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Title: The Bird Cage
Author: O'Duffy, Eimar Ultan (1893-1935)
Date of first publication: 1932
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: H. C. Kinsey, 1933
   (first U.S. edition)
Date first posted: 20 May 2009
Date last updated: 20 May 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #320

This ebook was produced by: Al Haines




THE BIRD CAGE


A MYSTERY NOVEL BY

EIMAR O'DUFFY



BY

THE SAME AUTHOR

THE SPACIOUS ADVENTURES OF THE MAN IN THE STREET

THE WASTED ISLAND



H. C. KINSEY & COMPANY, INC.

NEW YORK, 1933




FIRST AMERICAN  EDITION

PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. BY

J. J. LITTLE & IVES COMPANY

NEW YORK




TO MY FRIENDS

QUENTIN AND RHODA MANSFIELD




CONTENTS


     I.  A Death in the Night
    II.  On the Trail
   III.  A Hot Scent
    IV.  Doubts
     V.  What Miss Philpot Thought
    VI.  Fresh Forces
   VII.  What the Photograph Told
  VIII.  Facts and Theories
    IX.  The Empty House
     X.  A Night of Terror
    XI.  Rescue
   XII.  Theory Number Four
  XIII.  Mr. Elthorne at Home
   XIV.  A Second Problem
    XV.  Mr. Elthorne at Work
   XVI.  Allingham Gets Busy
  XVII.  The Night Hunters
 XVIII.  Mr. Sparker's Adventure
   XIX.  Unraveling the Threads
    XX.  The Villain of the Piece
   XXI.  The Loose Ends




[I]

A DEATH IN THE NIGHT

The Grand Hotel, Spurn Cove, is not what is called a hotel de
luxe--that is to say, a sham palace, all glare, glitter, and jazz
music, where everything costs about fifteen times what it is
worth,--but it is a very good hotel, with an atmosphere of solid
comfort about it, and something of a tradition in cooking.  When you
enter it on some blustering day after a tramp along the coast, as the
swing door cuts off the last wild clutch of the wind at your tingling
ears, and you pass over thick-piled carpets to the generous fire
burning in the lounge, a sort of heavenly calm seems to lap you round;
in the security of which, sunk deep in capacious armchairs, you will
have no thought but for tea and muffins.

The hotel is of a piece with the town it belongs to; for Spurn Cove is
a resort which has not yet been what is called "developed"; which means
that the sea and the hinterland are still its most prominent features,
and that it has been sadly neglected by the speculative builder and the
entertainment contractor.  The main street has a certain individuality;
there are few picture palaces, and only one small theater; the
promenade is old-fashioned and of no great extent.  Altogether it is
not the sort of place to attract really go-ahead people, though the
excellent bathing and scenery of the neighborhood bring a sufficiency
of visitors whose chief requirement on a holiday is rest.  It is very
prettily situated on a sickle-shaped sweep of coast, backed by wooded
hills, looking out over the North Sea.

One summer's morning, Mr. Latymer, the manager of the Grand Hotel, was
sitting at his desk at work on some accounts, when the telephone bell
rang.

"Miss Philpot speaking," came a voice along the wire.  "Will you come
down at once, sir?  There's something wrong with number twenty-two.
The gentleman hasn't come down to breakfast, and the chambermaid can't
get an answer from him.  The door is locked on the inside."

Mr. Latymer glanced at his wrist-watch.  It was five past eleven.
Something must be wrong indeed, and horrible imaginings chilled the
discreet soul of the manager.  "I'll come down," he said.

A moment later he stood at the bureau in the hall.

"Whose room is it?" he asked.

"Mr. W. Wilson," replied Miss Philpot.  "He only arrived last night."

"Give me the master-key," said Mr. Latymer, and, turning, called to a
passing waiter: "Stubbs, I want you to come upstairs with me."

With the man following, he hurried to the bedroom marked 22, and
knocked at the door.  There was no answer, He knocked again.  Still no
answer.  He waited a moment, and knocked a third time, much louder, but
with no more effect.

Mr. Latymer paled visibly, for he had made enough noise to waken the
heaviest sleeper.  After a brief hesitation he inserted the key in the
lock, and walked into the room, followed by his subordinate.  He had
steeled himself for a shock; but even so the spectacle that confronted
him wrung a cry of horror from his lips, and made him recoil against
the stalwart figure of Stubbs behind him.  Upon the bed lay the
motionless form of a man, his limbs stiffened in a hideous contortion,
his face a ghastly ruin, beaten and smashed out of all semblance of
humanity, and masked with clotted blood.

The two men stood, half-stunned by the terrible sight.  The manager was
the first to recover.

"Look here, Stubbs," he said.  "We must get the police at once.
Meanwhile, don't say a word about this to anybody.  We don't want to
create a sensation.  Do you understand?"

Stubbs having promised compliance, Mr. Latymer locked the door, and
went to the telephone in his private room.

"Is that the superintendent?" he inquired when the police station
answered his ring.

"No, sir.  The superintendent is away on sick leave.  This is Inspector
Cranley."

"Well, look here.  A dreadful thing has happened."  He told the story
in quick nervous tones.  "You must come round at once," he concluded.

"I'll be over in ten minutes," promised the voice in the telephone.

"One moment."  Already, in spite of his recent shock, the manager in
Mr. Latymer had risen above the man.  "Come in mufti," he said.  "Above
all things, I don't want a sensation."

In due course arrived Inspector Cranley, an alert young man in a gray
flannel suit.  Mr. Latymer wanted to hurry him at once to the scene of
the crime, but he preferred to begin by taking a survey of the outside
of the hotel.

"It's a pretty easy crib to crack," he remarked as they strolled past
the south front.  And so it was, for along the whole of this side of
the hotel there ran a veranda, the roof of which formed a balcony to
the first-floor windows, and which offered ample hold to an active
climber.

Mr. Latymer agreed ruefully with the detective's observation, and
pointed out the window of number 22.  Cranley at once went down on his
knees to examine the geranium border which lay between the path and the
verandah.

"By Jove!" he said.  "A careful customer.  He stepped on a board or
something in getting in, but he must have slipped in getting out again,
for he's left us a trace of his heel.  There it is.  And you see how
the earth has been pressed down here by something flat."  The young man
rose to his feet.  "Now what about the grounds?  Are they as easy to
get into as the house?"

"I don't think anyone could climb our railings," Mr. Latymer replied.
"But the main gate isn't shut till midnight.  It would be quite easy to
slip in unobserved before that, and hide in the shrubbery."

"How about getting out again?"

"Well, the gate is opened at six, and he might slip out then; but it
would be risky, as the gardeners are about.  Another way would be to
climb the gate leading to the beach.  It isn't very high."

"Let's have a look at it."

The two men walked down a winding yew-hedged path, which led to a gate
through which the sea could be observed dashing in miniature rollers on
the beach.  It was a perfectly feasible climb, but there were no
traces, the path inside being flagged, and the sand without, where it
had not been washed clear by the tide, trodden by dozens of feet.

"Nothing to be learned here," said the detective.  "Let's go back.  I
must have a look at the bedroom at once."

The manager led him to a side door, and then by a back stairway to the
scene of the crime.  But Mr. Latymer did not enter.  One view of what
was on the bed had been more than enough for him.  Inspector Cranley
went into the room alone.




[II]

ON THE TRAIL

The room was a large and bright one, with heavy expensive-looking
furniture and deep-piled blue carpet.  Through the long French windows
the morning sun shed brilliant slanting rays.

Inspector Cranley turned his attention at once to the corpse.  Clad in
pajamas, it lay on its back, half-covered by the bedclothes, with the
hideously maltreated head on the pillow.  The neck showed dark bruises
that could only have been made by throttling fingers, and there was
another bruise on the abdomen, as if the murderer had knelt on his
victim.  The latter had evidently resisted, so far as the disadvantage
at which he had been taken allowed, for his fists were clenched, and
one of them was badly cut, while a cameo ring which he wore was broken.

Here Cranley's investigation was interrupted by his catching a glimpse
of what was obviously the instrument of the crime, a large and heavy
hammer, the head of which was dabbed with blood, with some of the
victim's hairs adhering.  He took it up and scrutinized the handle
closely with a lens for finger-marks; but there were none.  The nature
of the brown smears on the wood told plainly that the murderer had worn
gloves: a cool hand, evidently, carrying out a well-premeditated crime.

Putting the gruesome implement aside, Cranley now turned to the dead
man's belongings.  On the small table by the bedside were a silver
watch, which was going, a bunch of keys, and a volume of fiction, with
a pair of shell-rimmed glasses between the pages.  There was also the
large key of the room, with the number plate attached.  Other personal
accessories lay on the dressing-table: some loose change, a
fountain-pen, and a pocket-book containing eleven pounds in Treasury
notes, besides the usual toilet requisites.  A light raincoat hung from
a hook on the door, and the man's other clothes lay on a chair at the
foot of the bed, all but the coat, which the inspector found hanging in
the wardrobe.  Against the wall stood a large black trunk, unlocked,
but not yet unpacked.  It was marked at both ends with the initials, W.
W., in white paint.  There was a tie-on label fastened to each of the
handles, having the inscription: _W. Wilson, passenger to Spurn Cove_;
but the railway company's adhesive label was missing.

Cranley next went to the windows.  The right-hand one was shut and
latched; but the other was merely closed; and the detective at once saw
that a circular piece had been cut out of the glass near the latch.  A
moment later he found the piece on the dressing-table.  A slight
discoloration in the center marked the point of adhesion of the putty
with which it had been retained in position during the cutting
operation; but the putty itself was not to be found, and the glass,
like the hammer, proved to be innocent of finger-prints.

Opening the window, the inspector proceeded to examine the balcony for
footmarks, and here at last obtained some reward for his pains.  The
indications were indeed faint, but one of them was definite enough for
exact measurement.  For all the violence of his assault on his victim,
the murderer was evidently not a man of extraordinary physique, for his
foot was only a size seven.

Having come to this conclusion, Inspector Cranley stood for a moment
looking out at the prospect below.  The town of Spurn Cove, as we have
said, is very nicely situated on a curve of the coast, not deep enough
to be called a bay, with wooded country behind it.  From the balcony of
the hotel, which stood on the southern point of the arc, Cranley could
see the clustering roofs and spires of the town, and the flash of its
windows in the morning sun.  Beyond the glittering waters of the bay,
now dotted with the heads of swimmers, with here and there the white
sail of a pleasure boat, the curvature of the shore terminated in
another promontory, with scattered red roofs among a mass of trees.
Altogether it was a charming view; but the detective's thoughts were
elsewhere.  It was evident that the dead man had expected an attack of
some kind; for it is unusual in these days for anyone to keep his
bedroom windows closed, especially in summer.  And the murderer had
obviously come prepared for this.  But how, Cranley asked himself,
could he have counted with confidence on scaling the balcony, cutting
the glass, and opening the window, without disturbing the sleeper?
More extraordinary still, how had he succeeded?  What catlike tread,
what deft unerring fingers, what infinite patience the midnight prowler
must have owned.  Cranley could picture him, gloved, rubber-soled,
lithe-bodied, opening the window inch by inch, then creeping softly as
a snake to the bedside to deal his deadly blow.

The fell work had gone without a hitch.  No slip by the murderer: no
cry from the victim.  In the dark too; for the moon was in her third
quarter.  There was something like wizardry in the achievement, unless
the man in the bed had been uncommonly deaf.

Deaf?  He had better inquire about that.  He went to the telephone in
the corner of the room and took up the receiver.

"Hello!  Is that Miss Philpot; ...  Me ...  Don't you know? ...  Yes,
it's me, darling.  I'm working on this murder ...  Yes ...  Now, look
here.  Did you see this man when he arrived last night?"

"Yes," replied Miss Philpot.

"Did you happen to notice if he was deaf?"

"Why, yes.  He must have been.  How did you guess it?  He kept his hand
up to his ear when I was speaking to him."

"Good.  Did you notice anything else unusual about him?"

"Well, yes.  He kept the collar of his coat turned up around his ears,
as if it was winter.  I didn't much like the look of him."

"Perhaps he had a cold?"

"I don't think so.  He had his cap low down on his forehead, too.  I
have an idea that he didn't want to be recognized."

Cranley whistled softly.  "That all you noticed?"

"That's all."

"Well, so long, darling."

He sat pensively for a while on the low window-sill, wondering why a
deaf man in fear of attack should have been content to latch his
windows without bolting them; but at last he left this fruitless
speculation to make a further inspection of the dead man's belongings.
The pockets of the trousers and waistcoat were empty.  So were those of
the raincoat, save for a few Southampton bus tickets, and a packet of
picture-postcards showing views of the same town.  The collar and shirt
were marked with their owner's name.

Cranley next opened the trunk, which proved to contain all the usual
articles of a man's wardrobe.  None were new, and most had been bought
at large stores in London and New York.  The detective took them out
one by one, and then, as he lifted the last layer, gave a sudden start
of surprise.  At the bottom of the trunk lay a number of heavy slabs of
metal, the identity of which he recognized at a glance.  They were
plates for the printing of bank-notes.

Swiftly the inspector picked one up and brought it over to the light,
when, with a thrill such as no incident of his career had hitherto
brought him, he deciphered the words: _Banco de San Flipe_, and
realized that he had stumbled into the heart of a mystery which had
puzzled the police of two continents for nearly a year.  These must be
the plates from which had been printed the forged notes by means of
which a gang of international crooks had swindled one of the Central
American republics out of more than a million pounds.




[III]

A HOT SCENT

It was just a year since the revelation of this gigantic fraud had
amazed the world.  One fateful morning the directors of the Bank of San
Flipe had received messages from no less than three branch managers
that notes which had come in over their counters were duplicates of
numbers already in their possession; and on the following days similar
messages came thick and fast from all over the country.  Counterfeiting
on a large scale was evidently in progress; but it was counterfeiting
of an exceptionally clever kind: for when the directors had passed the
notes from one to another in mingled consternation and admiration, they
found presently that they could not tell the spurious from the genuine.
Neither could the expert who was at once summoned to decide, nor the
other experts whom he called to his aid.  By no possible test could any
distinction be found.  Paper, watermark, design, ink, secret markings,
all were identical.

No forger ever known had succeeded in achieving such a feat before.
There is always a flaw in such productions somewhere.  They may deceive
the public and the bank cashier, but not the microscope of the expert.
There are too many different features in a properly printed note for a
perfect copy to be made.  Forgery, therefore, was inconceivable.  The
only alternative explanation seemed to be that a mistake in numbering
had been made by the printers, who were communicated with accordingly.

The printers were the great English firm of Bennett and Mowbray.  They
cabled indignant repudiation of the possibility of any mistake.  Their
system of checking and counter-checking was proof, they declared,
against any such accident.  And there the matter had to rest for a
fortnight until specimens of the notes could cross the Atlantic for
their inspection.  Meanwhile, in ever-increasing quantities, the
duplicate currency was pouring in across the counters of all the
branches of the bank.  The directors were in despair.  Prodigious
numbers of the notes were evidently in circulation, and it was
impossible to refuse them without holding up the economic life of the
country altogether.  Even as it was, though every effort was made to
conceal the full magnitude of the calamity, business confidence (to use
the meaningless abstract terminology of finance) was badly shaken,
thousands of securities were flung on the market by panic-stricken
foreign investors, and the public funds slumped heavily.  If San Flipe
had not been mainly an agricultural country, it would have been ruined.

To talk of ruin, of course, is only to adopt once again the artificial
language of the sham science which rules this unreal civilization of
ours.  In no real sense was there danger of ruin to anybody.  The crops
still ripened in the sun; the earth still yielded its minerals to the
seeker; human hands and brains had not lost their strength or cunning.
San Flipe had not lost a pennyworth of wealth because somebody had
been monkeying with the tokens of exchange.  In a civilization
dominated by money, an altogether disproportionate degree of
heinousness has been attached to the crime of counterfeiting.  Though
his motives are not altruistic, the counterfeiter is in actual fact a
public benefactor in a small way.  That is to say, he increases the
amount of money in circulation: and since, owing to a flaw in our
economic system, there is never enough money in the people's pockets to
buy more than a part of the generous output of goods produced by modern
industry, this is all to the good.  When the same thing is done by a
government in financial difficulties, it is called "inflation".  When
it is done (as it is habitually done) by the bankers, it is called
"expansion of credit".  But the principle is the same.

Be that as it may, the San Flipe forgeries soon spread consternation
far beyond the bounds of that primitive republic.  All over the world
the heads of financial houses were telling each other that what had
happened once could happen again.  The art of counterfeiting had at
last produced its genius; and who could tell where he might next try
his hand?  What if the Bank of England or the Federal Reserve Board
were to find itself in the same position as the Bank of San Flipe?
There is no coward like your dealer in money.  Honest John Smith,
earning five pounds a week, loses his pocket-book on his way home with
his wages: and what does he do?  Tightens his belt, and goes short for
a few months.  Sir Gorgius Midas hears that he may have to pay a little
more taxation next year: and the world is filled with his bellowings.
Sir Gorgius, reaching out for his twentieth million, drops a few
hundred thousand that he never really possessed and cannot possibly
miss: his losses are trumpeted to the skies, and he may even blow his
brains out.  John Smith, whose life's savings have been swept away by
his manipulations, goes on working in silence.  And so forth: not
forgetting that when the country is in danger, John gives his life, or
has it taken, while Sir Gorgius lends his money at interest.  The money
dealers, therefore, were flung into such a state of panic as might
possibly have been justified by the approach of famine or pestilence;
and the best brains in the detective agencies of the world were
stimulated with the prospects of high reward to run the counterfeiter
to earth.

Meanwhile the directors of the Bank of San Flipe awaited in tense
anxiety the explanation of Messrs. Bennett and Mowbray: and when it
came it was enough to drive the chief of them to suicide.  The mystery
was solved with a vengeance.  None of the notes submitted had been
printed by Bennett and Mowbray at all.  Both the supposedly genuine
notes and their duplicates were clever imitations of the design of
those they had despatched, but the paper was different, and so were
some minor technical points, as could be seen from the sample which
they were sending out.  In some unimaginable way, the consignment must
have been changed in transit for an entire set of forgeries, the
duplicates of which had been circulated in the country.

Naturally a first-class political scandal followed this revelation, for
the fraud could never have been perpetrated without the connivance of
persons high in the public service of San Flipe.  An order was at once
issued for the arrest of the courier who had brought the notes from
England, but he had succeeded in escaping from the country, and had not
been heard of since.  Further attempts to trace the culprits had been
hampered by the outbreak of a revolution, and the affair was generally
regarded as one of the insoluble mysteries of the world, like the Green
Bicycle case, or the murder of Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey.

Cranley looked at the plates, fascinated; then abruptly remembered his
present occupation, and that he had not yet found a clue to the
murderer.  Glancing once more round the room, his eye was caught by the
open wardrobe and the dead man's coat hanging within.  He took this
down, dived a hand into one of the breast pockets, and fished out a
letter.  It was sealed and stamped ready for posting, and bore the
address:

  H. Bronson, Esq.,
    Seapoint, Bay Road,
      Spurn Cove


Slitting up the envelope with a penknife, Cranley took out a folded
sheet of paper.  The message it contained was brief, but pointed.

  No more palaver, you skunk.  I want the
  full share you done me out of, and I mean
  to have it.  Send me a check tomorrow, or
  look out for the consequences.


There was no signature.

Cranley's heart beat quick with excitement.  Here was his first murder
case solved in an instant, and with it an opportunity to arrest the
most skilful and elusive forger of the century.  The rogues had
evidently quarreled over the division of the spoil, and one had fallen.
The trail must be followed at once.

Going to the telephone again, Cranley called the manager, and asked
that the room should be locked up exactly as it was.  Then he hurried
back to the police station, picked up two constables, and drove off
through the town and out again into the country towards the northern
point of the bay.

The road closely skirted the seashore, with open fields on the landward
side; but after a while these gave place to the enclosed grounds of a
succession of prosperous-looking residences, which stood sedately aloof
from the road, screened from vulgar observation by lines of trees and
dense shrubberies, through which they were approached by winding
avenues.  It was to these houses that the red roofs, observed by
Cranley from the balcony of the hotel, belonged.

Just after the road took the eastward trend, it abandoned the seashore,
which here fell into private possession, and plunged into a veritable
tunnel formed by the over-arching boughs of the giant beeches growing
in the demesnes on each side of it.  Half a mile farther on, however,
as the point was approached, the intercepting ground narrowed rapidly,
and the coast was touched again.

"Here we are," said Cranley, slowing up and drawing well in to the side
of the road some yards away from a white gate.

The house called Seapoint was situated close to the extreme point of
the bay, where the road swung round, almost encircling it, to follow
the coast-line northwards.  Cranley strode to the gate, and, having
sent one of the constables to watch the back entry to the grounds a
couple of hundred yards beyond the curve of the road, advanced up the
avenue with the other.  To their left was a plantation of young
fir-trees; to their right a garden of an unusual, not to say bizarre,
appearance.  At first glance it seemed to have been neglected until it
had run wild; for the places of the customary garden flowers had been
usurped by loosestrife, centaury, and vetch.  There was a long border
which was a riotous profusion of variegated wild blooms, with the
creamy heads of meadow-sweet waving above.  On the lawn, interspersed
with yews and laurels, there were clumps of furze and heather, and
drifts of yellow-flowered restharrow.  The grass was kept close-cropped
by a pair of contented-looking goats and their progeny, and one in a
mood to sprawl there in the sun would have found it scattered with the
humble blossoms of the field--starwort and birdsfoot, cranesbill,
gentian, and prunella.  That all this was, however, a permitted
wildness became quickly apparent; for the avenue and paths were well
tended, and even the most vigorous thrusters in nature's battle were
kept from encroaching beyond their proper quarters by a presiding hand.

"Queer sort of garden, this," commented Cranley as they marched onwards.

"I don't know so much, sir," replied the constable.  "It seems sort of
natural like."

"Well, you don't want a garden to be natural."  Cranley had very
decided views on what was what, and was picturing the owner of the
place as a half-savage eccentric, with a lunatic's cunning and resource
in the commission of crime.

Just then a bend of the avenue brought them in full view of the house
itself, a two-storied building of the chalet type.  Cranley walked up
to the door with his subordinate and rang the bell, which was promptly
answered by a worried-looking woman of fifty or so, who, as soon as she
saw the officers, cried out in a voice of alarm:

"Oh, has anything happened to Mr. Bronson?"

"Isn't he here?" asked Cranley.

"No, sir.  He seems to have disappeared."

"Disappeared?  Since when?"

"I don't know, sir," said the old woman.  "I went to call him at nine
o'clock--when he usually gets up--and the bed hadn't been slept in.
And the place is all topsy-turvy, sir, and I don't know what's been
happening."

"May we come in?" asked Cranley.

"Certainly, sir," and the old woman made way.

"You are Mr. Bronson's housekeeper, I presume," said Cranley when the
door was shut.

"Yes, sir.  Mrs. Dakin is my name, sir."

"Has he any other servants?"

"Only my daughter Polly."

"Where is she now?"

"Working in the kitchen, sir."

"May we sit down for a moment, Mrs. Dakin, while I ask you a few
questions?"

"Certainly, sir.  This way."  She ushered the officers into a room on
the right-hand side of the hall.  "This is Mr. Bronson's study, sir.
It's all in a mess, as I said."

And so it was.  The grate was full of the ashes of burned paper, and
the drawers of the bureau had been pulled out, and their contents
thrown about the floor.

"It certainly looks as if he had gone in a hurry," said Cranley,
surveying the scene.

"Has anything happened to him, sir?" asked Mrs. Dakin anxiously.

"I don't know," replied Cranley.  "That's what I've come to find out,
and I hope you'll do your best to help me.  You say that you discovered
his absence at nine this morning.  When did you see him last?"

Mrs. Dakin seemed to collect her scattered wits.

"It must have been about half-past seven last night, sir.  I served his
dinner at seven.  Then I went to my room to get myself ready to go out.
It was my night off, you see, and Polly and I were going to see some
friends in the town.  Just before starting I took in his coffee, and
that was the last I saw of him."

"It was your regular night off, I suppose?" said Cranley.  "Mr. Bronson
hadn't suggested your going specially?"

"Oh, no, sir.  We have every Wednesday regular."

"Mr. Bronson isn't married, of course?"

"No, sir.  But engaged to be."

"A young man, I take it?"

"Yes, sir.  And a very nice young man too.  Always keeps himself _to_
himself.  Oh, I do hope nothing has happened to him."

"Don't worry, Mrs. Dakin.  We'll soon find him.  You say he's rather a
stay-at-home sort?"

"Yes, sir.  All the time I've been with him--it's five years now--he
hasn't spent half a dozen nights away from home."

"I see.  Well now, Mrs. Dakin, you say you went out at half-past seven.
Was Mr. Bronson alone in the house then?"

"Yes, sir."

"And when did you return?"

"It was near midnight.  Mr. Bronson wasn't about, so we thought he'd
gone to bed.  But just after I'd gone to bed myself I heard him come in
and go to his room."

"Oh!  Did you hear him leaving it again?"

"No, sir.  It doesn't take me long to get to sleep."

"And this morning, when you went to call him, you found him gone?"

"Well, strictly speaking, sir, it was Polly that went to call him, and
when she found he wasn't there she called me up."

"I should like to have a word with Polly, then, if I may."

In answer to Mrs. Dakin's summons, a tousle-headed girl of about
sixteen made her appearance.  She had a good deal to say, but nothing
to add to her mother's story except that she had heard Mr. Bronson
leave his room and go downstairs about ten minutes after he had entered
it.  But she had thought nothing of that, and had fallen asleep almost
immediately.

"Has Mr. Bronson a car?" was Cranley's next query.

"Yes, sir," replied Mrs. Dakin.  "It'll be in the garage at the back."

Cranley turned to the constable.  "Potts, you might go around and see
if it's there now.  Have you any objection to my looking over the
house, Mrs. Dakin?"

Mrs. Dakin had none.  In fact, being really anxious about her master's
safety, she was ready to give the law every assistance in her power,
and led the way forthwith.  Upstairs all proved to be as she had
stated.  Except that the drawers of the dressing-table and wardrobe had
been ransacked like those of the desk below, the owner's bedroom was in
perfect order.  Cranley at once walked over to a row of shoes which
stood under the dressing-table, looked at their soles, took some
measurements, and asked of Mrs. Dakin: "Were the shoes that Mr. Bronson
was wearing rubber-soled also?"

Mrs. Dakin replied that they were, as he had no other sort.

Taking a shoe with him, Cranley went through the remaining rooms on the
same floor, but there was nothing else to be learned there.  They were
all unfurnished.  Returning to the hall with Mrs. Dakin, he encountered
Potts, who had just come back from the garage with the news that the
car was gone.

"I thought as much," said Cranley.  "Now, Mrs. Dakin, what about the
rooms on this floor?"

The first into which they looked was the dining-room, where the
principal object of interest was a canary in a cage in the center of
the table, which was laid for one person.  The bird chirruped a welcome
as the door opened, but fell into a disappointed silence at sight of
the visitors.

"He's a great pet," Mrs. Dakin explained.  "Mr. Bronson always has him
to chat with at meals, and he chirps back, like as if he understood
every word....  Polly, go back to the kitchen and turn off the stove,
and wait there till I send for you."

The girl, who had been lingering in the background agog with curiosity,
took herself off reluctantly.

"Very fond of animiles is Mr. Bronson," went on Mrs. Dakin.  "Not cats
and dogs, though, like most people keeps, because he says they're
carniverish, but there's an old donkey out in the stable that he bought
from a tinker that wasn't treating it right, and the squirrels out in
the plantation there--they'll come and sit on his shoulder.  And he
never would let me keep a mousetrap."

Cranley next decided to have a second look at the study, which, apart
from its present disorder, was a very comfortable little den indeed.
There was an armchair by the fireplace, with a well-filled pipe rack on
the wall close at hand.  On the mantelpiece was a plaster cast of the
Winged Victory of Samothrace in the midst of a disarray of old letters,
bills, seashells, bits of rock, matchboxes, and ink bottles.  There
were also two photographs in frames, one of a middle-aged woman, the
other of a very handsome girl ("Mr. Bronson's mother and young lady,"
Mrs. Dakin explained).  The bureau, which was of mahogany, stood near
one of the windows, and there was a book-case stocked with
sober-looking volumes.

The detective took a brief glance through the contents of the bureau
drawers, but it was evident that any papers of importance had been
consigned to the flames.  He bent down and turned over the mass of
ashes in the grate, carefully collecting what few fragments remained
unburned.  These he spread out on the leaf of the bureau, and studied
them carefully.  Most of them bore scraps of writing, but not enough to
convey any meaning.  Two, however, were significant.  One of them,
evidently the corner of a sheet of notepaper, was inscribed with the
words, _more of the slush_, in the handwriting of the deceased Mr.
Wilson.  The other was a piece of drawing paper bearing what was
evidently a portion of a rough draft for a bank-note design.  Cranley
whistled a low note of pleasure, but, even as he did so, the charred
paper fell to dust between his fingers.

"Good evidence gone west," he reflected ruefully, and with meticulous
care gathered up the other fragments and placed them in his
pocket-book.  He then walked over to the book-case and took a survey of
its contents.

"Mr. Bronson is interested in science, I see," he remarked.

"Yes, sir," said Mrs. Dakin.  "He's a chemist.  Not the sort that sells
medicines, you know.  What they call an experimentalist.  If you'll
step this way I'll show you his laboratory....  You haven't found a
clue to his disappearance yet, sir, I suppose?"

"Perhaps the laboratory will give us one," Cranley suggested as they
crossed the hall.

"This room here is unfurnished," said Mrs. Dakin, opening a door on the
same side as the study.  "And here's the laboratory opposite."

She showed them into a long, carpetless, white-washed apartment which
had formerly been a drawing-room.  It had two large bay-windows looking
across a neglected tennis court at the fir plantation.  The fire-grate
had been removed and replaced by an ugly furnace, and in the middle of
the room stood a long chemistry bench, with cupboards below, and the
usual rows of bottles, containing liquids and powders of various
colors, ranged on a double line of shelves above.  There was an oak
desk, open like that in the study, at one of the windows, and there
were bookshelves along the opposite wall.  Beside the furnace was a
huge standing rack, whose tiers of shelves were packed with flasks,
retorts, pneumatic troughs, and all the other varied apparatus of the
experimental chemist.

"Nothing to be learned here, I'm afraid," said Cranley, after searching
the numerous cupboards with a faint hope of finding further specimens
of the work of the San Flipe forgers.  "I don't think I need trouble
you any longer, Mrs. Dakin, unless you can give me a photograph of Mr.
Bronson."

"I don't think he ever had one taken, sir.  At any rate, I never saw
one."

"That's a pity.  Perhaps you could describe him for me then?"

"Well, sir, I suppose he was about middle height, with a bit of a stoop
about the shoulders.  He had mouse-colored hair, as you might say, and
gray eyes.  A good-looking young man on the whole, sir."

"Not a very remarkable type to pick out in a crowd, though," opined
Cranley ruefully.  "By the way, Mrs. Dakin, do you happen to have a
hammer about the house?  I want to tighten up something in my car."

Mrs. Dakin went to the kitchen and returned with a small tack hammer.

"Haven't you got a larger one?" asked Cranley.

"Yes.  There's one in the laboratory, but I thought it might be _too_
large."  She went in and began to rummage in a tool-box in a corner of
the room.

"Bless my heart, that's queer," she said presently.  "It isn't here.
Just wait a moment, sir, and I'll have a hunt for it."

"Don't trouble, thanks," replied Cranley.  "It's of no importance";
and, wishing the old woman good morning, he went out to his car.




[IV]

DOUBTS

The verdict of the inquest, which was held two days later, was a
foregone conclusion; and little public interest was aroused in a case
which, though distinguished by one or two unusual features, was almost
devoid of the element of mystery,--especially as the attention both of
the press and its readers was held by an earlier and more sensational
crime with markedly sexual characteristics.

In spite of the early start gained by the police, Bronson was still at
large.  His car had been found abandoned in a side street of Grantwich,
the nearest large town to Spurn Cove, barely ten miles away, whence it
was believed that he had taken train to London.  No further clue to his
whereabouts had been discovered, but a vigorous search by the police
was in progress, his description was in every newspaper, and his arrest
could not long be delayed.

