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Title: The Tall House MysteryAuthor: A. Fielding* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 1900701h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: Jul 2019Most recent update: September 2020This eBook was produced by Colin Choat and Roy Glashan.Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printededitions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless acopyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks incompliance with a particular paper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to checkthe copyright laws for your country before downloading orredistributing this file.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost norestrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-useit under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia Licensewhich may be viewed online athttp://gutenberg.net.au/licence.htmlTo contact Project Gutenberg of Australia go tohttp://gutenberg.net.au
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Dust Jacket, "The Tall House Mystery,"Collins & Sons, London, 1933
Cover, "The Tall House Mystery,"A.L. Burt Company, New York, 1933
THERE is no pleasanter place in London afterdinner than the large central hall of the Carlton Club, with itscomfortable armchairs and its little coffee tables, that suggestboth privacy and gregariousness.
For here a man may speak to a fellow-member without beingintroduced—perhaps because it has so large a number ofyoung men among its members. Just now, the tables were almostempty. It was only a little past eight. Haliburton had dinedearly in that large dining-room where the portraits ofConservative statesmen look down tolerantly on morning-coats orfull tails. Haliburton had had a friend, a saturnine, silent mancalled Tark, dining with him; and now Moy, a young solicitor, haddropped in for a few words.
Haliburton was talking at the moment.
"I think I'm a fatalist," he was saying. "Yes, on the whole, Ithink I am." He was a pleasant-faced young man, tall, thin, witha certain assured yet unhurried way with him which, some said,was due to the fact that he had never yet had to bestir himselffor anything. He was the son of Haliburton, the banker, andgrandson of Haliburton, the ship-owner, and through his motheralone had as an income what many would consider a handsomecapital. He was Unionist member for some small countryconstituency until something better should be free.
Moy was about the same age, around twenty-five; small ofstature, quick and eager in eye and movement. Tark, the thirdman, struck such a different note that at first glance one wouldhave taken him for a foreigner. Moy liked Haliburton, but he didnot care for his companion, whom he had met in his company acouple of times lately. But, though he did not like Tark, Moy wasinterested in the man. For the young solicitor was writing a playin secret, and was keenly interested in finding characters forit. Haliburton, he had decided, was no earthly good to a writer.Rich. Easy going. Kindly...but this other, the chap with the namethat suited him somehow—because it rhymed with sharkprobably, Moy decided—he might be very useful. He turned tohim now.
"You a fatalist too?" he asked. "But you can't be, or youwouldn't have fished Haliburton out of that weir as you did."
Everyone in their little world knew that Tark's punt andHaliburton's canoe had collided on the Thames, and that, but forTark's swimming powers, the House of Haliburton would have had noheir, for Haliburton could not swim. Somehow you wouldn't expecthim to, Moy reflected. Haliburton would naturally count on amotor boat turning up, or a submarine nipping along, or aseaplane swooping to his assistance.
"No." Tark's voice suggested that he had said all there was tosay on the point. He was the most silent man that Moy had yetmet.
"A fatalist doesn't necessarily mean a man of inaction,"Haliburton explained carefully.
"He evidently struggled in the water!" Moy said with a laugh.Haliburton laughed too. Tark only gave a twist of his thin tightlips.
What a pity that his play was not on the Inquisition, Moythought. Tark would do so splendidly for one of the inquisitors;a man without feelings, but with plenty of intelligence. Or hadTark intelligence? He looked at the low forehead, the high setears, the something about the whole face that suggested stone, orwood, and was not sure. But his suitability for the role ofinquisitor seemed to fit better the longer he studied him. YetTark had never shown him any eagerness, any intensity of emotion,and an inquisitor must be capable of both. It must be somethinghidden deep down in the man. Unless his ideas of him were allwrong, Moy reflected.
"Well." Moy roused himself from his discreet but intentcontemplation of Tark. "Now for the reason for my coming informal state this evening. I have a Proposal I want to lay beforeyou, Haliburton."
"And I thought you a friend," murmured Haliburton lazily.
"You know that we—my father's firm—often havehouses to let for our clients? Well, among these is a house inChelsea called The Tall House."
"Sir Miles Huntington's?" Haliburton labeled it correctly.
