the car at the
archway, too, and she carried the jewels concealed beneath her coat.
It would have been a bold thief who would have attacked her, crossing
that bit of a square in front or coming up the steps to the office.
No. It was a wiser plan to wait and take them from Mr. Bechcombe.”

“I don't think so, and I think you are wrong,” John Steadman
dissented. “The most probable thing would have been for Mr. Bechcombe
to have deposited the diamonds in the safe while Mrs. Carnthwacke was
there. That he did not do so is one of the minor puzzles of the case.
I cannot understand why he should put them in the cupboard pointed out
by Mrs. Carnthwacke, and why he should call it his safe I cannot
imagine. He might almost have intended to make things easy for the
thief.”

“I wonder whether he did,” Carnthwacke said very deliberately.

His words had all the force of a bombshell. The other two men stared
at him in amazement.

“I do not understand you,” John Steadman said at last, his tone
haughty in its repressive surprise.

But Cyril B. Carnthwacke was not to be easily repressed.

“Weel, I reckoned I might as well mention the idea—which is an idea
that has occurred to more than me. But then I didn't want to put up
the dander of you two gentlemen, and you in particular”—with a polite
inclination in the direction of Mr. Steadman—“being a cousin of the
late Mr. Bechcombe. But I was at a man's dinner last night, and it was
pretty freely canvassed. It is hinted that Mr. Bechcombe might have
been in difficulties in his accounts—I understand that there are
pretty considerable deficiencies in his balance. And though they are
all put down by the police to that clerk that can't be found—well,
doesn't it pretty well jump to your eye that the late Mr. Bechcombe
himself knew all about them, and that it might have suited his book to
have my wife's jewels stolen, perhaps by a confederate—the clerk
Thompson or another——”

“And arranged to get himself murdered to get suspicion thrown off
himself?” Mr. Steadman inquired satirically as the other paused for
breath.

“No, not that exactly, though I guess he was pretty slick,” returned
Carnthwacke equably. “But I am inclined to size it up that the two had
a quarrel and that the other one killed Mr. Bechcombe.”

“Are you indeed?” questioned John Steadman, a glitter in his eye that
would have warned his juniors that the old man was going to be nasty.
But the K.C. had rarely lost his temper so completely as to-day. “I
can tell you at once that your idea is nothing but a lie—a lie,
moreover, that has its foundation in your own foul imagination!” he
said very deliberately. “Luke Bechcombe was the soul of honour. I
would answer for him as I would for myself.”

“That is vurry satisfactory,” drawled Carnthwacke. “Most satisfactory,
I am sure. Weel, since that question is settled I will ask another.
Was Mr. Bechcombe's face injured at all?”

The other two looked surprised at this question.

“Why, no,” the inspector answered. “There was not even a scratch upon
it. Why do you ask?”

“Another idea!” responded Mr. Carnthwacke cheerfully. “Another idea.
But my last wasn't a success. I guess I will keep this to myself for a
time.”

“One cannot help seeing that the rubber gloves and the chloroform
pretty well dispose of your idea, as they have disposed of a good many
others,” the inspector remarked. “No, I believe the murder to have
been deliberately planned, but I don't think it was the work of one
man alone. There have been more jewel robberies in London in the past
year than I ever remember and I am inclined to believe that most of
them may be set down to the same gang.”

“The Yellow Gang!” interjected the millionaire. “I have heard of it.”

“The Yellow Gang, if you like to call it so,” acquiesced the
inspector. “But then there comes up the question, how should they know
that Mrs. Carnthwacke was taking her jewels to Mr. Bechcombe that
morning?”

“And why does that puzzle you?” Mr. Carnthwacke inquired blandly.

The inspector glanced at him keenly.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke informed me that no one at all knew that she was
thinking of parting with her jewels, and that her visit to Mr.
Bechcombe that morning had been kept a profound secret.”

Mr. Carnthwacke threw himself back in his chair and gave vent to a
short, sharp laugh.

“I guess you are not a married man, inspector, or you would talk in a
different fashion to that! Is there a woman alive who could keep a
secret? If there is, it isn't Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke. Nobody knew.
Bless your life, I knew well enough she was in debt and had made up
her mind to sell her jewels to Bechcombe. I didn't know the exact time
certainly. But that was because I didn't take the trouble to find out.
Bless your life, there are no flies on Cyril B. Carnthwacke. When she
brought the empty cases to me to put away in the safe after she'd worn
her diamonds the other day, she saw me lock them up in the safe and
was quite contented, bless her heart. But I guess I was slick enough
to look in the cases afterwards, and when I found them empty I pretty
well guessed what was up. Then I took the liberty of listening one day
when she was talking on the telephone and after that she hadn't many
secrets from me. As for nobody else knowing”—with another of those dry
laughs—“it would take a cleverer woman than Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke
to keep it from her maid.”

“That may be,” the inspector said, smiling in his turn. “But to be as
frank with you as you have been with us, Mr. Carnthwacke, we have
taken steps to find out what the maid knows, with the result that we
are inclined to think Mrs. Carnthwacke's statement practically
correct.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Carnthwacke inquired with a satiric emphasis that
made John Steadman look at him more closely. “Weel, I came out on the
open and tackled Mrs. Carnthwacke myself this morning; we had a lot of
trouble, but the upshot of it all was that I got it out of her at last
that she had told nobody, but that she had just mentioned it to
Fédora.”

“Fédora, the fortune teller!” Steadman exclaimed.

“The Soothsayer—the Modern Witch,” Mr. Carnthwacke explained. “All
these Society women are just crazed about her of late. They consult
her about everything. And I feel real ashamed to say Mrs. Carnthwacke
is as silly as anyone. I taxed her with it and made her own up. ‘You'd
ask that fortune-telling woman's advice I know,’ I said. And at last
she burst out crying and the game was up. She swore she didn't mention
names. But there, it is my opinion she don't know whether she did or
not. Anyhow, gentlemen, I have given you something to go upon. You
look up Madame Fédora and her clients. It's there you will find the
clue to Luke Bechcombe's death if it took place as you think.” He got
up leisurely. “If there is nothing more I can do for you gentlemen——”

The inspector rose too.

“I am much obliged for your frankness. If all the witnesses in this
most unhappy tangle were Mr. Carnthwackes, we should soon find
ourselves out in the open, I fancy.”

The millionaire looked pleased at this compliment.

“I know one can't do better than lay all one's cards on the table when
one is dealing with the English police,” he remarked. “Well, so long,
gentlemen. Later on I want to take Mrs. Carnthwacke for a cruise to
get over all this worry and trouble. But I guess we will have to stop
here awhile in case you want her as a witness. And so if you want
either of us any time,—I reckon you know my number—you can ring us up
or come round.”

With a curiously ungraceful bow he turned to the door. A minute or two
later they saw him drive off in his limousine.

John Steadman drew a long breath.

“Well, inspector?”

For answer the inspector handed him his notebook. The last entry was:
“Inquire into C.B.C.'s movements on the day.”

John Steadman glanced curiously at the inspector as he handed it back.

“Do you think he did not realize? Or is he trying to screen some one?”

“I don't know,” the inspector said slowly. “With regard to your second
question, that is to say. With regard to your first, to use his own
phraseology, I don't think there are any flies on Cyril B.
Carnthwacke.”



CHAPTER XIII

“Twelve minutes to one.” Anthony Collyer turned into the Tube station.
He was lunching with Mrs. Luke Bechcombe and the Tube would get him
there in time and be cheaper than a taxi. Anthony was inclined to be
economical these days. He paused at the bookstall to buy a paper.

The tragic death of a London solicitor was beginning to be crowded
out. A foreign potentate was ill. There were daily bulletins in the
paper. There were rumours of a royal engagement. A great race meeting
was impending, the man in the street was much occupied in trying to
spot the winners. Altogether the general public was a great deal too
busy to have time to spare for speculations as to the identity of Luke
Bechcombe's assassin. Still, every few days there would be a paragraph
stating that the police were in possession of fresh evidence, and that
an arrest was hourly expected; so far, however, there had been no
result. Still, the very mention of the Crow's Inn Tragedy held a
morbid fascination for Anthony Collyer. The heading caught his eye now
and he paused to turn the paper over.

Standing thus by the bookstall he was hidden from the sight of the
passers-by. For his part he was thinking of nothing but his paper,
when two sentences caught his ear.

“I tell you, you will have to go to Burford.”

“Suppose I am followed?”

Both voices—a man's and a woman's—sounded familiar to Anthony Collyer.
The former he could not place at the moment, the latter—the blood ran
rapidly to his head, as he gazed after the retreating couple who were
now walking quickly in the direction of the ticket office—surely, he
said to himself, it was Cecily Hoyle's voice!

Cecily Hoyle it undoubtedly was. He recognized her tall, slim figure
and her big grey coat with its square squirrel collar. Her companion
was a man at whom Tony could only get a glance; of medium height
wearing rather shabby-looking clothes, and with grey hair worn much
longer than usual, his face, as he turned it to his companion, was
clean-shaven and rosy as of a man who lived out of doors.

Anthony had not seen Cecily since their meeting in Kensington Gardens
now more than a week ago. It was evident that she intended to abide by
her words; she had not answered any of Tony's impassioned letters, she
had refused to see him when he had called at Hobart Residence, he had
asked for her when visiting Mrs. Bechcombe. Now it seemed to him that
Fate had put in his hands the clue to the tangled mass of
contradictions that Cecily had become.

Hastily thrusting his paper in his pocket he hurried after the couple.
But, short as the time was since they passed him, already a queue had
formed before the ticket office. As he reached it Cecily and her
companion turned away and walked through the barrier. It was hopeless
to think of going after them without a ticket. Anthony chafed
impatiently as he waited. When at last he was free to follow them they
were out of sight and he ran up to the lift just in time to hear the
door close and to see the lift itself vanish slowly out of sight. For
a moment he felt inclined to run down the steps and then he realized
that there was nothing to be gained by such a proceeding and nothing
for him to do but wait for the next lift with what patience he could.
It seemed to him that he had never had to wait so long before; when at
last it did come and he had raced along the passage and down the few
remaining steps to the platform, it was only to find the gate slammed
before him. Standing there, he had the satisfaction of seeing Cecily's
face at the window of the train gliding out of the station while
beside her he caught a vision of the silvery locks of her companion.

As he stood there realizing the utter futility of endeavouring to
overtake Cecily now, a voice only too well known of late sounded in
his ear.

“Good morning, Mr. Collyer. Too late, like myself.”

He turned to find Inspector Furnival beside him. A spasm of fear shot
through Tony. Was this man ubiquitous? And what was he doing here?

“Going to Mrs. Luke Bechcombe's, sir?” the inspector went on. “Mr.
Steadman has just left me to go on there in his car. A family party to
celebrate Mr. Aubrey Todmarsh's engagement.”

“Yes, to Mrs. Phillimore,” Tony assented.

The gate was thrust aside now, the inspector and Tony found themselves
pushed along by the people behind. They went on the platform together,
the inspector keeping closely by Tony's side.

“Wonderful man, Mr. Todmarsh,” he began conversationally. “We in the
police see a lot of his work. Mrs. Phillimore too, supports
practically every philanthropic work in the East End. Yes, this
engagement will be good news to many a poor outcast, Mr. Anthony.”

Tony mechanically acquiesced. As a matter of fact mention of Aubrey
Todmarsh's good works left him cold. He had no great liking for Mrs.
Phillimore either, though the rich American had rather gone out of her
way to be amiable to him. This morning, however, he was too much
occupied in wondering what was the ulterior motive for the inspector's
friendliness to have any thought to spare for his cousin's engagement.
He was anxious to ascertain whether the inspector, like himself, had
caught sight of Cecily Hoyle and followed her, though he could not
form any idea as to the inspector's object in doing so. Still one
never knew where the clues spoken of by the papers might lead the
police. Thinking of Cecily as the inspector's possible objective a
cold sweat broke out on Anthony's brow.

When the train came in the inspector stood aside for Anthony to enter
and followed him in. The carriage was full. Anthony had an
uncomfortable feeling that people were looking at him. Possibly, he
thought, they were pointing him out to one another as Luke Bechcombe's
nephew, the one who stood to benefit largely by the murdered man's
death, and still more largely at the death of the widow, were
wondering possibly what he was doing in that half-hour on the day of
the murder which he could only account for by saying he was wandering
about looking for the Field of Rest. That the general public had at
first looked upon him as suspect on this account Anthony knew, but he
knew also that the discovery of the clerk Thompson's dishonesty and
later on of the loss of Mrs. Carnthwacke's diamonds had been taken as
clearing him to a great extent. Until the mystery surrounding the
death of Luke Bechcombe had been solved, however, he recognized that
he would remain a potential murderer in the eyes of at least a section
of the public. Possibly, he reflected grimly, seeing him with the
inspector this morning they thought he was in custody.

“Going far, inspector?” he asked at the first stopping-place.

“Same station as yourself, sir,” the inspector returned affably.
“Matter of fact I am going to the same house too. A message came along
for Mr. Steadman just after he had started, and as it seemed to be of
some importance I thought I would come after him with it myself. I am
hoping to be in time to have a word with him before luncheon. Perhaps
you could help me, sir.”

“Well, if I can,” Anthony said doubtfully. “There won't be much time
to spare, though.”

“Well, if I am too late I am too late,” the inspector remarked
philosophically. “It was just a chance. We don't seem to hear of
Thompson, sir.”

“We don't,” Anthony assented. “And I expect he is taking care we
shouldn't. You'll forgive me, inspector, but the way Thompson has
managed to disappear doesn't seem to me to reflect much credit on the
police.”

“Ah, I know that is the sort of thing folks are saying,” the inspector
commented with apparent placidity. “And it is a great deal easier to
say it about the police methods than to improve upon them. However,
like some others, Thompson may find himself caught in time. One of our
great difficulties is that so little is known about him, his friends,
habits, etc. Even you don't seem able to help us there, Mr. Anthony.”
The inspector shot a lightning glance at the young man's unconscious
face.

Anthony shook his head.

“Always was a decent sort of chap, old Thompson, or he seemed so—I
always had a bit of a rag with him when I went to the office. Known
him there years, of course. But, if you come to ask me about his
friends, I never saw the old chap in mufti, as you might say, in my
life. Still, I don't think Thompson had any hand in murdering Uncle
Luke.”

“I know. You have said so all along,” the inspector remarked. “But, if
you don't think he had anything to do with the murder, what do you
think of his disappearance?”

“Suppose the old chap had been helping himself to what wasn't his, and
got frightened and bolted.”

“Um, yes!” The inspector stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Do you think
you would recognize Thompson in the street, Mr. Anthony?”

“Should think I was a blithering idiot if I didn't,” Anthony
responded. “Never saw him with a hat on certainly, but a hat don't
matter—it can't alter a man beyond recognition.”

“Not much of a disguise, certainly,” the inspector admitted, looking
round him consideringly as they entered Carlsford Square. “Still, I
wonder——”

Anthony came to a standstill.

“Now _I_ wonder what you are getting at. Do you think I have seen
Thompson anywhere?”

The inspector did not answer for a minute, then he said slowly:

“I shouldn't be surprised if a good many of us had seen him, Mr.
Anthony.”

Anthony stared. “Then we must be a set of fools.”

“A good many of us are fools,” Inspector Furnival acquiesced as they
came to a standstill.

Anthony applied himself to the knocker on the door of the Bechcombes'
house. There were a couple of cars in the street, one John Steadman's,
the other a luxurious Daimler evidently fitted with the latest
improvements.

“You will have time for your talk, old chap,” said Anthony, looking at
his watch as the door opened.

Somewhat to his surprise Steadman came out. The barrister for once was
not looking as immaculately neat as usual. His coat was dusty and he
was carrying his right arm stiffly. He held out a note to his
chauffeur.

“There. It's quite close to Stepney Causeway. Get the woman to the
hospital as soon as possible. Hello, inspector—a word with you.”

He was turning with the inspector when Tony interrupted.

“You look as if you had been in the wars, sir. Have you had an
accident?”

“No,” responded the barrister curtly. Then with a jerk of his head in
the direction of the other car. “That fellow, Mrs. Phillimore's man,
isn't fit to drive a donkey cart. Nearly ran over a child just now.
All we could do to get her out alive save with a broken arm. I took
her to the Middlesex Hospital and now I'm sending for her mother. Mrs.
Phillimore doesn't seem very helpful except in the matter of weeping.
Well, so long, my boy—see you again in a minute or two.”

He turned off with the inspector. Anthony went through the hall to the
drawing-room where he found his father talking to Mrs. Bechcombe and a
small, fair, handsomely dressed woman with brilliant blue eyes—his
cousin's American fiancée, Mrs. Phillimore.

Anthony was no stranger to her. He had met her on several occasions
and while admitting her undoubted charm he was conscious that somehow
or other he did not quite like Mrs. Phillimore, the Butterfly, as he
had named her. Apparently the feeling was not mutual, for Mrs.
Phillimore always seemed to go out of the way to be gracious to her
fiancé's cousin.

To-day, however, he did not receive his usual smile, and he saw that
in spite of her make-up she was looking pale and worried.

“Where is Aubrey?” he inquired, as he shook hands. “Got a holiday from
his blessed Community to-day, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes,” she returned. “He was to have brought me here, but he was
sent for, I couldn't quite understand by whom. But he said he should
not be long after me.”

“Nor has he,” interposed Mrs. Bechcombe at this juncture. “He is
coming up the steps now with John Steadman.”

Mrs. Phillimore's relief was apparent in her countenance. Anthony felt
a touch of momentary wonder as to why his cousin's temporary absence
should cause her so much apparent anxiety.

Aubrey was talking to Mr. Steadman in a quick, nervous fashion as they
entered the room together.

The first glance was enough to show every one that something had
seriously disturbed Aubrey Todmarsh. His face was white, his eyes were
bloodshot, he was biting his lips nervously. Altogether he looked
strangely unlike the enthusiastic young head of the Community of St.
Philip.

Mr. Collyer was the first to speak.

“Aubrey, my dear boy, is anything the matter?”

Apparently Todmarsh only brought himself to speak with difficulty.
Twice he opened his lips, but no words came. At last he said hoarsely:

“Hopkins!”

The name conveyed nothing to the majority of his hearers, only the
rector of Wexbridge twisted up his face into a curious resemblance to
a note of interrogation, and Mrs. Phillimore uttered a sharp little
cry.

“Hopkins! Oh, Aubrey!”

“Hopkins!” he repeated. “He—he is my right hand, you know, Uncle
James. I—I would have staked my life on Hopkins.”

The clergyman pushed a chair up to his nephew.

“Sit down, my dear boy. What is this about Hopkins? I remember him
well. Has he——?”

“He has been away for a few days' holiday. He said his sister
was ill and he must go to see her. In the early hours of this
morning”—Todmarsh's voice grew increasingly husky—“he was arrested
with two other men breaking into Sir Thomas Wreford's house, Whistone
Hall in the New Forest. I—I can't believe it!” His head fell forward
on his hands.

Mrs. Phillimore drew a long breath, and for a moment nobody spoke.
Then the rector said slowly:

“My dear boy, I can hardly believe this is true. Is there no
possibility of a mistake? A false report or something of that kind?”

Aubrey shook his head.

“No. The telegram came from Wreford Hall Post Office—Hopkins sent it
himself to me at the Community House and it was brought to me here.”

“Dear, dear! I wish I could help you. But you must remember, my dear
Aubrey, that we workers for others must be prepared to meet trouble
and disappointment, ay, even in those of whom we have felt most sure.”
The rector laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. “Pull yourself
together, my dear Aubrey. Remember the many signal causes of
thankfulness that have been granted to you. The many other lives that
you have brightened and saved from shame.”

“How can I tell who will be the next?” Todmarsh groaned. “I tell you,
I would have staked my life on Hopkins.”

“We cannot answer for our brothers, any of us,” Mr. Collyer went on.
“But now, my boy, you must make an effort. You must think of your Aunt
Madeline, of Mrs. Phillimore.”

There was a moment's silence, then Todmarsh raised his head.

“You are right. You always do me more good than anyone else, Uncle
James. But here I am keeping you all waiting. I beg your pardon, Aunt
Madeline. And after lunch there is much to be done. I must see about
getting Hopkins bailed out.”

“Where is Hopkins?” questioned Anthony, taking part in the
conversation for the first time.

“At a place called Burchester,” Aubrey answered. “I fancy it is quite
a small place. Probably it is the nearest police court to Whistone
Hall.”

“Whistone Hall, in the New Forest, you said, didn't you?” Anthony went
on. “Is it near Burford, do you know?”

He hardly knew what made him ask the question. John Steadman glanced
at him sharply.

Aubrey Todmarsh turned a surprised face towards him.

“I don't know. I don't know anything about the place. And I never
heard of Burford.”



CHAPTER XIV

Luncheon, not a particularly cheerful meal, was over. Mrs.
Phillimore's jewelled cigarette case lay on the table beside her, but
her cigarette had gone out in its amber holder, and her eyes were
furtively watching her fiancé as she chatted with Mr. Collyer, who sat
opposite.

Aubrey Todmarsh had taken his uncle's advice and pulled himself
together. He was talking much as usual now, but John Steadman watching
him from his seat opposite thought that his face looked queer and
strained. His eyes no longer seemed to see visions, but were bloodshot
and weary. His high cheekbones had the skin drawn tightly across them
to-day and gave him almost a Mongolian look; his usually sleek, dark
hair was ruffled across his forehead.