The only thing in the nature of mystery about the case was the question
of the identity of the dead man, Wilson.  It was known that he had
written to engage his room at the Grand Hotel from a lodging-house in
Southampton, where, as Inspector Cranley had ascertained, he had
arrived the day before from America, crossing by the liner _Pannonia_
from New York.  There the trail ended.  The New York police professed
ignorance of any crook answering to Wilson's name or description.  It
was generally felt, however, that, as the former was probably false,
and the latter admittedly vague, there was no great significance in
their being at fault.  It was also known that the police of San Flipe
had been communicated with, but, since all their efforts to discover
the perpetrators of the famous forgeries had hitherto proved fruitless,
not much assistance was expected from them.  The public, however, were
not aware that the authorities in both countries were following up a
useful clue supplied to them by Scotland Yard.  The remarkable cameo
ring worn by the dead man had been pieced together by Cranley, who had
found the fragments among the bedclothes.  It was of unusual size and
exquisite workmanship, representing Adam and Eve standing under the
forbidden tree, round the trunk of which the serpent was coiled.  A
full description had been dispatched by cable, and it was unlikely that
so curious a piece of jewelry would remain untraced for long.

It was expected, as we have said, from the outset that the task of the
coroner and jury would be a short and easy one.  The body was
identified as that of the hotel visitor known as Wilson by the hall
porter and Miss Philpot.  The latter then gave an account of the man's
arrival on the night of the crime.  He had written to book a room two
days earlier, asking for one on the upper floor if possible.  The hotel
was full at the time, however, and there would have been no room at all
available but for the chance that another gentleman had unexpectedly
decided to leave a short time before.  The deceased had arrived at a
rather late hour, and expressed some objection to this room, as he
particularly wanted one that was cheap and quiet.  Witness noticed that
he spoke with an American accent, and his manner gave her the
impression that he did not want to be recognized.  The collar of his
coat was turned up, his cap was pulled down low on his forehead, and he
wore large shell-rimmed glasses.

"That, surely, is not very uncommon--especially in an American," said
the coroner, who deemed it his duty to keep witnesses well in hand.

Miss Philpot agreed.

"Then why did you think it suggested a disguise?"

The witness faltered that it had seemed so to her at the moment on
account of the other things she had mentioned.  She added that the man
spoke in low tones, though he was obviously rather deaf.

"When he was writing in the book, did you notice the cameo ring he was
wearing?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did he make any attempt to conceal it?"

"I don't think so."

"That doesn't look very like a disguise, does it?"

Miss Philpot admitted that it did not, and blushed.

"Did you see the deceased again," pursued the coroner, "after he had
signed the book and taken away the key of his room?"

The answer was a decided "No."

Would witness have recognized the deceased if he had come down again
without his cap, coat, and glasses?

Probably.  He had a very distinctive face, and, owing to the
circumstances already stated, she had observed him closely.

"So that was the last time you saw him alive?" the coroner summed up.

"Yes."

"And what time was it?"

"About half-past ten."

Miss Philpot was now permitted to retire, and her place was taken by a
porter from the Grand Hotel who had carried up the luggage of the
murdered man, and was the last person to see him alive.  He said that
the deceased was in his room when he brought in the luggage.  He was
sitting at the desk, writing, and still wearing his cap and coat.  He
had not spoken to witness, who, for his part, had taken little notice
of him.  Witness had heard the deceased lock his door as he went down
the passage.

Two witnesses were now called at the instance of the police in an
endeavor to ascertain the moment when the crime was committed.  A
murder attended by so much violence could scarcely have been carried
out without a certain amount of noise.  Cranley had therefore
interviewed the occupants of all the neighboring bedrooms, but the only
one who had heard anything was an old lady in the room on Wilson's
left, and her evidence was not very valuable.  She said she had been
troubled with uneasy dreams, mainly about burglars.  In one of these a
window had slammed, and she had awakened with her heart beating
violently.

"What time was that?" asked the coroner; but the lady could not tell.
She had not looked at her watch.

"Did you hear any more noises after you awoke?"

"I think so.  I mean I thought so at the time, but I was so upset that
I couldn't be sure."

There was nothing more to be got out of the lady, though the coroner
did his best.  No evidence was taken from the occupant of the room on
the other side of the dead man's, though he was present in court.  He
was a stout middle-aged bachelor, and had assured Cranley that he had
heard nothing.  "But there's nothing odd in that," he had explained.
"I could sleep through an earthquake."  A visitor whose room was on the
same corridor, however, testified that, when he was going to his room
at about half-past eleven, a door which he believed to be that of
number 22 had opened for a moment and then shut again.  He had not seen
the person inside.  A little later, when he was undressing, he thought
he heard a noise, but paid no attention to it, assuming it to be the
shutting of some other visitor's door.

"Most likely it was," commented the coroner.  "It is most unlikely that
the crime could have been committed so early as that."

After Mr. Latymer had described the circumstances of the discovery of
the body, Inspector Cranley stepped forward and opened his case.  He
had no difficulty in demonstrating to the jury that the threatening
letter to Bronson, found in the dead man's pocket, was in the same
handwriting as the signature in the visitors' book of the hotel, the
letter asking for a room, and the burned fragment found in the grate at
Seapoint.  A guilty connection between the two men was thus clearly
established.  The word "slush," Cranley explained to the jury, was
criminals' slang for forged money, and there could be no doubt of the
purpose of the plates found in Wilson's trunk, one of which was handed
up to the box for their inspection.  It only remained to identify the
hammer with which the murder had been committed, and his case was
complete.

"I have learned from Mr. Bronson's housekeeper," he concluded, "that a
hammer usually present in his house has disappeared, and I would ask
her if it is the same as the one now on exhibition in court."

Cranley sat down, and a thrill of interest went through the spectators
as the murderer's housekeeper came forward.  She stood there, the
personification of hard-working respectability, in her Sunday best, a
little nervous perhaps, but perfectly self-possessed, and with an
expression that said, politely but plainly, that she meant to have her
say.  Quietly answering the coroner's questions, she described her own
and Bronson's movements on the night of the crime exactly as she had
done to Inspector Cranley.  Then the hammer was brought for her
inspection, and it was evident from her look of distress that she
recognized it.

"Yes," she said.  "It's just like a hammer we used to have, but I
couldn't swear it's the same.  Hammers is all much of a muchness, you
know;" and no amount of cross-examination could wring from her any more
definite admission.

At last this ordeal ended, but, as the woman still lingered, the
coroner asked if she had anything more to say.

"Yes, sir, I have," she replied, and a strained silence seized upon the
court.  Somebody tried to suppress a cough.  "It's this, sir," said
Mrs. Dakin.  "I can't believe Mr. Bronson did this murder, and I don't
think his going away has anything whatever to do with it."

The coroner cleared his throat.  "I'm sure your loyalty to your
employer does you credit, Mrs. Dakin," he said, "but I'm afraid that
unless you can give us some facts in support of your opinions----"

"So I can, sir.  No end of them.  And the first of them is this letter
I got from the master this morning."

In the deep silence that followed these words the rustle of the paper
unfolding sounded loud and harsh.  Mrs. Dakin began to read:


"Dear Mrs. Dakin,

"I have to leave home for a while on urgent business.  Please lock up
the house, and leave a note of your address at the post office.  Take
Pete home with you, and please try to get someone to look after
Crookshanks.


"Crookshanks," Mrs. Dakin here parenthesized, "is the name of Mr.
Bronson's pet donkey, and Pete is his canary.  So he goes on:


"I enclose a check for one hundred pounds to enable you to carry on
until I return.

  "Yours sincerely,
    "Henry Bronson."


The coroner at once asked for the letter to be brought to him.

"Posted in Paris on August 28th," he said, after examining the
envelope.  "That was yesterday.  Well, Mrs. Dakin, this is certainly
very interesting, but it does nothing to prove your contention just
now--I mean about Mr. Bronson's reason for going away.  Have you
anything further to add?"

"Yes, sir.  What I think is that the master went away because there was
danger threatening him.  He hadn't been himself lately.  He seemed to
be worried about something ever since the burglary we had last May.  He
tried to pass it off at the time, and he wouldn't send for the police
because there was nothing taken, and he always said putting people in
prison never did any good anyway.  But I could see he was upset, and,
as I say, he's been worrying ever since."

"Can you tell us anything about that burglary, Mrs. Dakin?" asked the
coroner.

"No, sir.  We all slept through it.  When we came down in the morning
we found all the papers and books in the study and the laboratory
thrown about the place, but there was nothing missing.  Well, that's
one thing.  And the other thing is this.  About a fortnight ago my
daughter Polly was spoken to on the Promenade by a young gentleman.  He
made love to her, as you might say, and asked her some questions about
the ways of the house, and it's my belief he was our burglar, and what
he was after was the plans of Mr. Bronson's invention."

There was what is commonly described as a sensation in court at this
point, and the coroner at once asked: "What invention?"

Mrs. Dakin did not know.  All she knew was that Mr. Bronson was wrapped
up in it, and she believed that he had gone away to find a place of
safety for the papers dealing with it.

"Have you ever seen those papers, Mrs. Dakin?" asked the coroner.

"Lots of times, sir.  But of course I never read them, because I
couldn't understand them."

The coroner smiled at what all the reporters were describing as an
Irishism, and then proceeded: "Now, Mrs. Dakin, you have heard the
evidence brought forward by Inspector Cranley showing that Mr. Bronson
must have had some connection with a gang of bank-note forgers.  Could
you tell whether the papers had anything of that nature about them?"

"I'm quite sure they hadn't, sir," said Mrs. Dakin, "though, as I've
said, I never read them.  All that about him being mixed up in a
forgery must be a mistake.  I've been serving him now for five years,
and a nicer, quieter gentleman I never saw.  He's hardly ever slept a
night away from home, and he was never so happy as when he was working
all alone in his laboratory."

The coroner directed that one of the plates for the San Flipe notes
should be handed to the witness, and asked her if she had ever seen her
master working at such an object.

Mrs. Dakin was positive she had not.

"Did you ever see such an object anywhere about the house?"

"Never, sir."

The coroner intimated that his questions were at an end; but before
Mrs. Dakin stood down, the foreman of the jury asked her if she had
told Mr. Bronson about the gentleman who had spoken to her daughter.

"No, sir," answered Mrs. Dakin.  "I didn't know about that myself until
Polly mentioned it to me after the police called."

Mrs. Dakin's evidence was now supplemented by that of Polly, who
appeared before the court, red-lipped and powdered, in a pair of shiny
flesh-colored stockings.  The stockings are mentioned as being the
principal features of her attire.  She seemed to be all stockings,
stretched tight over shapeless legs.  Her insteps, striving like the
waters of a flood to find their proper level, billowed threateningly
over the edges of her shoes.  Her suety knees beamed lustrously beneath
the hem of her skirt.

This horrible apparition faced the court with the jaunty air of one who
has no doubt of her own importance.  Polly was indeed a choice product
of an age whose newspapers head their accounts of a railway accident
with "Girls Badly Shaken" in their boldest type, and casually mention a
dozen men killed towards the end of the report.  She had been made to
believe that her personality and the length of her petticoats were
matters of grave public import; she despised her mother; and she knew
that the world in general deemed her an advance on that lady.  The
coroner's was the only eye that looked with any disapproval on this
curious phenomenon; and his censure was moral rather than aesthetic.
He belonged to a passing generation.  Looking over his glasses, he said:

"Can you tell us anything about this young gentleman mentioned by your
mother?  What sort of gentleman was he?"

"A good-looking young gentleman."  Polly's descriptive powers were
unequal to anything more illuminating than that.  They had got into
conversation somehow: she couldn't remember exactly how, but she was
sure he had spoken to her first (here Polly gave vent to a giggle, and
the reporters made notes to remind them to mention something about the
modern girl's delightful frankness in matters of love and sex).  The
gentleman had been very attentive to her (another giggle) and wanted to
know all about her doings, and particularly about her nights off.  She
had thought at the time that this was because he wanted to meet her
again, and it was only when Mr. Bronson disappeared that she got the
idea that there might be something more in it.

Medical evidence was now given by a well-known local practitioner, and
the coroner proceeded to sum up.  He said that this was clearly a case
of murder: accident and suicide were alike out of the question.  They
had abundant evidence to show that the deceased was a member of a gang
of criminals; and the statement of Miss Philpot, together with the fact
that he kept his bedroom window shut, indicated that he expected that
some sort of violence might be used against him.  Having dealt with
Inspector Cranley's evidence, the coroner said that though it was
purely circumstantial it appeared to bear but one interpretation, and
it was strengthened by the flight of the person implicated.

"Doctor Henderson has just given you his opinion that death must have
taken place from nine to twelve hours before the finding of the
body,--in other words, between eleven p.m. and two a.m.  This leaves a
fairly wide margin for the commission of the crime, which the very
vague evidence of the visitors at the hotel does nothing to narrow.
According to the housekeeper and her daughter, Bronson was at home from
a little after midnight to about half-past, so that, by taking a car,
he had just enough time to accomplish the act before that flying visit,
and ample opportunity thereafter."

Before, however, naming this person in their verdict, the coroner went
on, the jury were bound to take into consideration the supplementary
evidence tendered by Mrs. Dakin.  This might conceivably be taken to
indicate an innocent reason for Bronson's disappearance: but on the
other hand it was hardly possible that he should not since have become
aware of the suspicion attaching to him, and his failure to come
forward in his own defense was therefore a point against him.  As to
Miss Polly Dakin, she was clearly a person of unreliable memory, and he
would leave it to the jury to decide whether her hazy recollection of a
fortnight-old conversation had any sinister significance, or merely
represented the string of commonplaces which a young man might exchange
with a person of inferior education and social position with whom he
had struck up a casual acquaintance.

The jury were absent for twenty minutes: apparently some of them felt
that Mrs. Dakin's evidence was worthy of consideration: but they
brought in the expected verdict.




[V]

WHAT MISS PHILPOT THOUGHT

A fortnight after the inquest, Inspector Cranley sat on a bench on the
Promenade gloomily gazing over the gray Septembrous ocean.  A casual
observer would have considered that he ought to be anything else than
gloomy, seeing that he had by his side something much better worth
gazing at than the sea in any mood: to wit, a very pretty girl, who
surveyed his dejected profile with a whimsical smile.  This young lady
had cheeks of a comely plumpness, with real roses in them.  Her eyes
were brown, her lips finely shaped and sensitive.  Everything about
her, from the curls that peeped under the brim of her snug little hat
to her silken ankles and dainty shoes, was as charming as femininity
can be.  It seems incredible that so beautiful a creature could be
hired for three pounds a week to attend to someone else's unnecessary
business.  But so it was; for the girl was no other than Miss Philpot,
bureau clerk at the Grand Hotel.

"They'll never get him now," Cranley was saying.  "He's probably in
Madagascar by this time.  And even if they do get him, it won't be much
help to me.  I've had my chance and missed it, that's all.  And two
chances like that don't come in one lifetime.  Jove, I am an unlucky
devil."

"Not in everything, surely?" said Miss Philpot, slipping her hand
through his arm; but even this pretty gesture could not raise Cranley
from his despondency.

"I made sure I was going to make my name this time," he said bleakly.

"Perhaps you will yet," said Miss Philpot.  "You know, I've an idea
that there's a lot more in this case than meets the eye."

"What a hope!" was Cranley's ironic response.

"Oh, well, if you're going to be nasty----"  Miss Philpot moved away
from him a little, at which Cranley suddenly roused himself.

"Sorry, dear.  I didn't mean to be nasty," he said.  "But you're
certainly the world's champion optimist, Doris."

She was.  All her life she had counted on the unexpected happening, and
finding fairyland round the corner.  Every week she put a shilling in a
money-box, not with the ignoble purpose of saving it, but in order to
buy a couple of tickets in the Calcutta Sweepstake at the end of the
year.  And she was quite certain, in spite of Cranley's statistical
exposition of her chances, that she would win it some day.  What an
orgy of spending she would have then.  She had it all planned out to
the last detail.  Her daddy would be given a nice round sum to retire
on--poor old dad, still working as hard as when he was a youngster
because the claims of his family had prevented him from putting
anything by for himself.  Then there would be all sorts of lovely gifts
for mummy.  And the boys would be taken from their desks as clerks and
set on the road to be barristers or solicitors; and Molly would be
started in a type-writing business on her own, and pay ever such good
wages to the girls under her; and Daisy's fianc would be lent just
that little bit of capital that he needed.  After that she would walk
about the streets giving five-pound notes to the pinched-looking men
and women selling matches to support large families; and she would come
up behind little children gazing hungrily into toyshops, and ask them
to choose whatever they liked.  Finally she would buy a dream house in
the country, not too far from London, where Cranley would set up as a
private detective and become as famous as Sherlock Holmes.

She did not tell Cranley all this.  He was too fond of throwing cold
water about: as witness his reception of her present bright idea.

"Well," she said, "I think this case isn't quite so simple as it looks,
and if you'll listen and not interrupt, and promise to be nice, I'll
tell you why."

"I'll be good," said Cranley, putting on a sanctimonious expression.

"Very well then," said Doris.  "Point number one.  Why did a murderer
who took so much trouble to avoid leaving any finger-marks leave that
hammer behind?"

"Oh, that's easy," replied Cranley.  "No matter how careful a man is he
might make one slip--especially with a murder fresh on his conscience."

"I agree that by itself that doesn't mean much.  But there's more to
follow.  Second point: why did Bronson invite suspicion by running
away?"

"Nerves, perhaps.  Or perhaps because, when he got home, he remembered
that he'd left the hammer behind."

"No.  That won't do.  If you had only had the hammer to go upon you
wouldn't have traced him yet.  Third point: how did the murderer know
where Wilson was?  Remember, he had only just arrived, and it was only
by chance that we had a room to spare."

"Bronson may have seen him arrive, and followed him from the station."

"Possibly.  But how did he hit on the right room?  That's a real
teaser.  And there are more to come.  Point number--what is it?  Four
or five?  No matter.  What was Wilson doing at Spurn Cove at all?  It's
quite obvious that he was afraid of something or he wouldn't have
fastened his window, to say nothing of disguising himself.  If he was
frightened of Bronson, why couldn't he have negotiated from a distance?"

"The disguise, my dear girl, was to deceive the police, not Bronson.
Wasn't the letter an invitation to Bronson to meet him?  And it doesn't
follow from his bolting his window that he was _afraid_ of Bronson: it
was merely a sensible precaution so that he could sleep in safety.  To
judge by his letter, I should say that he expected that Bronson would
be afraid of _him_, and that he hoped to frighten him into whatever he
wanted him to do."

"You may be right, of course," said Doris.  "But now for the last
point.  I paid a visit to Mrs. Dakin the other day.  She's in lodgings
now.  She's the dearest old soul, and thinks no end of Bronson.  She
insists that he couldn't have committed the crime--told me all sorts of
stories to show how kind-hearted he is.  He's fond of animals too.  She
has his canary with her, and she says it hasn't sung a note since he
disappeared, and she's afraid it will die."

"That's all very well," said Cranley.  "But it doesn't follow at all
that a man who's fond of animals couldn't commit a crime.  Do you
remember that story of O. Henry's about the detective who tracked down
a wife-murderer by his fondness for dogs?  And what about the
profiteers prettily feeding the pigeons in Saint Paul's churchyard?
Pff!  Slop about animals makes no appeal to me whatever."

"Mr. Bronson wasn't kind to animals only," said Doris quietly.

"Oh, I dare say," said Cranley.  "No doubt Mrs. Dakin has fitted him
out with a first-class halo, all complete with knobs on.  But did she
tell you where this paragon gets his money from?"

"No."

"Neither can anyone else, though he's tolerably well off.  I had an
interview with his banker yesterday, and learned that he pays in a
large sum once a quarter _in bank-notes_.  Doesn't that look rather
fishy?  If a man is earning honest money in that quantity, he gets paid
by check; and if he has a private income, he gets dividend warrants.
Those notes mean something shady, my dear.  Even if your canary fancier
didn't commit the murder, it's as plain as daylight that he helped in
the San Flipe forgery."

Doris shook her head.

"Don't you know very well," she said, "that people with just as strong
evidence against them have often been proved innocent when it was too
late--after they'd been hanged, or spent years in prison?"

"Yes, but you'd have to acquit everybody not taken red-handed, on that
consideration."

"And quite right too," said Doris.

"Well, that's a girl all over," cried Cranley, and looked up at the sky
as if to call the gods to witness that he had nothing in common with
such beings.

Doris smiled.

"Didn't some great man once say," she began, "that it was better that a
hundred----"

"--Guilty ones should get off, and the rest of it," cut in Cranley.  "I
know all that, and I dare say it's all very well in theory.  But I'm a
practical man, and I know that if the law isn't vindicated it isn't
respected.  I'm not going to be drawn off into generalities, though.
Tell me this now.  If Bronson's innocent, what is he hiding for?"

"I don't know," said Doris.  "That's what I want you to find out.  You
see, I'm not clever.  I just happened to notice these points I've told
you of, and I thought you'd be able to work out what they mean.  Oh,
and there's another thing that I'd almost forgotten, though really it's
the most important of all.  It suddenly struck me yesterday as I was
looking over the bay.  You can see Mr. Bronson's house from the windows
on the north side of the hotel."

"That settles point number three or four, then," said Cranley
ironically.  "Probably Bronson saw Wilson getting into bed through a
telescope."

"Now you're getting nasty again," said Doris reproachfully.  "Remember,
it was night-time.  Don't you think this is more than a coincidence?
The moment I realized it, a queer sort of feeling came over me, as if
there was some deep and horrible meaning in it that I couldn't grasp."

"That's just your fancy, my dear," said Cranley with sturdy common
sense.

"No, it isn't.  It was an actual shuddering of the heart, as if I was
just on the verge of some frightful discovery.  I'll never forget the
moment as long as I live."

"I'm afraid I can't see anything in it," said Cranley.

"Oh, all right," said Doris resignedly.  "I thought that perhaps the
others were all off on a false scent, and that you might follow up
these clues and make your name----"

"That was very sweet of you, darling," Cranley interrupted.  "But these
notions of yours--what do they amount to against my solid facts?
Here's a crime traced to a man's very door.  We find the motive for it
in the dead man's pocket--as good a motive for murder as ever was.  We
trace one of the weapons used to the suspect's house.  He as good as
confesses his guilt by running away and hiding.  Oh, and I found his
footmarks on the balcony of the hotel.  I kept that up my sleeve at the
inquest, because I had enough evidence without it.  Short of seeing him
commit the crime with my very eyes, I couldn't have found a more
complete or conclusive collection of evidence.  Yet you want me to
start on a wild-goose chase in some other direction because he keeps a
pet canary, and his house has a distant view of the dead man's bedroom.
It isn't reasonable, now, is it?"

Doris shrugged her shoulders.

"You know it isn't," said Cranley.  "But look here, darling.  This is
our day off.  We don't want to spend it investigating murders, do we?
What about a cup of tea at Bellini's?"

"You think the tea table is a girl's proper sphere, I suppose," said
Doris, still unbending.

"You know very well I don't.  Listen, Doris.  There's nobody looking.
Give me a kiss."

"I won't be kissed by a man who despises me."

"I don't despise you, darling."

"Yes, you do.  If a man had made these suggestions of mine, you'd have
taken them seriously and thought them over.  But because I'm a girl you
just waved them aside----"

"No, I didn't.  I gave you reasons against each of them."

"Fine reasons!  Just the first obvious objection that came into your
head.  If you've so little respect for my intelligence as that, I can't
see why you want me for your wife."

"Don't be silly, Doris.  You know very well that I love you, and I
couldn't love you if I didn't respect your intelligence.  But----"

"That's all right," said Doris, mollified.  "Though I was afraid for a
moment that you were going to say that men like stupid girls best."

"It's only women's papers that say that," put in Cranley.  "But what I
was going to add was that detection is a specialized job, and even the
cleverest little girls wouldn't shine at it.  It means downright hard
thinking--clear, cold, hard logic, and no sentimentality.  Now all
those points of yours were clever enough: I don't deny that.  But they
weren't the real stuff at the back of your mind.  What mattered to you
was Mrs. Dakin's sobstuff about the murderer's kind heart, and you
thought out all the rest to bolster it up."

"You're incorrigible," said Doris.

"I'm incorrigibly in love.  Do make up and give me a kiss."

"Look at those people by the steps."

"They aren't looking.  Please!"

"No.  You don't deserve it.  No, I say...  Oh, well..."


That evening, after tea and the pictures and a very pleasant time
generally, Doris would not let Cranley see her home to the hotel,
saying that she had some shopping to do first.  As soon as he had left
her, she turned down an obscure street, and knocked at the door of Mrs.
Dakin's humble lodging.

Mrs. Dakin was delighted to see her.

"Polly's out," she said.  "At the Pallay de Dongce--as usual.  Why
can't they call it Dancing Palace, I wonder?  There's no sense calling
things foreign names that don't mean anything, and you have to twist
your face out of shape to pronounce properly.  But 'Oh, mater' says
Polly when I say that--_mater_, if you please!  'You _are_ an old back
number' says she.  'We've got to be modern in these go-ahead days.'
Really, I don't know what young folks are coming to these times.  Won't
you sit down, Miss?"

"Mr. Cranley wouldn't listen to me," said Doris, taking the proffered
chair.  "He's quite certain Mr. Bronson is guilty, and nothing I could
say would change him."

"Dear, dear," mourned Mrs. Dakin.  "Men are all the same.  Poor Dakin
would never heed a word of advice from me, though I will say he was the
best husband a woman ever had.  Now what do you think we'd better do?"

"I'm going to do a bit of detective work on my own account," said
Doris.  "That'll show him.  Have you got the key to the house?"

"I have."

"Will you lend it to me?"

Mrs. Dakin looked doubtful.

"I want to go to the house and look into Mr. Bronson's papers," Doris
explained, "to see if I can find any reason for his going away so
suddenly."

Mrs. Dakin looked more doubtful still.

"I don't know as I've any right to let you, Miss," she said.  "The
master told me to lock the place up, and didn't say nothing about
opening it again."

"He couldn't have known that it might be necessary," said Doris.

"And I don't, neither," said Mrs. Dakin.  "Meaning no offense, Miss,
but I don't think it's for me to let anybody go reading his private
papers after he's trusted me to look after 'em.  'Lock up the house,'
his letter said, plain as if he'd spoke it himself, and 'lock up' don't
mean 'let strangers pry around' if _I_ knows English."

"Yes, but don't you see, Mrs. Dakin, that when he wrote that letter he
can have had no idea that he was going to be accused of murder?  You
know how black the case is against him.  Probably you and I are the
only people in England who believe him innocent.  Surely you're not
going to stand in the way of my proving it?"

"Oh, no, Miss, if you put it that way----"

"You can come with me if you don't trust me."

"Oh, don't say that, Miss.  I wouldn't doubt you for a moment.  It's
only that I'm not sure of the rights of the matter."

"Well, I shan't press you, Mrs. Dakin," said Doris, making as if to
withdraw.  "I had an idea that I could help Mr. Bronson, but if you
object there's no more to be said."

The sight of her only ally turning away put an end to Mrs. Dakin's
waverings.

"Here," she said.  "Don't go.  I can see that you're all right."

She opened a drawer of a china cupboard, and took something from a box
within.  "Here's the key," she went on.  "Be sure to lock everything up
again when you leave.  Or perhaps you'd like me to come with you?"

"No, there's no need to trouble you," said Doris.  "I can manage all
right by myself."

"Well, you'll find the two desks open.  They were left that way when
Mr. Bronson went, and he has the keys with him.  There's one in the
study and one in the laboratory," and Mrs. Dakin proceeded to give
Doris a description of the lie of the house.

"Where's the canary?" asked the girl at length as she rose to go.

"Gone," said Mrs. Dakin.  "Mr. Bronson's young lady--Miss Worthing, her
name is--came down last Thursday to fetch him.  She had a letter from
the master asking her to take care of him."

"Oh?  Where did he write from?"

"He didn't say, Miss.  Miss Worthing showed me the letter--as a sign of
bona fidy--and there was no address on it.  But it came from foreign
parts, for there was a foreign stamp on the envelope."




[VI]

FRESH FORCES

The offices of Investigations, Ltd., are situated at the top of a large
building in Regent Street.  The business of the firm, like its title,
is a comprehensive one.  It will investigate anything, no matter what.
An obscure Greek quotation, a dark point in Oriental mysticism, the
whereabouts of somebody last heard of in Patagonia in 1886, what
somebody or other said on the occasion of the introduction of the
Cabhorses (Preservation) Bill,--all such questions, besides odd
criminal problems now and then, are dealt with by Investigations, Ltd.,
promptly, efficiently, and at moderate charges.

The principal, and founder, of the business was Mr. Robert Cardwell,
whose career may detain us for a moment.  Summoned by the War from his
studies for the Bar, he had found himself, when the great interruption
was over, at a loose end.  The law no longer attracted him; and in any
case to sit again as a student among youngsters not out of their teens
was distasteful to a veteran soldier.  The same objection applied, of
course, to all other learned professions; but what else could he do?
He had but one asset--the general culture bestowed by a classical
education--and that seemed to be in no demand in a world given over
more than ever to mere money getting.  He had only to look at the
advertisement columns of _The Times_ to see that people with exactly
the same qualifications as his were begging by the hundred for any
little crumb of a job that the business world might fling at them.
Cardwell at once resolved that he would not go job-hunting, that most
melancholy and humiliating of pursuits.  He would stand on his own two
feet.  Into this scrambling market he would go with his own
merchandise, knowledge, and sell that.

The sequel to this decision was the appearance of an advertisement in
the principal newspapers to the effect that Investigations, Ltd., were
prepared to undertake inquiries into any subject at moderate rates.
Cardwell began business in a modest office in Baker Street, and it was
the associations of the name that first brought criminal inquiries
within his purview; for he had originally envisaged only literary and
historical researches.  His first client was a gentleman recently
elected to Parliament, who, as a big business man, found himself
expected to speak in a coming debate on Monetary Reform, a subject on
which he was profoundly ignorant.  Cardwell knew very little about it
either; but a few days' reading in the British Museum library yielded
material for a bulky dossier, fortified with which the legislator
delivered the remarkable oration that set him in the eminent position
among economic thinkers that he now occupies.  As an economist the
gentleman holds himself excused from talking on less weighty matters,
but whenever Monetary Reform crops up, he delivers the fruit of
Cardwell's researches all over again with the greatest aplomb.

Cardwell thus found himself launched in business as a universal
provider of knowledge.  Some of his early clients were of the humblest
status--young women who had secured appointments as governesses and
found that a lean purse and a hazy recollection of what they had
learned at school were not such valuable qualifications as they had
hoped; struggling authors in difficulties about the details of big
business or the domestic life of the wealthy; and a whole host of
ambitious youngsters wanting to know the shortest way to "success."
His first case with a criminal complexion was when he was called in by
Lady Bleakridge in the divorce proceedings initiated by her husband.
The latter, it may be remembered, had possession of indisputable "hotel
evidence," and Lady Bleakridge had no effective alibi; but Cardwell
succeeded in tracking down the woman who had impersonated her on the
occasion in question, and thus secured for his client the doubtful
benefit of retaining her husband's name.  Thenceforward criminal cases
formed an important and growing side-line of Cardwell's business.  At
the time when this story opens he was employing two assistants and a
staff of clerks, and had been for some months in possession of the
thoroughly modern offices in Regent Street.

One September morning there came to these offices a tall, handsome
young woman whose card gave her name as Miss Hester Worthing.

"I am the fiance of Mr. Henry Bronson," she announced when she was
alone with the principal.

"Ah!  Of the Spurn Cove case," said Cardwell, who had already noted the
look about her fine eyes which told of sleepless nights.

"Yes."  The girl paused, as it uncertain how to begin, then plunged
desperately.  "Mr. Cardwell, I want you to take up this case.  I know
it looks black against Mr. Bronson--hopeless almost--but of course I
simply can't imagine him doing such a thing, and I feel that if you
would go down and investigate it right from the beginning you might
find out something that would show that the police are wrong."

