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Title: Tenant for Death
Author: Hare, Cyril [Clark, Alfred Alexander Gordon] (1900-1958)
Date of first publication: 1937
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Harper & Row, 1982
   [Perennial Library, first printing]
Date first posted: 14 November 2014
Date last updated: 14 November 2014
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1215

This ebook was produced by Alex White, Mark Akrigg
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected;
inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.






                            TENANT FOR DEATH

                             by Cyril Hare




                                   To

                                M.B.G.C.




                                   1
                              JACKIE ROACH


                                                   Friday, November 13th

Daylesford Gardens, S.W., is one of those addresses that make the most
experienced of taxi-drivers hesitate for a moment or two when you give
it. Not that he will have any difficulty in determining its general
direction, which is in that quiet and respectable region where South
Kensington borders on Chelsea. The trouble arises from the lack of
imagination displayed by the building syndicate which first laid out the
Daylesford estate some time in the middle of the last century. For
besides Daylesford Gardens, there are Daylesford Terrace, Daylesford
Square, Upper and Lower Daylesford Streets, not to mention a tall, raw
red-brick block of flats known as Daylesford Court Mansions and two or
three new and almost smart little houses which still keep the name of
Daylesford Mews. The houses in Daylesford Gardens, however, are neither
raw, tall, nor red-brick, nor new, nor anything approaching smart. On
the contrary, they are squat, yellow and elderly, bearing on their
monotonous three-storied fronts the same dingy livery of stucco, drab
but--with an effort--respectable. One or two have sunk so far as to
become boarding-houses, several may be suspected of paying guests, but
for the most part they still contrive to carry on the unequal warfare
against adverse circumstances and keep the banner of gentility flying.

House agents have been known to call the district a "retired" one, and
the description is just in more ways than one. It certainly suits almost
all the inhabitants of the Gardens. They are pre-eminently the refuge of
the not too wealthy middle-aged. Retired colonels and County Court
judges, ex-Civil Servants and half-pay naval officers, with one or two
lean sallow-faced men who have in their time perhaps governed districts
half as large as England, now share between them the empire of the muddy
grass and draggled laurustinus bushes which constitute "the gardens".
Their houses, too, discreet and unassuming, seem also to have retired
from whatever busy existence they may once have had, and to be awaiting
with dignified resignation the fate that is in store for London houses
when the building lease falls in.

At the northern end of Daylesford Gardens, where Upper Daylesford
Street, noisy with omnibuses and motor vans, marks the boundary of the
old Daylesford property, Jackie Roach, the newspaper seller, had his
pitch. Every evening he was to be seen there, his comic blob of a nose
wobbling uncertainly above his ragged red moustache in time to his husky
chant of "_News--Star--Standard!_" Most of the householders in the
Gardens knew him by sight. How much he knew about them, their
circumstances, habits and domestic staffs, few of them probably ever
guessed. They were, as he put it, among his "regulars", and it was
almost a point of honour with him to be acquainted with their affairs.
He knew--and liked--old Colonel Petherington at No. 15, with his
threadbare grey suit and erect habit of body, who went so punctually to
his club every afternoon and returned so punctually every evening for
dinner. He knew--and disliked--the flashy Mrs. Brent at No. 34, and
could have told her husband something of the man who came to visit her
when he was away, if he had ever thought of enquiring in that direction.
He knew the quiet, shy Miss Penrose of No. 27, whose maid, Rosa, came so
regularly at six o'clock every evening for the _Standard_, and could
always be relied upon for a few minutes' gossip.

On this chill, windy evening, Roach would have been glad of a little
chat with anyone who would stop to pass the time of day--anything to
keep his mind off the rheumatism that always tortured him at this time
of year. But nobody felt like stopping now. They only paused long enough
to thrust a copper into Jackie's hand and snatch a paper, for all the
world as though a chap was an automatic machine. Rosa was different.
Whatever the weather, she would always hang about a bit for a chat at
the corner, as well she might indeed, with a warm back kitchen to go
home to.

But no Rosa would come this evening. For a month past Miss Penrose had
been away. She had gone abroad, and Rosa had gone to her family in the
country. The house was let furnished to a Mr. Colin James. Roach knew
his name, thanks to a nodding acquaintance with Crabtree, the manservant
who had usurped Rosa's place at No. 27, but he had never spoken to him,
or even sold him newspapers. Unlike most of the other inhabitants of the
Gardens, he was still in business. At least, nearly every morning he
took an eastward bound bus from the corner, and came back again in the
evening, so his business was to be presumed. Roach did not like him the
better for it. He felt obscurely that such behaviour was letting the
Gardens down.

At about half-past six, when the throng in Upper Daylesford Street was
at its height and the long-threatening rain had begun to spatter down,
Roach, fumbling with numbed fingers for elevenpence change, caught sight
of Mr. James on the other side of the street. There was, as he
afterwards explained to certain interested persons, no mistaking Mr.
James. For one thing, he was the only resident in Daylesford Gardens
with a beard. It was no mere apologetic tuft, either, but a bushy mass
of brown hair, that fairly covered his face from the mouth down. Then
there was his figure. He was noticeably fat, with a fatness that seemed
quite out of proportion to his thin legs, so that he walked always with
a cautious waddle, as though afraid that his weight would overbalance
him. Roach noted the passing of the familiar ungainly shape without
interest. Then something made him look round again, and stare after him
with renewed attention. That something was the simple fact that on this
occasion, Mr. James was accompanied by another person.

"The old ---- what lives by 'isself," was Roach's private description of
Mr. James. Most of the Gardens' inhabitants, indeed, were of the type
that keep themselves to themselves. Roach respected them all the more
for that. But Mr. James was of them all the most completely alone.
During his short residence at No. 27, no visitor had ever been known to
cross the threshold, not so much as a letter or parcel, so Crabtree
asserted, had ever been delivered there. And never, until now, had he
seen Mr. Colin James in the street except alone.

But this time--there could be no doubt of it--Mr. James had found a
friend. Or if not a friend, at any rate a near acquaintance, to judge
from the way they went along the pavement side by side, their heads
close together, as though in quiet, earnest discussion. A pity, thought
Roach, that the stranger was on the far side as they went round the
corner, so that James's great bulk blotted him out completely. Just for
curiosity's sake, he would like to have known--"_News_, sir? Yessir!
Fi'pence change, thank you, sir!"

He screwed his head round to look down the Gardens. There was a
lamp-post opposite No. 27, and the couple were just within its beams.
The light shone on the yellow-brown bag which Mr. James always carried.
They stopped and Mr. James was evidently fumbling for his key. Then he
opened the door, went in and the stranger followed him. Roach, as he
turned to thrust a paper into the hand of a customer, felt oddly
triumphant. Mr. James had a visitor! In a small way, it was as though a
long-standing record had been broken.

Nearly an hour later, the newspaper seller finally left his pitch. The
rain was now a steady downpour. The street was wet and deserted. The
"Crown" in Lower Daylesford Street would by contrast be warm and
friendly. Cold and thirsty, Roach sheltered his papers beneath his arm
and set off in the direction which James had taken before him, but upon
the other side of the street. He was halfway down it, his eyes fixed on
the pavement, his thoughts on the refreshment that awaited him, when the
sound of a street door closing made him look up. He was opposite No. 27,
and a familiar figure, carrying the inevitable bag, had just emerged,
and was now walking away towards the upper end of the Gardens.

"Old Man-of-Mystery again!" said Roach to himself. "What's he done to
his pal, I wonder?"

He reflected, as he went on his way, that he had never before seen Mr.
James walk so fast.

Two minutes later he was standing in an infinitely pleasant, muggy
atmosphere before a crowded bar.

"'Ow's trade, Jacko?" asked an acquaintance.

"Rotten bloody awful," answered Jackie, a tankard to his lips. "There
ain't nothing in the papers nowadays 'cept this political stuff. What we
want to make 'em sell is a murder." He took a long pull and repeated,
smacking his lips: "Murder--bloody murder, that's the ticket!"




                                   2
                           THE TWELVE APOSTLES


                                                 Saturday, November 14th

The London and Imperial Estates Company, Ltd., and its eleven associated
companies, familiarly known on the Stock Exchange as "The Twelve
Apostles", occupied imposing offices in Lothbury. There were eight
storeys in all, a grandiose Portland stone faade without, waxed oak
panels within. The entrance hall was adorned with pillars of polished
marble, and was guarded by the largest and smartest commissionaire in
the City of London. On the floors above, large airy rooms housed during
business hours regiments of typists, clerks, and office boys. In smaller
and more luxurious apartments, their superiors--managers, accountants
and heads of departments--pursued their mysterious and, presumably,
profitable ways. But to the man in the street, and more particularly to
the investor or speculator in the City, all this splendour was summed up
in and made significant by the personality of one man--Lionel
Ballantine.

Ballantine was one of those picturesque figures appearing from time to
time in the financial world of London, whose activities lend colour to
the ordinarily drab record of commerce. He was, in the generally
accepted sense of the phrase, one of the best known men in the City.
That is to say, a large public was familiar through the papers with his
outward appearance and that of his country house, his racing stables,
his yacht and his herd of pedigree Jerseys. A smaller and more closely
interested public knew something, though not as much as it would have
wished, of his financial interests. In actual fact, the man himself was
probably as little known as it is possible to be. He had no intimate
friends and even his closest associates knew how far they were from
possessing his full confidence. His origin was obscure, and if many
people would have liked to penetrate the veil in which he chose to
shroud it, there were more who contented themselves with prophesying,
cynically or blasphemously, as to his future.

By the world in general, however, Ballantine was taken as what he
appeared to be--a spectacularly successful business man. In a
comparatively short space of time, he had risen from nothing--or at
least from very little--to a position of genuine importance and even
power. Such a career is never to be achieved save at the cost of a good
deal of jealousy and detraction, and he had received his fair share of
both. More than once there had been unpleasant whispers as to his
methods, and on one occasion--the famous Fanshawe Bank failure of four
years before--something louder than whispers. But each time the murmurs
had died down, leaving Ballantine more prosperous than ever.

But now the whispers were beginning to be heard again in many places,
and nowhere more urgently than in the little ante-room to Ballantine's
private office on the top floor of the great building. Here the affairs
of the company were being discussed in low tones by two of its
employees.

"I tell you, Johnson," said one, "I don't like the look of things.
Here's the Annual General Meeting not two weeks away, and the market's
getting jumpy. Have you seen this morning's figures?"

"The market!" said the other contemptuously. "The market's always got
nerves. We've been through worse scares than this, haven't we? Remember
what happened in '29? Well, then----"

"I'll tell you another thing," went on the first speaker without
listening to the interruption. "Du Pine has got the jumps too. Have you
seen him this morning? He was absolutely green. I tell you, he knows
something."

"Where is he now?" asked Johnson. "In there?" He nodded his head to a
glass-panelled door labelled "Secretary".

"No. He's in the old man's room. Been in and out there the last
half-hour, like a cat with the fidgets. And the old man isn't there
either."

"Well, what of it? Would he be, on a Saturday morning?"

"Yes, he would--this morning. He's got an appointment for eleven
o'clock. I was here when Du Pine made it for him."

"An appointment? Who with?"

"Robinson, the Southern Bank man. And he's bringing Prufrock with him."

"Prufrock? The solicitor?"

"That's him."

Johnson whistled softly. Then he said after a noticeable pause:

"Percy, old man, I suppose you don't happen to know what it was they
were coming to see him about, do you?"

"What are you getting at?"

"I mean, if it was the Redbury bond issue they were asking about, and if
old Prufrock starts nosing round----"

"Well?" said Percy. "Suppose it was. You had the handling of that issue,
hadn't you? What about it?"

Johnson was looking straight in front of him. He looked right through
the wall and saw a trim red-brick villa at Ealing, heavily mortgaged and
utterly desirable, with two small children playing on its minute scrap
of lawn, and his wife on the doorstep watching them.

"Well?" Percy repeated.

Johnson turned his head.

"I was just thinking," he said. "A pal of mine in Garrisons' told me
there was a head clerk's job going there. It would mean dropping fifty a
year, but--I think I shall put in for it, Percy old man."

An understanding glance passed between the two men, but before either
could speak the telephone on the table between them rang. At the same
moment the door of Ballantine's private room opened and Du Pine, the
secretary to the company, walked quickly out. He picked up the receiver,
barked into it: "Send them up at once!" and had disappeared again in the
space of a few seconds.

"You see what I mean?" murmured Percy. "Nervy, eh?"

"I suppose that was Robinson and Prufrock," said Johnson, rising to his
feet. "Well, I'm going round to Garrisons', _now_."

In the inner room, Du Pine took a deep breath and squared his thin
shoulders, like a man preparing to face an assault. For a moment he
stood thus, then relaxed. His hands, which he had kept still during that
brief space by an effort of will, began to jump uneasily from the
wrists. He paced the room twice in each direction, then came to a halt
opposite a looking-glass. He saw in it a face which would have been
handsome but for the unhealthy sallowness of the cheeks, black hair
neatly brushed down, a pair of bright beady eyes with heavy lines
beneath them. He was still staring at the reflection, as though at the
portrait of a stranger, when the visitors were announced.

Du Pine spun round on his heel.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" he exclaimed.

"You are Mr. Du Pine, I think?" said the solicitor.

"At your service, Mr. Prufrock, I think? Mr. Robinson I have met before.
Won't you sit down?"

Mr. Prufrock did not sit down, still standing, he looked slowly round
the room.

"Our appointment was with Mr. Ballantine," he said.

"Quite so," answered Du Pine easily. "Quite so. But he is unfortunately
not able to be here in person this morning, and has asked me to deal
with the matter in his absence."

Mr. Prufrock's eyebrows went up in shocked surprise. Mr. Robinson's, on
the other hand, came down in a threatening frown. It would be difficult
to say which of the two expressions Du Pine found the more unpleasant.

"Mr. Ballantine has asked you--_you_--to deal with this matter in his
absence?" repeated the solicitor incredulously. "With the Redbury bond
issue? May I remind you once more that we have a personal appointment
with Mr. Ballantine?"

"Just so," said Du Pine, beginning to show signs of nervousness. "Just
so. And I can assure you, gentlemen, that Mr. Ballantine would certainly
be here if--if he could."

"What do you mean? Is he unwell?"

Du Pine indicated assent.

"That seems very strange. He seemed in perfect health yesterday. Can you
tell me what form his illness takes?"

"No, I cannot."

"Very well. Then we can assume that it is not serious. I think that the
best thing would be for us to make an appointment to see him at his
private house."

Robinson here spoke for the first time.

"I rather doubt whether we should find him there, well or ill," he
observed. "If I might make the suggestion, it would be more to the
purpose to enquire for him at the house of Mrs. Eales--his mistress," he
added in an aside to Prufrock, who pursed his lips and sniffed by way of
reply.

"I have done so already," Du Pine broke in. "He is not there."

"I see." The solicitor looked very steadily at him for a moment, to give
his next question its full weight. "Mr. Du Pine, will you please answer
me directly: Do you know where Mr. Ballantine is?"

Du Pine took a deep breath, like a swimmer before the plunge, and then
began to speak at a great pace.

"No, I do not. And I am quite aware that in the circumstances Mr.
Ballantine's absence may seem rather--that it is a matter which calls
for enquiry. But--gentlemen--before you put any construction on
it--before you take any steps which--any irrevocable steps--there is one
matter that--in fairness to Mr. Ballantine--in fairness to myself--it
may be of importance in the future----"

"Well?"

"Mr. Ballantine had a visitor here yesterday morning, who disturbed him
very much. It may in some way account for anything erratic in his
behaviour----"

Prufrock turned to Robinson. His mouth was set in a hard line.

"Really, Robinson, I think we are wasting our time here," he said.

"But, gentlemen, this is important," Du Pine insisted.

"I can hardly think of any visitor yesterday who was more important to
Mr. Ballantine than the appointment he had made for today," said
Prufrock drily.

"But I can assure you, sir, I can assure you that Mr. Ballantine had
every intention of meeting you today. He had a perfect explanation of
any little discrepancies there might be in the bond issue. There is only
one possible explanation for his not coming, and that is that he was not
physically able to come."

"What is all this nonsense?" Robinson spoke wearily. "And what has this
mysterious visitor to do with it?"

"Perhaps you will understand when I tell you that the visitor was Mr.
Fanshawe----"

The two men stiffened with interest.

"Fanshawe?" echoed Prufrock. "He's still in gaol, isn't he?"

"His sentence is about due to expire," put in Robinson. "Poor fellow, I
knew him well before. . . ."

"----And that he threatened him, in my hearing," went on Du Pine wildly.
"Perhaps now you gentlemen will understand--and--and give Mr. Ballantine
a little time to--to make arrangements," he ended weakly, his voice
trailing away as though he were at the end of his physical resources.

"I only understand one thing," said Prufrock drily. "Failing
satisfactory assurances as to the Redbury bond issue, which Mr.
Ballantine promised to give us here--personally--today, I have my
client's instructions to issue a writ against the company. He has failed
to keep his appointment--whether, as you seem to suggest, because he has
been kidnapped by the person you speak of, or not, does not concern me.
Affairs must now take their course. The writ will be served on you on
Monday morning. The bank loan, I take it, is being called in at the same
time?" He glanced at Robinson, who nodded agreement. "Well, Mr. Du
Pine," he continued, "you see the position. We need not occupy your time
any further. Good day."

There was no reply. Du Pine, supporting himself by one hand on the
table, a lock of his dark hair falling across a forehead glistening with
sweat, appeared utterly exhausted. The solicitor shrugged his shoulders,
and taking Robinson by the arm walked out of the room without another
word.

Du Pine watched them go, and a full minute passed before he roused
himself. Then he took from his pocket a small phial of white tablets.
This he carried to the lavatory opening out of Ballantine's room. There
he filled a glass with water, dropped a tablet in, and watched with
eager eyes while it dissolved. He drained the mixture in one gulp and
little by little the colour began to come back into his cheeks and the
animation to his eyes. When the drug had done its work, he walked back
with his usual quick, springy steps, into the room. He took from his
pocket a bunch of keys, selected one and fitted it to his employer's
private desk. It was all but empty, and of its few contents there were
none that interested him. Next he turned his attention to the safe which
was let into the wall. Here too his search was fruitless. With a shrug
of his shoulders, he cast one last look round the room that had been so
long the nerve-centre of a great business, and departed.




                                   3
                               MRS. EALES


                                                 Saturday, November 14th

Mr. Du Pine was quite right. Wherever Ballantine was, he was not with
Mrs. Eales. In fact, while Mr. Robinson and Mr. Prufrock were making
their enquiries in the City, that lady, sitting up in her bedroom in
Mount Street over the remains of a very late breakfast, was wondering
earnestly why he was not. A pile of letters lay beside her. They were,
and were likely to remain, unopened. Every envelope, she knew, contained
a bill, and at the moment she had not the strength of mind that would
bear ascertaining how much she owed. In her mind's eye, however, she
could not but see some of the items in those bills, and they made her
shiver. Her extravagance had in the past been the cause of endless
quarrels with her protector, and now, as she glanced at the ominous
heap, she automatically reflected: "There'll be a first-class row when
he sees that lot." Then, with the dismal realization of how much better
was an angry man than no man at all, she felt near to tears.

There was a knock at the door, and before she could answer it, her maid
came into the room.

"What is it, Florence?" asked Mrs. Eales, with a smile more charming
than is usually accorded to their servants by securely placed women.

Florence did not return the smile. Her manner was abrupt--almost
insolent.

"Will Mr. Ballantine be coming in today?" she asked.

"I don't know, Florence, I'm sure. Why do you ask?" Then receiving no
answer, she went on hastily: "You can have this afternoon off if you
want it. I shall be able to manage quite well, even if he does come."

"Thank you, m'm," said Florence, ungraciously. "And can I have my wages
for last week, please?"

"Oh, yes, of course, how stupid of me!" cried Mrs. Eales, a thought
shrilly. "Fetch my purse from the dressing-table, will you? Now let me
see. . . . Oh, dear! I'm so sorry," she exclaimed, fumbling in the
purse, "but I seem to have run terribly short. Will it do if I give you
ten shillings on account and the rest on Monday?"

Florence took the proffered note without comment, but her eyes rested
for a moment on the unopened letters before she went on: "Mr. Du Pine
was on the telephone just now."

"Mr. Du Pine!" said Mrs. Eales quickly. "I can't speak to him."

"He didn't want to speak to you. He was just enquiring after Mr.
Ballantine. I told him he wasn't here and then he rang off."

"I see. Did he say--did he tell you anything about Mr. Ballantine?"

"No. He just rang up to make sure he wasn't here, he said. He didn't
sound as if he thought he would be, somehow."

"That will do, Florence," said her mistress coldly. "Will you take the
breakfast things, please?"

Florence sulkily removed the tray. At the door she turned, and said over
her shoulder:

"If the Captain calls, am I to let him in?"

"Oh, go away, go away!" cried Mrs. Eales, at the end of her patience.
The last man in the world of whom she wished to be reminded at that
moment was Captain Eales.




                                   4
                          THE PRODIGAL'S RETURN


                                                 Saturday, November 14th

A little before noon a cab drew up outside a small white villa on the
outskirts of Passy, and there set down a thin middle-aged man. He was
observed and recognized from a first-floor window by a dishevelled maid,
who with a "_Tiens!_" of annoyance and surprise set down her feather
duster and hastened to make herself presentable before admitting him.

"_Bonjour_, Elonore," said John Fanshawe on the threshold, when the
door was at length opened to him.

"_Monsieur! Mais, que cette arrive est imprvue!_"

"Unexpected, but not unwelcome, I hope," said Fanshawe in French which a
long lack of practice had made somewhat uncertain.

Oh, monsieur was joking! As if he could be unwelcome at any time! And
had monsieur had a good journey? And was he well? But she could see for
herself that he was well--only thin. Mon Dieu! How he was thin! She had
hardly known him at first.

"And mademoiselle?" asked Fanshawe, as soon as he could make any headway
through the flood of words. "How is she?"

Mademoiselle was well. It was a thousand pities that she was not there
to greet her father. If monsieur had but let her know of his approach,
how happy she would have been. But it was like monsieur to spring a
surprise so happy upon her. And now mademoiselle was out and would not
be returned until that afternoon, and nothing was prepared. Monsieur
would excuse the confusion in the house, but mademoiselle would of
course explain. But what was she--Elonore--doing? Monsieur was hungry,
of course, after his so long journey at this terrible season of the
year. Monsieur must eat. There was not much in the house, but an
omelette--monsieur would have an omelette _aux fines herbes_, would he
not? And some of the Beaujolais wine that he always took with his
_djeuner_? If monsieur would wait but a little quarter of an hour he
should be served.

With a final flurry of words she darted away to the kitchen, and
Fanshawe with a sigh of relief made his way to the _salon_ and sat down
to await his meal. His face, which had lit up with pleasure at the
well-remembered sound of Elonore's eloquence, now resumed the
expression of wary cynicism that was habitual to him. A mistake, he
reflected, to arrive anywhere without warning--even at your own
daughter's house. He was old enough to have known better. This was what
happened when you had been marking time for years, waiting,
concentrating on the one event which would bring you back to life again.
You forgot that for the real, live world outside things didn't stand
still, as they did for you. He had so often in imagination arrived at
this villa to find his daughter on the threshold ready to leap into his
arms, that it had not occurred to him that any arrangements were
necessary to ensure her being there. A luncheon engagement--an
appointment at the hairdresser's--and there was the great reunion scene
_manqu_, and the prodigal parent left to eat his omelette alone.

Fanshawe shrugged his lean shoulders. He was making a great fuss about
nothing, he told himself. A man comes out of prison a week or so before
he is expected to. He visits his daughter in France without warning. Not
unnaturally, she is out when he arrives. That was all. But the other
half of his intelligence was not so easily satisfied. If that was all,
why had Elonore been so plainly upset at his first appearance? And now,
as she appeared with the announcement, "Monsieur est servi!" was there
not a trace of pity in the eager friendliness of her manner?

Fanshawe detained her in the dining-room while he ate his lunch. He had
had enough of solitude during the last few years. She gossiped with him
readily enough about all manner of past acquaintance and happenings, but
was reticent on the one subject that interested him at the moment. Once,
in a pause in the conversation, she remarked suddenly and apropos of
nothing in particular: "Without doubt, mademoiselle will have many
things to tell her father."

"_Evidemment_," said Fanshawe in curt agreement, and did not pursue the
matter further.

The meal over, he returned to the _salon_, there to smoke and drink the
excellent coffee which Elonore brought him. Tired as he was, he would
have slept in his chair, if some part of his consciousness had not
remained ceaselessly on the alert, listening for the sound of the front
door opening. The lines in his face grew deeper as he waited, and the
expression of patient disillusionment more marked.

It was not long before he heard the unmistakable sound of a key being
fitted to the door. He rose and took a step towards the hall, then as he
heard footsteps hurrying from the interior of the house, returned
quietly to his chair. So Elonore had been on the watch too! The sounds
of a whispered colloquy on the doorstep came to his ears, and without
hearing what was being said, he realized that for some reason she found
it necessary to break the news of his arrival to her mistress. The delay
was but a short one, but it seemed long enough to Fanshawe before the
door was flung open, and with a cry of "Father!" his daughter was in his
arms again.

She quickly broke away from his embrace, and held him at arm's length so
that she could see his face, murmuring broken little phrases of concern
at his pallor and grey hairs. He on his side looked at her narrowly. She
too had changed, he remarked. She had lost some of the girlish charm
that he remembered, but in its place had gained the poise and good looks
of mature womanhood. "Just the type to attract a Frenchman," he said to
himself. Just now her cheeks were flushed, and there was an expression
in her eyes which caused him to raise his brows in a mute question.

She noticed it, and by way of answer drew a little further away from
him. "I didn't think you would be--be free for another week," she
murmured. "I wasn't expecting you."

"I gathered so much from Elonore."

"Then you didn't get my letter?"

"Evidently not, since I am here. That is, I presume that the letter was
to tell me not to come?"

She looked away, in evident distress.

"Father--this is so horribly difficult. . . ."

"Not at all." Fanshawe's dry, unemotional tones were not unkindly. "I am
in the way here. That isn't very surprising, is it?"

"Father, you mustn't say that. It sounds so----"

"I can imagine a good many circumstances," he went on, "in which the
reappearance of an ex-convict might be embarrassing to his daughter. For
example, it might be rather prejudicial to her prospects of a good
marriage----"

She drew a sharp breath and looked him in the eyes. He read in her face
all that he needed to know.

"We understand each other," he said gravely. "On such occasions, it is
the father's duty to disappear as quietly as may be. Only, why didn't
you let me know before?"

"I--I tried to, often, but I hadn't the courage. I was a coward, I know,
but I kept on putting it off and off until the last moment--I felt so
ashamed."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," he assured her. "Who is the young
man? That is, I hope he is young. He is a Frenchman, I suppose?"

"Yes. His name is Paillard--Roger Paillard. He----"

"Of the automobiles Paillard? I congratulate you. And his family, of
course, know nothing about me?"

She shook her head. "I am on my way to stay with them for the first
time," she said. "He is an only son, and his mother, of course----"

"She, of course, thinks the world of him. And he is _un jeune homme bien
lev, trs comme il faut_--and all the rest of it?"

He mimicked the precise accents of an elderly Frenchwoman so well that
she laughed in spite of herself.

"Very good," he went on. "I hope you will be happy, my dear. The family
skeleton will now return to his cupboard and lock himself in. Where is
Roger now, by the way?"

"Outside, in the car. We've been lunching, and I only came in to pick up
my bag."

"Then hurry, my dear, hurry. You mustn't keep him waiting! He will be
wondering what has become of you."

He kissed her lightly, and she turned to go. At the threshold she
stopped.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Father, you never said anything about--I mean, you must be terribly
short of money. If I can help----"

"Money?" he echoed her gaily. "No, you needn't worry on that score. We
crooks, you know, have always a little nest egg put away somewhere."

She winced at the ugly word, and the ironically defiant tone in which he
uttered it.

"But what are you going to do?" she asked.

"Perhaps Elonore will let me stay the night here," he answered. "Even
two nights, if I feel like it. I shall be gone before you return, in any
case. Then I shall go back to London. Your aunt has kindly promised to
put me up for as long as I please."

"It will be very dull for you," she murmured.

"I don't expect so. And in any case, two lonely people are less dull
together than apart. And now you must go. I insist. Good-bye and--good
luck."

She left him, and as she ran down the steps to the waiting car, the
words "two lonely people" rang in her ears like a tolling bell.




                                   5
                            AU CAF DU SOLEIL


                                                   Sunday, November 15th

The Caf du Soleil in Goodge Street is always busy at lunch time on
Sundays. The narrow white-walled room with its two rows of little tables
attracts a clientele from an area far wider than the somewhat shabby
neighbourhood that surrounds it. The customers, indeed, are a mixed
collection. Many are foreign, some are shabby, a few prosperous, hardly
any smart. They are united by one characteristic and one only--that they
know and appreciate good food. And Enrico Volpi, the stout little
Genoese who learned the art of the kitchen in Marseilles and refined it
in Paris, sees that they are not disappointed.

Frank Harper, clerk in the firm of Inglewood, Browne & Company,
Auctioneers and Estate Agents of Kensington, had discovered the Soleil
in the course of a visit on his employer's business to the Tottenham
Court Road. He had been agreeably surprised by the food, and after his
meal less agreeably by the bill. Regretfully, as he paid, he had decided
that the Soleil was not an eating-house for poor men. He had resolved
that so far as he was concerned it must be reserved for some special
occasion.

This was such an occasion. Harper had been to a good deal of trouble to
plan a meal that should be worthy of it, and Volpi, who knew a young man
in love when he saw one, had excelled himself in its execution. So it
was with a tone of confidence well justified that over the coffee Harper
murmured to his companion:

"Well, Susan, enjoyed your lunch?"

Susan smiled contentedly.

"Frank, it's been the dream of a lunch. I've made a perfect pig of
myself, and I shan't be able to eat anything at dinner. You're a perfect
genius to have found this place. If only--" Her candid grey eyes had a
troubled expression.

"If only--what?"

"If only it wasn't so ruinously expensive."

Harper's rather fatuous expression of happiness gave way to a look of
disgust.

"Need you bring that up now?" he asked wearily. "I should have
thought----"

Susan was all contrition.

"Darling, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say anything to spoil things. It
was beastly of me."

"Angel, you couldn't be beastly if you tried."

"Yes, I can, and I was. But all the same," she went on, returning to the
attack, "we've got to be practical sometimes."

"All right, then," said the young man roughly, "let's be practical. I
know what you're thinking. I'm a clerk in a dud firm that pays me two
pounds ten shillings a week, which is probably about two pounds nine
shillings more than I'm worth. I have been there four years and my
prospects of getting any further are precisely nil. You have a dress
allowance of fifty pounds a year, and if your father can raise it to a
hundred when you're married you will be lucky. Being what are known as
gentlefolk, we can't get married under seven hundred a year--say six
hundred as a bare minimum. And if we tried it even on that we should
hate it, and your father would have seventeen distinct apoplectic fits
if we suggested it. Is that practical enough for you?"

"Yes," said Susan in a small sad voice.

"Therefore," he continued, "it ill becomes me to spend fifteen shillings
on a decent meal, when I might be putting it in a nice little savings
bank, like that ghastly young pup who shares my room at the office."

Susan made a gesture of despair.

"It does seem pretty hopeless, doesn't it?" she said. Harper looked out
past her at the grey prospect of Goodge Street.

"I hate London," he said suddenly.

A silence followed his outburst, and when he spoke again it was in a
different tone of voice.

"Susan," he said diffidently, "I've had a letter from a fellow I know
out in Kenya. He's got a farm there--sisal, coffee and so on. There's
not much money in it nowadays, he says, but it's a good sort of life. If
he could take me on--would you come?"

She clapped her hands in joy.

"Darling!" she cried. "But this is marvellous! Why on earth have you
kept so quiet about it? You didn't really think I wouldn't come, did
you?" Then seeing the irresolute expression on his face, she added:
"Frank, there's something else in this. What is it?"

"Yes, there is something else," he answered unwillingly, as though
regretting that he had said so much already as to make further
disclosure necessary. "There is something else. What this man is
offering is a partnership in the farm."

"M-m?"

"And he wants fifteen hundred pounds for it."

"O-oh!" Susan's castle in Kenya tumbled in a long drawn sigh of
disappointment. "What is the good of talking about things like that?
Frank, I thought you were being _practical_!"

He flushed darkly.

"Perhaps I am," he muttered.

"What do you mean? Frank, you make me angry sometimes. You know you
haven't got fifteen hundred pounds or the remotest chance of getting
it----"

"Suppose I had?"

"What's the good of supposing?" She looked him in the face, and then:
"You don't mean----? Darling, I hate mysteries. Are you seriously saying
that you can really pay for this partnership, or whatever it is? Tell
me."

He smiled at her, though his face was still clouded with anxiety.

"I can't tell you anything now. I'm sorry, darling, but there it is.
I've got to see how things work out. But if--just _if_--I came along in
a week's time, perhaps less, and told you that the show was on, would
you come with me?"

"You know I would!"

"And ask no questions?"

"Why not?"

"And ask no questions, I said."

"Frank, you frighten me when you look like that. It seems so
silly. . . . Oh, yes, I suppose so--ask no questions."

"That's all right, then."

She looked at her watch.

"Darling, I must fly, or I shall miss my train, and you know what father
is."

She pulled on her close-fitting hat over her mass of auburn hair and
dabbed powder on her nose while Harper paid the bill.

"I wish," she murmured when the waiter had gone, "I wish you could tell
me just a little more about it, all the same."

"No, I can't," he answered shortly. "It's just--just something that's
happened lately, that's all."

"I don't know what's happened lately," she said as they made their way
out. "I tried to read the paper on the way up, but I went to sleep
instead. All I saw were some headlines about a Big City Sensation. Has
that anything to do with it?"

Harper laughed sardonically.

"In a roundabout way, it might have," he replied, as he pushed open the
street door.

On the doorstep Susan almost ran against a small, sallow man who was
just coming in. He gave her a look of open admiration of a kind to which
she, who was quite aware of her own good looks, was well accustomed.
Ordinarily she felt flattered or amused, according to her mood, by these
tributes; but for some reason which she could not explain, this man's
glance, momentary though it was, filled her with resentment and vague
disquiet. She felt as though she were being appraised by a snake.

Meanwhile the new-comer entered the restaurant and seated himself at a
table by the window. Whatever the impression he made upon Susan, he was
evidently a valued client of the management, for he was no sooner in his
place than Volpi, looking like an agitated black water-beetle as he
flitted between the tables, came up to him.

"Ah, Monsieur Du Pine!" he cried. "It is a long time since we had the
honour. What will monsieur be pleased to take?"

"A _caf filtre_," said Du Pine shortly.

Volpi's face fell, but it was not for him to criticize his client's
orders, disappointing though they might be. Besides, he too had read the
headlines in the newspapers, and he was a man of tact. The coffee was
brought with as much ceremony as though it were the most elaborate dish
in the menu, and if Volpi had any comments to make they were uttered
only to his wife behind the desk.

Du Pine drank his coffee in slow deliberate sips. When it was finished,
he lit a cigarette, and that done, another. Little by little the room
emptied, but still he showed no signs of leaving. It was almost deserted
when at last a man came in and went straight to the vacant seat at his
table.

He was of medium height, his thin body clad in a grey suit and overcoat,
that had seen better days. Neither his face nor his jerky
cock-sparrowlike manner was particularly prepossessing, but there was
something in his appearance, whether it was the close-cut sandy
moustache or the set of his shoulders, that gave the impression that
this had once been an officer--even a gentleman.

Du Pine looked up as he came in. His expression did not change, and when
he spoke, only his lips moved.

"You're very late, Eales," he said in a low tone.

"Fog in the Channel," answered Eales shortly. "A double brandy and
soda," he added to Volpi, who had appeared at his elbow.

Volpi expressed regret with voice, face and arms.

"Alas, sare, but I am afraid it is too late. These licensing hours----"

"None the less, I think you can get my friend what he wants," put in Du
Pine.

"Ah, monsieur must not ask me----"

"But I do ask you," was the cold rejoinder, and the drink was
forthcoming immediately.

"I can't think why you wanted me to come to an out-of-the-way hole like
this," grumbled Eales as he put down his glass.

"Because it is out of the way. Things have been happening."

"I know that."

"I wonder," said Du Pine with a penetrating stare, "just how much you do
know?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know, for example, exactly where Ballantine is at this moment?"

"Why should I?"

"Do you know? was my question."

"If it comes to that, do you?"

They looked at each other, mutually suspicious, and then as by common
consent looked away.

"We are wasting time," said Du Pine after a short pause. "You haven't
told me if your business went off satisfactorily."

"Only because you haven't asked me. In point of fact, it did."

Eales's hand went to his pocket. Du Pine stopped him with a restraining
gesture.

"Not here," he murmured. "I have to be rather careful just now. We will
do our business in a taxi, if you don't mind. Pay for your drink and we
will be off."

Eales displayed his discoloured teeth in a mirthless smile.

"You don't like paying for things, do you, Du Pine?" he remarked.

"I pay for what I get, not otherwise."

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the taxi, Du Pine said affably, "Would you like me to drop you near
Mount Street?"

"Why near Mount Street?"

"It occurred to me that Mrs. Eales might be glad of your company just
now."

"You can leave my wife out of it, blast you!" said Eales violently.

"Just as you please. Now next time----"

"There isn't going to be a next time!"

"All the same, I think there is," said Du Pine softly.




                                   6
                          NOT IN THE INVENTORY


                                                   Monday, November 16th

"Mr. Harper?"

"Yes, Mr. Browne."

"I want your attention, please. And yours too, Mr. Lewis."

"Very good, sir."

Harper put down the pencil with which he had been playing, and looked
with disgust at his fellow employee. Not for the world would he have
allowed himself to call Mr. Browne "sir". Lewis saw the glance and
scowled in reply. In every respect but their age and occupation the two
young men were utterly dissimilar, and for various reasons they disliked
each other cordially. Harper was slim, dark and sharp-featured. Lewis
was pug-nosed, fair and heavily built. Lewis took his position and
duties seriously. He was satisfied with his employment, which had come
to him as the result of much hard labour at night classes and
correspondence schools during long years of drudgery as an office boy.
His ambition was to qualify himself as an auctioneer, surveyor and
estate agent, and his horizon was bounded by a partnership in Inglewood,
Browne & Co. Harper, on the contrary, considered himself thoroughly
ill-treated by the fate which had thrown him abruptly out of Oxford into
what he felt to be an unworthy occupation, and somewhat foolishly, he
made no secret of the fact. He could not be induced to look upon his job
as anything but a disagreeable necessity, and therefore treated it with
a casualness that, combined with his indefinable and quite unintentional
air of superiority, caused Lewis perpetual annoyance. In consequence,
they avoided each other as much as was reasonably possible, but in a
small office they were continually being thrown together and therefore
continually jarring on each other.