John Steadman had not hitherto felt particularly attracted by the
young head of the Community of St. Philip. Apart from the natural
contempt of the ordinary man for a conscientious objector, there
always to Steadman appeared something wild and ridiculous about
Todmarsh's visionary speeches and ideas. To-day, however, his
sympathies were aroused by the young man's obviously very great
disappointment over Hopkins's defection. He felt sorry for Mrs.
Phillimore too. The poor little widow was evidently sharing her
lover's depression, and, though she did her best to appear bright and
cheerful, was watching him anxiously while she talked to her hostess
or to Steadman himself.

It seemed to Steadman that he had never realized how protracted a meal
luncheon could be until to-day, and he was on the point of making some
excuse to Mrs. Bechcombe for effecting an early retreat when the
parlourmaid entered the room with two cards—on one of which a few
words were written—upon her silver salver.

Mrs. Bechcombe took them up with a murmured excuse. She glanced at
them carelessly, then her expression changed. She looked round in
indecision then turned to Steadman.

“I—I don't know what to do. That woman——”

The momentary lull in the conversation had passed; every one was
talking busily. Under cover of the hum, Steadman edged himself a
little nearer his hostess.

“What woman?”

For answer she handed him the larger of the two cards.

“Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke,” he read. He glanced at Mrs. Bechcombe.
“What does this mean?”

“That woman—I have always felt certain she was responsible for Luke's
death,” Mrs. Bechcombe returned incoherently. “Oh, yes”—as Steadman
made a movement of dissent—“if she did not actually kill him herself
she took her horrid diamonds to him and let the murderer know and
follow her. Oh, yes, I shall always hold her responsible. But to-day
you see she—I mean he—the man says their business is important.
Perhaps he has found out—something. What am I to do?”

“Why not ask them to come in here?” John Steadman suggested. “We are
all members of the family,” glancing round the room.

Mrs. Bechcombe hesitated. Aubrey Todmarsh sprang to his feet.

“I must go, Aunt Madeline. I have to see about bail for Hopkins, and
that he is legally represented. And, besides, I don't really feel that
I can stand any more to-day.”

His face was working as he spoke, and they all looked at him
sympathetically as he hurriedly shook hands with Mrs. Bechcombe. His
absorption in Hopkins's backsliding was so evidently of first
consideration, rendering him oblivious even of his fiancée. As for the
poor little Butterfly, her spirits, which had been gradually rising,
seemed to be finally damped by this last contretemps. She raised no
objection to her lover's abrupt departure, but sat silent and
depressed until the Carnthwackes were ushered into the room.

One glance was enough to show John Steadman that both the American and
his wife were looking strangely disturbed. They went straight up to
Mrs. Bechcombe.

“I am obliged to you, ma'am, for receiving us,” Carnthwacke began,
while his wife laid her hand on Aubrey Todmarsh's vacant chair as
though to steady herself.

“You said it was important,” Mrs. Bechcombe's manner was distant. She
did not glance at Mrs. Carnthwacke.

“So it is, ma'am, very important!” the American assented. “Sure thing
that, else I wouldn't have ventured to butt in this morning. Though if
I had gathered your guests were so numerous”—looking round
comprehensively and making a slight courteous bow to Steadman and
Collyer—“but I don't know. It is best that a thing of this importance
should be settled at once.”

As he spoke he was slowly removing the brown paper covering from a
small parcel he had taken from his breast pocket. Watching him
curiously Steadman saw to his amazement that when the contents were
finally extracted they appeared to be nothing more important than the
day's issue of an illustrated paper.

Carnthwacke spread it out. Then he looked back at Mrs. Bechcombe.

“I don't want to hurt your feelings, ma'am. And it may be that some
one else belonging to the house, perhaps that gentleman I saw down at
the Yard”—with a gesture in Steadman's direction—“would just look at
this picture.”

Steadman stepped forward. But Mrs. Bechcombe's curiosity had been
aroused. She leaned across.

“I will see it myself, please.”

Carnthwacke laid it on the table before the astonished eyes of the
company.

A glance showed John Steadman that the centre print was a quite
recognizable portrait of Luke Bechcombe. There were also pictures of
the offices in Crow's Inn, both inside and out, an obviously fancy
likeness of Thompson “the absconding manager,” and of Miss Cecily
Hoyle, the dead man's secretary.

Steadman half expected to find Mrs. Cyril B. Carnthwacke figuring
largely, but so far as he could see there was nothing to account for
that lady's excessive agitation.

She passed her handkerchief over her lips now as she sat down sideways
on the chair that Tony Collyer placed for her, and he noticed that she
was trembling all over and that every drop of colour seemed to have
receded from her cheeks and lips. Her admirers on the variety stage
would not have recognized their idol now.

Carnthwacke cleared a space on the table and spread out his paper
carefully, smoothing out the creases with meticulous attention. Then
he pointed his carefully manicured forefinger at the portrait of Luke
Bechcombe in the middle.

“Would you call that a reasonably good picture of your late husband,
ma'am?”

Mrs. Bechcombe drew her eyebrows together as she bent over it.

“Yes, it is—very,” she said decidedly. “I should say unusually good
for this class of paper. It is copied from one of the last photographs
he had taken, one he sat for when we were staying with his sister in
the country. You remember, James?” appealing to the rector.

Mr. Collyer smiled sadly.

“Indeed I do. We were all sitting on the lawn and that friend of
Tony's, Leonard Barnes, insisted on taking us all. Poor Luke's was
particularly good. Why are you asking, Mr. Carnthwacke?”

Carnthwacke wagged his yellow forefinger reprovingly in the direction
of the rector.

“One moment, reverend sir. It may be, ma'am, that you have another
portrait of your lamented husband that you could let us glimpse?”

Mrs. Bechcombe hesitated a moment and glanced nervously at John
Steadman. In spite of all her preconceived notions, the American was
beginning to impress her. There was something in his manner,
restrained yet with a sinister undercurrent, that filled her with a
sense of some hitherto unguessed-at, unnamable dread. At last, moving
like a woman in a dream, she went across to the writing-table that
stood between the two tall windows overlooking the square, and
unlocking a drawer took out a cabinet photograph.

“There, that is the most recent, and I think the best we have. It was
taken at Frank and Burrows, the big photographers in Baker Street.”

“Allow me, ma'am.” Cyril B. Carnthwacke held out his hand. He studied
the photograph silently for a minute or two, laying it beside the
paper and apparently comparing the two. Everybody in the room watched
him with curious, interested eyes. His wife sat crouching against the
table, leaning over it, her handkerchief, crushed into a hard little
ball, pressed against her lips.

At last Carnthwacke laid both the portraits down together and stood up
with an air of finality.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, I rather fancy the moment to speak has come. Now,
don't fuss yourself, but just tell these ladies and gentlemen what you
have to say simply, same way as you did to me.”

It seemed at first, as Mrs. Carnthwacke appeared to struggle for
breath and caught convulsively at her husband's hand, that she would
not be able to speak at all. But his firm clasp drew her up. The
magnetism of his gaze compelled her words.

“If that is Mr. Bechcombe,” she said very slowly, “that portrait, I
mean, and if it is a really good likeness of him, I can only say”—she
paused again and gulped something down in her throat—“that that is not
the man I saw at the office, not the man to whom I gave my diamonds.”

A tense silence followed this avowal—a silence that was broken at last
by a moan from Mrs. Bechcombe.

“What do you mean? What does she mean?”

There was another momentary silence, broken this time by John
Steadman. He had remained standing since the Carnthwackes came in, on
the other side of the table. He came round towards them now.

“I think you must give us a little further explanation, Mrs.
Carnthwacke,” he said courteously.

Mrs. Carnthwacke was pressing the little ball that had been her
handkerchief to her lips again. She turned from him with a quick
gesture as though to shut him, the other guests, the whole room, out
of her sight.

Her husband laid his hand on her shoulder, heavily yet with a certain
comfort in its very contact.

“That is all right, old girl. You just keep quiet and leave it to me.
She can't give you any explanation. That is just all she can say,” he
went on in a determined, almost a hostile voice. “As soon as she saw
that portrait, she knew, if that was Luke Bechcombe, that she never
saw him at all on the day of his death—that she gave the diamonds to
some one else, some one impersonating him.”

“And who,” inquired John Steadman in that quiet, lazy voice of his,
“do you imagine could have impersonated Luke Bechcombe?”

The American looked him squarely in the eyes.

“That's for you legal gentlemen to decide. It is not for me to come
butting in. But I can put you wise on one thing that stares one right
in the face, so to speak, that I can say before I quit. I don't guess
who it was who impersonated Luke Bechcombe, or where he came from or
how he got right there. But there is only one man it could have been,
and that is the murderer!”



CHAPTER XV

He looked from one to another as he spoke and as he met John
Steadman's glance his grey eyes were as hard as steel and his thin
lips were drawn and pinched together like a trap.

The horror in his hearers' faces grew and strengthened. Mrs. Bechcombe
alone tried to speak; she leaned forward; in some inscrutable fashion
her figure seemed to have shrunk in the last few minutes. She looked
bent and worn and old, ten years older than Luke Bechcombe's handsome
wife had done. Her face was white and rigid and set like a death-mask.
Only her eyes, vivid, burning, looked alive. No sound came from her
parted lips for a moment, then with a hoarse croak she threw up her
hands to her throat as though she would tear the very words out:

“What was he like?”

Mrs. Carnthwacke cast one glance at her and began to tremble all over,
then she clutched violently at her husband's hand.

“It—it is easier to say that he wasn't like that portrait,” she
confessed, “than to tell you what he really was like. He gave me the
impression that he was a bigger man; his beard too was not neat and
trimmed like that—short, stubby and untidy-looking. His hair grew low
down on his forehead. That—that man's hair,” pointing with shaking
fingers to the paper portrait, “grows far back. He is even a little
bald. I don't know that I can point out any other differences, but the
two faces are not a bit alike really. Oh, if I had only known Mr.
Bechcombe by sight this dreadful thing might never have happened!” She
leaned back in her chair trembling violently.

Carnthwacke placed himself very deliberately between her and the rest
of the room. His clasp of her cold hands tightened.

“Now, now, be a sensible girl!” he admonished, giving her a little
shake as he spoke, yet with a very real tenderness in his gruff tones.
“Quit crying and shaking and just say what you have to say as quietly
as possible. Nobody can hurt you for that. And if they do try to, they
will have to reckon with Cyril B. Carnthwacke. Now, sir.” He looked at
John Steadman. “I guess there will be other questions you will have to
ask, and it may be as well to get as much as we can over at once.”

The barrister cleared his throat.

“I am afraid it will be impossible to do that here. The very first
thing to be done is to inform Scotland Yard of Mrs. Carnthwacke's
tragic discovery.”

The American bent over his wife for a minute then drew aside.

“I guess it will have to be as the gentleman says, Mrs. Carnthwacke.
Now just as plain as you can put it, and remember that I am standing
beside you.”

Mrs. Carnthwacke drew one of her hands from his and passed her
handkerchief over her parched lips. Then she looked at Steadman.

It seemed to him that it was only by a supreme effort that she became
articulate at all.

“I knocked at the door—I knew how to find it, Mr. Bechcombe had told
me how on the phone. Down the passage to the right, past the clerks'
office. It—it wasn't opened at once—I heard some one moving about
rather stumblingly, and I was just going to knock again when the door
was opened and——” She stopped, shivering violently.

“Now then, now then!” admonished her husband. “You just quit thinking
of what you are wise about now, and tell us just what took place as
quickly as you can.”

Mrs. Carnthwacke appeared anxious to obey him.

“He—he opened the door, the man I—I told you about. ‘Come in, Mrs.
Carnthwacke,’ he said. I never doubted its being Mr. Bechcombe—why
should I? He knew my name and my errand. Certainly I thought he had an
unpleasant voice, husky—not like what I had heard when I rang him up.
But he said he had a cold.” She stopped again.

This time John Steadman interposed.

“Now the details of your interview you have told us before——”

“Ever so many times,” she sobbed. “I can't say anything but what I
told you at the inquest.”

“But, now that this extraordinary new light has been thrown upon
everything, do you recollect anything—anything that may help us? You
know the veriest trifles sometimes provide the most successful clues—a
mark on hands or face, for example.”

“There wasn't any,” Mrs. Carnthwacke answered, shaking visibly. “Or if
there was, I didn't see it. But my eyesight isn't what it was, and the
room was very dark, so I couldn't see very well.”

“Dark! I shouldn't call it a dark room,” contradicted John Steadman.
“And the day was a clear one, I know.”

“The room itself mightn't be dark,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said obstinately.
“But the blinds were drawn partly down and that heavy screen before
the window nearest the desk would darken any room.”

“Screen!” John Steadman repeated in a puzzled tone. “I have seen no
screen near the window.”

“Oh, but there is one,” Mrs. Carnthwacke affirmed positively. “A big
heavy screen, stamped leather it looked like. It was opened out, and
stood right in front of the window nearest the desk. I remember
wondering he should have it there. It blocked out so much of the
light.”

“What a very curious thing!” The rector interjected. “Often as I have
been in to see my lamented brother-in-law, I have seen no screen. Nor
have I found him with drawn blinds.”

“It was not Mr. Bechcombe who was so found by Mrs. Carnthwacke,” John
Steadman corrected. “Of course the semi-darkness of the room was
purposely contrived for one of two reasons, either that the murderer
should not be recognized or that his disguise should not be
suspected.”

“Your two reasons seem to me to mean the same thing, my dear sir,”
Carnthwacke drawled. “But there, if that is all——”

“They do not mean the same thing at all,” John Steadman retorted.
“Anybody might suspect a person of being disguised. But only some one
who was personally acquainted with the murderer could recognize him.
Now what we have to discover is which of these reasons was operating
in this case. Or whether, as is possible, we have to reckon with
both.”

Cyril B. Carnthwacke's sleepy-looking eyes were opened sharply for
once.

“I don't understand you,” he drawled. “But I can put you wise on one
of your points. Mrs. Carnthwacke ain't acquainted with any murderers.
So she could not have recognized the man.”

The barrister did not appear to be impressed.

“Nobody is aware that he is acquainted with murderers until the
murderer is found out,” he remarked with a certain air of
stubbornness. “Besides, it might not have been from Mrs. Carnthwacke
that this murderer had to fear recognition. He may have been known by
sight to lots of people who might possibly have encountered him on his
way to and from the room. All the clerks for example, the messengers,
office boys, tenants of the neighbouring offices. Other people might
have come to Mr. Bechcombe's private room too. Mrs. Carnthwacke may
not have been the only expected client. But one thing is certain: this
new evidence of Mrs. Carnthwacke's does throw a good deal of light on
the much vexed question of the time at which the murder took place.”

“As how?” Carnthwacke's voice did not sound as though he would be
easily placated.

Steadman shrugged his shoulders.

“Don't you realize that the medical testimony that Luke Bechcombe met
his death soon after twelve o'clock has always been at variance with
Mrs. Carnthwacke's statement that she saw him alive and well at one
o'clock, and afterwards Miss Hoyle too heard some one moving about in
Mr. Bechcombe's room when she returned from lunch? Now we realize that
the doctors were right and that Mrs. Carnthwacke's interview took
place with the murderer and that Miss Hoyle——”

The last word was interrupted by a hoarse, muffled shriek from Mrs.
Carnthwacke. “I can't bear it, Cyril. If you don't take me away I
shall die.”

The American looked round doubtfully, then he drew her to her feet and
supported her with one arm.

“Guess there is nothing to be gained by staying any longer,” he said,
a certain note of truculence in his voice as he met Steadman's eyes.
“You know where to find us if you want us. Come then, little woman, we
will just say good morning.”

No one made any effort to detain them as they went towards the door.
John Steadman followed them into the hall.

Carnthwacke was bending over his wife and saying something to her in a
low, earnest voice. As John Steadman came up to them he turned.

“Guess that little fair lady on your side the table is some one you
know well, sir?”

Steadman looked at him curiously.

“Well, fairly well. She is engaged to Luke Bechcombe's nephew. She is
a compatriot of yours too—a Mrs. Phillimore.”

“Gee whiz!” ejaculated the American. “And is that Mrs. Phillimore?”

“You have heard of her?” Steadman questioned.

“Reckon I have,” Carnthwacke assented, “and seen her too. Though it
don't seem to me she was called Phillimore then.”

“Before she was married perhaps,” suggested Steadman.

“Perhaps,” drawled the American. “Anyway I have glimpsed the lady
somewhere. Americans mostly know one another by sight you know,” a
faint twinkle in his eye as he glanced over his wife's head at the
barrister.

When Steadman went back to the dining-room Mrs. Bechcombe was lying
back in her chair apparently in a state of collapse. Mrs. Phillimore
was bending over her, looking very little better herself. All her
little butterfly airs and graces had fallen from her. Her make-up
could not disguise the extreme pallor of her cheeks, the great blue
eyes were full of horror and of dread. She was trying to persuade Mrs.
Bechcombe to drink a glass of wine which Mr. Collyer had poured out
for her.

But as Steadman re-entered the room Mrs. Bechcombe sprang up, pushing
Mrs. Phillimore aside and throwing the wine over the table cloth.

“Have you let her go?”

Steadman looked at her.

“Control yourself, my dear Madeline. Let who go?”

“That—that woman. That Mrs. Carnthwacke,” Mrs. Bechcombe stormed
hysterically. “I thought at least that you could see through her, that
you had gone with her to make sure that she was arrested, that——”

A gleam of pity shone in Steadman's eyes as he watched her—pity that
was oddly mingled with some other feeling.

“There is not the slightest ground for arresting Mrs. Carnthwacke,
Madeline. I have told you so before. Less than ever now.”

“Why do you say less than ever now?” demanded Mrs. Bechcombe. “Are you
blind, John Steadman? Or are you wilfully deceiving yourself? Do you
not know that that woman was telling lies? I can see—I should think
anyone with sense could see—what happened that dreadful day in Luke's
office. She took her jewels there, her husband followed her—I believe
he is in it too. Probably he has lost his money—Americans are like
that, up one day and down the next. He didn't want it to be known that
his wife was selling her jewels. Yes. Yes. That is how it must have
been. He sent her with the diamonds to Luke and followed her to get
them back and make it look as if Luke had been robbed. Luke resisted
and he was killed in the struggle. Oh, yes. That was how it was! And
this cock and bull story of theirs——” She paused, literally for
breath.

Steadman looked pityingly at her wide, staring eyes, at her twitching
mouth and the thin, nervous hands that never ceased clasping and
unclasping themselves, working up and down.

“Madeline, this suspicion of Mrs. Carnthwacke is becoming a monomania
with you. It is making you unjust and cruel,” he said, then waited a
minute while she apparently tried to gather strength to answer him.
Then he went on, “There is not the slightest ground for this new idea.
Cyril B. Carnthwacke's name is one to conjure with in Wall Street as
well as on the Stock Exchange here. Do you imagine that the police
have neglected so very ordinary a precaution as an inquiry into his
circumstances?”

With a desperate struggle Mrs. Bechcombe regained her power of speech.

“The police—the police are fools!” she cried passionately. “If a crime
of this kind had been committed in Paris or New York, the murderer
would have been discovered long ago, but in London—Scotland Yard
cannot see what the merest tyro in such matters would recognize at
once.”

“Do you think so?” John Steadman's clean-cut, humorous mouth relaxed
into a faint half-smile. “I can tell you, Madeline, that both in New
York and Paris it is recognized that our Criminal Investigation
Department is the finest in the world. But your feeling towards Mrs.
Carnthwacke is becoming an obsession. When the mystery surrounding
Luke's death is cleared up, and somehow I do not think it will be long
now before it is, I prophesy that you will repent your injustice.”

“I prophesy that you will repent your folly in not listening to me,”
retorted Madeline Bechcombe obstinately. “That woman was lying. Ah,
you may not have thought so. It takes a woman to find a woman out. If
I had my way I would have women detectives——”

“Do you suppose we haven't?” John Steadman interposed gently. “Dear
Madeline, no stone is being left unturned in our endeavours to bring
Luke's murderer to justice. Have patience a little longer!”

“Patience, patience! I have no patience!” Mrs. Bechcombe pushed
Steadman's outstretched hand away wrathfully and turned to Mrs.
Phillimore. “Sadie, you thought the same—you said you did just now!”

In spite of her pallor Steadman fancied that the Butterfly looked
considerably taken aback.

“I don't think I said quite that,” she hesitated, “I don't know what
to think. I feel that I can't—daren't think—anything.”

“What?” Mrs. Bechcombe raised her hand.

For one moment Steadman thought she was about to strike her guest, and
with some instinct of protection he stepped to the Butterfly's side.

The Butterfly visibly flinched. “I—I think I said more than I ought,”
she acknowledged frankly. “When you said she was telling lies, I—I
didn't know what to say.”

“What did you say?” Steadman inquired quietly. “Did you say anything
that could be misinterpreted?”

The Butterfly raised a fragment of cambric, widely edged with real
lace. Apparently it did duty as a pocket-handkerchief. She pressed it
to her eyes, taking care, as Steadman noticed, not to touch her
carefully pencilled eyebrows.