"Yes. He's off to the Arctic for a year. The year's nearly up,but as he wanted such a high rental, the place has been on ourhands all the time. A week ago, we got a note from him, which hadevidently been months on the way, authorizing me to let it forwhatever I could get for it. But by now, there's only a bare sixweeks or so left. It's a beautiful old house. Angelica Kaufmannlived in it. Reynolds painted one of the ceilings, or may havedone so—"
He saw Haliburton sit up with sudden interest, his large cleareyes fastened on Moy. Moy knew why and nodded to himself with aninward grin. The fish was rising.
"Of course, it's hardly ever that a house of that kind is tobe had furnished for a bit over a month, five weeks to be exact.As a rule, I could do nothing with so short a time, but Ihappened to speak of it to Frederick Ingram yesterday morning."More interest in Haliburton's steady gaze. Even Tark of theimpassive features seemed to be listening very intently. "Yes, Imentioned it to Fred Ingram yesterday. His brother Charles andhe—"
"Half-brother," corrected Haliburton in a tone as though thedetail mattered.
"—half-brother, then," Moy corrected, "are also clientsof ours. We handle their father's estate."
"If you're going to take Frederick Ingram as a lessee!"Haliburton spoke with a contempt at variance with his usualplacidity.
"Hardly!" Moy's tone matched the other's. "No, he doesn't comein to this except as the originator of the proposal, which isthis: Miss Pratt, it seems, wants tremendously to stay in town ina really old house with genuine period furnishings, and, thoughthe Tall House is shabby enough inside and out, it contains somemagnificent old stuff. Entailed, of course, or it wouldn't bethere. Well, bearing this in mind about Miss Pratt, Freddiewondered if his brother wouldn't like to take the house on forthe few remaining weeks."
Haliburton's face flushed.
"But Ingram turned it down when I dropped in last evening,"Moy went on, and Haliburton's flush died away.
"He thought it would be beyond him. It's not merely the rent,it's the servants, and all that sort of thing. Well, that seemedthat, but this morning Frederick had another brain wave. The newidea is to form a sort of syndicate among ourselves, five of us,and each take the house and run it for a week. Mrs. Pratt and herdaughter being the guests of each host in turn. Charles Ingram isquite keen on this amended form. He will be one of the five; afriend of his, Gilmour, who shares a flat with him at Harrow,will make two; I come in as third—my humble tenement is inthe hands of the plumbers at the moment, and I assure you I shallbe thankful not to dance to any more of their piping for a while.Ingram at once suggested my asking you to be the fourth host, andany friend whom you liked to nominate could be the fifth. Thatwould make you and him all square, he seems to think."
"That's very decent of Ingram," Haliburton said warmly. "Ofcourse, I accept with pleasure. And Tark, here, will come as thefifth man, I know. He's keen on getting to know Ingram better,since reading one of his books."
Tark's affirmative came at once. He moved for a moment so thatthe light fell full on him, and Moy thought again howunprepossessing his face was, with its narrow lips slightlyaskew, its narrow-bridged nose just off the true, and its narrowdark eyes that never seemed to dance or sparkle. But his lipswere parted now as though he were breathing fast. Moy wassurprised. That Haliburton should be interested, he couldunderstand, or rather he had firmly expected, for he and CharlesIngram were suitors for the hand of Winnie Pratt, but that Tarkshould be stirred...he had had an almost wolfish look for asecond...Fortunately Haliburton was vouching for him, otherwiseMoy would never have let him come in. But at any rate, he, Moy,could now tell Ingram that the syndicate was complete. Just likechivalrous Ingram to have practically insisted that his rivalshould have an equal chance with himself. Probably by the end ofthe five weeks Miss Pratt would have made up her mind which ofthe two men she preferred. Haliburton had been prime favoritetill a month ago, when Ingram had first met her, and had seemedto score with his talk of books and plays. Ingram was a highbrow,a writer of scientific books himself. Mathematics was hisespecial line, but he was a man of broad literary interests. Mrs.Pratt openly favored Haliburton, but then Haliburton's rent rollexplained that, and in time he would succeed his shippinggrandfather in the peerage. Moy was looking forward to the fiveweeks. He certainly ought to get good material for his play outof it. Take Winnie Pratt for instance...a lovely young thing,complexion all cream and roses. But with no character that onecould get hold of, how could one catch her wonderful charm?