"I shall certainly be very happy to do so," said Cardwell.  "But if you
are in possession of any evidence in his favor, would it not be better
to bring it to the notice of the police?"

"Unfortunately I have none," said Miss Worthing.  "But a very curious
incident has occurred which I can't make head or tail of, and for all I
know it may tell against him rather than in his favor.  That's why I
have come to you."

She had opened her handbag as she spoke, and she now produced an
envelope from it.  "Here is a letter," she said, "which I received from
Mr. Bronson last week.  Please read it."

Cardwell did so.  It ran as follows:


Darling,

I have to leave home on urgent business for a little while.  Don't
worry.  I shall write again soon and explain.

Please take care of little Pete.

  Best love,
    Harry


"Posted in Marseilles last Tuesday, I see," remarked Cardwell.  "He
hasn't gone very far yet.  Pete, as well as I remember, is a canary.
It was mentioned at the inquest."

"Yes.  Mr. Bronson wrote a letter to Mrs. Dakin, his housekeeper,
asking her to take care of it.  Well, as soon as I got this letter I
went down to Spurn Cove to fetch it.  I had already heard from Mrs.
Dakin--who is a thoroughly honest and reliable woman--that she had shut
his house and taken the bird to her lodgings, so I went there and
brought it home with me.  And now comes the curious thing.  Yesterday,
when I was cleaning the cage, I noticed a little knob in one corner,
and out of curiosity I pressed it.  You can imagine my surprise when
the bottom of the cage fell open from a pair of hinges, and a number of
papers dropped out.  I have them here to show you."

The girl went to her handbag again and took out two ancient-looking
letters and a much-faded photograph, which she handed to Cardwell.  The
investigator examined the letters first.  Both were addressed to a Mrs.
James Reddington, living at Chattering, Essex, from her husband.  One,
dated 1898, came from a London hotel, and simply announced that the
writer was coming home next day, having done some good business.  The
other, which was from South Africa, was a soldier's letter written on
the eve of battle.

Having read them, Cardwell took up the photograph and examined it with
interest.  It represented a bride and bridegroom in the costumes of
thirty years ago.  The bride was very young, small, pretty, and
smiling.  The groom was a little older, tall, dark and rather solemn.
The name of the photographer--J. Pondersham, Chattering--was inscribed
on the mounting.

"Do you know who these people are?" Cardwell asked.

"No," replied Miss Worthing.  "But Harry--Mr. Bronson--was born at
Chelmsford, which is near Chattering, so they might be his parents."

"You never met his parents, I presume?"

"No.  They both died long before I became acquainted with him."

"Well, we have the name and address of the photographer, so it should
not be difficult to trace the sitters.  They might, of course, be the
couple to whom the letters belong--Reddington, isn't it?  Did Mr.
Bronson ever mention anyone of that name to you?"

"Never."

"The letters seem to be of very little interest.  The singular thing in
this affair is the method Mr. Bronson has taken to convey them to
you--if that was his intention; for, of course, he may not have
expected that you would discover his hiding-place.  I should like to
have a look at that cage, by the way."

"Certainly," said Miss Worthing.  "It's in my car down below."

Cardwell at once had it fetched up.  After a preliminary scrutiny he
pressed the knob which Miss Worthing had mentioned, and immediately,
with a click, the bottom fell down.

"Most ingenious," Cardwell commented.  "Mr. Bronson evidently had
strong reasons for preserving these relics and for expecting some
attempt to steal them."

"There _was_ an attempt," said Miss Worthing.  "Do you remember Mrs.
Dakin's story at the inquest?"

"I have some recollection of it," said Cardwell, "though, really, I
paid very little attention to the case.  Crime, you know, is only a
side-line with me, and I did not expect to be consulted in this one.
As well as I remember, this woman mentioned a burglary----"

"Yes.  Nothing was taken; but Mr. Bronson's books and papers were
thrown about, as if the burglar was looking for something."

"This find of yours certainly throws a new light on that incident,"
said Cardwell.  "There are distinct possibilities about this case, and
I shall have the greatest pleasure in taking it up.  To begin with,
there are one or two questions I should like to ask you."

"As many as you like," said Miss Worthing.  "I'm anxious to give you
all the help I can."

"Very good.  Tell me first, then, when was the last time you saw Mr.
Bronson?"

"It was exactly a week before the murder.  He came up to London
specially to see me, and we spent the day together, and went to the
theater."

"What was his manner on that occasion?"

"Just the same as ever.  He's rather quiet by nature.  Absent-minded in
fact.  He's a scientist, you know, and quite wrapped up in his work."

"I take it, then, that he was neither more nor less cheerful than
usual?"

The girl agreed.

"Well now, Miss Worthing, will you be so good as to tell me all you
know about Mr. Bronson--his parentage, history, and so forth."

"I'm afraid it doesn't amount to very much," replied the girl.  "It's
only a year since I first met him.  It was at a charity bazaar down at
Spurn Cove, where I was taking a holiday.  I had charge of a stall, and
he came to buy.  We got into conversation and became friends very
quickly.  We arranged to meet again in London, and it wasn't long
before we were engaged.  After that we didn't see each other very
often, because my parents didn't approve of the engagement, and Mr.
Bronson's work kept him down at Seapoint.  He was working out some very
abstruse chemical problem, and he wanted to get it finished before our
marriage.  So you see we didn't have much time to talk of anything but
our immediate interests.  I know that his father died when he was a
child, leaving him and his mother very badly off.  As a young man he
worked in the research department of Elthorne's big works--the steel
people, you know--but he had left it before I met him.  That's really
all I can tell you."

"He appears to have been tolerably well off in recent years," Cardwell
observed.

"I suppose so," said Miss Worthing.  "He has a very nice house, and he
has been able to devote himself entirely to scientific research.  But
of course I never inquired about his means.  My father, who is rather
old-fashioned in his ideas, asked him if he could keep me in the style
to which I was accustomed; and he simply answered that he couldn't, and
that I'd have to chance it."

The girl smiled reminiscently.  Cardwell waited for her to continue,
but she had nothing more to tell.

"One last question then," he said.  "Did Mr. Bronson ever introduce you
to this man, Wilson?"

"Never."

"Did he ever mention his name?"

"No."

"You know, of course, that they are supposed to have been associated
together in the San Flipe forgery case?"

"So the police seem to think, but it seems utterly impossible to me.
It all occurred, I remember, soon after Harry and I met--just when we
were seeing most of each other.  Quite apart from his character, I
don't see how he could have had the opportunity.  Mrs. Dakin says he
was hardly ever away from home for the last five years, so it's hard to
see how he could have got mixed up in a crime in South America."

"Well, you know, as far as that goes, it wouldn't have been necessary
for him to go to America.  Don't misunderstand me, though," said the
detective hastily.  "I'm not suggesting he was guilty: only warning you
not to rely on that evidence alone.  Was it long before the forgery
became public that you met him?"

"Not very.  Only a week or two, I think."

Cardwell pursed up his lips and looked grave.

"Of course the notes had been printed and circulated long before the
discovery," he said.  "You know nothing of his movements up till the
time you met him?"

"No.  But Mrs. Dakin would."

"Unfortunately that absorption in scientific research, which she spoke
about at the inquest, might easily be interpreted as absorption in
forgery--as, in fact, it has been.  However, we'll see what can be
done.  I've nothing more to ask you now--except this.  What year was
Mr. Bronson born?"

"He was twenty-six last May," said Miss Worthing.

"Good.  I needn't detain you any longer, then.  I shall set to work at
once on what material we have, and as soon as there's any progress to
report I'll let you know."

When his visitor had departed, Cardwell summoned a typist and dictated
a letter to Somerset House, asking for the birth certificate of Mr.
Henry Bronson.

"As soon as you have that typed," he said, "tell Henderson to deliver
it by hand and wait for an answer.  There'll be a few shillings to pay,
which he can get from petty cash.  Do the letter now, but first ask
Miss Weston to bring me the files of the Spurn Cove case and the San
Flipe affair."

Newspaper cuttings dealing with noteworthy crimes were regularly kept
and indexed in case of need.  The documents Cardwell asked for were
brought to him neatly pasted on sheets of paper enclosed in numbered
folders, and he went through them methodically.  When he had finished
he took up the telephone.

"Get me the Grand Hotel, Spurn Cove, please," he said.  "It'll be a
trunk call.  When you've rung, ask Mr. Allingham to come to me at once."

A moment later a young man entered the room.  He appeared to be about
twenty-five years of age, good looking, with a rather leisurely manner,
but with that sort of untidiness about his dress which goes with an
active and impatient mind.  He sat down on the arm of the chair vacated
by Miss Worthing, and asked: "Why does it take so much longer to answer
the queries of a pretty girl than an important politician's?"

Cardwell smiled.

"In this case," he said, "the reason is that the lady was consulting me
about the Spurn Cove murder, which I've come to the conclusion isn't
quite such a clear-as-glass affair as the police seem to imagine.  In
fact I'm going to set you to work on it right away."

He gave his subordinate a rsum of what Miss Worthing had told him,
and proceeded:

"Now I want you to get down to Chattering by the first train you can
catch, hunt up this photographer or his successor, and find out all
about these people in the photograph.  If the business has come to an
end, don't leave it at that.  Hunt around and find out what's become of
the owners.  There'll probably be relatives in the neighborhood.  Or
you might take the photograph to the clergy or local notables and see
if they know anything about it.  Anyway, I rely on you to leave no
stone unturned."

"I'll do my best," said Allingham.

"After that, find out whatever you can about these Reddington
people,--who, of course, may turn out to be the same couple.  If
they're still alive, interview them, but be discreet.  We may be
scratching about on the surface of some deep plot, and we don't want to
give any unnecessary alarm."

"Right you are," said Allingham.  "I'll go and look up the trains at
once."

At the same moment the telephone bell rang.  Allingham withdrew,
consulted the railway guide in the general office, and made rapid
preparations for his journey.  When these were completed he returned to
find the telephone conversation over and his chief pensively smoking a
cigarette.

"I've just had a conversation with the manager of the Grand Hotel,
Spurn Cove," he said.  "In reading the accounts of the murder I noticed
one small detail that was not explained, and though it was probably of
no importance I thought it well to clear it up.  You will remember that
Wilson was only able to get a room at the hotel because another man had
left unexpectedly.  In passing, that looks rather remarkable, because
he arrived so late at night that it's difficult to see how the murderer
could have known he was there, or hit on his bedroom so accurately.  In
fact, if the trail hadn't led so swiftly to Bronson, I think the police
and the coroner would have given some attention to the point."

"Do you mean," said Allingham, "that perhaps Wilson was murdered in
mistake for the man who had left?"

"That was my idea.  So I rang up the hotel to find out who this man
was."

"Who was he?"

"John Elthorne," said Cardwell.

"And who is John Elthorne when he's at home?"

"It's time you acquired some knowledge of the world of big business,
young man," said Cardwell.  "John Elthorne is known to fame as one of
the biggest men in the steel industry, and ought to be known to infamy
as one of the grossest profiteers who did well out of the war.  He must
have made a quarter of a million selling jerrybuilt villas for ten
times their value in the early days of the housing shortage.  I notice,
too, from _Who's Who_ that he's rather coy about his early history."

Cardwell opened the ponderous red volume and quoted: "_Born, Cape
Colony_.  No date, you observe, and Cape Colony is an extensive
territory.  _Married, Helen, dau. of Henry Summerling.  Two s; one d.
Managing Director of John Elthorne and Sons.  Recreation, halma._  A
joke, I presume."

"We are not amused," said Allingham.

"No.  It's like the jest of a man trying to conceal that he's uneasy."

"The fellow is evidently self-made, but not particularly proud of it,"
observed Allingham.  "So this strong pillar of industry occupied
Wilson's room up to the day of the murder.  Is there any particular
significance in that?"

"There seems to be," said Cardwell.  "Miss Worthing told me that at one
time he was Bronson's employer."

Allingham sat down abruptly and passed a puzzled hand through his hair.

"This is the queerest case we've ever handled," he said.  "The more
facts we unearth, the darker it gets.  It was simplicity itself at the
beginning, but I'm hanged if I can make head or tail of it now."

"Don't try," said Cardwell.  "You have your train to catch."




[VII]

WHAT THE PHOTOGRAPH TOLD

Gerald Allingham had left college with the ambition to be an author; to
which end he had sat down for the best part of a year and inked a vast
heap of paper with the feelings and doings of his first twenty years of
life in a fashion then much in vogue.  This portentous work--two
hundred thousand words it ran to--was the first volume of a projected
trilogy.  It was a portrait of Youth.  The second volume, which was to
be written next year, would represent Middle Life.  The third would
show the hero in his old age, tested and purified in the crucible of
experience, and grown ever so wise.  That would be written the
following year, and the author would then be famous.

It was a marvelous compilation, that first volume.  All the quaintly
significant perceptions and feelings of his infancy; all the
tragi-comically significant misadventures of his childhood; all the
psychologically significant torments of his adolescence (painted
against a college atmosphere done in the half-glowing, halt-wistful
colors deemed appropriate by his fellow-artists in the same
genre)--these, with the gloriously unconscious egotism of youth, he had
tricked out for the world in a style creditably imitated from all the
best models he had recently read, with a few cultivated mannerisms of
his own; and, having added out of his imagination a little sexual
experience which he would have liked to have enjoyed, but, owing to
shyness or conscientiousness, had not; with a heart full of hope
mingled with a not altogether reprehensible pride, he had carried the
whole bundle down to the office of one of the best-known publishers in
London.

Fortunately for Allingham, the publisher declined the masterpiece.
Still more fortunately, instead of sending him the usual formal slip,
he invited the young man to come and see him.  Allingham kept the
appointment, tremulous with the conviction that he was presently going
to wake up and find himself famous.

"Young man," said the publisher, "you can write."  Allingham, though
quite sure of that already, glowed all over with the delicious
sensation of genius appreciated.  The publisher resumed.

"But it's about all you can do.  What's the good of writing when you've
nothing to say?"

Allingham's heart almost died in his breast, and a kind of chill began
to creep from his toes upwards.

"Before you write another book," went on the publisher, "you'd better
learn something of life.  Get experience.  Suffer things at first hand.
Find out what it's like to love someone else more than yourself.
Achieve the tremendous adventure of discovering that you don't know
everything.  Acquire a little healthy dislike of yourself.
Then--perhaps in half a dozen years or so--you might write a book worth
printing; or, better still, you mightn't want to write one at all.  As
for this remarkable production"--picking up the child of Allingham's
imagination, typed ever so neatly and bound in a series of glossy green
folders----

"I'll burn it," said Allingham heroically.

And he did.

Such heroism, however, is difficult to live up to.  A year or so later,
having gambled a little at Deauville, having dined a little with chorus
girls, having danced a little here there and everywhere, and having
been nastily let down by an extremely delightful young lady, Allingham
had jumped to the conclusion that this sort of thing was "life," and
came perilously near to writing a "cocktail" novel.  He did actually
begin one, but fortune came to his aid again.  A sensible young woman
of his acquaintance, having picked up the manuscript by chance, told
him frankly that it was rot.  Allingham, who fundamentally was no fool,
agreed with her; and that novel also went to the flames.

To reestablish himself in the good opinion of the same young woman,
Allingham now decided that he had better try some more useful career.
A few days later, happening to see one of Cardwell's advertisements in
a newspaper, he applied for a job.  That was a year ago.  In the
interim he had gained much experience, and had already come to the
conclusion that living detective stories was much better fun than
writing psychological ones.

It was about four in the afternoon when he emerged from Chattering
railway station into the main street of the town.  It was a pleasant
restful little place, he decided at once.  Being fortunately situated
well away from any trunk road, it had an air of unspoiled
individuality.  The shop fronts were nearly all of a sober
old-fashioned type.  The few modern ones looked like vulgar parvenus
put out of countenance by an atmosphere into which they had strayed by
mistake.  Allingham thoroughly relished the contrast of ideas which
they represented.  The old-fashioned fronts said: "We have things to
sell, in case you want to buy.  Here are a few samples.  Come in if you
want to see more."  The new fronts, on the other hand, said, or rather
shouted: "Come and buy!  Here's this that and the other!  Of course you
want them!  Everybody else has them.  So must you.  All the latest
novelties!  Buy them quick before they're out of date!"  These fronts
were almost the only things in the town that were not out of date.  The
roads were not even tarred.  People crossed them carelessly, without
that anxious glance around for death which has become second nature to
those who live in civilized places.  About a hundred yards from the
station there was a disgusting-looking petrol station, for a sign that
all-devouring progress was on its way, but there was little else to
suggest that Queen Victoria was not still on the throne.

Allingham sauntered along the street, savoring the peace of the place,
and blessing the chance that had sent him to so favored a spot.  He had
not a doubt now that Pondersham or his son or grandson would still be
practising his craft at the very address inscribed on the faded
photograph in his pocket.  And he was right.  In a few minutes he
sighted the name on a modest little shop between a draper's and a
stationer's.  A bell clanged as he pushed open the door, and on his
entrance a courtly old gentleman with white hair and beard came from an
inner room to meet him.

Allingham explained apologetically that he had not come to have his
photograph taken, but to obtain a print from a negative taken a long
time ago: over twenty years ago in fact.  Would that be possible?

"Certainly," replied the old man.  "We keep all our negatives.  What is
the name of the customer?"

"Unfortunately I don't know," said Allingham.  "But I have the
photograph.  Would that do?"

Mr. Pondersham looked curiously at his questioner.  "I'm afraid not,"
he said.  "If you had the name it would merely be a question of turning
it up in the index, and we could find the negative in an hour or so.
But without it we should have to examine the negatives one by one.  As
a matter of fact we did that for a gentleman a couple of years ago, and
it took us several days, so of course we had to charge for our time."

"Of course," said Allingham.  "I shall be quite ready to pay.  Here is
the photograph."

Mr. Pondersham took it, and visibly started.  He looked closer at
Allingham.

"This is most extraordinary," he said.  "This is the very photograph
which the other gentleman inquired about."

"By jove!" It was Allingham's turn to be startled.  "Who was he?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you, sir," said the old man in a tone of
courtly rebuke for such inquisitiveness about another client's affairs.

Allingham felt like biting his tongue off at such a lapse into his pet
failing--indiscretion.  He was pretty certain, too, who the inquirer
must have been.

"It wasn't mere curiosity that made me ask," he said.  "But a good deal
hangs on my tracing the people in this photograph.  A man's life
perhaps.  Here's my card.  We're a reputable inquiry agency, and we're
working to prevent what may be a serious miscarriage of justice."

"In that case," said Mr. Pondersham, "I shall be happy to help you in
any way I can.  I can't tell you who this inquirer was, because I don't
know.  But the photograph is of a Mr. and Mrs. James Reddington of this
town.  I have the full particulars here, which I wrote down the time
the other gentleman inquired."  Mr. Pondersham had gone to a desk as he
spoke, and taken out a large memorandum book.  After hunting through
the pages for a while, he said: "Yes.  Here we are.  Mr. and Mrs. James
Reddington, of 6 Rosetree Terrace.  And the photograph was taken on the
fifth of July, 1896."

Allingham noted these particulars, and asked if Mr. Pondersham knew the
lady's maiden name, or any other details about the couple.

"No.  I don't know who the lady was," the photographer replied.  "But
Mr. Reddington was killed in the Boer War.  You'll see his name on the
memorial outside the station."

Mr. Pondersham had no further information to impart, so Allingham
thanked him and went his way.  His first objective was number 6
Rosetree Terrace; but the young married couple who inhabited it knew
nothing whatever about the Reddingtons.  He then went on to the local
register office, where for a few shillings he obtained a copy of the
marriage certificate of James Reddington and Mary Hill; after which,
with the satisfying consciousness of work well done, he dined at the
best hotel before taking train for London.

As soon as he arrived there, late though it was, he drove out to
Cardwell's flat at Hampstead.  His chief welcomed him with a cigar and
a whiskey and soda, and listened from the depths of an immense armchair
to the tale of his researches.  When, however, Allingham announced that
Reddington had been killed, he sat up briskly.

"Was the photographer sure of that?" he asked.

"Apparently," said Allingham.  "And I certainly saw his name on the war
memorial."

"There must be some mistake," said Cardwell, "for I happen to know that
the man is still alive."

"By jove!" said Allingham.  "This little mystery thickens at every
step.  How do you know it?"

"Because I called on him this afternoon.  James Reddington is John
Elthorne."




[VIII]

FACTS AND THEORIES

"If you're to make a success of the detective business," said Cardwell,
"you'll have to acquire a little more self-control.  A moderate show of
surprise, indicated by a lifting of the eyebrows and an increasing
attention to the story, is permissible.  But downright dumbfounded
flabbergastedness simply won't do.  It gives clients a bad impression."

Allingham swallowed the rebuke with a gulp of whiskey, and took a long
pull at his cigar.

"Are you quite sure of that last revelation?" he asked.

"Quite," said Cardwell decidedly.  "I called at Elthorne's office this
afternoon in the guise of a big business man, and spent an hour with
him discussing a deal in steel joists.  There's no doubt he's the man
in the photograph."

"Of course, mistakes do occur in war," said Allingham.  "Men are
reported missing, and never turn up again.  Bodies are blown to pieces,
or mutilated beyond recognition; or they mayn't be found till after
they've rotted.  There's lots of room for mistakes.  I noticed, by the
way, that Reddington's name was amongst a few at the bottom of the list
without any dates attached.  The others all had the date and the name
of the battle as well."

"It looks then as it our friend was reported 'Missing, believed
killed,' and for good and sufficient reasons used the opportunity to
take a new personality."

"Well, if you're quite sure it's the same man, that would explain it
all right.  But how does all this work in with the crime?  You said
that Bronson had some connection with Elthorne at one time----"

"He was employed in his works.  But the connection was closer than
that.  Here's Bronson's birth certificate, which I received from
Somerset House this afternoon."

Allingham took the slip of paper and read out: "_Father, Jeremiah
Bronson.  Mother, Mary Bronson, formerly Mary Reddington, formerly Mary
Hill._  By jove! then he's Elthorne's son."

"Not quite," said Cardwell with a smile.  "Your romantic imagination is
running away with you.  Bronson was born in 1904, long after
Reddington's supposed death, his mother having married again in the
interval."

"This is the queerest jigsaw-puzzle that ever was," said Allingham.
"The pieces all seem to fit each other so beautifully, but somehow they
don't make any picture.  Let's see exactly where we are now.  Elthorne
was once Bronson's employer.  Long before that he was Bronson's
mother's first husband.  Long afterwards he occupied a room in which
Bronson is supposed to have committed a murder, but he left a few hours
earlier.  Take it for all in all, he seems to have had a lot more to do
with Bronson than the unfortunate Wilson.  Have you unearthed any more
about him?"

"No, but we learned from _Who's Who_ that he was married in 1905, and
has two sons and one daughter."

"Ah!  Bigamy.  We're getting to solid ground at last."

"We've a long way to go yet, though.  I think we may assume that it was
Bronson who inquired about the photograph from Pondersham.  According
to Pondersham that was two years ago.  Now I have ascertained that it's
exactly two years since Bronson's mother died.  So I gather that he
discovered the photograph and the letters amongst her effects, and
tracked down Elthorne in much the same way as we have done."

"That seems pretty clear," said Allingham.  "But it does nothing to
help our client.  Rather the opposite, in fact."

"Indeed?" said Cardwell.

"Well, what do you think of this solution?  Bronson meant to murder
Elthorne to avenge his mother's betrayal.  Elthorne found out somehow
or other that Bronson was after him, and fled in a hurry.  Bronson
broke into his room and killed this other man by mistake in the
darkness."

"That story won't hold water for a second," said Cardwell.  "First of
all, look at the extraordinary coincidence it involves.  Here you have
two men each connected in some way, more or less shady, with Bronson's
past.  Can you believe that it was mere chance that they should have
occupied in succession the same room in the town where Bronson lived?"

"No, indeed.  It looks as if they were in league together.  But with
that much alteration my theory would still hold good."

"There's another objection, though," said Cardwell.  "The murderer took
the greatest precautions to leave no trace of his presence behind.  If
it was Bronson, why did he gratuitously invite suspicion by running
away?"

"I suppose he remembered that he'd left the hammer behind."

"He couldn't have been hanged on that evidence," said Cardwell.
"Remember, the clue that brought the police to his house was the letter
found in Wilson's pocket, which he couldn't possibly have known about.
If it hadn't been for that, he would have had ample time to get a new
hammer for his tool-box.  These things are all made of a stock pattern."

"Well," said Allingham, "it may have been bad tactics to run away if he
was guilty, but why on earth should he run away if he was innocent?"

"That is exactly what I propose to make the basis of my inquiries.  But
it's no use speculating about it _in vacuo_.  If we exercised our
imaginations we might think of a hundred different reasons.  You know,
that's your principal fault as a detective.  You rely too much on your
imagination.  Give you the smallest clue, and, instead of hunting round
for more, you set to work to build up a complete story out of your
head, just like a novelist, which I suppose is what you will be some
day.  No doubt you could imagine a dozen equally plausible explanations
of this murder, but we aren't likely to hit on the true one that way.
We've got to stick to the facts, and build on them; and until we've
gone down to Spurn Cove and gone over the ground there, we'll have to
rely on what came out at the inquest.  I've been studying the newspaper
reports this afternoon, and I've noticed four points which certainly
ought to have struck the coroner and jury as being favorable to Bronson
if the one point against him hadn't seemed so conclusive."

Allingham drew his chair closer to that of his chief, and listened with
the deepest attention.

"First of all," went on Cardwell, "there was the burglary at Bronson's
house a few weeks ago.  Nothing was taken, but the drawers of his
writing-desk were rifled, and papers thrown all over the room.  Papers,
mark you.  Obviously the burglar was looking for something different
from what the usual burglar goes for.  Mrs. Dakin thought it was the
papers of some invention Bronson was working at.  But that's most
unlikely.  Rival inventors don't do that sort of thing; and anyway,
unless they're complete, such papers are no use to anyone but their
author.  The police and the coroner, on the other hand, thought they
had something to do with the San Flipe forgery, which is far more
plausible.  But we have an advantage over Mrs. Dakin, the police, and
the jury in knowing of some papers that were of vital importance to
somebody."

Allingham nodded his comprehension.

"I should think," went on Cardwell "that Bronson was using the letters
and photograph to blackmail Elthorne.  We know from Miss Worthing that
he was born in poor circumstances, but in recent years he has been well
off.  Now fortunes are not usually made in scientific research, so,
with the material he had in hand, the suspicion has good foundations.
I don't press it, though.  Bronson may have come by his money quite
honestly, and used his power over Elthorne for some other purpose.
Elthorne, then, or someone in his pay, must have burgled his house to
get hold of the papers.  Having failed, he would probably try some
other plan, and there we'll leave it for the moment.

"Now we come to the second point--the evidence of the housekeeper's
daughter.  This little fool was accosted on the promenade by someone
described as a gentleman, who, under pretense of making an amorous
appointment--which, you should note, he never followed up--made himself
thoroughly acquainted with the ways of Bronson's household, and in
particular with the habits of the servants.  As you'll remember, the
crime took place on the servants' regular night off.  Of course, if
Bronson intended to commit a crime, that would be the night he would
choose.  But wasn't it rather curious that it should happen to coincide
with the night of Wilson's arrival at the hotel?  One more of the
coincidences, you see, which make this case so remarkable.  Frankly, I
reject it, and conclude that Wilson's arrival was timed--either by
himself or by Elthorne--for that particular night, and that it boded no
good to Bronson."

"By jove!" cried Allingham excitedly.  "I think I see the whole thing
now.  Elthorne and Wilson were plotting against Bronson.  Elthorne
wanted to get hold of the papers, which Bronson was using to blackmail
him, and he got the help of Wilson, who had fallen out with Bronson
over the San Flipe business.  For some tactical reason they arranged
to occupy the room in the hotel each in turn.  Meanwhile Bronson found
out that his enemies were up to something, took the offensive, and
murdered Wilson.  There now.  Pick a hole in that it you can."

Allingham lay back in his chair with a gesture of triumph, and poured
himself out another whiskey.

"Let us get back to our facts," said Cardwell inexorably.  "My third
point is the strongest of all.  According to the medical evidence,
which was given in detail only in _The Times_, there was a single
bruise on the right side of Wilson's neck, and at least three on the
left side: thumb and finger marks, you see.  That means that the
murderer gripped his throat with the right hand, and used the hammer
with the left--the very opposite to what a normal man would do.  In
fact, he was left-handed.  Needless to say, I at once rang up our
client, Miss Worthing, and ascertained that Bronson is right-handed."

Allingham threw the butt of his cigar into the fire and said: "That
certainly leaves my theory rather knock-kneed--if your witness is
reliable."

"She is," said Cardwell.  "In any case I framed my question so that she
could not possibly guess which answer would be better for Bronson."

"Still, it would always be safer to be on the normal side."

"Of course I'm bearing that in mind.  But let us get on to the fourth
point.  After his flight Bronson wrote a letter to his housekeeper,
which was produced at the inquest, telling her to lock up the house,
and inclosing a check.  Its wording is rather peculiar, and I'll read
it to you."

Cardwell picked up the green-covered file from his desk, and, after
turning over the cuttings, said: "Here we are.  Now listen to this:


  "Dear Mrs. Dakin,

  "I have to leave home for a while on urgent
  business.  Please lock up the house, and leave
  a note of your address at the post office.  Take
  Pete--_that's the canary_--with you.  I inclose a
  check for a hundred pounds--and so on.


"Now," said Cardwell, "that letter is undated.  It was posted in Paris
two days after the crime, but there's no indication when it was
written, and internal evidence leads me to believe that it was written
without any knowledge of the murder."

"How do you make that out?" asked Allingham.

Cardwell passed the cutting across.

"Try to put the murder right out of your head for a moment, and read
that letter at its face value.  Doesn't it look as if Bronson, having
found out that his enemies were after him, had decided to clear out for
a while?  Expecting that they'd burgle the house again, he arranged for
the safety of the canary--that is to say, of the photograph--and asks
his housekeeper to leave her address at the post office, where it would
be very little use to him if he was going to be a fugitive from
justice."

"That might have been a blind."

"A poor one, I'm afraid.  Of course by itself this interpretation of
the letter proves nothing.  It must be taken in conjunction with the
other points, and the effect of the whole four is cumulative.  In any
case I hope to obtain confirmatory evidence when I go down to Spurn
Cove.  If, as I suspect, this letter was written _before_ Bronson's
flight, we shall probably find that it was written on whatever paper he
kept in his desk."

Allingham returned the folder to his chief.

"All these points," he said, "are very suggestive.  But they aren't
conclusive.  And, though they pick holes in the police case and mine,
they don't seem to suggest any clear case themselves.  I've got a sort
of vague idea of some subtle villainy afoot, but no definite plot.  How
do you explain the hammer, for instance?  Do you think that the
murderer stole it from Bronson's house in order to lay the crime at his
door?"

"If the rest of my theory is correct, he must have done so.  And that
brings us to another point.  Why did he choose a hammer of all weapons?
Why not a knife?  A hammer would be a handy weapon enough on a lonely
moor, but in a crowded hotel, where silence and speed were all
important--!  If he failed to stun at the first blow, a cry for help
would have brought people running from all sides.  Depend upon it, the
murderer took that risk for a good reason.  It must have been
absolutely necessary for his purpose to prevent his victim being
recognized.  And why?  Almost certainly because he was a person whom
Bronson had no reason to kill, and because his identity would give a
clue to the real murderer."

"So what your theory amounts to is that Elthorne murdered Wilson, and
then planted the guilt on Bronson's shoulders, after first scaring him
out of the country."

"I shouldn't like to put it so definitely at this stage," said
Cardwell, "but it's the direction in which my thoughts are tending.  It
means a subtle and complicated plot, of which I see only the outline,
but all the facts we've unearthed seem to fit into it."

"What about Wilson's letter to Bronson?"

"Forgery, of course."

"And how does it all work in with the San Flipe business?"