"No. 27 Daylesford Gardens," said Mr. Browne. He cleared his throat
pompously. "Furnished letting, Miss Penrose to--to--er----"

"Colin James."

"Thank you, Mr. Harper. To Mr. Colin James. For four weeks, expiring
tomorrow. The tenant appears to have vacated the premises before the end
of the lease. It is none the less our duty to protect our client's
interests to--ah--the best of our ability. Mr. Harper?"

"Yes, Mr. Browne."

"You will please take Miss Penrose's copy of the inventory of contents
and check it carefully--_carefully_ with--ah--with the contents. You
understand?"

"Perfectly."

"Making at the same time a careful note of any dilapidations which you
may--which you may note."

"Quite."

"Mr. Lewis?"

"Yes, sir."

"You will go along with Mr. Harper, and supervise him."

"Very good, sir."

"Really, Mr. Browne," Harper protested, "I think I am quite capable of
doing a simple job like that without any assistance."

"You may think so, Mr. Harper. Unfortunately, I do not. I have observed
recently a certain regrettable--ah--laxity in your work. It is most
undesirable in our class of business that we should be in any
way--ah--lax. That is why I consider it necessary to send you to check
the inventory, and Mr. Lewis to check _you_."

With a faint snigger at his own attempted witticism Mr. Browne thereupon
withdrew to his private office.

The two young men walked to Daylesford Gardens in thoroughly bad
tempers. Harper had many reasons for feeling annoyed, among them the
slight which had been put upon him and the consciousness that it was
quite justified. Lewis, on his side, while pleased that the superior
Harper had been "taken down a peg", disliked being sent out on an
unnecessary errand.

At the door, Lewis broke the silence in which they had walked together
from the office.

"Have you got the key?" he asked.

"It would have been rather more useful if you had asked that question
before we started," replied Harper coldly. "As a matter of fact, I
have."

They passed inside.

"Have you got the inventory?" said Lewis.

This time Harper made no attempt to reply. He merely pulled a folded
paper from his pocket and planted himself with his back to the door.

"You read them out and I'll check them off," said Lewis.

Harper shrugged his shoulders wearily, and in a tone of infinite disgust
began to read: "Hall and passage. Five and a half yards green
lino. . . ."

"Right."

"Carved mahogany hat-stand. . . . God, why do people have such things?"

"Right."

"Ebony-framed wall mirror. . . ."

"Right. No, it isn't. One corner's badly chipped."

"Well, it doesn't say so here."

"Then it's a dilapidation. Mark it down."

Harper made a note. "Not that it'll do much good to anybody," he said,
"as the tenant has gone abroad."

"He had no call to go until he'd settled the dilapidations," snapped
Lewis. "Anyhow, we must protect our client. She's got a right to claim
for it. Put it down."

"Oh, by all means," said Harper in his most infuriating manner. "Shall
we proceed? Japanese lacquer hanging cupboard. . . ."

The hall completed, they passed to the front room on the ground floor.
It was not a large room, but grossly over-furnished, and checking its
contents proved a long and laborious affair. Lewis found two further
small dilapidations and a cheap brass ashtray which was not in the
inventory, and gloated audibly at his own perspicacity. Harper's
impatience became more and more manifest until at last his companion's
conscientiousness was satisfied and allowed him to move on to the
smoking-room.

Harper was the first through the door. He stopped in the entrance, and
as Lewis was about to follow, held him back.

"Just a moment," he said gently. "I think there's something here that
isn't in the inventory."

                 *        *        *        *        *

The telephone bell rang in the police station which was at the corner of
Upper Daylesford Street and the Fulham Road. Sergeant Tapper, who was a
conscientious officer, made a note of the time before he answered it. It
was 11.31 a.m. He put the receiver to his ear, and at first could make
nothing of the message. He heard a succession of gasps, as if the
speaker had been running fast. Finally a thick voice exclaimed: "Murder,
murder! Come at once!"

"What do you say?" barked Tapper. "Who are you? Where----?"

"I say there's been a murder----" repeated the voice. There was a
moment's silence, and the sergeant thought he had been cut off. Then a
quiet, cultured voice broke in:

"I'm speaking from 27 Daylesford Gardens. Mr. Lionel Ballantine's body
is here. Will you come and remove it, please? . . Yes, certainly I'll
wait for you. Good-bye."

Tapper leapt from his chair with a speed that would have been remarkable
in a younger man. Within a bare half-minute of putting down the receiver
he was out of the police station, a young constable at his heels, while
at the telephone another officer sent an urgent message to Scotland
Yard.

At the door of No. 27 the officers found the two young men awaiting
them. Both had the appearance of having recently been through an
unpleasant experience. Of the two, Harper was noticeably the cooler. It
was he who greeted Tapper.

"Glad to see you, sergeant," he said. "You will find him in the room at
the back. Nothing has been touched."

They followed the policeman through the hall into the smoking-room. The
blind was down and the electric light burning. The contrast to the light
of day outside gave a touch of unreality to the scene. There was a
moment's silence, as all gazed at the corpse. Here was no dignity in
death, no repose. The sprawled, stiffened figure was like a monstrous
marionette, hideous, grotesque, unseemly.

The sergeant bent over the remains for an instant, then straightened
himself.

"The divisional surgeon will be here in a minute or two, I expect," he
said. "Not that there will be much for him to do, it seems. Then I'm
expecting a senior officer from the Yard. You can keep your full
statements for him. Meanwhile I'll just take down a few particulars." He
produced his notebook. "Names and addresses, please," he began, and,
these transcribed, continued: "Which of you was it that telephoned?"

"I did," answered Harper. "That is, mine was, I think, the effective
message. My friend here actually had the first words, but I don't think
they carried very much weight."

Lewis went an angry red. "We're not all of us used to finding bodies
about the place," he muttered.

"That's all right, me lad," said Tapper kindly. "Nobody's going to blame
you for being a bit upset at a nasty sight like that. It's only
natural." He turned to Harper. "And how did you know this was Mr.
Ballantine?" he demanded.

For reply, Harper took a newspaper from his pocket.

"Fairly obvious, wasn't it?" he remarked.

A streamer headline across the front page shouted in large capitals:
"RIDDLE OF MISSING FINANCIER: WHERE IS MR. BALLANTINE?" Beneath it was a
photograph of a man in early middle age, with a prosperous, conceited,
not unhandsome face, dressed in a morning coat, grey top-hat and stock,
an orchid in his buttonhole. The caption ran: "Mr. Lionel Ballantine; a
photo taken at this year's Derby."

The sergeant looked from the photograph to the distorted face of the
murdered man, and back again. "That's him all right, I can see that," he
said.

He pursed his lips and remained silent for a moment.

"What were you two doing here?" he asked.

"Checking the inventory for the leaseholder. Miss Penrose," put in
Lewis, who felt it was time to assert himself. "She had let this place
furnished and----"

"She hadn't let it to Mr. Ballantine, I suppose?" asked Tapper.

"Lord, no! The tenant was a Mr. James. Sergeant, do you think----?"

"I think you two had better get on with your job of checking the
inventory," said Tapper. "We shall know then if anything's missing from
the house, at all events, and by the time you've finished I expect there
will be someone here from the Yard to hear what you've got to say. Be
careful, now. Nothing's to be touched; and if you find anything
suspicious, call me at once."

The young men left the room obviously relieved to be able to get away
from it and the atmosphere of violence and horror that pervaded it. The
sergeant, after posting the constable at the front door to warn off any
intruders, pulled out his notebook and pencil and began to make
laborious notes in his round, board-school handwriting. Presently he was
interrupted by the arrival of an officer from the police station, who
brought with him the divisional surgeon. The latter, a pale little man
with a reddish moustache, took little time over his examination.

"Strangulation," he said briefly.

"How long has he been dead?" asked Tapper.

"It's difficult to say--two or three days, approximately."

"Well, we shall have to wait for further orders before we move him. Then
perhaps you'll be able to tell us something further."

"A message from the Yard has just come through," put in the newly
arrived constable. "Inspector Mallett is coming down immediately.
Meanwhile nothing is to be touched."

"Does he think I don't know my own business?" grumbled Tapper. "You can
get along back to the station, me lad, and if you meet any newspaper men
on the doorstep, keep your mouth shut."

By way of protest he put away his notebook, as though determined that
the too officious Mallett should have no further help from him.
Consequently, he at once found himself with nothing to do. The surgeon
rolled a cigarette and inserted it in a long holder, and settling down
in a chair began to smoke with an air of melancholy boredom. Tapper
tried to engage him in conversation, but found him little more
communicative than Mr. Ballantine would have been. Finally, casting
about for something to occupy his mind, he picked up the newspaper which
Harper had left behind, and set himself to read the letterpress which
straggled above, below and round-about the photographs of Mr. Lionel
Ballantine and of the ornate faade of his London offices.

It was a mixture of fact and comment. The facts were brief, for the
obvious reason that none were known beyond the all-important one that
Mr. Ballantine, leaving his office at the usual time on Friday
afternoon, had not been seen up to a late hour on Sunday night, although
a large number of persons were extremely anxious to see him. The
comment, on the other hand, was voluminous and pointed. It was couched
in the careful style that is usually adopted by the press in relation to
a man whose prosecution is to be expected but is not yet inevitable. It
was artistically contrived to leave every reader under the firm
impression that the object of its attention was a fugitive from justice,
while cautiously abstaining from anything that might conceivably go
beyond the bounds set by the law of libel. Mr. Lionel Ballantine, the
newspaper reminded its readers, had for many years been an important
figure in the City of London. He was in particular the chairman of the
London and Imperial Estates Company, Ltd., a concern with an issued
capital of two and a half million pounds. The article went on to remind
its readers that the shares in that company, after having made what in a
happy turn of phrase it described as a meteoric rise during the early
part of the year, had collapsed abruptly in the past few days and were
now quoted at one-tenth of their nominal value. The City, it added
sagely, was gravely perturbed at the turn of events and the annual
report and balance sheet, due in a fortnight's time, were anxiously
awaited. It went on to hint vaguely at repercussions and developments
that might be expected. In conclusion, the writer remarked with an air
of detachment that would not have deceived a child that it would be
recollected that Mr. Ballantine's name had been mentioned at the
sensational trial of John Fanshawe over four years previously.

The sergeant looked up from his reading.

"Fanshawe!" he said aloud.

"Eh?" said the surgeon, spilling his cigarette ash on the carpet.

"He was released from Maidstone the other day, wasn't he?"

"Thursday."

"Fanshawe out and Ballantine dead," mused Tapper. "Quite a coincidence,
you might say. Wasn't Ballantine supposed to have been mixed up in the
Fanshawe bank fraud?"

But the surgeon's interest in the subject seemed to have been already
exhausted. Tapper sighed and turned to the football forecasts.




                                   7
                            INSPECTOR MALLETT


                                                   Monday, November 16th

Lewis and Harper, their work above stairs completed, descended to a
ground floor that seemed suddenly to have become crowded with people.
Heavy police boots tramped in the hall, and through the smoking-room
door they could see the sudden flash of magnesium as photographers
recorded the appearance of the room and its occupant. Scotland Yard had
taken possession.

Sergeant Tapper met them at the foot of the stairs.

"The inspector wants a word with you," he said.

Inspector Mallett was a tall, stout man, whose bulk, as he stood
four-square in the middle of the carpet, seemed to make the small room
still smaller. From a rosy, round face looked out bland blue eyes, the
mild expression of which contrasted oddly with his fierce military
moustache. He favoured the two young men with a quiet, appraising stare
as they entered.

"These are the two men who----" began Tapper.

"Yes," said Mallett. He turned at once to Harper. "Have you finished
with your inventory?" he asked.

"Yes," answered Harper. "Every room except this one, of course."

"Then just run your eye over this room, and tell me if anything has been
taken."

Harper began to go through the list, checking it off with the objects in
the room. Not for the world would he, in this room, and in the presence
of all these strangers, acknowledge the need of Lewis's help. Lewis, on
his part, was equally determined to see that the job was done
thoroughly, and to Harper's extreme annoyance, took up a position at his
elbow, where he could look over the inventory and correct what was being
done. As quickly as possible Harper completed the work, a desire to be
out of the room and to be away from his companion spurring him on.

"There's nothing missing," he announced.

"Yes, there is," said the odious Lewis in the same breath. "The
blind-cord has gone."

Harper could not avoid showing his annoyance at his own lapse and his
contempt for the other's uncalled-for nicety; but the inspector smiled
grimly.

"Is this it, do you think?" he asked, pointing to the dead man.

Both had hitherto averted their eyes from the grisly object in the chair
as much as possible, while taking in everything above, below and around
it, but now, following the direction of the detective's pointing finger,
they saw protruding from the back of the neck, just above the collar, an
unmistakable wooden knob, attached to a thin cord, most of it so
embedded in the folds of the skin as to be invisible. Speechless, they
nodded in agreement.

"Right!" said Mallett cheerfully. "That's one thing settled, anyway. Now
I don't expect you fellows want to be in here any longer than you can
help. Come into the other room."

He consulted in low tones with one of his subordinates before leading
the way into the front room. While he did so, Harper, his repugnance now
conquered by curiosity, gazed with close interest at the face of the
dead man. The body had been moved for the photographers to do their
work, and it was possible for him now to look at the upturned features
more closely. There was no trace of sympathy in the young man's
expression as he stared, but only a deep interest. It seemed unnatural
that one who had probably never seen death before, and certainly not in
such terrible guise, should be able to regard it with such passionless
curiosity. So absorbed was he that he was evidently unaware that he too
was the object of scrutiny from eyes no less observant than his own.

"Well?" said Mallett's voice suddenly close behind him. "What are you
staring at?"

Harper started, and is was an appreciable time before he could recover
his self-possession. When he did speak, however, it was in his airiest
and most superior tone. Lewis, listening, privately concluded that he
had decided to assume his Oxford manner so as to impress upon the
inspector that he was something more than an ordinary estate agent's
clerk.

"As a matter of fact. Inspector," he said, "I was wondering why an
obviously well-dressed man like that should have chosen to wear a green
bow tie with a grey suit."

The inspector grunted, but said nothing.

"Particularly", pursued Harper, "when it isn't even decently tied. I
shouldn't like to be seen dead in it myself."

"Probably Ballantine wouldn't either," snapped Mallett. "If you've
finished with the camera, cover that up, one of you, until it can be
moved." He strode out of the room, motioning the two young men to follow
him.

"I shan't keep you long," said the inspector, when they were alone
together. "I know who you are and why you were here. Just let me have a
few details about the house. Whose is it?"

"Miss Penrose's," said Harper. "She is a client of ours, and is in Italy
for the winter."

"That is," put in Lewis heavily, "Miss Penrose is the leaseholder.
Actually the house belongs to Lord Minfield."

"We won't bother about him," said Mallett. "Then you let it furnished on
Miss Penrose's behalf?"

"Yes," said Harper.

"For how long?"

"A month, expiring today."

"What was the tenant's name?"

"Colin James."

"Where is he now?"

"Abroad, so far as I know," said Harper. "That is, on Saturday morning
he returned the keys of the house with a letter to say that he was
giving up possession and going to France."

"What do you know about him?" asked Mallett. "He gave you some
references, I suppose?"

"The only reference he gave was his bank," said Harper. "He paid the
rent in advance."

"Which bank was it?"

"The Southern--the Lower Daylesford Street branch. I remember that
because it was the same as the firm's."

The detective paused for a moment, sucking his cheeks reflectively, his
broad back to the window, through which came the murmur of a crowd,
already collected at the signs of police activity.

"What did this Colin James look like?" was his next question.

"He was a fat man," answered Harper, "or rather, paunchy. I mean, he had
a big stomach and a thin face, as if he had a bad digestion. He had a
rather large dark brown beard. He was about medium size, and as far as I
can remember, he spoke in rather a husky voice."

Mallett turned to Lewis. "Do you agree with that?" he asked.

"I never saw him," said Lewis. "I only came in on this job because Mr.
Browne, my boss, wanted me to help check the inventory." He could not
resist a spiteful glance at Harper as he spoke.

"In that case you needn't wait here," said Mallett. "Get back to your
office, tell them what has happened, if they don't know already, and ask
them to have all their records about Mr. James and his tenancy ready for
inspection. I'll let you know when you're wanted again. Not until the
inquest, probably."

Lewis left, and the inspector turned to Harper.

"How often did you see James?" he asked.

"Only once. He came into the office in the morning when I was alone, and
said he wanted a quiet furnished house in a hurry. I took him out and
showed him this place----"

"Leaving the office empty?"

"Mr. Browne was in the inner office, but wouldn't see him from where he
was."

"I see. Go on."

"He liked the look of it and wanted to move in that afternoon. I took
him back to the office and he gave me his cheque, which I paid into the
bank during the morning. In the afternoon, Mr. Browne made out the
tenancy agreement, and later on in the day Mr. James came back and
signed it."

"Were you alone in the office then?"

"Yes. As a matter of fact everyone else had gone home, and I had to wait
specially late for him."

"The tenancy agreement will be in the office, I suppose?"

Harper appeared to hesitate. "Yes--I suppose so," he said. "It should
be, at any rate."

"You've given a very good description of a man you only saw once,"
Mallett pursued. "Had you any particular reason for remembering him?"

"No--I don't think so. Except of course a beard is a bit unusual."

"Quite. Would you know him again if you were to see him?"

"I think so--only there's the beard again. I'm not sure if I should know
him without that."

The inspector nodded thoughtfully.

"Was he alone in the house, do you know?" he asked. "It seems a biggish
place for one man to take."

"So far as I know he was."

"What about servants?"

"He said he would want a man to come in by the day. I engaged one for
him."

"What is his name?"

"Crabtree--Richard Crabtree. He lives in the Terrace, just round the
corner. No. 14."

"Thank you," said Mallett, making a note of the address. "Now about this
inventory. Is there anything missing from the house?"

"No--nothing of any consequence."

"Anything may be of consequence in a case like this," said Mallett
severely. "You had better leave the list with me for reference. Is there
anything here that isn't on it?"

"Only the linen and cutlery which James brought in with him."

"That may be important. Where did it come from?"

"I ordered it myself for him from the stores near our office, and he
gave me the money when he called to sign the agreement."

"Rather an unusual transaction for a house agent to do, wasn't it?"

"Yes, I suppose it was," admitted Harper. "But he asked me to do it, and
I didn't think of it at the time."

"I see." Mallett went to the door. The interview was evidently at an
end, and Harper rose to go. But the detective stopped him.

"Just one more question," he said. "Have you ever, seen Ballantine
before?"

"No."

"Then what exactly was it that made you stare at him in the way you did
just now?"

"Exactly what I told you," answered Harper coldly.

"No more than that?"

"No."

The inspector shrugged his shoulders. "Very well. I shall keep in touch
with you and let you know when you are wanted again. Good day."

He opened the door, and Harper stepped into the open air again. He was
conscious of the sound of many voices, of the click of cameras, of the
hot breath of a crowd surging round him. But in his relief to be free at
last of the horrors of the morning he gave them no heed. Pushing his way
through, he walked at his best pace to the end of the street. Then he
suddenly realized that he was very tired and distinctly hungry. Looking
at his watch, he was astonished to find that it was not yet one o'clock.
In an hour and a half he had lived an age. From the window, Inspector
Mallett, with a quizzical expression on his lips and a slight frown
barring his broad forehead, watched him go.




                                   8
                            RICHARD CRABTREE


                                                  Tuesday, November 17th

If the disappearance of Lionel Ballantine had been front-page news in
the morning papers, his reappearance as a corpse in an obscure South
Kensington house was a sensation of the first magnitude. It occupied the
posters of every news-sheet in London, quite excluding such minor
matters as a Cabinet crisis, a film star's divorce and an earthquake in
China. From morning till night a throng of morbid sightseers blocked the
pavement of Daylesford Gardens, to the disgust of its retired but still
surviving inhabitants, and gazed with hungry rapture at the commonplace
exterior of No. 27. When they finally returned home they were able to
feast their eyes on faithful photographs of the same view. One
photographer, more enterprising than the rest, had been able to
penetrate to the back, and thence to secure a picture of the window of
the actual room where the dead man had been found. His effort was
rightly considered to be quite a scoop by his paper, which further
assisted its readers by marking the particular window with a cross.

The police had been chary in the details which they issued for
publication, but news editors and special reporters were not slow to
make the most of the material available. Everybody who could conceivably
have had any knowledge of the tragedy, not to mention a great many who
could not, was pestered by interviewers. Mrs. Brent's particular friend,
making a quiet and quick getaway from No. 34, had the fright of his life
when he was held up just outside the house by a determined young man
whom he took to be an enquiry agent, but who was in fact merely a
reporter thirsting for a personal story from a resident. Jackie Roach,
on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed himself. Not only did the murder,
as he had foretold, stimulate his sales, but for the first and last time
in his life, he was himself part of the news he sold. To be shouting:
"Special! Murder! All the latest!"--to be thrusting into eager hands
papers with your own picture on the front page--to be photographed in
the act of doing so by another pressman--to know that that picture would
be in tomorrow's paper, and that tomorrow you might be photographed
selling a paper with a picture in it of yourself selling a paper with a
picture of yourself--it all fairly went to a chap's head, more even than
the drinks which those reporters kept on standing you every time you
thought of something extra for them to put in the story.

Roach had of course given his statement to the police and been warned
that he must attend the inquest. In the meantime, he had been told to
keep his mouth shut. But it wasn't in human nature to keep one's mouth
shut when there were so many temptations to open it for the admission of
free beer, and Jackie was too honest a man not to do his best to give
value for his entertainment. It was wonderful, too, what questions they
thought of asking. Things that the police had never bothered him about.
For instance, he just happened to mention that he knew Crabtree, Mr.
James's servant, and they fairly buzzed with excitement. When had he
seen him last? Where was he now? Jackie was blest if he knew. But his
very ignorance, it seemed, was news enough, and on the morning after the
discovery of Ballantine's death, "WHERE IS RICHARD CRABTREE?" was a
question which was worth a headline to itself in some newspapers.

Crabtree, in fact, about the time that these same papers were being read
at countless breakfast tables throughout the country, was standing
rather forlornly in the main street of Spellsborough, a small market
town in Sussex. At his back was a gaunt ugly building with the words
"County Police" on the lamp over its main entrance. Across the road, in
the direction in which he was looking, was a garage, where a heavy motor
lorry had just pulled up to refuel, and towards this he directed a look
of hopeful interest.

The lorry driver paid for his petrol, cranked the engine and climbed up
into his seat. As he did so, Crabtree crossed the road and came up on
his near side.

"Going to London, mate?" he asked.

The driver was a pale-faced, fleshy man with a permanent frown of
discontent. He looked down at Crabtree with eyes that seemed to twinkle
with malice.

"Ye're just out o' the lock-up, ain't yer?" he said, jerking his thumb
at the building across the road.

"What's that got to do with you?" said Crabtree defensively.

"That's all right," was the answer. "I've suffered from the so-called
justice of the ruling classes meself. We of the proletariat 'ave got to
stick together. Jump in, comrade. Ye're welcome to a lift to London--if
this perishing box o' tricks will get so far."

He crashed the engine into gear and the lorry crawled slowly up the
steep street and on to the open downs beyond.

"In Soviet Russia", observed the driver, "the output of motor trucks 'as
increased three 'undred per cent in the larst five years. That makes yer
think a bit, don't it?"

Crabtree, who, if he thought at all, was not accustomed to think of such
subjects, contented himself with a non-committal grunt. They continued
to drive in silence for several miles before his companion spoke again.

"If yer don't believe me," he said, as though the one-sided conversation
had never been interrupted, "just take a look at this." He pulled a
newspaper from his pocket. "_The Daily Toiler_," he added with reverence
in his voice. "Yer can believe what yer reads in the _Toiler_. It's the
truth, comrade--not just lying capitalist propaganda, like some I could
mention."

An emphatic spit over the side emphasized his contempt for the lords of
Fleet Street.

Crabtree took the paper, and glanced without much attention at the small
print to which the driver's grubby finger pointed. The statistics of the
special correspondent in Moscow promised little entertainment, and it
was not long before he turned to the front page. What he saw there
interested him a good deal more. Whatever the differences between _The
Daily Toiler_ and its capitalist competitors, its standard of news
values was fundamentally the same. Politics may differ, but a murder is
a murder all the world over.

"'Ere, 'ullo! What's this?" he exclaimed.

"That? One of these blarsted millionaires gone to 'is account," said the
driver with gloomy relish. "And serve 'im right, I say! Bloodsuckers,
every one of 'em! Each for 'imself and the weakest goes to the
wall--that's capitalism for yer!"

He swung the heavy vehicle round a bend, forcing a cyclist into the
hedge. Crabtree, hanging on with difficulty, neither saw nor heard. His
whole attention was focused on the printed words before him.

"Twenty-seven Daylesford Gardens!" he murmured incredulously.

He read with difficulty, the words dancing up and down before his eyes
to the jolting of the road. Then he saw something which almost caused
him to tumble from his seat. From the mass of print one name stood out
in heavy, accusing capitals--his own.

"'Strewth!" said Crabtree.

He was still staring at the paper in incredulous dismay when the lorry
pulled up with a jerk. Looking up, he saw that they were on the crest of
a steep hill. From the radiator cap came a thin jet of steam. The driver
switched off the engine.

"Boiling again, as per usual," he announced philosophically. "Now we'll
just 'ave to wait till 'er 'ighness is pleased to cool off. What's the
matter, comrade?"

Crabtree handed him over _The Daily Toiler_.

"Just look at that there," he said. "Twenty-seven Daylesford
Gardens--where I was in service. Colin James--the gent I was doing for.
And _me_--the blighters have got me in it too!"

The driver studied the page for some time in silence. Then he took a
cigarette from behind his ear and lit it.

"The perlice are anxious to interview", he quoted, "Richard Crabtree.
That you?"

"Yes, that's me all right, mate, but----"

"Ar!" He pondered in silence for a while, and then: "The perlice,
indeed! Well, sooner you than me. We'd best be getting on."

A few hundred yards farther on the road crossed a small stream. Here he
stopped the machine again, and produced a small tin jug, which he handed
to Crabtree.

"Just get down and fill 'er up with water, will yer, comrade?" he said.

Crabtree was down at the waterside when he heard the roar of the engine
being accelerated. He ran back just in time to see the lorry mount the
bridge and disappear in a cloud of exhaust smoke. A voice floated back
to his ears:

"I don't want no dealings with the perlice, thank you, comrade!"

It had begun to rain. He was five miles from the nearest village, and
his only possession in the world was an empty half-gallon tin jug.




                                   9
                         INQUEST ON A FINANCIER


                                                Wednesday, November 18th

"The inquest will be held on Wednesday." This simple statement, which
concluded every newspaper account of the mystery of Daylesford Gardens,
had at least the merit of being accurate and readily understood. Not
unnaturally, those of the public who had time on their hands regarded it
as an invitation to be present at what promised to be a sensational
enquiry. The niggardly spirit in which the architect had interpreted his
duty when designing the court made this invitation a useless one to nine
out of ten of those who endeavoured to accept it; but with a truly
British determination they continued to skirmish outside the doors long
after the last hope was gone.

On Wednesday morning, therefore, the coroner took his seat in a court
which was crowded to suffocation. Inspector Mallett sat close at hand,
his moustache bristling with disgust at the jostling mob of
sensation-hunters. He disliked inquests. They did no good, he
considered, and only wasted time which might have been spent in more
profitable ways. Still, they were part of the machinery of the law, of
which he was the servant, and as such he accepted them with resignation.
Their only useful function, in his experience, was to focus public
attention on a case, and so to induce witnesses to come forward who
otherwise would have remained in ignorance of the value of their
evidence; and on this case, he reflected, blowing out his cheeks in the
already vitiated atmosphere, there had already been public attention
enough and to spare. Fortunately, he knew this coroner to be an amenable
individual, who would not do more than discharge the necessary duties of
his office, without pushing the enquiry further than he, Mallett,
thought necessary at this stage.

The proceedings were opened and the coroner briefly addressed the jury.
They were met, he told them, to enquire into the death of Mr. Lionel
Ballantine. Certain evidence would be put before them from which it
would be clear that the deceased had met with an unnatural death. It was
impossible for them in the present state of the investigations to
complete their enquiry, and an adjournment would be necessary to give
time for the police to clear the matter up fully. It would depend upon
the result of the work of the police, he added, whether or not it would
be his duty to call the jury together again.

"That means, whether they catch the man or not," whispered Lewis
knowingly. Harper, sitting reluctantly at his side, felt slightly sick.
But his attention was soon diverted as the evidence began.

"Mrs. Ballantine," cried the coroner's officer, and a slender figure in
black stepped forward. Those in the witnesses' seats near the front of
the court could discern a composed face, level brows and a thin,
inflexible mouth.

"You are Evangeline Mary Ballantine?" asked the coroner.

"Yes."

"And you live at 59 Belgrave Square?"

"Yes."

"Have you identified the body of your husband, shown to you in the
mortuary at this court?"

"I have."

"When did you last see your husband alive?"

"Last Wednesday--a week ago today."

"Was he then in his usual health?"

"So far as I could see--yes."

The coroner consulted the papers before him, cleared his throat, and
went on in a slightly different tone.

"You and your husband were not living together, I think?"

"We were not formally separated," said Mrs. Ballantine in a voice from
which all expression seemed deliberately excluded. "My house was open to
him whenever he cared to use it."

"And did he use it, from time to time?"

"From time to time--yes. I cannot say exactly how often. It is a large
house, and I did not question him as to his movements."

"On this occasion, a week ago, did you see him at Belgrave Square?"

"Yes, I asked him to come and see me. I had to discuss money matters
with him."

"Did----?" the coroner began another question, but thought better of it.
Instead he turned to the barrister who represented Mrs. Ballantine.

"Have you any questions?" he asked.

Counsel had only one question. "Did your husband ever mention to you the
address, 27 Daylesford Gardens?"

"No."

He turned to the coroner. "Will this witness be required any longer?" he
asked. "If not, she would be obliged if----"

"By all means," was the answer. "She may go at once."

Counsel sat down with the easy conscience of one who has earned his fee,
and Mrs. Ballantine nodded her thanks to the coroner and turned to go,
as composed as she had come. Neither then nor at any time did she
display any sign of emotion. She passed through the throng as though it
had not been there and was gone. Mallett was not an impressionable man,
but as she left the court he found his eyes following her with
admiration and respect. "A hard nut, that woman," he thought. "No wonder
Ballantine went elsewhere for his fun! But she's got character--and
courage. A woman like that would do--anything!"

The police surgeon was the next witness. He brought an air of
businesslike efficiency into the court, giving his evidence with a
matter-of-fact taciturnity that made it seem positively ordinary. Many
of his audience, agape for thrills, felt that they had been in some way
cheated. Later in the day, when they opened their evening papers and
read the same evidence in all the glory of headlines and leaded type,
they were able to recapture the sensations and the drama which had been
so oddly missing in the original.

The surgeon briskly gave his name, address and qualifications. He had
been called to 27 Daylesford Gardens. There he had seen the body of the
deceased. Rigor mortis had already set in. It was impossible to say
accurately how long he had been dead, but he estimated from two to three
days. That would place the time of death between midday on Friday and
midday on Saturday. If anything, he thought it would be rather towards
the beginning of that period. Asked specifically whether appearances
were consistent with death on Friday afternoon or evening, he agreed
that that was so.

"Did you find anything to account for the death?" asked the coroner.

"Yes--a thin piece of cord was passed twice round the neck and tightly
knotted at the back."

"Was this the piece of cord in question?"

For the first time in his recital there was a stir of interest in court,
as an impassive officer placed the exhibit before the witness. The
surgeon glanced at it, said "Yes", and plunged into medical details. He
had conducted a post-mortem. The body was healthy and well nourished.
There was no trace of organic disease. Death was due to strangulation.
Great force must have been used, suicide was out of the question. He
gathered up his papers and left the box with the same air of dreary
efficiency that he had displayed throughout.

Harper and then Lewis were next called to give their account of the
finding of the body. The inspector, listening idly to what was for him a
twice-told tale, took a certain grim amusement in noting the difference
in their attitude. Harper was before the coroner as he had been to the
detective, aloof, detached and cool; Lewis, on the contrary, was
flustered and excited. He evidently took a vulgar delight in being for
once the centre of interest, and was much more concerned to describe his
own sentiments of horror and amazement at what he saw than to add
anything useful to the enquiry. He had already, Mallett knew, allowed
himself to be interviewed and photographed by press reporters, unlike
Harper, who had done all in his power to avoid publicity. Altogether the
pair made a contrast which to a psychologist--and every good detective
must be something of a psychologist--was not without interest, and,
possibly, profit.

The coroner looked at the clock. He had been satisfactorily expeditious
so far, and he was anxious to finish the case before lunch.

"There are only two more witnesses," he told the jury. "We will deal
with them now."

The jury, aching on hard wooden benches, and longing to escape from the
fetid air, wriggled impatiently but made no protest.

"Mr. Du Pine," called the coroner's officer.

Du Pine, looking haggard and careworn, came forward. He took the oath in
a nervous fashion, holding the Testament as though he were afraid it
would bite him, and breathed deeply two or three times before he
answered the questions put to him.

"Your name is Hector Du Pine?" asked the coroner.

"Yes."

"And do you live at 92 Fitz-James Avenue, St. John's Wood?"

"I do."

"Are you the secretary of the London and Imperial Estates Company?"

"Yes--that is--yes, I am."

"Of which the deceased was the chairman?"

Mr. Du Pine cleared his throat, bared his teeth in a nervous grin, and
sighed rather than said: "He was."

"When did you last see the deceased?"

"About five o'clock in the afternoon of last Friday."

"Was that at the offices of the London and Imperial Estates Company?"

"Yes, I should say," Mr. du Pine hastened to correct himself, "it was
just outside the offices. On the pavement."

"You were outside the offices on the pavement with him?"

"No. I was inside, at my window."

"You were watching out of your window and saw him go?"

"Just so."

"Did you see which way he went?"

"No, I don't think I did. . . . No, decidedly no."

"You had no particular reason for watching, I suppose?" suggested the
coroner.

Mr. Du Pine's eyelids flickered once or twice before he answered:
"No--no particular reason."

"Was he alone then?"

"He was."

"Had he anything with him?"

"Just an umbrella--nothing else."

"Had you been talking to him before he left?"

"Oh, yes--just before."

"And did he seem in normal health and spirits then?"

"Quite normal, so far as his health went," answered the secretary. Then
in lowered tones he added: "He was, of course, rather worried about
business matters."

"And I suppose he had been discussing these business matters with you?"

"Yes. Oh, yes, he had."

"Did he tell you where he was going when he left?"

"No. Oh, no. He was not--not a very communicative man, apart from
business."

"Did he ever mention No. 27 Daylesford Gardens to you at any time?"

"Certainly not."

"Thank you," said the coroner, with a nod of dismissal. But Mr. Du Pine
had still something to say.

"I think I ought to mention," he said breathlessly, his thin hands
clutching the rail of the witness-box as though he were afraid he might
be forcibly removed before he had finished, "I might say, that Mr.
Ballantine had expressed himself that morning as being very much
concerned, alarmed indeed----"

"About business matters. You have told us that already," interjected the
coroner.

"No, not about business," persisted the witness, "there was that, of
course, as well. But I mean he seemed to be alarmed in a personal way."

"As to his safety, do you mean?"

"Yes."

"Did he tell you the cause of this alarm you speak of?"

Du Pine swallowed twice before he spoke. "He had had a visitor that
morning", he said hurriedly, "who seemed to--to have disturbed him very
much indeed. He left strict instructions that he should not be admitted
again."

There was a stir in the audience at this evidently completely unexpected
piece of evidence. Mallett pursed his lips and frowned. But the coroner
could not leave the matter there.

"Did he give the name of his visitor?" he asked.

"Yes--he did." The witness seemed indisposed to say more.

"What was the name?"

"John Fanshawe." The words were muttered rather than spoken, but in the
tense silence they reached every corner of the court. They were greeted
with an excited murmur, instantly followed by a stentorian cry of
"Silence, silence!" from the coroner's officer. Under the cover of the
noise, Mallett took the opportunity to whisper a few words to the
coroner, who nodded in assent, and then returned to the witness.

"I have no more questions to ask you," he said.

Mr. Du Pine, looking profoundly relieved, took his uneasy presence from
the box, and Jackie Roach succeeded him. He stumped forward in high
feather at his own importance and grinned cheerfully at the coroner and
at the jury. In honour of the occasion he had decorated his shabby coat
with three tarnished war medals.

"Are you a newspaper seller?" asked the coroner.

"That's right, sir."

"I want you to take your mind back to last Friday evening. Where were
you?"

"Corner of Upper Daylesford Street and the Gardens, sir."

"Carrying on your occupation there?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Selling newspapers?"

"That's right, sir."

"Did you see anybody pass you while you were there?"

"Quite a number of people, sir."

"Anybody in particular--anyone you know?"

"I knows most of the people in the Gardens, sir."

The coroner tried another tack. "Do you know by sight the person who
lived at No. 27?" he asked.

"Oh, Mr. James--yes, sir."

"You knew his name, then?"

"Yes, sir. Mr. Crabtree, what was doing for him, told me his name."

"You mean this Crabtree was his servant?"

"That's right, sir. He did for him."

"Did you see Mr. James that evening?"

"Yes, sir. He come past me on the opposite side of the road to where I
was standing--him and another gentleman."

"About what time was that?"

"Round about half-past six, sir, more or less. I couldn't say for
certain."

"Which way did they go?"

"Down the Gardens, sir, and into No. 27."

"They both went into the house? You are sure of that?"

"Yes, sir. I noticed that particular, because it was the first time ever
I'd seen anyone go into that house since Mr. James come there, except
Mr. Crabtree and Mr. James himself."

"Could you see who was with him?"

"No, sir, I couldn't. Mr. James was between him and me, and it was a bit
darkish their side of the street."

"It was raining, was it not?"

"Just starting to drizzle, sir. Later on it came on to rain proper
hard."

"But you are sure it was Mr. James?"

"Oh, yes, sir. I knows _him_ all right. I've seen him, mornings and
evenings, often."

"And did you see these two again later on?"

"Mr. James I did, sir, not the other one."

"Where was that?"

"Just outside of No. 27, sir. It had come on to rain, then, hard, and I
was just going off down the Gardens to the public in Lower Daylesford
Street. I heard the door bang and I looks round and sees Mr. James going
up the Gardens the way he'd come, walking fast."

"He was quite close to you, then?"

"Just the width of the street away, sir, that's all."

"Had he anything with him?"

"Just a bag in his hand, sir, same as he always carried. I don't know as
I ever see'd him without it."

"Was he carrying it when you saw him first?"

"Oh, yes, sir, I'm sure he was."

"And what time was it when you saw him the second time?"