“I said I didn't think Mrs. Carnthwacke was telling us all she knew,”
she confessed. “I cannot tell what made me feel that, but I did.
She—she was keeping something back, I am sure, and her husband knew
that she was.”

“I wonder whether you are right,” said John Steadman slowly.



CHAPTER XVI

“I hear you are very busy, Aubrey, and I am very sorry to interrupt
you. But I thought perhaps you would spare me a few minutes.”

The head of the Confraternity of St. Philip was sitting at his
writing-table apparently absorbed in some abstruse calculations. He
looked up with a furrowed brow and without his usual smile as the
rector of Wexbridge advanced into the room.

“I can't spare very long, Uncle James. This enforced absence of
Hopkins is throwing double work on my shoulders.”

“I know, I know!” assented Mr. Collyer. “You must realize how
sincerely I sympathize with you, my dear Aubrey. But I bring some news
that I feel sure will interest you. The police have found some of the
emeralds.”

“Is that so?” There was no doubting the interest in Todmarsh's voice
now. “Where? And why only some? Why not all?” He sprang up as he spoke
and took up a position with his back to the fire, one elbow resting on
the high wooden mantelpiece. “My dear Uncle James, this is good news
indeed! And I am sure we all need some!”

“We do!” assented Mr. Collyer. “As to your questions, my dear Aubrey,
the police preserve a reticence that I find extremely trying. They
have just told me that they have found them, not when or where. The
only thing they will say is that they believe they were stolen by the
Yellow Gang. It may retard developments to say much of their find now,
they say.”

“But how?” questioned Todmarsh.

The rector shook his head.

“I don't know. I don't know how they can even be sure that the ones
they have are my emeralds. They all look alike to me. However, they
seem very certain. But what I came in for now, my dear Aubrey, is to
ask if you can come to Scotland Yard with me. I don't seem much good
alone and Anthony went away for the week-end last night. And I do know
you would be more useful in identifying the jewels than he would.”

“I wonder whether I could,” debated Aubrey. “Perhaps if we took a taxi
and I came straight back——. Stolen by the Yellow Gang, you say, Uncle
James?”

“Well, the police seem to think so,” Mr. Collyer assented. “But I
doubt it myself. What should the Yellow Gang be doing at quiet little
Wexbridge?”

Aubrey smiled in a melancholy fashion that was strangely unlike his
old bright look.

“The Yellow Gang infests the whole country. They brought off a big
_coup_ at a country house in the north of Scotland a week or two ago.
That they should be able to do so and escape unpunished shows the
absolute inefficiency of the police system. The Yellow Dog, as they
call him, sets the whole authority of the country at defiance.
Personally I find myself up against him at every turn.”

“How?” the rector questioned.

“Why, all this.” Todmarsh made a comprehensive gesture with his arm
that seemed to include not only the Community House but the men
playing squash racquets and cricket outside. “All this is a direct
challenge to the Yellow Dog. We get hold not only of those who have
already gone astray, but of the potential young criminals who are his
raw material, and do our best to turn them into decent members of
society.”

Mr. Collyer looked at him.

“But do you mean that any of your community men were ever members of
the Yellow Gang?”

“Many of them—Hopkins himself and at least two more of my best
workers.”

“Then I should have thought it would have been a comparatively easy
matter to get such information from them as would enable you to have
broken up the Yellow Gang,” argued Mr. Collyer shrewdly.

Todmarsh shook his head.

“One would think so on the face of it. But, as a matter of fact, not
one of them has ever seen the Yellow Dog. His instructions have always
reached them in some mysterious fashion and they have known nothing of
the headquarters of the gang. We have never been able to get hold of
anyone who knows anything of the inner workings.”

“Extraordinary!” said the rector. “Still, I can't believe that they
took my emeralds. With regard to your Uncle Luke, it is a very
different matter. What do you think?”

“I have not had time to think lately,” Aubrey Todmarsh said dully.
“This terrible affair of Hopkins obsesses me, Uncle James. I cannot
help thinking that I am responsible for the whole thing.”

The rector looked at him pityingly.

“I know you do, my dear Aubrey. But you have described this idea of
yours rightly when you call it an obsession—you are not struggling
against it as you ought. No. That is not quite what I mean—you can't
struggle against an idea. What I mean is that you should try to
realize, as your friends do, how very much you did for Hopkins, and
how entirely blameless you are in the matter of his downfall.”

This was rather in the rector's best pulpit style, and the young head
of the Community House of St. Philip moved his shoulders restlessly.

“You see we don't look at the matter from the same standpoint, Uncle
James. I do not acknowledge that Hopkins has fallen.”

Mr. Collyer stared.

“I don't understand you, my dear Aubrey.”

“No,” said Todmarsh, speaking very rapidly. “I don't suppose you do.
But I saw Hopkins yesterday and heard his story. It made me feel both
thankful and ashamed,” pausing to blow his nose vigorously. “Uncle
James, when you know it, I am certain you will feel as I do, that it
bears the stamp of truth. Hopkins has been working of late among some
of the plague spots of the East End, and has been most marvellously
successful. By some means he learned of the intended burglary at
Whistone Hall, and also that one of the men engaged was one whom he
had regarded as a most promising convert. He came to ask my advice,
but I was out with Sadie and he couldn't reach me. I shall never cease
to regret that I failed him then. In his anxiety to stop the plot he
could think of no better plan than going down to Whistone himself and
reasoning with the men. Only in the event of their very obstinate
refusal did he intend to give the alarm. However, when he reached the
scene of action, he found that operations had begun sooner than he
expected and that they had already effected an entrance. Hopkins went
after them. He pleaded, he argued and just as he thought he was on the
point of success he found that they were surrounded. Then, it is a
moot point what he ought to have done. So conscious was he of his own
integrity that the idea of making his escape never occurred to him;
and, when he found himself arrested with the others, he thought he
only had to explain matters. His amazement when he was disbelieved was
pathetic—so pathetic that I lost my own composure when listening to
him.”

“Um!” The rector raised his eyebrows. “But, my dear Aubrey, in the
account in the papers it said that he was evidently the ringleader and
that he was caught red-handed with a revolver in his possession.”

Aubrey cast a strange glance at his uncle from beneath his lowered
eyelids.

“The papers will say anything, Uncle James. Though as a matter of fact
Hopkins had a revolver. He had just persuaded one of the more reckless
men to give it up to him. Uncle James, in another minute Hopkins
believes and I believe he would have got them safely out of the house.
He has wonderful powers of persuasion.”

Mr. Collyer did not speak. Remembering Hopkins's gloomy countenance
and pleasing habit of opening and shutting his mouth silently, he was
inclined to think that Hopkins's powers of persuasion if effective
must be little short of marvellous. His defence too did not strike him
in the same light as it apparently did Aubrey. He was inclined to
think it as lame a tale as he had ever heard.

Presently Todmarsh resumed.

“Keith and Swinnerton are taking up the case. They are the keenest
solicitors I know and they are briefing Arnold Wynter for the defence.
Oh, we shall get Hopkins off all right at the assizes. But it is the
thought of what the poor old chap is going through now, locked up
there alone and knowing how the world is misjudging him that bowls me
over.” He stopped and blew his nose again.

“But, my dear boy, you cannot be held responsible for that. And I am
certain that nobody could have done more for him than you, if as you
say he is to be defended by Arnold Wynter. But I am afraid, my dear
Aubrey, that it is likely to prove an expensive matter for you, for it
is absurd to suppose that Hopkins——”

“I shall not allow Hopkins to pay a penny if it costs the last one I
possess,” Todmarsh interrupted, a dull shade of red streaking his
sallow face as he spoke. “You can have no idea what Hopkins was to me.
To speak to a crowd of all sorts of men, and to have Hopkins sitting
in the front with his wonderfully responsive face was like an
inspiration. You who preach must know what I mean.”

“Um! Well, I hope you may soon have him back,” the rector said slowly.

Todmarsh smiled for the first time that day.

“Uncle James, I do not believe you appreciate my poor Hopkins any more
than those people at Burchester do.”

Mr. Collyer twisted himself about impatiently.

“I really did not know Hopkins at all, Aubrey. I did not take to him,
I must confess. Burchester? I did not think that was the name of the
place where he was taken.”

“Oh, of course he was taken at Whistone. I suppose Burchester was the
nearest gaol,” Aubrey said carelessly. Then with a little more
appearance of interest, “Why, do you know Burchester, Uncle James?”

Mr. Collyer shook his head.

“No. My interest has always lain in the North or the Midlands. But Mr.
Steadman has got Tony the offer of a post near there. He went down
somewhere there the other day with Inspector Furnival. I thought them
rather mysterious about it, I must say. I should have enjoyed the
ride, for they went down in the car, and it was a lovely day. But I
soon found that they did not want a companion.”

“Business, perhaps,” Todmarsh suggested. His face was dull and
uninterested now: the enthusiasm so remarkable when he spoke of
Hopkins had died out.

“Oh, I shouldn't think so!” Mr. Collyer dissented. “What connexion
could there be between your Uncle Luke's death and a quiet little
country town such as Burchester? No, Burford was the place they went
to.”

“Oh, well, as we don't know who the murderer was, or where he came
from, he may just as well have been connected with Burford as anywhere
else. Uncle James, who do you think killed Uncle Luke?”

“My dear boy!” The sudden question seemed to embarrass the rector. He
took off his pince-nez and rubbed them, replacing them with fingers
that visibly trembled. “How can we tell? How can any of us hazard an
opinion? Heaven forbid that I should judge any man! The only idea I
have formed on the subject can hardly be called original since I know
it is shared by your Aunt Madeline, who has been voicing it much more
vehemently than I should ever do.”

“Aunt Madeline!” Todmarsh looked up quickly. “What does she say? I
have not seen her since the interrupted luncheon party. I have called,
but she was out. But what can she know?”

“She does not know anything, of course.” The rector hesitated, his
face looking troubled and disturbed. “But like myself, dear Aubrey,
she was listening very intently to Mrs. Carnthwacke. I may say that my
attention was fixed entirely on the lady; and it may be that my
profession makes me particularly critical and observant. I dare say
you have noticed that it does?”

“Naturally!” Todmarsh assented. But as he spoke the fingers of his
right hand clenched themselves with a quick involuntary movement of
impatience. Observant as Mr. Collyer had just proclaimed himself to be
he did not notice how his nephew's fingers tightened until the
knuckles shone white beneath the skin.

“Yes. We parsons so often have to form our own judgments on men and
women quite independently of all external things,” the Rev. James
Collyer prattled on, while only something in the restrained immobility
of his nephew's attitude might have made a close observer guess at
impatience resolutely held in check. “Therefore, as I said, I watched
Mrs. Carnthwacke very closely, and I formed the opinion—the very
strong opinion that, though she was undoubtedly speaking the truth as
far as she went, she was not telling us the whole truth. So far I
agree with your Aunt Madeline. But I feel sure that—I will not say she
recognized the murderer, the man who was impersonating your Uncle
Luke, but I think that she saw something that might give us a clue to
him, put the police on his track. And in fact I know that this opinion
is that of Mr. Steadman if not of the police. It is from Mrs.
Carnthwacke that the identification of the murderer will come, I feel
sure. Still, I may be wrong. You, my dear boy——”

A sharp cry from Todmarsh interrupted him. The penknife with which he
had been sharpening a pencil had slipped, inflicting for so slight a
thing quite a deep gash in his wrist. The blood spurted out.

His uncle looked at him aghast.

“My dear Aubrey! You must have cut an artery. What shall we do? A
doctor——”

Todmarsh wrapped his handkerchief hurriedly round his wrist and tied
it. He held one end out to the clergyman.

“Pull as tight as you can. I must have cut a vein. Excuse me, Uncle
James. I will just get Johnson to make a tourniquet. He is as good as
a doctor. I must apologize for making such a mess. If you will just
have a look at the papers; you will find them over there,” jerking his
head in the direction of the table at which he had been writing when
his uncle came in. “I won't be a minute, and then I shall be quite at
your service.” He hurried out of the room.

Mr. Collyer walked over to the writing-table and took up a paper. But
he was feeling too restless and excited to read. Events were moving
too quickly for the rector of Wexbridge. Hitherto, except for his
anxiety over Tony, his had been a calmly ordered life. Now, with his
journey to London and subsequent discovery of the loss of the
emeralds, he had been plunged into a veritable vortex of horror and
bewilderment. Two things alone he held to through all: his faith in
Heaven and his faith in Tony. Whoever else might distrust Tony Collyer
and think that he had had far more opportunities than anyone else in
the world of possessing himself of the emeralds, his father had never
doubted him. He had seen a gleam of pity in the eyes of the detective
who had brought him the news that the emeralds had been traced, which
had told him who was suspected of having taken them. He was thinking
of it now, and asking himself for the hundredth time who the culprit
could have been, as at last he seated himself in Todmarsh's chair and
reached out for a paper which lay folded at the back of the inkstand.
But he drew back with an exclamation of distaste.

There was blood on the writing-table, on the inkstand, on the cover of
the blotting-book. The first spurt from Aubrey's wrist had apparently
gone right over them all. The orderly soul of the rector was revolted.
He opened the blotting-book and tearing out a sheet proceeded to mop
up the blood. He tore up the blotting-paper and took up each spot
separately. But when the paper was finished there were still spots of
blood scattered over the writing-table. Turning back to the
blotting-book he tore out another sheet.

“Wonderful!” he said to himself. “It is wonderful that so slight a
thing, a mere slip of the knife, should inflict so much damage. I
should not have thought it possible.”

And as he voiced his thoughts, his long, lean fingers were pulling out
bits of pink blotting-paper and dabbing them down on the drops of
scarlet blood, then rolling them up into damp red pellets and dropping
them into the waste-paper-basket. Then all at once a strange thing
happened. As his fingers moved swiftly, mechanically over their work,
his gaze went back to the open blotter.

There on the leaf, as it had lain beneath the paper he had torn out,
was a piece of paper. Just a very ordinary piece of paper with a few
lines in a woman's clear writing scrawled across it.

The Rev. James Collyer read them over with no particular intention of
doing so; then as his brain slowly took in the sense of what he read
his fingers stopped working. He never knew how long he stood there,
staring at that paper, while his lips moved noiselessly, while every
drop of colour drained slowly from his face and the stark horror in
his eyes deepened. At last he moved. The bits of paper had dropped
from his hands and lay in an untidy heap on the table. With a quick,
furtive gesture he caught up the piece of paper, and moving quickly he
thrust it between the bars of the grate into the sluggish fire inside.
It burst into a flame and the rector stood there and watched it burn.
When nothing was left but bits of greyish ash he turned away and put
up his hands to his forehead. It was wet—great drops of sweat were
rolling into his eyes. A few minutes later a messenger, one of the
Confraternity, coming down from the room of the Head, found the Rev.
James Collyer letting himself out at the front door.

“Mr. Todmarsh desired me to say, sir, that the cut is much deeper than
he thought. We have sent for the doctor, and it may be some time
before he is ready to come to you. But, if you will wait, he will be
very pleased——”

“No, no! I won't wait,” said the rector thickly, in tones that none of
his parishioners would have recognized as his. “He—he—my business is
not important.”

A wild idea that of a certainty the clergyman had been drinking shot
through the brain of Todmarsh's messenger, as he stood at the open
door watching the tall, lean figure of the clergyman making its way
along the pavement and saw it sway more than once from side to side.



CHAPTER XVII

“You identify these emeralds as yours?”

“No, I can't. I don't see how anybody could identify unset stones,”
said the rector wearily.

“H'm!” Inspector Furnival stopped, nonplussed. “But these exactly
answer to the description that has been circulated, that you yourself
supplied to the police.”

Mr. Collyer's face looked drawn and grey as he turned the stones over
with the tip of his finger.

“Yes, yes! But emeralds look the same, and these seem to fit in their
settings. I—I really can't say anything more definite. I thought mine
were larger.”

The inspector swept the emeralds in their wadded box into a drawer.

“Well, there is no more to be said. We shall have to rely on expert
evidence as to identity. Unless—wouldn't it be possible that young Mr.
Anthony might be able to help us?”

“I should think it extremely unlikely,” said Tony's father decisively.
“In fact I am sure it is impossible. I always took charge of
the emeralds. Tony had not seen them for years before their
disappearance.”

The inspector pushed the drawer to and locked it.

“That is all that can be done this afternoon, then. I quite understood
that you were prepared to be definite with regard to the
identification or I would not have troubled you.”

“I am sorry!” the rector said hesitatingly. “Then—then there is
nothing more?”

“Nothing more!” the inspector responded curtly.

He and John Steadman were standing against the writing-table, in one
drawer of which the emeralds had been deposited. Mr. Collyer paused a
moment near the door and looked at them doubtfully. Once he opened his
mouth as if to speak, then apparently changing his mind closed it
again dumbly.

When the sound of his footsteps had died away on the stone passage
outside, Steadman glanced across at the inspector.

“Unsatisfactory, isn't it?”

“Very,” the inspector returned shortly. “Thank you, sir.” He took a
cigarette from the case Steadman held out to him. “Well, fortunately,
the cross was exhibited at the Great Exhibition in '61, so I think we
shall be able, with the description then given and the expert evidence
of to-day, to reconstruct the cross and make sure about the emeralds.
But what can be wrong with the rector?”

“Is anything wrong with him?” Steadman questioned in his turn as he
lighted a match.

“He looks like a man who has had some sort of a shock,” the inspector
pursued. “I wonder if it means that Mr. Tony——”

“Tony had nothing to do with the loss of the emeralds,” John Steadman
said in his most decided tones. “You can put that out of your mind.”

The inspector paced the narrow confines of his office in Scotland Yard
two or three times before he made any rejoinder. Then as he cast a
lightning glance at Steadman he said tentatively:

“I have sometimes wondered what Mrs. Collyer is like.”

“Not the sort of woman to substitute paste for her own emeralds,”
Steadman said ironically. “No use. You will have to look farther
afield, inspector.”

“I am half inclined to put it down to the Yellow Gang,” the inspector
said doubtfully. “But it differs in several particulars from the work
of the Yellow Dog, notably the substitution of the paste. But—well,
there may have been reasons.”

Still his brow was puckered in a frown as he turned to his notebook.

“Now, Mr. Steadman, I have someone else for you to interview.” He
sounded his bell sharply as he spoke. “Show Mr. Brunton in as soon as
he comes,” he said to the policeman who appeared in answer.

“He is waiting, sir.”

“Oh, good! Let him come in. This Brunton, Mr. Steadman, is one of the
late Mr. Bechcombe's younger clerks. I do not know whether you knew
him.”

John Steadman shook his head.

“No, I have no recollection of any of the clerks but Thompson.”

“He is with Carrington and Cleaver, who are carrying on Mr.
Bechcombe's clients until, if ever, some one takes on the practice,”
pursued the inspector. “And I should like you to hear a story he
brought to me this morning.”

Almost as the last word left his lips, the door opened again and a
lanky, sandy-haired youth was shown in.

The inspector stepped forward.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Brunton. Now I want you just to repeat to this
gentleman, Mr. Steadman, what you told me this morning.”

Mr. Brunton coughed nervously.

“I thought I did right in coming to you.”

“Certainly you did,” the inspector reassured him. “Your evidence is
most important. Now, from the beginning, please, Mr. Brunton.”

“Well, it was last night. I left the office early because I had an
errand to do for Mr. Carrington,” the youth began. He kept his eyes
fixed on the inspector—not once did he glance in Steadman's direction.
His hands twisted themselves nervously together. “It took me some time
longer than I expected and it was getting late when I started home.
You will remember perhaps, inspector, that there was a bit of a fog
here, but on the other side of the river where I had to go it was much
worse, and the farther I went the denser it became. I got out of the
bus at the _Elephant_, which is not far from my rooms, you know.” He
paused.

“I know. Go on, please.”

“Well, I had to walk from there—there's no bus goes anywhere near. The
fog was getting dangerous by then. You couldn't see your hand before
your face, as the saying is. I know the way well enough in the
daylight, but in a fog things look so different. It is a regular
network of small streets behind there, you know, and one seemed just
like the other. I lost my bearings and began to wonder how I was going
to get home. There were no passers-by—I seemed to be the only living
creature out—and I was just making up my mind to ring the bell at one
of the houses and see if anyone could direct me or help me at all,
when a strange thing happened; though I hadn't known there was anyone
about, a voice spoke out of the fog close beside me as it seemed. ‘It
is the only thing to be done—you can't make a mistake.’ The rejoinder
came in a woman's voice. ‘But I can't do it. It wouldn't be safe. They
might follow me. You must shake them off if you have any affection for
me.’ The man's voice said again, ‘If you have any thought for the
future you will get it for me. Would you like to see me in prison and
worse? Would you like to be pointed at as——’ That was all I heard,
sir.” Mr. Brunton turned himself from Mr. Steadman to the inspector,
then back again to Steadman. “I was listening for all I was worth,
trying not to miss a word, when that horrid fog got down my throat and
tickled me, and before I could help myself I had given a great sneeze.
There was a sharp exclamation, and I thought I caught the sound of
footsteps deadened by the fog. That was all I could hear, sir—every
word,” looking from one to the other.

“Very good, Mr. Brunton,” the inspector said as he stopped. “And now
just you tell Mr. Steadman why you listened—why you were anxious to
hear.”

The youth glanced at Steadman in a scared fashion. “I—I listened, sir,
because I recognized the voices, one voice at least for certain—the
man's. It was Mr. Amos Thompson's, the late Mr. Bechcombe's managing
clerk.”