Tark was speaking again. Moy felt as though the man's vocalchords must creak with the unaccustomed work.
"Ingram's book onCiphers Past and Present ispositively monumental." He spoke with slow heavy emphasis.
Moy did not know whether Tark's praise referred to quantity orquality, but he nodded a cheerful assent.
"I take the first week, beginning next Friday," he told them."So as to get things rolling smoothly."
"Friday!" broke in Tark, "why not Thursday or Saturday?"
Moy thought he was joking, but the wooden features did notshow any indication of it being a jest. On the contrary, Tarkrepeated his question.
"It fitted in better," Moy said rather vaguely.
"He's superstitious as a cat," Haliburton said.
Moy burst out laughing. "You mean nervous—" and helaughed again, for any one less nervous—if looks could berelied on—than Tark, he had yet to see.
"Well, he's superstitious as a Solomon Islander, then,"Haliburton amended. "That's because he's not a fatalist. But goon, Moy, you're going to take the first week—"
"I suggested that Ingram should take the second, but hethought you and he should toss for it."
"Certainly not! Of course Ingram must take the second week,"Haliburton said definitely. "Any week after his will suit me. AndI'll take one day less or more, Tark, so as 'to throw your week,when it comes, on to the most auspicious moment."
Moy reflected how easy it was to work with pleasant chaps likeIngram and Haliburton.
"All right, then, you take the third week—" he wasjotting notes down as he spoke, "shall we put Gilmour in for thefourth, and Tark here for the fifth?"
But Haliburton suggested that as Tark seemed so fussy overdays—his smile rid the words of all offense—perhapsit would be better for Gilmour to take the third week, whichwould bring his, Haliburton's, week and Tark's together at theend, when days could be added or omitted as preferred. It wassettled like that, and Moy stayed a few minutes more to explainhow he had arranged about servants—which was why it wouldhave been very awkward to alter the date of taking over thehouse. Another client of his firm's had given her servants aholiday on board wages and had been groaning at the expense. Hehad wired her a suggestion that he could get them a five weeks'engagementen bloc, to which she had agreed withalacrity.
The servants, too, partly unable to help themselves, andpartly taken with the idea of handsome tips, had agreed to startwork this coming Friday if so requested by Moy. Everythingpromised to go without a hitch. He would be treasurer. Any mancould invite any friends he wanted during his week, but Moy hopedthat only the bedrooms on one of the floors would be used, as hewanted no trouble with the maids. The house had a couple offull-size lawn tennis courts behind it, and day-time friends of any,or all, of the five would be welcome. As for eveningentertainments, he, Moy, would give an opening dance, and a dancewould close the last of the five weeks, otherwise, againremembering the servants, the hosts would do their entertainingoutside the house.
Moy left, after the two had signed a simple preliminaryagreement. Haliburton turned to Tark when the young solicitor hadhurried out to his little car.
"I had no idea until you told me, that you were interested inIngram's line of work." Haliburton looked at his companion withfriendly curiosity as they sauntered back to their table in thelounge.
"Numbers, the science of numbers, has always fascinated me."Tark was unresponsive as always, yet now there was something inthe dark depths of his eyes like slumbering fire. "More so eventhan ciphers, and they're fascinating enough."
There were those who hinted that Tark was getting full paymentout of Haliburton for having dived in and held up the other'sunconscious body, but if so, his manners were certainly not thoseof a climber. He gave the impression of disliking everyone atfirst sight. Even Haliburton at times wished that someone elsehad saved his life.
Moy drove on to Harrow, where Ingram and Gilmour shared theground floor of a pleasant rambling house. It was emphaticallythe flat of two young men who were workers. Ingram, as has beensaid, wrote on more or less mathematical subjects. Gilmour was aCivil Service First Division clerk. Both young men lived wellwithin their means. At the moment, Moy found Frederick Ingramwith his half-brother in the latter's book-lined writing-room.Frederick had dropped in to ask about some doubtful figures in anequation, he explained. Moy knew that he had gone in for thatsort of thing during his short and inglorious career at Oxford,and also knew that the elder Ingram was giving him someproof-reading to do for him. But proof-reading would hardly explainthe look on Frederick's face as he brushed past the solicitor, hisbeetling black brows knitted, his small, but thick-lipped, mouthset. And even in the room, usually so devoid of all stir, therewas something that suggested a clash of personalities still inthe air. Ingram himself had a firm will. He looked as much. Hiswas a handsome face with its scholar's brow and deep-setpassionate eyes with their direct gaze. A humorous mouth, arather forbiddingly high-bridged nose, and a resolute jaw.