Roach paused a moment, and passed the back of his hand across his
apology for a nose as an aid to memory. Then his face brightened and he
said: "It was near on half-past seven when I got to the public, sir, and
that's just five minutes from where I stands at the top of the Gardens."

"About twenty-five minutes past seven, then?"

"Just about, sir."

The coroner shuffled his papers, and glanced at Mallett. Mallett pursed
his lips and nodded.

"Thank you," he said to Roach.

"Thank _you_, sir, and good morning," answered the newspaper seller
cheerfully and stumped away.

"That is as far as we shall be able to go today, members of the jury,"
announced the coroner. "You will be informed if your presence is
required again."

He rose and without further ceremony left the court. The crowd trickled
slowly out, feeling elated that they had been present at an important
function, but with the vague sense of disappointment that an anti-climax
produces. As the last of them left the building, a plain clothes
detective pushed his way in and came up to the inspector.

"The man Crabtree has been found, sir," he said. "He is at the Yard now.
I left instructions that no statement should be taken from him until you
came."

"Quite right," answered Mallett. His thoughts for a moment turned
longingly towards his lunch. But he suppressed the temptation. "I'll
come at once," he said firmly.




                                   10
                         THE TRAIL OF MR. JAMES


                                                Wednesday, November 18th

On his arrival at Scotland Yard, Mallett went at once to his room. He
was met there by a young officer, recently promoted, who had been
assigned to him for assistance in the case, Detective-Sergeant Frant. He
was a spare little man, full of dash, and supremely confident in his own
abilities.

"Before you see this man, sir," he said, "there are one or two points I
have cleared up for you."

"Very good of you," murmured Mallett.

"I have made enquiries from the railway officials," Frant went on. "I
have ascertained that a man answering to the description of James
travelled by the Newhaven boat-train on Friday night. He went
first-class, and dined on the train. The Pullman attendant remembers him
quite clearly, because he gave a lot of trouble and tipped him
particularly well. I have put through an enquiry to Paris, but the
answer isn't to hand yet.

"What about the passport officials?" asked Mallett.

"He had a passport, apparently. They have no recollection of him."

"They wouldn't. Well, have you been to the bank?"

"Yes. It appears that on Friday morning James called and took away his
pass-book and a sealed packet which he had deposited with them. He also
drew out all the money to his credit in one pound notes. I have seen the
account. He paid in two hundred pounds in notes on the 16th October, the
same day he took the house in Daylesford Gardens. The only payment out
was the cheque to the house-agents. All they could give me at the bank
were his two specimen signatures. Here they are."

He handed them over to the inspector, and added: "I have got the experts
on to them, and they say they are obviously disguised--probably
left-handed."

"You surprise me," said Mallett gravely. "Is that all?"

"So far as James is concerned--yes. But you ought to know----"

"The Southern Bank doesn't usually open an account without a reference
of some kind," remarked Mallett.

The sergeant coloured. "The manager didn't mention anything of the sort
to me," he answered.

"In other words, you forgot to ask him. That's not good enough, Frant.
If you're going to succeed in this job, you must learn to be thorough.
Get back to the bank, and tell the manager to turn up his records. There
must be a letter of recommendation or something. What are you waiting
for?"

Somewhat crestfallen, the sergeant said: "I thought I ought to mention,
sir, a report has just come in that Fanshawe arrived in London from
France this morning. He went to his sister's flat at 2b Daylesford Court
Mansions."

Mallett made no reply for a moment. Then he said reflectively: "Were you
at Fanshawe's trial, by any chance?"

"No--but I heard all about it, of course."

"I was. He was a curious chap. A thoroughbred gentleman, you'd have
said, to look at him, and as cool as a cucumber. When he was found
guilty and he was asked whether he had anything to say before sentence,
he simply stuck his chin in the air and said: 'My lord, I only desire to
state that if when I come out of prison Mr. Ballantine is still
unhanged, I shall be happy to rectify the omission.' I can hear him
now."

"And he did come out of prison," put in Frant eagerly, "and within a day
Ballantine is dead."

"And we are looking for Mr. Colin James, who took a furnished house in
Kensington while Fanshawe was in Maidstone Gaol," rejoined Mallett
drily.

"Still, he had the opportunity to do it," put in Frant, "he may have
been in touch with James. After all, two people were seen to go into the
house."

"And only James came out, leaving a dead man behind. No, no, Frant, that
cock won't fight. Still, it will be worth while to have a chat with
Fanshawe some time soon. I suppose he is being kept under observation?"

"Yes."

"Good. And in the meantime we shall have an opportunity of finding out
just what was Ballantine's part in the Fanshawe Bank affair when we go
through his papers."

"That reminds me of the other thing I was to tell you," said the
sergeant. "The London and Imperial Estates and its associated companies
all filed their voluntary petitions in winding-up this morning."

"I'm not surprised. That place was simply a glorified bucket-shop. I
suppose there will be the usual crop of prosecutions--false prospectuses
and so on?"

"I've been talking to Renshaw, who's in charge of that investigation,"
said Frant, "and I gather that there won't be many directors left to
prosecute, now that Ballantine is dead. Hartigan and Aliss, his two
jackals, skipped the country a week ago, and Melbury, who has been ill
in a nursing home for a month, only came up to business today to arrange
about the petition and collapsed in the street and isn't expected to
recover. That only leaves Du Pine, the secretary, and one director--Lord
Henry Gaveston."

"Poor little guinea-pig," commented Mallett. "Well, thank goodness that
isn't my pigeon. But tell Renshaw I want all Ballantine's private
papers. This is murder, and it's got to come first. I'm not going to let
any potty little Companies Acts affair stand in my way. Now off with you
to the bank, and don't make a silly mistake like that again. And tell
them to send up Crabtree. Lord, lord, when do I get my lunch?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

Mallett stilled the cravings of his stomach with a cigarette. He was not
one of those whose brains are stimulated by privation, and he felt
exhausted and dispirited. He knew he was only at the beginning of his
investigations and that he would need every ounce of his strength to
cope with them. And how could an all-too-human detective attend to the
matters in hand properly when his thoughts would keep straying to a
nicely grilled steak and tomato, with boiled apple pudding and cheese to
follow?

These epicurean reflections were cut short by the arrival of Crabtree.
It was heralded by much blasphemous language which echoed down the
corridor, broken by the blander tones of an escorting police officer.
When the door opened Mallett saw a truculent face, surmounting a short
and tubby frame. It would have been difficult to guess at Crabtree's
age. His grizzled hair and deeply lined cheeks were discounted by his
muscular body and the vigour of his movements. "An old seaman," said
Mallett to himself. "Certainly he swears like one."

Crabtree took the offensive at once.

"Now look 'ere," he demanded, "what are you perishing cops after,
anyway? I've done my time, 'aven't I? Can't you leave a chap alone?"

"Sit down," said Mallett gently. "Where have you been all this time?"

"Been? In the lock-up, of course! Didn't they tell you?"

"What lock-up?" asked Mallett.

"Why, Spellsborough, of course. Drunk and assault. And then as soon as I
gets 'ome, one of your blasted flats comes round and pulls me off 'ere.
What's the game?"

Mallett became suddenly expansive and genial. He could, when necessary,
adapt his manner to any company, and now, in his effort to put his
visitor at his ease; he assumed an air of vulgar good-fellowship.

"Now look here, old man," he began confidentially, "we've got nothing on
you. We thought you could help us in the hell of a big job we've got on
here. That's all. I'm sorry about the Spellsborough business, but that's
not my fault, is it? If I'd known you were there, I'd have had you out
in no time. But I suppose you knew too much to give your proper name
down there, eh? Here, sit down and have a fag."

Somewhat mollified, and deeply impressed by the inspector's quite
unfounded suggestion that he could have released a prisoner from the
cells at Spellsborough whenever he wished, Crabtree accepted the
cigarette and sat down.

"Name?" he said. "Course I didn't give my name. Would you? Name of
Crawford, I gave. And blowed if it wasn't the same name as the perishing
chairman of the beaks! Gawd, that was a bad break, wasn't it?"

He guffawed at the recollection, and Mallett joined in with a discordant
bray. Then he looked up at the officer who had brought in Crabtree and
who was still waiting.

"I shan't want you any more," he said sharply. "And if this gentleman
has to come here again, he's to be treated properly, see?"

The officer knew his Mallett. He clicked his heels together with
exaggerated respect, boomed "Very good, sir," and departed well content
with the part he had played in the little comedy.

Crabtree's respect for the inspector began to grow. It increased still
further when this Olympian man, after so grand a display of authority,
began immediately to discuss a subject next his heart.

"So you were at Spellsborough races?" he began. "Were you on Fidgety
Lass for the Cup?"

"You bet your life I was," said Crabtree, now completely at his ease.
"I'd got the straight tip from the stable on the Thursday, so down I
went on Friday morning with every blinking bob I had. I didn't try a
thing till the big race come along. Then I punted the lot on Fidgety
Lass--I got eights about her, too. Lord, guv'nor, but she didn't 'alf
give me the fidgets afore it was over! First time round she pecked at
the water, and I thought she was down. She was near a length behind at
the last fence, but in the run in 'er jock just showed 'er the whip, and
she sailed 'ome. Coo, I cheered, I can tell you!"

"And what happened then?" asked Mallett with a grin.

"Blowed if I can tell you, guv'nor. Next thing I knew I was in the cells
with a splitting 'ead and a mouth like the bottom of a parrot's cage. I
'eard all about it Monday morning, though. They didn't 'alf tell the
tale. Five days the blighters gave me, without the option. I 'adn't no
option, anyway. I was cleaned out."

"When did they let you out?"

"Tuesday morning, sir."

"You've taken your time getting home, then."

Crabtree swore at the recollection, and then described with picturesque
violence his attempt to get a lift back to London.

"I sold the tin can for the price of a bite of food, sir," he concluded,
"and footed it every step of the way back. I slept under a hedge on
Tuesday night."

Mallett stroked his chin-and pursed his lips. When he spoke again he was
a good deal more like a police officer and less like a boon companion.

"At all events," he said, "you knew then that the police were anxious to
interview you."

"I'd only read it in _The Daily Toiler_, sir," Crabtree protested. "You
can't tell what to believe in that sort of paper, can you? Just
Communist propaganda, ain't it?"

"And that a dead man has been found in Daylesford Gardens--that isn't
Communist propaganda, you know."

"It wasn't there when I left, sir," said Crabtree in some agitation,
"straight it wasn't."

"What time did you leave?" asked the inspector.

"Friday morning, sir, about 'alf-past nine. As soon as 'e'd finished
breakfast, Mr. James calls for me and says, I shan't want you any more,
Crabtree, 'e says, and 'e gives me my money and a quid extra to remember
'im by, and as soon as I'd cleared up the breakfast things off I went."

"Did Mr. James tell you he was going abroad?"

"Course 'e did, sir. 'E sent me round to Brook's the travel people in
Daylesford Square, to get 'is ticket for 'im."

Mallett opened his blue eyes wide.

"Did he, indeed?" he said. "Where was the ticket for?"

"Paris, sir, First class, by the New'aven boat. And 'e told me to ask
Brook's to book 'im a room in a 'otel, too."

"You don't remember the name of the hotel, I suppose?"

"No, sir. It was one of these foreign names. Wait a bit, though, 'e made
me write it down before I went to Brook's. I may 'ave it on me still."

He fumbled in his pocket, and finally pulled out a crumpled piece of
paper. This he unfolded and handed to Mallett. On it in rough capitals
were the words: "Hotel Du Plessis, Avenue Magenta, Paris."

Mallett regarded it, frowning. "This is your handwriting, I suppose?" he
said.

"Yes, sir. Mr. James spelt it out to me, same as you see it there. Come
to think of it, I never saw 'im write anything, 'isself."

"And when was it you went to Brook's for the tickets?"

"That would be the Tuesday, sir, before 'e went."

Mallett spoke into the house telephone at his elbow.

"I want an enquiry put through to Paris at once," he said. "Ask them to
be good enough to find out if anyone answering to the description of
James arrived at the Hotel Du Plessis on Saturday morning." He added the
address.

"Now tell me anything you can about Mr. James," he said to Crabtree.

What Crabtree could tell proved disappointingly little. It may best be
summarized in the words of the notes which Mallett set down after the
interview.

"Crabtree's description of James," wrote Mallett, "is vague, but agrees
substantially with Harper's. He seems to have seen remarkably little of
his employer. His duties were to keep the rooms clean and to prepare
breakfast, the only meal James ever had there. He wasn't a particular
man, Crabtree says, and couldn't bear women about the house. Refused the
suggestion that a charwoman should come in to clear it up. C. is an old
seaman and could turn his hand to what was necessary. The usual routine
was for him to arrive at seven-thirty in the morning and heat the
shaving water, which he would leave outside the bedroom door. James
always kept his door locked. C. has never been inside it till James was
up and dressed."

Mallett paused in his writing at this point and underlined the last two
sentences heavily. He continued:

"James breakfasted at eight-thirty, and would leave the house between
nine and half-past. He always carried a small bag or suitcase with him.
(Compare Roach's statement.) C. would finish his work in the morning and
not see him again till next day. Sometimes James would say he would not
be home that night, and C. would find the bedroom empty in the morning.
He is vague as to how often this happened, but thinks it may have been
two or three times a week. The one thing that sticks in his mind is that
it was a soft job. James never left any personal belongings lying about.
Never had any visitors, so far as he knows. C. was unable to recognize a
photograph of Ballantine when shown to him."

Here the document ended, but it was not the end of the interview.
Something else passed between the inspector and Crabtree, which did not
appear on the note, but which remained clearly etched on Mallett's
retentive memory.

When Crabtree had finished his account, given with a compelling air of
sincerity, Mallett said:

"There are just two more points I should like to know. Where did you
stay at Spellsborough on Friday night?"

Crabtree shook his head, and a look of distrust came into his eyes.

"I can't tell yer that," he said. "There's a widder down there, see? And
I don't want my old woman up 'ere to 'ear of it."

"You understand", persisted Mallett, "that it may be important for you
to be able to say where you were on Friday night?"

Crabtree became sullen. "I won't do it, and that's that," he muttered.

Mallett did not press the point.

"The only other question is: how did you get this job with Mr. James?"

Crabtree answered this readily enough, though it was clear that his
friendliness had vanished.

"Mr. 'Arper asked me if I wanted it, and I took it."

"That's the Mr. Harper in Inglewood, Browne's?"

"Just so."

"How did you know him?"

"Know 'im?" repeated Crabtree. "Of course I knew 'im. Didn't I teach 'im
'ow to 'andle a dinghy when 'is father was alive? Afore 'e lost all his
money?"

Mallett drew a bow at a venture.

"Didn't he lose his money in a bank smash?" he asked.

"That's right--Fanshawe's Bank. Everything went then, 'ouse and
'orses--even the yacht. That was a fair tragedy, guv'nor," he went on,
his eyes glazing with memories. "The prettiest little racing schooner
you ever saw. She was bought by a gent up on the Clyde, and he's ruined
'er. Cut down 'er masts, raised 'er bulwarks--she's nothing but a
regular old family barge now. It's enough to make a man cry. . . ."

"Have you ever heard young Mr. Harper mention Ballantine's name?" asked
Mallett suddenly.

Crabtree, his head still full of dreams, came back to the present with a
start.

"That----!" he exclaimed, "I should think I----"

He checked himself abruptly, and then with a puerile attempt at
deception went on:

"What name did you say, sir? Ballantine? I'm sure I've never 'eard 'im
mention that name in me life!"

He repeated with emphasis: "No, sir! Not Mr. 'Arper! Never!"




                                   11
                          MALLETT FEELS BETTER


                                                Wednesday, November 18th

The long delayed meal, and the pint of bitter that went with it, did
Mallett good. It was fortunate, he reflected, as he puffed at his
cigarette, that he was gifted with a good digestion. No detective, in
his experience, could do his work satisfactorily unless he were on good
terms with his stomach. Men are most proud of the qualities for which
they have to thank nature rather than their own efforts, and Mallett's
self-satisfaction remained with him as he took a brief post-prandial
stroll in St. James's Park. It was, for London, an ideal November day.
Over the leafless trees the sky was a clear pale blue, and there was a
nip in the air that was invigorating without being chilly. Mallett paced
the walks, breathing deep gulps of the wintry air, exulting in his own
well-being. But when one is faced with a question of paramount
importance, it will intrude itself everywhere, and any subject, however
far removed from it, will, by some trick of the brain, present itself as
in some way connected with the overmastering preoccupation. So it was
with the inspector now. He stopped in mid-stride, swung on his heel and
stared absently across the lake.

"Digestion, now!" he murmured to the unheeding pelicans. "What was it
Harper said? A fattish man with a lean face, as though he had a bad
digestion? Something like that. But Crabtree said he wasn't particular.
Crabtree's cooking was pretty rough and ready, I should think, and he
seems to have eaten his breakfasts all right. Odd!"

He remained irresolute for a few moments. Then, throwing the butt end of
his cigarette at a fat pigeon near his feet, he muttered: "Well, it's a
long shot, but it might be worth trying," and walked out of the park to
St. James's Underground Station.

Mr. Benjamin Browne, sole partner of Inglewood, Browne and Company, was
decidedly annoyed that afternoon when Lewis abruptly entered his room
and told him that Inspector Mallett wished to see him at once. His
annoyance was not due to the fact that the visit interrupted any
important work, for he was doing none. He was being disturbed in
something far more intimate and important than any work--in the little
nap which he was accustomed to take after lunch and to prolong, if
possible, till tea-time. He objected still more to being caught in an
undignified moment by Lewis, who had chosen to march in unannounced, to
find his employer snoring in an arm-chair. Most of all, he objected to
the grin of triumph on the young man's face, as he murmured
hypocritically: "Sorry to disturb you, sir." In that instant, Lewis's
fate was sealed. He was an indispensable employee, he knew, but there
should be no partnership for him in Inglewood, Browne & Co.

Thus roughly awakened, Mr. Browne struggled to his feet.

"Ask him to wait a moment," he said.

"He says he hasn't long to spare," replied Lewis, rejoicing in his
principal's discomfiture. "He would like to see you at once."

"Tell him to wait," repeated Browne. "I can't see him like this, can I?"

He clawed on the greasy tail-coat which he had taken off before his
slumbers, ran to a mirror in the corner of the room, resettled his
dishevelled black tie, dabbed with a hairbrush at his almost entirely
bald head, stroked into submission his weeping black moustache, and
finally settled down behind his desk.

"Now," he said to Lewis, pulling some documents before him, "ask him to
come in."

Mallett took in the office at a glance--the dusty files, the empty
letter-tray, the crumpled arm-chair. "Not much business here," he
thought.

"Good afternoon," said Browne ponderously, stifling a yawn. "It's this
Daylesford Gardens business, I suppose? Can we assist you in any way?"

"I hope so," said Mallett. "I am sorry to have to disturb you----"

"Not at all, not at all," Browne assured him. "To tell you the truth, we
were rather busy today"--he waved his hand in a manner that he hoped
would be impressive--"but we are always ready to assist the cause of
justice. I'm sure."

"As a matter of fact," said the inspector, "I came here in the hope of
seeing Mr. Harper. But I'm told he is out."

Browne shook his head sadly.

"I'm afraid that young man takes his duties very lightly, Inspector," he
said. "I had to give him leave to go to the inquest this morning, of
course, and Mr. Lewis too--very inconvenient to me, we have only a small
staff here, as you see, but naturally the claims of the law must be
met--and he has not returned. Simply absented himself. It's
very--galling, Inspector. That is the word--galling." He breathed
heavily and pulled at the long points of his moustache.

"Tell me about Mr. Harper," said Mallett confidentially. "Has he been
with you long?"

"Four or five years," answered Browne. "And between you and me, sir, he
has been a most unsatisfactory young man. Most unsatisfactory. It was
the late Mr. Inglewood who engaged him, out of friendship for his
father, I understood. And from respect to Mr. Inglewood's memory, more
than anything else, I kept him on. He was a fine gentleman, Mr.
Inglewood," went on the house agent, shaking his bald head dolefully.
"He had a wonderful way with the better-class clients, if you follow me.
It was a great loss to the firm when he was taken."

He stared at his desk, contemplating the ghosts of vanished better-class
clients, till Mallett recalled him to his surroundings with: "And Mr.
Harper?"

"Ah, Mr. Harper, just so. His father was ruined, I understand, in that
big bank failure some years ago--you would know the name, Inspector----"

"Fanshawe?" put in Mallett.

"Fanshawe--yes. And what made matters worse, Mr. Inglewood told me,
Fanshawe was an old friend of the late Mr. Harper. And he ruined him,
simply ruined him."

"That was very hard luck," said the inspector.

"Very. Oh, I was sorry for the young man, I assure you. That is why I
kept him on here. Besides, there was always the chance that he might
bring some of his better-class friends here as clients. But he didn't.
And hard luck doesn't excuse his being so shockingly careless in his
work as he's been. This Daylesford Gardens matter, for instance. That
has been a bad business for us, Inspector. Why, there's three pound two
and sixpence owing to Miss Penrose for dilapidations, and how we're
going to collect it from the tenant now, I don't know."

"But you were telling me about Mr. Harper," Mallett interrupted.

"Exactly. Now, for instance, I had your Sergeant Frant round here
yesterday asking to see the lease which Mr. James signed. Could Mr.
Harper find it? He could not. He thought he'd put it somewhere, he said,
but we searched high and low and it wasn't to be found. Now I call that
sort of thing galling, Inspector."

"Now we are on that subject," said Mallett, "have you any letters or
documents signed by Mr. James at all?"

"Not one," said Browne. "Except for the lease, there was only the cheque
for the rent, and Mr. Harper took that himself and paid it in."

"But he returned the keys by post, didn't he? Wasn't there a letter with
them?"

"I'll ask Mr. Lewis," said Browne.

Lewis was summoned from the outer office and the same question put to
him.

"There was a letter with the keys," he answered. "I remember Harper told
me so."

"Then wasn't it filed in the usual way?" asked Browne.

"It ought to have been, of course," said Lewis, evidently pleased to be
able to score off his fellow employee, "but it wasn't. I looked for it
myself, and when I asked Harper, he said he thought it didn't matter,
and he'd thrown it away."

Mr. Browne threw up his hands in despair.

"There you are, you see!" he exclaimed. "That's him all over! What can
you do with a man like that? I believe he's in love, Inspector, engaged
or something, but it doesn't excuse that sort of thing."

"I quite agree with you," said Mallett. "Good afternoon, Mr. Browne, and
let me know if Mr. Harper comes in later."

Mallett, on his journey back to Scotland Yard, had food for thought. It
was extraordinary how successfully James had succeeded in hiding his
traces. Outwardly, nothing would have been more open, ostentatious even,
than his actions. To open an account at a bank, to engage a furnished
house and a servant, to take a ticket to Paris through an agency--here
was a series of actions which should have left behind a trail of clues
to his identity--to his handwriting at least, from which his identity
could have been established. Instead, there was nothing, or next to
nothing, unless Frant's second visit to the bank should prove more
fruitful than his first. It was impossible even to lay hands on anybody
who had ever spoken to him, except Crabtree and Harper. He frowned. Why
should Harper have been so shockingly careless about the tenancy
agreement and the letter? He would not willingly believe that this
well-bred, good-looking young man could have had a hand in a callous
crime, but if it were only coincidence, it was a very unfortunate one
that the one person who had the opportunity of supplying valuable
evidence should, knowingly or not, have been the means of destroying it.

Well, thought Mallett, James was in Paris, it seemed certain. Probably
the French police would manage to find him. But they had little
information to work on, not even a proper description. Nobody seemed to
have noticed anything outstanding about him except his beard, and that
could be shaved off easily enough. Somewhere in London there must be
people who could tell more about him. Somewhere there must be the
evidence which would link him with Ballantine, which would explain how
Ballantine came to go to his death in that quiet little backwater in
Kensington. All the indications were to the effect that here was a
carefully prepared crime. It could not have been contrived without
leaving some traces of its machinery. And he, Mallett, if anybody, was
the man to find them. He gave his moustache an upward twist and looked
so fierce that the lady sitting opposite in the train, catching sight of
him over her magazine, started nervously.

On his desk at Scotland Yard he found a telegram from the Sret at
Paris. Translated it ran: "James traced to Hotel Du Plessis. Search
continues. Letter follows."

"I wish these French weren't so damned economical," said Mallett. "Now
we shall have to wait till tomorrow for the details."

Sergeant Frant entered, in a state, of some excitement.

"I've got what you want, sir," he said.

"Well?"

Frant laid a letter before him. It was typewritten on the notepaper of
the London and Imperial Estates Company, Ltd. It was addressed to the
Branch Manager of the Southern Bank, and ran as follows:

                                                   13th October, 19--

    Dear Sir,

    This is to introduce Mr. Colin James, a gentleman well known to
    us. We are confident that you will extend to him all facilities
    in your power.

                                                Yours faithfully,
                                      London & Imperial Estates Ltd.
                                                    Henry Gaveston,
                                                        Director.

"Gaveston!" exclaimed Mallett. "Of all people! Lord Henry Gaveston!"

"Well, even lords have some queer friends now and again," remarked
Frant. "But it's what we want, isn't it? Here's the link between James
and Ballantine."

"Yes, and the very last we expected," answered the inspector. "Have you
got into touch with him?"

"His lordship is out of town, according to his valet," said Frant. "He
wouldn't or couldn't give the address."

"I don't think that need trouble us," Mallett replied. "A man like Lord
Henry won't go into hiding for long. We've got to have a chat with him,
and the sooner the better!"

Feeling much relieved, he hummed a little tune as he sat down at his
desk. Things were beginning to move at last!




                                   12
                          INQUEST ON A BUSINESS


                                                 Thursday, November 19th

The letter from Paris was in Mallett's hands next morning. He read it
through aloud, translating literally as he went, for the benefit of
Frant. The writer acknowledged the receipt of the enquiries of his
respected colleague and in reply hastened to submit for his
consideration and information the matters following, namely: that
immediately upon receipt of the advice and enquiries aforesaid he, the
undersigned, had personally caused an investigation to be made at the
Hotel Du Plessis, Ave. Magenta, Paris, 9e., and submitted to an
interrogation strict and detailed the manager and staff of the hotel;
that from such interrogation and examination of the relevant
correspondence it was made manifest that the suspect James had veritably
descended at the said hotel at 5.50 hours or thereabouts on Saturday and
there lodged in a room previously reserved for him by the Agence Brook
(room No. 323, on the third floor, with private bathroom, at a tariff of
francs 65). The undersigned pointed out that such behaviour on the part
of the suspect James was in conformity with his having fulfilled his
expressed intention of making the crossing by the route Newhaven-Dieppe,
precisely as the distinguished information of his colleague had
suggested. Unhappily, by an oversight possibly unintentional but none
the less criminal, one had not fulfilled the requisite formalities of
the law and the said James had ascended to his room without signing the
form provided for the surveillance of foreign voyagers in France. For
this contravention one would rigorously pursue the hotel proprietors
before the Correctional Tribunal of the Department of the Seine.

"Very right and proper," grunted Mallett, "but that won't help us to a
sight of James's handwriting." He resumed his reading.

One had served breakfast to the aforesaid individual at 10.30 hours in
his room, it appeared, whereafter he had immediately descended to the
street and after regulating his account departed on foot carrying his
suitcase. The undersigned had given formal instruction for his pursuit
and detention, but so far one had found nobody of his description. The
staff of the hotel declared him to be to all indications a serious
individual----

"What does that mean?" asked Frant.

"Simply that he didn't look like a crook," said Mallett.

----and of appearance and accent markedly Britannic. They pretended to
be able to recognize him even without his beard, of which, without
doubt, the suspect would seek without delay to disembarrass himself.
Considering the measures in force in France for the control of
strangers, it was not probable that the assassin would long escape the
hands of Justice, unless indeed he had already returned to his own
country.

"That sounds rather a doubtful compliment to us," was the inspector's
comment.

The undersigned awaited with lively anticipation further particulars of
the individual aforesaid and requested his collaborator to accept the
expression of his most distinguished sentiments.

"And that's all," said Mallett, laying down the flimsy typed sheets.
"Except for the signature, and that's completely illegible anyway."

"But it's a lot, isn't it?" put in Frant eagerly. "It lets us out,
anyway."

"It does not let us out," Mallett answered emphatically. "In the first
place, we've got to establish that James is the murderer. It looks like
it, I agree, but we haven't proved it yet. In the second place, we must
find out who he is, and what is his connection with Ballantine. Luckily
that letter to the bank gives us a pretty good line on that."

"When we find Lord Henry Gaveston," objected Frant.

"You ought to read _The Times_ more carefully," replied the inspector.
"Especially the social columns. Look here."

He indicated a paragraph with his finger, and Frant, following his
direction, read:

"Arrivals at the Riviera Hotel, Brighton, include Sir John and Lady
Bulpit, the Bishop of Foxbury and Mrs. Escott, and Lord Henry Gaveston."

"Not much concealment there," said Frant.

"No. Which makes me think. . . . However, it's no use building theories
until we get the facts. Where was I? Oh, yes. In the third place, we
don't know for certain whether James stopped in France or whether he
doubled home again. This trip to Paris may have been simply to throw us
off the scent, and I dare say he would find his markedly Britannic
accent rather a handicap if he wanted to go into hiding on the
Continent. In any case there's a lot of work to be done at this end. If
we can find out how Ballantine came to go to Daylesford Gardens, we
shall have done something. We shall have to go pretty deep into his
private life--find out where he'd been living and who with--you remember
his wife's evidence--who had a motive for killing him, and so on.
Meanwhile a trip to Brighton seems indicated."

The telephone bell rang. Mallett took off the receiver and found himself
speaking to Mr. Benjamin Browne.

"It's about that young man, Harper," said Mr. Browne's voice. "You asked
me yesterday, Inspector, if you remember----"

"Yes, yes," said Mallett. "Of course I remember. What about him?"

"He has just come in here," went on Mr. Browne in deliberate tones.

"Well, ask him to be good enough to come up to Scotland Yard at once."

"But he isn't here now," said Mr. Browne peevishly. "He just looked
in--just poked his head into my room, Inspector, and said he was
resigning his position. And then he walked out--simply walked out
without any further notice. After all I had done for him, too! It's
really very----"

"Very galling, no doubt," agreed Mallett. "Did you tell him I wanted to
see him?"

"I didn't have the chance. I was so flabbergasted by his behaviour. And
he didn't tell me where he was going or what he was going to do. He was
so cool about it, it quite took my breath away. It is, as you say, most
ga----"

Mallett rang off.

                 *        *        *        *        *

The inspector's trip to Brighton was postponed to a later hour than he
had intended. The afternoon was spent in close conference with Renshaw,
the officer in charge of the investigation of the affairs of the London
and Imperial Estates Company and its associated concerns. Renshaw was
supported by a couple of dour accountants and an enormous sheaf of
documents, the first fruits of his enquiries into the ramifications of
what the newspapers were already openly calling "the great Ballantine
swindle". Mallett was fond of representing himself as a simple
man--which he was not--and as having a horror for complicated
figures--which he had. But under the skilful guidance of the experts he
found himself being led, fascinated, through endless labyrinths of
crooked finance. The details were complicated, as they must always be
where every action taken has to be accompanied by half a dozen others
whose sole intent is to hide the real meaning of the transaction; but
the general effect of the story revealed was plain enough. Ballantine
had been practising, with extreme cleverness and several variations of
his own devising, a very familiar form of swindle. With a number of
companies to play off one against the others, and the means and the
ability to rig the market in the shares of any or all of them, he had
pursued the old game of robbing Peter to pay Paul and borrowing from
Paul when Peter's balance sheet had to be presented. That was how
Mallett, with his usual bluntness of phrase, put the position, and the
accountants, though shocked at his unscientific way of expressing it,
agreed that roughly--very roughly--that might be said to be the method.

"Only, of course," Renshaw remarked, "it wasn't a case of Peter and Paul
only, but a whole lot more. In fact, in the City, Ballantine's companies
were known as the Twelve Apostles. One or two of them never seem to have
functioned at all. I fancy he just had them registered to make up the
round dozen."

"And all of them, I suppose, with their offices at the same address?"
asked the inspector.

"Yes; though oddly enough among his private papers we found a reference
to another one--the Anglo-Dutch Rubber and General Trading
Syndicate--with an address in Bramston's Inn, off Fetter Lane.
Ballantine paid the rent for the offices monthly, but it never seems to
have done any business, and when I went there the place was completely
empty and had been for some time, apparently."

Mallett nodded, mechanically taking a note of the address. Once he had
established the general crookedness of the late financier, the details
of his devices did not interest him greatly. As to the eventual aim of
all his dealings, that became clear enough as the enquiry proceeded. It
was simply to divert money through one channel or another from the
pockets of the investing public into those of Ballantine, and equally
clearly it had been remarkably successful. Then quite suddenly, during
the last few days of his life, things had gone against him. He had been
unexpectedly attacked by a leading financial newspaper, and the
shareholders in his principal concern, with the annual general meeting
on the horizon, had lost confidence. The market quotations had fallen
catastrophically, and on the very day of his death his enemies were in
full cry.

"The game was up, and he knew it," said Renshaw. "Now if he had
committed suicide one could have understood it."

"He would certainly have saved us a lot of trouble if he had," remarked
Mallett. "Instead of which, he let someone else do the job, and left us
with the business of avenging his worthless self. But I don't think he
was the man to take his own life. Why didn't he run for it, like Aliss
and Hartigan?"

"So far as we can make out, that's just what he did."

"Yes--as far as Daylesford Gardens."

"I think he meant to go farther than that," answered Renshaw.

He went on to explain the result of his researches into Ballantine's
conduct on his last day of business. For some time previously he had
been apparently unusually erratic in his behaviour, arriving late and
leaving early, but on this day he had been almost continuously in his
private room at the office. What he did there could only be surmised
from the state of his belongings afterwards, but it seemed clear that he
had spent a good deal of time in destroying papers. His private safe was
almost empty, and Mallett was disappointed to learn that nothing
connecting him with Fanshawe had survived. He had withdrawn from his
private banking account the sum standing to his credit, and his passport
was missing from the drawer where it was usually kept.

"Altogether," Renshaw concluded, "it seems pretty clear that he had a
longer journey in mind than to Kensington."

"It also seems pretty clear," rejoined Mallett, "that he must have had a
good deal of money on him when he was killed. How much, do you think?"

Renshaw shook his head.

"That we shall never know exactly, I am afraid," he answered. "There was
only a hundred pounds or so in cash in his private account when it was
closed, but there had been some very big sums passing through it during
the last few months. Where it all went to, it is difficult to say. If,
as I guess, he was afraid to face the shareholders at the meeting, and
meant to run away, no doubt he had put away a little nest-egg
somewhere--abroad, probably. Of the actual payments we can trace, many
were to women."

"Including his wife?" asked Mallett, remembering Mrs. Ballantine's
evidence at the inquest.

"No. She had been clever or lucky enough to get a handsome settlement
out of him some time ago. So far as she was concerned, it was the other
way about. From what we can gather, it seems that just before he went he
was trying to get her to consent to raise money on the settlement, but
she refused."

"Of course--she would. Then these other women are----"

"All sorts. He seems to have been generous in an odd sort of way, and
kept up quite big allowances to discarded mistresses. Then he's been
supporting the Italian dancer, Fonticelli--but that affair came to an
end some time ago. The largest payments recently were all to Mrs.
Eales."

"I think I have heard of her," said Mallett. "Was she the reigning
favourite?"

"Yes. Ballantine has been living with her, except when it suited him to
turn up at Belgrave Square, quite regularly for over a year now. He set
her up in rather a nice flat in Mount Street. It was quite an open
affair. Everybody knew about it in the office."

Mallett was silent for a moment.

"Mount Street is a long way from Daylesford Gardens," he said at last.
"All the same, I think I must put Mrs. Eales next on my list to be
visited. As I see my problem, Renshaw, apart from yours, there are two
lines to work on. One is to take James from where he first appears as a
tenant of Miss Penrose's house, and trace him backwards until he meets
Ballantine. The other is to work on Ballantine and trace him forwards,
so to speak, until he meets James. Both are worth following up, and it
seems to me that if anyone can help me to some knowledge of Ballantine's
private life it will be Mrs. Eales."

"One other person could give you a good deal of information if he wanted
to," said Renshaw.

"You mean Du Pine?" Mallett said at once.

Renshaw nodded. "He and the two missing directors were the only people
who were privy to Ballantine's frauds," he added. "Du Pine was in it up
to the neck. We've got quite enough to arrest him on now."

"I hope you'll do nothing of the sort," interposed the inspector. "A
prisoner under arrest can't be questioned, and I think that Du Pine free
will be more useful to me than under lock and key. We'll have him kept
under observation, though."

"He practically begged me to arrest him this morning when we were at the
office with him," said Renshaw. "Do you think he knows the Judges' Rules
and feels he would be safer that way?"

"I dare say he knows a lot," replied Mallett, "but not so much as I
shall know by this evening, I hope."




                                   13
                             MOTHER AND SON


                                                 Thursday, November 19th

Frank Harper was packing. The flimsy floors and walls of the little
house echoed to the crash of drawers opening and shutting and to his
loud shouts of annoyance as he pursued his elusive belongings up and
down his untidy bedroom. Mrs. Harper heard him as she came in, her arms
full of the fruits of an afternoon's arduous shopping.
Characteristically, she dropped them all where she stood in the shabby
passage that did duty for a hall, and ran upstairs at once to her son's
room.

"Frank!" she exclaimed, pushing her untidy grey hair back from her eyes.
"Whatever are you doing?"

"Packing," he answered briefly. "Haven't I got a clean evening shirt
anywhere?"

"In the linen cupboard, dear. I'll get it for you. But why? Where are
you off to?"

"To Lewes. And I haven't too much time to catch my train, either. Do get
that shirt, Mother, there's a darling."

Mrs. Harper obediently trotted away, a puzzled frown on her kindly,
stupid face, and returned almost immediately.

"Here it is, dear," she said. "I had to darn the neck, but it really
doesn't show when you've got it on."

"Thanks, Mother." He examined the darn disdainfully. "Oh well, I suppose
it will have to do." He crammed the shirt on to the top of the
overflowing suitcase. "Now I think that's everything."

"You've forgotten your sponge-bag, haven't you, darling?"

"Good lord, yes! Now how the devil am I to get that in?"

"Shall I do it for you?" Mrs. Harper was on her knees, coaxing
recalcitrant objects into place with her toil-worn fingers. "But why to
Lewes, dear?"

"I'm staying the night with the Jenkinsons. You know. I've told you
about her--about them, I mean."

"Oh, yes, of course. I'm so silly nowadays, I forget people's names. I
hope you enjoy yourself." Then she paused in her work and looked up at
him. "But Frank, how is it that you're not at work?"

Frank laughed.

"I've left that place," he said. "For good."

"Left it? Oh Frank, you don't mean that Mr. Browne has----"

"Given me the sack? No. Though, bless his innocent little heart, he's
had cause enough to. No, Mother, I have resigned. Place didn't suit, as
the servants say. Behold in your son a gentleman of leisure."