John Steadman raised his eyebrows. “You are sure?”

“Quite certain, as certain as I could be of anything,” asseverated
Brunton. “I knew Mr. Thompson's voice too well to make any mistake,
sir. I had good reason to, for he was for ever nagging at me when I
was at Mr. Bechcombe's. There wouldn't be one of us clerks who
wouldn't recognize Mr. Thompson's voice.”

“Is that so?” Mr. Steadman raised his eyebrows again. “And the other
voice—the woman's?”

Mr. Brunton fidgeted. “I wasn't so certain of that, sir. I hadn't had
so many opportunities of hearing it, you see. But it sounded like Miss
Hoyle's—Mr. Bechcombe's secretary. I heard it at the inquest.”

“I understand you saw absolutely nothing to show that you were right
in either surmise,” John Steadman said, his face showing none of the
surprise he felt at hearing Cecily's name.

“Nothing—nothing at all!” Mr. Brunton confirmed. “But, if I ever heard
it on earth, it was Mr. Thompson's voice I heard then. And I don't
think—I really don't think I was wrong in taking the other for Miss
Hoyle's, as I say I heard it at the inquest, and I took particular
notice of it.”

“Um!” John Steadman stroked his nose meditatively. “How long had you
been in Mr. Bechcombe's office, Mr. Brunton?”

Mr. Brunton hesitated a moment.

“Five years, sir. I began as office boy to—to gain experience, you
know. I was fourteen then and I am nineteen now.”

“No more?” said Mr. Steadman approvingly.

Mr. Brunton, who had looked distinctly depressed at the mention of his
lowly beginning, began to perk up.

“And Mr. Thompson has been managing clerk all the time,” the barrister
went on. “No, I don't think you could very well mistake his voice. But
Miss Hoyle had only been a short time with Mr. Bechcombe, you say—you
had not seen much of her? At the office, I mean, not the inquest.”

“Not much, sir. Because she never came into our office. She always
went into her own by the door next Mr. Bechcombe's room. Most of the
clerks really did not know her by sight at all, let alone recognize
her voice. But it was part of my job to go into Mr. Bechcombe's room
with the midday mail, and more often than not she would be there
taking down Mr. Bechcombe's instructions in shorthand. Very often too
he would make her repeat the last sentence he had given her before he
broke off. It was in that way I got to know her voice a little, for I
never spoke to her beyond passing the time of day if we met
accidentally, for she was always one that kept herself to herself,”
Mr. Brunton concluded, quite out of breath with his long speech.

John Steadman nodded.

“Yes, you would have a fair chance of becoming acquainted with her
voice that way. Better, I think, than at the inquest. The words that
you overheard, I take it you reported as accurately as possible.”

“Oh, yes, sir.” Mr. Brunton moved restlessly from one leg to the
other. “You see, I recognized Mr. Thompson's voice with the first
words and, knowing how important it was that the police should find
him, I listened for all I was worth.”

“I take it from the words you have reported that Thompson had some
hold over the girl,” Mr. Steadman pursued. “Had you previously had any
idea of any connexion between them?”

Mr. Brunton shook his head in emphatic negative.

“Not the least, sir. If you had asked me I shouldn't have thought Mr.
Thompson would have known Miss Hoyle if he had met her.”

“And yet Miss Hoyle's portrait was found in Thompson's room,” Mr.
Steadman said very deliberately. “One might say the only thing that
was found there in fact.”

“Was it, indeed, sir?” Young Brunton looked dumbfounded. “Well, if
they were friends, there was none of us in the office suspected it,”
he finished.

“And that was rather remarkable among such a lot of young men as there
were at Luke Bechcombe's,” remarked John Steadman. “They generally
have their eyes open to everything. Now as to where they were when you
overheard them. You do not think you could recognize the place again?”

“I am afraid not, sir. You see, the fog alters everything so. I seemed
to have been wandering about for hours when I heard Thompson's voice,
and it appeared to me that I walked about for hours afterwards before
the fog lifted. When it did I was quite near home, but I haven't the
least idea whether it meant that I had been sort of walking round
about in a circle, or whether I had been further afield.”

“Anyway we shall have all that neighbourhood combed out,” interposed
Inspector Furnival. “If Mr. Thompson is in hiding anywhere there I
think that we may take it his capture is only a matter of time. I am
much obliged to you, Mr. Brunton. I will let you know in good time
when your evidence is likely to be required.”

“Thank you, sir.” With an awkward circular bow intended to include
both men Mr. Brunton took his departure.

The inspector shut the door behind him.

“What do you think of that?”

“I was surprised,” Steadman answered. “Surprised that they were not
more careful,” he went on. “There is nothing more unsafe than talking
of one's private affairs abroad in a fog. Buses and trains are child's
play to a fog.”

The inspector smiled.

“Oh, well, don't criminals always overlook something? Which reminds
me—this came an hour ago.”

He handed a piece of paper to Steadman.

The latter regarded it doubtfully. It had evidently been torn out of a
notebook, and looked as though it had passed through several hands,
for it was dirty and thumbmarked and frayed at the edges as though it
had been carried about in some one's pocket. Across one corner of it
were scrawled some letters in pencil. He put up his pince-nez and
looked at it more closely. The few words scrawled across it were very
irregularly and illegibly written in printed characters. After
scrutinizing it for some time through his glasses Steadman made them
out to be: “Wednesday night, 21 Burlase Street, Limehouse.
Chink-a-pin.”

“What is to take place at 21 Burlase Street on Wednesday night?” he
questioned as he laid it down.

“A meeting of the Yellow Gang, and I hope the capture of the Yellow
Dog,” the inspector answered pithily and optimistically.

“And this comes from——?” Steadman went on, tapping the paper with his
eyeglasses.

“One of the Gang. It is pretty safe to assume that sooner or later
there will be an informer.”

“You will be there?”

The inspector nodded. “But we are taking no risks. The informer may be
false to both sides. The house will be surrounded. Whole squads of men
are being drafted to the neighbourhood, a few at a time, to-day. I
fancy we shall corner the Yellow Dog at last. With this password I
shall certainly get into the house and arrest the Yellow Dog. Then at
the sound of the whistle the house will be rushed.”

“I will come with you,” said John Steadman. “I fancy an interview with
the Yellow Dog may be extraordinarily interesting.”



CHAPTER XVIII

“I cannot live without you, Cecily. This bogy of yours shall not
separate us. Surely my love is strong enough to help you to bear
whatever the future can hold. Till the last hour of my life I shall be
your devoted lover, Tony.”

A momentary sensation of warmth and light ran through Cecily's cold
frame as she read the impassioned sentences. Very resolutely she had
put Anthony Collyer's love from her. She had told herself that she was
a moral leper set far apart from all thoughts of love or marriage. It
was not in the nature of a mortal girl to read such words and remain
unmoved.

She was sitting at her table in Madeline Bechcombe's private
sitting-room. As she finished reading her letter she made a movement
as though to tuck it in the breast of her gown, then, changing her
mind, she tossed it into the very centre of the bright fire on the
hearth.

At this same moment Mrs. Bechcombe came into the room. She glanced
curiously at the paper just bursting into momentary flame.

“I wish you would not burn papers here, Miss Hoyle,” she said
fretfully. “It does litter up the hearth so and there is a
waste-paper-basket over there.”

“I am very sorry, I quite forgot,” Cecily said penitently. “Mrs.
Bechcombe, this is a letter from Lady Chard-Green. She wants you to go
to them for a week-end, the 3rd or the 10th if that would suit you
better.”

“They will neither of them suit me at all,” Mrs. Bechcombe said
decisively. “You can tell her so. I wonder whether she would feel
inclined to go about week-ending if her husband had been cruelly
murdered?”

Cecily shivered as she took up the next letter.

“This is from Colonel Chalmers. He has just returned to England,
and——”

“I don't care what he has done,” Mrs. Bechcombe interrupted. “I really
only came in to tell you that I do not feel well enough to attend to
letters or anything else this morning. So you need not stay—it will
give you a little more time to yourself.”

“Thank you very much.” Cecily hesitated. “But can I not do anything
for you, Mrs. Bechcombe? Perhaps if your head is bad again, you might
let me read to you.”

“No, no! I could not stand it. It would drive me mad,” Mrs. Bechcombe
responded, with the irritability that was becoming habitual with her.
“No, when I feel like this, I must be alone. I mean it.”

Cecily was nothing loath to leave her work and go out into the air. It
was a lovely day. The sky was blue as Londoners seldom see it, tiny
fleecy clouds of white just floating across it emphasizing the depth
of colour. Spring seemed to be calling to the youth in her to come
into the country and rejoice with the new life that was springing into
being everywhere. And Cecily must go to Burford. She had intended to
go when her day's work was over, but now she could start at once. Like
a great black thundercloud over the brightness of the day the thought
of Burford and of her errand there overhung everything. She made up
her mind to take the first train down and get the thing over.

She made her way to the station at once. Trains to Burford ran
frequently and she had not long to wait. She occupied the time by
getting a cup of tea and a bun in the refreshment room, but though she
had had nothing but a piece of dry toast for her breakfast she could
not eat. She only crumbled the bun, one of the station variety, while
she drank the tea thirstily. She did not notice that a shabbily
dressed small boy who had been loitering outside the house in
Carlsford Square had dogged her steps to the station and now sat
reading a dilapidated copy of “Tit-Bits” outside on the seat nearest
the refreshment room.

The station for Burford was soon reached. Cecily, who was fond of
walking, made up her mind to walk to Rose Cottage instead of taking
the shabby one-horse cab that stood outside the station, but she was
out of practice and she was distinctly tired when she reached her
destination.

The housekeeper received her with evident amazement.

“Miss Hoyle! Well, I never! And I have been expecting your pa down
every day this past week!”

“Well, I have come instead, you see. I hope I am not a dreadful
disappointment,” Cecily said, calling up a smile with an effort as she
shook hands. She did not know much of Mrs. Wye and what little she did
know she did not much like, but she knew that the woman had been a
long time with her father and felt that it behoved her to make herself
pleasant.

The housekeeper held open the sitting-room door and Cecily walked in
and sat down with an air of relief.

“My father has been ill, Mrs. Wye. That is why he has not been down
here lately. He is much better now and I am hoping to take him to the
sea soon to convalesce. In the meantime he wants some papers from the
desk in his bedroom and I have come to fetch them.”

“I am very sorry to hear Mr. Hoyle has been ill, miss,” and the woman
really did look concerned. “We have had several people here asking
after him of late and there is a lot of letters. But I never know
where to forward them. I take it Mr. Hoyle will have been in a
nursing-home, miss?”

“Er—oh, yes.” Cecily began to feel that even this woman might want to
know too much. “Perhaps you would get me a cup of tea, Mrs. Wye,” she
went on. “I hadn't time for lunch before I started and though I had
some tea at the station it wasn't up to much. It never is at stations,
somehow.”

“You are right there, miss,” Mrs. Wye agreed. “And is the master out
of the nursing-home now, might I ask, miss?”

“Oh, yes. He is with friends,” Cecily said vaguely. Her colour
deepened as she spoke.

The housekeeper's little eyes watched her curiously. “Perhaps you
would give me an address I could forward the letters to, miss.”

“Oh, of course!” Cecily got up. She could not sit here to be badgered
by this woman who she began to feel was inimical to her. “I will get
the things my father wants,” she went on. “For I must catch an early
train back. I do not want to be away longer than necessary.”

She went upstairs to the front bedroom which she knew to be her
father's. It was spotlessly clean and tidy, but it had the bare look
of a room that has been unoccupied for a long time. The desk stood on
a small table near the window. Cecily had the key, and the envelope
for which she had come down was lying just at the top. A long rather
thin envelope inscribed 11260. Doubled up it just fitted into Cecily's
handbag. She pushed it in and shut it with a snap. Then she sat down
in a basket-work chair near the open window. She really could not
start back without some rest, and she was not anxious to encounter
Mrs. Wye again. As she sat there her thoughts went back to Tony's
letter; and though she told herself that nothing could come of it the
recollection of his love seemed to fall like sunshine over her,
cheering and enveloping her.

She was feeling more herself when her eyes mechanically straying past
the little garden with its ordered paths and flower-beds fixed
themselves on the road that ran beyond. Suddenly they focused
themselves upon an object nearly opposite the cottage gate. Slowly the
colour ebbed from her cheeks and lips, her eyes grew wide and
frightened, the hands lying on her lap began to twitch and twine
themselves nervously together.

Yet at first sight there seemed nothing in the road outside to account
for her agitation—just a heap of broken stones and sitting by it a
worn, tired-looking old tramp. Just a very ordinary-looking old man.
Yet Cecily got up, and, craning forward while keeping herself in the
shadow as much as possible, tried to view him from every possible
angle. Surely, surely, she said to herself, it could not be the very
same old man to whom she had seen John Steadman give a penny outside
the house in Carlsford Square only that very morning! Yet try to
persuade herself as she might, that it could not be the same, she knew
from the first moment beyond the possibility of a doubt that there was
no mistake. And that could mean only one thing, that she was being
followed, that they suspected—what? She began to shiver all over. Then
one idea seemed to take possession of her. Almost she could have
fancied it had been whispered in her ear by some outside unseen
agency. She must get back to town without delay, by the very next
train, she must take that mysterious envelope to its destination at
once. She ran downstairs. Mrs. Wye was laying the table.

“I thought maybe you would relish a dish of ham and eggs. Butcher's
meat is a thing we can't come at out here at the end of the week, not
unless it is ordered beforehand.”

“Oh, no, no! Please don't trouble to cook anything. I will just have a
bit of bread and butter. Indeed I would rather,” Cecily protested. “I
find I must get back again as quickly as possible. I have forgotten
something in town.”

She sat down and drawing the plate of brown bread and butter towards
her managed to eat a piece while she drank a cup of the strong tea
Mrs. Wye poured out for her.

“It isn't any use your hurrying,” the housekeeper babbled on. “You
will have plenty of time to make a good meal and walk slowly to the
station and still have time to spare, before eight o'clock.”

“Ah, but I want to get the half-past six,” Cecily said quickly. “I
shall have time if I start at once, I think.”

“You might, but then again you might not,” Mrs. Wye said in a
disappointed tone. The hour's gossip to which she had been looking
forward was apparently not coming off. “You would save a few minutes
by taking the footpath at the back,” she added honestly. “You cut off
a good bit past Burford Parish Church that way.”

The back! Cecily's heart gave a great throb. Would she be able to
escape that watcher in the front after all?

“Do you mean at the back of this cottage?” she questioned.

“Dear me, yes, miss. It is a favourite walk of the poor master's. If
you go out of the front you just go round the house. Or you can get on
to the path by our back door and the little gate behind we use for
bringing in coal and such-like.”

“I will go by the back, please,” Cecily said, standing up. “No, thank
you, Mrs. Wye, I really can't eat any more. And I will write and let
you know how my father is in a day or two.”

She made her escape from the loquacious housekeeper with a little more
difficulty, and sped quickly on to the path pointed out to her,
clutching the precious handbag tightly to her side. She almost ran
along the footpath in her anxiety to reach the station and was
delighted to find herself there with a quarter of an hour to spare.
She bought her ticket and then ensconced herself in the waiting-room
in a corner so that she could watch the approach to the station and
find out whether the old beggar was on her track.

As soon as the train was signalled she went out on the platform, and
managed to find a seat in an empty carriage. It did not remain empty
long, however. There were more people waiting for the train than she
had expected. Evidently the 6.30, slow though it might be, was popular
in Burford. The carriage, a corridor one, was soon full. Cecily took
her seat by the window, clutching her handbag closely to her, and
winding the cord tightly round her wrist. Opposite to her was a young,
smart-looking man, who showed a desire to get the window to her liking
which was distinctly flattering. Next to him sat a young woman, very
pale and delicate-looking. Beyond her again was an elderly woman
apparently of the respectable lodging house keeper type. The other
seats were occupied by a couple of working men, one with his bag of
tools on his shoulder. Cecily, after one look round, decided that she
was certainly safe here. She had brought a pocket edition of Keats's
poems with her, and she took it out now and, opening the book at
“Isabella and the Pot of Basil,” was soon deep in it.

The man opposite was reading, the old lady beside him was sleeping,
the two working men were staring at the flying landscape with
uninterested, lack-lustre eyes, half-open mouths and one hand planted
on each knee. Cecily after her unwonted exercise in the open air felt
inclined to sleep herself, but she remembered the contents of her bag
and resolutely resisted the inclination of her eyelids to droop. Still
she was feeling pleasantly drowsy when they ran into the long tunnel
between Rushleigh and Fairford. The man opposite her put down his
paper and leaned across her to draw up the window with a murmured
“Excuse me.”

At the same moment the light went out. There was a chorus of
exclamations, a shriek from the old lady beside Cecily, something very
like a swear word from the man opposite. In a trice he had lighted a
match and held it up. “It is not much of a light,” he said
apologetically, “but it is better than nothing and I have plenty to
last to the end of the tunnel.”

Then he uttered a sharp exclamation. Cecily's eyes followed his. She
saw that the old lady next her had slipped sideways, the pretty apple
colour in her cheeks had faded, that the pendulous cheeks had become a
sickly indefinite grey. The man in the corner dropped his match and
lighted another. He moved up the seat and struck another.

“She has fainted,” he announced. “In itself that is not serious, but I
am a doctor and I should say she has heart trouble. She certainly
ought not to travel alone.”

Already they were getting through the tunnel. Cecily felt the old lady
lurch against her and lie like a dead weight against her arm. The girl
put out her other hand and held the helpless form tightly. As the
light spread the doctor leaned over and felt the woman's pulse.

“She must be laid flat,” he said briefly. “Will you help me?” He
beckoned to the man at the other end, and between them they raised the
woman, and laid her down. Cecily unfastened a scarf that was twisted
tightly round the flabby neck. The doctor's quick, capable fingers
produced a pair of scissors from a case and cut down the woolen jumper
in front, then from a handbag he produced a tiny phial. From this he
poured just one drop into the poor woman's mouth, while Cecily by his
directions fanned her vigorously with a sheet of newspaper. By and by
they were rewarded by signs of returning consciousness, and presently
the patient opened her eyes and gazed round questioningly at the
strange faces. Then she began to sit up and try to pull her jumper
together with shaking fingers.

“Did I faint?” she asked tremulously. “I—I know it all went dark, and
then I don't remember any more.”

“Don't try!” advised the doctor, “just rest as long as you can. I
think we can manage a pillow for you.” He disposed his bag and rug
behind her so that she was propped up against the end of the carriage.

As she watched him fix the handbag, Cecily was suddenly reminded of
her own bag with its precious contents. With a certain prevision of
evil she clapped her free hand on her wrist. The bag was gone! She
remembered that it had been in her way when she began to help with the
invalid—then she could remember no more. Withdrawing her hand from the
sick woman's grasp, she began to search feverishly among the
newspapers and various odds and ends that were strewn all over the
compartment. The doctor looked at her.

“You have lost something? Your bag? Oh, now where did I see it? Oh, I
remember—you put it down here.” He produced it from the side of his
patient, from between her and the wood of the compartment, and handed
it to her.

Cecily almost snatched it from him. How had she come to let it fall,
she asked herself passionately. But had she dropped it or had it been
taken from her? She fumbled with the clasp with fingers that were numb
with fear. Yes, yes! There it was, that mysterious packet, just as she
had placed it, and with a sigh of relief she sat down again and leaned
back.

There was little more to be done for the woman who was ill. She lay
quietly in her seat until they ran into the London terminus. Then
Cecily leaned forward.

“Will your friends meet you?” she asked gently. “Or can I help you?”

The sick woman did not open her eyes.

“I shall be met, thank you. Thank you all so much.”

Quite a crowd of porters, apparently beckoned by the guard, appeared
at the door. The doctor smiled as he stood aside for Cecily.

“You have been a most capable assistant.”

“Thank you!” Cecily gave him a cold little smile of farewell as she
sprang out.

She hesitated a moment outside the station, then she beckoned to a
passing taxi and gave her address at the Hobart Residence. She was
taking no further risks, and her hand held the handbag firmly with its
precious contents intact until it had been safely locked up in her
desk.

Meanwhile another taxi had flashed out of the station and bowled
swiftly in the opposite direction to that which she had taken. In it
were seated side by side the woman who had been ill in the train, now
marvellously recovered, and the smart young doctor, while opposite to
them there lounged one of the working men who had been sitting at the
other end of the compartment.

Half an hour later, Inspector Furnival, busily writing at his desk in
his room at Scotland Yard, looked up sharply as there was a tap at the
door.

“Come in!”

The door opened to admit a man who bore a strong resemblance to the
young doctor of the train, though in some subtle fashion a curious
metamorphosis seemed to have overtaken him. To Cecily he had seemed to
be all doctor—now, he looked to even a casual observer all policeman
as he saluted his superior.

The inspector glanced at him.

“Any luck, Masterman?”

For answer Masterman held out a piece of paper on which a few words
were scrawled.

The inspector drew his brows together over it.

“Samuel Horsingforth,” he read, “Sta. Irica, Portugal.” Then he looked
up at his subordinate. “You have done very well, Masterman. This is
really all that is essential.”

Masterman, well-pleased, saluted again.