"There I'm still in the dark as much as you are, and there's no help in
these papers here, for the San Flipe authorities seem to be completely
at sea.  It's worth noting, however, that the only evidence we have for
Bronson's connection with the affair is the letter found on Wilson,
which, as I have said, is probably a forgery, and the burned scrap
found in the grate at Seapoint, which may very well be another, and
anyway doesn't signify much.  'More of the slush' might just as well
mean humbug or palaver as forged notes, if you don't jump to
conclusions from the plates found in Wilson's trunk.

"And that reminds me of another point.  Why on earth should Wilson have
carried those plates around after they'd done their job?  The gang had
cleaned up a million, you remember, by the time the notes were called
in.  They couldn't hope to palm off any more of the stuff.  Surely
their obvious course was to get rid of the plates as soon as the hue
and cry began.  Yet this fellow took the risk of smuggling them through
the customs at the bottom of his trunk!  Did you ever hear of such
lunacy?  I don't believe it for an instant.  Ten to one the notes were
struck in England, and those plates were put in Wilson's trunk for the
very purpose they have achieved--to associate the murder with the
forgery,--in other words, to provide Bronson with a motive for killing
Wilson."

"You think that Bronson had nothing to do with the San Flipe business?"

"Yes.  I imagine that Elthorne was the leader in that enterprise, and
Wilson his ally, or more likely his tool."

"And probably Elthorne found his continued existence an embarrassment.
Do you know, I'm developing an enormous respect for that gentleman.  To
get one incubus hanged for murdering the other would be a stroke of
genius."

"Don't let us be cocksure about it all the same," said Cardwell, "till
we've collected some more facts.  I propose to pay an early visit to
Spurn Cove, where I shall call on Mrs. Dakin and have a look at that
letter, and do some exploring at the Grand Hotel and Bronson's house.
First of all, though, I'm going to see Elthorne, with whom I have an
appointment tomorrow night--this time _in propria persona_."

"With a view to observing his hands?" suggested Allingham.

"Amongst other things."

"Won't he recognize you, though?"

"No.  The person who visited him this morning was an olive-skinned
gentleman from Buenos Aires, aged fifty-five, with a white mustache,
spectacles, gold-filled teeth, and defective English.  To-morrow I
shall be my thoroughly Nordic self.  Now let's get to roost.  You'll
find your usual room ready for you."




[IX]

THE EMPTY HOUSE

When Doris Philpot set out for Bronson's house she was in a pleasantly
cheerful mood, confident that some really interesting discovery was
before her, and full of an exquisite curiosity.  It was only when she
entered upon the last stretch of road, still and gloomy under its
canopy of beech boughs, that misgivings began to assail her.  She tried
to shake them off, thinking how pleased Cranley would be when she
brought him back some valuable clue, and how he would solve the
mystery, and be mentioned in all the papers as "the brilliant young
detective," and be marked down for early promotion.  Then they would
get married, and she would have a nice little home of her own, instead
of standing all day at a bureau at everybody's beck and call.  These
were pleasant reflections, but they could not keep her apprehensions
altogether at bay.  Thoughts of Bronson forced themselves upon her; and
it was a curious phenomenon that as she drew nearer to her objective,
the conception she had formed of him changed steadily for the worse.
Less and less now could she picture him as the amiable young man of
Mrs. Dakin's description, and more and more as the grim garrotter of
the midnight hours.  When she reached the gate this conception had so
taken possession of her that she almost decided to abandon her quest.
But just then the sun, within half an hour of setting, shone out
brilliantly and gave her courage.  It was silly to be frightened, she
told herself.  After all, even if Bronson _was_ the murderer, he must
be thousands of miles away by this time.  And at that she opened the
gate and walked bravely up the avenue.

Her nerve nearly failed her again when, a moment later, she found
herself in the hall of the silent house.  She stood still for a moment,
her ears tense, and her heart thumping uncomfortably.  Nothing stirred.
The wash of the sea sounded infinitely far away.  A bird chirped
briefly in the garden.  Most certainly the place was deserted, but it
cost her a real effort to walk forward and open one of the doors.

The room into which she peeped, rather timidly, was the dining-room,
chill and somber in the twilight that filtered through drawn blinds.  A
glance around satisfied her that there was no need to waste any time
there.  Then she moved on to the next door, which she knew from
Cranley's description to be that of the laboratory.  She opened it more
boldly than the other, her nerves being now better attuned to their
environment; but on the threshold she paused, daunted before the dark
immensity of the place, filled with strange black shapes that cast
blacker shadows, and haunted by the wraith of the evil that had been
planned there.  Dare she make her way past the lurking terrors in those
shadows to let in the light that would dispel them?  Several times she
drew back; but at last, bracing herself with all the courage at her
command, she strode forward, and, with a gasp like a diver reaching the
air, let the blind up at a run.

With the snap of the lath against the roller Doris's confidence
returned; and, having raised the other blinds as well, she walked round
the room, surveying with an uncomprehending eye the various apparatus
with which it was stocked.  The collection of flasks, retorts,
pipettes, burettes, and other multifarious glassware crowded on the
shelves of the great rack near the furnace particularly held her
attention, setting her wondering what possible uses there could be for
things shaped so queerly.  Resigning the problem at last, she passed
along the chemical bench, reading the unfamiliar names on the bottles,
after which she took a ridiculous little lens out of her pocket and,
kneeling on the floor, began a determined hunt for footmarks.  Not a
sign, however, could she discover.  Except for the dust inevitable in a
neglected room, the polished parquet was as spotless as on the day when
it was laid.  Of course, Doris realized, Mrs. Dakin must have swept it
before shutting up the house.  What a nuisance it was that Frank hadn't
examined it on his first visit.

Abandoning this task, she went over to the windows.  If, as Doris was
assuming, the hammer had been stolen from the room, there might be
signs of a burglarious entry on one of them; but no suspicious mark
could she find.  Was ever a criminal so exasperatingly elusive?  He
seemed to be able to come and go as he liked without leaving a trace
behind.  Reluctantly the baffled sleuth quitted what she had hoped
would be the most fruitful field of investigation, and again looked
rather helplessly round the room.

The oak desk at once claimed her attention.  Its drawers and
pigeon-holes were full of papers, which she overhauled thoroughly, only
to meet with further disappointment.  One and all were covered with the
incomprehensible jargon of science.  There were scribbled notes in
pencil, long polysyllabic essays, immensely complicated formulas and
equations, drawings of apparatus, graphs, and so forth; but nothing of
a personal nature.  In the laboratory she had drawn a blank: so she
decided to try her luck in the study.

Doris was now feeling much more at ease.  In the cosy little room
across the hall she pursued her investigations in leisurely fashion,
looking inside every receptacle and ornament, emptying every drawer,
and even turning up the carpet in a vain search for--something or
other.  She had given up hope now of finding any tracks of the
criminal, but she had a vague idea of unearthing some old letter or
diary which might suggest a reason for Bronson's disappearance.  The
drawers of the desk, however, yielded nothing but scientific papers.
Even the inevitable secret drawer, which she opened in tense
excitement, contained only letters from a girl,--letters growing in
intimacy, until suddenly they became love-letters.  Doris read them,
very unwillingly, but feeling justified by the urgency of the case.
They gave her no clue, however.  It there was some secret in Bronson's
life which had compelled his sudden flight, he had said no word about
it to his sweetheart.

Having completed this task and replaced the bundle in its receptacle,
in a kind of forlorn hope she began pulling the various odds and ends
out of the pigeon-holes of the desk.  Out came a ball of string, a
bunch of bills and receipts, luggage labels, post cards, a box of
paper-fasteners, sealing-wax, notepaper.  It seemed scarcely worth
while going on, but she thought she might as well finish the job while
she was at it.  The next compartment contained a packet of envelopes.
She picked them up carelessly; then suddenly dropped them with a
shudder.  Across the outer one was a brownish smear, which she
recognized at once as blood.

It was quite a small thing--no more than might have come from a
scratched finger--but in the circumstances it seemed full of meaning.
As to what exactly it signified Doris, in the first flush of discovery,
did not pause to wonder.  After so much fruitless seeking it was
something of a triumph to have discovered anything, and blood and
murder certainly seemed to go together.  It was only when she had
hunted round unsuccessfully for further stains that she began to
realize that her discovery did not mean so much after all.  A spot of
blood on an envelope, what connection could it have with a murder three
or four miles away?  If it had any, it would seem to indicate that the
murderer had come here to write a letter immediately after his crime.
If that were so, it would be one more point against Bronson, for it was
scarcely likely that anyone else either would or could do so.  Far more
likely, reasoned Doris, the stain had nothing to do with the crime at
all, and thus her visit had been entirely fruitless.

So at last, weary and dispirited, Doris was faced with the decision
whether to retire from the field defeated, or to extend the search to
the upstairs rooms.  From that task, it must be admitted, she shrank.
That distant region seemed, somehow, full of mysterious terrors, like
those with which a child's imagination peoples empty rooms at night.
It was growing dark too, and when she went to switch on the light she
found to her dismay that the current had been cut off.  That decided
her.  Even in her present situation she now no longer felt at ease.
With quick nervous movements she began to tidy up the disorder she had
created, stuffing the papers back into the drawers, and cramming into
the pigeon-holes the odds and ends strewn over the desk.  The stained
envelope she took up to put in her handbag.  Frank might be able to
make something of it even if she couldn't.  But where was her handbag?
She hunted around, looked under this and that, vainly, while the
darkness thickened.  Where was it?

Suddenly she remembered: the laboratory of course; and thither she went
at a run.  A hurried search there in the gloom, till at length she
found it on the chemical bench.  Then, thrusting the envelope into it,
she made for the hall.

It was darker there than in the laboratory, and fear seemed to lie
crouched in the still gloomier passage leading to the kitchen, ready to
spring as soon as her back was turned.  Summoning all her courage, she
strode forward to the door, and began fumbling with nervous fingers for
the handle.  It was only after much futile seeking that she realized
that she was on the wrong side of the door.  She darted across to the
other, but at the same moment, even as she gripped the knob, from the
garden outside there came a faint sound.  Doris paused to listen, her
heart missing a beat.  It was the unmistakable sound of footsteps on
gravel.  Someone was coming up the avenue toward the house.

Breathless, Doris stepped to the glass panel on one side of the door,
and stood looking out into the gloaming for what should appear.
Presently the dim figure of a man wheeling a bicycle emerged from the
cover of the shrubs, heading straight for the house.  Who could it be?
Was it Bronson?  Or was it the midnight burglar who had ransacked the
house before and was now returning for what he had failed to find?
Impossible to guess, but Doris felt an instinctive fear of the man.
There was something sinister about his purposeful and stealthy stride,
his almost noiseless step.  The nearer he came, the more certainly did
fear take hold of her.  She could feel her hair bristling, her heart
seemed to sink within her, and a cold shudder ran up her spine.  As
with some new awakening sense, her soul felt the presence of evil, and
for a moment every power of her body was smitten with paralysis.  Still
the dark figure came on.  With a desperate effort the girl snapped her
invisible bonds, and fled to the shelter of the laboratory.  To her
dismay she found that there was no key in the door.  She must hide
therefore.  But where?  Like a hunted animal she ran down the long
room, anxiously peering this way and that for a refuge.  Even as she
did so she heard the hall door open, and instinctively she stood
stock-still.  What would the stranger do now?  While she waited,
holding her breath, he entered the study, and presently Doris gathered
from the sounds he made that he was searching it as she had done.

She could now move with less danger of being heard, so she resumed her
quest of a hiding-place.  Immediately in front of her when she turned
was the great rack with its load of apparatus.  It was obviously the
only object in the room large enough to conceal her, and she found that
there was just space enough for her between it and the wall.  Ensconced
there, she had leisure to think out a plan of action.  Should she stay
where she was in the hope of escaping discovery, or should she try to
get away by the window?  It was possible that the stranger might depart
after searching the study.  Or perhaps he would go upstairs, in which
case she could slip away fairly easily.  On the other hand, the man
might take it into his head to search the laboratory, and it would be
too much to hope that he would not find her then.  But the other course
presented even graver difficulties.  She might stumble in making her
way across the darkened chamber.  The bolt of the window might creak
and betray her.  Even if she got away unobserved, her difficulties
would not be over.  A sound on the graveled path would bring the man
after her, and long and lonely was the road to the nearest house.  She
shuddered at the mere thought of the grim chase that would ensue; yet
equally terrifying seemed the alternative of lying still and breathless
in her hiding-place with that sinister stranger prowling close at hand.

While Doris hesitated, the decision was taken out of her hands.  She
heard the man leave the study and come down the hall toward the
laboratory.  The girl stood in dreadful suspense, hoping against hope
that he would pass by; but in a moment came a flash of light, and he
entered the room, illuminating his way with an electric torch.  Through
a narrow gap between two glass troughs Doris watched his movements.  He
went straight to the bookshelf and, taking down a volume, looked
rapidly through the leaves.  Then, holding it face downward by the
covers, he shook it vigorously to and fro; after which he replaced it
on the shelf and took down another.  As he did so, the electric beam
fell for an instant on his face; and a thrill of astonishment went
through Doris's frame as she recognized it.  The stranger was no other
than the murdered Mr. Wilson.




[X]

A NIGHT OF TERROR

It was incredible, impossible; yet the recognition came to Doris with
absolute certitude.  Even without the shell-rimmed glasses she knew the
man.  There was no mistaking the square-cut jaw, the straight
thin-lipped mouth, closed like a steel trap, or the deeply cloven chin.
She saw too that he wore kid gloves, as he had done when signing the
hotel book on the fatal night.  Without a doubt, unless he had a twin
brother, this was the man.

In that case, whose body was it that had been found in his room?  And
what part had this mysterious person played in the tragedy?  Was he,
perhaps, the murderer?  As the thought crossed her mind, Doris's blood
chilled at the realization of her position.  Here she was, alone in
this empty house, isolated from all humanity, prying into the secrets
of one whose very atmosphere was evil.  She was utterly at his mercy,
and a breath might betray her.  Fascinated by her peril, she watched
the stranger methodically taking book after book from the shelves and
treating each in the same manner as the first.  Once, when a sheet of
paper fluttered from between the pages, he stooped quickly to retrieve
it, and eagerly examined it by the light of the torch.  But he was
obviously disappointed by what he saw, for he soon crumpled it up, and
tossing it aside, returned to his investigation of the books.

Thus a long unmeasured time went by, while night settled grimly round
the lonely house.  Doris in her hiding-place maintained her rigid
attitude with increasing discomfort and pain.  Her heels were becoming
sore from long standing; her back ached; a curl of her hair tickled the
tip of one ear maddeningly; she badly wanted to blow her nose: yet she
dared not move hand or foot.  As the sinister figure came nearer and
nearer, it became dangerous even to breathe.  The end of the bookshelf
was barely ten feet from her shelter, so that while the man carried out
his routine procedure with the last few volumes the tension became
almost unbearable.  Doris's head began to swim, as it had done once, a
long time ago, before a faint.  At all costs she must keep from
fainting now.  She strove gallantly to retain her consciousness,
clenching her teeth on her lower lip to repress a wild impulse to
scream; and meanwhile that awful man from the dead, with exasperating
patience, went on with his task, going through the last volumes with
the same thoroughness as the first.  At length, however, he had
finished, and as he moved away toward a cabinet at the other end of the
room, the girl could relax and breathe once more.

Her respite was brief.  Having gone through the contents of the
cabinet, the man turned back again to pry into the cupboards under the
chemical bench.  As he knelt there Doris felt the unmistakable
premonitory sensations of an approaching sneeze.  Aghast at the
realization, she held her breath, put her hands over her mouth, in a
desperate endeavor to suppress it.  But nature was not to be denied.
With a vehemence redoubled by her restraining efforts, it came.

At the sound the man started up so violently that he struck his head
against the top of the cupboard.  Doris was quick to see her only
chance.  While he was still dazed she sprang from her refuge, and with
a nimble movement got to the other side of the chemical bench.  Next
minute the light of the torch flashed full in her face.

"If you value your life, stand still," said the man, at the same time
backing to the door and closing it.

For answer Doris picked up a bottle from the bench and flung it at one
of the windows, with a faint hope that the noise might attract
attention from someone outside.  It missed, however, and smashed in
pieces against the wall.  Simultaneously the man leaped toward her; but
she was prepared for that, and ran round the opposite end of the bench,
and down the other side, with the man in hot pursuit.  She did not dare
make for the door, because she knew well that if she did she would be
overtaken at once.  Her only chance was to keep the chemical bench
between them; so round and round they went in the darkness--for her
enemy had switched off the torch--round and round and round, swiftly
down the sides, pulling up sharp at the corners, with fingers clinging
to the edge of the bench at the turn.  With a clear run the man could
have caught her up fairly easily; but at these recurrent checks, owing
to the lesser momentum of her lighter frame, she regained what distance
she had lost on the straight.  So on they went, round and round, again
and again, as in a nightmare.  Hardy and active as the girl was, the
pace soon began to tell on her.  Muscles were tiring, breath failing.
The very extremity of her peril seemed to paralyze her will to escape.
Yet on she went almost mechanically.  Round and round, round and round.
Was the chase to go on forever?

She felt that she _must_ stop.  She must draw one good satisfying
breath if she had to die for it.  Then, at the very breaking-point of
mind and body, her pursuer changed his tactics.  Instead of taking the
corner he doubled back on his course so unexpectedly that Doris had
much ado not to run right into his arms.  It was only an accident that
saved her.  As she whipped round, her skirt caught in the imperfectly
closed door of a cupboard and pulled it open.  An instant later the man
ran into it with a sickening crash.  Looking back from a safe distance,
Doris could just distinguish his form bent double as he nursed an
aching knee.

Unfortunately for Doris this interposition took place when he was
between her and the door, so that she could not escape from the room.
It gave her a useful breathing space, however, and when the man resumed
the chase it was with much diminished vigor.  Presently he stopped
dead, and Doris did the same.  With the bench between them, Doris could
not see him.  She stood straining her ears for any sign of movement, at
the same time glancing alternately to left and right in dreadful
uncertainty as to which end he might appear at.  Thus an age of
suspense went by in a stillness that was agony to her overwrought
nerves.  Eyes and ears were beginning to play tricks with her now.
Black shadows formed and dissolved themselves in the gloom, with the
effect of a hundred menacing figures coming at her from different
sides; and a throbbing in her ears seemed like a reecho of her enemy's
feet in the suspended chase.  At length, however, one faint sound made
itself heard above this tattoo: a barely perceptible shuffle, which
told her that the man was creeping round stealthily to the left.

Doris was about to move off in the opposite direction when the tail of
her eye caught sight of the oak bureau close by, and a sudden
inspiration struck her.  Two light steps on tiptoe took her behind it,
and there she crouched while her pursuer, still creeping, passed by and
went on around the chemical bench.  A few seconds later she heard the
spring and the rush forward that were to have taken her by surprise.
Then the torch flashed, and the ray went darting this way and that
about the room.  Next came the sound of jingling glass at its far end,
telling her that the man was looking into her previous hiding-place.

Now or never was Doris's chance.  In an instant she had sprung from the
desk to the door, flung it open, and darted across the hall to the room
immediately opposite.  There was a key in the lock.  Tearing it out,
she dashed inside, slammed the door, and, with the man's heavy steps
thundering down the laboratory, frantically tried to thrust the key
into the hole.  Twice, thrice, her shaking fingers missed their aim.
The man was in the hall.  With her free hand she found the hole, caught
the point of the key, and guided it home,--not an instant too soon, for
even as she turned it her enemy's weight came crashing against the
door.  A vicious wrenching at the handle followed, then the deliberate
impact of a muscular shoulder; but the good oak held stoutly, and
Doris, leaning against the wall, trembling and exhausted, knew that she
was safe for the moment.

Not a yard away, separated by only two inches of timber, stood her
baffled foe, breathing as hard as she after his exertions.  He did not
renew the assault, but retired to the laboratory, where she could hear
him rummaging about, probably in search of something to break down the
door with.  Looking round for material for a barricade, she perceived
that the room was quite bare.  Her only hope then was to escape by one
of the windows.  At once she ran across to the nearest, and tried to
open it; but the screw holding the bar was so clogged with verdigris
that it would not turn.  While she struggled with it there came from
the laboratory the sound of the man's returning footsteps, so she
stopped her work promptly, fearful that he might hear her and come
round to cut her off, or break in this way himself.  She meant to
resume as soon as the noise of his battering should arise to drown any
she might make; but he passed the door by, and continued his way along
the hall.  What was he going to do now?  Would he arm himself with the
poker from the study?  Or would he come round to the window?  Doris's
heart sank at the latter possibility.  They were French windows, easily
accessible from the ground outside, so that he had only to smash a pane
of glass to gain an entry.  There was the risk, of course, of raising
an alarm by the noise, but the chance of its being heard was remote.
What, then, could the girl do if he made the attempt?  She saw at once
where her chance lay.  She would escape by the door and barricade
herself in one of the rooms upstairs, where there would be ample
material for the purpose.  With a rampart of furniture to protect her,
and bedroom crockery available for use as missile weapons in case it
were forced, she would be infinitely safer than in her present
position; so much so that she began almost to hope for the appearance
of her enemy at the other side of the glass which was to be the signal
for her flight.

Instead, the man came back again along the hall.  He must have found
his weapon, she concluded, and prepared to resume operations on the
window screw.  The man, however, passed on into the laboratory, where
he dropped on the floor a burden that sounded heavy, though not very
hard.  Noises of other things being thrown down followed; then he
returned to the study, to come back again with another load, which he
dropped as before.  This performance was repeated several times, with
an interval marked by the sounds of wood being chopped and split.
Further journeys between study and laboratory followed; and Doris came
to the conclusion that, while her enemy was thus absorbed in his work,
he would be unlikely to notice any sounds she might make at the window.
She accordingly set to work afresh at the screw, twisting, twisting at
the milled edge, with a persistence that was half-mechanical, till her
fingers were bruised and raw.  While she labored, her enemy finished
whatever he was doing and retired to the study.  Utter silence then
fell upon the house.  What was he doing, she wondered, as she tugged
and twisted at the stubborn metal.  He must be waiting, listening for
her next move.  Many minutes went by, and still the silence continued.
She rested, sucked her aching fingers, wanted to break down and cry,
but heroically returned to her toil.  And at last her reward came.  The
screw gave way so unexpectedly that for a moment she could not believe
it, and made no further move.  Then, with infinite caution, she opened
the window an inch or two, and paused, listening.

Still there came no sound from the enemy.  Outside too there was
silence save for the rustle of the night wind among the black spectral
trees, and the wash of the sea on the more distant shore.  With
reviving hope the girl peered into the gloom, surveying the way to
safety.  Immediately in front of the window lay a graveled path, but it
was a narrow one.  A single step would suffice to carry her to the
grass beyond; then a swift noiseless rush, screened by the shrubs, to
the low wall separating the grounds from the road.  If she got so far
as that unobserved, she would surely be able to get clear away.

Thus resolving, she opened the window a little wider, put her head out,
and looked around.  Nothing stirred but the branches of the trees.  The
girl hesitated a moment in fearful indecision, frantically wondering
where her enemy could be.  Was he waiting at the door, ready, at the
first sound made by her, to dart around and intercept her or run her
down before she could reach the wall?  Or was he already crouched out
there in the shrubbery, watching for her to run into his arms?  With
these dreadful alternatives before her she delayed acting, while the
slow minutes went by, hoping against hope that he might yet resume the
assault on the door.  At last, however, with an infinity of care, she
opened the window to its fullest extent, and put one leg out over the
Sill.  Seated astride of this, she paused again, ready to withdraw in
an instant at any movement beyond.  Then, reassured by the continued
silence, with the same elaborate precautions she drew her other leg
over, and dropped noiselessly on the path.  A step took her to the
grass, but she dared not run yet.  Stealing on tiptoe among the shrubs,
her heart beating at a rate that positively hurt, at long last she
reached the wall and sat down on it, so much overcome by relief at her
escape that for the moment she had not the power to go farther.

Presently a faint click broke the silence.  The hall door of the house
had opened, and immediately afterward Doris could hear the footsteps of
her enemy on the gravel.  He was moving slowly and with caution, and,
as far as she could judge, toward the window from which she had fled.
In a few seconds he would have discovered her escape, and then----

Had Doris been in her right mind she would have appreciated that she
was now in no real danger, lost as she was in the darkness.  But the
terrors of the night had unnerved her.  Panic-stricken, she jumped down
from the wall, and, as she did so, dislodged a couple of stones, which
came crashing to earth beside her.  The drop was greater, too, than she
had expected, so that she pitched forward on hands and knees in the
roadway.  The alarm had been given.  An instant later came the sound of
her enemy charging through the bushes toward her.  Doris picked herself
up and ran like a hare.

She had turned her face northward instead of toward home, knowing that
the nearest house was in that direction.  The gate was not more than a
quarter of a mile away; but oh how long seemed the road that stretched
ahead of her in the gloom.  On one side it was bordered by a row of
tall, black spruce firs, in whose remote tops the wind sighed a long
note of perpetual desolation.  On the other were the bleak rocks of the
upper foreshore, from behind which came the alternate rush and suck of
the sea waves.  The rising breeze was against her, and seemed purposely
to hold her back; and a few light raindrops, premonitory of a coming
shower, drove against her face.  Her first spurt of speed exhausted
itself in a few seconds.  Thereafter she struggled on mechanically,
with failing breath, dry-mouthed, light-headed, a dead weight seeming
to hang about her legs.  That sinking of the spirit that drags down the
spent quarry was upon her, when capture begins to seem less intolerable
than the continuance of the struggle.

Still the dreary road stretched inexorably before her, every yard of it
to be trodden in pain.  Her utmost effort seemed now but a crawl.  The
rain came thicker.  The wind held her back with increasing force.  Yet
on she went, staggering, her heart thumping, thumping, as if it would
burst.  From that bend just ahead the gate would be in sight: in sight,
but how far away!  It seemed impossible that her weakening limbs could
carry her even to the bend, still less over the hundred yards that lay
beyond.  Was it worth while keeping on?

She reached the bend at last.  But what was this roaring sound ahead
that rose even above the throbbing confusion in her ears?  Was her
enemy, by some strange maneuver, now coming toward her from in front?
Were those his eyes that rushed at her with inexplicable speed and
blinding brightness?  They were close upon her now.  With one wild
shriek of terror the girl collapsed swooning on the roadway.




[XI]

RESCUE

From out of a well of darkness she looked up into a face: the pleasant
rounded face of a very young man.

"You're all right," he said.  "Don't try to move yet."

"Where am I?" Doris asked.

"On the roadside.  Don't worry.  You'll be all right in a moment."

As her senses cleared she saw that she was lying on grass, wrapped in
an overcoat.  The young man was kneeling beside her.  The lights of his
car gleamed in the background.

"Where's the man gone?" she asked.

"What man?  There's no man here but me.  Don't you worry."

"Are you sure?"

"Certain.  And if there was"--stoutly--"he'd have me to deal with."

"Oh!"  She closed her eyes with a sigh of relief and lay quiet for a
moment.  Opening them again, she said: "I wonder could you get me some
water?  I'm nearly dead with thirst."

"Certainly.  There's a house close by, and I know the people.  Stay
where you are.  I'll be back in a second."

"Oh, no, no.  You mustn't leave me!"  Starting up, the girl caught at
the boy's arm in an agony of apprehension.

"Why, you're shaking all over," he said, patting her reassuringly on
the back.  "Did some brute attack you?"

"Yes.  I daren't stay here alone.  You mustn't leave me."

"All right, then.  I'll take you with me.  The people will still be up,
because I've only just left them.  Let me get you on board my little
car, and we'll be there in a jiffy."

So saying, he helped her into the rather cramped seat of a baby Austin
and, turning, drove off.

"Feeling better?" he asked presently.

"Lots," replied Doris, though her limbs were still trembling.

"Breeze will do you no end of good," said the young man.  "Little car's
a goer, isn't she?  I call her Genevieve."

"Why?" asked Doris, smiling.

"Oh, it seems sort of suitable, don't you think?--Here we are."

They turned in at a gateway and passed up an avenue not unlike that of
Seapoint.  The young man's ring was answered by a nice-looking old
gentleman in a smoking-jacket, who interrupted his hasty explanations
with a "Bless my soul, bring her in."  Doris was half-carried into a
handsomely furnished drawing-room and laid on a couch.  Then the
gentleman said: "Now, Billy, you know where the brandy is.  Get it out
while I fetch Catherine."

Before long he was back again, preceded by a buxom white-haired lady,
who was scarcely across the threshold when she called out: "Good
heavens!  What on earth is the boy doing?  Do you want to kill the
girl, Billy?"

The young man, who was in the act of tendering Doris a wineglass
brimful of neat brandy, came to a stop, looking rather like a schoolboy
caught at some mischief.

"My fault entirely, my dear," said the lady's husband meekly.  "I told
him what to do."

"I might have guessed it," said the lady.  "Men are all the same.
Their one resource is this wretched alcohol."

"It's Martell's best, my dear," replied her husband, turning a
twinkling eye on Doris.

"I dare say.  But a whole glass of it--and _neat_!  I don't know what
you were thinking of.  Run and get some water, Billy."

She took the glass from the young man, who ran off obediently,
returning in a moment with a jug of water.  The lady had already poured
the bulk of the brandy back into the decanter, and she now diluted the
remainder to what seemed to her the proper weakness.  Doris drank it
off, and at once began to feel a little better.

"Were you attacked by a tramp, my poor girl?" the lady asked.

"A murderer.  Oh, I've had such an awful time.  I can't bear to think
of it."

Doris fell back on the couch, exhausted by the effort of speaking.  The
brandy had stimulated her brain, but physically she was quite worn out.
The lady dropped on her knees by the couch and began to chafe her
hands.  Presently she said:

"Alexander, do go upstairs and get my smelling-salts--the silver-topped
ones.  They're on the dressing-table--the right-hand side.  A moment,
though.  There's a menthol cone in the little drawer on the same side.
You might bring that too.  And, Billy, bring over one of those
cushions."

The lady's husband had taken a step toward the door at the first of
these instructions, but before they were completed he halted dubiously.

"Look here, my dear," he said with a kind of affected timidity.  "What
about a spot of something to eat instead of all this chemist's stuff?"

"Take the eau-de-Cologne with you when you're fetching the
smelling-salts," said his wife dryly.

With a glance at Billy the old man went out.  The lady then bent over
Doris and said in a low voice: "Would you like something to eat, my
dear?"

"Oh, yes, please," answered Doris with sudden vigor.  "I'm simply
starving.  I've had nothing since four o'clock."

"You poor thing!" The lady's voice expressed genuine concern.  "Come
here, Billy.  You go on chafing her hands while I get her something to
eat."

In an instant she was gone.  Billy came over and rather sheepishly
caught hold of some of Doris's fingers.  Doris, equally abashed, made
some demur, but that only encouraged the youth.

"I'm under orders, you know," he said, smiling.  "And if you knew
anything of Mrs. Rossiter you'd know that her orders must be obeyed.
Priceless old bird, isn't she?"

At this moment the door opened and a girl in a pink silk nglige
entered the room.

"What's all the excitement about?" she began in a languid tone: then
stopped suddenly with a sharp "Oh!" of surprise.  Billy dropped Doris's
hand and looked around rather guiltily.  "Hello, Pansy," he said.

"That you, Billy?  I thought you'd gone," said the girl coldly, with a
glance of jealous suspicion at Doris.  She was pretty, though her
features were a shade too much on the thin side.  Her hair was a
miracle of the shingler's and waver's art; and her complexion was all
that youth and health, aided by cream and powder, could make it.

"I nearly ran over this lady at the gate," Billy explained.  "She was
running away from a tramp or some such johnny.  Did you say it was a
tramp, Miss----?"

"A murderer," said Doris.  "He chased me all the way from Seapoint----"

"Oh, I say!  Was it Bronson?"

Doris decided to keep the most sensational feature of her adventure a
secret for the present.  "I don't know," she said.  "I went to the
house this afternoon to--well, to work out a theory I have----"

"By jove, you have a nerve," said Billy admiringly, while Pansy, in the
background, frowned.  "Do go on and tell us all about it."