"Left--left Inglewood, Browne's? I don't understand. Of course, I'm
glad, if you didn't like the place. And I shall love to have you at
home. Only--only I'm afraid you'll find it very dull here with nothing
to do. And--and what about your pocket money? You've always been able to
keep yourself in clothes and things out of what you've earned. I can
help you a little perhaps, but it's not much. And, you know, my money is
only an annuity. If anything should happen to me----"

She bent her head over the suitcase to hide her confusion.

"There, Mother, that's splendid. I can shut it myself. Let me give you
an arm to help you up. Oops!"

He pulled her to her feet, and bending down, kissed her with unexpected
tenderness.

"You're not to worry about me," he said. "I'm not going to come back
here and hang about the house all day. Quite the contrary. Once more, in
the language of the servants' hall, I've left to better myself."

"You've got another post, then? A better one? What is it? Another house
agent?"

Frank smiled happily.

"No, not a house agent," he said. "I'm going away, Mother, a long way
away--that is, if Susan is still of the same mind as she was last
Sunday. And you, relieved of the burden of your worthless child, are
going to live at that cottage in Berks or Bucks or wherever it is you've
always wanted to go, until such time as I return, rich with all the
spoils of Africa----"

"Africa! Frank, you're talking nonsense!"

"I am not! Africa I said, and to Africa I mean to go."

"But how are you going to get to Africa?" persisted the perplexed old
lady.

"Oh, by train and boat, I expect. That is the usual way, isn't it?
Unless I fly. Which reminds me, unless I do fly, now, I'm not going to
get to Victoria in time."

He fastened the suitcase with an effort.

"Good-bye, Mother, and don't forget about the cottage. I mean it."

He laughed down at her bewilderment, and kissed her again. "Back
tomorrow, I expect," he said. "I shall have a lot to do.

               _"For there are great things to be done,_
               _And fine things to be seen,_
               _Before we go to Paradise----"_

"Frank!" She called him back as he was in the doorway, the suitcase
swinging in his hand.

"Yes, what is it?"

"I had forgotten to tell you. Someone was asking about you today."

"About me? Who?"

"A policeman."

"A policeman?"

The suitcase fell from his hand to the floor with a crash. The shock
sprung the catch and the lid flew open. The carefully packed contents
strewed the floor.

"Damned clumsy of me," muttered Frank. "No, don't you bother, Mother,
I'll do it."

He crammed the things back into place and forced down the lid with a
savage jerk. Then he straightened himself, his face red with exertion.

"What did he want?"

"Who? Oh, the policeman. It was only the sergeant from the police
station round the corner. Quite a nice man, I see him often. Nothing to
worry about, dear."

"Who said there was anything to worry about?" asked her son defiantly.

Mrs. Harper took no notice of the interruption and went on:

"I think it was just this horrible inquest business he came about. He
had been sent to verify your address and so on, he said. I told him all
about us and he took particulars and seemed quite satisfied. That's all.
I thought you would like to know."

"Oh, well, if that's all. . . . Look here, Mother, if by any chance you
have anybody--_anybody_, police or not--coming round here again while
I'm away--not that I suppose you will, for a moment, but one never can
tell--just keep what I told you under your hat, do you mind? About
Africa, I mean, and Susan and all the rest of it. No point in having
them poking into our affairs, is there?"

"No, of course not, darling. I don't know anything really myself, so I
can't say anything, can I?"

He laughed. "That's the spirit. Mum. And mum's the word!"

He was gone. Mrs. Harper, with a sigh, began to tidy the chaos of her
son's room. She did not in the least understand what Frank had told her.
She did not believe all his grandiose talk about Africa and a cottage in
the country. But then for years now she had lived in a dim twilight of
existence, where the only reality was the ever-present necessity of
making both ends meet, the only illumination the love and pride which
she felt for her son. Dimly she was aware that there had been a time
when life went easily and comfortably, when there was leisure to think
and to enjoy, and when the prices of things in the shops were a matter
of casual interest. It did not seem real now, any more than Frank's
sudden optimism about the future seemed real. It only unsettled one to
hope for impossibilities. But one thing at least was real--the fact that
her moody, discontented son was for some reason happy and hopeful once
more. And without understanding, she basked in the rays of his
cheerfulness. After all, they had been ruined in the past for reasons
which had always remained somewhat of a mystery to her. Why should they
not regain their fortunes in an equally inexplicable way? And if for
some cause it was the price of fortune to keep it a close secret--well,
she reflected, one thing an old woman could do was to keep her own
counsel.

She stopped in her work, her contentment suddenly clouded over. Frank
had gone away with an odd pair of socks!




                                   14
                       LORD HENRY AND LORD BERNARD


                                                 Thursday, November 19th

An electric train carried Mallett smoothly Brighton-wards, together with
a crowd of homing stockbrokers. The chatter of his neighbours in the
carriage seemed to be equally divided between golf and the Ballantine
affair--the latter being viewed exclusively from the financial
standpoint. He was agreeably surprised to learn from their talk that
each of them had, by superhuman foresight, succeeded in "getting out" of
the Twelve Apostles at the very top of the market. He also learned
several novel items of information--amongst others that the Commissioner
of Police had "dropped a packet" on London Imperials and therefore was
making no particular efforts to trace the financier's murderer. An
elderly man in the corner was bold enough to hint his doubts of the
accuracy of the last statement, but was instantly suppressed.

"Fact!" said the narrator, a stout young man with an aggressive voice.
"Chap I knew had it direct from a pal of his who's in Scotland Yard."

This was too much for Mallett's gravity, and he hastily took up an
evening paper to hide his smiles. Here he found that although now three
days old, the "Mystery of Daylesford Gardens" still retained enough
vitality to keep itself in the headlines, though fresh sensations had
crowded it off the front page. He read with interest of an entirely
mythical "police dash" to Birmingham, from which important results were
understood to have been obtained; and had just embarked on an article by
the City Editor on the probable effects of the London and Imperial
liquidation which puzzled his unmathematical brains a good deal more
even than Renshaw's accountants had done, when a name uttered by the
same loud-voiced man caught his ear and riveted his attention.

"Bernie Gaveston is on the train," he said. "I saw him get into the next
carriage."

"Who?" asked someone.

"Bernie--_Lord_ Bernard Gaveston. You know who I mean?"

"Oh! Yes, of course," was the answer. Then, respectfully: "Do you know
him?"

"Rather! Matter of fact, he was staying at Gleneagles the same time as
we were last year. I used to see him nearly every day."

"You never mentioned it before," said the elderly man from his corner.

"Well, of course, I didn't see much of him--not to speak to, I mean. He
had his own crowd there with him. But I was always running into him, in
the bar and so on. I thought he seemed a nice sort of chap. Funny thing
is, I haven't set eyes on him since, and now here he is in the next
carriage. Shows what a small place the world is, doesn't it?"

Mallett chuckled quietly behind his paper. The idea of this underbred
little man claiming acquaintance with the famous Lord Bernard Gaveston
amused him hugely. For Lord Bernard was, as every reader of the
illustrated weeklies knew, a celebrity of the first order. It was
difficult to know exactly why. He had never done anything particularly
startling--never gone into Parliament or, like his unlucky brother, into
the City. He had been content to remain an ornament to Society, and done
it very well. He had written a couple of not very successful plays and
composed some not very distinguished music. But his clothes were the
despair and admiration of every young man who aspired to be well
dressed, his appearance at a new restaurant or night-club was the
guarantee of its success, his photograph was almost as familiar to the
public as that of the most boomed dbutante--in a word he was News, with
a capital N, and there were very few young men of whom that could be
said.

At the same time, the inspector was not a little annoyed at Lord
Bernard's appearance on the train. Obviously it was connected in some
way with Lord Henry's presence in Brighton. There was not the smallest
reason to suppose that he had anything to do with his brother's business
adventures, but the inspector had come down to interview one man, and he
was not best pleased to find that he might have to do with two. So far
as Lord Henry was concerned, he thought he knew fairly well what to
expect. He was the stupid type of titled man, with a fair record of
military service behind him, who would appeal to one such as Ballantine
as likely to give a good appearance to a list of directors. Nobody would
expect him to be concerned in his chairman's fraudulent schemes or even
to have the brains to understand them, and the only mystery was how it
came about that of all the people connected with Ballantine he alone
appeared to provide the link between him and Colin James. That mystery
it was Mallett's present business to clear up and if it came to a
contest of wits he was fairly confident of the issue. But Lord
Bernard--he shrugged his broad shoulders--was a different matter. He was
without doubt, in his own way, a clever man. Lord Henry had read the
account of the inquest in the papers, no doubt, and sent for his brother
to assist and advise him. Under the influence of that shrewd man of the
world, would he refuse to give any information? And what would Mallett's
remedy be if he did? He put down his paper and frowned out of the window
at the darkened sky.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Whatever hopes the inspector may have had of reaching the Riviera Hotel
before Lord Bernard and so of securing at least part of his interview
without interference, were quickly disappointed. As he alighted on the
station platform almost the first person he saw was Lord Bernard, being
greeted by an obsequious chauffeur. Evidently Lord Henry was expecting
his brother's arrival. Before Mallett's elderly taxi could clear the
station, it was passed by a low open car of venomously speedy design,
with Lord Bernard at the wheel, the chauffeur sitting beside him. "Not
the sort of car I should have expected Lord Henry to own," said Mallett
to himself. "I thought he was a steady-going sort of stupid."

The rear light of the car twinkled for a moment among the traffic ahead
and was lost to view, and the inspector resigned himself to a
comparatively slow journey to the hotel. The tall mauve lamps of
Brighton front slid by in leisurely procession as the asthmatic vehicle
chugged along. At last a violent grinding of brakes told him that he had
arrived. Lord Bernard, he calculated, as he paid his fare, had about
five minutes' start of him. Much harm could be done in five minutes. He
cursed Renshaw for having been the unconscious cause of his delay. Had
it not been for him, Lord Henry could have been interviewed, and he,
Mallett, back in London, before Lord Bernard had even started. So
absorbed was he in these reflections that he miscounted his change and
only the driver's surprised "Thank _you_, sir!" revealed to him that he
had grossly overtipped the man.

The mistake aggravated Mallett's sense of grievance with the world.
Everything seemed to be going wrong with him. He did not grudge the
driver an unearned shilling, but the fact that he, the most careful of
men, should have made such a stupid blunder, annoyed him intensely. It
was only by reminding himself that he might well be within a few moments
of the most important discovery since he had begun his investigations,
that he was able to regain his sense of proportion.

"Is Lord Henry Gaveston in the hotel?" Mallett asked the sleek and
supercilious reception clerk.

"Yes, he is," admitted the functionary. His eyes travelled up and down
the inspector's burly form and an expression of discomfort crept into
his smooth features. "But I don't know whether he can see you. You are
not from the Press, by any chance?"

"No. Scotland Yard," said Mallett bluntly.

The clerk's pained look was that of a prude in whose hearing an
obscenity had been blurted out. He glanced involuntarily round the
brilliantly lighted, over-decorated hall, at the monumental back of the
gorgeous commissionaire outside, as though to say: "Not here! Not in the
Riviera, of all places!" But he pulled himself together like a man, and
with a fine show of sang-froid murmured: "In that case, I'll have him
paged."

A small uniformed boy, uttering the high-pitched wail peculiar to his
class, was duly sent out on his tour of the Smoking Room, Winter Garden,
Drawing-Room and Ye Olde Tudor Lounge. Duly he returned, announcing with
evident relish: "No reply, sir!" whereupon Mallett, turning on his heel,
found himself looking directly into a small recess bounded by a cocktail
bar. In front of the bar was a little table, and at the table, not ten
yards away, sat Lord Henry and his brother.

Mallett indicated the bar with his finger. "Did you try in there?" he
asked the page.

"Oh, no, sir!" came the instant reply. "The gentlemen in there, they
never likes to be disturbed."

"Smart lad," said Mallett, too amused to be annoyed. "Perhaps you'll
have a hotel of your own some day."

Leaving the page scarlet with pleasure at what he dimly apprehended to
be a compliment, the inspector strode across the intervening space and
bore down upon the two men.

There was a strong family resemblance between the two brothers. They
each had the same rather prominent, well-cut nose, the same arched
eyebrows over light grey eyes, the same delicately rounded chin. But
while Lord Bernard's eyes were clear and vivacious, Lord Henry's were
pale and watery. His raised eyebrows gave an impression of peevish
surprise at what the world had to show him, in contrast to his brother's
alert look of amused inquisitiveness. The elder of the two by a few
years only, he was already beginning to go bald, and his face to sag
before the onset of middle age. Lord Bernard, on the other hand, with
his thick brown hair and clear complexion, might have stood model for an
advertisement of anybody's patent medicine.

As Mallett drew near, Lord Henry was setting down an empty tumbler with
the melancholy air of a man who was conscious that the contents had done
him little good. Lord Bernard was contemplating a cocktail in his hand
and appeared to be addressing it, rather than his brother, in low and
soothing tones. Both looked up as the inspector approached.

"Lord Henry Gaveston?" said Mallett.

Lord Henry, characteristically, turned towards his brother for help. The
latter appraised Mallett in a swift glance.

"You're a detective, I take it," he said.

Mallett nodded. Lord Bernard rose quickly, laid his hand lightly on his
senior's shoulder and said:

"I suggest, old man, that another whisky and soda would do you no harm
at this moment."

Lord Henry said nothing, but dumbly relinquished the tumbler he was
still clutching, and his brother bore it off to the bar.

Mallett was agreeably surprised that he should have been left alone with
his man for a few moments even. He knew from experience the importance
of a suspect's first reaction when confronted with a damning piece of
evidence and he determined to lose no time. Without further preamble he
drew from his pocket the letter to the bank, unfolded it, and handed it
across the table.

"I want to ask you a few questions about this," he said.

Lord Henry, his hands shaking visibly, stared at the document for a
moment. Then he fumbled in his pockets, produced an old-fashioned pair
of pince-nez, and adjusted them with difficulty on his nose. With this
assistance he slowly read the letter through, forming the words with his
mouth as he went. Finally he said, in obviously genuine bewilderment:

"But I don't understand. What is all this about?"

"That is exactly what I have come to ask you," retorted Mallett in some
irritation. In the background he could see Lord Bernard approaching, a
brimming glass in his hand. "Is that your signature, or is it not?"

"Oh, certainly it's mine all right," returned Lord Henry dolefully. "No
doubt about that. The office paper, too. But who is Mr. Colin James?
Never heard of the feller in my life."

"Colin James", said Mallett impressively, "is suspected of the murder of
Lionel Ballantine."

"Here's your drink, Harry," said Lord Bernard, depositing a whisky and
soda on the table and dropping into a chair. "Ballantine's murder, eh? A
nasty business. You don't know anything about it, do you, old man?" He
turned to Mallett. "You know, I thought you had come to bother Harry
about this London and Imperial Estates business," he confided.

"I am enquiring into the death of Lionel Ballantine," said the inspector
stolidly, "and I am here to ask Lord Henry how he came to sign a letter
recommending Mr. Colin James----"

"James!" put in Lord Bernard. "Of course, yes, the man in whose house
Ballantine was killed! You saw all about it in the accounts of the
inquest, didn't you, Harry?"

Lord Henry shook his head. "I haven't the heart to read the papers
nowadays," he said gloomily.

Lord Bernard took the letter and scanned it rapidly.

"But look here," he said, "you must remember something about it,
surely?"

"Not a thing, I tell you," repeated Lord Henry. "Not a thing. I've
signed so many things one way and another. . . ." His voice trailed off
despairingly.

"But the date," persisted Lord Bernard. "October the thirteenth. What
were you doing then?"

Lord Henry stared stupidly in front of him for a moment. Mallett said
nothing. Since, contrary to his expectations, Lord Bernard seemed
disposed to be a help rather than a hindrance, he was well content to
let him do his work for him. Besides, it seemed more likely that Lord
Henry would respond to his brother's methods than to any enquiries from
a stranger. He waited therefore, while Ballantine's late colleague
strove painfully to search his cloudy memory.

"Have a drink," suggested Lord Bernard.

Lord Henry obediently took a deep draught from the glass before him.
Some colour came into his grey cheeks, and a look almost of intelligence
into his eyes.

"I might have it down in my book," he said at last with the air of one
who makes a great discovery.

He pulled from his pocket a small engagement book, and fluttered the
leaves.

"Thirteenth--no, there's nothing there," he said. "Oh--I'm sorry--I was
looking at September. October, now. . . . Here we are. Oh, yes, of
course. Board meeting."

"A board meeting?" said Mallett. "Of the London and Imperial Estates
Company?"

"Yes--it says so here."

"You signed this letter at a board meeting?"

"I suppose so."

"But why? Who asked you to?"

"That's just it. I don't expect anybody asked me to. There'd be a lot of
papers in front of me, cheques and letters and so on, and I'd just sign
along the dotted line."

"Without reading what you signed?"

"There wasn't time you know," answered Lord Henry. "Ballantine was
generally in a hurry to get the business through. Besides I shouldn't
have understood them if I had. So we just signed--the other directors
and myself. 'Theirs not to reason why', you know."

"Like a society beauty signing a soap advertisement," murmured Lord
Bernard.

"Oh, shut up!" said his wretched brother. "It's easy enough to talk like
that now, but it seemed all right at the time." He turned to Mallett.
"So there it is, you see," he groaned. "I know no more who this James is
than the man in the moon."

But Mallett had not finished yet.

"Tell me," he said, "what was the usual procedure at your board
meetings? You say you signed what was in front of you. How did it get
there?"

"The stuff was generally just dealt round by that secretary fellow, Du
Pine," was the reply. "What used to happen as a rule was this: we'd all
go into the board room and sit round a long table, Ballantine at the top
with a wad of papers in front of him, and Du Pine at his elbow, with
another wad. Well, we'd have the minutes of the last meeting--you know
the sort of thing--and then there'd be a lot of resolutions. Ballantine
would propose something, Hartigan usually seconded, and we'd all say
'Aye'. There was hardly ever any discussion that I can remember. Du Pine
would note it all down in his book as it went along. Then Ballantine and
Du Pine generally had a little quiet conference at the head of the
table, while the rest of us took a breather for a smoke and a chat, and
then the papers and things to be signed would all come round. Du Pine
would put down a bunch of half a dozen or so in front of each of us,
according to how much business there was to be done, and we all signed
our names. Then a box of cigars would come down the table, we'd each
take one, and that was that. As soon as we'd lighted up, we trickled
off, leaving those two to clear up the mess. Mind you," he added, "I
don't swear that that was what happened this particular time, but it was
what always did happen, so I expect it probably did."

"Then we can't even be sure that this letter was signed on the
thirteenth of October?" Mallett pursued.

"Oh, yes, we can," answered Lord Henry confidently. "That was one thing
I always made certain of--the dates. You see, it was the only thing I
could make sure of understanding. Come to think of it, I tripped up
rather badly once when I altered a date which was wrong. It seemed that
it had been put wrong on purpose--some dirty work of Ballantine's, I
suppose--and my putting it right again messed the whole show up. There
was quite a stink about it. After that, I don't remember getting one
that wasn't dated correctly."

"Only one more question," said the inspector. "All these documents which
were put before you for signature would be typed in the office, I
suppose?"

"Lord, yes! We had hosts of girls. Some jolly good lookers among 'em,
too."

"Then you ought to be able to find the machine that typed this
particular letter," put in Lord Bernard.

Mallett frowned. The idea had, of course, occurred to him, but he did
not relish the suggestion that anyone could teach him his business.

"Proper enquiries will be made," he said severely, and folding up the
paper, put it carefully away. Then he stood up.

"That is all I have to ask you, Lord Henry," he said. "Thank you for
your assistance."

"But we can't let you go like this!" cried Lord Bernard. "You haven't
even had a drink yet!"

"I never drink before meals, thanks," replied the inspector austerely.

"Quite right--it's a silly habit," Lord Bernard warmly agreed. "But you
do have meals, I suppose? Then why not stay on here, and have a bite
with us?"

As if in support of his plea, a delicious smell of cooking was wafted
from the kitchen near by to where they sat. The inspector's resolution
weakened, but he resisted temptation.

"I'm afraid I must be back in London tonight," he said.

"So must I," was the answer. "If you'll stop and dine with us, I'll run
you back. My car's outside."

"Was that your car at the station, then?" asked Mallett.

"Did you notice her?" said Lord Bernard with animation. "Yes--that's
mine. I left her down here last week. Some miserable learner on the
front caved a mudguard in, and I came down to see my brother and bring
her back. She's a Visconti-Sforza, you know--supercharged. You'd like
her."

Mallett combined a man's appetite for food with a childish passion for
speed. The joint appeal was irresistible.

"I'd like to very much," he said. "But what about my clothes?"

"That's all right," said Lord Henry, unexpectedly coming to life again.
"Dine in the gallery of the restaurant. Needn't dress there. Watch the
dancing. There are some devilish pretty girls here."

"That's settled, then," said Lord Bernard, and the party broke up, to
reassemble later for the meal.

Before rejoining his hosts, Mallett put through a telephone call to
Scotland Yard. He briefly told Frant of the new developments and gave
instructions for specimens of the work of all the typewriters at the
offices of the London and Imperial Estates Company to be secured as soon
as possible. Then he asked for news.

"Nothing fresh has happened," was the reply, "unless you count that Mrs.
Eales was seen in Bond Street today with her husband, which is a record,
by all accounts. But someone is very anxious to see you as soon as he
can. Most urgent, he says."

"Who is that?" asked the inspector.

"Fanshawe."

"Oh!" said Mallett. "Did he say why?"

"No."

"Thanks. I'll see about it." He rang off and made his way to the
restaurant gallery, deep in thought.

He found the brothers already at table, and the meal ordered. A
gold-topped bottle stood ready in its ice-pail. Lord Bernard indicated
it with an apology.

"I hope you don't mind," he said. "It's not stuff I care about in the
ordinary way. There's an air of artificial gaiety about it which always
depresses me in the end. That's why it's so peculiarly appropriate at
weddings." (Lord Bernard's matrimonial misadventures, Mallett was
reminded, were notorious.) "But on an occasion like this, I think it is
indicated. It will help us to cheer my brother up."

Mallett could not but smile at thus finding himself in a conspiracy to
restore the spirits of a man who had quite certainly been implicated,
however ignorantly, in a colossal fraud, and who had laid himself under
suspicion of being privy to a murder. But he adapted himself to the odd
situation with a good grace and settled down to enjoy his dinner.

It did not prove difficult. Lord Henry, as his brother had predicted,
brightened considerably under the influence of the champagne, and if his
contributions to the conversation consisted mainly of somewhat scabrous
anecdotes, they were at least amusing, and to Mallett, whose learning
did not lie in that direction, had the merit of being new. As for Lord
Bernard, he was not only a good talker but, more surprisingly, a good
listener. He seemed unaffectedly glad of the inspector's company and
interested in what he had to say. It was obviously as unusual an
experience for him to be dining with a detective as it was for Mallett
to dine with the son of a marquis, and he seemed as pleased with his
unaccustomed acquaintance as a child with a new toy. He listened with
flattering interest to all that the inspector had to tell him of his
past cases, and punctuated the recital with shrewd and racy comment.
Sooner or later, as it was bound to do, the conversation turned on
Ballantine. Here Mallett discreetly fell silent, but Lord Bernard had
plenty to say.

"It's easy to be wise after the event," he remarked, "but I always
distrusted that man. Exactly why, it would be difficult to say. In my
amateurish way, I make it my business to study people, and to do that I
try to get on with people. I could never begin to get on with him. He
was always very agreeable when one met him, he was intelligent and
amusing to talk to, but there was always something about him that put me
off." He pondered the problem for a moment or two, and then said
seriously: "I think it was his clothes, chiefly."

"His clothes?" said Mallett in surprise.

"Yes. Clothes are an important part of one's life, you know, and
Ballantine's clothes distinctly told me something about him which I
didn't like. It's difficult to put into words, but there it is."

"Surely", said the inspector, "one of the advantages of being very rich
is that you can wear exactly what you like. I've heard of lots of
millionaires who dressed like tramps."

"Exactly," said Lord Bernard, "but what if you find a millionaire--or a
man who's supposed to be a millionaire--who is always, consistently, too
well dressed? Perhaps that's the wrong phrase--you are either well
dressed or not--over-dressed, shall I say? The impression that
Ballantine always gave me was that of a man who had dressed himself for
a part, the part of a great captain of business, and overdone it. And
that, I suppose, bred the suspicion that he wasn't genuine, but merely
an actor all the time."

"You're laying down the law a lot," grumbled Lord Henry, "but damn it,
you didn't see very much of the man yourself."

"Quite a bit," his brother answered, "I was continually running up
against him--at race meetings, and so on."

"Well, of course he'd dress up for a race meeting; who doesn't?"

"Yes, but it wasn't only at races. He was just the same at other times.
Don't you remember, Harry, when you took us down to his place in Sussex
for the annual office staff beano, what a sight he looked? They ran a
rather good dramatic society," he explained to Mallett, "and I got up a
little play they were doing for the occasion. And that reminds me----"

He paused to knock the ash off his cigar, and Mallett, contentedly
puffing at his own, waited absently for the fact of which Lord Bernard
had been reminded. It did not come. Instead, there was a loud
ejaculation from his other side.

"By George!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "There's a real good looker down
there at last!"

Human nature being what it is, a live good looker is always a more
attractive subject than a dead financier. By common consent, the topic
of Ballantine was abandoned, and the three men craned over the balcony
to see.

In the restaurant beneath them, the tables had been filling up as they
talked, and already the early diners were beginning to dance on the oval
floor in the centre of the room. It was one of these that Lord Henry
indicated--a tall fair girl in a white dress, with a mass of short-cut
chestnut hair. She was pretty with a more than merely conventional
prettiness, in part, perhaps, because she was so obviously radiantly
happy. With sparkling eyes and lips parted in ecstasy, she danced as if
she wished she need never stop.

Lord Henry twisted round in his chair to get a better view. He stared
for some time before he spoke. Then he said: "Jenkinson!"

"Eh?" said his brother.

"Jenkinson. That's the name. Couldn't get my tongue to it at first. Her
father lives near here. Retired soldier--general or something. With me
at Harrow."

"Well, Miss Jenkinson seems pretty pleased with life this evening," Lord
Bernard remarked.

"Umph! You mean, pleased with the young feller she's with," grunted Lord
Henry.

Mallett had taken no part in this conversation. Beyond casually glancing
at Miss Jenkinson and noting the fact that she was pretty, he paid no
attention to her. He was considerably more interested in "the young
feller" dancing with her.

"Who is he, d'you know?" said Lord Bernard's voice in his ear.

"Haven't an earthly." Lord Henry turned back to his liqueur.

But Mallett, his attention now thoroughly aroused, continued to watch.
For here, within a few yards of him, dancing contentedly in one of the
most expensive hotels in England, was young Harper--Harper the superior
estate agent's clerk, whose father had lost all his money five years
ago, who had thrown up his job that morning without apparent cause,
who. . . .

The inspector's thoughts raced. Acting on a sudden impulse, he rose,
asked his hosts to excuse him and left the table. He came down the
stairs just as the dance was ending and the couples were drifting back
to their seats. Then a curious incident occurred. Harper's bow tie,
inexpertly tied, had become disarranged, and the ends were hanging
loose. The girl, with a laugh, began to tie it for him where they stood
within a few feet of the watching detective. It was a pretty sight, but
the bow that she had tied was scarcely a thing of beauty. Harper
evidently felt that something was wrong and turned to rearrange it in
one of the mirrors that flanked the wall. In order to do this, he half
turned his back on the inspector, who looking carefully over his
shoulder could see his face reflected quite clearly. Their eyes met, and
as they did so Mallett saw something that almost made him start. It was
the expression on the young man's face--a fleeting look of mingled fear
and horror that he could not have believed possible in that handsome
carefree countenance. The whole affair was over in an instant. Harper
recovered himself almost at once, the bow was retied to his
satisfaction, and he turned again to his partner with a smile. Then the
lights were dimmed, the orchestra struck up a waltz, and they were in
each other's arms once more. Mallett remained in the shadows, staring
and wondering.

A hand fell on his shoulder.

"Well," said Lord Bernard's voice. "If you're ready, shall we be off?"

"Thanks," Mallett answered. "I think I've seen all I want to here."

Lord Bernard raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. It was
characteristic of him not to ask what the inspector had seen, or why he
had left the table so abruptly. Clearly he was a man who could keep his
own counsel and respect that of others. Silently he followed his guest
out of the hotel and into the waiting car.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"It's a new experience to have a policeman in the car with me," said
Lord Bernard as they passed the pylons which mark the boundary of
Brighton. "Up till now they've always been on the other side of the
fence, so to speak. D'you mind if I let her out a bit?"

Mallett did not mind. The rush through the darkened countryside over a
road gleaming fantastically white in the headlamps was exhilarating. The
Visconti-Sforza, he was glad to observe, was not one of those
pseudo-racing cars which seek to give an impression of speed by making a
noise like an old-fashioned aeroplane. It ran silkily, silently--and
fast. The inspector leaned back in his cushioned seat and luxuriated in
the pace. Lord Bernard, like most good drivers, was not given to talk
while at the wheel, and the journey was accomplished for the most part
in silence. Mallett had had a long and tiring day, but now as the car
sped on, he found his thoughts speeding too, as though to keep up with
it.

He concentrated his mind on the mysterious letter of recommendation to
the bank, which had brought him down to Brighton. In a sense, he had
been disappointed, in that the signatory had been able to tell him next
to nothing about it. But was it really such a disappointment after all?
He had never suspected--no sane person ever would have suspected--that
the amiable nobleman he had just interviewed would prove to be concerned
in the murder of the man whose innocent tool he had been. Nobody, of
course, could be wholly exempt from suspicion in a case such as this,
but, so far as he, Mallett, was concerned, he accepted without
reservation his account of the board meeting and what went on there. And
that account was, after all, of considerable value. It meant that
somebody in the London and Imperial Estates Office had successfully
endeavoured to get a director to vouch for Colin James. It seemed clear
that most of the board took their duties as lightly as Lord Henry, and
it was probably the merest chance that it was his signature that
happened to appear on the letter. His mind went back to Lord Henry's
description of the procedure--Ballantine with a big wad of papers in
front of him, Du Pine with another. From which set of documents had this
one come? He toyed for a moment with the theory that one of the other
directors might have contrived to shuffle it into Lord Henry's pile
unobserved, but dismissed it as improbable. Remained then, the chairman
and the secretary. Whichever it was, one thing was clear. Either was
perfectly competent himself to recommend a client to the good offices of
a bank. That it should have been done in this roundabout way led to only
one conclusion--that the real author of the letter was anxious that his
connection with James should not come to light. And this, he remembered,
was the first time that his name had appeared at all--the birth, so to
speak, of Colin James, who was to walk away into blank space a bare
month later along the pavement of the Avenue Magenta, leaving a corpse
behind him in Kensington. On the face of it, it did not seem probable
that Ballantine had assisted him. Men are not usually privy to their own
murder. On the other hand, there must be some connection, as yet
unestablished, between the two, or how did Ballantine come to go,
apparently of his own free will, to the house where he met his death?
There were, he knew, many dark corners in the financier's life which had
yet to be cleared up. Perhaps James was a jackal of his and privy to
some of his less reputable activities, who knowing that Ballantine's
time was running short had seized the opportunity to make away with him
and with the spoil which he had prepared for his flight?

Mallett pulled at his moustache and frowned. No, that didn't seem quite
to fit the case either. For if James had been working for Ballantine it
must have been for some time past. By October Ballantine must have known
that a crisis in his affairs was approaching. And yet it was in October
that, according to this theory, he began to interest himself in James's
affairs. He turned to the other possibility--Du Pine. All that he had
seen of the man and all that he had heard of him led him to believe that
he was capable of most things. He had been Ballantine's confidant and
assistant in large and complex operations--therefore he was intelligent;
he had been a partner to his frauds, therefore unscrupulous. But what
could his motive have been for engineering his employer's murder?
Scarcely robbery. If he had been anxious to get a share in the booty
which Ballantine intended to make off with, a little judicious blackmail
would have served his turn, and, the inspector judged, would have been
more in character than the brutal expedient of killing him. Besides,
there was still the initial difficulty of solving the problem of how
Ballantine came to go to James's house. If Du Pine were responsible for
James establishing himself in Daylesford Gardens, that only removed one
stage further the missing connection between Ballantine and James. There
could be no doubt, from his demeanour at the inquest, that the secretary
was thoroughly frightened, but of what? Perhaps merely of whatever shady
actions of his might come to light in the records of the "Twelve
Apostles". Possibly--but if he stood to lose by the exposure of
Ballantine's financial crookedness he would be the less likely to commit
a crime which would make its discovery doubly certain. If Du Pine had
plotted Ballantine's death he would surely have had the common prudence
to make his own position secure beforehand.

Casting back in his mind, he recollected something else about Du
Pine--his dramatic introduction of the name of Fanshawe at the inquest.
Was it a blind? If so, it was a singularly unskilful one. For he must
have known that the police would not be long in discovering that James
had been vouched for by the company a full month before Fanshawe was
released from prison. That was yet another argument against attributing
the authorship of the letter to him. Had Du Pine said the truth about
Fanshawe's visit to the office? Well, Fanshawe could help to clear that
up himself. But why blurt the name out in the most public way possible,
instead of quietly informing the police as any reasonable man would have
done? It was almost as if he wanted to concentrate attention on Fanshawe
and away from himself. Why? Or alternatively, perhaps he genuinely
believed that Fanshawe had taken vengeance on Ballantine, and feared a
like fate for himself in return for his share in the events of five
years ago. On the whole, that theory seemed most plausible, but it left
the mystery of the letter as deep as ever.

"What a fool I am!" Mallett said to himself. "Why don't I practise what
I preach? Here I am, theorizing without the facts, when a simple
examination of the office typewriters will give me all I want--that is,
if the girl who took the letter down has any memory."

He deliberately relaxed, and let his thoughts wander. Links, he
reflected vaguely, missing links--the case was full of them. And he was
going to see Fanshawe tomorrow. And the only link between Fanshawe and
James was--Harper of all people! Fanshawe had been a friend of Harper's
father, and Harper had found James his house--it seemed remote enough in
all conscience! The personalities in the drama began to flit through his
tiring brain like colours in a kaleidoscope. The speed of the car, from
being a stimulant, became a narcotic. He dozed. Presently he found
himself speaking to Harper who vainly tried to tie a bow, and explained
that if he didn't get it straight he would be murdered, while Lord
Bernard shouted in his ear: "You mustn't be over-dressed! It's a crime
to be over-dressed!"

He jerked himself awake. Lord Bernard was still speaking, but what he
said was: "We're just coming into London. Where can I drop you?"




                                   15
                             MR. COLIN JAMES


                                                   Friday, November 20th

"Are you sure there were no other machines in the office?" Mallett asked
Frant.

It was Friday morning, and they sat together in the inspector's room at
Scotland Yard, at a table littered with little typewritten slips.

"Absolutely," was the reply. "They were all of the same make--big office
typewriters, except for a small portable in Du Pine's room. That was a
'Diadem'."

"And quite obviously _this_ wasn't," rejoined Mallett, tapping the
letter with a broad forefinger. "I don't pretend to be an expert in
these matters, but at a guess I should say it was a light Hornington."

He crumpled up the slips into a ball and threw them into the waste-paper
basket with a shrug of disgust.

"And that's that!" he observed. "Now where do we stand? Here we have a
letter written on office-paper but not in the office--brought in from
outside so that poor dear Gaveston could sign it. Who could get at the
paper? Obviously, anyone employed in the office who cared to sneak a bit
and take it home with him. Who owned a typewriter? Nowadays nearly
everybody does. By the way, I wonder if Du Pine has one at his private
house?"

"He certainly has," said Frant, with an air of triumph. "Here's a
specimen of its work."

He laid a sheet of notepaper before the inspector, adding: "It was
addressed to the Chief Commissioner personally. It has just been sent
down for us to deal with."

    My Lord,

    Having applied several times in vain at my local police station,
    I am constrained to write to you personally and ask for police
    protection. As you may be aware, I was, until it ceased to carry
    on business, the secretary of the London and Imperial Estates
    Company Limited. Since giving evidence at the inquest on my late
    chairman, Mr. Ballantine, I have every reason to suppose that my
    life also is in danger. I have more than once observed some
    extremely suspicious characters prowling near my house. There is
    one on the pavement opposite to me as I write. I earnestly beg
    that my request, which in the circumstances I feel sure you will
    agree is no more than reasonable, may be attended to without
    delay.

                                                  I am, my lord,
                                            Your obedient servant,
                                                      H. Du Pine.

Mallett placed the letter side by side with the other. "A different make
of machine altogether," he commented. "Just look at the tail of the
'g's' for instance. Well, what do you suggest we do about this?"

"Take off our men, and put on uniformed constables," said Frant
promptly. "The suspicious characters were our own people, of course."

Mallett pondered. "I think we can do better than that," he replied after
a pause. "Keep the same men on, but put them into uniform for the
occasion. That will kill two birds with one stone. We shall be watching
him then without his knowing it, and giving him what he wants at the
same time."

"I don't quite see----" Frant began.

"Don't you? Well, just think it over for a bit. What is the job of a
constable who is told off to give somebody or other house police
protection? Obviously to watch any suspicious person who may appear
outside the house, or who may approach somebody. But it isn't to watch
the behaviour of that somebody himself, is it? Nor is it part of his job
to see what goes on in the house. There's a very considerable
difference. And I'll tell you another thing, Frant. The average crook is
apt to have a healthy respect for a plainclothes detective, but very
little for the uniformed officer. He thinks of him as an ornament in the
streets, just something to control traffic and arrest pickpockets, and
so on. If Du Pine thinks he is being protected by ordinary flat-footed
coppers he'll be much more likely to give himself away than if he's
afraid he has a detective on his heels--that is if he has anything to
give away."

"Certainly he hasn't done anything to give himself away yet," Frant
remarked.

"Perhaps he wasn't quite satisfied in his mind about the 'suspicious
characters'," said Mallett with a grin. "Now I've something else to tell
you."

He briefly told the sergeant of what he had seen on the dancing-floor of
the Riviera Hotel.

"Odd, very odd," said Frant, when he had done. "And the oddest part of
it, if I may say so, is not that he should have been frightened at
seeing you----"

"Thanks," said Mallett.

"I mean he would naturally connect you with the murder, which must have
been a horrible shock to him----"

"He seemed pretty cool about it when I saw him. That was one of the
things that struck me at the time. But you were going to say----"

"What really seems strange is that all of a sudden he could afford to be
in a place like that. Do you know what they charge you for dinner
there?"

"I do not," said Mallett with relish. "I didn't have to pay the bill,
thank goodness."

"Well, believe me, sir, it's something terrific. How could he possibly
run to it, I want to know?"

"What do we know about Harper's position, anyway?" Mallett asked.