“I thought it would be, sir. And it was really all we had time for.
Miss Hoyle is not an easy nut to crack.”



CHAPTER XIX

John Steadman was hard at work in Luke Bechcombe's study. He was
finding his co-executor, the Rev. James Collyer, of very little use.
It was rumoured that the rector had had a nervous breakdown; at any
rate it appeared impossible to get him up to town and documents
requiring his signature had to be sent to Wexbridge Rectory by special
messenger.

Steadman was cogitating over this fact in some annoyance and
deliberating the advisability of applying for the appointment of
another executor, when he heard the sound of a taxi stopping before
the door, and looking up he saw Inspector Furnival getting out. He
went into the hall to meet him.

The inspector was looking grave and perturbed.

“Have you heard?” he questioned breathlessly.

“Nothing!” Steadman answered laconically.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke was murderously assaulted this morning in her own
carriage in one of London's best-known thoroughfares!”

“What!” The barrister stared at him in a species of stupefaction.

Instead of answering the inspector stepped back to the open door of
the study.

“One moment, please.”

But if to speak to John Steadman in private was his objective he did
not obtain it. Mrs. Bechcombe came quickly into the hall with Cecily
Hoyle close behind her.

“Inspector,” she cried, “what is it? You have discovered my husband's
murderer? I heard you say ‘Mrs. Carnthwacke.’”

The inspector's face was very grave as he turned. Then he stood back
for her to pass into the study. He did not speak again until they were
all in the room, then he closed the door and looked at Luke
Bechcombe's widow with eyes in which pity was mingled with severity.

“Mrs. Carnthwacke has nearly shared your husband's fate, madam,” he
said very deliberately. “I think you must be convinced now of the
absolute impossibility of the theory you have not hesitated to
broadcast all along.”

“What do you mean?” Mrs. Bechcombe questioned sharply.

The inspector spread out his hands.

“As I was just telling Mr. Steadman, Mrs. Carnthwacke was murderously
assaulted and left for dead in her own carriage this morning, in
circumstances which leave small doubt in my mind that the miscreant
who attacked her was Mr. Bechcombe's murderer.”

“I do not believe it! The Carnthwackes—one of them, murdered my
husband,” Mrs. Bechcombe said uncompromisingly. “I have the strongest
possible——”

She was interrupted by an odd sound, a sort of choking gasp from
Cecily. They all turned. The girl was deathly white. She caught her
breath sharply in her throat.

“It—it can't be true! I don't believe it! Why should he want to hurt
Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

“Why should who want to hurt Mrs. Carnthwacke?” the inspector
counter-questioned.

“Because—oh, I don't know——. Oh, I know he didn't!” Cecily accompanied
this asseveration with a burst of tears. “Nobody could be so cruel.”

“Somebody has!” the inspector said dryly. “Is it any consolation to
you to think that there are two murderers at large instead of one,
Miss Hoyle?”

Cecily stared at him, twisting her hands about, apparently in an agony
of speechlessness. She made two or three hoarse attempts to answer
him. Then, with a wild glance round at the amazed faces of Steadman
and Mrs. Bechcombe, she turned and rushed out of the room.

The inspector glanced at John Steadman—a glance intercepted by Mrs.
Bechcombe.

“Hysteria!” that lady remarked scornfully. “I fancy she thinks that
you suspect Anthony, and that naturally—— But enough of Cecily Hoyle.
What is this wild tale of yours about Mrs. Carnthwacke, inspector?”

“It is no wild tale, madam,” the inspector said coldly. “I have just
come from the Carnthwackes' house, where Mrs. Carnthwacke lies at
death's door. I came here by Mr. Carnthwacke's express desire to see
whether I could induce Mr. Steadman to accompany me to consult with
him as to the best measures to be taken now.”

“Of course I will come, inspector,” the barrister said readily. “As I
should go anywhere where it was in the least probable that I should
hear anything at all bearing upon our own case. One never knows from
what point elucidation may come.”

Mrs. Bechcombe turned her shoulder to him.

“Oh, please don't prose, John! Now what has happened to Mrs.
Carnthwacke, inspector?”

“Mrs. Carnthwacke, madam, was just taking a drive as you might
yourself. She came up Piccadilly, left an order at a shop in New Bond
Street, told her man to drive by way of Regent Street and Oxford
Street to the Park, to go in by the Marble Arch and wait near the
Victoria Gate until Mr. Carnthwacke who had been out for the night
came from Paddington Station to join them. As it happened he was at
the meeting-place first. When the car stopped he was amazed to see
Mrs. Carnthwacke lolling back in a sort of crouching position against
the side of the car. At first he thought she had had a fit of some
kind, but there was an odour to which he was unaccustomed hanging
about the car and then he discovered a piece of cord twisted tightly
round his wife's throat. He cut it in a frenzy of fear and for some
time they thought she was dead. But they drove straight to some doctor
they knew close to the Park. He tried artificial respiration and
brought her round to some extent, and then before they took her home,
phoned to Scotland Yard for me.”

“What was the motive?” Steadman asked quietly.

The inspector raised his eyebrows.

“Only one person saw Mr. Bechcombe's murderer. Mrs. Carnthwacke was a
witness to be feared.”

“But you say she is not got rid of! She is alive!” Mrs. Bechcombe
interrupted hysterically.

“At present,” the inspector rejoined grimly. “Mr. Steadman, if you
could come——? As I said before, Carnthwacke is most anxious to have
your advice with regard to what steps should be taken to discover the
would-be murderer. And there is no time to be lost.”

“I am at your service, inspector.” Steadman turned to the door. “You
shall hear further particulars as soon as possible, Madeline.”

In the taxi outside John Steadman looked at the inspector.

“Is this the work of the Yellow Dog, inspector?”

“It is the work of Mr. Bechcombe's murderer, sir,” the inspector
replied evasively.

“You have some grounds for this conviction, I presume,” John Steadman
rejoined. “At first sight it looks as though it might be an entirely
independent affair. An attempt to steal any jewels that Mrs.
Carnthwacke might be wearing. Or her money.”

“You wait until you have talked to Mrs. Carnthwacke, sir. You won't
feel much doubt as to her assailant's identity then.”

“But is Mrs. Carnthwacke able to speak?” John Steadman questioned in
great surprise. “I understood from what you said——”

The inspector looked him full in the face and solemnly winked one eye.

“It suits our purpose that the outside world and particularly Mrs.
Carnthwacke's assailant should think her dying. But, as a matter of
fact, when Mrs. Carnthwacke had rallied from the effects of the
strangulation, except that she feels weak and ill from the shock, she
was practically as well as you or I. She is perfectly able to discuss
the matter with us, though by my advice she is keeping to her own
rooms and it is being given out that she is still unconscious, lying
between life and death.”

At No. 15 Blanden Square, they were received by Cyril B. Carnthwacke
himself. He was looking pale and worried, but he greeted John Steadman
warmly.

“Say, this is all right of you, Mr. Steadman,” he exclaimed. “Come
right away to my sanctum and I will tell you what I can about this
affair.”

He led the way to his study, a large room at the back of the house on
the second floor. When they were inside he locked and bolted the door,
somewhat to Steadman's surprise.

“Now,” he said, going to the opposite side of the room and unlocking
another door, “we are going right away to Mrs. Carnthwacke and you
shall hear what she says, Mr. Steadman.”

The door he opened led into what was apparently his dressing-room with
a communicating door into Mrs. Carnthwacke's apartments. In this a
couple of women dressed as nurses were sitting. They rose. Furnival
murmured:

“Female detectives to guard Mrs. Carnthwacke. Even her own maid is not
admitted.”

One of them opened the farther door and ushered them into Mrs.
Carnthwacke's room. In spite of Inspector Furnival's report, Steadman
was surprised to see how well she looked. She was lying back in a
capacious arm-chair; some arrangement of lace concealed any damage
there might be to her throat, and beyond the fact that she was
unusually pale—which might have been put down to the absence of
make-up—and that one side of her face was a little swollen, he would
have noticed nothing unusual in her.

He went forward with a few conventional words of sympathy. Carnthwacke
drew up three chairs and motioned to the other men to be seated.

“Now, honey,” he said persuasively, “you are just going to tell us all
once more what happened this morning.”

“I will do my best.” Mrs. Carnthwacke closed her eyes for a moment.
“It is such a horrible ghastly thing. But—but I know that to let such
a man be at large is a public danger. So I must tell you though every
time I speak of it I seem to live through it again. Well, I left home
this morning just as well as ever, Mr. Steadman. And really you
wouldn't have thought I _could_ be in any danger in my own car with
two men on the front; now, would you?”

“I certainly should not,” John Steadman agreed.

“Such a thing never entered my head,” Mrs. Carnthwacke went on. “But
first, perhaps, I had better say that I wore no jewellery that could
possibly attract anybody's attention. None at all, in fact, but my
wedding ring and the diamond half hoop that was my engagement ring
which I have worn as a keeper ever since. I haven't even worn my
pearls out of doors lately, because I thought it best to be on the
safe side. Well, I went to my tailor's in New Bond Street. It was an
awful bother getting there, because as you know Bond Street is up—any
street you want to go to is always up—and we had to go very slow in
the side streets because all the vehicles which turned out of Bond
Street were crowding up in the narrower streets, and the traffic was
generally disorganized. I was just hoping we should soon get out of
the crush when the door of the car was opened and a young man got in.
In that first moment I was not really frightened, for he looked like a
gentleman and smiled quite pleasantly.”

“One minute, please,” Steadman interposed. “In what street were you
now?”

“I don't know. I didn't notice. We didn't seem to have left New Bond
Street very long! I really thought for the moment in a half-bewildered
way that he must be some one I had known very well in the old days
when I was in England, and who had altered—grown as it were. He sat
down opposite me. ‘I see you don't know me,’ he said in quite a
cultivated voice, ‘and yet it is not so very long since we met.’
‘Isn't it?’ I said. ‘No, I don't seem to remember you. Where did we
meet?’ With that I put out my hand to the speaking tube, for I was
beginning to think that all was not right. But he was too quick for
me. He caught both my hands in his, then managing somehow to hold them
both in one of his he sprang across and sat down beside me. I
struggled, of course, and tried to call out, though I wasn't so
awfully frightened, not at first, for it seemed unthinkable that I
should really be hurt there in my own car in the broad daylight. But
when I opened my mouth to cry out he stuck something into my mouth,
something that burned and stung. Then in that moment I knew him—knew
him for Luke Bechcombe's murderer, I mean. I struggled frantically,
but he was putting something round my neck, pulling it tighter and
tighter. I couldn't breathe. And then I knew no more till I was coming
round again and my husband and the doctor were with me.” She stopped
and put up her hands to her neck as if she still felt that cruel
strangulating grip.

Cyril B. Carnthwacke's face looked very grim.

“That guy will have something round his own neck soon, I surmise.
Something he won't be able to get rid of, either.”

John Steadman and the inspector had both taken out their notebooks.
The former spoke first.

“You say you know your assailant to be the murderer of Luke Bechcombe.
Will you tell us how you recognized him?”

“Because—because that day when I was talking to the man whom I thought
to be Mr. Bechcombe, whom we now believe to have been the murderer, I
noticed his hands. He kept moving them over the table in and out of
the papers in a nervous sort of way, and I saw——” Mrs. Carnthwacke's
voice suddenly failed her. She shrank nervously to the side of the
chair. “You are sure no one can hear me, Cyril?”

He sat down on the side of her chair.

“Dead certain, honey. Come now, get it off your chest and you will
feel ever so much better.”

“And be ever so much safer,” Inspector Furnival interposed. “As long
as you only know this secret, Mrs. Carnthwacke, Mr. Bechcombe's
murderer has a solid reason for wanting to destroy the one person who
can identify him. But, once this knowledge is shared with others, the
reason disappears. If Mrs. Carnthwacke is disposed of and there remain
others who share her knowledge, he is none the safer. You see this,
don't you, madam?”

“Yes, yes! Of course I do,” she assented feverishly. “I wish now I had
spoken right out at once. But I wanted a big American detective to
undertake to get my diamonds back. My husband had promised to engage
him and I wanted him to have this exclusive information. Now, we will
have everybody else knowing the secret too.”

“Never mind, madam, there will be plenty for him to do,” Inspector
Furnival observed consolingly. “You were telling us you noticed the
hands of the man in Mr. Bechcombe's office.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Carnthwacke glanced up again at her husband and seemed to
gather strength from his smile. “I just looked at his hands
mechanically while we were talking, and I saw that though they were
nice hands, well shaped and carefully manicured, they had one curious
defect, if you can call it a defect. The thumb was unusually long, and
the first—don't you call it the index finger?—was very short, so that
the two looked almost the same length. It was an odd fault, and I
never noticed it in any hand before, until——”

“Yes, madam, until?” the inspector prompted as she paused with a
shiver.

“Until this morning in the car,” she went on, steadying her voice with
an effort. “Just as he caught my hands, I saw his and I knew—I knew
beyond the possibility of a doubt that my assailant was the man who
stole my diamonds, and murdered Mr. Bechcombe.”

“Well, that is definite enough, anyhow,” John Steadman remarked
thoughtfully. “Were both hands alike, do you know, Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

“Yes, they were,” she returned in a more positive tone than she had
yet used. “I noticed that particularly.”

“Did you recognize him in any other way?” the inspector asked with his
eye on his notebook.

“No, not really. I can't say I did,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said
hesitatingly. “That is, I did think there was something about the
eyes, though the Crow's Inn man had his hidden by smoked horn-rimmed
glasses, so I couldn't have seen much of them. But there was something
about his eyebrows and the way his eyes were set that I certainly
thought I recognized.”

John Steadman was drawing his brows together.

“Yes, it is a curious defect and I should think as you say an uncommon
one, yet I cannot help feeling that I have noticed the same thing in
some hands I have seen—fairly lately too, but I cannot remember
where,” he said in a puzzled tone. “Probably I shall recollect
presently.”

Was it a warning glance the inspector shot at him? Steadman could not
be quite certain, but at any rate there was no misinterpreting
Carnthwacke's gesture as he got up from his seat on the arm of his
wife's chair.

“She can't tell you any more, gentlemen, and that's a fact. What
became of that guy is what we want to know and what we reckon your
clever police are going to find out. Now you can't be half murdered
and left for dead in the morning without being a wee trifle exhausted
in the afternoon, so if you could come to my study——”

“You—you won't be long? I don't feel as if I should ever be safe away
from you again,” his wife pleaded.

Carnthwacke's reply was to pat her shoulders.

“I shan't leave you long, honey. And you just figure to yourself you
are as safe as a rock with these gentlemen in the study with me, and
these females in the dressing-room.”

Once more in his study the American's face hardened again as he
invited the other men to sit down, and put a big box of cigars on the
table before them.

“There's nothing like a smoke to clear the brain, gentlemen,” he said
as he lighted one himself. “And what do you make of the affair now
that you have seen Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

John Steadman took the answer upon himself.

“As brutal and deliberate an attempt to murder as I ever heard of.”

“There I am with you,” Cyril B. Carnthwacke said grimly. “How did that
fellow find out where Mrs. Carnthwacke was journeying and when?
There's where I should like you to put me wise.”

“He may not have arranged anything beforehand. It may have been a
sudden thing when he saw the carriage,” Inspector Furnival hazarded.

“Don't you bet your bottom dollar on that, old chap!” Carnthwacke
admonished, puffing away at his big cigar. “He don't go about with a
drop of chloroform and a nice long piece of ribbon handy in his pocket
any more than other folks, I guess. It just figures out like this—some
of our folks here must be acquainted with this guy, and put him wise
to Mrs. Carnthwacke's movements.”

“Yes, I think there can be no doubt you are right about that,” John
Steadman assented deliberately. “What of Mrs. Carnthwacke's maid?”

“Came over with us from the States,” the American told him. “And she
is devoted to Mrs. Carnthwacke. No flies on her.”

“No young man?” the inspector questioned.

“Not the shadow of one,” Carnthwacke told him, leaning back in his
chair and watching his cigar smoke curl up to the ceiling.

“No great friend?”

“Never heard of one. Of course I don't say she has no acquaintance,
but she is one of the sort that keeps herself to herself, as you say
over here.”

“Next thing is the chauffeur and footman,” the inspector went on. “I
should like a talk with them. It seems inconceivable that they should
not have seen this man get in or out.”

“I don't know that it does,” said Carnthwacke thoughtfully. “They are
taught to keep their heads straight in front of them—the footman at
least; and the chauffeur has enough to do in the traffic of London
streets, I reckon, to look after himself and his car. However, you can
have them as long as you like, but you won't get anything out of them.
They swear they saw nothing and heard nothing, and that is all they
will say. They were bothered with the traffic being diverted on all
sides, and continually having to slow down, and of course it was this
slowing down that gave the guy his chance. He must be a cool hand,
that. Say, inspector, do you think it was this Yellow Dog the
newspapers have a stunt about?”

“When we have caught the Yellow Dog I shall be able to tell you more
about it,” the inspector replied evasively. “I will see your men,
please, Mr. Carnthwacke. But before they come let me warn you again to
be most careful not to allow it to be known that Mrs. Carnthwacke
escaped with comparatively so little injury. Continue to represent her
as lying at death's door, and let nobody but the doctor and nurses see
her. I cannot exaggerate the importance of not allowing it to reach
the ears of her would-be murderer that he has failed. We must look to
it that not a breath as to her condition leaks out from us, Mr.
Steadman.”

John Steadman was looking out of the window.

“I quite see your point, inspector. It is most important that we
should not allow the faintest suspicion of the truth to leak out among
our friends, especially——”

“Especially——?” Carnthwacke prompted.

John Steadman did not speak, but he turned his head and looked at the
inspector.

“From the widow, Mrs. Bechcombe,” the detective finished.

Carnthwacke stared at him.

“Why Mrs. Bechcombe?”

“Because,” said the inspector very slowly and emphatically, “she might
tell Miss Cecily Hoyle and——”

The eyes of the three men met and then the pursed-up lips of Cyril B.
Carnthwacke emitted a low whistle.

“Sakes alive! Sits the wind in that quarter?”



CHAPTER XX

“Samuel Horsingforth passenger to Lisbon by the _Atlantic_ starting
from Southampton seventeenth instant.”

Inspector Furnival read the telegram over again aloud and then handed
it to Steadman.

“Better get there before the boat train, I think, sir.”

Steadman nodded. “I'll guarantee my touring car to do it in less time
than anything else you can get.”

“Y—es. Perhaps it may, but——” the inspector said uncertainly.

“But what?” Steadman questioned in surprise.

The inspector cleared his throat apparently in some embarrassment.

“I should like nothing better than the car, but that I am afraid the
fact that we are going down to Southampton in her might leak out—and
then the journey might be in vain.”

John Steadman drew in his lips.

“Trust me for that. My chauffeur can keep a still tongue in his head;
and you ought to know me by now, Furnival.”

“I ought, sir, that's a fact,” the inspector acquiesced. “It is the
chauffeur I am doubtful of. Never was there a case in which servants'
gossip has been more concerned and done more harm than this one of
Luke Bechcombe's death.”

“I will take care that he knows nothing of our destination until after
we have started,” Steadman promised, “but these cold winds of late
have given me a stiff arm, and I am afraid rheumatism is setting in.
It is the right arm too, confound it! Of course it might last the
journey to Southampton all right, but it might not; and it wouldn't do
to risk a failure.”

“No, we can't afford a failure,” the inspector said briskly. “The car
then, sir, and you will take all precautions. Have you heard anything
of Mrs. Carnthwacke?”

“Lying at death's door. Mrs. Bechcombe has inquired,” Steadman said
laconically.

The inspector smiled warily.

“We shall have all our time to keep Cyril B. quiet till we want him to
speak. Their American detective is here too, butting in, as they
phrase it. Ten o'clock then.”

“Ten o'clock,” Steadman assented.


He was at Scotland Yard in his luxurious touring car punctually at the
appointed hour. Punctual as he was, though, the inspector was waiting
on the step for him.

“Got off all right, inspector,” the barrister remarked as the
detective took his seat and the car started. “Only filled up with
petrol at a garage after we left my flat, and I told Mrs. Bechcombe
that I might be back to lunch. Chauffeur doesn't know where we are
going yet. You direct him to the Southampton Road and then I will tell
him to put all speed on.”

The day was perfect, no head wind, just a touch of frost in the air.
Both men would have enjoyed the long smooth spin if their minds had
been free, if their thoughts had not been busy all the time with their
journey's end. To the inspector, if all went well, it would spell
success, when success had at first seemed hopeless and a long step
forward in the great campaign on which he had embarked.

To Steadman it would mean that a certain theory he had held all along
was justified.

As they reached Southampton the inspector looked at his watch. “Plenty
of time—half an hour to spare!”

They drove straight to the docks and went alongside. The inspector had
good reason to expect his prey by the boat train. They had left the
car higher up. Steadman waited out of sight. The inspector went on
board and ascertained that Mr. Samuel Horsingforth had not so far
arrived.