Doris, faint and sick with hunger, was utterly incapable of telling a
consecutive story, and fortunately she was prevented from making the
attempt by the reappearance of Mrs. Rossiter carrying a tray with a
plate of beautifully cut bread and butter, tea, and a boiled egg.

"I say, Mrs. Rossiter," Billy burst out at once, "do you know what
she's been up to?  Hunting for clues up at Seapoint, by jove, and
getting chased by Bronson."

"What's this?" said Mr. Rossiter, who had followed his wife into the
room.

Mrs. Rossiter put down the tray on a low table by the couch and turned
on the men a look of reproof.  "Do let the girl have something to eat,"
she said.  "Her story can wait till afterward."

"Quite right, my dear," said her husband.  "Just you get outside these
vittles, young lady, and don't mind us."  He looked at Doris with a
kindly humorous smile.  Doris liked the old gentleman instinctively,
and felt sorry that he was married to so overwhelming a wife--quite
unnecessarily, for they were a devoted couple.  Her hostess meanwhile
had poured out a cup of tea, so she promptly fell to upon the supper.
The milk-fresh egg and the delicious bread and butter were soon
finished, and a piece of cake as well.  Then Billy offered her a
cigarette.

"No, thanks," said Doris.  "I don't smoke."

Billy, somewhat surprised, took one himself, and was putting the case
back in his pocket when Pansy said:

"Thank you, Billy.  I'll have one."

"Oh, sorry," said Billy, turning round to her with the case.  Then he
lit his own cigarette, and only remembered Pansy's after he had blown
the match out.  "Sorry," he said again as he remedied the omission,
while Pansy puffed hard so as to raise a smoke screen to conceal the
flush of mortification that rose to her cheeks.  She might have saved
herself the trouble, however, for Billy's entire attention was already
monopolized by Doris.

"Now do tell us all about it," he said, looking at her with infatuated
eyes.

"If you really feel equal to it," Mrs. Rossiter added kindly.

"I say, though," interposed Mr. Rossiter, "what about your people?
Won't they be anxious about you?  We can ring them up, you know."

"I don't live with my people," said Doris.  "I work at the hotel.
That's why I'm so interested in this murder."  Thereupon she launched
into her story, which she told as briefly as possible, omitting all
mention of her pursuer's identity.

"It must have been Bronson," said Billy.  "What a dud lot the police
must be not to have caught him."

Doris said she had not had time to look at the man properly.

"I should like to know what that theory of yours is, young lady," said
Mr. Rossiter.  "You know, I shouldn't be a bit surprised to find that
the police are all wrong."

"I dare say," said Mrs. Rossiter.  "Trust you never to think the same
as other people."

"Well," said Mr. Rossiter, "I must say Bronson didn't look like the
sort of fellow who'd commit a murder.  I've often chatted with him
across the wall, you know, and found him a very pleasant young chap.
Clever too.  Why, I remember one time when the lights went wrong here
and we couldn't get a man out--it was Sunday, I suppose--he just popped
in and put them right in no time."

"Oh, I dare say he was clever," Mrs. Rossiter admitted.  "But that
doesn't prove anything.  I never spoke to him, but I didn't like his
looks at all.  He always had such a cantankerous expression on his
face----"

"Absent-minded, my dear," said Mr. Rossiter.

"Well, I didn't like him anyway," replied his spouse implacably, "and
why anyone should think him innocent with such a clear case against
him, I can't imagine.  I hope they'll catch him soon and hang him well.
It makes me positively shudder to think that we've had such a criminal
living next door to us.  We might all have been murdered in our beds.
And I really think, Alexander, that, after Miss Philpot's experience,
you ought to drop that ridiculous idea of yours."

"That's all very well, my dear," said Mr. Rossiter, who had opened his
mouth to speak at the end of nearly every sentence of this harangue,
and closed it again good-humoredly as it flowed on regardless of him.
"That's all very well, but we're still in doubt whether it was really
Bronson that Miss Philpot saw."

"Who else could it have been?" said the lady.

"What was he like, Miss Philpot?" asked Mr. Rossiter.

"All I could see," answered Doris, "was that he was dark and just over
middle height."

"That's Bronson," interjected Pansy.

"What about his complexion?"

"Rather sallow, I should say, and he had a biggish nose."

"Well, that settles it," said Mr. Rossiter.  "Bronson was dark all
right, but his complexion was ruddy, and his nose was almost a snub.  I
wonder who the fellow could have been."

"Some confederate, I suppose," said Mrs. Rossiter.  "You'd better look
to the doors and windows tonight, Alexander.  I don't feel easy with
people like that prowling about."

"Whoever he is," said Pansy, "I don't think any theory's going to upset
the case against Bronson.  It's as clear as daylight."

Doris showed no disposition to argue the matter.

"That's just it," said Billy.  "In detective stories the case against
the wrong person always is as clear as daylight.  I bet Miss Philpot's
got some jolly interesting idea up her sleeve."

Pansy blew off some cigarette smoke to show that she was unimpressed.

"Now, Billy," said Mrs. Rossiter, "it's time for you to be getting
home, or your mother will think you've had an accident."

Billy jumped up at once, saying: "Very well, Mrs. Rossiter.  But hadn't
I better drive Miss Philpot back to the hotel?"

"I think Miss Philpot had better stay with us for tonight," said Mrs.
Rossiter.  "Wouldn't you prefer that?" she inquired of the girl.  "We
can telephone to the hotel."

"It's very kind of you----" began Doris.

"There, that's settled then.  Now, Billy, off with you."

"I wonder if the rain's stopped," said Billy, going to the window and
drawing aside the curtain.  Then "Oh, I say!" he exclaimed.  "Seapoint
is on fire."

With various sounds of astonishment the others all rushed to his side,
Doris included.  For a moment they could see nothing but a thin flame
streaming skyward among the distant trees.  Then a gust of wind made it
swirl, and a gable and chimney were momentarily illuminated by the
glow.  The little group of spectators stood silent for a while, held by
that feeling of excited anticipation which a fire always arouses.  But
before long the spell was broken by the calm voice of Mrs. Rossiter.

"Alexander, hadn't you better telephone for the fire brigade?"




[XII]

THEORY NUMBER FOUR

It was an amazed and horrified Cranley who listened to Doris's tale at
the police station next morning.  Duty had called him at an early hour
to survey the charred and drenched wreckage of Seapoint; and he had
found her waiting for him on his return.  His face grew pale as he
learned of the dangers which his little girl had been through, and his
imagination sickened at the thought of what might have been the end of
the adventure.  Most of the story she told sitting on his knee, with
his arm held tightly round her--the expression of a protective impulse
which, however retrospective in action, was somehow comforting to both
of them.  The end of it was smothered with kisses and expressions of
endearment, and of relief at the beloved one's escape, on which we
forbear to intrude.

"And to think that I was here, sleeping like a log, while my little
girl was going through all those horrors."  Cranley seemed to find a
gloomy satisfaction in laying this culpability on his honest shoulders.
Then he proceeded to scold Doris with the vexatious concern of a lover,
putting her down from his knee the better to impress her.  "To go off
like that to the house of a murderer without saying a word to anybody!
It was madness.  You should have told me about it first."

"If I had, you'd only have laughed at me," said Doris.

"Oh, darling----"

"Yes, you would.  Have you forgotten how scornful you were yesterday
when I told you about my theory, and how cocksure you were about your
own?"

"Well, wasn't I right?" said Cranley.

"No, my dear.  You were just about as wrong as you could be.  I was
right."

Cranley looked at her questioningly.  In telling her story so far Doris
had kept back one important detail--the identity of the midnight
marauder, whom Cranley had naturally assumed to be Bronson.  When she
now revealed the truth he was staggered, and at first incredulous.  He
questioned her searchingly, reminding her how difficult it must have
been to observe the man properly on both the occasions on which she had
seen him; but she held her ground firmly, until at last Cranley had to
own himself convinced.

"It looks," he said after some thought, "as if Wilson had staged this
murder in order to make a fade-out for himself.  That's why he took
care to destroy the other man's face.  But in that case who is the
murdered man?  How did he get into Wilson's room?  And what has Bronson
got to do with it all?  The case is just a string of questions, and I
can't find an answer to one of them."

"I think I can," said Doris.

"Oh, indeed.  Let's hear it."

"Don't be so sarcastic," said Doris.  "Here's my theory.  This man
Wilson was the originator of the San Flipe forgeries.  He was a clever
swindler, but he couldn't manage the technical business of making the
plates; so, by some plausible trick or other, he got Bronson and
another man, whom we'll call Blank, to make them for him.  When the
swindle came out, Bronson and Blank were afraid to give any evidence
for fear their own innocence mightn't be accepted.  Then, later on,
Wilson came over to England to get them to make plates for another
forgery.  When they refused, he threatened to betray them to the
police, probably by sending in some letters they had written to him.
Blank then, being the bolder man, decided to burgle Wilson's room and
get the papers back.  Borrowing some tools from Bronson, he made his
way in, and was then attacked and killed by Wilson.

"Now, what would Wilson do?  He might have pretended that the dead man
was a burglar, but he was probably afraid that his identity would come
out at the inquest, and his own career along with it.  He therefore
decided to stage a fade-out.  He dressed the dead man up in his
pajamas, put his ring on his finger, left his glasses by the bedside,
and battered his face with the hammer.  Then he thought it would be a
good plan to fix the murder on somebody, and who more appropriate than
Bronson?  He therefore wrote the letter you found in Blank's pocket,
and, when all was ready, climbed down the verandah and got away."

Doris paused and added: "There's my theory now.  If you have any holes
to pick in it, fire away."

"It doesn't explain why Bronson bolted," said Cranley promptly.

"Oh, yes, it does.  When Blank failed to return, he must have guessed
that something had gone wrong, and ran away so as to be on the safe
side.  He probably believes that Blank killed Wilson, and so he's
remaining in hiding for fear of being arrested as an accessory if Blank
is caught."

"That's likely enough," said Cranley.  "But what about Blank?  Who is
he?  And why has he not been missed?"

"Well, he may have been an American, or some other foreigner, and his
people have no idea yet that anything has happened to him."

"And what about Bronson's footprints, which I found on the balcony?"

"Oh, there's nothing in that.  Why shouldn't Blank wear rubber-soled
number sevens too?  It's a common enough size.  Or, if his own shoes
had no rubber soles, he might have borrowed Bronson's when he went
burgling."

"You have an answer for everything.  Now, what do you think Wilson was
looking for in Bronson's house last night?  And how did he get hold of
the latch-key?  It's a Yale lock, you know."

"He must have got the key from Blank's pocket," said Doris.  "Since
Blank and Bronson were in league together, Bronson might have lent him
a latch-key for convenience' sake.  He may have visited him at night
perhaps, and they didn't want the servants to know."

"Well, what was Wilson up to last night?"

"I suppose he wanted to get back some blackmailing letters he had
written to Bronson."

"Hardly," said Cranley.  "People don't keep blackmailing letters as a
rule.  They burn them.  Now your man would never have made so
exhaustive a search--or taken the risk of going to the place at all,
for that matter--if he hadn't been tolerably sure that what he wanted
was in the house.  From your description I take it that he was looking
for a paper of _some_ sort,--something so dangerous to him that when he
failed to find it he burned the house down to make sure of destroying
it.  However, we may get it yet."

"Oh?" said Doris in surprise.  "Was the house saved?"

"Most of it," replied Cranley.  "He made a sort of bonfire on the floor
of the laboratory, and another in the study.  The first spread to the
kitchen and some of the back rooms, but the other didn't light
properly, so the front rooms are practically undamaged."

"If there was any paper in that house," said Doris, "either Wilson or I
would have found it last night.  Probably Bronson destroyed it himself."

"Took it away with him, more likely," said Cranley.

"But what do you think of my theory, you bad boy?  Don't you think your
little girl has a good-sized head on her after all?"

"I think so much of your theory," said Cranley, kissing her, "that I'm
going to act on it.  I'll start two lines of investigation at once.
First we'll get on the trail of Wilson, if you can give us a good
description of him."

"I can," said Doris.

"Then I'll try to think out a way of letting Bronson know that if he
cares to give us information it will be to his advantage."

"So I _have_ been a help to you, haven't I?"

"I should just think you have.  But oh, you obstinate little
darling"--Cranley's tone suddenly became passionately earnest--"don't
ever take any steps in this case again without first consulting me.
Promise you won't?"

"No need to promise," said Doris.  "I wouldn't go near that awful house
again for a million pounds."

"Promise all the same."

Doris yielded to his importunity.

"It's not only the house I'm thinking of," said Cranley.  "You must
keep out of the thing altogether.  Altogether, do you hear?"

Doris promised again, and received another kiss.  Then, quite suddenly,
she remembered something.  When, on her first betrayal of herself to
Wilson, she had leaped from her hiding-place in the laboratory, she had
dropped her handbag on the floor behind her.  In the bag was the
blood-stained envelope which she had found in Bronson's desk, and which
she had entirely forgotten in the subsequent rush of events.  She told
all this now to Cranley, who lit a cigarette and smoked it to the end
before making any comment.

"I must go up to Seapoint and have a look for it," he said at last,
"though I don't suppose it'll have survived the fire.  Are you quite
sure there were no other stains--on the desk or the other papers?"

"Certain," said Doris.

"I can make sure of that when I go up there," said Cranley.  "On the
whole, though, I don't think this will help us much.  It probably has
no connection with the crime at all; and if it has any, I don't see how
it fits in with either of our theories."

"It'll be curious," said Doris, "if it knocks them both to pieces."




[XIII]

MR. ELTHORNE AT HOME

Mr. Robert Cardwell must not be pictured as a sharp-faced sleuth, with
the faculties and the instincts of the born investigator of crime.  He
was anything but sharp-faced, and his tastes were for books and
pleasant company rather than for facts and hard work.  He liked to
exercise his wits on criminal problems in the abstract; he took a keen
intellectual pleasure in piecing fragments of evidence together and
deducing events from them; but the business of arduously hunting for
clues and practically tracing the criminal himself was not much to his
mind.  To the concrete cases which came his way he brought no more
specialized faculties than a wide experience of men and books, and a
habit of lucid and logical thinking; which latter, of course, is rare
enough.  And while he was always ready to exercise his brain to the
fullest extent, he was apt, for the reasons aforesaid, to take short
cuts in action.  Hence his possibly unwise decision to get early to
grips with Mr. Elthorne.

Punctually at the appointed hour of nine o'clock, he rang the bell of
that gentleman's house at Lancaster Gate, and was ushered into a
luxuriously furnished smoking-room where the magnate awaited him.
Elthorne was a tall grizzled man, with keen dark eyes, and a harsh face
with prominent nose and cheek-bones.  His general expression,
underlying the curiosity of the moment as to his visitor's purpose,
seemed to be one of discontent: not the discontent of one who has
failed in his purpose, but the deeper emotion of one who has obtained
his heart's desire and found it unsatisfying.  It was some time before
Cardwell arrived at this interpretation.  At the moment he saw only the
keen eyes and masterful pose of the successful man of business.
Elthorne was smoking an enormous cigar, but at the entrance of his
visitor he took it from his mouth, displaying in the action a powerful
hand which, though carefully tended, had obviously done hard work at
some time.  He motioned Cranley to a chair and offered him his choice
of many smokes, maintaining a flow of polite commonplaces while a
footman served coffee and brandy.

As soon as they were alone his voice took a brisk and business-like
tone.  "Well, sir, I understand that you want to question me about this
murder at Spurn Cove.  I may say at once that I know nothing about it,
and the police have not thought it necessary to ask for my assistance.
However, if there is any point which I can help you to clear up, I
shall be happy to do so."

"Thank you," said Cardwell.  "As I told you in my letter, I am an
independent investigator, and I recognize that I have no official
standing, and shall owe it entirely to your courtesy if you choose to
answer any questions I may put to you."

Gracious acknowledgment of these sentiments on the part of Mr. Elthorne.

"This case," Cardwell continued, "is by no means so simple as appears
on the surface, and I have been retained by certain persons indirectly
concerned to make inquiries into it.  The question which I wish to put
to you may appear unimportant, but in reality it is a vital one.  As I
mentioned in my letter, I have learned from the manager of the Grand
Hotel that you were the last person to occupy the room where the murder
took place.  Now this whole case turns on a question of time.  A few
minutes one way or the other may make all the difference.  If the crime
is to be brought home to the murderer, it is absolutely necessary for
us to know the exact moment at which the room became vacant."

"One moment," said Mr. Elthorne.  "I understood that the coroner's jury
brought in a verdict of murder against that fellow Bronson.  Is there
any doubt of his guilt?"

"I don't say there is," replied Cardwell.  "But a coroner's jury is one
thing, and a jury trying a man for his life is another.  And remember,
Bronson's defense hasn't been heard yet.  Now will you be so good as to
try and recall the time of your leaving the hotel."

"I remember quite well," said Elthorne.  "I had been compelled to
shorten my holiday for business reasons, and had given notice of
departure a couple of days before.  I meant to leave immediately after
dinner, but got inveigled into a game of bridge, and eventually had to
make a rush to catch the last train, which left at----  One moment.  I
have a Bradshaw here."

He went over to a desk and, having consulted the guide, said: "It left
at nine fifty-five.  As I said, we only just managed to catch it, but
that was really the fault of the taxi, which didn't turn up till the
last minute.  We must have done the journey to the station in seven or
eight minutes.  That means we must have started about quarter to ten;
but I'm sure I was waiting in the hall for at least ten minutes before
that.  Yes.  You can take it that I left my bedroom between half-past
nine and twenty-five to ten."

"I see," said Cardwell.  "By the way, how long had you been staying at
the hotel?"

"Since the beginning of the month.  About three weeks."

"And when had you intended to leave?"

"I had no fixed plans, but I should probably have stayed till
September."

Cardwell meditated a moment, and then said:

"Tell me, Mr. Elthorne.  Did you notice any suspicious circumstances
during the time you occupied the room?"

Elthorne looked puzzled.  "What do you mean exactly?" he asked.

"Well--any occurrence out of the ordinary."

Elthorne shook his head.

"Were you conscious, for instance, of being spied upon?"

"Not at all," said Elthorne decidedly.

"Are you sure?" asked Cardwell.

"Quite sure."

Cardwell looked at him narrowly.  "I want you to search your memory
thoroughly, Mr. Elthorne," he said.  "And if you can recall anything
out of the ordinary run of events that might be expected at a seaside
hotel--anything, however trivial it may have seemed--please tell me
about it."

"I don't remember anything," said Elthorne.

"That's strange," said Cardwell, "because," sinking his voice
impressively, "I have reason to believe that Bronson's real intention
was to murder _you_."

Mr. Elthorne looked surprised, though not alarmed.

"Impossible!" he exclaimed.  "I had no connection whatever with the
man.  Never heard of him in fact."

"Are you sure?" said Cardwell.

"Quite."

The investigator languidly reversed his crossed legs and lighted
another cigarette.

"I must ask you to examine your memory more thoroughly, Mr. Elthorne,"
he said.  "I know that Bronson had designs against you, and it is
difficult to understand how that could be unless he had crossed your
path at some time or other.  The occasion may have been too
insignificant to leave any deep impression on your mind.  As a man of
some consequence in the world you may--unwittingly, no doubt--have done
some injury at some remote time to someone far outside your own social
sphere, whom you would be unable to recall without some effort.  I
merely put that as a suggestion, but perhaps----"

The dark man laughed with well-simulated easiness, but Cardwell's acute
senses could detect the slight shade of falseness in the note.

"This is all pure fancy on your part, Mr. Cardwell," he said.
"Theorizing: that's the trade word for it, isn't it?  I've never made
an enemy in my life, and as for this man Bronson, I've seen his
photograph in the newspapers, and I can assure you his face is quite
strange to me."

"You have no recollection of it at all?"

"None whatever."

"That's curious," said Cardwell quietly, "seeing that you were married
to his mother."

Elthorne's self-control in the face of that thrust was remarkable.
Indeed he would have been better served if it had been less, for the
accusation was startling even if it had been false.  Under the
constraint of an iron will, not a muscle of his face twitched, and his
eyes looked with perfect steadiness into his questioner's.  But though
he could repress the signs of emotion, he was deficient in those
qualities of imagination requisite for positively acting a part, and
his attempt to do so was a failure.  With the best assumption of
offended dignity that he could muster he said: "Do you know what you're
saying, sir?  This is not a joking matter."

"I am not joking, Mr. Reddington," said Cardwell.

The ironmaster stood up angrily.

"What the dickens do you mean, sir?" he snapped.  "My name is Elthorne."

"So one would gather from _Who's Who_," replied Cardwell suavely.
"Unfortunately the casualty lists of the Essex Regiment, the marriage
certificate of Miss Mary Hill, and the Boer War memorial at Chattering
tell a different story."

Elthorne stood staring at his accuser, a picture of guilt unmasked.
For a moment he could not speak.  Then he blustered incoherently:
"What's all this about?  I don't know what you're driving at.  If
you've nothing better to do than talk nonsense, you'd better get out."

"It's no use, Mr. Reddington," said Cardwell, putting a hand to his
breast pocket.  "Look at that now," and whipping out the photograph he
flourished it before the horrified gaze of its subject.

The latter was at the end of his resources.  Dropping back into his
chair, he sat there in haggard suspense, waiting for Cardwell to speak.
The investigator promptly changed his tactics, and assumed his most
conciliatory manner.

"Please don't be alarmed, Mr. Elthorne," he said, stressing the name
ever so slightly.  "Believe me, I have no desire to rake up an old
scandal.  Mrs. Bronson is dead, and I cannot see that any useful
purpose would now be served by undeceiving the lady who believes
herself to be your wife.  I am concerned only with the murder----"

"I had nothing to do with it," said Elthorne.  "I can call any number
of witnesses to prove that I was in London at the time it happened."

"My dear sir, I am well aware of that," protested Cardwell with the
utmost sincerity of manner.  "No suspicion rests on you at all--at any
rate, not in any responsible quarter, for of course the usual anonymous
busybodies have been at work sending in the wildest suggestions.  Here,
for instance, is a letter I received only this morning."

He sent a white envelope sliding across the polished table.  Elthorne
picked it up and observed: "It's still sealed."

"Yes.  I gummed it up again after reading it--just for safety.  Open it
please."

Elthorne produced a gold-handled penknife from his waistcoat pocket
and, holding it in his right hand, slit the flap of the envelope.
There was genuine surprise on his face when he read the letter, wherein
Cardwell had typed the following brief message:


  If you want information about the Spurn
  Cove murder, try John Elthorne.


"It looks as if someone else has discovered my past," said Elthorne
gloomily.

"I hardly think so," said Cardwell with great confidence of tone.
"Even I, with all the resources at my disposal, only discovered it with
the greatest difficulty.  More probably the writer of this note had
heard of your presence at the hotel and of your leaving so very shortly
before the crime, and suspected that there might be some connection
between them."

Elthorne remained silent a while, pensively smoking.

"For my own part," said Cardwell, "knowing what I do about your
connection with Bronson, I find it difficult to believe that it was
mere chance that took you to Spurn Cove."

Elthorne did not answer for a moment.  Then he rose to his feet with
the air of one coming to a momentous decision, and, walking up and down
the room, he said:

"I see that honesty in this case is the best policy, so I'll make a
clean breast of everything.  After what you've found out, Mr. Cardwell,
you won't be surprised to hear that Bronson was blackmailing me.  It's
true that I was once married to his mother.  It wasn't a success.
Whose fault it was doesn't matter.  I dare say there were faults on
both sides.  Anyhow, we made a mess of things, and frankly I joined the
army on purpose to get away from her.  I took advantage of a mistake in
the casualty lists to disappear, and began a new life out in South
Africa.  I got on, came home, and married again.  Years went by, and I
thought the whole past was buried beyond recall, when one day my first
wife walked into my office.  She had recognized my photograph in one of
the illustrated papers.  She told me at once that she did not wish to
claim me as her husband, since she had herself married again.  But she
had a clever son whom she could not afford to start properly in life,
and she was willing to keep silence if I would take him into my
employment and give him an opportunity to develop his scientific
tastes.  I, of course, had no choice but to agree; and I must say that
young Bronson proved to be a very capable and industrious fellow.  For
a few years things went on smoothly, and then Mrs. Bronson died.  On
her death-bed she must have confided the secret to her son, for, not
long afterwards, he came and told me that he knew all, and that he had
a photograph and letters which were a certain proof of my identity.
These put me completely in his power, and from that day to this he has
lived on the blackmail he has wrung from me.

"That's the whole of my unfortunate story," the man concluded.  "It is
in your power, Mr. Cardwell, to have me put in prison, to bring shame
on my wife, and to brand my children with illegitimacy.  But I've told
you everything frankly, relying on the assurance you gave me just now."

"Quite so," said Cardwell.  "As a matter of fact you have told me very
little that I didn't know already, so you may rest easy on that score.
Now let us get back to events at Spurn Cove.  You say that Bronson was
blackmailing you.  Am I to infer that your visit to the town had some
connection with that?"

"Certainly.  I went there for the purpose of seeing Bronson.  I had
been paying him a substantial income to hold his tongue, but he wanted
to change that arrangement.  He was going to get married, and
apparently he was afraid the girl might find out that he lived by
blackmail.  So he proposed that I should pay him fifty thousand pounds
down in return for the evidence he held--that photograph and a few
letters--and so be quit of him for good.  Now I couldn't do that.  I
hadn't so much ready cash available; and in the present depressed
condition of the steel industry I couldn't realize any of my holdings
without an enormous loss.  And besides, there was the difficulty of
putting through such a deal without attracting notice.  So I went down
to Spurn Cove to talk things over with Bronson.  It was no use.  He
wouldn't abate a jot of his demands, and at last I told him point-blank
that I was going to keep to the old arrangement, and, if he didn't like
it, let him blow the gaff and have done with it.  That was about a week
before the murder.  I did not see him again, and on the night of the
crime I left the hotel as I told you."

After a brief pause Cardwell said: "You told me just now that several
persons could vouch for your presence in London that night.  Who are
they?"

Elthorne looked at him narrowly.  "So I'm not quite free from suspicion
after all?" he said.

"In a detective's view nobody is," replied Cardwell.  "You mustn't take
offense at that.  It's my duty to check up all relevant facts, and you
offered the information yourself, you know.  Now will you be so good as
to give me the names?" and he took out a notebook and pencil.

"Well, first of all there's Sir John Trotfield, who joined the train at
Chelmsford, and chatted with me all the way to London.  Then there's my
chauffeur, Barry, who met me at King's Cross, and whichever of the
servants admitted me to the house.  And, of course, there's my wife,
and my son, Philip, who happened to be here when I arrived, and any
servants who may have been up at the time."

Cardwell was about to put another question, when there was a knock at
the door, and a footman announced a telephone call for his master.

"You'll excuse me, won't you?" said Elthorne, and went out.

Cardwell utilized the interval to rearrange his ideas.  Elthorne's
story, he felt, rang true, and it was in accord with all the facts of
which he had cognizance.  He would test the alibi, of course, by
calling on Sir John Trotfield, but he felt sure that it was sound.
Moreover, Elthorne was clearly right-handed, as he had shown in half a
dozen ways besides that of opening the envelope he had given him.
These two reasons seemed sufficient to acquit him of the murder.  And
yet--and yet----

"I'll swear still that there's more than coincidence in his giving up
that room to Wilson," said the investigator to himself.  "And I'll
swear that Wilson never carried those plates over from San Flipe.
There's deep water over all that business, and it'll take good diving
to get to the bottom of it."

Pondering, he helped himself to a cigarette.

"If Elthorne's the murderer," he reflected, "he works by deputy.
That's it," he realized suddenly.  "And it was his deputy that burned
Seapoint."

Cardwell knew no more about this episode than he had been able to
gather from the evening papers; and Doris, at Cranley's request, had
kept her interviewers in ignorance of the identity of the incendiary.
Cardwell's first hasty surmise had been that Elthorne had fired the
place in order to destroy the photograph and any other compromising
papers that Bronson might have left behind.  Then he had noticed that
Miss Philpot had described her assailant as young, and for a while he
had dallied with the idea that Bronson himself might have returned to
cover up some remembered evidence, and he had even begun to revise his
conviction of the fugitive's innocence in consequence.  Now the
solution to both difficulties came like a flash.  Elthorne was the
brain at the back of a vast complicated plot--which included both the
murder and the forgery--and the actual carrying out of his plans was
left to others.  "A Professor Moriarty in real life," said Cardwell to
himself as the subject of his reflections reentered the room.

"Sorry to have kept you waiting," said Elthorne.  "What about a spot of
whiskey?"

"No, thanks."

"Oh, come!  We must wind up this unpleasant business on a cheerful
note.  Scotch or Irish?" he queried, fingering the decanters.

Cardwell allowed himself to be persuaded to take a small Irish, and his
host helped himself to the same.

"You'll like that," he said with a rather forced geniality.  "It's
twelve years old."

"Very good indeed," Cardwell agreed, tasting it.  "But, before leaving
this unpleasant business altogether, I have one more question to ask
you."

"Fire away," said Elthorne.

"It's only this.  Why did you leave Spurn Cove the day you did?"

"Well, there was no reason to stay.  My mission had failed, and I
wasn't exactly in holiday mood."

"It was a curious coincidence," observed Cardwell, "that Wilson should
have arrived that same night."

He had taken out his cigarette-case as he spoke, and offered it to
Elthorne, whose cigar had gone out during the recital of his history.
Elthorne struck a light for both.

"Yes.  It was certainly curious," he said.  "But, you know,
coincidences do occur.  Extraordinary coincidences.  And in a way this
wasn't so very remarkable.  Both of us wanted to see Bronson about the
same time, that was all.  There was only one decent hotel in the town,
and, as it was full, mine was the only vacant room."

"Yes, yes," Cardwell admitted.  "That's true."

"And that reminds me," said Elthorne.  "I don't mind telling you now
that the theory you mentioned a few minutes ago is probably correct.  I
believe that Wilson was murdered in mistake for me."

"Indeed?"

"Yes.  Bronson didn't know I had gone away, and he couldn't have known
that Wilson had arrived either.  Remember, Wilson wrote to tell him,
and hadn't posted the letter."

"Quite so.  But he might have written before to tell him he was coming."

"Possibly.  But Bronson couldn't have known what room he would occupy."

"Exactly," said Cardwell.  "And it was for that very reason that I
concluded he had killed him in mistake for you.  But what was his
motive?"

"The best of motives," said Elthorne.  "It was part of our original
arrangement that I should leave Bronson ten thousand pounds in my will,
so that in the event of my death he would be provided for.  As I had
refused to continue his subsidy, he was probably afraid I would cancel
the will too."

"That clears up the mystery completely," said Cardwell, rising to his
feet.  "And now, Mr. Elthorne, I must thank you very much indeed for
the full and frank way you have answered my questions, and can assure
you that your confidence will be respected.  I must be off now on some
further inquiries, so I'll say good-by."

"Very happy indeed to be able to help you," murmured Elthorne.

"By the way," said Cardwell, "you'd be wise to look to your doors and
windows at night and take any other precautions that may occur to you.
Bronson has come back to England, and he's probably in desperate mood.
You know that his house was burned down last night?"

"Yes.  I saw it in the evening paper."

"It must have been Bronson himself that did it,--probably to destroy
some incriminating evidence there."

"I should think that the police have more than enough to hang him
already."

"Yes.  But juries take a lot of convincing when there's a life at
stake.  However, it's time for me to be going.  Good night once more."

Elthorne shook the investigator's hand with the utmost cordiality.
"Good night, Mr. Cardwell.  And allow me to express my appreciation of
the--er--tact and discretion which you have shown in this unhappy
business."

"That's all right," said Cardwell.  "Don't worry about it any longer."

As he descended the steps to his car his mind was full of the
conversation that had passed.

"Not a doubt of it that he's right-handed," he reflected, "and his
story fits together like a piece of machinery.  But he's evidently not
afraid of Bronson, and I'm hanged if I'll believe in that coincidence."

He touched the starter and drove away, rather doubtful whether he had
not played his high cards a little extravagantly for tricks of
problematical value.