"Quite a lot sir," answered Frant, eager to prove his own industry. "We
have his address, you know, down Ealing way. I got into touch with the
police there, and I find he lives alone with his mother--most
respectable, but as poor as the devil. A tiny house, a servant who comes
in twice a week--you know the sort of thing. It doesn't go with posh
hotels at Brighton at all."

"Poor young men have gone bust now and then before this," said the
inspector. "But you're quite right, all the same, Frant. This boy has
come into money, or the near prospect of it, just lately. I'll tell you
what makes me sure: the expression of the girl he was dancing with."

"I don't see that," Frant objected. "Of course she'd be pleased to be
dancing with a boy she was fond of."

"But she wasn't just 'pleased'," persisted Mallett. "She was completely
happy--without a care in the world. You don't so often see people like
that, and there was no mistaking it. Now just consider the--what d'you
call it--the psychology of it. Here's a girl who's been in love with a
young man for some time--you'll remember what Mr. Browne said--who
hasn't a penny to bless himself with; obviously no prospect of getting
married for years and years. Would she look like that just because she
was spending one evening with him, which anyway she knew he couldn't
possibly afford?"

"Lots of girls are never so happy as when they're making a chap spend a
month's wages in an evening," remarked Frant sagely.

"Not that sort of girl," said the inspector emphatically.

When people say "Not that sort of girl", particularly when they say it
about a girl you have not yourself seen, there is obviously nothing to
be said, and the sergeant accordingly remained silent.

"Why not simply interview him and ask him where his money comes from?"
he said finally.

Mallett shook his head.

"No," he said. "I've frightened this fellow pretty badly already,
without meaning to. If he's got anything to conceal, he'll have done it
by now, and have his story pat and ready. If there's nothing fishy about
it after all, there's no harm done."

"Then why not ask the girl, or her father, and see what they know about
him?"

"That's all very well, Frant, but you can't just stroll into a man's
house, and say: 'I'm a police officer, and I want to know how much money
your daughter's fianc has got and how he got it'--can you? At least, I
shouldn't care to do it, especially with a retired general. All the
same, I should very much like to have the chance of a talk with him."

"And his daughter," added Frant, but under his breath.

The inspector drummed on the table for a moment, tugging at his
moustache with his disengaged hand.

"Still," he murmured, "it might be managed. It's a long shot, but it
might come off. I think I'll have a talk on the phone with the Sussex
police."

"Now, or after lunch?" asked Frant, who knew his superior's weakness.

"After lunch, of course," said Mallett with decision. "Let's see,
Fanshawe's coming here at three, isn't he? Well, I'm not going to
interview him on an empty stomach, if I can help it. There's nothing
else, is there?"

"There's a big bunch of reports from all over the country about people
resembling James," answered the sergeant. "I suppose they'll all have to
be enquired into, but not one of them looks the least helpful."

A description of James based upon the evidence already obtained and
described with the usual euphemism as that of "a man whom the police
desire to interview" had been circulated. These were just beginning to
bear fruit, and the resulting harvest was, as Frant said, an unpromising
one. Mysterious stout men with beards seemed to have appeared all at
once in every part of England. They had been seen leaping into taxis,
disappearing down subways, lurking suspiciously behind the hedges of
country lanes. Late at night, they had drunk hasty cups of tea at London
coffee-stalls or cadged lifts from lorry-drivers on arterial roads. They
had even been seen, faces in the dark, peering through the windows of
blameless suburban residences. Every one of them, Mallett knew, was
probably the product of mere hysteria, begotten of an urge to figure in
the news; but somewhere in the heap of nonsense might lurk the one grain
of information that would make all the difference. Therefore it would
all have to be sifted, enquired into, patiently and relentlessly, until
its worthlessness was proved.

Mallett looked at the bulging file and then at his watch.

"Not now," he said. "Have you ever noticed, Frant, how a big dinner the
night before gives you an appetite for lunch next day?"

"I can't say that I have," answered Frant.

"Really, I have, often. I'm off now. These things must wait. I feel so
hungry that I shouldn't care to stop if Mr. James stepped into the room
this minute."

There was a knock at the door.

"Yes, yes, what is it?"

An officer put his head round the door.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, "but there's a man here who's very anxious to
see you at once. He says his name is Colin James."

Mallett sank back into his chair.

"I take it all back," he gasped.

Whatever anxiety Mr. James may have had to visit Scotland Yard, it was
apparent that once there he found himself in a state of great
embarrassment. He stood in the doorway of Mallett's room, shifting his
heavy weight from one foot to another, and turning watery blue eyes
first on Mallett, then on Frant, and finally on a vacant spot midway
between them. He was palpably in a miserably nervous state, and looked
as though an incautious sound or movement would send him bolting back
through the door again.

"Won't you sit down, sir?" cooed the inspector in his blandest tones. "I
understand you have something to tell me?"

The visitor lowered himself into a chair, where he perched diffidently
on the extreme edge.

"I--I really must apologize for troubling you in this way," he began,
"but I feel it my duty in the _very_ peculiar circumstances--it is all
most unusual, I have never had anything to do with the police before
and--but my name has been mentioned--excuse me!"

His face was momentarily obscured by a large blue and white chequered
handkerchief, while a sneeze exploded like a bomb in the quiet room.

"I beg your pardon," resumed Mr. James when his face reappeared from its
momentary eclipse. "A nasty cold--a very nasty cold. I shouldn't really
have travelled in this weather--my daughter tried to dissuade me, but I
felt it my duty----"

This time the sneeze took him by surprise, and Mallett ducked hastily to
avoid the resultant shower. So far the inspector had said nothing.
Indeed he had only listened with half an ear to the disjointed
utterances of the stranger. But his eyes had been busy, and his brain
was mechanically registering what he saw, and checking and comparing it
with what he had heard elsewhere. The first impression produced by Mr.
James was one of great size. As he sat, uncomfortably far forward in his
chair, his stomach protruded almost to the desk behind which the
inspector sheltered. The impression of size was reinforced by the bushy
brown beard that straggled over his chest. But above the beard there
showed itself not the fat florid face that one might have been expecting
from a man of such bulk, but a peaky little countenance, with sunken
cheeks and hollow eyes. His limbs, too, were by comparison thin. One
wondered how such inadequate legs could support the burden of his body.
"He looks like a thin man badly made up to play Falstaff," thought
Mallett. He remembered Harper's words: "A fat man--or rather, paunchy.
He had a big stomach and a thin face, as if he had a bad digestion."

Aloud he said: "Now let's take this quietly, Mr.--James. That is your
name, I think?"

The visitor plunged into a pocket and produced a grimy card. "That's
me," he said.

The inspector read: "Colin James, 14 Market Street, Great Easington,
Norfolk." In the bottom left-hand corner were added the words: "Seed and
Corn Merchant."

"Well?" he asked. "What have you got to do with this affair?"

"That's exactly it!" cried Mr. James. "What indeed? I'm a respectable
man, sir, always have been. You can ask anybody in Easington, or for
miles round--as far as Norwich if you like."

"But you thought you'd like to come as far as London to make sure," put
in Mallett drily. Any hopes he had of hearing anything useful from the
new arrival began to disappear. It seemed that Colin James in the flesh
would prove to be no more value than the unsubstantial rumours which
filled his files.

Mr. James blew his nose with a trumpet-like blast.

"I'm sorry if I've troubled you," he said sorrowfully. "I thought it
right to come as soon as I could. My daughter told me it wouldn't be any
good to anyone, but it seemed wrong not to. So as soon as my cold would
let me get out of the house, I did"--he sniffed--"though I was hardly
fit to travel as it was."

The inspector was touched in spite of himself.

"I'm afraid it is you who have been troubled, Mr. James," he said.

"I wouldn't mind that, sir," answered James, "if I thought I'd been of
any use. But I can tell you, it takes a good deal to get me out of my
home nowadays--quite apart from this cold of mine, I mean. My health
isn't what it was, you know. I suffer a good deal----"

"From your digestion?" enquired Mallett.

"My digestion, just so. I wonder how you guessed that, sir. It's easy to
see you're not a detective for nothing."

"Well, we're trained to notice things, you know," said the inspector
pleasantly, rising as he spoke. "Thank you for coming, Mr. James. I
think it's clear you're not the man we are looking for."

"Oh, you can be sure of that, sir," the corn merchant assured him
earnestly. "But it was a funny coincidence, wasn't it? My name and beard
and figure and all, my digestion, too, for all I knew, though you didn't
put that in the description."

"I think I can promise you that your digestion alone would acquit you,"
said Mallett gravely.

"Would it really, now? That is most interesting--most interesting. I
should never have thought of that. It just shows the way you gentlemen
of Scotland Yard work. Well, all I can say is, in that case, I ought to
have a good alibi--if that's the word--for any crimes. That's the first
good thing I've known come of my wretched stomach. It spoils all
pleasure in life"--he contemplated his great paunch gravely--"it does
indeed. The least little thing upsets it. You ask my daughter what
happened when she took me to France."

"Oh, you went to France?" asked Mallett, "When was that?"

"Last August it was. A week in Paris. She was bent on our going, and all
because the Edwardses up the street had been there at Easter and she
wanted to be even with them. And nothing would content her but that I
should come too. Never again, that's all I say--never again!"

"You don't happen to have your passport with you by any chance, I
suppose?"

"There I go again!" exclaimed Mr. James violently, dropping back into
the chair from which he had just painfully risen. "Forgetting the one
thing I meant to tell you. Not but what my daughter said it was all
nonsense----"

"Never mind about your daughter," said Mallett. "What was it you wanted
to tell us about your passport?"

"It was stolen, sir--or at any rate, I lost it, and I always maintained
it was stolen, though what anyone should want with such a thing I could
never make out."

"Stolen? How?"

"On the way home. I had it in my hand at Dover, of that I'm sure,
because I remember passing it to the man in the office place and he
never looked at it but just pushed it back to me. And then by the time
we got to the train--my hands were full of things--tickets and parcels
and a penny for an evening paper--you know how it is--anyhow, when I
came to look for it, it wasn't there."

"Did you make any complaint at the time?"

"No. I looked for it on the platform, you know, just casually. I
remember I said to my daughter: 'My passport's gone', and she said: 'You
ought to tell the police', but I said: 'Nonsense, I shan't want the
thing again as long as I live--you're not going to drag me abroad to
face that dreadful cooking any more, you can be sure of that,' I
said----"

"All this on the platform, where anyone could hear you, I suppose?"

"Just so, sir, I suppose anyone could, though I never thought of that at
the time."

"You could hardly be expected to think that someone would pick it up,
borrow your name and appearance, live under that name for a month and
then use the passport to escape from justice after committing murder,
certainly," said Mallett.

"Good heavens, is that what the rascal did?" exclaimed Mr. James.

"It looks very much like it."

"God bless my soul, I didn't know there were such people in the world--I
didn't really. It gives me quite a turn to think of it."

"Well, you've given us something to think about," answered the
inspector, "and we are much obliged to you. Now, Mr. James, to make
everything regular, I'll ask you to wait here for a few moments while
Sergeant Frant puts your story into writing, and then you can go back to
nurse your cold at Easington. One other thing you can do for us," he
added. "Do you mind if we take your photograph before you go? It may be
valuable for our purposes."

"Not in the least," Mr. James assured him.

"See that that is done," he said to Frant. "I have an important
appointment outside now. When you have taken this gentleman's statement,
telephone to the police station at Easington and verify what he has told
us about himself. Good day, Mr. James."

He departed to his lunch, leaving the sergeant, whose meal-times were
not considered of importance, gloomily manipulating a fountain-pen.




                                   16
                             FANSHAWE SPEAKS


                                                   Friday, November 20th

It was afternoon. The Easington police had vouched for the bona fides of
Colin James, and he had returned to his corn and seeds. Another visitor
was now awaited, and for him the stage was set with more than ordinary
care. A comfortable low chair was provided for him, for the inspector
had found by experience that men talk with greater fluency when they are
at ease, and at the same time the questioner has an advantage if he is
sitting above the person he is interrogating. "If they put witnesses
down in the well of the court instead of sticking them up in a box level
with the judge, there'd be much less perjury," he used to say. This
chair was arranged so that it faced the light, and at the same time an
open box of good cigarettes was placed within easy reach on the corner
of the inspector's desk. At the other end of the room a shorthand writer
was in unobtrusive attendance.

When all was settled to Mallett's satisfaction there was still some time
to wait. An uneasy air of expectancy descended on the room. Frant, whose
nerves were less under control than his superior's, found the silence
hard to bear.

"What do you think he's coming here to tell us?" he said.

"I haven't the least idea," was the answer. "I shouldn't be surprised if
it turns out to be something completely unimportant after all. There are
so many loose ends in this case that I'm beginning to wonder if we are
ever going to find a thread that will lead us anywhere." He was silent
for a moment, and then, as if feeling that the sergeant was finding the
tension oppressive, began on another subject.

"What did you make of James's story?" he asked.

"I think we've learned something very valuable from it," Frant answered.
"That name, description, passport--it can't be all coincidence."

"No, I agree, it's wildly unlikely that it should be. But you see what
that leads us to. We have simply pushed back the beginning of the story
a month or more further. It means that as early as August someone had
made up his mind to impersonate Mr. James."

"He can't have known beforehand that he was going to pick up the
passport," objected Frant.

"No, he couldn't. But having had the luck to find it, he must have seen
at once the sort of use he could put to it--or why didn't he return it,
or hand it to the police as any honest man would have done? More and
more I'm becoming convinced that we have to deal with a very dangerous
and intelligent man. You see, he is not only a careful plotter with a
long view, but a man who can take a chance when it comes his way, and
build it into his plans."

"Of course, we can't be sure that it was the same man who stole the
passport and who afterwards used it," put in the sergeant. "Any crook
might be glad of the chance to sneak such a thing, especially when he
had reason to think it wouldn't be enquired after."

"And then to sell it to someone who saw what he could do with it? You
may be right, Frant. But whichever way you look at it, it leaves us in
the same miserable vagueness as ever. The fellow wanted a disguise--he
took the easiest one that offered. A false beard is easy--a false
stomach isn't much harder, if you come to think of it, especially if you
want to impersonate a man with a thin face and a big body. Then in just
the same way, he wants himself introduced to a bank by the company, and
he so arranged it that any director out of half a dozen might sign the
letter. We started off with two bits of positive evidence--that he
called himself Colin James and that he was recommended by Lord Henry
Gaveston, and neither the real James nor Gaveston can help us in the
very least."

"And I don't see that _he_," Frant nodded to the door, "can possibly
help us in that direction, either."

"Even supposing he wants to, which I somehow doubt," added Mallett.
"What earthly knowledge can Fanshawe have of James?"

"The real one or the sham one, do you mean?"

"The sham one, of course. Call him James the Second, if you like."

"I think the Old Pretender would be more appropriate," said the
sergeant.

Mallett wrinkled his nose, a sure sign that he was vexed. His schooling
had not included much history, and he felt obscurely that his
subordinate was showing off. But before he could think of a rejoinder,
the door was thrown open, and Fanshawe was announced.

Four years of prison life had left but little mark upon the former
chairman of Fanshawe's Bank. His complexion, always pale, was perhaps a
shade whiter, his lean face just a trifle thinner still; otherwise
Mallett could observe no change in the man he had last seen in the dock
at the Old Bailey. The voice, too, when he spoke, was the same--quiet
and cultured, always with a cynical undertone beneath the smooth
surface, a hint of hidden fires kept resolutely under control. John
Fanshawe was a very different type of man from the financier with whom
his name had so often been coupled. A man of taste and refinement, he
had lived in his days of prosperity aloof from the world. He had been
able to enjoy riches without arrogance, just as he had met ruin and
disgrace without whining. In good times and bad alike, he had been as if
sustained by some hidden source of fortitude, an innate pride which
never deserted him.

Mallett felt oddly abashed before this calm proud man, but Fanshawe put
him at his ease at once.

"Good afternoon, Inspector," he began. "I think you have been promoted
since we last met?"

"I have--yes," answered Mallett. "Good afternoon, Mr. Fanshawe."

Fanshawe lowered himself into the arm-chair and took a cigarette. "_Mr._
Fanshawe!" he murmured. "You have no idea how refreshing it is to
recover one's individuality again! I wonder whether anybody who has not
experienced it can know what it feels like to be a mere number. That is
the real horror of prison life, Mallett, the sinking of one's identity
in a herd of indistinguishable fellow creatures. 'He that filches from
me my good name'," he quoted. "Well, thank heavens that is over, at all
events!" He glanced round the room. "Forgive me," he went on, "but have
not rather elaborate preparations been made to receive me? I mean----"
he waved his hand at the stenographer in the corner--"it almost looks as
though something in the nature of a public utterance was expected of me.
I'm afraid you are likely to be disappointed."

"Perhaps it would save us both trouble if you said exactly what you have
come here for," said Mallett severely.

"I apologize, Inspector," said Fanshawe, the irony in his voice making
itself felt. "Your time is valuable I know. I shall waste very little of
it. I have merely come to make a complaint. I want to know why I, a week
after my release from jail, should still be subjected to the indignity
and inconvenience of being shadowed by detectives."

Mallett found it hard to suppress a smile. It was a somewhat ludicrous
coincidence that this request should follow so hard on Du Pine's plea
for police protection. Aloud he said:

"You will understand, Mr. Fanshawe, that the circumstances are a little
unusual."

"The only unusual aspect of the circumstances, as I understand them,"
answered Fanshawe, "is that on leaving prison I was expressly exempted
from the ordinary regulations about reporting to the police and so
forth. I presume that you are aware of that?"

"Certainly. I am given to understand that the order was made on the
direct instructions of the Home Secretary. It was most exceptional."

"Personally, I think it is the least he could have done," said Fanshawe
with a touch of hauteur. "I always treated him very decently when he was
my fag at school."

"You must know perfectly well", said Mallett impatiently, "that the
supervision you are complaining of has nothing whatever to do with
anything that happened _before_ you were released from prison."

"I understand you. I read the papers, like everyone else. I am to
gather, then, that this inquisition has to do with the events of last
week-end?"

"If you read the papers," answered the inspector, "you will have seen
your own name mentioned in the reports of the inquest on Lionel
Ballantine."

A strange smile lit up Fanshawe's lean face. "In that little rat Du
Pine's evidence? I did indeed." He turned suddenly and looked the
inspector full in the eyes. "May I ask whether you suspect me of this
crime?" he asked.

"Nobody is free from suspicion in a case of this kind," replied Mallett
gravely. "Now, Mr. Fanshawe, don't you think you could assist us by
answering a few questions?"

"And if I refuse, as I have a perfect right to do?"

"Then I am afraid you will have to go to the Home Secretary and ask him
to relieve you of police supervision, for I shall not take the
responsibility myself."

Fanshawe blew a long jet of smoke from his mouth and very deliberately
crushed the stub of his cigarette in an ashtray.

"Very well," he said at last. "I have no objection to telling you. Du
Pine's statement is substantially true. I did call on Ballantine"--an
involuntary spasm contracted his features as he pronounced the
name--"last Friday morning. I contrived to get in by using a false name,
and as soon as he saw who I was he had me turned out of the office. Not
before I had told him just a little of what I thought of him, though."

"Yes?"

Fanshawe smiled. He had a delightful, even brilliant smile, though now
it seemed to hold a hint of malice. "My dear Inspector," he said, "that
was what you wished to know, was it not? I really don't see how I can
help you any further."

Mallett folded his large hands and put them squarely on the desk in
front of him. Looming over the figure that reclined in the easy chair he
seemed strangely impressive, and his voice when it came had an urgency,
a vibrant appeal that was rare in it.

"Don't let us beat about the bush any longer," he said. "I am going to
be perfectly frank with you, and I want you to be frank with me. You are
of all men alive the one who had the greatest motive for hating
Ballantine. The day you were sentenced you threatened his life publicly.
The day after you were released he was murdered. In the face of that you
complain that you are watched by the police, while all the time you
refuse to be frank with us."

"You must allow me to point out, Inspector," came the cold comment from
the chair, "that this is the first opportunity I have had to 'be frank
with you', as you put it."

Mallett felt that his impressive period had somehow missed fire. "I
can't interview everyone at once," he muttered.

"Quite so, though no doubt you have able assistants to help you. Now,
since I am here, entirely of my own volition, am I to understand that if
I answer your questions the detectives will be withdrawn?"

"I can make no promises," Mallett answered. "That must depend on the
extent to which you are able to satisfy us. But I should have thought
that for an innocent man it would be natural to want to assist
justice----"

"If by assisting justice you mean arresting the man who killed
Ballantine"--again that curious spasm--"I shall do no such thing. He did
a splendid thing which badly needed doing, and which I should have been
only too glad to do myself."

The inspector tried another tack.

"Then in your own interest it is desirable that you should convince us
that you had no hand in it," he said.

Fanshawe laughed aloud. "In the sacred name of self-interest, then!" he
cried. "What do you want to know?"

"We will begin at the beginning," said Mallett. "Why did you go to see
Ballantine on Friday morning?"

"Because he had ruined me--and not only me but a large number of people
who had trusted me. It was through supporting him and his schemes that
my bank was destroyed. He got out in time--very neatly--and I was left,
as the phrase goes, to carry the baby."

"And you went to see him in the hope of getting some repayment from
him?"

"You might put it that way--yes."

"Very well. Now as to your movements during the rest of the day."

"What are the movements of a newly liberated prisoner in London, without
friends or prospects? Mine were mostly on the tops of motor omnibuses. I
drifted aimlessly round London all day, simply enjoying the sensation of
being my own master again, and noticing all the changes since I had seen
it last. And you have no idea how the place has changed in the last four
years, Inspector. You could write a book on it."

"And then?"

"Then I went home to tea."

"What do you mean by home?"

Fanshawe winced. "That is rather crude, Inspector," he murmured. "Yes,
you are right, of course. I have no home now. I mean my sister's flat."

"In Daylesford Court Mansions?"

"Yes. I know what you are going to say next. Within a couple of hundred
yards of Daylesford Gardens. Odd, isn't it?" He smiled as though in pure
enjoyment at the coincidence.

"And then?"

"Oh, then I packed my bag and went abroad."

"You went abroad that same day?"

"Certainly. That night, rather. By the Newhaven boat to Paris. My
daughter is living there."

Mallett took this piece of information in complete calm, but Frant,
unable to contain himself, let his breath escape in a prolonged whistle.
Fanshawe turned his head in his direction and stared at him for a moment
with raised eyebrows, but said nothing.

The inspector recalled his attention by asking quietly: "What class did
you travel?"

"I bought a third-class return ticket in the City before I went to
see--the person we have been discussing," was the answer. "Disgustingly
uncomfortable, but beggars can't be choosers!"

"Did you notice anybody in particular travelling first-class?"

Fanshawe sat up abruptly. "Now look here," he said in a hard tone quite
unlike his usual voice, "I have already told you that I am not
interested in the ends of justice, if those ends are to avenge the
killing of--Ballantine." He spat out the name with concentrated fury.
"If anything I could say would help you to find the gentleman who called
himself Colin James, I should not say it. If I could have shaken him by
the hand for what he did, I should have done so."

It was Mallett's turn to be calm. "Very well," he said smoothly. "If
that is your attitude, I shall not press you. You can tell me where you
bought your ticket, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes, Rawson's in Cornhill. They know me there."

"Thank you. And while you were in Paris, I take it you stayed with your
daughter?"

"Yes. She lives out at Passy." He gave the address.

"You went there at once on arriving in Paris?"

"No, of course I didn't. You get there at such an unearthly hour you
couldn't possibly go to anyone's place, particularly if you weren't
expected. I spent what was left of the night at a hotel close to the
station--a vile place, the best I could afford. I've forgotten the
name."

"Not the Hotel Du Plessis, by any chance?"

"Certainly not--I've never heard of the place."

Mallett paused for a full half-minute. Then he said: "And that is all
you mean to tell us, Mr. Fanshawe?"

"That is all I have to tell you, Inspector Mallett."

"Good afternoon, then."

"Good afternoon. And will the detectives be withdrawn?"

"I can make no promises."

There was silence in the room for a space after he had gone. The
shorthand writer took his notes and went out to prepare a transcript of
the interview. Mallett sat staring at the blotter on his desk,
mechanically pulling at his moustache, deep in thought. Finally he
turned to Frant.

"Well, and what did you make of him?" he asked.

"Obviously a very conceited man," answered the sergeant.

"Conceited? H'm, yes, and a good deal more than that. But you're right,
Frant. He is a very vain man indeed. Prison life hurt his vanity more
than anything else, obviously. Has it ever occurred to you, Frant, that
all murderers are exceptionally vain? You have to be, to think that your
own interests or convenience are sufficiently important to justify
killing a man."

"Then do you think----?"

"No, I don't. Not yet, anyway. There's not a thing he's told us which
isn't consistent with perfect innocence, and not a jury in England would
convict on it. So anyway, our private beliefs don't matter."

"My own private belief, for what it's worth," said Frant, "is that
Fanshawe was in league with James. I look at it this way: James, for
some reason or another, disguises himself as--James. He lives in that
disguise, very likely from August onwards--certainly for a month. He
scrapes acquaintance with Ballantine--that may be presumed from the
letter to the bank. All this time, he is waiting for Fanshawe's release
from prison. He engages a house through an old friend of Fanshawe's and
has for his sole servant a man formerly employed by that old friend.
Then immediately Fanshawe is free, he decoys Ballantine to the
house----"

"Having first got rid of the dependable servant," interrupted Mallett.
"Why?"

"That's natural enough. He didn't want a third person to be involved in
the murder. I dare say he could trust him up to a point and not to give
away his disguise, but letting him have a share in the crime is another
thing."

"I see. Go on."

"Where was I? He decoys Ballantine to his house, where Fanshawe is
already concealed. Together they kill him, leave the place separately,
and travel over to France by the same boat but, for safety's sake, by
different classes."

"If your theory is right," the inspector objected, "it doesn't account
for one rather odd fact. Why did Fanshawe, who was in league with James
to kill Ballantine in Daylesford Gardens, bother to go to Lothbury on
Friday morning and draw attention to himself by threatening him in his
own office?"

"Perhaps," said Frant, "he didn't then know of James's plans.
Communication with a prisoner isn't easy, and it may be that it wasn't
until later in the day that he got into touch with James and knew of the
preparations that had been made."

"That doesn't seem very plausible to me," the inspector answered. "I
think we're agreed that everything we have discovered so far points to a
carefully arranged crime. James wouldn't have laid his plans so
thoroughly and left himself such a small margin of time, if he'd thought
that Fanshawe wasn't going to do his part properly. Don't forget that
the lease of the house was nearly up, and the tickets for France bought
already. It seems to me more likely that the two were in touch with each
other while Fanshawe was still in Maidstone."

"Then what's your explanation of Fanshawe's behaviour on Friday
morning--assuming my theory is right?"

"Assuming that your theory is right--and after all we are only dealing
in assumptions--don't you think it possible that Fanshawe's visit to
Ballantine was all part of the plan?"

"In what way?"

"You have suggested that James decoyed Ballantine to his house in
Daylesford Gardens. You haven't suggested how he managed it."

"No, that's a weak spot in the theory, I admit."

"That is one weak spot, and the threat to Ballantine on Friday morning
is another. Let's see if the two can't cancel each other out. Suppose
James sent Fanshawe to frighten Ballantine? We know, and very likely he
knew, that Ballantine was on the verge of financial ruin, and
contemplating flight. He would therefore be in a particularly nervous
state. James meets Ballantine after the interview, is told of the
incident, expresses his sympathy, and then says: 'My poor fellow, your
life is in danger if you go home. Come to my place for the night and you
will be safe enough', Ballantine falls into the trap, goes to Daylesford
Gardens, and there meets Fanshawe--and his death. How does that strike
you?"

Frant rubbed his hands appreciatively.

"Magnificent!" he said. "That's just how it would have happened! I'm
sure that's just how it did happen!"

"Quite," rejoined Mallett drily, "and how do we set about proving it?"

"There's only one way to do that," replied Frant, "and that's to find
James."

Mallett smacked his desk in irritation.

"James, James, James!" he cried. "The crux of this whole case, and not a
shred of evidence about him, except that his name is not James, that he
hasn't got a beard, and is probably as thin as a rake!"

"You can add another probability to that," remarked Frant, "and that is
that he is probably still in France."

"True. We haven't any proof whatsoever that he came back, although we
know that his accomplice did, supposing our theory to be true. Well,
there it is, Frant. We can only waste time discussing it further, until
we get some fresh facts, which may or may not fit into the theory. Now
about that question we were discussing this morning, I think I shall get
on to the Sussex police and see if they can help us."

At that moment the house telephone rang. The inspector answered it.
"Send him up," he said into the instrument.

"The Chief Constable of Dover," he said to Frant. "Now what on earth can
he have to tell us?"

The head of the Dover police was an old friend of Mallett, who had
collaborated with him more than once before. The inspector knew him for
a capable, businesslike officer who was not likely to waste his time on
trivialities. He came briskly into the room, shook hands with Mallett,
nodded to the sergeant and came to business at once.

"Had to come up to see the Commissioner this afternoon," he said
briefly, "and thought I might as well bring this with me. Safer than the
post, anyway."

He put a sealed packet into Mallett's hands. Mallett opened it and drew
out a limp, discoloured blue booklet. He examined it in silence, his
eyebrows raised in astonishment. Then he uttered a long whistle.

"Where on earth did you get this?" he asked.

"Fisherman brought it in this morning. Found it just below high-water
mark a hundred yards or so east of the harbour last night. Tide sets
that way, y'know. Got his statement for what it's worth"--he pulled a
folded sheet of official paper from his pocket--"but nothing in it
beyond that. May have been in the water days, a week perhaps, impossible
to say. High tides all this week and a sou'-westerly gale to help 'em
along."

"I'm very much obliged to you," said the inspector. "This may be really
valuable. You'll stay for a cup of tea, won't you?"

The Chief Constable shook his head. "Got to be getting along," he said.
"Hope it'll help you a bit. You've got a sticky job, I'm afraid. So
long."

As the door closed behind him, Mallett tossed the object in his hand to
the impatient Frant.

"Exhibit No. 1!" he exclaimed. "What do you think of it?"

Frant looked at it. "A passport?" he said. Then, opening its discoloured
cover: "Colin James's passport!"

"No less," said the inspector. "The identical one that our friend of
this morning had stolen from him three months ago. It's in pretty bad
order, but the name is still legible, thank goodness. Now just turn to
page seven."

Frant did so.

"The pages have stuck together," he observed, "and the inside here is
quite unspoilt by the water."

"Exactly--luckily for us. What do you find there?"

"The stamp of the authorities at Dieppe and the date--13th November."

"Anything else?"

"Yes--there's something here. Boulogne, and a date in August--that must
be the real Mr. James's trip."

"Anything else?"

Frant scanned the passport closely.

"Nothing else," he announced.

"Nothing else," Mallett repeated meditatively. "Just what does that
indicate to you, Frant?"

"That James went to France, as we knew already, and didn't come back--as
James."

"Yes."

"He came back under his own name, or at any rate another one, for which
he had another passport."

"Of course, he may be a professional passport stealer, for all we know."

"Then", went on Frant, "having no further use for the James identity, he
threw the passport overboard just as the boat reached harbour. He may
have been afraid of being searched at Dover, and wanted to make sure it
shouldn't be found on him."

"In short," said Mallett, "James is in England. His trip to France was
nothing but a blind. As soon as it had accomplished its purpose, back he
came. But when, Frant, when? As the Chief Constable says, this passport
may have been in the water for days--or for a few hours only."

"Perhaps Fanshawe knows the answer," suggested the sergeant.

"But we have no particular reason to think that they crossed together
this time. It is a possibility, of course."

"There is another possibility. James may not have returned from France
at all, but given his passport to Fanshawe or to some other confederate,
with instructions to plant it on us, just to make us think he had come
back."

Mallett shook his head.

"No," he said. "If he had done that, then he would have taken care to
see that we did find the passport--left it on board, for example, where
a steward would be sure to see it. As it is, it was only by the merest
chance that it was discovered. I repeat, James is in England. There can
be no more unloading responsibility on to the police in Paris. It's up
to us to find him." He pulled at his moustache, and then added: "But I
shan't feel a bit like doing it if they don't bring me some tea. I'm
famishing!"




                                   17
                        SEEING A DOG ABOUT A MAN


                                                 Saturday, November 21st

"What's all this nonsense about?"

Susan Jenkinson, her delicate tongue poised on the flap of an envelope
which she had just addressed, looked up from her writing-table.

"About what, Father?" she asked. "And do come in, instead of glowering
in the door like that. There's a horrible draught. I'm sure it will give
Gandhi a chill."

Major-General James Jenkinson, C.B., C.I.E. (Rtd.), in spite of his
fiery complexion and parade-ground voice, was a well-trained parent. He
meekly entered the room and closed the door behind him.

"I can't think what you wanted to give that dog such an imbecile name
for," he complained, pointing to a nondescript mongrel which was dozing
in front of the fire.

"It does sound a bit silly now that he's all shaggy," admitted his
daughter. "But he was so dreadfully bare and naked at first, it seemed
the only name for the poor darling. And it's a good name to shout, too.
I'll try calling him Winston, if you really insist, but I don't think
he'd answer to it."

The general made no answer to this suggestion, but contented himself
with clearing his throat very loudly and fiercely.

"Well; what is it?" persisted Susan, as he remained silent. "You didn't
just come in to complain about poor Gandhi, I suppose?"

"As a matter of fact I have come to talk to you about Ga--about that dog
of yours," answered her parent. "He's been getting into trouble."

"Trouble? Gandhi? Father, whatever do you mean?"

"Sheep-killing."

"But that's absurd!" cried Susan, thoroughly aroused. "You know he
wouldn't dream of it! He has chased a few old hens now and then just for
the fun of it, I admit, but he won't even so much as look at a sheep.
How could you think of such a thing?"

"It isn't what I think at all," said the general. "It's what the police
think."

"D'you mean to say the police are after my poor old Gandhi?"

"I don't know who or what they're after," replied the general testily.
"But you know as well as I do that there has been a lot of trouble over
sheep-worrying lately on the downs----"

"And nobody's ever dreamt of saying it was Gandhi's fault----"

"----And the police are making enquiries. And I think they are quite
right too," he added hastily, before he could be further interrupted.

"But how do you know they are enquiring about Gandhi?" asked Susan.

"That's what I should have told you five minutes ago if you wouldn't
keep interrupting. They've just been on the telephone from Lewes."

"Asking about my precious Gandhi?"

"Asking about a large dog belonging to me. I told them I hadn't got a
large dog, but that you had."

"Father!"

"Well, that's true, isn't it?" asked the general, instantly on the
defensive before the accusing stare of his daughter's blue eyes. "He is
your dog, I suppose? You know I've never taken any responsibility for
him--no responsibility at all."

"Did you let them accuse Gandhi of worrying sheep and never say a single
word for him?" demanded Susan menacingly.

"Certainly not, my dear girl," her father reassured her. "Nothing of the
sort. There isn't any accusation. I tell you, they are simply making
enquiries."

"What sort of enquiries?"

"What sort of enquiries do the police make in a case like this? How
should _I_ know? They're just--well, enquiring."

"Over the telephone? Making all sorts of horrible accusations----"

"Not accusations."

"Well, insinuations against a poor lamb of a dog they've never even
seen?"

"I wish you wouldn't run away with ideas like that," said General
Jenkinson plaintively. "They do want to see the dog--that's just the
point. A sergeant or somebody is on his way now to--well, to make
enquiries, as I said."

"And what are you going to tell him when he comes?" asked Susan.

"I'm not going to see him at all," answered the general hastily. "I'm
going out to the stables. He's your dog, and you had much better deal
with the matter yourself. I take no responsibility--no responsibility at
all."

Covering his retreat with his favourite catch-phrase when faced with a
difficulty, the general cleared his throat in his most military manner,
strode from the room and--since he was a man of his word--did in fact go
to the stables, where he devoted a peaceful hour to the contemplation of
animals which, whatever their faults, had never numbered sheep-killing
among them.

Left to herself, Susan sat in silence for a while. Then she pulled
Gandhi's ears lovingly.

"It's all a mistake, isn't it, old boy?" she murmured.

Then she went upstairs to powder her nose. "If it's that nice Sergeant
Littleboy who came up when we had the burglary, I know it will be all
right," she murmured to herself. "But it's best to take no chances."

It was not the nice Sergeant Littleboy whom, some twenty minutes later,
a nervous parlourmaid ushered into the morning-room. Instead, Susan
found herself confronting a face which, though she could have sworn it
was wholly unknown to her, nevertheless seemed to strike some vague
association in her memory. She frowned involuntarily in the effort to
identify it, and then, hastily remembering her good manners, assumed her
most beguiling smile, and asked the sergeant to sit down.

The new-comer took a chair and as he did so Susan noticed with amusement
that his uniform seemed a good deal too tight for him. His chest
strained at the buttons of his tunic, and his breath came somewhat
short, as though it were impeded by the neck-band. She longed to tell
him to undo it, but feared to ruffle his dignity. "I expect he got a bit
warm bicycling up from Lewes," she thought, for her windows overlooked
the drive and she had seen his arrival.

While these thoughts flitted through his mistress's head, Gandhi
conducted his own inspection. Rising in leisurely fashion to his long,
ungainly legs, he submitted the stranger to a lengthy, searching sniff.
It was some time before he was satisfied. The scent of the uniform
trousers vaguely displeased him. Something about it grated on his canine
consciousness. But presently he was reassured. Whatever the clothes, the
man inside was all right. Quite unmistakably, his instinct passed him as
a friend. With an almost imperceptible wag of the tail, he sauntered
back to the hearthrug and lay down again, at peace with the world. Susan
breathed a sigh of relief. The first crisis was safely over.

She caught the sergeant's eye, and found that he was smiling.
Involuntarily she smiled too. Absurdly enough the dog which was the
cause of all the trouble seemed to have made them friends already.

"Is that the animal, Miss?" he asked.

"Yes, that's Gandhi. Isn't he rather sweet?" said Susan in her most
appealing manner.

"He _looks_ harmless enough," was the guarded reply. Then, drawing some
papers with an effort from the pocket of his close-fitting tunic, he
went on: "I am sure, Miss, that to your mind it seems ridiculous that
your dog could possibly be guilty of anything so dreadful as
sheep-killing. But it is a serious matter, as you should know very well,
living in a sheep-farming country, and we must consider this seriously.
If it goes on, we shall have all the shepherds out with guns to protect
their flocks, and it will end with the wrong animal killed as like as
not. Now I have here some particulars of sheep-killing in this
neighbourhood during the last few days. If you can account for your
dog's movements during the times in question, we can pass the word on,
and he'll be safe. I expect he's pretty well known in this part of the
world."

Susan nodded, impressed in spite of herself.

"I'll do my best," she said.

"I'm sure you will, and you won't mind my saying that it will be all to
your advantage if you can supply the names of independent witnesses who
can support your statements. We have to be careful in these things, you
know."