As the boat train drew up, keeping himself well out of sight, Steadman
peered forth eagerly. The train was not as crowded as usual, but so
far as Steadman could see no Mr. Horsingforth was visible. Then just
at the last moment a man of middle height strolled to the gangway—a
man, who, though his face and figure were absolutely unknown to the
barrister, seemed to have something vaguely, intangibly familiar about
him. Steadman was looking out for a slight, spare-looking man, shorter
than this one, with the rounded shoulders of a student, pale too, with
a short straggling beard and big horn-rimmed glasses. The man at whom
he was looking must be at least a couple of inches taller than the one
they were in search of, and he was distinctly stout, and his shoulders
were square, and he carried himself well. He was clean-shaven too. He
had the ruddy complexion of one leading an outdoor life. He smiled as
he spoke to a porter about his luggage and Steadman could see his
white even teeth and his twinkling grey eyes. Yet, after a momentary
pause, the barrister came out into the open and followed up the
gangway. Suddenly Steadman saw Inspector Furnival moving forward. The
man in front saw too, and came to a sudden stop; stopped and faced
round just as he was about to put his foot on deck, and then seeing
Steadman stopped again and looked first one way and then the other and
finally stepped on deck with an air of jaunty determination.

Inspector Furnival came up to him.

“Samuel Horsingforth, _alias_ John Frederick Hoyle, _alias_ Amos
Thompson, I hold a warrant for your arrest on a charge of fraud and
embezzlement. It is my duty to warn you that anything you may say will
be taken down in writing and may be used in evidence against you.”

For a minute Steadman thought that the man whose arm the inspector was
now holding firmly was about to collapse. His ruddy colour had faded
and he seemed to shrink visibly. But he rallied with a marvellous
effort of self-control.

“You are making some strange mistake,” he said coolly. “Samuel
Horsingforth is my name. Of the others you mention I know nothing. I
have been backwards and forwards several times on this line and more
than one of the officers and stewards know me, and can vouch for my
good faith.”

The inspector's grip did not relax.

“No use, Thompson, the game is up,” he said confidently. “You have
made yourself a clever _alias_, I admit; but it is no use trying to go
on with it now. You don't want any disturbance here.”

Horsingforth, _alias_ Thompson, made no further resistance. He allowed
the inspector to lead him down the gangway and down to the quay to
Steadman's car. Only when the inspector opened the door did he hold
back.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Town,” the inspector answered laconically. “You will be able to
consult a solicitor when you get there—if you want to,” he added.

Thompson said no more. He seated himself by Steadman, the inspector
opposite.

As they started, another car, which had quietly followed the first
from Scotland Yard, at a sign from the inspector fell in behind.

Until they had left Southampton and its environs far behind none of
the three men spoke, then Thompson, who had been sitting apparently in
a species of stupor, roused himself.

“How did you find out?” he asked. “What made you suspect?”

“A photograph of your daughter, that you had overlooked,” the
inspector answered. “You had provided yourself with a second identity
very cleverly, Mr. Thompson. If it had not been for Mr. Bechcombe's
murder you would probably have succeeded.”

“I had nothing to do with that,” Thompson interrupted with sudden
fire. “I swear I had not! Mr. Bechcombe was alive and well when I left
the offices. I was never more shocked in my life. You might have
knocked me down with a feather when I saw in the paper that he had
been murdered, and that I was wanted on suspicion as having murdered
him.”

“Umph!” The inspector looked at him. “You are a solicitor, or next
door to one, Mr. Thompson, I believe. You ought not to need a bit of
advice I am going to give you now. As I told you, you will be at
liberty to see a solicitor as soon as we reach London. Send for the
best you know and tell him the whole truth about this unhappy affair
and tell nobody else anything at all.”

Thus advised, Thompson wisely became dumb. He sat back in his corner
of the car in a hunched-up, crouching condition. He looked strangely
unlike the jaunty, self-satisfied man who had stepped upon the gangway
of the _Atlantic_ so short a time before. To the inspector, watching
him, he seemed almost visibly to shrink, and as the detective's keen
eyes wandered over him he began to understand some of the apparently
glaring discrepancies between the descriptions of Thompson circulated
by the police and the appearance of the man before him. Thompson's
teeth had been noticeably defective. Samuel Horsingforth, otherwise
Hoyle, had had all the deficiencies made good and was, when he smiled,
evidently in possession of a very good set of teeth, real or
artificial. This, besides entirely altering his appearance, made his
face fuller and quite unlike the hollow cheeks of Mr. Bechcombe's
missing clerk. That Thompson had worn a thin, straggly beard, while
this man was clean-shaven, went for nothing, but Thompson had been
bald, with hair wearing off the forehead. Horsingforth's stubbly, grey
hair grew thickly and rather low, and though the inspector now
detected the wig he inwardly acknowledged it to be the best he had
ever seen. Then, too, Thompson had been thin and spare, and though
looking now at the man hunched up in the car one might see the padding
on the shoulders, and under the protuberant waistcoat over which the
gold watch chain was gracefully suspended, altogether it was not to be
wondered at that Thompson had been so long at large. Inspector
Furnival knew that his present capture would add largely to a
reputation that was growing every day. At the same time he realized
that he was still a long way from the achievement of the object to
which all his energies had been directed—the capture of the Yellow Dog
and the dispersal of the Yellow Gang.

Thompson took the inspector's advice for the rest of the drive and
said no more. There were moments when the other two almost doubted
whether he were not really incapable of speech.

They drove direct to Scotland Yard. From there, later in the day,
Thompson would be taken to Bow Street to be formally charged, and from
thence to his temporary home at Pentonville.

After the remand Steadman and the inspector walked away together.

“So that's that. A clever piece of work, inspector,” the barrister
remarked.

The inspector blew his nose.

“All very well as far as Thompson is concerned. But Thompson is not
the Yellow Dog.”

John Steadman shrugged his shoulders.

“Sometimes I have doubted whether he were not.”

The inspector looked at him with a curious smile.

“I don't think you have, sir. I think your suspicions went the same
way as mine from the first.”

Steadman nodded. “But suspicion is one thing and proof another.”

“And that is a good deal nearer than it was,” the inspector finished.
“The Yellow Dog's arrest is not going to be as easy a matter as
Thompson's, though, Mr. Steadman. By Jove! those fellows have got it
already.”

They were passing a little news-shop where the man was putting out the
placards: “Crow's Inn Tragedy—arrest of Thompson.” Further on—“Crow's
Inn Mystery—Arrest of absconding clerk at Southampton—Thompson at Bow
Street—Story of his Career—Astounding Revelations!”

“Pure invention!” said the inspector, flicking this last with his
stick. “I should like to put an end to half these evening rags.”

“I wonder what his history has been!” Steadman said speculatively. “I
am sorry for his daughter—and Tony Collyer too. This will put an end
to that affair, I fancy.”

“I don't know,” said the inspector as they walked on, “Mr. Tony seems
to have made up his mind and I should fancy he could be pretty
pig-headed when he likes. I sent the girl a letter from Scotland Yard
covering one of Thompson's, so that she should not hear of this arrest
first from the papers.”

“Poor girl! But I think she has been dreading this for some time.
Probably anything, even this certainty, will be better than the state
of fear in which she has been living of late.”

“Probably,” the inspector assented. Then he went on after a minute's
pause, “Thompson's is the most ingenious case I have ever come across
of a deliberately planned course of dishonesty, with a second identity
so that Thompson of Bechcombes' could disappear utterly and Mr. Hoyle
of Rose Cottage, Burford, could just take up his simple country life,
paint his pictures and potter about the village where he was already
known.”

“Yes. His fatal mistake was made in putting in his daughter as Mr.
Bechcombe's secretary,” John Steadman said thoughtfully. “It trebled
his chances of discovery and I can't really see his motive. I suppose
he thought she could assist his schemes in some way.”

“Yes, I fancy he did get some information from her,” the inspector
assented. “Though I am certain the girl herself did not know that
Thompson and Hoyle were one and the same until after Mr. Bechcombe's
death. Then I imagine he disclosed his identity to her and that
accounts for the state of tension in which she has been living. His
second mistake was leaving her photograph in his room. That gave the
clue to his identity.”

“Yes. Well, as you know, inspector, it is the mistakes that criminals
make that provide you and me with our living,” Steadman said with a
chuckle. “And now Mr. Thompson—Hoyle, will disappear for some
considerable time from society. And the intelligent public will
probably clamour for his trial for Mr. Bechcombe's murder. For a large
section of it has already believed him guilty.”

“And not without reason,” the inspector said gravely. “Appearances
have been, and are, terribly against Thompson. Mrs. Carnthwacke's
evidence may save him if——”

“Yes. If,” Steadman prompted.

“If she is able to give it,” the inspector concluded. “But Mrs.
Carnthwacke is not recovering from the injuries she received in that
terrible assault upon her so quickly as was expected. In fact, the
latest editions of the evening papers, after having devoted all their
available space to Thompson's career and arrest, will have a paragraph
in the stop press news recording Mrs. Carnthwacke's death.”

“What!” Steadman glanced sharply at the inspector's impassive face.
Then a faint smile dawned upon his own. “So that, with that of
Thompson's arrest, the Yellow Dog will feel pretty safe.”

“I hope so,” returned the inspector imperturbably.



CHAPTER XXI

“One minute, sir. I shan't hurt you!”

With a comical look at the inspector John Steadman submitted himself
to the hands of the little old man in the shabby black suit, who was
surveying him with critical eyes in the looking-glass, and who now
approached him with a curious little instrument looking like a pair of
very fine tweezers, combined with a needle so minute that it almost
required a microscope to see it.

They were in a small room at the back of a little shop in Soho,
whither the inspector had conducted John Steadman, and where the
former had already undergone a curious metamorphosis.

The presiding genius of the establishment was this little old man with
an oddly wrinkled face that reminded Steadman of a marmoset, and with
pale grey eyes that were set far apart, and that seemed to stare
straight at you and almost through you, with as little expression as a
stone. The room was odd-looking as well as its master. It had very
little furniture in it. Nothing on the wall but the big looking-glass
that ran from floor to ceiling, and occupied the greater part of one
side. Two tables stood near and a very old worm-eaten escritoire was
by the window. There were four chairs in the room, all of the plain
Windsor variety, one standing right in front of the mirror differing
from the others only in that it had arms and an adjustable head.

Inspector Furnival had just been released from its clutches, and now
John Steadman was taking his place. A huge enveloping sheet was thrown
over him; a brilliant incandescent light was focused upon him, and the
queer little marmoset face, with a big, curiously made magnifying
glass screwed into it, was submitting him to an anxious scrutiny.

“I shall not hurt you,” the soft, caressing voice with its foreign
intonation repeated. “Just a few hairs put in—a few put in, and
Monsieur's best friend would not know him.”

Steadman thought it very likely his best friend would not as he
glanced back at the inspector. But now the lean yellow fingers were at
work. From the angle at which the head-rest was fixed the barrister
could not see what they were doing, but they were pinching, prodding,
stabbing. It seemed to him that they would never stop. At last,
however, the tweezers were thrown aside and he felt little, tiny
brushes at work, dropping moisture here, drying it up with fragrant
powder.

“Monsieur's teeth?” the foreign voice said with its sing-song
intonation.

Steadman shrugged his shoulders as he took a plate from his mouth and
dropped it into the finger-bowl held out to him.

“Ah, all the top! That is goot—very goot!” Something soft and warm was
pressed into his mouth, pushed up and down until at last it felt
secure. Then, with a satisfied sigh, the yellow fingers raised the
head-rest; the little man stood back, the marmoset face wrinkled
itself into a satisfied smile. “I hope that Monsieur is pleased.”

Steadman, as he faced his reflection, thought that it was not a
question of his best friend but that he himself would not have
recognized the image he saw therein. The shape of the eyebrows had
been entirely altered. They now slanted upwards, while a clever
disposition of lines and hairs made the eyelids themselves appear to
narrow and lengthen. His hair, thin in front and near the temples for
many a long day now, had actually disappeared, and the enormously
broad, high expanse of forehead was furrowed with skilfully drawn
lines, and like the rest of his face of a greenish, greyish colour.
The nose had become thinner in a mysterious fashion, the bridge had
grown higher, the nostrils had widened. But the greatest change was in
the mouth—the lips were thicker, more sensual looking. Then, in place
of Steadman's perfectly fitting artificial teeth were several
projecting yellow fangs with hideous gaps between.

Altogether the effect of a particularly unprepossessing, partially
Anglicized Oriental.

“As the English talk, she, your own mother would not know you, eh?”
the silky voice questioned anxiously.

And John Steadman, smiling in the curiously stiff fashion which was
all the alterations would allow, said that he was sure she would not.

Both he and Furnival donned queerly designed overcoats that looked
more like dressing-gowns than anything else, and soft hats. As they
made their way through the streets with their hands folded in front
and hidden by their wide sleeves, their eyes masked in blue
spectacles, their heads turned neither to the right nor left, no one
would have suspected their disguise—no one would have taken them for
Englishmen. They got into a taxi and the inspector gave an address not
far from Stepney Causeway. Once safely inside, he handed Steadman an
automatic pistol and a police whistle.

“For emergencies,” he said shortly. “I don't fancy we shall have to
use them; but the police are all round the house. At the sound of the
whistle they will rush the place.”

“Yes, you may depend upon me, inspector,” Steadman said quietly.

“Here we are!” said the inspector, drawing a couple of parcels from
his capacious pockets. One of them he handed to John Steadman, the
other he unfastened himself. He shook out a voluminous, flimsy garment
of bright yellow and unwrapped from its tissue paper a small yellow
mask. “These dominoes we had better put on here beneath our overcoats,
Mr. Steadman, and our masks we shall have to slip on as soon as we get
inside.”

John Steadman was surveying his with some amusement. “Certainly, we
shall look like Yellow Dogs ourselves. You have had the cordon drawn
all round as I suggested, inspector?”

“It is as narrow as can be, sir. They will almost be able to hear what
we say. Oh, I am taking no risks. But I mean to catch the Big Yellow
Dog himself to-night—dead or alive.”

“Ay! Dead or alive!” Steadman echoed. “You have been near him once or
twice before, haven't you, inspector?”

“Not so near as I shall be to-night,” the inspector retorted.

They had no time for more. The taxi stopped and they got out. The
inspector paused to give a few low-toned directions to the cabman,
then he led the way down a side street. From this there seemed to
Steadman to spread out in every direction, a perfect network of narrow
streets and alleys. It was a veritable maze and the barrister would
have been utterly bewildered, but the inspector apparently knew his
ground, as he wound himself in and out with an eel-like dexterity. At
last, however, he slackened his steps and then, side by side, he and
Steadman made their way over the ill-kept, ill-lighted pavement. More
than once the barrister heard a faint cheeping sound issue from the
inspector's lips. Although he heard no response, he knew that the
cordon that the detective had spoken of was in its place.

When the inspector stopped again he looked round and up and down, then
turned sharply to the right into a small _cul-de-sac_ apparently
running between two high brick walls, for Steadman could see no
windows on either side. As they were nearing the opposite end to that
by which they had entered, however, they came upon a low door at the
right. To the barrister's heated fancy there was something sinister
about its very aspect. The windows on either side were grimy and
closely shuttered; they and the door were badly in need of a coat of
paint. What there was on it was blistered, and so filthy that it was
impossible even to guess at its original colour. There was no sign of
either knocker or bell, but right at the top of the door was a small
grille through which the janitor could survey the applicants for
admission, himself unseen. The inspector applied his knuckles to the
door, softly at first, then with a crescendo of taps that was
evidently a signal.

Steadman, with his eyes fixed on the grille, could see nothing, no
faintest sign of movement, but for one moment he felt a sickening
sense of being looked at, he could almost have fancied of being looked
through. Then moving softly, noiselessly, in spite of its apparently
dilapidated condition, the door in front of them opened.

The inspector stepped inside, Steadman keeping close to him, and gave
the word—“Chink-a-pin,” and at the same moment Steadman became aware
of a figure veiled in black from head to foot standing motionless
against the wall behind the door. The door closed after them with a
snap in which Steadman fancied he heard something ominous. They found
themselves in a long, rather wide passage down which they proceeded,
the inspector still leading; their bare hands held out in front of
them, thumb-tip joined to thumb-tip, finger-tip to finger-tip. On the
door at the end of the passage the inspector knocked again so softly
that it seemed impossible that he should be heard.

However, as if by magic, this door opened suddenly.

Inside, in contrast with the brightness in the passage, everything
looked dark, but gradually Steadman made out a faint, flickering
light. A soft, sibilant voice spoke, this time apparently out of the
air, since there was no sign of any speaker:

“The Great Dane bites.”

“His enemies will bite the dust.” The inspector gave the countersign.

Once again they moved forward and found themselves in a narrow passage
running at right angles to the first. Here, instead of bareness, were
softly carpeted floors and heavy hangings on the walls, and a sickly,
sweet smell as of incense. The light, dim and flickering at first,
grew stronger and more diffused. Steadman saw that the passage in
which they stood served as an ante-chamber or vestibule to some larger
room into which folding doors standing slightly ajar gave access. They
were not alone, either. At a sign from the inspector Steadman had
donned his yellow mask. In another moment shadowy hands had relieved
him of his coat and were gently pushing him forward, and he saw
faintly that there were other yellow-clad forms flitting backwards and
forwards. Between the half-open doors he could glimpse more light,
golden, dazzling, while over everything there brooded a sense of
mystery, of evil unutterable. In that moment there came over John
Steadman a certainty of the danger of this enterprise to which they
stood committed, and brave man though he was he would have drawn back
if he could. But it was too late. With one hand beneath his yellow
domino clutching his automatic firmly he paced by the inspector's side
into the Golden Room. As the first sight of it burst upon him he asked
himself whether he could really be living in sober twentieth-century
England, or whether he had not been translated into some scene of the
“Arabian Nights.”

The room was oblong in shape; the ceiling, pale yellow in colour, was
low, and across it sprawled great golden flowers. In the centre of
each blazed, like some lovely exotic jewel, a radiant amber light. The
walls of this extraordinary room were panelled in yellow too, and
round about them were ranged twelve golden seats. Ten of them were
occupied by figures, masked and dominoed as he and the inspector were.
The two seats at the end of the room nearest to them were unoccupied,
while at the opposite end stood a raised dais, also of gold; an empty
golden chair, looking like a throne, stood upon it. Right in the
middle of the room stood a great mimosa in full bloom, its powerful
fragrance mingling with that other perfume that Steadman had sensed
before. His feet sank into the pile of the carpet as he followed the
inspector to the unoccupied chairs nearest to them. At the same moment
the hangings at the back of the throne were parted and a tall figure
came through, masked, and wearing the same kind of yellow domino as
all the others. He seated himself upon the throne upon the dais. At
the same moment a sweet-toned bell began to ring slowly.

Steadman had hardly realized that there was any sound to be heard, but
now he became conscious by its sudden cessation that there had been a
low incessant hum going on around. Then the bell ceased, and the
silence grew deadly. The very immobility of those yellow figures began
to get on John Steadman's nerves, though up to now he would have
denied that he possessed any. His eyes were fixed upon that figure in
the chair on the dais. Silent, immobile, it sat, hands joined together
in front like those of every other figure in the room; but in these
hands there was a curious defect—the thumb was extraordinarily long,
the first finger short, so that they looked to be of the same length.
And, as Steadman noticed this, his fingers clutched his revolver and
felt the cool metal of the police whistle. Of what use was it, he
asked himself, for surely no sound could reach the outside world from
this terrible room. Suddenly he became conscious of a slight, a very
slight movement close to him. Had the inspector moved, he wondered as
he glanced round. And then the arms of his chair seemed to contract
and lengthen; he felt himself gripped in a vice. Now he knew that the
danger he had felt was upon him. He saw the inspector at his side
begin to struggle violently. Desperately he tried to bring out his
revolver—he was powerless, caught as in a vice. Some hidden mechanism
in those chairs had been released, arms and legs were held more firmly
than human hands could have held them.

An oath broke from the inspector's lips as he realized the nature of
the trap in which they were caught. But there came no answering sound
from those waiting, motionless, yellow figures on every side. Their
very immobility seemed only to render the position more terrible. And
then at last the silence was broken by a laugh, a wicked, malicious
laugh, the very sound of which made Steadman's blood run cold in his
veins.



CHAPTER XXII

The laughter ceased as suddenly as it had begun and, as if by a
concerted signal, every light in the room went out. A voice rang out,
Steadman fancied from the figure on the dais.

“Arms up! inspector. Arms up! Mr. Steadman.” Then another ripple of
that horrible laughter. “Ah, I forgot! Our wonderful chairs make all
such commands a superfluity! And so, inspector, you are going to have
your wish—you are going to meet the Yellow Dog at last! But I fear, I
greatly fear that when that interview is over you will not be in a
position to make your discoveries known to that wonderful Scotland
Yard, of which you have been so distinguished a member.” The emphasis
on the “have been” was ominous.

But there was no fear in the inspector's voice as it rapped out:

“Be careful what you do, Yellow Dog. He laughs best who laughs last. I
warn you that this house is virtually in the hands of the police.”

“Is that so, my dear inspector?”

There was another laugh, but this time John Steadman fancied there was
some subtle change in the quality.

“But I rather think the police do not know where this house ends, and
those of others begin!”

“Shall I supply you with the names of the others? The police know more
than you think, you dog!” said the inspector daringly.

“And less than they think,” said the raucous voice mockingly, “or you
and your friend would hardly find yourselves here, dear inspector.”

“Damnation!” Steadman knew that the detective was struggling fiercely
from those clutching, enveloping arms.

“In case, however, that there is just the thinnest substratum of truth
in your statement, Furnival,” the mocking voice went on, “perhaps we
had better waste no more time but get on to business.”