[XIV]

A SECOND PROBLEM

Next morning every newspaper in London had the striking headline:

  NOTED DETECTIVE MURDERED

Underneath this it was told how the body of Mr. Robert Cardwell, the
well-known private investigator, had been found by a policeman at
midnight, lying in Ivy Walk, one of those steep narrow by-ways
characteristic of Hampstead.  His car stood close at hand, undamaged.
Mr. Cardwell had been shot through the head, and his pockets had been
rifled.  Robbery had evidently been the motive of the deed, and most of
the papers had leading articles deploring the extraordinary increase of
crimes of this character in recent years, and the apparent helplessness
of the police against them.  There was also some declamation about the
necessity of inflicting more stringent penalties as a deterrent against
robbery with violence, with suggestions of greater latitude in the use
of the cat, which, the writers were confident, would put down the armed
robber as effectively as it had once put down the garrotter.

Meanwhile, at the offices of Investigations, Ltd., Allingham had been
discussing the tragedy with Cardwell's second assistant, a sallow
ferret-faced man called Agnew.  It was to him that the criminal
business of the bureau was usually entrusted, the chief and Allingham
devoting their energies to its more agreeable and academic activities.
He possessed detective qualities of a remarkable but limited kind.
Keen-eyed and observant as a kite, he would draw only the most meager
conclusions from what he observed; and while he had never formulated a
theory in his life, once started on a trail he would follow it with
sleuth-like ingenuity and pertinacity to the very end.  He had wished
to join the police force, but had not the necessary physique.

The two men felt the loss of their chief as a personal sorrow, for
Cardwell was a pleasant companion to work with and popular with all his
staff; but the necessity for action left no time for laments.

"We have our work cut out for us," said Allingham, after having given
his colleague a recapitulation of the events leading up to the tragedy.
"We've got to hold this agency together somehow, without a chief, and
we've got to track down the cleverest and most daring criminal in
England."

Agnew looked up interrogatively.

"Elthorne, of course," said Allingham.  "The chief more than suspected
him of the Spurn Cove murder, and it's quite clear what motive he had
for this one."

Agnew said nothing.  He had not yet formed any idea on the subject, and
it was not his habit to utter the conventional ejaculations with which
the passive half of a conversation is usually conducted.

"I should think he was also responsible for the burning of Bronson's
house," went on Allingham.  "Don't you?"

"I couldn't say," was Agnew's reply.

"Oh, come.  Isn't it obvious?  Did you read the interview with the girl
in the papers?"

"Yes."

"Well, this whole mystery centers round the photograph.  Isn't that
just the sort of thing that might be hidden in a book?  And who on this
earth but Elthorne had a vital reason for finding it?  Having failed to
find it, what else could he do but burn down the house in the hope of
destroying it?  Then, the very next day, in walks poor Cardwell with
the thing in his pocket.  His neck depended on a bold stroke at once,
so what could he do but follow him up and kill him?"

"You may possibly be right," said Agnew.

"Good," said Allingham ironically.  "It's difficult to imagine how he
worked it, though.  He must have followed him in a car, and quickly
too, or he wouldn't have caught him.  But a man can hardly rush out of
his house on the heels of a guest, get out a car, and fly after him
without attracting some attention.  Then consider the murder itself.
According to the papers, Cardwell's car is undamaged, which it
certainly wouldn't be if he had been shot while it was running.  Why
did he stop?  If there were thieves lying in wait they might have put
up an obstacle to stop him, and that's what the papers are assuming.
But I'm hanged if I'll believe it until the thieves are in the dock.
What do you think?"

"I had better go and examine the ground," said Agnew, his invariable
suggestion on such occasions.

"Both grounds," added Allingham.  "Hampstead first, then Lancaster
Gate.  Meanwhile I shall pay a visit to the Hampstead police and see if
they've got any information.  For the present, by the way, we'll keep
the Elthorne business to ourselves.  If the police got on that trail
they might scare the birds too soon."

For answer Agnew took a folded cap from his pocket and silently
disappeared.  Allingham, a little later, drove over to the Hampstead
police station and introduced himself to the superintendent, who led
him out to a yard in which Cardwell's blue saloon car was standing.

"That's exactly as we found it," the superintendent explained.  "The
doors were shut, and there was only this slit of window open.  There
isn't a scratch on the varnish anywhere, as you see.  He must have got
out for some reason and been shot on the pathway."

Allingham examined the car thoroughly, both inside and out, and found
no trace of violence anywhere.  The superintendent then took him to a
public-house close at hand where the body lay.

"The post-mortem is to be held at three," he said, "but there's nothing
to discover.  He was shot through the head.  No other marks whatever.
His pockets were completely emptied."

"Everything taken?" Allingham queried.

"Every single thing," replied the superintendent.  He added that the
assassin must have used an automatic pistol fitted with a silencer;
for, though the body was discovered while still warm, and with the
wound still bleeding, the constable on the beat had heard nothing.

"There was nobody in sight when he arrived, I suppose?"

"Not a soul."

Allingham looked for a moment at the placid face of his dead chief,
then thanked the superintendent, and returned to the office to wait for
Agnew.  The latter did not appear until after dark, Allingham having
slipped out for a hurried meal at a restaurant in the meanwhile.  He
was tired and dusty, and his manner conveyed no hint as to whether his
explorations had had any result.

His day had been a full one.  First he had gone to Ivy Walk and
examined the ground, but there was nothing to be learned there: the
hard dry road surface told no tales.  Agnew wasted no time, but hurried
into town, and, reaching Lancaster Gate, strolled casually down the
mews at the back of a certain row of houses.  At one of the garages a
chauffeur in shirt-sleeves was sitting on the step of a Daimler car,
immersed in a copy of the _Irish Weekly Independent_.

"Is this Prince's Mews?" Agnew asked.

"No," said the other, looking up.  "Prince's Mews is on the other side
of the street.  First on your left."

"A fellow-countryman, I see," said Agnew, putting on an Irish
accent--one of his many unobtrusive accomplishments.  "Anything in the
old rag?"

"Not much.  You can have it if you like.  I'm done with it."

"Thanks," said Agnew, taking it.  "Cigarette?"

The chauffeur helped himself from the proffered packet.  "Looking for a
job?" he asked.

Agnew saw that the man was ready, like most of his race, for a bit of
gossip, and had no difficulty in leading him on.  Soon he had learned
all about the manners and customs of the Elthorne family, and was
admitted to the garage to look over their cars.

"There were four of them," he told Allingham when making his report.
"Besides the Daimler, there was a Rolls Royce touring car, a neat
little Singer coupe, and a runabout.  None of them was out of the
garage last night."

"I don't suppose Elthorne would have used his own car anyway," mused
Allingham, but his expression was one of gloomy disappointment.

Agnew resumed his report without comment.

"I next hunted up Elthorne's sons.  He has two: George and Philip.
They live in flats in the same neighborhood.  Both have cars; and they
both had them out last night."

Allingham looked hopeful again.

"I got into conversation with George's chauffeur," went on Agnew.  "He
is a mutinous fellow of Communist views and Puritan outlook.  He was
very much aggrieved because he had spent last night, from nine o'clock
till three in the morning, sitting in the car outside a night club
while George and a gay party disported themselves inside."

"And what was Philip doing?"

"He spent the night at his club.  His chauffeur drove him there at ten
and fetched him home again at one."

"It doesn't follow that he stayed there during the interim."

"Quite so," said Agnew, "but I think he did all the same, because the
car in which the murderer drove has been found."

"Good heavens, man," cried Allingham, "why didn't you tell me that at
the beginning instead of keeping me on tenterhooks with your
meanderings after false scents?"

"As I was chatting with Philip's chauffeur," went on Agnew
imperturbably, "a friend of his came up and told us that a car had been
stolen from a house at Lancaster Gate last night; so I went there to
make inquiries.  I found that the house was on the same side of the
street as Elthorne's, and the car--an Armstrong sedan--was taken from
before the front door between quarter- and half-past ten."

"We're getting warmer," said Allingham.

"I at once went to Scotland Yard," continued Agnew in his even tone,
"and inquired if any such car had been found.  It had.  A description
had just come in of an Armstrong car which had been found early this
morning abandoned in a lane at Golder's Green."

"Agnew," said Allingham, "you're a genius.  It's a perfect case.  But
by jove, it must have been touch and go for the fellow.  I can't
imagine yet how he worked it.  How far is it from Elthorne's house to
the place where the car was standing?"

"One hundred and eighty-three yards," replied Agnew.

Allingham's jaw dropped momentarily.

"That certainly makes it difficult for Elthorne to have done it," he
admitted.

"Very," said Agnew: the first opinion he had yet expressed.

"Whoever did it must have been his agent," said Allingham.  "And that's
the same thing.  _Qui facit per alium facit per se_, you know.
Elthorne must have had an accomplice hiding behind the arras----"

"Is there an arras at Elthorne's house?" asked Agnew.

"What a literal-minded beggar you are.  He probably had him listening
outside the door.  Then, when Cardwell produced the photograph, the
fellow would have slipped out and hung about until he left.  Then he'd
have nipped into the first handy car and gone after him.  While I've
been waiting for you I've worked out how the actual killing could have
been done.  It's really quite simple.  The fellow could have overtaken
Cardwell and then stopped--shamming a breakdown, perhaps.  Cardwell
would have had to stop to avoid a collision, and you can imagine the
rest."

Agnew concurred after his fashion.

"It'll do as a working hypothesis, anyway," said Allingham impatiently.
"We must fix up our program for tomorrow.  You'll have to do some more
sleuth work.  I'm going to call on Elthorne at eleven to set a little
trap for him, and I want you to hang about and see if I'm followed when
I come out.  If I am, follow the follower.  I'll be able to give him
the slip all right, but you must hang on to him till you know who he
is.  When you've done that, get to King's Cross Station, where we'll
catch the first train after three o'clock for Spurn Cove."

Agnew drew his cap out of his pocket again.

"And by the way," said Allingham, taking his hat from its peg, "if you
get down to the office early enough you'll be able to see Elthorne
arrive.  Try and see if he does anything left-handed."




[XV]

MR. ELTHORNE AT WORK

At the hour he had mentioned Allingham walked into Elthorne's office in
the City and sent in his card.  After a brief wait he was shown into a
room in which there were two men.  One--Elthorne presumably--sat at a
desk; the other, a much younger man with an obviously filial
resemblance, stood with his back to the fire, his hands in his trousers
pockets.

Elthorne received Allingham as one smitten by a common misfortune.

"You've come about poor Mr. Cardwell, of course.  What a dreadful
affair!  To think that he went straight from my presence to his death.
It has been a great shock to me, as you can imagine.  Dreadful!
Dreadful!"

He had risen to shake hands with the visitor.  Now he turned and
introduced the young man by the fire: "My son and partner, Mr. George
Elthorne," at the same time warning Allingham by a look that nothing
indiscreet must be said for the moment.

"It's that scoundrel Bronson, I'm sure," went on Elthorne, pacing up
and down the room with quick nervous steps.  "You know, George, Mr.
Cardwell had come to ask me if I knew anything about the Spurn Cove
crime, as I had been the last occupant of the room where it took place.
But of course"--he turned again to Allingham--"I could tell him
nothing, because I had left the hotel before the murdered man arrived.
As for this present awful affair, all I know is that Mr. Cardwell left
my house last night, safe and sound, soon after ten o'clock.  Though I
was of no assistance to him, he was confident of running Bronson to
earth pretty soon, and now it seems that Bronson has got him instead."

"I have no doubt that's what has happened," said Allingham.  "If it had
been thieves, they'd have taken his car as well as his money."

"Quite so," said Elthorne.  "And I must say the whole thing is a very
grave reflection on Scotland Yard.  To think that a murderer who is
supposed to have got out of the country, and for whom the police of the
whole world have been looking, should turn up in London and commit a
second murder under their very noses!  Why, sir, it's preposterous."

"They're a damned incompetent lot," added his son.

"Oh, by the way, George," said Elthorne, "I have a few words to say in
private to Mr. Allingham.  Perhaps you'll excuse us.  We shan't take
more than a few minutes."

"That's all right," said George, and, gathering up some papers from the
desk, he left the room.

Elthorne waited until the sound of his feet along the passage outside
had been cut off by the slam of a door.  Then he said:

"I was unaware that Mr. Cardwell had a partner, Mr. Allingham.  May I
ask if you were fully in his confidence?"

"Fully," replied Allingham.

"You are acquainted with all the--er--details of this particular case?"

"The Spurn Cove case?  Certainly.  I know all about it."

"All is perhaps a little indefinite," said Elthorne.  "Would
you--er--put it somewhat more precisely?"

"I know about your photograph and all that," said Allingham.

"Ah!  Then you will be aware of--er--certain--er--indiscretions of my
youth, which were discovered by Mr. Cardwell in his pursuit of this
murderer, Bronson."

"I know that you were once married to Bronson's mother, and have
therefore committed bigamy," said Allingham bluntly.  "I've guessed
that Bronson has been blackmailing you on that score.  And I've more
than a suspicion that it wasn't mere coincidence that you were at the
Grand Hotel in August, and left it a few minutes before the murdered
man arrived."

"Quite so.  Quite so," said Elthorne nervously.  "I see that your
information and your suspicions are entirely in accord with poor Mr.
Cardwell's, and I can do no better than take you completely into my
confidence, as I did with him."

"Thank you.  I'm all attention."

Mr. Elthorne retold his story, betraying more shame in the process than
on the previous occasion, as was only natural in making such a
confession to a much younger man.  Allingham, however, showed him no
consideration on this score, but cross-questioned him exhaustively
until every fact was out and sorted into its place.  When the ordeal
was over, Elthorne said:

"You will understand, Mr. Allingham, that I am most anxious to keep my
unfortunate past a secret from my family.  The lady I wronged is now
dead, and, as Mr. Cardwell very sensibly said, no good purpose would be
served by taking a strictly legal view of my actions.  I trust that you
will regard the matter in the same light."

"Make your mind easy about that, Mr. Elthorne," said Allingham.  "Our
firm's telegraphic address is 'Discretion, London,' and we have always
lived up to it.  As far as we're concerned, you're safe.  But there's
another danger threatening you.  I dare say Mr. Cardwell warned you of
it.  That's Bronson.  I should advise you to apply for police
protection."

"I have already done so," replied Elthorne.  "As soon as I saw the
dreadful news in the paper yesterday morning, I feared I should be the
next victim, so I telephoned to Scotland Yard at once."

"Excellent," said Allingham.  "But I mustn't waste any more of your
time, Mr. Elthorne, and I have a lot of work ahead of me too.  You know
that Bronson's house was set on fire the other night?  The papers all
think it was Bronson himself who did it, but they're wrong."

"Indeed?" said Elthorne.  "Mr. Cardwell seemed to be under the same
impression."

"He wasn't really.  He believed that it was some other victim of
Bronson's who wanted to destroy whatever papers Bronson was holding
over him."

"Very likely indeed," said Elthorne.

"Well, I went down to Spurn Cove yesterday to try and get information
from Mrs. Dakin, Bronson's housekeeper.  This old lady is quite certain
Bronson is innocent, so I had to pretend I was on his side and looking
for evidence to help him.  You may remember that at the inquest she
talked about a burglary, and said that the thief must have been after
the papers of her master's invention.  I reminded her of this,
suggesting that if those papers could be found they'd go a long way
towards proving Bronson's innocence, and at last I persuaded her to
tell me where they were.  It's the cutest hiding-place you could think
of, and I'm going down tonight to get hold of them.  I expect they'll
shed a most interesting light on Bronson's career, tell us who the
mysterious Wilson was, and so on."

"I presume that the hiding-place is in a part of the house that escaped
the flames," said Elthorne.

"Yes.  Can you oblige me with a railway guide?"

Elthorne produced one from his desk.

"Six-five, six-thirty-five, six-fifty," read out Allingham.  "That
ought to suit me all right.  Arrives seven-forty-five.  Yes.  I'll take
that."

"Rather late, isn't it?" suggested Elthorne.

"Can't be helped," replied Allingham.  "I have some other jobs to do
first, so I can't get away any earlier.  Besides, I want to do this job
on the quiet, without having to explain things to the police.  They
don't like us private investigators, you know--regard us as amateur
interlopers--so I dispense with them whenever possible."

He took out a little notebook and made an entry of the hour.  As he did
so, the door opened and another young man came in.  Elthorne introduced
him as his son, Philip.  He was much taller than his father and elder
brother, but very slightly built, with something of a stoop about the
shoulders.  He had light brown hair and pale blue eyes, and his chin
inclined to a pointed shape.

"There's a suspicious-looking character hanging about outside," he said
to his father, "and as Phibbs is going to the bank in a few minutes, I
thought perhaps we ought to ring up the police."

"I shouldn't bother," replied Elthorne.  "But for safety Phibbs had
better take a taxi, and you might tell one of the clerks to go with
him."

"Very well," said the young man, and quietly withdrew.

Elthorne turned to Allingham with a look of consternation.  "Supposing
it's Bronson," he said.

"Forewarned is forearmed," Allingham replied.  "You needn't worry about
me," and he showed Elthorne a revolver.

"Well, take care of yourself," said Elthorne, clasping the hand which
Allingham offered, and shaking it cordially.

Allingham took his departure forthwith.  A few minutes later the
suspicious-looking character who had excited Philip Elthorne's
distrust, and who had been loitering on the other side of the street,
set out in the same direction.  The ironmaster watched from the window
until they were out of sight, then turned round as his son George
entered the room.

"Did you see?" he asked.

"Bronson Claims a Third Victim," said George, quoting an imaginary
headline, and laughed unpleasantly.

"Seriously, though," said Elthorne, "who do you think it could be?"

"I should say it's the police protection you asked for.  Won't it be a
joke if he arrests that bird?"




[XVI]

ALLINGHAM GETS BUSY

A very young man, exquisitely dressed, entered the Grand Hotel, Spurn
Cove, and, advancing up the hall, swept off his hat with a debonair
gesture to the girl at the bureau.  Miss Philpot greeted him a little
shyly with a smile.  He laid a bunch of deliciously perfumed violets
before her.

"Rather nice, these, eh?" he said.  "Picked them up in the town as I
was passing.  Thought you might like them."

"Are they for me?  Oh, how lovely.  Thanks awfully."

There was a moment's embarrassed silence.

"I--er--just dropped in as I was passing," said the youth, "to see how
you were getting on after your adventure."

"That's really most kind of you," replied the girl.  "I'm quite all
right, thanks."

"Good," said the young man.  "I'm delighted to hear it."  Then he hung
irresolute, not knowing what more to say.

"It's awfully good of you to call," Doris said to help him.  "And, you
know, now that you're here, I really must thank you for saving my life.
I was going to write--in fact I've begun a letter--but it's so hard to
express oneself properly----"

"Don't you bother," said the young man.  "I mean to say, of course, I'd
love to get a letter from you, but it was nothing, you know.  I--I did
nothing at all.  The fellow must have sheered off as soon as he saw my
headlights."

"Still, you were very kind----"

"Not at all.  It was a pleasure, I assure you.  Any other time I'll be
only too pleased."

"Oh, I hope there won't be another time," said Doris, laughing.  "Once
was quite enough."

"Of course I didn't mean that, you know," said the young man seriously.
"It must have been jolly awful of course.  By jove, yes.  It must have
been jolly awful."

He stood for a moment with his mouth open, as if he would have liked to
give vent in really expressive terms to his appreciation of the
awfulness of the girl's experience, if only his vocabulary had been
equal to the task.  To say "jolly awful" a third time would have been
too senile a futility, so he took youth's refuge in silence.  Only for
a moment, however, for it was uncomfortable.

"Jolly nice day, isn't it?" he said presently with an engaging air of
freshness.

"Isn't it?" said Doris, and added mischievously: "But aren't the
evenings getting shorter?"

"Yes, by jove, aren't they!"  There Billy's eloquence dried up again;
but almost immediately he remembered what he had intended to say
earlier if Doris had not switched his thoughts in another direction.
"Oh--er--look here though.  What I mean to say is--any time I can be of
any service to you at all, I'll be only too pleased, you know."

"Thank you so much, Mr.----" Doris paused and laughed.  "I'm afraid I
only know you as Billy."

"Billy will do very well," said the young man, delighted.  "And now
look here--er--dash it all, I only know _you_ as Miss Philpot----"

Doris made no attempt to supplement his information.

"Well," went on Billy, somewhat dashed, "what I mean to say is I've a
little car, you know, and if you think a run now and then would buck
you up and so on, I'd be delighted to take you along.  Any time you
like," he added encouragingly as she delayed answering.

"I'm afraid my afternoons are pretty well booked up just at present,"
said Doris.  "But--oh, perhaps some other time."

Billy saw that look in the girl's face which even the youngest of men
knows only too well how to interpret.

"Well, I hope it'll be as soon as possible," he said gallantly.  He
paused a moment, added, "So long, then," and Doris was left with the
violets lying forlorn on the counter.

Half an hour later two other young men entered the hotel.  One was
cheerful and good-looking, the other sallow and of a rather furtive
demeanor.  The former presented a card to Miss Philpot and asked to see
the manager.

Doris looked up from the card in surprise.  "Is this the poor detective
who has been murdered?" she asked, pointing to Cardwell's name.

"Yes," said Allingham, and repeated his request.

"The manager is out at the moment," said Doris.  "Is there any message
I could take?  Or would you prefer to wait?"

"We're in a hurry," said Allingham.  "The fact is that the murder of
our chief is connected with the murder here, and we want to ask some
questions about it."

"Perhaps I would do," said Doris.  "I'm Miss Philpot."

"By jove!" said Allingham.  "The very person I wanted to see.  Have you
quite recovered from your adventure the other night?"

"Quite," said Doris.  "If you want to talk about it, will you and your
friend come into my office?"

Telling her assistant to take charge, she led the young men into a
small room at the back of the bureau.

"The first thing I want to know," said Allingham, "is, who was the man
who attacked you the other night?  Or at least, what was he like?  It
wasn't Bronson, I know."

"You're right."

"Who was it then?"

"You won't believe me when I tell you," said Doris.

"I'm accustomed to hearing incredible things," said Allingham.

"Nothing as bad as this, though."

"Out with it, and we'll see."

"It was Wilson," said the girl.

Prepared as he was, Allingham showed that he was staggered.

"Wilson!" he said.  "The murdered man?"

"Yes."

Allingham sat down, completely and hopelessly bewildered.

"This case is getting impossible," he said.  "Are you sure it was he?"

"Quite.  He was as close to me as you are now."

"Evidently Wilson wasn't murdered," said Agnew stolidly.

"Oh, come.  Don't be so materialistic," Allingham rallied him.  "Aren't
you up-to-date enough to believe in ghosts?"

"No," said Agnew.

"Good.  We'll assume then that Wilson is still alive.  The mystery now
resolves itself into two: who was the murderer? and who was the
murdered?  Or, more briefly, who murdered whom?  I think that problem
must be unique in the annals of crime."

"There's a third mystery," suggested Doris.  "And that's who is Wilson."

"I fancy that will solve itself if we can solve the other two.  Now let
me collect my scattered senses.  Wilson is alive, and before that hard
fact the beautiful and ingenious theory which I have been elaborating
crumples up like a bijou villa before a howitzer shell.  We must start
all over again at the beginning."

"Oh, but first," said Doris, "there's one more clue I'd better tell you
about," and she related how she had found the bloodstained envelope in
Bronson's desk.

Allingham's interest was caught at once.  For some reason the clue
seemed of much more significance to him than to Cranley, and he at once
asked to see it.

"Unfortunately I haven't got it," said Doris.  "I dropped it in the
laboratory, and it was burned in the fire.  But I can show you exactly
what it was like."

She fetched an envelope from the bureau, and with a blob of ink marked
the position and size of the smear.

"Excellent," said Allingham.  "And now, Miss Philpot, with your
permission I'll have a look at the room where the crime took place,
while my friend goes around to examine the verandah which the murderer
is supposed to have climbed."

Doris promptly summoned the hall porter and entrusted Agnew to his
guidance.  Then she went upstairs with Allingham.  The chamber of
mystery was still untenanted, but all traces of what had occurred there
had been removed.  Doris showed the investigator which window-pane had
been cut, and as he opened the casement and stepped out on the balcony,
the top of a ladder appeared above the rail and Agnew could be heard
mounting the steps.

"He's just making quite certain whether the murderer really did climb
the verandah," Allingham explained to Doris.  "What a glorious view
that is!"

"Lovely, isn't it?" said Doris.  "Do you see those red roofs among the
trees, right over there across the bay?"

"Yes."

"The very end one is Bronson's house."

"What!"  Allingham's face suddenly lighted up with intense interest.
He looked across the bay and stood silent for a while, staring, with
knitted brow, biting his nether lip.  At the same moment a window of
the house flashed back a ray of the setting sun.

"By jove, I almost see it," he cried.  "Just let me think it out."

Flushed with excitement he stepped back into the room and again stood
still, head bent, one hand playing with the coins in his trousers
pockets, the other gripping his chin, utterly oblivious of all around
him.  Doris watched him, breathless with expectation.  Outside the
ladder creaked occasionally under the weight of the prying Agnew.
Otherwise silence reigned for some minutes.

"I have it," said Allingham at last.  "The case is solved.  We must go
down to the police station at once."

"Who did it?" asked Doris.

"I don't know that yet," said Allingham.  "But we'll find out soon now."

Doris thought that the only point that really mattered, but said
nothing.  Just then Agnew's face appeared above the balcony rail.

"No traces here," he said.

"Good," said Allingham.  "Let's go straight to the station now.
There's no time to lose."

He wished Doris a hasty good-by, and in an instant was gone.  A taxi
took the two detectives to the police station, where Inspector Cranley
received them, none too cordially at first.  Allingham, however, had a
winning way with him, and the new light which he was able to shed on
the case soon won him the professional's respect, especially as he had
the tact to admit that his success was due to the chance of his having
been presented with a clue which had been denied to the inspector.

Mollified by this, the latter said: "I've just received a piece of
information which you may have for what it's worth.  The cameo ring has
been traced to a second-hand jeweler in New York, but he can't describe
the man he sold it to."

"That doesn't matter," said Allingham.  "Did he say when he sold it?"

"Yes.  It was at the beginning of June last."

"Good!" cried Allingham.  "That fits in perfectly.  And by the way,
have you still got the plates for the San Flipe notes here?"

"No," said Cranley.  "They were sent to Scotland Yard.  There's an
official of the San Flipe Bank coming over to identify them."

"He's wasting his time.  They're not the right ones."

"What!" cried Cranley.

"Oh, come!" said Allingham.  "Are they likely to be?  Those forgers got
away with a cool million.  What on earth would be the use of keeping
the plates?  They couldn't hope to pass off any more notes from them,
so why risk being caught with them?"

"So I've often said to myself," said Cranley.  "But there the things
were."

"No," said Allingham.  "The plates that the San Flipe notes were
printed from were broken up long ago.  These were a new set, never
intended to print anything."

"What were they intended for, then?"

"Why, as a red herring across the trail of the Grand Hotel murder."

Cranley sat down, dumbfounded.  Allingham went on:

"We shall probably find, when the experts examine them, that, though
good enough for the purpose they were designed for, they would not have
printed successful forgeries.  Now I have one more question to ask you.
When you first examined Wilson's bedroom, did you ascertain whether
anyone had in fact climbed up that veranda?"

"Well, no," Cranley admitted.  "It was all so obvious.  There was the
cut window-pane, you see, and the footmarks on the balcony and the
flower-bed.  Besides, it was impossible for the murderer to get into
the room any other way, because the door was locked and the key was on
the bed-table."

"That only means that it was impossible for him to get out by the door.
The murderer could have locked it himself after getting in."

"That's true," said Cranley.

"And as a matter of fact he didn't get out by the window either, as
you'd have found out for yourself if you had examined the verandah.
There's a creeper on it, and my colleague has examined every tendril of
it without finding as much as a single broken sucker.  There were no
traces on the woodwork either, and, though a longish time has elapsed,
still the weather has been good, and Agnew's lens ought to have found a
sign of some sort if anyone had climbed that way."

"Then how did the murderer get out?" asked Cranley.  "By the chimney?"

"That's my little secret," said Allingham.

Cranley grinned.

"Well, Mr. Allingham," he said good-humoredly, "after all the help
you've given me, I don't grudge you your bit of mystification.  What's
the next thing to be done?"

"If you have Wilson's trunk here I should like to have a look at it."

Cranley led them to another room where the big black trunk lay amongst
other lumber.  Allingham opened it and quickly emptied it of all the
clothing it contained.  Then, turning it to the light, he carefully
examined the interior.

"That's all right, Inspector," he said presently in a satisfied tone.
"Now, it you'll be so good as to call up one of your men, we'll go over
to Seapoint.  Bring revolvers, by the way."

Cranley was now completely under the younger man's ascendancy.  In a
few minutes the party were ready, and were whirling off through the
twilight to Seapoint.

"That's a heavy bit of luggage you've got," observed Cranley as they
drove, indicating a brown suitcase which Allingham had brought with him.

"Another of my little mysteries," replied Allingham with a smile.  "Can
you go a bit faster?  We've no time to lose."

They drove up the avenue of Seapoint, and round the blackened eastern
wall of the house to the garage in the rear, where, at Allingham's
direction, they stowed the car.  Then they walked back to enter the
gloomy hall.  Cranley produced an electric pocket lamp.

"No lights," said Allingham at once.  "We must do the best we can
without.  Which is the dining-room?"

Cranley opened the door to their left.  This room had been entirely
untouched by the fire.

"See if you can find anything under the carpet," said Allingham.  "I'll
be back in a moment."

He went out, taking the suitcase with him, while the other three began
to push the table and chairs towards one end of the room.  When
Allingham returned he found them surveying the bare boards.

"There's nothing here," said Cranley.

"I thought not," replied Allingham imperturbably.  "Now for the study."

That apartment was still in the state of disorder in which Wilson had
left it.  A pile of charred books, papers and wood lay in the middle of
the floor.  The carpet had been ripped up and thrown into a corner, and
some of the flooring had been raised, leaving gaping chasms.  The
drawers of the desk were all out, with their contents strewn
everywhere.  The packet of envelopes, however, was still in its
pigeon-hole.  Allingham took it out.  Then from his pocket-book he
produced the envelope of the letter which Miss Worthing had received,
and compared it with the others.  They were identical.

"Do you remember if the envelope of Bronson's letter to Mrs. Dakin was
like these?" he asked of Cranley.  "I mean, was it the same as these?"

"It was certainly _like_ them," replied Cranley.  "But it's a common
sort enough.  I couldn't say if it was the same."

"Well, it should be, _a fortiori_.  And that settles it.  Everything is
quite plain now."

"I'll take your word for it," said Cranley, "though I don't see
anything like daylight myself.  Shall we go on and catch the murderer?"

"That will be quite unnecessary," said Allingham, glancing at his
watch.  "He should be here any minute now."




[XVII]

THE NIGHT HUNTERS

Inspector Cranley gave an involuntary exclamation of surprise, and the
young policeman's hand went to the butt of his revolver.

"Yes," said Allingham.  "I rather fancy the eight-twenty should serve
his purpose.  Perhaps you'd better choose your chairs now.  We shall
have to sit perfectly still presently."

"But what's he coming for?" asked Cranley.

"To murder me," replied Allingham.  "Now, arrange your chairs so that
they aren't visible from the window.  I'm the only person who must be
seen."

While they obeyed these directions Allingham opened the window near the
desk, and drew down the blind to within a few inches of the sill.  The
other blind he drew down completely.  Then he took a candle from his
pocket, lighted it, and after melting the end of it with the match
flames, stuck it on top of the desk.

"There, that's all serene," he said, sitting down in the swivel chair.
"Now at a sign from me you'll all have to sit as still as if you were
in your coffins, so make yourselves as comfortable as you can."

"Who's our man?" asked Cranley.

"I don't know," said Allingham.  "All I can tell you is that he's the
cleverest, the most daring, the most ruthless, and the most desperate
criminal of the century.  You'll have to be very spry with your guns.
Silence now."