"Quite."

"Very good. Now the first time is Monday, the 16th of this month, about
four p.m."

"Oh, that's an easy one. I had a cold and was indoors. Gandhi was with
me."

"I see. Did anyone see him here--besides the people in the house, I
mean?"

"Yes, Colonel Follett came to tea, I remember. He knows the dog quite
well--he's always making fun of him and his name."

"His address?"

"Rockwell Priory--just the other side of Lewes."

The sergeant noted the name, and went on: "The next day is Thursday
last, the 19th. Three in the afternoon."

Susan wrinkled her brow.

"I remember now," she said after a pause. "I went out to the post office
that afternoon."

"Was anybody with you?"

"No, but Mrs. Holt at the post office will remember, because Gandhi
chased--I mean, her cat ran after Gandhi, all over the shop. There was
quite a fuss about it."

The sergeant laughed.

"Excellent!" he said. "I will see Mrs. Holt on my way back. Now there is
only one more date--the worst case of all. Friday the 20th, that is,
yesterday, some time in the morning."

"I know that can't have been Gandhi," said Susan triumphantly. "I was
out riding on the downs that day, and he was with me all the time."

"Are you sure it was Friday morning?"

"Certain. I had been dancing in Brighton the night before."

"How does that help you to remember it?"

"Because the--the person I had been dancing with stayed the night here
and we went riding together the next day."

Susan was enraged to feel herself blushing like an early
nineteenth-century miss as she made the reply. It may be that the
sergeant noticed it, for his next question was: "Is he an independent
witness?"

"Not independent exactly," answered Susan, as coolly as she could. "As a
matter of fact, we're engaged to be married. If you want his name and
address," she went on, "here it is." And she handed him the letter which
she had addressed that morning.

"Thank you, miss," said the sergeant. He copied the address in his
notebook, and handed back the letter. "May I be allowed to congratulate
you?" he added, with grave courtesy.

"Thank you," said Susan in some confusion. First congratulations are
sweet, even when they come from a police officer.

Meanwhile the sergeant had risen to his feet.

"Will the wedding be soon?" he asked.

"Oh, quite soon. We've waited long enough as it is."

"Just so. And you'll be living in the country, no doubt?"

"No. We've just had the offer of a share in a farm in Kenya. We shall go
out there as soon as we're married."

"Ah, Kenya," said the sergeant musingly. "Well, I hope you'll be very
happy there. I'm sure. It's a fine life, they tell me, for those that
have a bit of capital behind them."

"Yes, it's a wonderful chance, isn't it?" said the girl eagerly. "It's
what I've always wanted, but I never thought we could manage it. I was
so surprised when he told me----" She stopped abruptly, as though she
had only just realized how far the conversation had led her away from
the matter in hand into her private affairs. "Is there anything else I
can tell you, sergeant?" she went on in a different tone.

"Nothing else, miss, thank you very much," said the sergeant genially,
stuffing his papers back into his pocket. "I must be getting back to
Lewes now. And I shouldn't worry too much about your dog. Between
ourselves I don't expect you will hear any more of this affair. Good
morning."

He paused in the doorway. "Perhaps I can post your letter for you in
Lewes?" he added.

"Oh, no, thanks. You needn't bother," Susan replied. "I've just thought
of something I wanted to add to it, as a matter of fact."

The sergeant gave an understanding smile.

"I see," he said. "Good-bye, then, miss. And good-bye, Gandhi."

General Jenkinson, who had elected to leave the stables just half a
minute too soon, encountered the sergeant as he was mounting his bicycle
in the drive. He would have passed indoors without noticing him, but he
felt that his dignity demanded that he should return the man's salute.
As he did so, he looked at him curiously.

"I haven't seen your face before," he said. "You're not a local man, are
you?"

"No, sir. I'm temporarily attached to this division."

"H'm," said the general. Then, almost automatically, he found himself
exclaiming: "Mind you, I take no responsibility for this dog--no
responsibility at all."

"Quite so, sir," said the sergeant soothingly. "The young lady took full
responsibility herself in the matter. But in any case," he went on, "I
don't think there is any reason for suspecting the animal. It seems
quite clear that he is not the one we're after. I'm only sorry you
should have been troubled in the matter."

"No trouble at all," the general assured him, "I'm always only too glad
to assist the police in any way. It's part of one's duty as a citizen,
in these days especially." He swelled visibly with pride at the
assistance he had rendered. "And mind you," he went on, "I shouldn't
have been at all sorry if it had turned out to be the dog you wanted.
It's a ridiculous dog, and she's given it a ridiculous name. I don't
care to have it about the house, I can tell you, sergeant. No pedigree,
no manners, and then to hear that name always being shouted about the
place--the name of the biggest enemy our Indian Empire has got--it's
monstrous!" He paused, and then added: "It isn't even as if it looked
like the blighter at all." The circumstance seemed for some reason to
add the final drop to his cup of bitterness. He went on: "Of course,
she's very fond of the dog, and all that, and I wouldn't see her unhappy
if it could be helped, but all the same, I shouldn't be sorry to see the
last of it--sheep-killing or no sheep-killing."

The sergeant, who had been making sympathetic noises during this tirade,
here took the opportunity to murmur deferentially: "I dare say you will
be seeing the last of it before long, sir. I presume the young lady will
take it with her when she marries."

"Oh, she told you she was going to get married, did she?" asked the
general.

"Yes, sir. But perhaps I oughtn't to have mentioned it."

"God bless my soul, why not? I approve of the affair entirely. She might
have done better for herself, I suppose, if she'd wanted to, but Harper
is a very decent young fellow--I knew his father well--very decent
people--quite a sahib in fact--oh, I approve, absolutely! Though, mind
you, the young people nowadays manage these affairs very differently
from what they did when I was their age. In those days no young man
would go near a girl's parents until he was in a position to keep her.
Nowadays they all seem to think they can rush into an engagement without
any prospects at all. Then they have to wait, and waiting's a ticklish
business for all concerned--unsettles them, if you, follow me."

"Quite so, sir," the sergeant agreed. "I've a daughter at home waiting
to be married, and I know what it's like."

"You understand, then. Well, it seems to be all fixed up now. Not such a
long wait as I feared. They've got round the difficulty somehow--heaven
knows how. That's the young people of today again, all over. Secrets,
you know. In my young days it was: what's your income, and how do you
earn it? Nowadays it's: I can keep your daughter and don't you ask any
questions. Still, I suppose we should be satisfied even with that, as
things go. We old 'uns aren't treated with the respect we used to get,
and that's a fact."

"Quite so, sir," the sergeant said again.

The general looked up, quite surprised to find that he had been
addressing a policeman, and not, as he had imagined in the oblivion
induced by eloquence, a crony in his club.

"Quite so," he repeated fiercely.

"You'll be sorry to lose her, sir, no doubt," added the sergeant. "I
understand they are to live out of England."

"The young fellow means to go out to Kenya, he tells me," said the
general. "Got the offer of a partnership in a farm there. And a very
good life for a young man--I don't approve of them hanging about in the
old country when there's Empire-building to be done elsewhere."

He stopped suddenly, as though conscious that he had been talking a good
deal. "Well, I mustn't keep you," he said, nodded curtly and strode into
the house.

The sergeant saluted his retreating back, mounted his bicycle and rode
slowly away. Before he had gone far, a curve in the drive hid the house
from view. Here he dismounted and with a sigh of relief undid the collar
of his tunic.

"Phew! That's better!" he murmured. "Well, thank heaven for the
garrulity of generals, anyhow. It was a very long shot," he added to
himself as he pedalled away once more, "but I've learned something,
anyhow. Marriage--money--Kenya--but where the devil does it all fit in?"

Outside the gates he was overtaken and stopped by a police car. A
superintendent got out.

"I don't approve of my sergeants going about the roads dressed in that
slovenly manner," he said with mock sternness. Then, with a smile:
"You'd better get in, Mallett. I've a man here who will take the bicycle
back for you."

"Thanks," was the reply. "I've worn these clothes about as long as is
good for them."

In the car, the superintendent observed: "By the way, we've found the
dog that's been doing the damage."

"Good," said Mallett. "You might let Miss Jenkinson know. I shouldn't
like her to be worried unnecessarily."

He could not but feel a hypocrite as he said it.

                 *        *        *        *        *

In the house, Susan was finishing a long postscript to her letter.

"Darling," she wrote, "since I finished this, rather an odd thing has
happened. I've had a policeman here--a sergeant, asking questions about
Gandhi!--sheep-killing, of all things, as if the poor lamb would even so
much as give a sniff at a loathsome great sheep. Of course I told him it
was all nonsense, and then he started asking me about dates and things,
and one of them was Friday. So, of course, I told him about our heavenly
ride on the Downs that day, and how Gandhi was with us every minute of
the time, and then--darling, you'll think me a perfect idiot--but he
asked me who you were and whether you could back up Gandhi's alibi or
whatever you call it, and then before I knew what I was doing I started
telling him all about you and how we found we could get married ages
sooner than we thought we could and--oh, angel! I do feel such a
complete worm to have gone and talked about our private selves to a
great red-faced policeman! As if it mattered to a soul except just us!
Do forgive me for being such an absolute fool. I feel so beastly about
it because, you see, I must tell you now, I have been a bit worried in
my mind ever since you told me about the money. It is marvellous having
it and all that it means, but, darling, why are you so _mysterious_
about it? Honestly, it makes me frightened sometimes. I hate to feel
there's something about you I'm not supposed to know. And then when a
great fat sergeant starts asking questions about you--he wasn't a bit
like an ordinary sergeant, really, much more polite and educated--I
suppose that's why I talked to him so much more than I meant. Dearest,
do tell me, really, is there anything about this money which--you know
what I mean, which the police oughtn't to know about? I don't mind what
it is--honestly, I don't--it's only you I care about. Do write soon, if
it's only to tell me I'm a nervous little fool. I get these silly
frights simply because I love you so much. . . ."

The rest of the letter is irrelevant.

                 *        *        *        *        *

"That sergeant talked a lot," remarked the general at dinner. "I hate a
talkative man." He took a spoonful of soup. "Now where all these
politicians go wrong about India. . . ."

India lasted well into the savoury.




                                   18
                        EVIDENCE IN MOUNT STREET


                                                   Sunday, November 22nd

A flurry of rain, driven on a gust of cold wind, sent pedestrians
running for shelter as Mallett turned into Mount Street. It was not a
morning for loitering out of doors any longer than was necessary, but
the inspector paused a moment beside a street hawker who stood, chilled
and dripping, on the pavement. He threw sixpence into his tray, took a
box of matches and looked into the man's face as he did so, raising his
eyebrows in enquiry.

"Du Pine went in half an hour ago," murmured the hawker.

"Alone?"

The man nodded, and then whined: "Thank you, sir, God bless you, sir,"
as someone brushed past them.

Mallett put the matches in his pocket and crossed the deserted street.
The house he sought was almost immediately opposite, and an observer
might have thought it strange that only when he had reached the other
side and was within a yard or two of the door did he unfurl the umbrella
in his hand. With what seemed unnecessary disregard for any other
passers-by, he held it right in front of his face. At that moment two
men emerged from the house door. They paused for an instant, looking
right and left, before getting into a small two-seater car which was
drawn up by the kerb. Not for the first time Mallett thanked the unknown
inventor of the umbrella, who has supplied us with a mask, effective and
opaque, which can be assumed in a moment, on at least nine days out of
ten in an English winter, without attracting the least suspicion. Only
one thing was needed to make it perfect from a detective's point of
view--an artistically contrived slit in the silk. Mrs. Mallett could
never understand why her husband consistently refused to have his
umbrella re-covered.

"Du Pine and--who?" the inspector asked himself, as he let down his
umbrella in the hall, while the noise of the car receded down the
street. "Thin, sandy, not too well dressed, toothbrush
moustache--Captain Eales, I should imagine. Better make a note of the
number of the car, anyway--VX 7810."

To Mallett, making a note of a fact or name was merely to repeat it once
to himself under his breath. Thereafter it was more securely recorded
that if it had been copied into a dozen notebooks.

He turned to the porter. "Is Mrs. Eales in?" he asked.

The man nodded. "Oh, she's in all right," he said. There was something
of a sneer in his voice, a knowing contempt that to Mallett as a man was
intensely disagreeable; for Mallett the detective, like anything else
out of the ordinary, it had its interest.

"Then take me up in the lift, please," he said sharply.

"Very good, sir. It's on the second floor. This way."

The maid who opened the flat door to Mallett's ring was young and
pretty, but her looks were marred by the expression, a compound of
peevishness and indifference, that is to be found on the faces of
servants in certain circumstances and in those circumstances only.

"She's under notice," was the inspector's instant reaction. "And she's
worried about it, too. Now what is her worry--her next place, or this
week's wages?"

"Mrs. Eales?" he asked.

"I don't know whether she can see you. I'm sure," said the maid. "She
isn't hardly up yet. Is she expecting you?"

"I'm from Scotland Yard," said Mallett.

"Oh. . . ." A gleam of interest appeared in her eyes. Then she shrugged
her shoulders. "I suppose you'd best come in then," she added with an
instant resumption of her pose of unconcern.

With a swish of her skirt that said as plainly as words: "If she has
nasty policemen coming after her, it's no affair of mine, thank
goodness!" she led the way to what was evidently the drawing-room.

"I'll tell her you're here," she said, in a tone from which the
inspector could guess the relish with which she would announce his
identity, and left him.

After the cold cheerlessness of the street, the warmth of Mrs. Eales's
drawing-room was agreeable. It was indeed a warmth that in a very few
moments began to produce on Mallett an impression of stuffiness.
Somewhere or other, concealed hot-water pipes were trying to dispel the
rigours of the outside world and succeeding, he felt, only too well. The
windows were closed, and heavy looped curtains shut out so much of the
scanty daylight that he would hardly have been able to examine his
surroundings without the aid of the electric light which the maid had
turned on before she left him.

"H'm," he said to himself, as he looked around him. "This place would
look better by night than by day, I fancy."

It was a fair-sized room, but the multiplicity of objects in it made it
look smaller than in fact it was. The modern craze for blank spaces and
clean, spare lines had evidently not affected Mrs. Eales. Nothing was
here that was not rounded, soft, stuffed, tasselled, fringed. The carpet
which covered the floor from wall to wall was thicker and heavier than
any carpet had a right to be, the huge divan was piled with cushions of
monstrous size. Everything in the apartment breathed an air of expensive
and unsophisticated comfort. From a little heap of illustrated society
papers on a side-table it might be deduced that its inhabitant had at
some time learned to read.

Mallett sniffed. "No books, of course," he murmured. "That's
characteristic. And"--he glanced round the walls, "no pictures either.
Not so characteristic. I wonder why. . . ."

He looked more closely. On either side of the mirror over the
mantelpiece a faint patch of wallpaper showed darker than the rest.
Above, two picture-hangers still depended from the rail. Mallett's mind
went back to the insolent porter, to the maid under notice. All pointed
in the same direction--Mrs. Eales was hard up, sufficiently so to be
selling things.

Had anything else gone? he wondered. It hardly seemed possible that a
room so crowded could ever have held anything more, but a very short
search proved that such was the case. The disinterested maid had
evidently neglected her duties for some days and the array of
miscellaneous curios and misnamed objets d'art that encumbered the
mantelpiece and occasional tables was thinly coated with dust. And here
and there a little ring of comparatively clean surface gave evidence
that not long since the ranks had been thinned. Mallett counted half a
dozen of them without difficulty--silent evidence that here a statuette
of jade or ivory, there a china figurine had been sacrificed to
necessity.

"I _do_ apologize for keeping you waiting like this," said a voice
behind him. He turned round as Mrs. Eales, a tremulous smile playing on
her lips, came towards him with outstretched hand.

"You've come about poor dear Pompey, of course?" she began.

"Pompey?" The inspector was nonplussed for a moment.

"How stupid of me--Mr. Ballantine, I mean. Pompey was just a little pet
name I had for him. Silly, of course, these pet names always are, don't
you think, Mr.--er----"

"Mallett."

"Mallett--thanks so much--but he used to get so pompous sometimes that
it seemed to suit him. And now he's----" she pressed a handkerchief to
her lips--"Oh, dear! I can't trust myself to talk about that."

"All the same, madam, I'm afraid I must ask you to talk about it," said
Mallett. "I am enquiring into Mr. Ballantine's death, and I am here to
find out what light you can throw on it."

"Of course, yes. I must be very brave. Though I don't know what light
you will get from poor little me. Do ask me anything you like. Let's sit
down here, shall we, and make ourselves comfortable?"

She sat down on the divan, and patted the place by her side in
invitation. Mallett had no objection to taking his place beside her. He
was not the type of man who would allow his judgment to be affected by
propinquity to an attractive woman, even when her charms were reinforced
by an exotic scent and a carefully indiscreet display of a silk
stocking. What was more important from his point of view, Mrs. Eales had
so placed herself that the light of the shaded lamp by the divan shone
on her. Sitting himself in semi-obscurity, Mallett studied her with
interest.

Like her drawing-room, Mrs. Eales probably looked best by artificial
light. Daylight, one felt, would have been too unkind to the lines of
anxiety and nervousness about the corners of her eyes and mouth,
revealed too clearly that her slender neck and throat were already just
a touch too stringy. But seen as Mallett saw her at this moment, she was
undeniably a handsome woman. She was dressed in unrelieved black, which
set off her fair skin admirably. Her make-up was sufficiently careful to
excuse the length of time for which she had kept the inspector waiting.
He speculated on what her age might be, but soon abandoned the attempt
and found himself watching instead the fascinating play of her
expressive brown eyes and thin white hands, neither of which seemed able
to be at rest for an instant.

"Will you smoke?" said Mrs. Eales, opening a box of gold-tipped
cigarettes. "Oh, but you prefer your own, I expect. Men always do, don't
they? I'll have one if you don't mind. Now then, Mr. Mallett, you want
to hear all about poor Pompey, I suppose. Of course, this has all been
the most frightful shock to me, and I can tell you here and now that I
have absolutely no idea how it can have happened. It's--it's been pretty
hard, coming just now, you know," she added, and for the first time
through the hard brightness of her voice crept a note of sincerity.

"I may take it that Mr. Ballantine's death has affected you rather
badly, financially," said Mallett.

She nodded. "The rent of this flat is paid for up to the end of the
year," she said, "and after that--well, it's going to be pretty
difficult, that's all. Pompey always said he'd put me down for something
handsome in his will, but I don't suppose there's anything to leave to
anyone now, is there? Still . . . I'm afraid this isn't much use to you,
is it, Mr. Mallett?"

"In cases of this kind," answered the inspector gravely, "it is always
important to know who stands to profit by the murder. What you tell me
is of importance from the point of view of--elimination, shall we say?"

"Meaning that I----? Yes, I suppose I might have guessed that when a man
is murdered, his mistress naturally comes under suspicion"--she
pronounced the ugly word in a defiant tone--"but in this case, if ever a
woman stood to lose by it, I did."

There was a pause, and then Mallett said: "Suppose you were to tell me
everything there is to tell about yourself and Mr. Ballantine?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "There's awfully little to tell really," she
replied. "We'd known each other off and on for some time--my husband was
connected with the turf in those days, and we used to meet at race
meetings a good deal. In the end, about two years ago, he took this flat
and--there you are."

"And since then he has lived with you here?"

"Yes. Perhaps that's putting it too definitely, though. He might be here
for weeks on end, perhaps, and then unaccountably he'd disappear for a
bit. Then one day he'd ring up and ask me to meet him for dinner
somewhere and afterwards he'd come back here and stay perhaps for a
night, perhaps for another long spell. He was an unexpected man in lots
of ways. I don't know where he went between whiles. This was his
headquarters, though, and of course it was always ready for him whenever
he cared to use it."

The phrase woke an echo in Mallett's mind. Where had he heard something
very like that before? Of course, Mrs. Ballantine had used almost the
same words in her evidence at the inquest. Mount Street and Belgrave
Square had both been open to Ballantine, but he had elected to die in
Daylesford Gardens! The reflection prompted his next question.

"Did he ever mention Daylesford Gardens to you--or Colin James?"

"Never. I'm positive of that. As a matter of fact, he didn't discuss
outside matters very much."

"You never tried to find out where he went to 'between whiles', as you
put it?"

"No. I could guess sometimes, of course. He was always a bit polygamous,
was Pompey. I never expected to have him all to myself. I know that
sounds rather cattish, Mr. Mallett, but I don't mean to be unkind. He
was just made that way. He was an awfully good sort in so many ways,
really, you know. People didn't understand him, and he had an iceberg
for a wife, but he'd do anything for anyone who knew how to be kind to
him." She sighed, and then, turning her lustrous eyes on the inspector,
said vehemently: "I'm sure there's a woman at the bottom of this! What
else should he have gone to a dreadful little place like that for?"

"There is no evidence of the presence of any woman in the house at
Daylesford Gardens," Mallett reminded her. "But there is evidence that
he may have been meditating leaving the country about the time that he
was killed. What would you say to that, Mrs. Eales?"

She flushed, drew herself up and shook her head. "No, that's not
possible," she muttered. "He wouldn't have done that without telling me.
After all, I was the person who counted most in his life, however many
others there were. Mr. Mallett," she went on, her voice rising as she
spoke, "you're not going to make me believe that Pompey meant to leave
me in the lurch. I was his, I tell you, his! We made no bones about
it--it was a perfectly open affair. Everybody knew we belonged to each
other!"

"Including your husband?" Mallett enquired drily.

Checked suddenly in the full flood of her eloquence, Mrs. Eales was
silent for a moment, while her flushed cheeks slowly paled.

"Oh, Charles!" she said at last, in a tone that might have meant
anything. Then she gave a forced laugh. "Well, yes--including him too, I
suppose. Does it matter very much? I mean, you don't want to hear about
all the details of a marriage that's--that's been a pretty bad failure,
do you, Mr. Mallett?"

The plea for sympathy was prettily contrived, but the inspector ignored
it.

"Obviously, I must know anything there is to know about the relations
between your husband and Mr. Ballantine," he said.

"But there weren't any--naturally!"

"Am I to understand that you were entirely separated from your husband
during your association with Mr. Ballantine?"

Mrs. Eales obviously found some difficulty in answering the question.
For the first time in the interview a trace of fear showed itself in her
wide-open eyes. Before she could answer, Mallett helped her out.

"You see," he said gently, "we know that already, within a fortnight of
Mr. Ballantine's death, you are seeing him again. It hardly looks as if
there has been any final breach between you, does it?"

The well-timed disclosure had its effect. Mrs. Eales, he felt certain,
had been on the brink of lying, though for what purpose he was still
uncertain. Once committed to a falsehood, she would have gone stumbling
on from one untruth to another, and her value as a contributor to the
story which he was trying to piece together would have gone for good.
Now the tension was relaxed and she began to speak again fluently and
naturally, though the hint of fear remained to trouble the even tones of
her voice.

"No," she said. "There wasn't any final breach. I'm afraid it's a little
difficult to put it into words. Our marriage had pretty well broken up
by the time I met Pompey, of course, or all this would never have
happened. But what had really broken it up was simply money--having no
money, I mean, of course. I'm afraid that sounds rather brutal, but it
is the fact. We are--we were always quite fond of each other, though it
hadn't been a love match by any means. But we were neither of us much
good at economizing, and I"--she glanced round the room and settled
herself back more deeply among the cushions--"I like my little comforts,
you see; I wasn't made to live on bread and cheese and kisses, and when
the cash ran short, well--life simply became a cat and dog fight. So
when this chance came along I told Charles that I'd simply got to take
it. It _was_ a bit hard on him, I know, but he saw my point."

"Do you mind if I smoke a pipe?" the inspector asked irrelevantly.

"Oh, not a bit. Please do. I _like_ to see a man smoke a pipe." Mrs.
Eales's mind reacted to certain stimuli with the infallibility of a
penny-in-the-slot machine. In response to Mallett's request the
appropriate clich popped out almost of its own volition.

Behind the comforting cloud of tobacco smoke Mallett tried to visualize
the situation Mrs. Eales had been describing--the selfish, shiftless
couple, tied in matrimony the bands of which grew more and more frayed
as their money melted away, the wife calmly announcing that she was
going to live with a man who could keep her in comfort, and the
husband--what had his attitude been? What would the attitude of such a
man as Captain Eales be?

"What terms did your husband make for consenting to this arrangement?"
he asked.

"Terms? I don't understand."

"But, Mrs. Eales," said Mallett in tones of gentle expostulation, "you
can't really ask me to believe that your husband simply let this happen
without trying to get something out of it for himself."

She shook her head.

"I'm afraid Charles made very little out of it," she said. "Mr. Mallett,
you've simply no idea how hateful it is for me to be talking in this way
about my husband, but it was such a very difficult position for both of
us, wasn't it? I am sure that you, in your profession, learn to look on
these things in such a much more broad-minded way than other people
would--Well, I promised Charles I'd do what I could for him, and I did
try to help him in lots of ways, but there was so little I _could_ do. I
never had any money to speak of to give him. Pompey was very generous in
a way, but he always wanted to know where the money had gone to, and it
was really _most_ difficult for me. And for Charles, too, of course.
Poor fellow, what could he do?"

"He could have divorced you, of course, and got enormous damages from
any jury," said Mallett impatiently.

He looked at Mrs. Eales as he spoke, and something in her expression
prompted him to add: "Or couldn't he?"

"No, Mr. Mallett," she answered in a voice that was hardly more than a
whisper. "That is just what--he--could--not. Oh!" she went on in a
sudden passionate outburst, "I do think our divorce laws are the most
horribly unjust things that ever were invented! Simply made to make
people unhappy and _force_ them to break the law if they're going to
look respectable! As if a poor creature like that counted as being alive
at all, after all these years in a madhouse! Why doesn't someone _do_
something about it, I want to know?"

Mallett heard this rigmarole out with an impassive countenance. When it
was over, he said in his most matter-of-fact tone:

"Captain Eales couldn't divorce you because he was married already?"

"Yes."

"His first wife being in a lunatic asylum?"

"Yes."

"So that your marriage to him was invalid and bigamous?"

"Yes--and now I suppose it's all got to come out." She was weeping
now--or at all events, going through the motions of weeping with great
virtuosity.

"Possibly," said Mallett. "But I am investigating murder, not bigamy. Do
you feel strong enough to answer any more questions?"

Mrs. Eales raised her head from the cushions in which she had hidden it
and began to powder her nose with great vigour.

"Yes. Please go on," she said. "I'm sorry to have been so silly, but you
do understand how very, very hard things have been for me, don't you,
Mr. Mallett?"

"Quite," said the inspector, feeling as he did so that it was a
singularly inadequate answer. "Now," he went on, "I must ask you this:
when did you first know that your husband was already married?"

"Not when I married him," she answered quickly. "I swear that!"

"When, then?"

"Oh, quite lately--less than two years ago."

"I see. Then it was after you had come to live with Mr. Ballantine?"

"Yes."

Mallett pursed his lips. He thought he saw light.

"Was it Mr. Ballantine who told you?" he demanded.

She nodded. "I believe he'd known about it all along," she muttered half
to herself.

"And I suppose," the inspector pursued, "he told you about it when
your--when Captain Eales began to threaten divorce proceedings?"

She did not answer. Mallett had no need to press for a reply. The
situation was quite clear to him now. Obviously the couple had marked
down Ballantine as their prey from the start. Eales had allowed or
encouraged his "wife" to ensnare the financier, with the intention, from
the first, of making him pay dearly for his pleasure. But Ballantine had
been too clever for him. A man in his position would have ample means of
investigating the history of anyone he pleased, and when the
blackmailing demands began he calmly called the bluff, and threatened
the would-be petitioner with exposure as a bigamist. It was a trick
quite in keeping with all that he, Mallett, had heard of Ballantine's
character. Only one point remained obscure. Was Mrs. Eales telling the
truth when she declared her ignorance of her husband's first marriage?
If so, perhaps she was as much the victim of his plot as Ballantine had
been intended to be. In the upshot, she had chosen to stay with
Ballantine, enjoying all the comforts he could provide, while Eales was
left out in the cold, an outwitted, impoverished, furiously angry man--a
man with murder in his heart, perhaps. "But why wait two years?" Mallett
asked himself, and could find, at the moment, no answer.

He turned to Mrs. Eales again.

"In spite of this disclosure, you went on helping your husband as far as
you could?" he asked.

She nodded. "He _was_ my husband, you see. I couldn't let an accident
like that make any difference, could I?"

Mallett with difficulty suppressed a smile. The _navet_ of the reply
was disarming. He went on:

"And what exactly has your husband been doing during these two years?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I never knew exactly," she said lightly.
"He used to sell things on commission a good deal, I think. He tried the
motor trade for a time, I know. Then it was silk stockings--anything
that offered. He was always dreadfully hard up."

"Where was he living?"

"Oh . . . different places, I suppose."

"Including this one--when Mr. Ballantine was away?"

"No. He'd only come here during the daytime when he knew Pompey would be
out. It was a little difficult, of course. Very often we'd have a meal
together, and if he had any work to do he could do it here."

The inspector looked round the room. "Here?" he asked.

"In Pompey's study, I mean."

"But since Mr. Ballantine's death, he has been living in this flat, has
he not?"

"Oh, yes," answered Mrs. Eales brightly. "But of course that's
different, isn't it?"

Mallett expressed no opinion. Mrs. Eales' ideas of propriety were
altogether beyond him, and he was thankful that an investigation into
them was not within his province. Instead, he rose and said: "Will you
show me the study, please?"

                 *        *        *        *        *

"I'm afraid there's nothing much to see here," said Mrs. Eales. "Pompey
never kept any private papers here. He used to bring back papers and
things from the office to work on them, but he always took them away
next morning."

They were standing in the study, a small, sparsely furnished room, which
was in marked contrast to the one they had just quitted. An open desk
was innocent of papers, except for a few clean sheets of writing-paper.
Some of these, the inspector noticed, bore the address of the flat,
others the headings of the various companies with which Ballantine had
been associated.

"Of course, I never knew what work he did," Mrs. Eales went on. "He kept
everything in a big attach case, and that was always locked."

Mallett forbore to ask how she came to know this. Evidently Ballantine
had taken no chances with the lady of his choice.

"I see there is a typewriter over there," he remarked. "Did Mr.
Ballantine use that?"

"Yes."

"Captain Eales, too?"

"Sometimes."

"May I use it now?" He eyed her narrowly as he spoke.

"Yes, of course," she replied, obviously surprised at his request.

Mallett took a sheet of the notepaper which bore the name of the London
and Imperial Estates Company, and painfully, for he was no expert at the
craft, hammered out from memory a replica of the letter which had sent
him on his journey to Brighton.

"Thank you," he said when he had done. "I have only a few more questions
to ask you. When did you last see Mr. Ballantine?"

"A few days before--before he was found."

"Can't you be more definite? What day of the week was it, do you
remember?"

"A Tuesday or Wednesday. I think--Wednesday, I'm almost sure."

"We know that he was alive on the Thursday and Friday of that week. You
didn't see him on either of those days?"

"No--I had seen very little of him all that month."

"Or hear from him?"

"No."

"Thank you. Now would you mind telling me, please, what Mr. Du Pine was
doing here this morning?"

"Mr. Du Pine?"

"That was what I said."

"I--I really don't know." Her voice faltered. "He came to see my
husband. They went away together."

"I know that," said Mallett sternly. "But that isn't an answer to my
question. What were they doing together?"

"I don't know," she repeated in a despairing tone. "Honestly I don't.
I--I wish I did. He never would tell me."

"You do know, at any rate, that Captain Eales has been in some sort of
connection with Mr. Du Pine, then?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

"Oh, several months, I should think--since last summer, anyway."

"You didn't mention it just now, when I was asking you." Mallett
reminded her.

"No--I'm sorry--I didn't think it mattered," was the lame reply.

"But it was some sort of business connection, apparently."

"Yes--but it's no good asking me what it was, because I simply can't
tell you. He was always frightfully mysterious about it. It--it rather
frightened me."

"What was there to be frightened about?"

She shuddered slightly. "Du Pine," she muttered. "There's something
horrible about him. He frightens me badly."

A few minutes later, Mallett took his leave, his mind stored with fresh
facts and impressions, and a slip of typed paper in his pocket. Further
questioning had wholly failed to elicit anything more from Mrs. Eales as
to the nature of her husband's business with Du Pine and the way in
which she protested her ignorance convinced the detective that she was
being sincere. Only one thing he was able to discover--that the
business, whatever it was, had involved some kind of travelling abroad,
but whither or when the journeys had been made she could not, or would
not, say.

Mallett let himself out of the little study into the passage which led
to the front door. As he did so, a flutter of skirts round the corner
told him that the sulky maidservant had not been altogether so incurious
in her mistress's affairs as she had appeared. He caught up with her in
the hall. "You were listening at the door, I suppose?" he said quietly.

"Yes," she answered defiantly. "And what's more, I can tell you
something."

"Well?"

"I know when the captain went abroad--and so does _she_, no matter what
she says."

"Never mind about your mistress. How do you know?"

"I heard him say it--same as I heard you just now--see? 'I'm making a
little trip abroad tonight,' he said, plain as I'm saying it now."

"When was that?"

"In the morning, when he'd come in to see her."

"But what morning?" asked Mallett, exasperated.

"Friday the 13th," answered the maid with gloomy conviction. "You don't
forget a date like that in a hurry. And as for starting a journey--I
could have told him it would come to no good."

Mallett's face showed no trace of emotion, and the girl, looking eagerly
to see the effect of her disclosure, was plainly disappointed.

"It's true, what I'm telling you!" she insisted.

By way of reply, the inspector merely said: "What is your name?"

"Dawes--Florence Dawes, I am, and I----"

"Your evidence may be wanted by us. Where can you be found?"

"Not here, I can't--not after the end of this week, I can tell you
that!" she spat out angrily.

Still impassive, Mallett took down the address she gave him and found
his way out into the wet and windy street.

"If Mrs. Eales had sold a few more things to pay her servant's wages,"
he murmured to himself as he strode along the streaming pavement, "she
would have saved herself and her husband a lot of trouble."




                                   19
                   RESULTS OF A LITTLE QUIET THINKING


                                                   Monday, November 23rd

"That's the machine, all right," said Frant.

Mallett and he stood at a table looking down at two typewritten letters
on the office paper of the London and Imperial Estates Ltd. The
inspector took a magnifying glass and pored for some time over the
documents.

"Yes," he said at last, straightening himself. "This letter", he pointed
to the one signed by Lord Henry Gaveston, "was typed by the machine I
handled this morning. Do you notice that 'c' a little out of alignment?
And if you look through the glass you will see a tiny fault in the
crossbar of the capital 'J'. We'll get an expert to check it, but that's
good enough for our purposes."

Frant was beaming. He rubbed his hands and twittered with excitement.

"By Jove, we've got him!" he exclaimed. Then he looked up into his
superior's face. What he saw there prompted him to add more doubtfully:
"Haven't we, sir?"

Mallett's forehead was furrowed with thought. He pulled his moustache
until it seemed that the hairs must come out by the roots. For some time
he stood in silence as though he had not heard the sergeant's
exclamation. At last he turned slowly and said in a restrained voice:

"Have we? Let's sit down and think this over quietly."

He seated himself at his desk and drew a piece of paper from a drawer.
Frant sat down opposite him, his effervescence suddenly subsiding to an
uncomfortable flatness.

"In the first place," said Mallett, unscrewing the cap of his
fountain-pen, "who is 'he'?"

"Well, Eales, I suppose," said the sergeant.

"Eales," repeated the inspector gravely. He wrote the name down at the
head of the sheet. "Motive?" he went on.

"Money," said Frant promptly. "Money and jealousy--and perhaps the fear
of exposure as a bigamist."

Mallett wrote down: "Money, jealousy, exposure" under the heading
"Motive".

"Evidence?" was his next question.

"The letter to the bank," was the ready answer.

"You mean that he could have written it," Mallett pointed out.

"Yes--of course, it doesn't go further than that."

"Access to typewriter," wrote Mallett.

"He could have put it among Ballantine's papers and got it taken to the
office that way," Frant went on.

"M'm. Could he? Ballantine kept his attach case well locked,
remember----"

"If Mrs. Eales is telling the truth----"

"Agreed. And so far as we know, he never was in the flat at the same
time as Ballantine, and Ballantine was never separated from the case.
The first proposition doesn't depend only on Mrs. Eales. It's plain
common sense. The second does, though, and she may be wrong there." He
wrote a few words and then read: "Query, access to Ballantine's papers?"

"He may have had access to Du Pine's papers, too," put in Frant.

"Yes," Mallett admitted. "We know he was on close terms with Du Pine.
But there are some difficulties there. First--why should he have typed
the letter at his wife's flat and not at Du Pine's house? Second--isn't
that theory equally consistent with Du Pine being his accomplice?"

"That is a possibility--yes," Frant agreed, reluctantly.

"It doesn't look quite so simple, when you come to look into it, does
it?" the inspector went on. "Now what else have we to put down under
'Evidence'?"

"His trip abroad on the night of the murder."

Mallett noted the point. "Has it occurred to you", he added when he had
finished writing, "that this all turns on our theory that Ballantine was
killed by Colin James?"

"Of course."

"Then you think that Eales was James--on the evidence of this letter?"

"Not on that only," Frant objected. "Here's a man who for a long time
has had no fixed abode. That would give him plenty of opportunity to
live in Daylesford Gardens as Colin James for a few weeks without
attracting suspicion. Then you have the mysterious journey abroad on the
night of the 13th. I agree that he may be able to explain it away. But
until he does--and I've a feeling that he won't be able to--I maintain
that we've a strong case against him. All the facts fit him in a way
they fit nobody else."

While his subordinate was speaking, Mallett jotted down the salient
points. Then he said: "There's one fact that doesn't fit him very well,
you know."

"What fact?"

"The beard. Eales has a moustache, as I think you know--a reddish
toothbrush affair. I know what you're going to say, Frant. He could have
covered it up with a false one which would go with the beard. But
James--the real James, I mean--had his upper lip clean-shaven. Why go to
the trouble of stealing a passport and making yourself up as the man it
belongs to, if you won't even take the trouble to shave?"

"Murderers aren't necessarily logical," protested Frant. "It's absurd to
be prepared to murder and to boggle at shaving off your moustache, but
people do absurd things. I don't find anything impossible in the idea."

"Very well, then. We keep Eales in the running. By the way, how does
that square with your theory of yesterday--that the murder was done by
James and Fanshawe in collaboration?"

Frant pondered.

"It doesn't," he admitted. "That is, we have no clue as yet to any
connection between Eales and Fanshawe--except just this, that they both
went abroad on the same night."

"And that is something," the inspector agreed. "It would be asking
rather a lot from coincidence to expect that three people mixed up this
case happened to choose the same night to travel. Apart from that,
though, there is no connection between them. Moreover there is a
connection, and a close one, between Eales and Du Pine, which doesn't
seem to square with his having anything to do with Fanshawe, Du Pine's
mortal enemy. To all appearances, they are two quite independent people
who happen to have reason to hate the same man. At the moment I'm
inclined to think that if Eales goes in, Fanshawe comes out."