He now pushed some books away, and stretched himself as thoughhe too had felt the tension, and was glad to relax.
"Gilmour out?" Moy asked after shaking hands and accepting aglass of light Australian wine. He learned that Gilmour was inhis own den. So into the lounge Moy and his host now went. A dooropened.
"Frederick gone?" Gilmour asked in a defensive voice,apparently prepared to shut the door instantly on a negativereply.
"Yes, some of my figures puzzled him," Ingram said slowly, andwith a sigh of vexation, or weariness that could hardly beconnected with figures.
His telephone rang, and he stepped back into his room.
"Figures of some sort are always the explanations of a fallfrom Frederick," Gilmour said under his breath, as Ingram closedhis door. Moy grinned. None knew better than he how involved thefinancial affairs of the younger Ingram were, and he stronglysuspected that Ingram had given him some work to do merely as anexcuse for helping him out with money, though he claimed to havefound Frederick unexpectedly careful and good at the job.
Ingram now came back, and the three discussed the taking overof The Tall House. Ingram was vastly entertained at the idea. Hehad an engagement, however, and had to hurry off, leaving Gilmourand Moy to finish working out the details on paper.
"I hope he'll get his money's worth," Moy said as theyfinished. "A rather vulgar way of putting it. But I hope Ingramwon't be let down."
"You mean Miss Pratt?" Gilmour slanted his head on one sideand looked doubtful. He was a smallish man, very good at games.He was not, and did not look, clever, but he did lookcompanionable and cheery, which was all that was necessary in astable companion of Ingram's, Moy reflected. The mathematicianhad brains enough for any two.
Moy now grunted that he did mean Miss Pratt.
"If she's any judge of character, she'll take Ingram and bethankful," Gilmour said warmly.
"Haliburton's a nice chap too," Moy reminded him a trifleimpishly. He found himself looking forward to the coming fiveweeks at The Tall House from its sheer human interest. A lovelygirl, two honest men in love with her...what more could anyfuture dramatist hope to find laid out before him? Whom would shechoose? Ingram had fame and sufficient means to live in quietcomfort. Haliburton could offer splendor and a title later on.Which would Winnie Pratt take?
"WHY do you dislike me so?" Winnie Pratt smiledup at the young man beside her. Most young men would have beenovercome with joy, for Miss Pratt made a lovely picture as shestood on the lawn of The Tall House in a white muslin frock witha soft green sash and a large hat. Her flower-like little facejust now wore a bewildered, hurt expression that her delicatelyaligned eyebrows emphasized.
Gilmour laughed awkwardly. "Have I been rude, Miss Pratt? Ifso, it's only because I'm not accustomed to such visions ofloveliness. I'm grown into a dull old hack." Now Lawrence Gilmourdid look rather dull, but he was distinctly not old, and he wasquite unusually good-looking in a fresh-faced, ruddy, rathercountrified way.
"Is he a dull old hack?" she asked Moy, who was passing themat the moment.
"Do you want a standing opinion?" he asked with affectedseriousness.
"If it's not too expensive," Miss Pratt returned, smiling athim.
"Nothing is too expensive for you!" he retorted with mockdevotion. "Then merely as an opinion for the purpose of thediscussion, and subject to the—"
"Help! Let me escape!" Gilmour edged away with mock fright,but with genuine eagerness, and walked back into the house.
"There!" Winnie waved a hand after him, "tell me, Mr. Moy, whyhe avoids me so. It—it's—most—" She seemed at aloss for a word.
"Unusual," Moy finished, laughing. She laughed too. But therewas vexation in her lovely eyes. "It's so noticeable," shepersisted petulantly.
Moy refused to take her seriously. "The absence of oneworshiper among the multitude? Surely not!" But he went afterGilmour.
He found him in the square hall of the house drinking lemonsquash.
"Look here," Moy began at once, "why make yourselfconspicuous, old man?"
"In what way?" Gilmour's tone was wary.