He took some papers from one of the drawers on the floor, and spreading
them on the desk, appeared to become absorbed in their contents.
Cranley could see, however, that in reality he was straining his ears
to catch some distant sound.  Darkness had fallen outside, and there
was no wind.  The candle, near as it was to the open window, burned
without guttering.  Agnew and the young constable lounged in their
armchairs, the latter obviously nervous and uncomfortable, the former
still and patient as a cat watching a mouse-hole.  Thus a long silent
vigil began, during which the only movement was when Allingham from
time to time turned over a sheet of paper.  Cranley's mind presently
flew to his little Doris.  In this very room she had searched, with
growing nervousness as the darkness fell, for the clue that should help
him.  Here, later on, the sinister Wilson had lain in wait for her,
while she, poor frightened bird, had trembled in the room beyond,
wondering when he would strike.  Again came that sickness of
imagination as he thought of what might have happened to her.  The most
daring, ruthless, and desperate criminal in England--that was how
Allingham had described her assailant: for, though the sequence of
events was still a mystery to him, Cranley had no doubt that Doris's
midnight hunter was the same man who had murdered the unknown guest at
the hotel, who had murdered the detective on the verge of discovering
him, and who was now coming to murder Allingham.  Ruthless and
desperate indeed, with his systematic piling of murder on murder, his
relentless determination to bury his guilty secret under a mound of
corpses.

And of these Doris's might have been one.  He pictured her again, this
time fumbling at the hall door and freezing into stillness as the
stealthy tread of the unknown first tell on her ear.  What a moment
that must have been!  His own heart now chilled at the mere imagination
of it.  He saw her recoil, hesitate, fly to the shelter of the
laboratory; then the figure of the midnight prowler usurped her place
in his thoughts.  Crunch--crunch--crunch, he had crossed the gravel,
grim and purposeful, wrapped in an atmosphere of evil whose taint the
innocent of soul had perceived at once.  How would he come tonight?
Surely velvet-footed as a panther in the jungle, feeling his way warily
over the lawn, gliding from shrub to shrub, his eye ever on the light
that marked his destined prey.  Was he yet at hand?  If so, no sound
betrayed him.  The warm autumnal night was hushed in a brooding quiet.
The naked candle flame burned as steadily as in a lantern.  Even the
sea was dumb.  One false step, one breath too loud, must inevitably
betray the murderer's approach.  But the stillness remained unbroken.

Allingham turned another sheet, then slightly inclined his head.  Was
that a footstep on the grass, or only the fall of a leaf?  No stir
again.

Then, with the awful suddenness of one of nature's disturbances, came
the clash of metal, a yell of dismay, followed by sounds of a struggle
mingled with the jangling of chain.  Allingham at once darted to the
window, revolver in hand, shouting "Hands up!"

Bang! came a shot in answer, splintering the sash.  Allingham fired
immediately after; then "Damn!" he said.  "He's got away.  After him,
boys."

He leaped from the window, followed by Agnew, while the others dashed
for the door.  Flying feet could be heard to the right; then the
hurtling of a body through the shrubs.

"He's making for the plantation," Allingham shouted as Cranley and the
constable came charging from the hall door.  "Shoot if you see him."

The four rushed through the shrubbery toward the belt of trees beyond.
As they crossed the bare space between, a shot flashed in the
plantation.  Cranley gave a cry of pain, and dropped his revolver.  The
others paused.  "It's nothing," said Cranley, groping for his weapon
with his left hand.  "Come on, or he'll get away."

In the shadow of the wood the young constable fired at random.  Agnew
plunged in and was quickly lost to sight.  The others followed more
slowly, the constable advancing with heavy deliberation, Cranley
stumbling a little and Allingham hesitating, as even a braver man might
do, at the prospect of pursuing a desperate man through that black
maze, where every tree was a possible ambush.

"What's at the end of this?" he asked of Cranley as they groped their
way between the trunks.

"Straight ahead there's the wall of Mr. Rossiter's place.  Off to the
right there's the road.  Beyond that there's the seashore."

"We'd better get back to the car and cut him off by road.  We'll never
catch him on foot."

Cranley's answer was to tumble to the ground in a faint.

"That settles it," said Allingham to the constable.  "Call Agnew and
we'll carry him back to the house."

They raised a shout, and presently Agnew reappeared, baffled, his face
bleeding where a branch had struck it.  Carrying Cranley between them,
they regained the house, and laid him on a couch, improvised from
chairs, in the study.  Then the constable went to the garage for the
car, while Allingham attended to the wound.  The bullet had passed
through the shoulder, but he had not sufficient medical knowledge to
tell what damage it had done.  The wound had bled profusely, but
clotting was beginning, and he wisely decided not to interfere with
nature's safeguard beyond securing the patient's arm in a position
where it would remain steady.  A drop of brandy brought Cranley to his
senses, and his first words were: "Have you got him?"

"No.  But we soon will," replied Allingham, as the car drew up,
panting, at the door.

It was decided that the constable should stay with the injured man
while the others resumed the chase; and in a few minutes they were
speeding along the same stretch of road which had been the scene of
Doris's desperate flight.  They kept a sharp look-out to left and
right, but with so many trees and bushes about, and with no moon to
help them, they realized that there was little hope of finding their
quarry.  When, therefore, they had gone a mile or more, Allingham
stopped the car and said:

"We're simply wasting time.  The proper thing to do is to turn out the
whole police force and search the country thoroughly, so we'd better
get back and send them out at once."

Agnew grunted, and, turning, they drove back to the house, where
Cranley declared his entire agreement with the proposal.  Before
departing, however, Allingham invited the others to come and examine
the man-trap which had so signally failed them.  It lay on the
flower-bed immediately under the study window.  By the light of a
flash-lamp they saw the grim steel jaws glinting among the disordered
loosestrife and poppies.  Then, with an excited "Hello!" Allingham
turned the ray on a shoe, caught by the heel between the fangs, which
had bitten deep into the tough leather.  Disengaging it, he examined it
closely.

"Clue?" said Agnew hopefully.

"Not exactly.  This is just one more example of the fellow's
forethought and attention to detail.  The shoe is brand new, as you
see.  Price, one guinea.  The makers have scores of shops all over
London, and they probably sell hundreds of these shoes every day.  Our
man must have bought them specially for this expedition, meaning to
destroy them at once, in case he left any traces.

"All the same," he added, "our night's work hasn't been wasted.  With
only one shoe, he won't be able to go very far: so let's get back and
start the hunt at once."

The night was still young when they reached the police station, and the
hue and cry was sent forth immediately.  Agnew accompanied it; but
Allingham felt justified in taking a rest.  Having seen that a doctor
was fetched for Cranley, he went home to his lodgings, leaving
instructions with the station sergeant to call him by telephone for
identification purposes if an arrest were made.

In about half an hour the summons came.

"We've got our man," said Agnew's imperturbable voice at the other end
of the wire.  "We ran him down, dead-beat, a couple of miles away, and
closed on him before he could draw.  Will you come down and see him?"

Excited beyond measure, Allingham hurried off to the police station,
where he found Agnew sitting at a desk with what he called "the
exhibits" spread out before him: that is to say, a pair of tan shoes
and an automatic pistol.

"We found this," said Agnew, picking up one of the former, "lying on
the road about fifty yards from where we caught him.  He was in his
stocking feet when we got him, so I went back and scouted around till I
found it."

"Good man," said Allingham, taking the pistol.  "This is a nice little
weapon."  He touched a spring, and the cartridge clip glided out into
his hand.  "One, two, three, four, five, six, and it holds eight," he
said, pressing the cartridges out one by one with his thumb.  "We must
go and look for the empty shells at Seapoint tomorrow.  Has the
prisoner been troublesome?"

"No.  Too done up.  He seems to have got his face bashed in the wood,
like me, and it's left him groggy.  Come and see him."

It was indeed a miserable-looking figure that they found in the next
room, sitting hand-cuffed between two constables.  His clothes and hair
were covered with dust; his face was smeared with dried blood; he had a
black eye; and he had nothing on his feet but a pair of dusty socks.
He had been sitting huddled up in a posture of utter weariness and
dejection, but looked up hopefully on the entry of the new arrival.

"Oh, I say, look here," he cried.  "Do tell these people I'm all right.
They think I'm Bronson or somebody.  I was just driving along the road,
and some fellow knocked me down----"

Allingham experienced a pang of disappointment.  This was not the
person he had expected to see.  On the other hand he was very evidently
the man who had shot at him that night.

"What about this?" he said, showing the pistol.

"I don't know anything about it," the prisoner protested.  "The fellow
must have stuck it in my pocket when I was unconscious."

"What fellow?"

"The fellow who knocked me down.  I was just driving along the road
when he asked me to stop.  Then he jumped up and bashed me all over the
place, and that's all I know."

"What about your shoes, then?" asked Allingham; but he already knew
that a mistake had been made.  This poor youth was so obviously
bewildered and frightened.

"The fellow's gone off with them, I suppose.  That one they found isn't
mine, anyway.  Try it on me if you like."

"Let's have your story from the beginning," suggested Allingham.

"Certainly," said the young man eagerly, and sat up with renewed vigor.

"But I must warn you," said one of the policemen in the heavy official
manner, "that everything you say----"

"Will be used in evidence against me," concluded the young man rapidly.
"I know all that.  Use as much of it as you like.  My name is
Featherstone-Culpepper--Billy Featherstone-Culpepper--and I live with
my parents at Oakleigh, on the Coast Road, you know.  You can ring them
up--Spurn Cove one four three--and they'll identify me all right."

"We'll do that presently," said Allingham.  "How did you get into this
mess?"

"I was just driving along the road," said the young man, "on my way to
call on some friends--the Rossiters of Fernbank, as a matter of fact,
and if you ask them they'll bear me out, because they were expecting
me.  Well, as I was driving along, suddenly I heard some shots, and
began to slow up in case of trouble.  A few minutes later a man
appeared in the middle of the road in front of me and gave me a hail.

"'Are you a doctor?'" said he.

"I said 'No.'

"'Well, give me a lift to the nearest one, quick,' said he.  'My
father's been shot by a burglar.'

"I stopped the car and said: 'Hop up,' and with that he jumped on
board, and before I knew what was happening he gave me
this"--indicating his eye--"with his right, and rapped me over the head
with his left.  Down I went, and I remember nothing more.  When I came
to I was lying behind a rock on the foreshore, close to the road, with
my shoes gone, and that one they found on my foot.  I got up, and was
just walking home when these blighters came along and arrested me.

"You can let him go," said Allingham to the custodians.  "This isn't
the man; but you can ring up his home if you want to make sure."

Billy jumped up with a whoop of joy.  "Come on now, you blighters.
Spurn Cove, one four three, and look sharp about it."

"One moment," said Agnew, stepping forward.  "An ounce of practice is
worth a ton of theory."

With these words he pushed the prisoner back on the seat, and, taking
hold of his dusty foot, inserted it in the murderer's shoe.  The
youngster's innocence, already apparent, became obvious at once, for
the shoe was two sizes too large.

"By jove!" cried Allingham.  "We'll get our man yet.  What's the number
of your car?"

"XY double seven three."

"And the name?"

"Genevieve."

"I mean the maker's name, you idiot."

"Oh!  Baby Austin."

Allingham darted into the next room.  "Got a map?" he asked of the
station sergeant.

The latter produced one, which Allingham spread out on the desk before
him and scanned eagerly.

"Look here," he said at last.  "Our man will have to stick to the car,
since he can't possibly walk in that boy's shoes.  That means he'll
have to go north along the seacoast till he strikes the main London
road out there"--pointing to a cross-road.  "That's twenty miles away.
He's had a long start, but if we can't run down his baby in our car,
we're not fit to drive a perambulator."

"You'll catch him easy enough," put in Billy, who had been freed from
his chains and was peering at the map between the shoulders of
Allingham and the sergeant.  "There's not much gasoline in my little
bus."

"How much?" asked Allingham.

"Not more than a spoonful."

"Come on quick," cried Allingham to the constables.

"Half a mo," said the sergeant.  "How do you know your man will make
for London?"

"He must.  It's his only chance.  If he doesn't sleep in his own bed
tonight, and go down to his office in the morning, he gives his whole
game away."

"Then you know who he is?"

"I think so.  But I can't prove it unless I catch him red-handed."

"Is it George or Philip?" asked Agnew quietly.

"Probably George.  But if we don't catch him I can't be sure."

"When is the next train to London, sergeant?"

"Ten-twenty.  And it's the last."

Agnew gave one glance at the clock, and without another word darted
into the street.

"He has his own methods," said Allingham with a smile.  "Now, sergeant,
will you ring up Scotland Yard and ask them to take out warrants for
the arrest of John Elthorne and his sons, George and Philip?"

"Were they all in it?"

"Yes.  Now, men, let's be off."

In a moment the big police car was rushing along the coast northward
again, past Seapoint, over the ground of the former chase, past the
scene of Billy's arrest, and then at racing speed along the lonely road
beyond that.  Nothing of any sort did they meet or pass on the way,
till at length they sighted the lights of a gas station at the junction
with the main London road.

"Slow up," said Allingham.  "Our man probably had to fill his tank
here."

A single car stood in the station by one of the pumps, but it was not
the one they sought.  Waiting beside it was a fussy little man in a
leather coat, who rushed up to Allingham, bubbling over with excitement.

"I say!" he cried.  "What do you think of this?  The keeper of this
bally station seems to have vanished.  I've been waiting here for the
last ten minutes, and he hasn't shown up."

Drawing an electric lamp from his pocket, Allingham jumped from the
car, and dashed into a clump of bushes at one side of the station.  For
a few moments the others heard him moving about among the foliage,
while his light darted this way and that.  Then the ray suddenly
vanished, and he emerged slowly, dragging a senseless body by the
shoulders.

"He's alive, I think," said Allingham, feeling for the man's heart,
while the others gathered round.  "He's had a nasty knock on the head.
See."

"Why, he's got no shoes on," cried the astonished motorist.

"You stay and look after him," said Allingham to one of the policemen.
"We must get on."

Followed by the other policeman, he leaped on board the car, and,
wheeling to the left, they drove at a reckless pace down the broad
London road.  Now at last they encountered traffic in plenty, and
overtook not a few baby Austins, which they scrutinized anxiously; but
mile after mile went by without sight of the one they sought.
Allingham meanwhile tried to put himself in the fugitive's place, and
work out what course he was likely to pursue.  Obviously it was not for
nothing that he had taken the risk of attacking the keeper of the gas
station.  It must, therefore, be vital for him to obtain a pair of
shoes that would fit.  That could only mean that he recognized the
impossibility of reaching London undetected in the Austin, and had
resolved to abandon the car and proceed on foot.  In that case, how was
he to get to London?  Would he really make for London after all?
Second thoughts made this seem less certain to Allingham.  The events
of the night must have upset all the murderer's plans.  He would know
that a trap had been set for him, and that, therefore, suspicion
against him must be strong.  Would he dare, in face of that, to brave
things out any longer?  Would he not rather attempt to bolt before the
net should close completely?  In that case he must get rid of the
incriminating car, and seek for a disguise and a hiding-place.

The more Allingham thought about it, the more likely did this
alternative appear; and, almost unconsciously, he began to slacken
speed.  He drove more warily now, with an eye on the side of the road,
looking for anything that might serve the purpose he was attributing to
the fugitive.  He had reached his conclusion none too soon.  A few
minutes later he clapped on all his brakes and stopped dead.

"What is it?" asked the policeman.

"The Austin," said Allingham, and, jumping out, ran back some twenty
yards along the road to where a narrow lane branched off.  In the
middle of this stood Billy's little car, its lights out, and the engine
quite cold.  Allingham's flash-lamp revealed the number to the
policeman.

"Getting a habit of deserting cars, ain't he?" observed the latter.

"Let's see which way he went," said Allingham, directing the electric
ray on the ground.

It was easy to follow the murderer's track in the mud of the lane.  It
led straight back to the main road; but there, on the graveled pathway,
it could be followed no farther.

"Are we near a railway?" asked Allingham.

"Yes, sir," replied the policeman.  "Abbot's Crockford Station is about
quarter of a mile from here."

"By jove!" cried Allingham.  "Agnew's in luck.  I'll bet our friend has
caught his train.  Come on.  We must have a talk with Scotland Yard."




[XVIII]

MR. SPARKER'S ADVENTURE

When Mr. Alf Sparker boarded the last train from Spurn Cove to London,
he was in the gayest of humors.  He had obtained tremendous orders from
the two leading drapers in the town for the goods of his
firm--Silkerino Hosiery and Underwear, Limited--and on the strength of
this achievement had won for his future partner in life, a certain Miss
Maudie Griggs, in Mr. Sparker's eyes the personification of all female
perfections, and in point of fact a very desirable young woman indeed.
Settling down in a corner seat of the railway carriage, with a case of
samples on the luggage rack before him, and the memory of his lady's
kisses still warm on his lips, Mr. Sparker felt his bosom seething with
emotions which a Keats would have transmuted into a joy forever, but
which Mr. Sparker--being only Mr. Sparker--must let off in not very
melodious whistling, and in smiles which an unsympathetic observer
would have called inane.  His one desire was to tell all the world
about this unique event in its history, or at least--for he recognized
the possibility that his idyll might not be regarded as of great public
interest--to fall into chat with someone who might appreciate the
slickness of his dealings with the two drapers.  But, though he kept
the door open till the last moment, nobody fell into the trap, and he
was left to face the journey in solitude.

As the train sped on its way, Mr. Sparker's lyric mood sought
expression in further bursts of whistling, in frequent changes of
position in the carriage, and in the lighting, and throwing away,
half-smoked, of numerous cigarettes.  Finally he took out his order
book and surveyed with deep satisfaction the details of the
transactions which had brought him so much bliss.

A few moments later the train slowed down and stopped at a station.
"Abbot's Crockford" he read.  Then the door of the carriage was
suddenly opened, and a man got in.  Mr. Sparker looked up cordially,
but the stranger's appearance was not one to encourage casual
conversation.  He was tall and dark, with harsh features and unamiable
eyes.  He was also, Mr. Sparker felt, of a higher social order than his
own.  His suit, though somewhat disheveled, was obviously the creation
of a West End tailor; and his shirt, collar, and tie were equally
eloquent of wealth.  "What the dickens is he doing in a third-class
carriage?" Mr. Sparker asked himself as the stranger sank down in the
tar corner.

First impressions failed to daunt the successful lover's ebullience of
spirits.

"Nice weather we're having lately," he observed.

The stranger stared with the astonishment of a patrician at finding
himself addressed by anything so unusual as a member of the inferior
orders.  But he managed to effect a grunt which the listener was at
liberty to take as indicating agreement.

"We could do with a bit of sunshine to make up for the summer we didn't
have," continued Mr. Sparker.

The stranger grunted again.

"I just come from Spurn Cove," went on Mr. Sparker.  "Where the murder
was, you know.  They've had a pretty poor season down there, I'm told,
what with the weather and the trade depression and one thing or
another.  And the murder hasn't done the place no good either.
Half-emptied the Grand Hotel, I believe."

"Indeed," said the stranger without the remotest symptom of interest.

"Fishy crime that, altogether," commented Mr. Sparker.  "I always think
there's something fishy about a crime when the corpse can't be
identified by its face.  Can't be sure of anything then, can you?
Might be a substitution of corpses for all you can tell.  What do you
think?"

The stranger went so far this time as to say that he had no opinion on
the matter.

"Then take the burning of the murderer's house," went on Mr. Sparker.
"That's another fishy business.  If it was Bronson himself that did it,
how was he able to hang about all this time without getting copped?
And if it wasn't Bronson, who the dickens was it?"

The stranger had no theory to put forward.

"Well, I'll tell you what _I_ think," said Mr. Sparker, "for what it's
worth.  It's my belief that some big nob in San Fillip, or whatever
they call the place, was mixed up in that forgery business.  Somebody
in the government, perhaps.  So when he got murdered the San Fillipers
bribed our police to mess his face up, so as he wouldn't he recognized.
And afterward the police burned down that house to get rid of clues
that they didn't want to find.  What do you think of that for a
solution?"

"Very plausible indeed," admitted the stranger.

"All this sort of hanky-panky is fishy, as I say," pursued Mr. Sparker.
"Undermines public confidence in the police, and so on.  Don't you
think so?"

"I suppose so," said the stranger, with such obvious indifference that
Mr. Sparker lapsed into silence for a while.  He could not, however,
hold his tongue for very long.

"Wonder how long this trade depression's going to last," he observed
presently.

The stranger made no suggestion.

"Never knew trade so bad before," declared Mr. Sparker out of his vast
experience.  "Not that I've any right to complain myself.  As a matter
of fact I've just put over the biggest deal of my life down at Spurn
Cove.  Of course," he added modestly, "bad trade don't affect my line
like what it does to others.  I'm in the art silk business--stockings
and things, you know--and ladies must have stockings if the sky
falls,--_not_ to mention other things.  But it took a bit of
salesmanship all the same."

The stranger fell back once more on the grunting policy.

"Salesmanship," declared Mr. Sparker, "is what really matters today.
The salesman is more important than the manufacturer, really.  After
all, there's no good making things if you can't sell them, is there?
People say there's too many middlemen between the producer and his
market; but what I say is, if you don't have lots of middlemen, you
won't have any market.  What I mean to say is, it stands to reason that
you've got to have salesmen to make people see that they want your
goods.  The salesman makes the market for you; so, if you look at it
rightly, he's as much a producer as the manufacturer himself.  The
manufacturer produces the goods, but the salesman produces the market.
Do you see what I mean?"

The stranger's lack of interest now showed itself to be profound.  He
had taken a notebook from his pocket and was studying it with knitted
brows, occasionally stopping to scribble a few words in pencil.  Mr.
Sparker gave up his sociable efforts in disgust, and surveyed the
stranger's person with extreme disfavor.  What the dickens was a nob
like this doing in a third-class carriage anyway?  And how had he got
his clothes in such a mess?  His right hand showed a recent cut, the
blood from which had stained his shirt cuff, and there was a kind of
wheal on one cheek as if he had received a lash from a whip.  But the
most extraordinary thing of all was his footgear.  This fashionably
dressed young man was wearing the boots of a laborer, and a very badly
worn pair at that.  Mr. Sparker stared at them long and hard, glanced
again at the face of their owner--still absorbed in his notebook--and
then once more at the boots.  Those boots were inexplicable.  The most
stylish of nobs might get his hand cut, or his clothes ruffled.  He
might have met with a motor accident, or been caught kissing somebody's
wife, or had a disagreement in his cups.  But for what possible reason
could he have put on a pair of boots like those?--a poor man's boots,
old, muddy, one of them cracked at the toecap, the laces broken and
knotted.

Mr. Sparker raised his wondering gaze once more to the face of the
wearer.  The latter was no longer interested in his notebook.  He was
watching Mr. Sparker, and his expression was not pleasant to see.  Mr.
Sparker felt a kind of chilly uneasiness creep over his skin.  He
smiled ingratiatingly and said: "It looks as if you've been doing a bit
of hiking."

"Oh, you think so, do you?" said the stranger with slow emphasis.

"Well, if I've remarked on anything I shouldn't," Mr. Sparker faltered,
"I can only say I'm sorry.  No offense meant, I'm sure."

"H'm!" said the stranger, with a grim tightening of the lips.

For a moment he looked Mr. Sparker over with an air of detached
calculation.  Then he rose from his corner, and the young man saw death
in his hard eye.  Half-paralyzed with sudden fear, Mr. Sparker strove
to stand up, raising his hands in a feeble gesture of defense.  But
before he could collect his scattered wits, the stranger was upon him
like a charging bull.  One fist caught Mr. Sparker on the point of the
chin, the other on the solar plexus, and he sank back in his corner
almost senseless.  The stranger's hand at once closed on his throat.
Convulsion seized him.  Then all went black.

The slowing down of the train warned the dark man to let go of his
victim's throat.  Perhaps this inquisitive youth still lived; but above
all things he must prevent anyone from entering the carriage at the
station.  Throwing the senseless body on the floor, he hastily pulled
down the side blinds, and then stood leaning out of the open window as
the train came to a standstill.

There were few passengers waiting at the station; but one of them, a
meek-looking old gentleman with a large handbag, came hurrying forward
and gripped the door handle.

"Excuse me, sir," said the occupant suavely.  "This carriage is
engaged."

"Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sure," replied the meek gentleman, and
bustled off to find accommodation elsewhere.

The murderer breathed more freely; but immediately afterward another
man, coming apparently from nowhere, approached the carriage.

"I'm afraid this carriage is engaged," said the murderer with the same
politely regretful tone as before.

"Nonsense," came the answer very decidedly.  "Where's the notice?"

"It must have fallen down----" began the murderer; but at the same
moment there was a banging of doors, and the voice of the guard calling:

"Hurry up, please."

"Nonsense," said the intruder again, and, tearing the door open, he
leaped on board just as the train began to move.

"Strictly speaking," said the murderer, as a porter slammed the door
to, "the carriage is not engaged.  But my friend here is in a rather
disgusting condition, and I wanted to spare strangers the
unpleasantness."

"What's wrong with him?" inquired the other, glancing at the prostrate
form on the floor.

"Drunk, I regret to say," said the murderer.

At the same moment the unfortunate Sparker gave a desperate gasp for
breath.

"Something ought to be done for him," said the intruder, "and, as it
happens, I'm a doctor.  Let's have a look at him."

"He's all right," declared the other, standing immovable in the way.
"Merely drunk.  You can't do anything for him."

"I can try at any rate," said the intruder.

"Let him alone," said the murderer with finality.

The two men faced each other for a moment in silence.  The train was
now well clear of the station, but the murderer hesitated, for once, to
strike.  Perhaps he recognized that this lean and wiry opponent was not
the person to collapse under a single blow, and that a prolonged
struggle might destroy what little hope was now left for himself.  At
any rate he let the opportunity go by, and said: "I'll look after my
friend myself, thank you."

Agnew, for his part, having seen his quarry board the train at Abbot's
Crockford, had changed carriages purely in order to keep him under
observation.  He had not intended to do more than follow him to his
home and then report to the police.  But now he realized that he had
interrupted another crime, and the necessity of saving a life enforced
an entire change of plan.  Drawing an automatic pistol, he said:

"Hands up, Mr. George Elthorne."

Taken by surprise, the murderer's nerve at last gave way.  The sight of
the pistol, and of Agnew's scarred face, told him that this was only
the continuation of the chase begun at Seapoint, and he did what he was
told without a word.  Agnew promptly stepped forward, and, holding his
pistol to the man's chest, went through his pockets to satisfy himself
that he had no weapon.  That done, he stood a while pondering, his slow
mind endeavoring to work out how he could help the gasping figure on
the floor and secure his prisoner at the same time.  Presently he said:

"Now listen to me, and do exactly as I tell you.  Any tricks, and
you're a dead man.  First I want you to take your handkerchief out of
your pocket and throw it on the seat there.  Use your left hand."

The murderer obeyed.

"Now turn round, and then cross your hands behind your back."

"You're going to tie them?"

"Certainly."

"Then I won't do it."

Agnew looked significantly at his gun.

"Fire away," replied the murderer.  "I don't mind being shot.  But I
won't hang."

He spoke the words with an emphasis that expressed fear as well as
determination.  Agnew was momentarily baffled, for he knew that he had
no right to shoot in the circumstances, and he knew that Elthorne must
know it too.  As he hesitated, another gasp came from the asphyxiated
Sparker.

Inspiration suddenly came to Agnew.  He reached with his free hand for
the communication cord.

"Stop!" cried the murderer.  "If you touch that cord, I've give this
fellow a kick on the head that'll finish him for good."

Agnew paused; but he kept his prisoner covered, and said quietly:
"After that threat, you can trust me to shoot dead quick.  So don't
stir a finger."

Again the two men faced each other in silence, while the train rattled
and swayed on its journey.

"Now look here," said the murderer presently.  "You want to save this
fellow's life, and you can't do it while I'm here.  You also want to
bring me to the gallows, but you can't do it and save this fellow's
life at the same time.  Why not strike a bargain about it?  What about
a life for a life?"

"What do you mean?" asked Agnew.

"Let me slip along the footboard and get into the first empty carriage
I can find.  I'll take my chance of escape at the next station."

Agnew pondered this proposition.  He had achieved his original purpose
of identifying the murderer, and Elthorne's chance of ultimate escape
was now remote.  On the other hand, there was no knowing how many lives
this resolute and desperate man might take while he retained his
liberty.

"Time is pressing," said the murderer with recovered coolness.  "If you
don't make up your mind quickly, I'll give this chap his quietus at
once."

Agnew's indecision was now pitiable, for this was a situation with
which his talents were quite unfitted to cope.  Elthorne watched him
with growing contempt and self-confidence, a smile of insolent triumph
lighting up his face.  He even began to drop his hands, but that pulled
Agnew together at once, and he said sharply: "Keep 'em up, or I'll plug
you straight."

Elthorne obeyed the command with studied languor, and said: "Now then.
Which is it to be?  Do I go?  Or do I settle this booby's hash at once?"

Even as he spoke there came a whistle from the engine, and the train
began to slow down.  With a quick movement Elthorne reached one arm out
of the window and flung open the door.

"Hands up!" shouted Agnew.

The murderer made no attempt to obey.  Keeping hold of the door, he
replied to Agnew's threat with a mocking smile.  The pace of the train
grew slower and slower.

"Hands up!" repeated Agnew.

"Fire and be damned," said Elthorne suddenly, and leaped into the night.




[XIX]

UNRAVELING THE THREADS

As soon as he had handed over the unfortunate Mr. Sparker to the care
of the station-master, and telephoned for assistance to the local
police, Agnew set out in further pursuit of the criminal.  The latter,
however, had gained too good a start, so his quest was fruitless.
Elthorne, in fact, had commandeered a second motor-car by the same
simple method by which he had obtained the Austin, and was miles away
in an unknown direction before his pursuers had begun their search.
Two days passed before the car was found, half-sunk in a cattle pond on
a derelict farm in Norfolkshire.  Of Elthorne himself not a trace could
be discovered.

A week later the whole country was shocked by a particularly brutal
crime committed in a Lincolnshire village.  The post office was broken
into at night, and the postmaster, an elderly man, who, according to
his wife, went down to attack the burglar with a poker, was beaten to
death with his own weapon.  Public opinion was unanimous in attributing
the crime to Elthorne, and Scotland Yard redoubled its efforts to hunt
the murderer down.  For five days there was no further news of him.
Then a policeman was found shot dead in a Yorkshire lane, and, though
there was no evidence to prove it, all England felt instinctively that
the same desperate hand was at work.  Scotland Yard, having reason to
know that the murderer was in the neighborhood, drew its net closer.

Three days later, Elthorne was recognized by detectives when trying to
secure a berth as seaman on a Dutch vessel at Hull; but, before they
could lay hands on him, he drew a pistol and blew out his brains.


Long before this--in fact, on the morning after the events at
Seapoint--Mr. John Elthorne and his son Philip had been arrested.
Ignorant of what had happened in the night, each had left home at his
usual hour, to find the officers of the law awaiting him on the
doorstep.

It is something to be said for George that, in, the midst of his own
peril, he made an attempt to warn his accomplices.  Immediately on
receipt of a message from Inspector Cranley, Scotland Yard had taken
steps to have the telephone wires tapped, and the hunted man was
actually heard asking the butler at Lancaster Gate to summon his
father.  Some sound made by the listener must, however, have put George
on his guard; for when John Elthorne came to the instrument he could
obtain no reply.

On the day after the arrests, Allingham, calling at the police station
at Spurn Cove to see Cranley before returning to town, found him in
bed, but sitting up, and chatting with Doris, whom for a moment
Allingham hardly recognized, so different did she look in her pretty
hat and frock from the formally clad young woman at the hotel bureau.

"We're engaged," Cranley explained.

"I congratulate you both," said Allingham.  "But on such an auspicious
occasion you'll hardly want to hear what I've come to say.  I was going
to tell you the solution of the mystery."

"Oh, please do," said Doris.  "I'm dying to hear it.  We didn't become
engaged just now, you know.  It's been going on for ages."

"Won't you take a chair?" said Cranley.

Allingham did so.