He wrote a few more words on his paper.

"May be James," he murmured. He underlined the word "may". "It doesn't
seem to me to make sense," he complained. "That moustache still bothers
me. What you say may be right enough as a general proposition, but it
doesn't seem to me to fit this case. James, whoever he was, laid his
plans with the greatest care, took every precaution. Why should he omit
this obvious and simple one? And then why did Eales tell his wife that
he was going to France? It was quite unnecessary. As James, he
advertised the fact, naturally. But doesn't it seem to follow that as
Eales, he would keep it as dark as possible?"

Frant groaned. "I give it up," he said. "You seem to have an answer to
everything. I was a fool to jump to conclusions. We're not an inch
farther on than we were."

"Don't let's be in too much of a hurry," said Mallett. "We needn't go to
the other extreme all at once. All these objections may be explained
away. I'm only saying that at present we haven't the evidence to arrest
Eales for murder." He drew out another sheet of paper and went on:
"After all, Eales isn't the only pebble on our particular beach. We've
got quite a number of facts accumulated here now, pointing different
ways, and to different people. I propose that we take each one in turn,
and treat him just as we did Eales and see what it amounts to. Who comes
next?"

"Du Pine?" suggested the sergeant.

"Yes, he seems to follow logically. Motive?"

"He wanted to get his share of the boodle which he knew Ballantine was
making off with."

"Good enough. Evidence?"

"He could have introduced the letter to the bank among Lord Henry's
papers."

"Certainly. Anything more?"

"He was doing something shady in association with Eales, so the
arguments against Eales apply to him to some extent."

"Yes. . . . Du Pine could not have been James, I take it?"

"No. I've checked him up, and he was in London on the Saturday and
Sunday following the murder."

"Not James," wrote Mallett. "Must therefore have had assistance."

"That seems to follow," Frant agreed. "The only other point against him
I can suggest is his general behaviour."

"It was certainly uncouth enough to frighten Mrs. Eales fairly
considerably," said Mallett.

"And he himself is frightened very badly of something."

"To judge from what I saw at the inquest, the something was a someone,
and his name was Fanshawe." Mallett finished Du Pine's meagre dossier,
and went on: "Fanshawe! I think he deserves a sheet to himself."

"No difficulty about a motive there."

"Motive overwhelming," went on to the paper. Then followed briefly:
"Evidence--(a) Threats; (b) Opportunity; (c) Travel."

"That looks fairly impressive," remarked Frant.

"Yes. How much more impressive it would be if we didn't have to add
something." And Mallett wrote: "Not Colin James."

"How lucky for Fanshawe," he observed, "that James and Ballantine were
seen going into Daylesford Gardens, and James was seen coming out."

"There's no doubt about the bona fides of the witness Roach, is there?"
asked Frant.

"None at all. I've had him looked up. He seems to be a most reliable
little man. By the way, is there any evidence that Fanshawe has profited
by the crime--financially, I mean?"

"No. He is living very quietly with his sister in Daylesford Court
Mansions. I should say he was decidedly badly off."

"Did you go to Rawson's in Cornhill to see whether he got his ticket to
Paris from there?"

"Yes. It was quite correct and in order."

Mallett sighed and placed the paper neatly on the others.

"Harper comes next, I think," he said. "His motive is the same as
Fanshawe's, only at one remove, so to speak, _plus_ money, perhaps. And
unlike Fanshawe, he has got suddenly richer since the murder. Like Du
Pine, he has something to hide, and something frightens him. Unlike
Eales or Du Pine, he does not appear to have had any previous connection
with Ballantine, or knowledge of his transactions. Unlike anybody else
on the list, he professes actually to have seen James--and,
incidentally, either accidentally or on purpose, he has contrived to
cover James's tracks very thoroughly. An odd person, Harper, and in an
odd position too. He seems to link up so many different parts of the
puzzle."

"You don't think he did the murder, do you?" said Frant.

"Did it? No. . . ."

"Or helped to do it in any way?"

"He certainly helped to do it, by letting James the house in Daylesford
Gardens. That may be just coincidence, of course. But if you could have
seen him on the day we discovered the body--I tell you, Frant, that boy
knows something! The question that's worrying me is--does he know that
he knows it?"

There was silence for a space, broken only by the faint scratch of the
inspector's pen travelling over the paper. Another sheet was added to
the pile, and then the two men sat without speaking, each absorbed in
his thoughts.

"Then there's Crabtree," said Frant at last.

"Crabtree? Yes, of course, the servant. We mustn't forget him. Let's
see, his motive is Harper's--at one remove further this time. He was at
Daylesford Gardens, and we only have his word for it that he left on
Friday morning. He might have stayed there all day and finished
Ballantine off when he came in with James."

"That makes him an accomplice of James," said the sergeant.

"Not necessarily, though it looks like it. But James might have left
Ballantine behind him alive and well, and then Crabtree took the
opportunity to kill him and fill his pockets with whatever cash
Ballantine had on him. With some of the money he goes to Spellsborough
races, and the rest he gives to Harper who, in return, promises him a
good job, in Kenya probably. How does that strike you?"

"Not very favourably, I must say."

Mallett laughed. "Nor does it me," he admitted. "But you see that, given
the right assumptions, there's not one of them we can't make a case of
sorts against. And we know perfectly well that they're assumptions no
jury in the world would be prepared to make. And all the time we're no
nearer than we were at the start to answering the two questions we've
got to answer before we have the full history of this crime--who was
Colin James, and why did Ballantine go to Daylesford Gardens?"

"They're a mixed bag of suspects," said Frant, stirring the little sheaf
of papers with his finger.

"Yes, but they're all connected in one way or another. Beginning with
James, you have Crabtree who kept house for James, Harper who got the
job for Crabtree, Fanshawe who was Harper's father's friend, Du Pine who
is afraid of Fanshawe, and Eales who does some dirty work for Du Pine.
Add Mrs. Eales to the chain and you bring it back to Ballantine."

"Well, we wanted to find the connection between James and Ballantine,"
said the sergeant with a grin, "and here it is. But it is a desperately
roundabout one."

"Yes, it's rather like the old woman and the pig who wouldn't get over
the stile. But we've still got another suspect to put on the list."

"You mean Mrs. Eales?"

"No; though there are still some things about that lady I don't
understand. I don't expect any man could understand her altogether, for
the matter of that."

"Mrs. Ballantine, then?"

"No, no. This isn't a woman's crime. Besides, she had long got past the
stage of hating Ballantine enough to murder him, if I'm any judge of
character. I think she was the kind of woman to go on making the poor
sinner's life a burden to him with her rectitude and patience, and to
take a pride in putting up with all the unhappiness he caused her. The
suspect we've got to put on the list is a more dangerous character than
that."

"Who do you mean?"

"X," answered the inspector. "The unknown quantity, who may upset all
our calculations. It's fatal to forget him. Whenever you make a list of
possible criminals, you are apt to put yourself in blinkers and forget
that anyone exists outside your list. Always put in X, and keep a sharp
lookout for him."

"And how do we set about finding X?" asked Frant, with heavy irony.

"I propose to do a little quiet thinking," said Mallett. "Unless we're
unexpectedly lucky, I don't think anything more is going to turn up to
help us. The facts are here," he pointed to the desk, "and I've got to
spell them out."

"But you said just now," Frant objected, "that there's nothing there to
justify a conviction."

"Perhaps not. But when I know where to look, it won't be too hard to
find the material I want. At least, I hope not. There is such a thing,
of course, as knowing who the murderer is and not being able to bring it
home to him."

Frant rose to go.

"While you are doing that," he said, "do you mind if I do a little work
on my own?"

"Of course not. What had you in mind?"

"I still think Eales is the likeliest man on our little list. Certainly
he's the one we know least about. I should like to apply for a warrant
for his arrest."

"A warrant?"

"Yes--for bigamy."

Mallett stared at him. "But you can't," he said. "Not on Mrs. Eales's
story to me alone."

"I don't mean to. If Ballantine found out about his first marriage,
there ought to be some record of it in his papers. Renshaw has them all.
I shall ask him to let me go through them."

Mallett was never slow to show appreciation of a subordinate's ideas.
"That's a really good suggestion," he said. "Do that. Find out if we can
prove Mrs. Eales's story to be true, and let me know."

"And then, may I apply for a warrant?"

The inspector smiled, somewhat in the manner of a parent humouring a
child anxious for a treat.

"We'll see," he said. "Perhaps when I've thought this out, we shall be
wanting a warrant for something more serious than bigamy."

"Then you think I may have been right about Eales after all?"

"No, I don't!" roared the inspector, exasperated. "I don't think
anything yet. I'm only asking you to go away and let me think!" And
Frant found himself fairly hustled out of the room.

"Thinking seems to be a whole-time occupation for some people," was the
sergeant's unspoken comment as he left. "And I'm prepared to bet that
the first thing he does is to go out and make a pig of himself over
lunch."

                 *        *        *        *        *

Frant did not return for some hours. When at length he again walked
along the corridor that led to Mallett's room, it was with the long,
impatient strides of a bearer of good news. He knocked at the door, and,
receiving no answer, entered at once. The words he was already framing
died away in an exclamation of surprise and disgust. His superior
officer was lying back in his chair, his eyes closed, his feet
miraculously poised on an overturned waste-paper basket which seemed to
be on the verge of crumpling beneath their weight, his great body
stirring gently and rhythmically with the deep-taken breaths of sleep.

Exactly when Mallett woke up, Frant could not say. He was only gradually
aware, as he looked down on him, that he was being scrutinized from
under half-closed eyelids, that the corners of the mouth had twisted
slightly into a friendly, almost mischievous grin. This stage lasted for
a few seconds only, and then, quite suddenly, the whole man started to
life at once. With a convulsive jerk the inspector sat up abruptly in
his chair, his feet under him, his eyes wide open. The waste-paper
basket was sent spinning across the room by the sudden movement until it
was brought up short by the opposite wall. There it remained, the sole
witness to an unfortunate lapse in the career of an exemplary officer.

It was an embarrassing moment for the sergeant, whose genuine respect
for Mallett reinforced the dictates of discipline in constraining him to
do his best to look as though nothing unusual had happened. But Mallett
remained genially unashamed.

"Do you know," he said with the air of one imparting a deep confidence,
"I was almost asleep when you came in? I was tired," he added, somewhat
unnecessarily.

The agreeable smile had not left his lips, and this emboldened Frant to
ask, with a touch of malice: "Did you have a good lunch?"

"I haven't had any," was the surprising reply. "Is it late?"

"Nearly three o'clock."

"Good lord! Well, it can't be helped. Now tell me what you've been
doing."

Frant was so astonished by the inspector's uncharacteristic indifference
to his meal-times, which he felt must portend some occurrence of great
importance, that the news he had come hot-foot to tell seemed in
comparison a minor matter. But as he told his story something of his
earlier enthusiasm returned, and the obvious interest with which Mallett
listened gave him additional encouragement.

"I went straight to Renshaw after leaving you," he began, "and he gave
me a free hand with all Ballantine's papers. There was nothing at all to
be found among the private documents that helped me in the least. There
were very few private documents of any kind, for the matter of that."

"I'm not surprised," commented Mallett. "For one reason or another,
Ballantine took care to leave very little in the way of personal papers
behind him."

"Then it occurred to me," Frant went on, "to look at his passbooks. I
thought that if he had been investigating Eales's past, he would
probably have employed someone to do the donkey-work for him."

"An enquiry agency, you mean?"

"Just so. There aren't so many of them in London, and I carry most of
their names in my head. I began with the passbooks of three years ago
and it wasn't very long before I came across a series of payments to
Elderson."

"Elderson?"

"Yes, the name struck me at once. You remember the clever little man who
was in U Division and had to resign from the force over the Barkinshaw
affair? He set up in business as a private enquiry agent in Shaftesbury
Avenue."

"I remember him perfectly well," said Mallett. "I think we've had some
trouble with him since. Wasn't there rather a serious complaint from one
of his clients a year or two ago?"

Frant nodded. "The complaint was withdrawn later," he said, "but it gave
friend Elderson a bad fright at the time. I thought that fact might come
in handy if I had to put pressure on him, and so it turned out."

"You went to see him, then?"

"Straight away. He was very smooth-spoken and ingratiating--just as he
always used to be--until I told him what I'd come about. Then he turned
difficult at once. He said he was very sorry, but his business being a
highly confidential one, he made a point of keeping no record of his
clients' business. He showed me his advertisements, in which he
guaranteed absolutely that all records were destroyed as soon as a case
was concluded. They looked most impressive, I must say." Frant chuckled
at the recollection.

"Well?"

"Well, I reminded him of the affair we've just been speaking of, and
suggested to him that if he wanted to put himself in a better light with
Scotland Yard, perhaps it would be as well if he thought the matter over
again."

"Most immoral," grunted the inspector.

"Wasn't it? Well, the long and the short of it was that in the end he
admitted, most reluctantly, that in the very peculiar circumstances of
this case, he had perhaps allowed a few records of his dealings with
Ballantine to survive. I asked to see them, and he went to his safe and
brought out the fattest file you ever saw in your life. I should think
Ballantine must have been an exceptionally valuable client of his. He
seems to have made it his business to pry into the private affairs of
every man, woman and child he ever had to deal with."

"Including Eales?"

"Including Eales. Including also Mrs. Eales--the first and second."

"Aha!"

"I've brought the relevant papers away with me," went on Frant with a
triumphant air, "and here they are. Here is a copy of Elderson's letter
to Ballantine enclosing a certified copy of the certificate of marriage
between Charles Roderick Eales, bachelor, and Sarah Evans, spinster, on
the 14th July, 1920, at the parish church of Oakenthorpe, Yorkshire;
here is his report of his visit to the North Riding County Asylum and a
transcript of the register of inmates there; here is the name and
address of the doctor who certified her; here is----"

"Stop, stop!" Mallett begged. "I'll take it as read. I'm a tired and
hungry man, remember. Eales is a bigamist. We knew that already, but now
we know just how, when and where he bigamized. We know when he was
lawfully married and who to, and which asylum his wife is in. We have
only got to send up to Yorkshire to get the evidence and he can be
arrested whenever we like. Is that what you were going to say?"

"Well, yes," the sergeant admitted. "It was--more or less."

"Then there's nothing more to be said--except to congratulate you on a
smart piece of work. It was a really brilliant idea to get at the
information through Ballantine's passbook. And what do you propose to do
next?"

"Exactly what you suggested just now, sir--get the evidence and put
Eales under lock and key as soon as possible. When we do, I think we
shall find out something further about Master Eales."

"I think we shall," said Mallett meditatively, and was silent for a
moment, a barely perceptible smile flickering over his features. "In any
case," he added, "I think we can say we have done a useful bit of work
today."

It was Frant's turn to smile. After the hard work that he had just
completed, Mallett's "we" struck him as decidedly entertaining, to say
the least of it. His amusement did not pass unobserved.

"I said 'we'," repeated Mallett. "May I point out that you haven't asked
me yet what I have been doing while you were away?"

"But you told me yourself," objected the sergeant. "You have been
thinking, haven't you?"

"Exactly--but I thought you might be interested enough to enquire the
result of my efforts. Or doesn't thought interest you?"

"Very much indeed," Frant hastened to reassure him.

"I am delighted to hear it. Well, then, after some hard and decidedly
tiring thinking"--Mallett stifled an enormous yawn--"I have come to some
definite conclusions. One definite conclusion, perhaps it would be more
accurate to say, from which the rest follows as a matter of course."

"And that conclusion is----?"

"The identity of Colin James."

Frant took a sharp breath of excitement. The inspector went on calmly:
"That identity once established, it becomes perfectly simple to
ascertain who killed Ballantine, and why, and how and all the rest of
the story."

"Of course, we've always assumed that. But who is James?"

"Unfortunately," Mallett proceeded, "having done that, we are only
halfway to our objective. The business of detection", he continued
pedantically, "is in two parts. First, we have to discover the criminal.
That can be done, as I have done it in this case, by pure deduction from
sometimes very slender evidence. Second, we have to prove his guilt to
the satisfaction of a jury. That, as you know very well, is often the
hardest part of our task. I think that in this instance it won't turn
out too impossibly difficult, now that I know exactly what I am looking
for. And for a start----"

Frant could bear it no longer. "But James! James" he almost shouted.
"Who is Colin James?"

"As I was saying--for a start, I think I shall go and have another chat
with Gaveston."

Frant stopped in the act of repeating his question, open-mouthed, while
he groped for the significance of the name. "Gaveston?" he said at last.
"The silly old man who signed the letter? I don't understand. What
earthly good can he be?"

"No, not that one, but his brother, Lord Bernard. A much more
interesting person to talk to, altogether. I shall enjoy seeing him
again. Last time we met, he dropped something in the course of
conversation that makes me think he has some knowledge which will be
useful."

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders. "This is all very mysterious," he
grumbled. "I'm supposed to be helping you in this case, and you won't
tell me the most important thing in it. If you won't, you won't, I
suppose, but I don't see why I should be kept in the dark."

Mallett's eyes were dancing mischievously. "Think, Frant, think," he
taunted him. "It's not so difficult when you get down to it. We had a
list, didn't we? Let's see, now, who were they?"

"Eales, Du Pine, Fanshawe, Harper, Crabtree," said Frant rapidly,
"and----"

"Yes?"

"And, of course--X."

"I think we can leave him out now."

His pencil played busily across a writing-pad. Then he tore off the
sheet and passed it across the desk.

Frant read as follows:

"Identity of Colin James.

"The following are the names of the chief suspects in the case of Lionel
Ballantine:

                               Eales
                               Du Pine
                               Fanshawe
                               Harper
                               Crabtree."

"Do you mean", he asked, "that James is one of the people on this list?"

"Certainly."

Frant shook his head slowly, as he read once more the list of names he
knew so well. Then Mallett's hand reached over towards him and the
pencil made a cross against one of them. He stared at it, then looked up
again, his face still clouded with perplexity.

"But I don't understand," he muttered. "How----"

"It is a bit difficult at first sight," Mallett admitted, "like most
very simple things. Let me see if I can make it a little clearer."

He took the paper back again, and wrote a few further words at the foot.

"Now do you see?" he asked, handing the sheet across once more.

There was a strained silence while the sergeant slowly spelled out the
significance of what Mallett had just written. Then his face suddenly
cleared, and he burst into a peal of laughter.

"Good lord!" he exclaimed. "Why didn't we think of that before? It
explains everything!"

"Everything?" said Mallett reflectively. "I'm not so sure. The
murder--yes. That is after all the essential question. But I am still
troubled in my mind about _these_ fellows"--his pencil stabbed the page
once and again. "How do they fit into the story? I shan't be satisfied
until I know. And now would you mind sending out for some sandwiches for
me--beef ones, with plenty of mustard? There's a lot to discuss still,
and I should hate to die of starvation in the very moment of success."

Frant went to the door, and then turned and picked up the slip of paper.

"In case you don't survive until I get back," he remarked as he pocketed
it, "I should like to keep this as a memento."

Mallett leaned back in his chair with a smile. "The last will and
testament of John Mallett," he murmured.

He was already asleep by the time the sound of Frant's feet had ceased
to echo down the corridor.




                                   20
                         LORD BERNARD REMEMBERS


                                                  Tuesday, November 24th

"I'm not sure whether his lordship can see you now, sir," said the
butler, doubtfully. "Is it anything very important?"

"Yes," said Mallett. "It is--very important. Just tell him that
Inspector Mallett wants to see him, will you? I shan't keep him for more
than a few moments."

It was a quarter to eleven in the morning. Outside the door of Lord
Bernard Gaveston's elegant little house in Hertford Street the
Visconti-Sforza, awaiting her master's pleasure, was undeniable evidence
that he had not yet gone out. But the man still seemed to hesitate.

"If you will wait a minute, I will enquire," he said severely.

He grudgingly admitted Mallett into the hall and vanished within. After
a very short absence he returned and with an air compounded of
resignation and disapproval said: "Come this way, please."

Mallett followed him upstairs and was ushered into a small, square room
on the first floor.

"This is the gentleman, your lordship," said the butler.

Lord Bernard was at breakfast. He smiled cheerfully at his visitor and
called to the butler:

"Bring another cup for Mr. Mallett, and some more coffee."

Mallett protested, with all the self-conscious rectitude of an early
riser, that he had breakfasted several hours ago. Lord Bernard retorted
with unanswerable logic, that for that reason he was all the more
entitled to take further refreshment in the middle of the morning; and
went on, to the profound embarrassment of the butler, to point out that
at that moment every member of his grossly overpaid and underworked
household was indulging in the orgy known as "elevenses", and if they
were entitled to it, how much more a busy detective? The argument, and
the delicious scent of coffee wafted to his nose from the breakfast
table, were together too much for the inspector, and he capitulated.

"It is an odd thing," said his lordship, when the coffee had been
brought, "but though I am not generally considered a particularly
hospitable man, whenever I meet you I always seem to be pressing you to
eat and drink against your will. Last time it was dinner, I remember."

"It was a very good dinner," said Mallett gratefully.

"Not bad. Let me see, we had a _sole vin blanc_ and a
_tournedos_--rather overdone, didn't you think? I can't remember the
sweet for the moment."

"At all events," said Mallett, "I am extremely glad to find your memory
is so good, because I have come here simply to tax your memory on one
subject."

Lord Bernard shook his head.

"Don't depend on it. Inspector," he said. "My memory is not on the whole
a good one. I remember the things I happen to be interested in, like
everybody else, that's all. Leading a rather idle and worthless life as
I do, dishes and the vintages of wines bulk rather largely in my mind,
I'm afraid. Yours, I expect, is full of details of your cases. I dare
say you tend to be quite forgetful outside them, unless you are a
superman--which I suppose a detective ought to be. I know musicians who
are hopelessly absentminded about ordinary things, but can carry the
full score of half a dozen symphonies in their heads. It's a form of
specialization."

While he was speaking, Mallett was only attending with half his mind.
His eyes meanwhile were travelling round the airy, charmingly furnished
room. Something that he had noticed when he entered it had touched a
chord of memory--something connected with the matter in hand. What was
it? Presently he found it. It was a small, brilliantly executed oil
painting of a woman's head, which hung over the mantelpiece. He had seen
that face once before, and though the woman in the portrait was some
years younger, at least, than the original when he had met her, he had
no difficulty in recognizing her. It was Mrs. Ballantine. He had just
established the fact to his satisfaction when Lord Bernard's little
discourse came to an end.

"Just so," he said. "Everybody's memory works in a different way, and
you never can tell what will jog it into action again. What I have come
to ask you is about something you said at that dinner, and about
something you would have gone on to say if you had not been
interrupted."

Lord Bernard gave him a keen look.

"You must play fair with me, Inspector," he said. "Before we go any
further, you must tell me whether this in any way implicates my brother.
Because if so----"

"I can promise you," replied Mallett, "that nothing you can tell me will
incriminate your brother. Indeed, I can go further and give you my
assurance that I am quite convinced that Lord Henry is in no way
concerned with this crime."

"Very good. Then go ahead."

"We had finished dinner, and you were talking about Ballantine. You told
me that you had always distrusted him, principally because of his
clothes. You mentioned that he always gave you the impression of a man
dressed up for a part. Then you went on to speak in particular of the
last time you saw him at his place in the country, where you had gone
with Lord Henry to help his office staff to produce a play. I am
speaking from recollection, but that is roughly the line the
conversation took."

"There's not much wrong with your memory, is there?" said Lord Bernard
with a smile. "I congratulate you. But I'm afraid I'm interrupting.
Please go on. What did I say next?"

"That's just the point. You were going to say something, and had got so
far as 'That reminds me----' when you were interrupted. Now I have
reasons for thinking that if you can tell me what you were about to say,
it will help me to prove who murdered Ballantine."

"That sounds extremely improbable, if I may say so," Lord Bernard
commented.

"It is true, none the less, and I must ask your lordship to take my word
for it."

"Obviously, I must. You know your business, and I don't. Well, I'll do
my best. Just run over my lines again, and I'll see if I can remember my
cue."

Mallett repeated the words again.

"That reminds me--that reminds me----" murmured Lord Bernard to himself.
"No, I'm sorry, Inspector, but it doesn't come back. You see, I'm not
really remembering that evening at all. I can vaguely recollect using
the words you have mentioned, but that is only because you have put them
back into my mind, and they sit there, isolated so to speak, and
sterile, because the context isn't there. Just cudgelling my brains and
trying to remember is no good. If I could only think myself back into
the mood of that evening, feel as I did then, perhaps the words would
start breeding in my brain and have issue, the issue that was stifled at
birth last Thursday night. Though heaven knows, Inspector," he added,
"whether it will be any good to you when it does arrive!"

"Do you think you can do that, then?" asked Mallett.

"The mind's a funny thing," said Lord Bernard. "I've noticed sometimes
that it helps if you stop concentrating directly on the subject, and
shift your attention elsewhere, not on to something different
altogether, but a bit to one side, if you follow me. I don't want to
waste your time, but if I were to discuss the Ballantine affair quite
generally, it might attain your purpose, as well as amusing me. Do you
mind doing that?"

"Not at all."

"Very well, then. Have you made any discoveries in the case recently?"

Mallett considered for a moment. Then he got up and walked across the
room to get a nearer view of the picture. He noticed, for the first
time, that there was an inscription on the frame, some lines of verse
which were new to him. He read:

            _"Who her will conquer ought to be_
            _At least as full of love and wit as she,_
            _Or he shall ne'er gain favour at her hands._
            _Nay, though he have a pretty store of brains,_
            _Shall only get his labour for his pains,_
            _Unless he offer more than she demands."_

He read it through twice before he took the plunge.

"Yes," he said. "I have discovered something of interest since I came
into this room."

Lord Bernard was looking at him with an expression of amusement.

"I congratulate you," he said. "Yes, that painting is something of
interest, certainly--though, to be frank, I hardly expected you to
recognize it as such. It is one of Jules Royon's best works. He would
have been a famous man if he had lived. Personally, I don't think there
has been a better painter in France since Renoir died. If you like, I
can show you some water-colours of his which are little masterpieces,
too."

Mallett shook his head.

"I'm not interested in the painting," he said, "but only in the
subject."

"The subject? Ah! You recognize her then?"

"I do. And it occurs to me that your interest in Ballantine was perhaps
rather closer than you suggested in our talk at Brighton the other
evening."

Lord Bernard laughed.

"I'm afraid you're exploring a mare's nest," he said. "Yes, that's Mary
Ballantine's portrait all right. But you can see for yourself that it
was done some years ago. In point of fact, I have not seen her since her
marriage--or, indeed, for some time before that. No, if you're looking
for a jealous lover to fix the murder on, I fear you will have to look
elsewhere. The picture is here as a work of art, merely."

"And the inscription?" Mallett asked.

"Ah, the inscription! But that just proves my point! When I tell you,
Inspector, that it was her own choice! I had commissioned the portrait
from Royon because I was--not to put too fine a point on it--in love
with her, or as nearly in love as makes no matter. She had it framed and
sent to me, with those lines underneath. I never had anything to do with
her again." He crossed the room in long strides, and standing in front
of the painting, read the lines over softly to himself. "They are
beautiful, are they not?" he went on. "Yes, and very proper to be
addressed by a despairing lover to his mistress. But when a woman writes
them of herself--when she sets herself up on that sort of pedestal--no
thank you! 'Unless he offer more than she demands', indeed! What right
has any woman to demand that sort of approach from a man? It's the fault
of the poets, I suppose, who put such absurd ideas into women's heads,
so that they trade on their femininity, but how any woman of sense----"

He stopped abruptly in the heat of his tirade, and his expression
changed all at once.

"A woman!" he exclaimed. "There was a woman at Brighton, wasn't there? A
girl who looked happy? Inspector, you never told me--what was it exactly
that interrupted me in what I was telling you that evening? Can't you
remember?"

"I remember perfectly well," answered Mallett. "You were interrupted by
your brother, who noticed a pretty girl on the dancing floor below where
we were sitting."

"Why on earth didn't you mention it before? Why, it's the crux of the
whole case," said Lord Bernard in growing excitement. "I can see it all
now. We were in the gallery, watching a terrible lot of old dowagers and
their gigolos, when suddenly she appeared. It's as clear as crystal
now!"

"Then you do remember?" the inspector asked eagerly.

Lord Bernard was back at the breakfast table, arranging chairs.

"Do you ever go in for reconstructing the crime at Scotland Yard?" he
asked. "I think now that if we reconstruct our dinner-party, whatever
was in my mind then ought to come back to it again. I can't promise, but
by all the rules it should. Now let me see, you were in the middle,
weren't you? And I was _there_, and my brother away on the left. This
chair will have to do for him. You will have to double the parts, if you
don't mind. Would you care for a cigar to complete the illusion? No?
Very well. We have got to imagine that we are in the Riviera Hotel, and
the gallery will come just about where the edge of the carpet is. Is
that right?"

"Absolutely."

"Good. Now just prompt me to start with, and we will see what happens.
How do I begin?"

"'I always distrusted Ballantine,'" Mallett began. "'It would be
difficult to say why.'"

"'I think, it was his clothes chiefly,'" Lord Bernard chimed in.

"'Why his clothes?'"

"'Ballantine's clothes revealed something in his character which I
didn't like.'"

"'Surely a millionaire can wear what he likes?'"

"'Yes, but why should he be always too well dressed? Or, I should say,
over-dressed? He gave me the impression of acting a part?'"

Mallett here assumed Lord Henry's thick voice as best he could.

"'You didn't see much of him,'" he objected.

"'Oh, yes I did--at race meetings, especially.'"

"'Naturally, he dressed up for race meetings,'" went on
Mallett-Gaveston.

"'Ah, but it wasn't only race meetings.'" Lord Bernard began to speak
faster and with more and more animation. "'Do you remember taking me
down to his place in the country for the dramatic show his staff was
giving? He looked a dreadful sight'--or words to that effect--'and that
reminds me----'"

So convincing was his acting, that Mallett too was carried away by the
part he was playing.

"'By George!'" he said enthusiastically, "'there's a real good-looker
down there at last!'"

His hand, dramatically extended, pointed, not, as it should have done
according to the rules, downwards, but directly at the door in front of
him. And, as though in response to a magic incantation, it opened,
revealing the prosaic outlines of the butler.

The latter was of the ambassadorial type whose dignity is not easily
perturbed. Only by the slightest lift of his eyebrows did he recognize
that there was anything irregular in the situation that confronted him.
And when he spoke, it was only to say: "Will your lordship require the
car to wait any longer?"

"Oh, go away, Waters! Go away!" roared the master, and burst into a fit
of laughter.

Mallett, for himself, felt more than a little foolish. He had been made
to look ridiculous and he felt extremely doubtful whether any good
purpose had been served by it. Meanwhile Lord Bernard, still laughing,
pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

"The sance is over!" he announced.

Mallett's heart sank.

"Then you still can't remember?" he asked.

"On the contrary, I remember everything. And what I remember is so
perfectly trivial and irrelevant that I can only apologize for making
you waste your time."

"I am the best judge of that," returned the inspector. "What was it?"

"Simply this--I was going to say: 'That reminds me that the lamented
Ballantine still owes me some money for that dramatic society of his.'"

"In what way?"

"For the dresses and wigs and so on. As I was in charge, I ordered them
all, and then when the bill came in he was to settle it. He hadn't done
so up to the time he was killed, and now the wig and dress people are
going for me."

"I suppose the members of the dramatic society are really liable to
you," suggested Mallett.

"Yes, but how can you ask those poor devils to pay? They've lost their
jobs as it is. No, I don't mind paying. What I object to is that they're
trying to charge me for something I didn't order--something that wasn't
used in the play at all, and what's more, the most expensive thing of
the whole bill. It isn't very much, but I object to the thing on
principle."

"Which is the firm in question?"

"Bradworthy's--I expect you know the name. Their address is somewhere
near Drury Lane. If it interests you. I'll look for the bill, and show
you what it's all about."

"You needn't trouble yourself," said Mallett "I can tell you.
Bradworthy's are dunning you for a brown beard and a padded suit,
supplied by them to the London and Imperial Estates Ltd., some time
between August and October last."

Lord Bernard looked at him in amazement.

"You are perfectly right," he said. "But how on earth you could guess is
utterly beyond me. No, don't tell me. I prefer to remain in ignorant
admiration, 'to venerate where I cannot presently comprehend', as Burke
so prettily said of the British constitution. I shall dine out on this
story for weeks."

He shook the inspector's hand warmly.

"Good-bye," he said, "and thank you for a most amusing morning. I wish
you could tell me just one thing, though."

"What is that?"

"Ought I to pay Bradworthy's bill or not? It is rather on my
conscience."

"I must leave that to your lordship's solicitors," said Mallett, and
took his departure.




                                   21
                          AT MRS. BRADWORTHY'S


                                                  Tuesday, November 24th

Old Mrs. Bradworthy was an institution in theatrical London. She had
sat, a genial fat figure in black silk, at the back of her little shop,
just round the corner from Drury Lane, longer than the most elderly
_ingnue_ actress could remember. It was a gloomy shop, the light from
the windows being all but cut off by the suits of stage armour which
hung facing the street, and had so hung, growing daily dirtier, ever
since they were made for Irving's production of _Macbeth_. Mallett had
been there once or twice before--although the interest of the detective
in make-up and disguise is not nearly so great as is often supposed--and
he never ceased to marvel that so small a place could hold the vast
stock of dresses, wigs and stage accessories without which no amateur
play-producing society, no pageant or fancy-dress ball could hope to be
successful. It was a wonder, too, that even the proprietress, inured as
she was to the blackness in which she lived, could find her way about.
The unwary visitor, straying in the dingy recesses at the back of the
shop, could be fortunate if he did not break his knees over some
"property" or another on the floor, or bump his head on a pantomime mask
hanging unseen from above; but Mrs. Bradworthy, guided by some instinct
of her own, would go at once to the mustiest corner in her establishment
and bring from it at the first attempt exactly what the most exotic
fancy of her customer required. She had lived so long in the atmosphere
of the stage that she and everything about her seemed a trifle unreal.
The very assistants in the shop looked more like supers than ordinary
human beings. Only her charges were firmly related to the workaday
world, and these, Mallett knew, were no joke. One does not become an
institution in trade--even when that trade is a theatrical one--without
a keen sense of business.

He found the old lady sitting behind the counter, working, as usual, on
her endless accounts. She greeted him with pleasure.

"Well, Mr. Mallett, this is a nice surprise! What can I do for you
today?"

"I've called about Lord Bernard Gaveston's account," began the
inspector.

"Lord Bernard, indeed!" The old lady took him up at once. "Why can't he
pay, I want to know? It isn't becoming a gentleman, let alone a lord, to
keep me out of my money all this time."

"I wonder if you'd let me look at his account," said Mallett,
diplomatically avoiding taking sides in the controversy. "There's one
item in it that interests me a little."

With surprising strength for her age the old lady instantly reached down
a heavy ledger from a shelf behind her, and quickly found the place.

"Here you are," she said, pushing it over to the inspector. "Can you
read it all right there, or do you want the electric light? I'll turn it
on if you like, but----"

"No, no, I can see perfectly," Mallett lied. Mrs. Bradworthy's parsimony
was notorious, and he knew that she would never forgive him if he proved
himself to be wasteful in the matter of electric current. Straining his
eyes over the page, he found the item he sought.

"That is what I am enquiring about," he said. "The padded suit and
beard."

Mrs. Bradworthy shook her head sadly, and clicked her tongue against her
teeth.

"Tck, tck! The most expensive thing in the whole account! Bought, and
not hired like the rest of them, you see, Mr. Mallett. It's a bad
business--it should never have gone out without payment, but there it
is. It will be a lesson to us, that's all I can say."

"I notice that it is dated a few days later than the other items,"
Mallett remarked.

"Yes, indeed. It was ordered special, after the others had gone out. I
remember it particularly. In a great hurry, it was. And then to try and
get out of paying for it! It really seems criminal, doesn't it?"

"Did you take the order yourself?"

"Indeed, yes. Over the telephone--nasty new-fangled thing, and such an
expense too, you wouldn't believe."

"But who actually gave the order?"

"Why, Lord Bernard--or I suppose it was. I didn't take much notice,
naturally. But he said Lord Bernard's account, as clear as I'm talking
to you."

"And it was delivered--to whom?"

"It wasn't delivered at all. It was fetched, that very evening."

Mallett could hardly restrain his impatience.

"Who fetched it?" he asked.

Mrs. Bradworthy shook her head.

"It was late, I know," she said. "After I'd gone home, because I
remember getting it out and doing up the parcel myself, before I left.
You can't trust these girls to do anything properly if you don't do it
yourself. But as for who actually handed it over, so to speak, now
you're asking. Amelia!"

A tall, ungainly, myoptic woman of uncertain age emerged from the dim
background of the shop in answer to her call.

"Amelia, dear, that padded suit of Lord Bernard's--were you there when
it was fetched?"

"No, Mrs. Bradworthy. It was very late, after I'd gone. I know that,
because Tom complained to me next day he'd been kept from shutting up by
waiting for the gentleman. Five minutes after closing time he came in,
Tom told me."

"Then it was Tom who handed the parcel over?" said Mallett.

"Yes, that's right," said Mrs. Bradworthy in a peculiar tone of mournful
satisfaction. "It must have been old Tom."

"It was Tom all right," echoed Amelia.

"Then Tom can tell us who actually took the parcel away," Mallett
exclaimed. He had no sooner uttered the words than he felt as if he had
committed a blasphemy. Mrs. Bradworthy's face took on an expression of
pained reproach and Amelia looked as though she were about to cry.

"Oh, but haven't you heard, Mr. Mallett?" Mrs. Bradworthy asked softly.
"Poor old Tom--twenty-five years he'd been here--and then, only last
week--those dreadful motor cars!"

Mallett's hopes evaporated into thin air.

"So Tom is dead?" he said dully.

Mrs. Bradworthy nodded. Amelia blew her nose loudly and faded away.

"I see. Good afternoon, Mrs. Bradworthy, and thank you."

"But what I want to know is, will Lord Bernard pay my bill or not?"
asked Mrs. Bradworthy, overcoming her emotion with remarkable speed.

For the second time that day Mallett ended an interview on an unanswered
question. He made his way back to Scotland Yard, oppressed with the
strong realization that the evidence on which he had so confidently
depended had failed him, and that all was to do again.




                                   22
                                 ARREST


                                                Wednesday, November 25th

Sergeant Frant was busy, and perfectly happy. He kept the telephone
fully employed on long-distance calls and was perpetually in and out of
Mallett's room, each time with a fresh piece of news to report. The
inspector paid little attention. For the whole morning he sat at his
desk, hunched up over a pile of documents, going over the statements of
witnesses, the depositions at the inquest and his own memoranda. He
refused the assistance which Frant offered him.