The silvery bell tinkled again, the light was switched on.

Steadman saw that all the golden chairs were empty, that there was
apparently no one in the room with the inspector and himself but that
figure on the dais. He saw that the inspector had given up struggling
and that by some means he had managed to tear the yellow mask from his
face, which was unwontedly scarlet from his efforts to free himself.

“Strip!” ordered that voice from the platform.

In an instant a dozen hands had seized Steadman. It seemed that there
were countless, yellow-masked men in the room. He had not even been
conscious of their coming, until he had felt them and those ruthless,
yellow, claw-like fingers catching at him on all sides at once. The
gripping arms of the chair had released him, but it was in vain that
he sought to release himself—he was conscious, vaguely, that the
inspector was fighting too. But neither the inspector nor Steadman was
in fighting condition. Both of them were elderly men who in their
young days had not been athletic, and their efforts now were hopeless.
Their garments were rent from them, the contents of their pockets were
passed to the man on the platform, who commented upon them
sarcastically.

“Automatics! Dear, dear! And you never had a chance to use them,
either! Shows how differently things pan out to our anticipations,
doesn't it, inspector? And police whistles? If we were only to sound
one how the scene would change! You did not neglect any precautions,
did you, inspector?”

And while the jeering questions went on the grasping yellow fingers
were going on too, until the prisoners stood mother naked before their
tormentors, their bare limbs bound round and round with cords.

“So now we come to grips,” said the masked man, and this time Steadman
thought he caught something faintly familiar, and one question that
had troubled him of late was answered for ever. “I hope you'll not be
much inconvenienced by this return to a state of nature,” the man on
the platform went on. “I fear you may be rather cold, but it is
unavoidable under the circumstances, and it will not be for long. Then
I feel sure you will neither of you be cold any more. Now, now,
inspector!”

For a while John Steadman stood motionless, his short-sighted eyes
peering at that yellow-clad figure; the inspector was swearing big
strange oaths.

“You do look so funny, you know, inspector”—and this time Steadman
could almost have fancied there was a feminine echo in that vile
laughter—“and your language is too dreadful. But this outrage, as you
call it, had to be. Clothes are so identifiable, as I am sure you have
learnt in your wide experience, my dear inspector. But now this
conversation, interesting as it is, must end. And I think we must
silence that unruly member of yours, inspector!”

The silver bell tinkled sharply. In an instant those soft hands had
seized the two men and gags were thrust into their mouths, and tied
with cruel roughness. Then bandages were bound over their eyes and
rougher, harder hands held their pinioned arms on either side and
pulled them sideways.

Steadman felt certain they were being taken out by the door by which
they entered, and very carefully his trained legal mind was noting
down every slightest indication of the direction in which they were
being taken. A farewell laugh came from the platform.

“So this is really good-bye. I trust, I do trust that your poor bare
feet may not be hurt by the path along which you have to travel. But
in case some injury should be unavoidable let me assure you it will
not be for long, that much sooner than you probably anticipate the
pain will be over.”

Steadman could have fancied that there was something hysterical in
that last laugh. But he had not time to think of it, to speculate as
to the identity of the figure on the dais that the yellow domino and
the mask concealed. He was being hurried along at a rate that did not
give him time to raise his naked, shackled feet. They dragged
helplessly along the stone pavement, for, once they had left that
sinister yellow room, there were no carpets. Two or three times
Steadman felt wood and guessed they were being taken through rooms,
and several times for a few paces there would be oilcloth. Once his
knee was banged against something that he felt certain was the corner
of a wooden chair; once a splinter ran into his foot. It was evident
that either they were being taken in and out or that many of the
houses in that neighbourhood must have means of communication, and
must necessarily be in the occupation of members of the Yellow Gang.

At last there was a pause, a door was unlocked and they were pushed
inside a room with bare plank floor. They were propped up against the
wall; something was thrown on the boards; the bandage over Steadman's
eyes was pulled roughly off. A voice with a harsh, uncouth accent,
singularly unlike the soft purring voice that had spoken from the dais
in the Yellow Room, said abruptly:

“The Great Yellow Dog has sent you these two rugs. They will serve to
keep you warm. He regrets very much that you will be kept waiting. But
unfortunately it is low tide and the river is not up yet.”

Then the door was closed, they heard the key turn; the captives were
left alone in their prison.

Steadman's eyes, aching from the tight bandage, were full of water:
for a few minutes he could see nothing. He would have given worlds to
rub his eyes, but he could not move his arms one inch upwards.
However, as the mist before his eyes cleared he saw that they were
both propped up against a plain whitewashed wall, in a room that was
absolutely bare, except that a fur rug lay at his feet and another at
the feet of the inspector farther along.

Steadman could turn his head, almost the only movement that was free,
and he saw that the detective had fared worse at the hands of their
capturers than he had himself. Furnival's face was grazed on the
forehead and cheek. It was flecked with blood and slime. As Steadman
watched, his fellow-sufferer sank on the rug at his feet with a
muffled sound of utter exhaustion. Steadman was not inclined to give
up easily and, leaning there, he tried to work the knot of the string
that tied his gag, but in vain. The members of the Yellow Gang had
done their work thoroughly. He looked round the room. It was
absolutely bare of furniture and indescribably dirty. It was lighted
dimly by a small window set rather high and guarded by iron bars. As
Steadman's dazed faculties returned he became aware of a lapping sound
and realized that the river must be just outside. The full meaning of
that last message from the Yellow Dog dawned upon him now.

As Steadman gazed round the room and then at his exhausted companion,
the conviction forced itself upon him that, as far as all human
probability lay, their very moments were numbered. Try as he would he
could not free his hands. There appeared to be no possibility of
escape except by the door or window, and he had heard the door locked
and saw that it was of unusual stoutness, while the iron bars across
the window spoke for themselves. In his present helpless condition
what gleam of hope could there be?

He followed Furnival's example and dropped on the rug at his feet,
finding the fall unpleasantly hard even with the rug over the floor.

As he lay there trying to rest his aching bones, while his eyes
watched the particularly solid-looking door hopelessly, he became
aware of a faint, sliding, grating sound. With a sudden accession of
hope he glanced around him. The inspector, lying on his rug,
apparently heard nothing. For a few minutes—they seemed to him an
eternity—Steadman could see nothing. He was telling himself that the
noise he heard must be that of some mouse or rat gnawing in the
woodwork, when his eye caught a faint movement under the door. Hope
sprang up again as he watched.

Yes, there could be no mistake, something was moving! There was just a
narrow space under the door; had there been a carpet it would have
been useless, but, as it was, that sliding, scraping sound continued
and presently he saw that it was the blade of a knife that was coming
through, a short, sharp blade it looked like, and he guessed that it
was the handle that was proving the difficulty. Presently, however, it
was overcome, and with an apparently sharp push from behind knife and
handle both came through. Something white, a piece of paper, was
fastened to the latter. Steadman lay and gazed at it. The distance
between him and the door, short though it was, seemed, in his present
state, almost insurmountable, and yet in that knife and bit of paper
lay his only chance of life. And there was so little time! Not one
tiny second to be wasted. By some means he must get possession of the
knife.

The door was on the same side as that on which he was lying and the
distance from the edge of the rug to the knife was, as far as he could
judge, something like six or eight feet, more than double his own
height. Bound as he was he could move neither arms nor legs to help
himself. Common sense told him that the only way he could reach the
knife was by rolling towards it. And rolling would be no easy matter.
Still, it was not an impossibility and as long as he was on the rug
not particularly painful. But crossing the bare boards was a very
different proposition—dragging his naked feet inch by inch across the
roughened dirty surface was a terrible job.

More than once he told himself that he could not do it, that he must
lie still and give up. But John Steadman was nothing if not dogged. He
had not attained the position he had occupied at the Bar by giving way
under difficulties, and at last his task was accomplished. He lay just
in front of the door with the knife close to his side. But his
difficulties were by no means over yet. Unable as he was to move his
hands, how was he to cut the strong cords which bound him. Fortunately
for him his hands were not fastened separately, but his arms were tied
round his body tightly, the cord going round again and again. It was a
method very effective so long as the cord was intact, but Steadman saw
directly that, if he could cut it in one place, to free himself
altogether would be easy enough. The question was, how was the cord to
be cut in that one place? Steadman lay on the ground tied up so that
he could not even free one finger, and the knife lay close to him
indeed but with the blade flat on the ground.

He lay still for a moment, contemplating the situation. He saw at once
that his only hope was in the handle. At the juncture where the blade
entered it, the blade was, of course, raised a little from the ground.
Now if he could by any means push the knife along until he could rest
his arm on the handle, thus tipping the blade up, if only a trifle,
and work the cord against it, he might fray the cord through and thus
free himself. It was simple enough to recognize that that was what
ought to be done, however, and quite another matter to do it. Time
after time Steadman rolled over imagining that this time he must be on
the handle, only to find that he had inadvertently pushed it away.
With the perseverance of Bruce's spider he at last succeeded. Arms,
back and sides were grazed and bleeding, but the knife blade was at
least a quarter of an inch from the ground. To get the end of the cord
against it, to wriggle so that it was brought into contact with the
blade forcefully enough to make any impression upon it was anything
but easy, but it did not present the apparently insuperable obstacles
that he had successfully grappled with in reaching the door and
turning the knife round. Strand by strand the cord was conquered and
at last Steadman was free. Free, with bruised and bleeding skin and
stiffened limbs, and naked as he came into the world.

Escape, even now, did not look particularly easy; but the barrister
had not been successful so far to give up now. The first thing to do
was to free the inspector. Scrambling up from the sitting position to
which he had raised himself he found Furnival lying on his rug
regarding him with astonished eyes, and making vain attempts to
wriggle towards him. At the same moment his eye was caught by the
folded piece of paper which was attached to the knife handle by a
piece of string, and which he had noticed when he lay on his rug. He
caught it up in his hands and unfolded it. Across the inside was
scrawled a couple of lines of writing:

“The window looks straight on to the river, the bars across can be
moved upwards. Jump out into the water at once. It is your only
chance. If you delay it will be too late—from one who is grateful.”



CHAPTER XXIII

Steadman read the note over twice. Was it possible that they had an
unknown friend in this haunt of the Yellow Gang? Or was it just
another trap laid for them like the other communications that the
inspector had received?

However, there was no time for deliberation. He turned to the
inspector, knife in hand. To cut the bonds that bound the detective
was an easy matter, even for his stiffened hands, in comparison with
the difficulty of freeing himself. Then, taking the gag from his
mouth, he saw that the lips were bruised and swollen both inside and
out, and the gag had been thrust in with such brutality that the
tongue had been forced backwards and several teeth loosened. As the
inspector began to breathe more freely the blood poured from his
mouth. But there was no time to be lost.

Steadman left his fellow-prisoner to recover himself while he padded
across to the bars. In a moment he saw that his unknown informant was
right. The bars would move upwards in their groove, easily enough.
Evidently this window was used as a means of egress to the river.
Inconvenient things could be pushed through and lost too! When the
bars had gone, the window frame was quite wide enough to let a man get
through. He leaned out. The moon was shining brightly, and he could
see various small craft riding at anchor. As he spoke he heard the
splash of oars and realized that at all hazards they must get into the
river while the boat was about. Therein lay their hope of safety. He
turned to the inspector, who had just struggled to his feet.

“Can you swim, Furnival?”

“Got the swimming medal at the Force Sports in 1912,” the detective
replied tersely. “I haven't quite forgotten the trick.”

“I wasn't bad as a young man,” the barrister said modestly. “We must
do our best, you see.” He held out the note. “There is no time to be
lost.”

“If we are to turn the tables on the Yellow Dog,” the inspector said,
speaking as plainly as his sore mouth would allow. He looked at the
note. “Who wrote this?”

“I haven't the least idea,” Steadman replied truthfully.

The inspector stooped stiffly and picked up the knife. Then he looked
at the door which opened inwards.

“We might keep them back for a bit with this, perhaps.” He went back
and stuck the knife under the door, so that anybody trying to open it
would inevitably jam it on the handle.

In the meantime Steadman had twisted himself, not without difficulty,
up to the window frame. He peered down. The water was still some
distance below them, and it looked particularly dark and gloomy, but
at any rate it was better than falling alive into the hands of the
Yellow Dog. He tore the note into tiny fragments and let them fall
into the river. Then he called out:

“Come along, inspector. Pile up the rugs. They will give you a bit of
a leg up.”

Furnival pushed them along before him.

“Now, Mr. Steadman, are you going first?”

“I suppose so,” said the barrister dubiously. “You had better look
sharp after me, inspector. They may hear the first splash, and then——”

At this moment they became aware of steps and voices in the passage.
The inspector almost pushed his companion off and hoisted himself in
his place on the window frame. Steadman had no time to dive. He went
down, it seemed to him, with a deafening splash and a roar of churning
paddles. The inspector came down at once almost on top of him. The
water felt bitterly cold, but after the first shock it braced their
jangled nerves; its very cold was grateful to their bruised bodies.

The two men came up almost together, and moved by the same impulse
struck out for the middle of the river. The moonshine was lying like
silver sheen on the surface of the water. Steadman realized that their
heads must afford a capital target to any members of the Yellow Gang
who were in the house they had left. The thought had barely formulated
itself before a shot rang out and he felt something just rush by his
ear and miss it. There came another shot and another, and a groan from
the inspector. Steadman realized that he was hit, but the injury must
have been slight, for the inspector was swimming onwards. Meanwhile
the shots were not passing unnoticed. From the small craft around,
from the houses on the bank there came shouts; lights were flashed
here, there and everywhere. Steadman became conscious of a familiar
sound—that of the rhythmic splash of oars working in concert. He trod
water and listened.

There came a gasping shout from the detective.

“The police patrol from the motor-launch down the river! They have
heard the shots.”

He struck out towards the on-coming boat, Steadman following to the
best of his ability. The inspector's shout was answered from the boat.
It lay to and waited, and the two in the river could see the men in
the boat leaning over peering into the water. There came no more
shots, but as the inspector swam forward Steadman knew that the police
boat had sighted them, and in another moment they were alongside.

Willing hands were stretched out, and they were hauled up the boat's
side. The inspector's first proceeding as soon as he had got his
breath was to order the boat to lie to so that he might locate the
house and if possible the window by which they had escaped. The police
officer in charge looked at him curiously; it was evident that he
resented the authoritative tone; and as he met his glance Steadman at
any rate realized something of the extraordinary figures they must
present to his eyes. Stark naked, bruised from head to foot, with
faces bleeding and in the inspector's case swollen out of all
recognition they looked singularly unlike Inspector Furnival, the
terror of the criminal classes, or John Steadman, the usually
immaculately attired barrister.

But they were being offered overcoats; as the inspector slipped into
his, he said sharply:

“Inspector Furnival, of the C.I.D., Scotland Yard.”

The police officer's manner underwent an instant modification.

“I beg your pardon, sir. You have been conducting a raid down here?”

The inspector would have smiled if his bruised face had allowed him.

“I fancy the raid has been rather the other way about,” he said
ruefully. “We have been trying to make some discoveries about the
Yellow Gang, laying a trap for the Yellow Dog, but unluckily we fell
into the trap ourselves, as you see. Now, will you give me a bit of
paper, officer. I want to take the bearings of this place. It is
evidently one of the outlets of the Yellow Gang.”

He looked across; on that side for quite a considerable distance the
buildings abutted right on to the river. Farther along there appeared
to be small boat-building plants, but just here there seemed to be
only tall warehouses, and in almost every case the doors and windows
were barred. Look as they would neither Steadman nor the inspector
could identify the building from which they had sprung, and curiously
enough no one in the boat had seen them until they were in the water.
Some little time was spent in making fruitless inquiries of the small
craft at hand. Though it would seem impossible that their plunge had
been absolutely unseen, yet to discover any witnesses would evidently
be a work of time and time was just then particularly precious to the
inspector. Giving the search up as useless he had the boat rowed back
to the police launch. Distinct as the C.I.D. is from the River Police,
the different branches of the service are frequently brought into
contact. Inspector Furnival found friends on the motor-launch at once,
and he and Steadman were soon supplied with clothes and everything
they needed. Then, declining the police officer's offer of rest, the
inspector asked to be put on land. It was still dark but for the
moonlight, but their various adventures had taken time. It was later
than the inspector thought, and all along the river bank the various
activities were awaking.

The inspector chartered a taxi; when they were both inside he turned
to Steadman.

“I believe I owe you my life, Mr. Steadman. But I think I shall have
to defer my thanks until—I am out to catch the Yellow Dog and I mean
to have another try this morning before he has had time to get away.”

“I am with you,” John Steadman said heartily. “And as for thanks,
inspector, why, when we have caught the Yellow Dog we will thank one
another.”

The inspector had directed their taxi to drive to Scotland Yard, but
half-way there he changed his mind and told the man to drive to the
scene of their late experience.

They got out as nearly as possible at the same place, but from there
the inspector only went a little distance before he blew his whistle.
It was answered by another and a couple of men in plain clothes
appeared.

“Ah, Murphy, Jackson,” said the inspector. “Well, what news?”

The men stared at him in a species of stupefaction, then the one whom
he had addressed as Murphy spoke with a gasp:

“Why, inspector, we have been round the house all night—every means of
egress watched. And yet—here you are!”

“Umph! You didn't see me come out, did you?” the inspector said
gruffly. “Never mind, Murphy, you are not to blame. What have you to
report?”

Murphy saluted.

“Nothing, sir. No one has come in or out since you were admitted last
night.”

“Good!” The inspector turned to Steadman. “Now, I think we will go in
again by the front door, sir. And come out the same way this time, I
hope. Murphy, bring six of your best men along, and post others all
round the house. We shall probably have to rush it.”

He and Steadman walked on, realizing to the full how stiff and bruised
their limbs were as they went. Once the inspector spat out a couple of
teeth. Steadman's sides and back felt absolutely raw. His borrowed
clothes chafed them unbearably.

The _cul-de-sac_ looked absolutely quiet and deserted when they
entered it. The inspector's thunderous knock at the door roused the
echoes all round, but it brought no reply. In the meantime Murphy and
his men had marched in behind them.

The inspector knocked again. This time as they listened they heard
lumbering steps coming down the passage. There was a great withdrawal
of bolts and unlocking of locks and the door was opened a very little
way, just enough to allow a man's face, heavy, unshaven, to peer
forth.

“Now what is the—all this 'ere noise abaht?” a rough voice demanded.

The inspector put his foot between the door and the post.

“Stand aside, my man!” he commanded sternly. “I hold a warrant to
search this house.”

“Wot?” The door opened with such suddenness that the inspector almost
fell inside. “Wot are you a goin' to search for? We are all honest
folk here. Anyway, if you was King George 'imself you will have to
give my missis and the kids time to get their duds on, for decency's
sake.”

This eloquent appeal apparently produced no effect upon the inspector.
He stepped inside with a slight motion of his hand to the men behind.
Four of them followed with Steadman, the others stood by the door in
the _cul-de-sac_. The man who had opened the door backed against the
wall, and stood gazing at them in open-mouthed astonishment.

Meanwhile the inspector was looking about him with sharp observant
eyes. He threw back the doors one on each side of the passage. The
first opened into a small room with a round table in the middle, a few
books that looked like school prizes ranged at regular intervals round
a vase of wax flowers in the middle, and an aspidistra on a small
table in front of the window, from which light and air were rigorously
excluded by the heavy shutters.

With a hasty glance round the inspector and his satellites went on,
speaking not at all, but with eyes that missed no smallest detail. Not
that there was any detail to be observed, as far as Steadman could
see. This commonplace little house was absolutely unlike that other
which had been but the threshold of the headquarters of the Yellow
Gang—as unlike as its stupid-looking tenant was to the silky-voiced,
slippery-handed members of the Yellow Gang. The passage into which
that first door of mystery had opened had been much longer than this,
which was just a counterpart of thousands of houses of its type.

The passage, instead of lengthening out as that one of Steadman's
recollection had done, ended with the flight of narrow stairs that led
to the upper regions and over the balustrade of which sundry undressed
and grimy children's heads were peering. The barrister began to tell
himself that in spite of the certainty the inspector had displayed
they must have made a mistake. Doubtless in this unsavoury part of the
metropolis there must be many _culs-de-sac_ the counterpart of the one
in which was the entrance to the home of the Yellow Gang. The master
of the house began to rouse himself from his stupor of astonishment.

“This 'ere's an outrage, that's wot it is,” he growled. “Might as well
live in Russia, we might. No! You don't go upstairs, not if you was
King George and the Pope of Rome rolled into one.”

This to the inspector who was crawling up the staircase as well as his
stiffened limbs would allow. He looked over the side now.

“Don't trouble yourself, my man. I have no particular interest in the
upper part of your house at present.”

Something in his tone seemed to cow the man, who opened the kitchen
door and slunk inside.

The inspector beckoned to the man behind Steadman.

“Simmonds, tell Gordon to come inside, then send a S.O.S. message to
headquarters.” Then he hobbled downstairs again. “This grows
interesting, Mr. Steadman.”

The barrister looked at him.

“It seems pretty obvious to me that we have made a mistake. And I
can't say that standing about in cold passages at this hour in the
morning is exactly an amusement that appeals to me; especially after
our experiences in the night.”

The inspector looked at him curiously.