"Well," he said, "I came down here with a theory, which poor Cardwell
was working on, that Elthorne and Wilson had been collaborating in a
plot against Bronson, and that Elthorne had inveigled Wilson into
taking his room--supposedly as part of the plot--and murdered him
there, faking matters in such a way as to throw the guilt on Bronson.
How he could have worked it I didn't know, but I hoped to find out by
examining the ground here.  I had already come to one conclusion.  The
cutting of the window-pane, the foot-print on the flower-bed, the
locked door, and so on, were all part of an elaborate scheme to conceal
the fact that the criminal had access to the room from within the
hotel.  Elthorne, as we know, had occupied the room for a fortnight,
and it would be an easy matter to get a second key made in that time.

"This theory seemed to be confirmed by Cardwell's murder.  Bronson
could not possibly have been responsible for that.  It was obvious that
the motive was the recovery of the incriminating photograph he held,
and, of course, the obliteration of any other evidence he had acquired
against Elthorne.  This linked it up with the burning of Bronson's
house.  The man whom Miss Philpot saw must have been searching for the
same papers which we held.  Who was he?  Not Bronson; for he would have
known where they were, and he would certainly not have wanted to
destroy them.  Not Elthorne; for he was described as young.  Probably
then some agent or ally of Elthorne's.

"That made matters a little clearer in regard to the hotel crime.
Elthorne had established a perfectly genuine alibi.  It was this same
agent who, using the key provided by Elthorne, entered Wilson's room in
the night and murdered him in his bed.  And it was the same agent who
had listened at the door while Cardwell talked with Elthorne, followed
on his heels in a stolen car, and did him to death.

"The only thing that now remained unexplained was the identity of
Wilson.  The murderer had taken great pains to conceal that, probably
because the inquest would have elicited evidence showing that he had
never had any connection with Bronson.  Who was he then?  I thought of
a lot of possibilities, but the most likely seemed to be that he was
some shady character who had reasons of his own for assuming a disguise.

"The discovery that Wilson was alive seemed at first to knock my whole
theory to pieces; but at the same time I satisfied myself that I was
right about the window.  There was no trace on the verandah of anyone
having climbed up that way.  Clearly, then, the murderer had had access
by the door, and probably by the means I had supposed.

"It was then, Miss Philpot, that you pointed out to me the view of
Bronson's house from the window of the bedroom.  You may remember that
I behaved rather strangely.  The fact is that at once I received that
curious intimation, which I think most people have experienced now and
then, that a thing one has been puzzling over or trying to remember is
just within one's grasp if one could only think hard enough.  One's
brain seems to strain physically to grasp it, and then suddenly one
sees it all quite clear, or else it eludes one altogether."

"I know what you mean," said Cranley.

"At the same time," went on Allingham, "a most extraordinary feeling
came over me: a sort of shuddering of the soul, as if I was in the
presence of some embodied evil----"

"That's the word," cried Doris suddenly, springing to her feet.
"That's exactly how I felt when I first noticed the same thing.  Do you
remember, Frank?"--turning to Cranley--"I told you about it that day on
the promenade, and you only laughed at me--said it was a girl's fancy,
or something."

Cranley reddened and muttered something inaudible.

"Well," went on Allingham, "I sat down promptly and did a bit of the
hardest thinking in my life.  I'm feeling the strain of it still.  One
thing was perfectly clear.  _The view of the house from the hotel was
an integral part of the crime_.  It couldn't be carried out without it.
Why?  The flash of the sun on a window gave the answer.  A signal had
had to be given from the murderer in one house to his accomplice in the
other.  Why?  Because the accomplice had some essential task to perform
in a given time.  What had he to do?  _He had to get out of the hotel
in time for someone else to get in_.

"That answer lit up the whole mystery with the sudden brightness of a
magnesium flare.  If the accomplice was in the hotel, the murderer was
in Bronson's house: and it was over there, and not at the hotel that
the crime had been committed.

"For a moment that seemed a far-fetched conclusion.  Then I remembered
the blood-stained envelope found by Miss Philpot on Bronson's desk, and
I felt sure it was the truth.  I remembered next Wilson's arrival at
the hotel, so carefully synchronized with Elthorne's departure.  I was
no longer yielding to my pet vice of imaginative theorizing.  I was
getting hold, bit by bit, of an elaborately infernal plot designed in
every detail by some master intelligence.  So logical and closely knit
was the scheme, so perfectly co-ordinated in its parts, that once one
had possession of a single factor, the whole thing revealed itself in
inevitable sequence.

"The murder had taken place in Bronson's house, and the corpse had been
brought to the hotel by Wilson.  How?  Obviously in his luggage.  His
luggage included a large black trunk, very suitable for the purpose.
But it was found full of clothes.  These, of course, must have been
left behind by Elthorne, who probably disposed them on the top of the
wardrobe, where they escaped observation during the short period when
the room was vacant.  All Wilson had to do was to place the corpse on
the bed, arrange the room as it was found, put the clothes and the
plates in the trunk, and slip away unobtrusively by a side door,
leaving the guilt on Bronson."

"And what was Bronson doing all this time?" asked Cranley, as Allingham
paused.  "Why did he clear out?"

"He didn't clear out," said Allingham.

"What became of him then?"

"He was lying dead in the Grand Hotel with his face beaten into pulp."

Allingham spoke the words with an artist's consciousness of their
dramatic effect; and, having dropped the curtain, as it were, produced
and lighted a cigarette.

"I don't quite see that," said Cranley after a moment's thought.

"You're thinking of those letters he wrote?"

"Exactly.  If those were forgeries, they were perfect masterpieces.  At
any rate one of them was.  I dare say it would be easy enough to
deceive the housekeeper, but not his sweetheart."

Doris gave a confirmatory nod to this.

"And remember the two messages about the canary," Cranley continued.
"It's the sort of touch a real clever forger would put in, I admit.
But it reads to me like the genuine Bronson securing the safety of what
was hidden in the cage.  And it blew the gaff on the whole scheme too."

"You're quite right," said Allingham.  "The letters were perfectly
genuine."

Cranley and Doris looked completely at sea.

"But they were written days after you say he was dead," protested the
former.  "One of them was written in France a week after."

"No," said Allingham.  "That's the whole point.  Cardwell deduced from
internal evidence that they were written before Bronson knew about the
murder.  And I deduce from the blood-stained packet of envelopes that
they were written after Bronson had been overpowered and just before
they killed him."

"And who posted them?"

"One of the murderers.  It was part of their plan."

"Better begin at the beginning," said Cranley, "and tell us exactly how
it all happened."

"Well, here's my reconstruction of it.  Bronson was blackmailing
Elthorne about that past of his, and evidently pushed him too hard.
According to Elthorne, after having extracted a yearly levy for some
time, he demanded fifty thousand pounds to buy the papers outright.  At
that point his sons came to hear of what was afoot,--or he may have
decided to take them into his confidence, and get their advice and
help.  They had just as much interest as their father in keeping the
secret dark, and the elder, George, who now becomes the principal actor
in the affair, was a strong character who would stick at nothing.
First he tried to get hold of the papers by burglary.  When that failed
he determined on murder.  But he made up his mind that he was not going
to be detected, and he devoted the energies of a remarkably powerful
mind to evolving a plan which would leave no clues to betray him.  The
best way to secure such immunity is to throw the guilt on somebody
else; but it is not infallible, since that person, in spite of every
precaution, may succeed in clearing himself.  George's solution of that
difficulty proves him a genius.  He would throw the guilt on someone
who could never clear himself--on the very man who was to be murdered.

"This required the construction of a complete story to account for the
murder, and of a personality for the murdered man.  The latter was
achieved fairly simply.  George Elthorne went to America in June and
bought a stock of clothes and the cameo ring.  You may remember my
saying yesterday that the date fitted in.  I was thinking, of course,
of its relation to the burglary, which was in May.  Well, George bought
the clothes, and probably wore them for a while, and in some way or
other secured a false passport.  Then he came home to carry out the
rest of his plan.

"This was to construct a plausible story to provide a motive for the
murder.  The unsolved San Flipe mystery supplied one ready made, so he
set to work to manufacture the necessary plates.  He probably made them
by a photographic process from genuine notes, but of that I can't be
sure.  As soon as everything was ready, he went down to Spurn Cove to
survey the ground, and had that interview with Polly Dakin which told
him Bronson's domestic routine.  He then went off to New York, and came
back again as Wilson in the _Pannonia_, arriving at Southampton on the
twenty-fifth of August.  From there he wrote to the Grand Hotel to book
a room, and then went straight up to London to meet his brother.

"Meanwhile Mr. Elthorne, senior, had been taking a holiday at Spurn
Cove.  Just before the arrival of George's letter he announced that for
business reasons he would have to return to town next day, and so his
room became available for George as we know.  On the following night
George and Philip motored down to call on Bronson, ostensibly to
discuss the new arrangements for the payment of the blackmail.  They
overpowered him--not without a struggle--and demanded the papers.  On
his refusal, they told him--here, I confess, I'm guessing--that if he
did not surrender they would take him away and keep him prisoner till
he did.  Bronson still refused.  They then told him he might write
letters of a reassuring kind to his friends, which they would
supervise.  George's object was to create indisputable evidence that
Bronson was alive; and, of course, Bronson was only too glad to be able
to save his friends from anxiety, and to secure the safety of the
papers on which his income depended.  He must have received some slight
abrasion of the hand in the struggle with his enemies, and thus left
the mark on the packet of envelopes as he extracted the two that were
needed.

"As soon as this was done, the Elthornes proceeded to make an end of
him and get away with the body.  The whole thing had now to be very
carefully timed.  Elthorne could not leave the hotel until he knew that
the murder had been successfully accomplished; because, in case of
failure, he would have to take away the clothes and the plates which
were hidden in his room.  When everything was ready, therefore, they
gave him a signal--probably by flashing the electric light.  Elthorne
was then to look up the train which George must catch, and time his own
departure accordingly; while George, in Bronson's car, would have to
rush to Grantwich, deposit the trunk in the cloak-room at the station,
drive off again, abandon the car in a side street, and get back to the
station in time to catch the right train to Spurn Cove.  Probably
Philip remained at Seapoint to look for the papers, and afterward drove
away in his own car at his leisure."

"One moment," interrupted Cranley.  "Who was it that Mrs. Dakin heard
coming into the house after midnight?"

"Philip, I suppose," replied Allingham.  "Just before she came home he
would have withdrawn temporarily to the garage--where his car was
already hidden--and waited until the two women were in bed.  He then
let them hear him moving about the house as if he was Bronson.  It was
another proof that Bronson was the murderer, and there was no risk in
it."

"I suppose it was at that time that he put the burned papers in the
study grate," said Cranley.

"More likely George attended to that artistic detail himself," said
Allingham.

"What happened next?" asked Doris breathlessly.

"Well, everything worked perfectly except for one hitch.  It was an
ironical stroke of fate that the subtlest part of George's scheme
should prove to be the undoing of the whole: that for several days he
should have carried about in his pocket the key to the hiding-place of
the papers, and then sent it off to reveal everything and ensure his
own destruction.  I imagine that he expected to find the papers in the
house that very night.  Having failed, he had to come back later
on--after waiting till interest in the case had died down--with the
result that we know.

"The murder of Cardwell was, of course, an act of despair, but it was
the only alternative to throwing up the sponge entirely.  When he asked
to see Elthorne, George guessed that he must have got hold of an
important clue; but he didn't want to take the risk of killing him
until he was sure.  He made his plans with the same thoroughness as
before.  Agnew has been making inquiries in town, and he's just 'phoned
me the result.  Elthorne's butler told him that he had orders to summon
his master to the telephone after Cardwell had been with him for half
an hour.  Elthorne actually went to the telephone and made a call, but
of course the butler didn't hear anything he said.  Agnew, however,
guessed he must have rung up George at the night club where he was
spending the evening, and found that, sure enough, George had been
called to the telephone at about ten o'clock.  His father would then
have told him that Cardwell had the photograph, and what followed we
can easily imagine.

"George must have slipped away unobtrusively from the night club,
hurried over to Lancaster Gate, and waited about until Cardwell came
out.  Then he jumped into the nearest car, followed him to Hampstead,
and shot him dead.  After that he must have raced on to Golder's Green,
left the car by the roadside, and caught the tube back to town.  The
whole business probably didn't take two hours, and gay parties at night
clubs don't bother counting time.  If his friends missed him, he
probably told them that he had been out for a stroll.

"Fortunately, the only thing that Cardwell had with him was the
photograph.  I still had the letters, and used them to bait a trap for
the criminals.  I knew that the perpetrator of the murder down here was
left-handed----"

"Yes.  I meant to test Bronson for that as soon as I'd got him," put in
Cranley.

"Well, my colleague, Agnew, applied his talents with the same intent,
only to find that in that respect Elthorne was not so sinister.  In the
meantime, however, I had set my trap, and the thoroughly sinister
George very soon walked into it.  I think that explains everything."

"Well, I think it's perfectly marvelous," declared Doris.  "However you
thought it all out I don't know," and Cranley concurred that it was a
pretty good bit of headwork.

"There's one thing I don't understand yet, though," said Doris.  "What
first interested me in this case was what Mrs. Dakin said about
Bronson.  She felt sure that he couldn't have committed the murder
because he was so nice and kind-hearted a man.  Well, it seems to me
that a blackmailer is very nearly as bad as a murderer, and worse in
some ways."

"Oh, I wouldn't place much reliance on an old woman's feelings," said
Allingham.  "A blackmailer would be just the sort of smooth-tongued
rogue to get on the right side of her.  Anyway, that's my case, and the
final proof of it has been supplied most effectively by Mr. George
Elthorne."




[XX]

THE VILLAIN OF THE PIECE

There was one person to whom the question asked by Doris and so lightly
dismissed by Allingham addressed itself with stern insistence.  That
was Miss Hester Worthing, who, on the day after it all had been
disclosed, lay on a couch in a quiet room in her father's house, her
mind in a torment as faith and doubt struggled for possession, with
grief brooding darkly over the combat.  Now that the first sharp
heartbreak for her lover's fate was past, the problem could no longer
be denied a hearing.  If the tale, which yesterday's papers had told
the world, was true, then her Harry, Harry who had loved her, and whom
she had loved with all her heart, was that meanest, crudest, and most
cowardly of creatures, a blackmailer.  It was impossible to believe it.
He was so true, so tender a lover; so simple in many ways; so unworldly
that, with all his great intellectual gifts, she had always felt
herself older and wiser than he, and wanted to mother and care for him.
How could he ever have carried through that long relentless
persecution?  How could he, the scorner of ease, whose inmost soul
could be moved to such indignant eloquence by social injustices which
most people accepted as part of the order of nature,--how could he be
content to live in this lamprey fashion, sucking the blood of other
men?  It was impossible.  Yet the story which the young detective had
unfolded was unerring in its logic, inevitable in its flow from the
first remote beginning to the full point marked by the crack of the
suicide's pistol.

One ground of hope she had.  On her lap lay a letter which she picked
up and read for perhaps the tenth time.


  Dear Miss Worthing,

  A stranger hesitates to intrude on your grief at such a
  time as this.  But as an old friend of your late fianc
  I was entrusted by him some time ago with a message for
  you which he requested me to deliver into your hands in
  such circumstances as have now arisen.  I shall therefore
  be glad to call on you for the purpose at any time you
  may be pleased to name.

  Believe me to be yours very truly
    Alexander Rossiter.


The girl let the letter fall again into her lap.  Would Harry--who had
evidently anticipated his fate--have any explanation to offer which
would contradict the confident assertions of the triumphant young
detective?  With that hope she awaited impatiently the arrival of the
writer of the letter.

He came punctually at the appointed hour, a white-headed old gentleman
with courteous ways, and eyes which at the proper season could beam
with humor.  Now, however, he was all gentle sympathy.

"I knew your young man well," he said, "and many were the pleasant
chats we had over the garden wall.  I never believed him guilty of the
murder, and I don't believe even now that he was a blackmailer--no
matter what that clever young detective may say.  There must be some
flaw in his reasoning somewhere, you know.  Like those funny old
propositions in Euclid which seem quite all right until suddenly they
say 'Which is absurd' and then turn round and prove the exact opposite.
Harry and I got on jolly well together.  You know, he was a deuced
clever young chap.  He could do absolutely anything with his hands.  I
remember one time when our lights failed, he came in and fixed them up
in a jiffy.  I never could understand it, but there you are.  We can't
all be clever, and if we were, I suppose cleverness wouldn't count for
so much.  But here I am, rattling along like the old fool that I am,
instead of doing what I came for."

"It's very good of you to go to such trouble," said Hester, as the old
gentleman dived a hand into the breast of his overcoat.  "And I love to
hear anyone speaking well of poor Harry.  After the things I've read in
the papers, oh----"  The girl's eyes filled with tears, and her mouth
trembled.

"That's all right, my dear.  Don't you mind them," said the kind voice
of Mr. Rossiter.  "I haven't the slightest doubt that this document
here will show things in a very different light."  He had drawn a long
envelope from his pocket, and was tapping it on his palm as he spoke.
"It was just three days before the murder that he gave it to me.  I
remember it well.  I was pottering about the plantation, seeing how the
young trees were getting on--we were both interested in trees, Harry
and I, and our plantations were alongside one another.  While I was
pottering about like that, Harry looked over the wall and called me.
He told me he was conducting a rather dangerous experiment, and that if
it went wrong it might blow him up.  He then gave me this envelope and
said I was to give it to you if any such thing happened: in fact if he
met with a violent death of any kind.  I don't think he really meant
that about the experiment, though I told him to be careful at the time.
I think he was probably expecting what actually happened to him.
Anyway, I promised to do what he asked, and now here's the letter."

He presented it to the girl with the old-fashioned grace which was
characteristic of him, and said: "Having discharged that duty, I'll
take myself off.  If Harry says anything in that letter which clears
his memory, well, as an old friend, I shall be very glad to hear it,
and I hope you'll be so good as to let me know."

"I certainly will," said Hester cordially.

"On the other hand," went on the old man, "if he doesn't say anything
of that sort--and of course he may say nothing but what a young man
faced with danger might write to his sweetheart--well, it doesn't
matter.  I shan't believe ill of him anyway.  I may be a bit
thick-headed where books and machinery are concerned, but I know a
decent man when I see him.  Good-by, my dear young lady."

When he had gone, Hester broke the seal of the envelope and took out
the bulky document within.  It was dated five days before the murder,
and began with the most intimate of the pet names her lover had
bestowed on her.  It continued as follows:


  "If ever you read this it will be because I have been killed,
  probably under mysterious circumstances, in the investigation
  of which facts may be revealed which will throw discredit on
  my character, and thus give pain and sorrow to you.  I therefore
  want to tell you the whole truth about my life, so that you may
  understand exactly how it took its present course.  It is also
  possible that some innocent person may be blamed for my death.
  In that event, please speak out.  Otherwise be silent.  I have
  no desire for vengeance.

  "I was born into very poor circumstances.  That is a common phrase
  and a common lot; but only those who have shared it can appreciate
  to the full what it means.  Poverty is but a word to so many people,
  signifying a more or less serious shortage of money.  Those who are
  more comfortably situated picture it merely as a sort of
  intensification of an inconvenience they may themselves experience
  occasionally, as when they cannot put their hands on a thousand
  pounds for a new car, or twenty pounds for a dress suit.  They
  either cannot or will not see the wretched reality--the blighting of
  childhood, the thwarting of youth, the wasting of manhood which are
  its fruits.  Some people are made of a stuff which can endure it,
  which hardly knows how it suffers or what it is deprived of.  I was
  not like that.  I had potentialities within me of which I was fully
  conscious, and of which in my narrowed circumstances I could make
  no use whatever.  Taken from school the moment I reached the legal
  age, and just as the wide fields of knowledge were opening out
  before my awakening eyes, I was thrust into a shop to earn my
  living by dull monotonous toil which I hated, and which hindered
  instead of helping my growing mind.  My parents were not to blame.
  My father, who was a carpenter, and doing pretty well at his trade,
  had been incapacitated for work by an accident shortly before I
  was born.  Some young fool on a motor-bicycle ran him down, and
  had no money with which to pay compensation.  My mother, therefore,
  had to take up the burden of supporting the family.  With all our
  civilization behind us, with all the resources of science at our
  command, it still seems a perfectly natural and sensible
  arrangement to our society that the support of a crippled man and
  a child should devolve on one unaided woman.  Poor mother, how
  she toiled and contrived to make ends meet.  The only work she
  could get was of the hardest and worst paid kind, and she was not
  robust; so that by the time I was old enough to notice things she
  was already wearing out and looked double her age.  It was
  absolutely necessary, therefore, that I should contribute my
  share to the family budget at the earliest possible moment, so I
  was found a post in a shop as I have said.

  "You cannot imagine what a dreary existence I was now doomed to.
  My mother soon fell ill, worn out by years of toil, and so both
  my parents were dependent on my meager wage.  My working hours
  were long, and I never had a penny to spare for the simplest
  recreation.  The one bright spot in my life was my friendship with
  an old apothecary who lent me books and in various other ways
  encouraged my taste for science.  That soon filled me with an
  ambition which seemed utterly unattainable.  There I was, shackled
  to my native place as inexorably as a medieval serf; and there I
  should still be but for an accident.

  "One day, when I was seventeen years old--my father had died in
  the meantime--my mother asked me if I would like to go into a
  chemical works.  I needn't say what my answer was.  She then told
  me that a friend had secured me a post at one of Mr. Elthorne's
  works near Birmingham, and that I could start there as soon as
  I liked.

  "As I have already told you, I worked under Mr. Elthorne for a
  number of years.  My position was now a tolerable one.  I was
  learning things, and I was earning a living wage.  On the other
  hand my real ambition in life was still denied to me.  My interest
  was not in commercial chemistry, but in pure research and in
  mechanics.  To indulge that I must have leisure and money; and I
  had neither; nor could I see any prospect of obtaining them for
  years to come.  Our glorious society, which can afford to shower
  fortunes on turf accountants, gigolos, speculators, cinema stars,
  and inheritors of empty brain pans, can only spare a pittance
  for men of science whose only desire is to carry on their work.
  I read in a paper once of a man who earned thirty pounds a week
  by selling cigarettes on commission in one of the swagger hotels.
  And I was only earning five pounds.  There's something radically
  wrong somewhere in society's costing system, if one could only
  put one's finger on it.  I think sometimes that I'll have to
  abandon science and study economics.

  "While the gigolos and the scented cigarettes touts flourished,
  there was I toiling ingloriously, with my capacities going to
  waste just as surely as when I was eating my heart out in the
  shop at Chelmsford.  To make matters worse, while at my routine
  work I hit upon the beginnings of a discovery of quite another
  nature.  Though it was in the realm of pure science, I soon
  realized that it was of enormous practical importance too.  But
  it required time and money to work out--constant experiment,
  and some rather expensive materials--so I made very little
  progress with it.  I could only work at it in my spare time,
  you understand.  At last I took courage and wrote to my
  employer asking him to allow me to devote myself to this
  business instead of to the normal work of the department,
  pointing out that though it would be of no direct utility to the
  steel industry, it would, if it were a success, be a tremendous
  help to industry in general.  He never so much as answered my
  letter; and some time later I learned that experiments were being
  conducted in another of his works which could only have been
  suggested by the outlines of my idea as given in my letter.  Will
  you be surprised to hear that then and there I solemnly swore to
  myself that it ever an opportunity to get hold of money, by fair
  means or foul, should come my way, I would seize it with both
  hands.

  "Shortly after this my mother died, and the turning-point of my
  life came.  Searching among her effects, I found some letters
  which told me--what I had not known before--that my father had
  not been her first husband.  She had been married previously
  to a man called Reddington, who had enlisted in the Boer War,
  and been killed in battle.  This discovery was followed by
  another--a photograph taken on her wedding day.  You can
  imagine my surprise when I recognized in her first husband my
  present employer, John Elthorne.

  "My first emotion on realizing this was naturally indignation.
  I felt like rushing to the man's presence and taxing him with
  his desertion.  But that mood passed.  I began to see that my
  discovery might serve a more useful purpose.  Hester, if you
  are to understand and pardon the course I took now, you must
  read again what I have written about my early life.  You must
  not think of me as a calculating scoundrel planning to live by
  preying on another man.  I was a man with ambitions, with
  talents going to waste, a man who, given the chance, could
  render great services to mankind.  All I needed for the purpose
  was money and leisure, and here was an opportunity to obtain them
  thrust in my way.  It was the tide in my affairs.  If I neglected
  it, I might have to spend the rest of my life in the shallows of
  poverty and futility.

  "Remember too that Elthorne owed a debt to the law.  I was not
  exploiting a decent man's momentary lapse.  He had coldly and
  calculatedly committed a crime, and should be glad enough to get
  off with such a fine as I would impose instead of having to spend
  several years in prison.  Even so, I decided to give him an
  opportunity to do what I wanted of his own free will as an act of
  generosity and public service, before resorting to compulsion.
  I therefore wrote to him again, telling him exactly how I was
  situated, setting forth the lines of research on which I proposed
  to embark, and asking him to finance me.  As I had expected, I
  received a curt note from a secretary saying that my proposition
  was unacceptable; and next day I got notice to quit from the
  works.  I at once took action; delivered my threat; and won, hands
  down.  Since that date I have been living on an income paid me by
  Mr. Elthorne.  I have not made unreasonable demands.  The sums I
  have required have not been small; but the bulk of the money has
  been spent on scientific research from which the whole of mankind
  will benefit, my own wants, as you know, being quite simple.

  "My conscience did not trouble me in the matter till I met you.
  That did make a difference.  It was not that I felt that what I
  had done was wrong, but rather that you, with your totally
  different experience of life, and with your conscience trained
  according to a code of absolute morality, would not be able to see
  it according to my lights.  I did not want to have any secrets
  between us, and sooner or later you must begin to wonder where my
  income came from.  I resolved therefore to make an end of the
  business, and offered to sell Elthorne all my documents outright,
  and not bother him again, in return for a round sum.  Unfortunately,
  in order to make sure that I should never be without sufficient
  capital to carry on my researches, and also with a view to
  gratifying your father's desire that I should maintain you in the
  state to which you are accustomed, I made that sum rather a large
  one, and Elthorne has boggled at it, representing that his
  business is suffering from the general depression, and that he
  cannot find the money.  We have been haggling over the amount ever
  since, and meanwhile I think he has been forming designs against
  my life.  A short time ago my house was burglarized, in an attempt,
  I am certain, to get hold of my mother's papers.  More recently
  the wheel came off my car when I was driving, but fortunately I
  was going slowly at the time and so escaped injury.  I am
  convinced that this was not an accident.  I do not think that
  Elthorne will take any serious risk in order to get rid of me:
  if he was prepared to murder me crudely, he could have done so on
  the occasion of the burglary: but if he can make an end of me in
  some tricky way without endangering his own neck, I feel sure he
  will do so.  I have therefore decided, when the work I am now
  engaged on is finished, to take a trip abroad for a time, incognito.
  I shall then be able to apply my mind to the problem of dealing
  with him, as I cannot do at present, with my head full of chemical
  formulae.  Meanwhile, in case of accidents, I am entrusting this to a
  friendly neighbor to keep for you."


The concluding paragraphs were of an intimate nature which we take
liberty to reserve for the eyes for which they were intended.




[XXI]

THE LOOSE ENDS

The detection of crime is but the preliminary to its punishment, and we
therefore take it to be the duty of the mystery-monger to follow his
tale to the bitter end.  Let it be recorded then, for the moral
gratification of all concerned, that the law duly took its course with
the criminals.  Nothing much could be done with George Elthorne, who
had so wickedly fordone himself; but what it could do in the way of
dishonoring his corpse it did, most decorously.  His father was still
more decorously hanged, in this wise.  On the day appointed for the
execution, at eight o'clock in the morning, there entered his cell a
member of a profession which you, gentle reader, would not for the
world think of adopting, or of apprenticing your son to, and which I
cannot imagine even the most determined of feminists clamoring to have
thrown open to women; a profession the very name of which is abhorred,
yet which few people, gentle or fair, are willing to see abolished; to
wit, the common hangman,--called common because he acts in the common
name, yours and mine, taking our pay to do what we are too squeamish to
do ourselves, but are determined to have done nevertheless.  He was
really a harmless poor fellow, with a wife and children to keep, on
whose account, owing to the prevailing scarcity of money and of more
congenial ways of earning it, he had hired himself out, at no very
extravagant figure, to be the instrument of the law.  He took his
profession rather seriously, and was at pains to carry out his duties
in as humane and decorous a manner as possible.  On entering the cell
he proceeded at once to pinion the prisoner.  Round Elthorne's waist he
fastened a broad leather body belt, to which were attached in suitable
positions a pair of straps with steel buckles to secure his elbows, and
another for his wrists.  A decorous procession was then formed: three
warders abreast in front; three more in file on each side; in the
center the convict, preceded by the prison chaplain, and followed by
the executioner; in the rear the governor of the prison, the sheriff,
and the surgeon.  On the march from the cell the chaplain read the
burial service, and just as the scaffold was reached, the executioner
drew a white cap over Elthorne's head.  The convict was then placed
under the beam of the scaffold, and his legs were pinioned below the
knees.  The rope was adjusted so that the brass ring forming the noose
was behind Elthorne's left ear, this being held to be the best position
to cause instantaneous death, as it dislocates the vertebrae and
ruptures the jugular vein in addition to strangulating the victim.
That done, all with the greatest decorum, the executioner pulled the
bolt, the trap fell, and all was supposed to be over.  The body,
however, was left hanging for an hour to make sure.  An inquest was
then held, and the jury accepted the surgeon's word for it that death
had been instantaneous.

Thus perished John Elthorne as a punishment for his sins, and as a
deterrent against murder,--or at any rate against getting found out.

Philip Elthorne was not hanged.  He made a statement while in prison to
the effect that he had been dominated and deceived by his elder brother
throughout the whole affair.  He had gone to Bronson's house in the
belief that George's only object was to force Bronson to give up the
papers.  He had helped him to overcome Bronson, but had taken no part
in killing him.  When the deed was done, however, he had no choice but
to fall in with the rest of his brother's plans.  This testimony was
reinforced by the obviously weak and characterless appearance of the
prisoner, and the law in his case was satisfied with the infliction of
fifteen years' penal servitude.  What manner of man he will be at the
end of that period, and how he will set about maintaining himself, are
questions which concern himself alone, and in any event can be safely
postponed.

The tale is now told, and those who began at the beginning and are
satisfied with the solution of the mystery need read no further.  But
there is a pestilential sort of reader who likes to begin a book at the
end, and so frustrates the best efforts of the mystery-monger to
entertain him; and there is also a pleasant sort that likes a story to
end happily, to the great joy of the author, who is mightily flattered
that the puppets of his creation should make themselves friends with a
genuine interest in their future careers.  Therefore, to balk the
former sort, and to indulge the latter, let us wind up with a harmless
page about our minor personages.

Cranley and Doris, of course, are married, but she does not meddle in
his cases any more.  One such experience, she says, was quite enough
for her, and in any case her time is fully occupied with the baby.

Mr. Sparker recovered from his injuries, and is now happily married to
his Miss Griggs.

Billy's heart was not irretrievably broken by Doris's rejection of his
advances.  Indeed he was on the way to seek a _rapprochement_ with
Pansy on that memorable night of his encounter with George Elthorne.
When they met again Pansy of course owed it to herself to receive him
somewhat coldly, but, owing to the shortage of men and her consequent
fear of becoming a surplus woman, she allowed herself presently to be
won over.  At the moment all is well between the couple, but they are
both under twenty, so the chances are that in a few years' time they
will be married, happily or unhappily, to other people.

Investigations, Ltd., has been wound up.  Allingham said that, after
such a case as the Spurn Cove murder, the ordinary run of petty
criminality that came its way would be a succession of anti-climaxes,
and as for research work for incompetent politicians and authors, he
was sick of it.  He is now engaged in free-lance journalism, and hopes
that some day--in spite of the competition of society leaders, film
stars, popular preachers, and important criminals--he may be able to
make a living at it.  Fortunately he is of a sanguine temperament, so
this may be regarded as a tolerably happy ending too.  As for Agnew, he
does not seem to be concerned much with happiness.  The latest news
about him is that he has started out with a scientific expedition to
the heart of Mongolia in search of relics of primeval man.

  _London,_
  _November, 1931._




THE END




[End of _The Bird Cage_ by Eimar O'Duffy]