"There's a link missing," was all he would say, "and it's somewhere
here. I must find it myself."

After a solitary lunch, he came back looking better pleased with
himself. Frant met him on the stairs.

"I'm just going----" he began with a triumphant air.

"Can you tell me," Mallett interrupted unceremoniously, "where Crabtree
is to be found now?"

"Yes. He's got a job in a wholesale fruiterer's at Covent Garden."

"Thanks. Where did you say you were going?"

"To Bow Street."

"Then I'll come with you."

At the bottom of Bow Street, Frant indicated where the fruiterer in
question was to be found, and the men parted. Mallett discovered
Crabtree, a pile of orange-boxes on his head, on the pavement outside
the shop. The man gave him a sour look as he recognized him.

"What is it this time?" he snarled.

"Just a question," said Mallett genially. "You needn't stop your work to
answer it."

"Then get out o' the way!" Crabtree began to walk beneath his precarious
load to a van drawn up some distance away. Mallett fell into step with
him, as though interviewing in these circumstances was the most ordinary
thing in the world.

"When you were with Mr. James," he asked, "do you ever remember seeing
him with an umbrella?"

"No!" The orange-boxes crashed down into the van by way of emphasis.

"Ah, I thought not. I just wanted to make sure. Good day!"

Crabtree scratched his head, now relieved of its burden, and informed
the world in general that he, Crabtree, was several unprintable things;
by which he was quite correctly understood by his friends to mean that
he was rather more than mildly surprised.

Mallett meanwhile was making the best of his way towards Bramston's Inn,
the address of the only one of Ballantine's concerns outside the offices
of the "Twelve Apostles" in Lothbury. It is not very far from Covent
Garden as the crow flies. As the Londoner walks, it is apt to be a
tedious and tiresome journey, punctuated by the exploration of blind
alleys and vain appeals for directions addressed to passers-by, who
invariably prove to be themselves "strangers in these parts". Mallett,
who enjoyed nothing so much as threading with secure knowledge the
by-ways of London--his "Forty-two routes from the Old Bailey to Scotland
Yard" was a minor classic in police literature--covered the distance
speedily enough. His way led across Kingsway, through the pleasant
spaces of Lincoln's Inn Fields, through Old Square and out into Chancery
Lane under the archway on which Ben Jonson is said to have toiled as a
bricklayer. Then he plunged into the network of narrow streets that lies
between Fleet Street and Holborn. It is a region dominated by great
printing works, its tortuous ways clogged by newspaper vans and
horse-drawn drays, hiding in odd corners shy little chop-houses beloved
of journalists, a house or two where history has been made and not
merely recorded, and what must surely be the last row of cottage-gardens
in Central London. Somewhere East of Fetter Lane the inspector turned
sharply down an alley to his right, ducked under the nose of a carthorse
in a warehouse entry, directed two lost Americans to Gough Square,
turned to his left through a passage that seemed no more than a slit in
the wall, veered right once more and finally came to a standstill facing
the short row of early Georgian houses that bears the name of Bramston's
Inn.

Topographers and historians are unable to say for certain whether or not
the Inn has any valid connection with that Sir John Bramston who was
Chief Justice to Charles I. It was, say some, in its earlier days, an
Inn of Chancery--a poor relation of the opulent and flourishing Inns of
Court, and indeed it still wears a faint family resemblance to its more
famous cousins. But it is a resemblance that has grown more and more
distant with time. Hall and chapel have long since been swept away and
now the only legal flavour that yet remains to its dark chambers and
ruinous staircases is supplied by two firms of solicitors, neither of
them of very high repute. For the rest, its tenants are obscurely
charitable societies, minor trade associations and firms of uncertain
reputation--such as, for example, the Anglo-Dutch Rubber and General
Trading Syndicate.

The name, in dirty black paint upon a dirty yellow background, was still
legible in the doorway of one of the four houses that made up the row.
The offices were on the fourth floor, and from the dusty windows hung a
board which announced: "These desirable offices to let. Apply
caretaker." The caretaker, a shabby, ill-shaven man with red and
suspicious eyes, emerged from the basement at Mallett's knock.

"Police?" he said querulously, in reply to the inspector's summons.
"We've 'ad 'em 'ere already. They didn't find nothing."

"All the same, I'll have a look round, if you don't mind," answered
Mallett.

They ascended the stairs together and went into the deserted office. It
consisted of two rooms only, unfurnished save for a couple of desks and
a safe, the door of which swung open to reveal the emptiness within.
Mallett walked quickly round them, his footsteps sounding heavily on the
uncarpeted floor, while the caretaker watched him from the door In the
furthest angle of the inner room was a window, giving on to the back of
the block. Mallett threw it open.

"What's this?" he demanded.

"Fire escape. They put it in--the Anglo-Dutch people did--soon after
they took it."

The inspector leant out of the window and gazed thoughtfully down the
narrow iron staircase. From the angle at which the window was set, it
could not be overlooked in any way by neighbouring tenants. The wall of
No. 3, next door, shrugged a protective shoulder which effectually
screened it from observation. The wall of the building opposite was
blank. He considered. That should be Black Dog Court below, and from it,
he knew, a passage ran into Fleet Street. It was a well-devised back
exit--or entry. He nodded in satisfaction and withdrew.

"'Ave you seen all you want to see?" asked the man behind him.

"I've seen all there is to see here," returned Mallett, "but there's
still one thing not here I want to see. Will you show it to me?"

"What's that?"

"The umbrella."

"What are you talking about? What umbrella?"

"The umbrella which was left behind here the last time the tenant left
this place."

The man became talkative all at once.

"I don't know nothing about no umbrella!" he cried. "Straight I don't! I
don't know what you're getting at, guv'nor! I've bin 'ere, man and boy,
thirty years, and I've never so much as seen no umbrella! You ask any of
the tenants 'ereabouts, they'll tell you the sort of man I am----"

Meanwhile, Mallett, holding his arm in a firm but gentle grip, was
impelling him slowly downstairs.

"An umbrella," he murmured in his blandest tones, while the caretaker's
protests died away into whimperings. "A nice silk umbrella. With a broad
gold band on it, for certain. And initials. Or perhaps a name and
address on it. Oh, certainly, a name and address I should think. Where
is it?"

They had reached the bottom landing. With a convulsive start, the man
tore himself away from the inspector's grasp and vanished into his dim
abode below stairs. There was the sound of chairs being overset by hasty
movements, of a key being turned in a lock, of a cupboard door opening
and closing with a bang, and the man returned. He was pale with fear,
and in a hand that trembled violently he extended to the detective an
umbrella, precisely as had been described.

"Thank you," said Mallett coolly. "That was what I had in mind." He
inspected the gold band that decorated the handle. "Name and address in
full, I see. Just as I thought. Well, well!"

"I didn't mean to keep it, guv'nor," the caretaker insisted.

"No?"

"No. Yer see, it was like this. After Anglo-Dutch hadn't been near the
place two, three days or more, I thought I'd just go up to see if things
was all right, see? And I found that there umbrella put away, like,
be'ind the door. I didn't look at the name on the 'andle or anythink, I
just thought I'd keep it by me for 'im when 'e come back. Then the
police coming in and all, I took another look at it, and when I seed 'oo
it belonged to I got scared. I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't
dare let on I'd got it, even."

His eyes anxiously sought Mallett's to see if he was believed. "I--I
swear I never done nothink wrong, guv'nor," he went on. "Only just what
I told you, that's all."

Mallett cut him short with a "That'll do!" The story might be true or
not. He had sufficient experience of the terror that certain classes
feel towards anything connected with the police to be prepared to credit
it. But it was of little moment whether the man was lying or speaking
the truth, now that he had provided the essential evidence.

"You talk about 'Anglo-Dutch' as if he was a person," he said. "Did only
one man use these offices, then?"

"At the start there was two or three used to come in and out, when they
was moving in. After that there was only just the one. I never found out
'is name--that's why I called 'im Anglo-Dutch."

"Did he come regularly?"

"Most days--not every day. 'E'd come in the morning, ten o'clock or
thereabouts, and leave in the evening. I never seed 'im go out to lunch,
even. I used to wonder what 'e did there all day by 'isself. 'E never
'ad no callers."

Mallett produced a photograph from his pocket.

"Did he look anything like this?" he asked.

The caretaker peered at it doubtfully.

"I'm a bit short-sighted," he confessed. "I wouldn't like to swear
that's the same man, not on oath, I wouldn't."

"But is it like him?"

"Oh, yes, it's like 'im all right. The same sort of man, you might say.
But it's no good asking me to swear----"

"I'm not," said Mallett curtly, and strode away.

But for all the sharpness of his words, his heart was singing. For the
photograph he had shown to the caretaker was a copy of the police
photograph of Mr. Colin James, and the umbrella under his arm was the
umbrella of Lionel Ballantine.

                 *        *        *        *        *

Frank Harper was walking aimlessly up Fleet Street. His expression, as
he turned into a tobacconist's shop, was decidedly more clouded than
that of a happily engaged young man should ordinarily be. He told
himself, as he bought his cigarettes, that he was smoking a great deal
too much. It was not the first time within the last few days that he had
made the same reflection, and it had always ended in his going out
somewhere and buying another packet. For whatever the voice of common
sense might say, in the long run it was always his overstrained nerves
that had the last word and drove him to seek relief. Even then, he knew,
no relief could be anything but temporary, so long as the essential
cause of the trouble remained unresolved. It lay in his pocket now, that
cause, as it had lain for two days past--a letter from the girl he
loved, asking, and asking insistently, the one question which he could
not answer. And this morning another had been added to it, reproaching
him for his failure to reply. Another would come soon, he knew--perhaps
it would be a little more bitter than the last. And he, who had so
lately been lifted to the summit of happiness, now saw himself
travelling down a long slope leading to an inevitable quarrel--an
estrangement, even. "If you won't tell me, I can't marry you!" Would it
come to that? He shrugged his shoulders as he lit his cigarette. Well,
if it came to that, it came to that! Meanwhile, there was nothing to do
about it--except to smoke incessantly, and hope fervently that it
wouldn't. If a girl can't trust a man, he thought bitterly--but what if
a man can't trust himself?

As he walked out of the shop he jostled a burly figure on the pavement.
He murmured a perfunctory "Sorry!" and walked on. The man he had touched
turned at the sound of his voice and walked quickly after him.

"Mr. Harper, isn't it?" he said.

Harper looked round. For a moment or two he gazed blankly at the large
man with the smart umbrella who had accosted him. Then a look of
recognition came into his face.

"Ah, yes, of course. Inspector Mallett," he murmured in his somewhat
irritatingly superior manner.

Mallett's eyes gazed keenly into the young man's. For a fraction of a
second there was a trace of disappointment in his expression, as though
he failed to find what he had sought there. Then a smile illuminated his
broad features.

"This is a bit of luck," he exclaimed genially. "You're just the fellow
I wanted to see."

"You know my address, I think, if you wish to ask me anything," returned
the other coolly.

"No time like the present, though, is there?" said Mallett, unrebuffed.
"I tell you what--I'm due at the Yard. If you're not doing anything, why
not share a taxi down there? We can have a little chat as we go."

The smart umbrella was waved in the air, and a cab drew up at the
pavement. Mallett flung open the door for Harper to get in. Harper
hesitated a moment, looked up into the inspector's still smiling face,
then nodded abruptly and climbed into the vehicle. The door closed and
the taxi moved off. A young reporter on an evening paper happened to see
them go.

"Did you see that?" he said to a friend. "Inspector Mallett! He's made
an arrest!"

                 *        *        *        *        *

But it was Sergeant Frant, not Inspector Mallett, who was to make an
arrest that day. His incessant labours had borne fruit. They had, to
begin with, brought about a considerable liveliness in a quiet part of
Yorkshire, involving not only the police, but also doctors, clergymen,
registrars and asylum officials. The enquiries that Mr. Elderson had
made quietly and unofficially were repeated with thoroughness and such
dispatch that about the time that Mallett was entering Bramston's Inn,
Frant, in a police car, was turning into Mount Street, bearing in his
pocket a fateful slip of paper, signed by the chief magistrate at Bow
Street. He was just in time to see Captain Eales, a small suitcase in
his hand, emerge from a house door, and step into a taxi which was
waiting for him. The cab gathered speed slowly, and with the police car
in its wake, drove off. As Frant had anticipated, it took a northerly
direction, and in due time it drew up outside a pleasant little detached
house in St. John's Wood. Frant gave a quiet order to his driver, and
the car slowed down close to the kerb, just giving him time to alight so
that he touched the pavement almost at the same moment as did his
quarry, fifty yards ahead. Then it drove on, past the house, turned into
a side street, reversed and awaited further orders, just out of sight.

Frant strolled towards Eales, his pulses quickening slightly with the
uncontrollable excitement of the hunter. But the latter instead of
paying the cab, as he had expected, walked straight up to the front door
of the house, leaving his suitcase behind him in the waiting vehicle.
The sergeant judged it wise to hold his hand. He allowed Eales to enter
the house unmolested, walked on past him to the corner, turned and came
slowly back. He had not proceeded far when Eales emerged once more from
the house. On the steps he turned, and called out to someone behind him:
"Mind you, this is the last time!" Frant caught a glimpse of Du Pine
standing in the porch, could just distinguish the expressionless smile
which greeted the words, and then the door closed.

By the time Eales had given his order to the driver and had settled
himself again on the seat of the taxi, the police car had been summoned
and the sedate pursuit began anew. This time the course lay southward.
The little procession of two skirted Lord's cricket ground, ran down
Regent's Park Road, crossed the Marylebone Road and went on down Baker
Street and across Oxford Street towards the West End. The chase ended
just off Piccadilly, at the headquarters of an air line to the
Continent. There Frant tapped his man on the shoulder as he was about to
climb into a motor-coach bound for Croydon aerodrome, and murmured a few
words in his ear which caused him to abandon the idea of flying for that
day.

Eales, a little pale but perfectly self-possessed, entered the police
car with a shrug of his thin shoulders.

"You have got the warrant. I suppose?" he asked Frant as they started
for Bow Street.

Frant read it over to him. The effect was somewhat strange.

"Bigamy!" exclaimed the prisoner. "Oh, my God!" He laughed aloud above
the noise of the traffic.

The rest of the journey was accomplished in silence, but in the
charge-room at Bow Street Eales spoke once more.

"I suppose that damned little double-crosser Du Pine is responsible for
this?" he demanded.

"I am not allowed to tell you through what channels information reaches
the police," answered Frant warily.

"Because if he is, I can tell you a thing or two----"

The sergeant cut him short and at once administered the statutory
caution. Eales, a little impressed by the official verbiage, fell silent
once more. Frant watched him narrowly.

"I think I am entitled to tell you", he said in detached tones, "that we
are a little interested in a trip abroad you made on the night of the
13th of November. But of course if you prefer to say nothing, you are
perfectly entitled----"

The prisoner's face changed.

"Here, give me a pen and paper!" he snarled.

He began to write, copiously, fluently, pausing only at intervals to
swear under his breath.




                                   23
                                 SUCCESS


                                                Wednesday, November 25th

The taxi wound its way slowly through the thronging traffic. The gloom
of a late winter afternoon had set in, and the street lamps, which had
just been lighted, only illuminated fitfully the corner in which Harper
sat. Mallett looked at him curiously. The pose suggested to his
experienced eyes a sense of strain, as though the young man was
compelling himself to appear at ease, without altogether succeeding. His
head lolled back comfortably enough against the back of the car, his
legs were jauntily crossed, but at the same time there was to a close
observer a rigidity in the body which told of muscles that were taut
with the effort of doing nothing, of nerves protesting against the
ordeal to which they were being subjected. None the less, the inspector
looked in vain for any sign of the acute terror which their encounter at
Brighton had so unmistakably inspired. Then he had been
frightened--horror-struck, almost; now he was ill at ease, nervous
perhaps, but no more. Here was an enigma, and one that the inspector
determined to resolve without delay.

"The last time I saw you," he began, "you seemed to be enjoying
yourself."

"Enjoying myself?" echoed Harper in apparent surprise. "That seems
rather an odd way of putting it."

"I don't see anything odd about it," returned Mallett. "It would have
been my idea of enjoying myself, at your age, and most people's, too."

"People's ideas of enjoyment evidently differ. I really can't answer for
yours. Personally, I found it a most distasteful experience, and I
thought I made it clear at the time."

"No, I'm damned if you did!" exclaimed Mallett, irritated at this absurd
piece of fencing. "If ever I saw a young couple enjoying themselves----"

"Really, Inspector," Harper broke in, "I think we are talking at
cross-purposes. Now I come to think of it, you mentioned the last time
you saw me. Strictly speaking, I have no idea when that was. As a
detective you may, for all I know, make a practice of seeing people when
they aren't looking. I can only speak of the last time I saw you, and
that was at the inquest."

The taxi travelled some distance before Mallett found words to answer
this extraordinary assertion.

"Are you going to deny that you were at the Riviera Hotel, Brighton, the
evening after the inquest?" he asked sternly.

"Certainly not. Why should I?"

"And that you saw me there--in the interval between two dances--and
seeing me, showed every sign of surprise and fright, and"--he paused for
greater emphasis--"and guilt?"

Harper's manner had changed completely. Abandoning altogether his
attitude of defensive suspicion, he now leant forward and spoke with an
appearance of entire sincerity.

"Look here, sir," he said. "I don't in the least understand what you are
driving at. I was at the hotel on that evening. I was dancing. I was
enjoying myself very much. As for being frightened or guilty, I never
felt less like it in my life. You tell me that you saw me. Well, you can
take my word for it that I did not see you. Now, will you please tell me
what all this means?"

"You did see me," Mallett maintained. "I was standing within a few yards
of you--just behind you, in fact."

"Which of course explains why I didn't see you."

"You were looking in a glass to tie your bow-tie. It was at that moment
that you saw me and looked--as I have said--frightened and guilty."

"Looking in the glass to tie my tie. . . ." The young man mused a
moment. "Good lord, so that was it?"

"Ah, so you remember now?"

"Certainly I remember--not seeing you, though. I may have, of course,
but your face made absolutely no impression on me."

"Then what was there to be frightened of?"

"I was frightened", said Harper soberly, "of myself."

"What?"

"Of my own appearance, I mean. That bow-tie. Don't you remember.
Inspector, the day we found him there--at Daylesford Gardens--I
commented to you about his tie--what an ugly thing it was, and how badly
tied? Well, when I looked in the glass, I got the shock of my life. Mine
looked exactly like it. It suddenly brought it all back to me--that
horrible swollen face and how his tongue stuck out from the corner of
his mouth--ugh!"

Mallett was laughing.

"So that was why you looked so scared!" he chuckled. "Well, well! I
always said you knew something about this case we didn't know! What a
lot of trouble you might have spared us!"

"Trouble? You don't really mean that tie business was important?"

"About the most important thing in the whole case."

"I don't understand. Please tell me."

Mallett had no objection. It was a minor point--now. He was relieved to
find that this likeable young fellow was free from suspicion, and
success had loosened his tongue.

"Your tie looked odd", he explained, "because someone else had just
tried to tie it for you--and done it very badly."

"Yes," said Harper, blushing a little in spite of himself.

"Ballantine's looked odd for just the same reason."

"But why should anyone tie it for him?"

"For the same reason that he put on his coat and trousers for him--to
make him look like Ballantine."

"After he was dead, do you mean?"

"Precisely."

"Then what," Harper asked with growing excitement, "what did he look
like before he was killed?"

"He looked remarkably like a stout gentleman with a beard who once came
to your office to take a furnished house in South Kensington."

"Do you mean, then," the young man breathed in a voice hardly above a
whisper, "that James was Ballantine?"

"I do. A fact," added Mallett, "which is going to prove very
inconvenient to a number of otherwise excellent alibis."

There was silence between them as the car crossed the end of Trafalgar
Square and sped along Whithall.

"Of course," murmured Harper, "I always thought that couldn't have been
his tie. Nobody could have worn one that colour with those clothes. I
wonder why he changed it." He shivered and then seemed to rouse himself
suddenly from his reflections. "I'll get out here, if you don't mind,"
he said. "That is, unless you want----"

"That's all right," said the inspector. "You've told me all I wanted to
know, and very interesting it was."

He ordered the driver to stop, put Harper down, and drove on alone into
New Scotland Yard. He was feeling in a genial mood, expansive and
self-satisfied. The chase was almost at an end and he was about to reap
the reward of his persistence and ingenuity. It did not occur to him to
look back at his late companion. Had he done so, he would have seen him
stand a moment irresolute on the pavement, and then go quickly to a
public telephone box.

Mallett made his way at once to his office. As he entered it, he was
overtaken by Frant, in a high state of excitement. He motioned him to
come in.

"Well?" he asked.

"I arrested Eales this afternoon," said the sergeant.

"Yes? Is that all?"

"And Du Pine half an hour later."

The inspector smiled. "More bigamy?" he asked.

Frant shook his head. "You may laugh, sir," he said, "but that charge of
bigamy has worked like a charm."

"I'm sure it has. But what exactly is Du Pine's offence?"

"Drug-trafficking."

"Aha! So that was his little game, was it?"

"Yes. He'd been importing it on quite a large scale for some time
apparently, and latterly employing Eales as his messenger to Paris. The
poor devil was so hard up he couldn't refuse, he tells me, and he was
quite well paid. When I arrested him this morning he was just off on
another trip--by air this time."

"The infernal cheek of that fellow Du Pine--right under our noses!"

"It was rather more than just cheek," said the sergeant gently. "You
see, he had to get the stuff--he wanted it, desperately."

"For his own use, you mean?"

Frant nodded. "He was in a ghastly state when he was brought in," he
went on. "The station doctor had to give him a pretty stiff dose of
morphia or he'd have gone off his head. I really felt sorry for the
blackguard. It seems that he's been an addict for years, but since the
crash of the company and Ballantine's death, worry and fright have so
wrecked his nerves that he's been increasing the doses until he'd used
up all his supply--and his customers' too. That's why he sent Eales over
today. It's a very useful capture, and if the French police play up, we
ought to be able to round up a whole gang on both sides of the Channel."

Mallett rubbed his hands in satisfaction.

"The end of a perfect day," he purred. "I think we've both earned a cup
of tea."

"And now," said Frant as they sat down to tea, "would you mind telling
me, just for my own information, what you have done and just how you
managed to get to the bottom of this?"

"Pure--what is the word?--ratiocination," answered the inspector
proudly. "I approached it this way. There were several people who might
have killed Ballantine. Of them all the one who took my fancy from the
start was Fanshawe. Apart from the question of motive, he was the only
man who seemed to me to be of the stuff of which murderers are made. Not
that he is a common sort of killer by any means; on the contrary, I
should put him down as a distinctly superior type--high-minded,
fastidious, and all the rest of it. But vain, Frant, vain--or, if that's
too small a word, proud as Lucifer. The sort of man who, if he decided
that someone else ought to be wiped out would think no more of doing it
than of squashing a fly on the window-pane. That was my first
reflection.

"Then I went on to consider the evidence. One thing struck me at once.
Fanshawe went to France by the night boat on Friday the 13th. So, we
found, did Eales. A coincidence, no doubt, but a perfectly possible one.
But so also did Colin James. That struck me as a perfectly impossible
coincidence--that three individuals, connected with this crime, should
all have chosen independently to travel by that boat. Now we know, had
known from the start, that James was someone else in disguise. It stuck
out a mile. To reduce my three travellers to two, my impossible
coincidence to a possible one, James must be one of the others in
disguise, either Eales or Fanshawe. I struck out Eales, for reasons
which you know. Therefore James was Fanshawe. At the same time, we knew
on irrefutable evidence that James had been a tenant in Daylesford
Gardens while Fanshawe was a tenant of a cell in Maidstone. Therefore
James was not Fanshawe. Two perfectly logical propositions arriving at
opposite results. I left them there and went back to consider what we
have always regarded as the crux of the problem, the identity of James.

"Who had I got to look for? Either somebody who had disappeared
altogether, about the time that James came to life, or somebody whose
manner of living enabled him to lead a double life, putting in
sufficient appearances in his old haunts and under his normal guise to
avoid suspicion, while spending the rest of his time building up the new
identity of Colin James. I went through the records of disappearances,
and found none that would suit. I was not surprised. James had been only
intermittently at Daylesford Gardens, and I suspected all along that he
had been spending the rest of his time elsewhere in another identity. So
I had to find someone whose conduct had recently been irregular and
abnormal, whose sleeping places one couldn't trace, and who had a motive
for building up another personality at the time in question. I found
him--Lionel Ballantine.

"Once that was established, the rest fell into place easily enough. The
letter to the bank, the uneasiness of Mrs. Eales, everything was
explained. Then I turned back to the first part of the problem, and that
fell into place too. James was Fanshawe; James was Ballantine. Why not,
when it was simply a case of taking a disguise off a dead man and
putting it on a live one? It only remained to prove it, and that turned
out to be the difficulty. Unexpectedly, I wasn't able to prove what I
know to be the fact, that Ballantine ordered James's suit from Mrs.
Bradworthy, but my second shot turned out a winner. The evidence at the
inquest was that Ballantine left his office with his umbrella. No
umbrella was found with him at Daylesford Gardens. Therefore he must
have left it behind when he changed into James. I pondered over various
possible places which he could have used for the job, and hit on the
Anglo-Dutch offices, which seemed to have no other purpose in life. As
it turned out I was right."

He brandished the umbrella in triumph.

"A pretty little thing, isn't it?" he remarked. "Strictly, I suppose, it
belongs to the creditors, but I should love to keep it. It would be a
pity to make a hole in such a nice piece of silk, though. But just as a
memento, I think I must have it."

"I've got my own memento," said Frant. "I shall frame this."

He held up a scribbled sheet of paper.

"Identity of Colin James.

"The following are the names of the chief suspects in the case of Lionel
Ballantine:              X

Eales
Du Pine
Fanshawe
Harper
Crabtree

"James was a mask for Ballantine. The mask survived the wearer!--J.M."

Mallett laughed.

"That was a piece of conceit on my part," he said. "But I was so pleased
when I had seen through the problem that I couldn't resist the
temptation of mystifying you. Well, the case is at an end now, I
suppose, so far as detection is concerned. Tomorrow I shall apply for
another warrant at Bow Street and after that the lawyers take charge. Do
you know, Frant, in some ways I feel quite sorry----"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in!"




                                   24
                                 ESCAPE


                                                Wednesday, November 25th

Mallett was not a superstitious man, but he always declared that from
the moment he heard that knock at the door he felt confident that
something had gone wrong. Certainly there was no excuse for the glare
which he fixed on the man who now came into the room--a perfectly
commonplace plain-clothes detective.

"What do you want?" he barked.

"I was told to report to you, sir," was the reply.

"Told to report--who by?"

"By the Deputy Commissioner, sir."

Mallett looked at him more closely.

"I don't understand. Weren't you on duty at Daylesford Court Mansions?"

"I was, sir."

"Well? Who has relieved you?"

"Nobody, sir. I was simply ordered to cease keeping observation and
report to you."

"What?" cried Mallett, leaping from his chair.

"I understand there was a special instruction to that effect from the
Home Secretary," the man continued.

"'I always treated him very decently when he was my fag at school,'"
murmured Frant with a wry smile, but the inspector did not heed him.
With a roar he dashed from the room and sped along the corridor, leaving
Frant and the bewildered newcomer to follow as best they could.

They came up with him in the entrance. He had stopped there abruptly,
his great shoulders heaving as he recovered his breath. When the
sergeant approached, he caught his arm and held it tightly.

"I'm a fool, Frant," he muttered. "My nerve must be going. We said
to-morrow, didn't we? There's no real hurry, now, just because of this
piece of imbecility. It's only--only damnably upsetting."

"Quite, quite," said Frant soothingly.

"When you've got a rat in a trap, it's a bit of a jar to find that some
fool has opened the trap while your back's turned," he went on, "even
though the rat doesn't know it is in a trap. I'm not going to risk it,
Frant. We're going to Daylesford Court Mansions now."

Within a few moments a police car swung out into Whitehall, carrying the
three officers. They were silent as they drove. It had begun to rain,
and the pavements were bright with the reflections of the street-lamps.
On such a night, Mallett reflected, Ballantine had walked with another
to his death in the little house in the quiet Kensington square. They
passed the entrance to Daylesford Gardens, and, craning his neck, he
could just distinguish the house itself, now dark and tenantless. It was
only a matter of a few hundred yards, and they were at the Mansions.
Strange, that the tale should end so near to where it had begun.

Daylesford Court Mansions have little in common with the "luxury flats"
of modern London. They boast neither lifts nor uniformed porters, and
there were no curious eyes to watch the detectives as they entered.
Mallett clattered up the stone stairs at their head. The inhospitable
entrance, the hygienically glazed walls put him in mind of a prison. Did
Fanshawe, he wondered as he went, ever note the resemblance? Prison!
Well, he would resume his acquaintance with that before long--for a
little time, and then--he felt a little nauseated. Not for the first
time, on such an occasion, he was conscious of a sense of disgust with
himself for the duty he was about to perform. To deliver a man over to
the hangman in order to expiate a wholly worthless life--it seemed an
ignoble task, when all was said. In a perfectly organized community, a
man like Ballantine would have been removed long ago, while Fanshawe----

His fingers closed over the door-knocker of Miss Fanshawe's flat. The
touch of the cold metal served to dispel at once all introspection.
While there was something to be done, he could leave it to others to
decide the purpose or utility of the deed. "Now for it," he said to
himself, and knocked long and loud.

The summons was answered after a short delay by a tall, grim,
middle-aged woman, pale of countenance, her lips set in a firm line. She
wore an apron which seemed incongruous alike to her well-made dress and
her authoritative manner.

She greeted the detectives with raised eyebrows and a slightly
contemptuous "Yes?"

"I am a police officer----" Mallett began.

"Very well. You wish to see my brother, I suppose."

"Is he here?"

"Certainly." Her lip curled as though at the suggestion that he should
have run away. "He has been in his room for the last hour. I will show
you the way. The maid is out at the present," she added. The last piece
of information was evidently intended to explain why she should be doing
them this service in person.

The three men entered the flat and Miss Fanshawe strode stiffly in front
of them down the narrow passage. Presently she stopped at a door,
knocked smartly at it, opened it wide, called out: "Some policemen to
see you, John!" and walked on without herself crossing the threshold.

Mallett was the first to enter the room, with Frant close at his heels.
It was a plainly furnished bedroom, with an open desk in one corner. On
the desk lay a large white envelope. On the bed lay John Fanshawe. An
empty glass was beside him. He was fully dressed, except for his shoes,
which he had considerately taken off and left on the floor. He had died
painlessly, and if his unfurrowed brow was any guide, with an easy
conscience.

Frant broke the news to Miss Fanshawe. He found her in the kitchen,
preparing supper. She heard him without the slightest trace of emotion.

"He always said he would do this, rather than go to prison again," was
her only comment. "He didn't tell me you were coming for him, but I'm
not surprised."

"Is there anything I--we can do for you?" stammered the sergeant, taken
aback.

"Nothing, thank you." Then with a muttered "One must eat", she turned to
her cooking again.

The inspector, having made arrangements for the removal of the body,
turned his attention to the papers in the desk. He observed that the
letter was addressed to himself, and characteristically left it to the
last. Quickly he sorted out the neatly filed documents, appraised their
significance, and divided them into two little heaps--those of value
from the police point of view and those that could be disregarded. Among
the former were two bank passbooks which he scrutinized with some care
and not a little surprise. Finally, when he was satisfied that nothing
of interest had been overlooked, he opened the letter.

"Well, Inspector," it began abruptly, "so you have solved the problem!
My congratulations! In an hour or so, perhaps less, I suppose you will
be clumping up here in your heavy policeman's boots, all agog to make
your arrest and provide a bit more carrion for the gallows. But when you
come, I shall not be here. It would have been easy enough for me to
absent myself in body as well as--if a policeman can understand the
word--in soul, but I shall not attempt to. At my time of life I am not
going to embark on a wretched game of hide-and-seek abroad, skulking in
third-rate hotels under an assumed name, with the long drawn out mummery
of extradition at the end of it all. I loathe an anti-climax, and two
little tablets which I bought in Paris will save me from that. Candidly,
I should like to have gone on living, merely for the intellectual
pleasure of having got the better of you. Since that is denied, there is
no great point in further existence. And to the last I retain the far
greater pleasure of leaving the world a better place for the
extermination of a rogue.

"How did you find it out, I wonder? I am honestly surprised that you
did, for it seems to me to have been as nearly perfect a crime as is
possible in an imperfect world. I take no credit for it, for the
planning, after all, was all his. I merely took advantage of a
heaven-sent chance. It must be uncommon for a man to provide an alibi
for his own executioner. The whole affair was quite simple, really. As I
told you, I saw Ballantine for a moment at his office on Friday morning,
the 13th November. As I did not tell you, I saw him again that evening.
I was going home, and at the corner of Upper Daylesford Street I almost
ran into him. He knew me, of course, and the start he gave was enough
for me to know him. I think I should have recognized him in any case.
When you have been seeing the same face in your dreams for four years,
it takes more than a sham beard and a big paunch to deceive you. I
challenged him--told him I should give him away unless he gave me what I
wanted, and to my surprise he took me with him to the house in
Daylesford Gardens. As soon as we got inside, he asked me how much I
wanted. I named a modest figure and he sat down at his desk to write a
cheque. The poor fool! As if money could have satisfied me! He soon
found out his mistake. He sat with his back to me to write and it was a
simple matter to pull the cord off the blind and slip it round his neck.
It was the best moment of my life.

"It was only when I began to go through his things that I realized my
amazing good fortune. He had planned to leave the country that very
night, and had made all his arrangements accordingly. In his bag I found
a couple of hundred pounds in notes and enough in bearer bonds for all
my purposes. There was Colin James's passport, there were James's
tickets, James's reserved places on the train and boat, a note of
James's hotel in Paris, and--on the body--James's clothes and beard. It
was all too easy. All I had to do was to turn James back into
Ballantine. That was simple enough, except that the dressy beast had
worn a stock which was too much for me, and I had to give him James's
tie and made a mess of that. His neck was--but you saw it, no doubt.
Then I became James, and my clothes went into his suitcase. I put the
letter to the house agents which I found into a parcel with the keys and
I walked out. I went to Paris as I had intended, but in unexpected
comfort. That it was at his expense made the journey doubly pleasant.
Once in Paris, James disappeared--they will find him at the bottom of
the Seine--and Fanshawe came home, third class this time, shedding the
passport overboard as the boat reached Dover.

"As to why he came home--but it would be a pity to leave you without
something unsolved, wouldn't it? Besides, time is short. Good-bye."

The letter ended as abruptly as it had begun. Mallett thrust it into his
pocket, called Frant to watch by the dead man and went outside to await
the arrival of the ambulance. He felt utterly tired and desperately in
need of fresh air. As he reached the street door, a voice called him
quietly by name. He looked round and saw Harper standing on the
pavement, pale and dishevelled.

"What do you want?" he asked.

"Is he--dead, Inspector?" the young man asked in his turn.

"Yes. How did _you_ know?"

"I--I guessed it. It was what I thought he would do," Harper muttered.

Mallett looked at him again. It had stopped raining by now, but his hat
and clothes were wet, as though he had been standing in the open for
some time.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Quite a long time," was the answer. "I was waiting for you. I saw the
police car outside and I didn't care to go in."

He spoke in an oddly subdued manner, humbly even, without a trace of his
usual conceit.

"How did you know I would be here? What have you to do with this
affair?" the inspector persisted.

Harper drew a deep breath before replying.

"I told him you were coming," he said at last.

"What!"

"As soon as you had explained who Colin James was, I saw that Fanshawe's
alibi was destroyed. You said almost as much yourself, in so many words.
So as soon as I could, I telephoned to him. I hoped he would get away,
but----"

"You hoped to defeat justice, eh?"

"Yes." Harper's voice became more and more apologetic. "I'm sorry,
Inspector, I quite see that it was very wrong of me, but I had to."

"What do you mean?"

"You see, he was my father's best friend."

"And helped to ruin him, I'm told."

"Exactly. Although my father always insisted that he was not really to
blame. I saw him the day he was released from prison. He promised to
help me if he could. Then the morning after the inquest on Ballantine I
got this."

He drew from his pocket a crumpled letter which he handed to the
inspector. It was in Fanshawe's writing, addressed from Daylesford Court
Mansions, and ran as follows:

    My dear boy,

    Circumstances over which I had no control have prevented me from
    making any repayment of the debt which I owed to your father.
    Will you please accept the enclosed by way of some recompense?
    You will oblige me by not acknowledging this letter, or
    mentioning to anyone the fact that you have received it. God
    bless you.

                                                               J.F.

"With the letter were banknotes to the value of two thousand pounds,"
Harper explained. "I didn't know--I swear I didn't know--where the money
came from. I mean, I never connected him with Ballantine's death in any
way, not until this afternoon in the taxi."

"No?" Mallett's brows shot up.

"No. I didn't know--how could I? Why, Inspector, you must believe me.
You've only just tumbled to it yourself," he protested, with a spark of
his old arrogance. "And the money--it meant simply everything in the
world to me. I didn't think--I didn't let myself think--that that could
have anything to do with the murder." The young man's urgent voice
broke, and then he added, almost under his breath: "At first."

"At first. And then?"

"And then--God, it was awful! The not knowing, I mean! And not a soul to
share one's doubts with!" He shuddered, and went on in quieter tones:
"Well, it's over now. I needn't go on deceiving myself, anyway. And
Ballantine's bloody creditors can have the money. I haven't spent a bob
of it."

"Just a minute," said Mallett. "You've been through a bad time, and I'm
not at all sure you don't deserve all you've got, but there's no reason
why you should make things worse than they are."

"Worse?" Harper laughed mirthlessly. "I like that!"

"I've been looking through Fanshawe's papers," went on the inspector
impassively. "He kept them in apple-pie order, as one might expect. I
find that he drew a cheque to self for two thousand pounds on the 18th
of this month on an account he kept at the Bank of England in the name
of Shaw. It rather looks as though that was his present to you. No doubt
we shall be able to prove it by the numbers of the notes."

"Of course you will," said Harper impatiently. "But what is the point of
that?"

"Only that this passbook shows that the account had not been operated
for five years. The money he stole from Ballantine went into a separate
account altogether."

"You mean----"

"I mean, young fellow, that the only matter between us now is the
telephone call you made an hour or so ago. I needn't tell you that you
have committed a criminal offence."

"No," said Harper soberly, "you needn't. But it's an offence I shall be
proud of having committed to my dying day."

The lights of an ambulance appeared round the corner. While they
approached, Mallett remained quite still, staring in front of him.

"What are you going to do with me?" asked the voice at his side.

The inspector turned his head abruptly towards him.

"I think I can make my report without mentioning your name," he jerked
out. "Good night, young fellow, and--good luck!"

He moved away to give instructions to the stretcher bearers.






[End of Tenant for Death, by Cyril Hare]