“You think we have made a mistake in the house?”

The barrister raised his eyebrows.

“What else am I to think?”

For answer the inspector held out his hand, palm uppermost. It was
apparently empty, but as Steadman, more short-sighted than ever
without his monocle, stared down at it he saw that in it lay a tiny
yellow fragment. For a moment the full significance of that bit of
silk did not dawn on John Steadman, but when he looked up his face was
very stern.

“Where did you find this?”

“Wedged in between the stairs and the wall,” the inspector answered.
“There is a larger piece higher up, but this is enough for me.”

“And for me!” Steadman said grimly.

“Gordon is the best carpenter and joiner I know,” the inspector went
on. “We keep him permanently available for our work. He will soon find
the way to the Yellow Room and then—well, some of the Yellow Gang's
secrets will be in our hands at any rate.”

As the last word left his lips Gordon came in with another man. Both
carried bags of tools. The inspector gave them a few instructions in a
low tone, then he pointed to the staircase.

“Last night that was not there. Where it stands an opening went
straight through to the next house.”

Gordon touched his head in salute.

“Very good, sir!” He looked in his basket and chose out a couple of
tools—chisels, and a strange-looking bar, tapering down to a point as
fine as a knife, but very long and several inches thick most of the
way to the other end. Then, apparently undeterred by the magnitude of
his task, he walked up to the top of the staircase and sat down on the
top step. His assistant followed with a collection of hammers ranging
from one small enough for a doll's house to the size used by colliers
in the pits. They held a consultation together, and then Gordon
inserted his chisel in a crack. The other man raised one of the mighty
hammers and brought it down with a crash that rang through the house.
It did not rouse the master of the dwelling, however. He seemed to
have taken permanent refuge in the kitchen. There were no children's
heads hanging over the banisters now. The house might have been
absolutely deserted but for the inspector and his party. Presently the
inspector went up to the couple on the stairs and after talking to
them for a minute or two came back to Steadman.

“The whole staircase is movable, Mr. Steadman. They have loosened it
at the top. Stand aside in one of the rooms in case it comes down
quicker than we expect. No doubt the Yellow Gang had some way of
opening it which we have not discovered, but this will serve well
enough.”

“What about the children upstairs?” Steadman asked.

The inspector smiled in a twisted fashion.

“Little beggars! They will be taken care of all right. The parents
were well prepared for some such eventuality as this, you may be
sure.”

Steadman said no more. He stood back with the inspector, while the
others of their following went to Gordon's help. There was more
crashing, quantities of dust and a splintering of wood, and at last
the staircase came suddenly away. Behind it a locked door the width of
the passage blocked their way.

To open it was only the work of a minute, and then the inspector and
Steadman found themselves in the scene of last night's exploits. The
Yellow Room looked garish and shabby with the clear morning light
stealing in. The chairs in which they had sat had gone, otherwise
everything looked much the same.

But time was too precious to be spent in examining the Yellow Room,
interesting though it might be. The inspector was out to catch the
members of the Yellow Gang; but, though, once the staircase was down,
to get from one room to the other of the perfect rabbit warren of
small houses which had been devised for the safety of the Yellow Gang
and its spoils presented little difficulty, the inspector, standing in
that room by the river, had to acknowledge that the Yellow Dog and his
satellites had outwitted him again. The only member of the Gang that
remained in their hands was the man who had opened the first door to
them. Not a sign of any other living creature was to be seen. Even the
wife and children had disappeared.

But, as Furnival and John Steadman stood there talking, a tiny wisp of
grey vapour came floating down the passage, another came, and yet
another.

“Smoke!” the inspector cried.

And as the two men turned back, and heard the clamour arise, while the
smoke seemed to be everywhere at once, and over all sounded the
crackling of the flames and the ringing of the alarm bells, they
realized that the Yellow Gang was not done with yet.



CHAPTER XXIV

The Community House of St. Philip was _en fête_. Not only was it the
name day of its patron saint, but its young head had just been
rendered particularly joyful by the receipt of a telegram from
Burchester stating that at a further hearing the magistrates had
dismissed the charge against Hopkins, and that he would reach the
Community House the same evening. A special tea of good things for all
members of the Community was in full swing in the Refectory. Mrs.
Phillimore was presiding at the urn at the centre table, and friends
of hers at the tables at either side. The delectable pork pies and
plates of pressed beef and ham had been carried round by Todmarsh and
a little band of workers comprising several of the clergy of the
neighbourhood and several West End friends, Tony Collyer, who had been
unwillingly pressed into the service, among the number.

Now the first keenness of the men's appetites seemed to be over. Down
near the door they were even beginning to smoke and quite a thick mist
was already hanging over the tables. The young Head of the Community
was looking his best to-day. The rapt, “seeing” look in his eyes was
particularly noticeable. The relief from the long strain he had been
enduring with regard to Hopkins was plainly written in his face. The
bright, ready smile which had been so infrequent of late was flashing,
here, there and everywhere, as he greeted his friends and
acquaintances. He alone of the members of the Confraternity was not
wearing the habit of the Order. His grey lounge suit was obviously the
product of a West End tailor, though in his buttonhole he wore the
badge of the Confraternity with the words that were its motto running
across: “Work and Service.”

Just as the meal seemed about to end a telegram was brought to
Todmarsh. He read it and then, with it open in his hand, hurried up
the room to the platform at the end. As he sprang up, a hush came over
the room; every face was turned to him in expectation.

“Dear friends,” he began, “my comrades of the Confraternity.
This”—holding out the telegram—“brings me very glad news. Hopkins, our
friend and brother, has started from Burchester by car. He may be here
almost any moment now. What could be happier than the fact that we are
all gathered together in such an assembly as this in order to welcome
our friend and brother home? Now, to-night, I want all of us, every
one of us, to do all that lies in our power to give Hopkins a rousing
welcome, to make him feel that we know he has been wrongfully accused,
and that his home, his comrades, his brothers are only waiting and
longing for an opportunity to make up to him for all that he has
suffered.”

It was not a particularly enthusiastic outburst of cheering that was
evoked by this speech. For a moment Aubrey hesitated on the platform
as though doubtful as to whether to go on, then he jumped down and
turned towards Mrs. Phillimore. Tony intercepted him.

“Well done, old chap,” he exclaimed, giving Todmarsh a rousing slap on
the back. “Jolly glad you have got old Hoppy back, since you are so
keen on him. Shouldn't have been myself, but, there, tastes differ.”

Todmarsh winced a little. “You would have been as pleased as I am to
have Hopkins back if you had known him as I do. The difference it
would have made if I had been speaking of some one else and he had
been among the audience. His face was the most responsive I ever
saw—calculated to rouse enthusiasm above all things.”

“Um! Well, in some folks, perhaps,” Tony conceded. “But he doesn't
enthuse me. I can never get over that pretty fish-like habit of his of
opening and shutting his mouth silently. Tongue always seems too big
for his mouth too. Seen him stick it in his cheek and chew it, as some
folks do a piece of 'bacca.”

Todmarsh looked annoyed. “What a thing it is always to see the worst
side of people. Now, I try only to look at the best——”

He was interrupted. A man came to him quietly. “A car has stopped
before the front door, sir, and I think——”

“Hopkins!” Todmarsh exclaimed, his face lighting up.

“I believe so, sir!”

Todmarsh waited for no more, but hurried off. Tony looked at him with
a grin on his face. Then somewhat to his surprise he saw that John
Steadman had edged himself in by the door at the upper end of the
hall, and seemed to be making his way towards Mrs. Phillimore and her
friends. Tony joined him.

“Didn't know Aubrey had rooked you into his schemes, sir.”

“He hasn't!” Steadman said shortly.

It struck Tony that there was something curiously tense about his
expression—that he seemed to be listening for something.

Meanwhile Todmarsh was hurrying to the front door. He opened it. A
closed car stood just outside. He could see a man leaning
back—crouching down rather, it seemed. Todmarsh waved his hand.
“Welcome home, Hopkins!”

Seen thus in the sunset light waving his greeting, there was something
oddly youthful about Aubrey Todmarsh's face and figure. Always
slender, he had grown almost thin during his time of anxiety about
Hopkins. His face with its short dark hair brushed straight back and
its strangely arresting eyes looked almost boyish. Watching him there
one who was waiting said he looked many years younger than his real
age. But it was the last time anyone ever called Aubrey Todmarsh
young-looking.

The car door opened. The man inside leaned out. About to spring
forward, Todmarsh suddenly paused. Surely this was not Hopkins!

At the same moment he was seized sharply from behind, his arms were
pinioned to his sides, men in uniform and men out of uniform closed in
upon him, and while he tried to free himself frantically, wildly, he
felt the touch of cold steel upon his wrists, and Inspector Furnival's
voice rose above the hubbub.

“Aubrey William Todmarsh, _alias_ the Yellow Dog, I arrest you for the
wilful murder of Luke Bechcombe in Crow's Inn, on February 3rd, and it
is my duty to warn you that anything you say will be taken down in
writing and may be used as evidence against you.”

Quite suddenly all Todmarsh's struggles ceased. For a minute he stood
silent, motionless, save that he moved his manacled hands about in a
side-long fashion. The inspector's keen eyes noted the long thumb, the
short forefinger. At last, swift as lightning, Todmarsh raised his
hands to his mouth.

“Escape you after all, inspector,” he said with a ghastly smile that
dragged the lips from his teeth.

He swayed as he spoke, but the inspector did not stir. Instead, he
surveyed his prisoner with an ironic twist of the mouth.

“I think not. You may feel a little sick, Mr. Todmarsh, that is all.”

“Cyanide of potassium,” Todmarsh gasped.

“You would have been dead if it had been,” the inspector said blandly.
“But your tabloids are in my pocket, and mine, just a simple
preparation with the faintest powdering of sulphate of zinc, have
taken their place in yours.”

“A lie!” Todmarsh breathed savagely.

The inspector did not bandy words.

“Wait and see!” Then with a wave of his hand: “In with him, men!”

Todmarsh offered no further resistance, nor was any possible,
surrounded as he was. He was hurried into the waiting car and the
inspector followed him, just in time to see him slip to one side with
a groan.

“Ah, makes you feel rather bad, doesn't it?” the inspector questioned
callously.


The inspector heaved a great sigh of relief. “So at last we have been
successful almost beyond my expectations. It had begun to be regarded
as hopeless in the force. The men were getting superstitious about
it—the capture of the Yellow Dog!”

“Ay! And yet there he was just under our noses all the time if we had
but guessed it,” Steadman said slowly. “When did you first suspect
him, inspector?”

The two men were sitting in the little study in Steadman's flat. Both
were looking white and tired. There was no doubt that their
experiences at the hand of the Yellow Gang had tried them terribly.
But, while Steadman's face was haggard and depressed, the inspector's,
pale and worn though it was, was lighted by the pride of successful
achievement. He did not answer Steadman's question for a minute. He
sat back in his chair puffing little spirals of smoke into the air and
watching them curl up to the ceiling. At last he said:

“I can hardly tell you. I may say that, for a long time, almost from
its inception, the Community of St. Philip was suspect at
headquarters. Taking it altogether the members were the most curious
conglomeration of gaol birds I have ever heard of, and no particular
good of Todmarsh was known. He had never been associated in any way
with philanthropic work until he suddenly founded this Community and
loudly announced his intention of devoting his life to it. We looked
into his past record; it was not a particularly good one. He was sent
down from Oxford for some disgraceful scrape into which he said, of
course, that he, innocent, had been drawn by a friend. Henceforward,
how he got his living was more or less a mystery save that his small
patrimony was gradually dissipated. Then came the War when, of course,
he was a conscientious objector. After that, he lived more or less by
his wits, was secretary to several companies, none of them of much
repute. At last, suddenly, with a flourish of trumpets, the Community
of St. Philip was founded. Where the money came from was a puzzle,
probably to be explained by the loss of the Collyer cross.”

He was interrupted by a sharp exclamation of surprise from the
barrister.

“By Jove! Of course! And that explains old Collyer's curious conduct.
He had found the young man out and wanted to hush it up for the sake
of the family.”

The inspector nodded. “He had found something out. Probably we shall
never know what, but I am inclined to think something that led him to
suspect who was Mr. Bechcombe's murderer. I went down to Wexbridge the
other day, but I could get nothing out of him. He is merely the shadow
of the man he was. Have you seen him lately, sir?”

The barrister shook his head. “Not since he went back to Wexbridge.
But I have heard frequently of the change in him. Still, you must
remember that Mr. Bechcombe and he were great friends; the murder must
have been a terrible shock, quite apart from his guessing who was
responsible.”

“Quite so,” the inspector responded. “But, all the same, it is very
strongly my impression that he made some discovery the last time he
called at Community House.”

At this moment there was a tap at the door and Tony Collyer looked in.
Seeing the inspector, he drew back.

“I beg your pardon.”

Steadman looked at the detective, then, receiving an almost
imperceptible sign from him, he called out:

“Come in, Tony. We were speaking of you, or rather of your father.”

Tony came in and took the chair Steadman pushed towards him.

“You told me to call to-night, you know, sir. Perhaps you had
forgotten.”

“I had,” Steadman said penitently. “But I am very glad to see you, my
boy. How is your father?”

“I hardly know,” Tony said slowly. “He is rather bad, I am afraid,
poor old chap! You see he suspected the truth about Uncle Luke's
murder and it has pretty nearly finished him off.”

The inspector glanced at Steadman. “What did I tell you?”

“He saw a line or two in Aubrey's blotting-book telling him that Mrs.
C. would be at Crow's Inn with the twinklers at a quarter to twelve,”
Tony pursued. “He will tell you himself just what it was. He sees now
that he ought to have come to you at once, but he did not know what to
do, the poor old governor. He had taken rather a fancy to Aubrey
lately, though he never thought much of him as a kid. But, naturally,
one doesn't like to try to hang one's nephew, or half-nephew by
marriage. You know his mother was my mother's half-sister.”

“And Luke Bechcombe's,” Steadman said.

“Well, no one can help what one's nephews, or half-nephews do!”

“The first direct line we had to Todmarsh came from you, though, Tony.
When you told us your suspicions of Mrs. Phillimore, you know,”
replying to Tony's look of surprise.

“Knew she was a wrong 'un first time I saw her,” Tony acquiesced.
“Carnthwacke was the same—‘bad little lot!’ he called her. Pretty well
bust up the rich American widow business for you, didn't we?”

“You did!” the inspector said with a grin. “And a detective from
Boston, whom we wired to, finished it. He recognized her as a woman
that they had wanted for years; been in that crook business ever since
she was a kid. I wasn't thinking she had turned reformer over here.”

“Not precisely!” Tony said with an answering grin. “Pretty well gave
the show away when you arrested her, didn't she?”

“Wanted to turn King's evidence,” said the inspector, “but we weren't
having any. Hopkins will do for us! By the way, sir,” turning to
Steadman, “I found out this morning to whom we owed our escape from
the Yellow Dog's clutches.”

“Indeed!” Steadman raised his eyebrows interrogatively.

“Hopkins's wife,” said the inspector. “It was the Hopkins's child you
rescued from under Mrs. Phillimore's car on the day of Mrs.
Bechcombe's lunch. You sent it to the Middlesex Hospital and sent your
own car to fetch Mrs. Hopkins, and take her there like a lady, as she
phrased it. Then you sent the child sweets and toys and this
completely won the mother's heart. She acts as housekeeper to the
Yellow Gang at the house by Stepney Causeway. If she had not been”—he
shrugged his shoulders—“well, you and I would have been in kingdom
come, Mr. Steadman.”

“Good for her!” said Anthony.

“And I suppose my precious cousin's anxiety about Hopkins was lest the
beggar should give him away to save his own skin, and not out of love
for the gentleman at all. I should always distrust a chap that keeps
on opening and shutting his mouth and chewing up his tongue,” Tony
added sapiently. “Mrs. Phillimore, too. Carnthwacke told me he was
sure he had seen her walking about with his wife's maid.”

The inspector nodded.

“Sometimes she was mistress, sometimes maid, and part of the week she
was Fédora, the great fortune-teller, and this way she was able to
pick up information for Todmarsh. If she had been spotted—well, it was
her taste for philanthropy.”

Tony got up and walked about the room. “But it is an awful thing,
whichever way you look at it. We shall have to keep it from my poor
mother. She never cared for Aubrey, but he was her half-sister's son,
after all. I don't think he meant to kill Uncle Luke, you know,
Furnival. I think it was done in a scuffle.”

The inspector shrugged his shoulders. “Didn't care whether he did or
not, if you ask me. According to Hopkins, he went disguised, taking
chloroform with him to render Mr. Bechcombe unconscious, and wearing
rubber gloves, so that his finger-prints should not be recognized.
Then, while Mr. Bechcombe was unconscious, he meant to impersonate him
and get Mrs. Carnthwacke's diamonds. But Mr. Bechcombe had struggled
much more than he expected, and in the struggle recognized him. Then
the game was up as far as Todmarsh was concerned and Mr. Bechcombe's
death followed instantly. The rest of the programme was carried out as
arranged, only that Mr. Bechcombe lay behind the screen dead, not
unconscious!”

“Brute!” Tony muttered between his teeth; “deserves all he'll get, and
more! Poor old Uncle Luke——” blowing his nose. “He was always good to
us when we were boys. It won't bear thinking of!”


Anthony Collyer was sitting in the library at Bechcombe House. A
letter from his father lay open on the table. To him entered Cecily
Hoyle, looking as attractive as ever in her short black frock, low
enough at the neck to show her pretty rounded throat, short enough in
the arms to allow a glimpse of the dainty dimpled elbows, and in the
skirt to reveal black silk stockings nearly to the knees, and
_suède_-clad feet.

“Tony, you have heard?”

Tony got up, pushing his letter from him.

“I have heard that you are not Thompson's daughter after all——”

“No. I was mother's child by her first husband, Dr. James Hoyle. So I
am Cecily Hoyle after all. Because Mr. Thompson adopted me and then
took my father's name, but he isn't related to me at all, really—not a
scrap!” explained Cecily lucidly.

“So I have been told,” Tony assented.

As Cecily drew farther into the room he drew a little back, and rested
his elbow on the mantelpiece.

“I—I thought you would be pleased, Tony,” the girl murmured, just
glancing at him with sweet, dewy eyes. “Because, you see, it makes all
the difference.”

“Difference—to what?” Anthony inquired in a stiff, uninterested tone.

“Why—why, to us,” Cecily whispered with trembling lips. “I—I said I
couldn't be engaged to you any longer, Tony. But—but if you ask me
again, I have changed my mind.”

“So have I changed my mind,” Tony returned gloomily. “You said you
would not let me marry a thief's daughter—well, you see, I have some
pride too. I will not let you marry a murderer's cousin!”

“Cousin! Pouf!” Cecily snapped her fingers. “Who cares what people's
cousins do?”

“Well, you would, if they did brutal murders and got themselves
hanged,” Tony retorted, taking his elbow from the mantelpiece, and
edging a little farther from Cecily, who was betraying an unmaidenly
desire to follow him up.

“I shouldn't really—not a half-cousin,” the girl contradicted. “And he
was mad, Tony. His father had been in an asylum more than once, only
your aunt didn't know when she married him.”

“Half-aunt,” corrected Tony, “I'd like you to remember that half,
Cecily.”

“Well, I will!” the girl promised. “And, Tony, I want to tell you that
I hadn't the least idea that Thompson was the man that I thought was
my father while I was at Mrs. Bechcombe's. It seems he put me there
thinking to get some information he wanted through me, and which I am
thankful to say he didn't. I never recognized him, he looked so
different. Then after the murder when he told me, though he said he
wasn't guilty—I couldn't help doubting.”

“You might have trusted me,” Tony said reproachfully.

Cecily burst into tears. “You might trust me now.”

Tony's heart was melted at once. He drew the sobbing girl into his
arms. “I would trust you with my life, sweetheart—but I——”

“Ah, you shall not say but!” the girl cried, clinging to him. “You do
love me, don't you, Tony?” lifting her face to his.

“You know I do!” said Anthony, his sombre eyes brightening as he
looked down at her.

“Then that is all that matters,” said Cecily decidedly, “isn't it,
Anthony?”

And Anthony, capitulating as he kissed her eyes and her trembling
lips, confessed that he thought it was.


The End



TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This transcription follows the text of the US edition published by
Dodd, Mead and Company in 1927. The following changes have been made
to correct what are believed to be unambiguous printer's errors.

 * “it His Will” was changed to “it is His Will” (Chapter V).
 * “the clerk's addresses” was changed to “the clerks' addresses”
   (Chapter V).
 * “pierced them together” was changed to “pieced them together”
   (Chapter IX).
 * “few day's holiday” was changed to “few days' holiday”
   (Chapter XIII).
 * “by dear” was changed to “my dear” (Chapter XIII).
 * One occurrence of a missing period has been repaired.





*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CROW'S INN TRAGEDY ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark
license, especially commercial redistribution.


START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person
or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.

1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the
Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work
on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
    other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
    whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
    of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
    at www.gutenberg.org. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain
Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has
        agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
        within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
        legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
        payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
        Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
        Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
        Literary Archive Foundation.”
    
    • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
        you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
        does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™
        License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
        copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
        all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™
        works.
    
    • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
        any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
        electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
        receipt of the work.
    
    • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
        distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set
forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state
visit www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.