"By insisting so markedly on having nothing to do with MissPratt," Moy finished. "What's wrong with meeting a lovely youngthing half way? Most men would give half their fortune to be inyour shoes."
"I'll do a deal with them, instantly!" Gilmour grinned back."I loathe the girl, Moy, and that's the truth."
Moy stared at him. Yet he looked in earnest. But of coursethis was just a joke.
"Because of her cadaverous and withered appearance, Isuppose," Moy asked. Even Gilmour laughed at that question.
"I know it sounds mad," Gilmour was speaking a little underhis breath, slowly and very gravely. "She's infernally pretty.And yet—" He hesitated. "Oh, well, put it down to my notwanting to make a fool of myself—just now. Oh, damn, thereshe comes again!" And catching sight of a flicker of whitemuslin, he once more fled, this time into a farther room.
Moy's lips twitched as he watched him. From where he stood, hecould see that the white muslin belonged to Mrs. Pratt, not tothe daughter. He himself went back into the garden again, but hedid not make for Miss. Pratt. Winnie was not for any solicitor.He wondered with a moment's amusement how Mrs. Pratt would takeit if he entered the lists too. For Mrs. Pratt considered thatHaliburton was the only possible choice for her beautifuldaughter. Unfortunately Winnie, like many another spoiled beauty,seemed on her arrival at The Tall House to have suddenly set herheart on what apparently she was not to have, and that wasGilmour. He was evidently anchored elsewhere, Moy reflected. Noman whose heart was free could withstand those smiles. Gilmourhad been about to say as much just now. What did perplex Moy wasthe extraordinary fact of Gilmour's dislike of the girl, hisalmost open hostility to her. It was all really more amusing towatch and speculate over than he had expected. And few things inlife are that. He was, of course, prepared to see theHaliburton-Ingram silent, well-mannered duel continue, but he hadnever hoped to see Miss Pratt fairly throw herself at the head of athird man, who would try his best to throw the enchantress backagain. He wondered how Haliburton and Ingram liked it.
Fortunately they were such pleasant fellows, both of them, andMiss Pratt's attack was simply an acute form of wanting what shewas not going to get, which would cure itself in time. Luckily itwas Gilmour and not Frederick Ingram whom she had suddenlydecided to capture. Frederick Ingram professed himself one of hervictims, but Winnie refused even to look at him; which was aswell, for Frederick was an utter waster. It was said that evenIngram had been so stirred by the cheek of Frederick daring tolift his eyes to the Beauty, that he had told him not to comenear The Tall House while she was there. Moy watched Ingram for amoment, reflecting on the oddity that the scholar should be socaptivated by a featherhead. Moy was still of an age to put avalue on cleverness in women which he would not do in lateryears. Yes, he vowed to himself, Miss Pratt would be difficult toput in a play...apart from her beauty, there seemed so little toget hold of...Then how, in a play, to make it clear why twosensible young men were ready to count a day well lost if itbrought them but one smile from her?
Haliburton came out of the house again, and stood amoment watching Ingram play. As a rule he was well worthattention. Turning his head, Haliburton saw that Tark was alsowatching the game.
"Had your talk with him yet?" he asked pleasantly. Tarkstarted as though he had not noticed that anyone stood besidehim.
"Not yet."
"I heard you talking to someone in the house just now. Itsounded like Frederick Ingram. He isn't here, surely?"
Tark did not reply.
"I didn't know you knew him," Haliburton went on.
"I met him abroad," came the casual reply. Moy thought againhow his voice suggested lack of use. Yet the man did not look ananchorite. Or did he? Moy, for one, had a feeling as though Tarklived in a cell—windowless, doorless, dark and utterlylonely.
"Probably through no fault of your own," Haliburton saidexcusingly.
Tark gave the half-smile, half-sneer that was his nearest toshowing merriment.
"I didn't realize that he was a brother of the mathematicianIngram. By the way, isn't he coming to stay here at the housetoo?"
"Certainly not," was the instant rejoinder. "I believe Ingramhas taken him on in a sort of semi-demi-secretarial position, butneither he nor Gilmour are fond of Frederick. Like most people."And with that Haliburton seemed to lose himself in the gameagain.
"What's the matter with Ingram's play!" he ejaculated afteranother moment.
"Miss Pratt," came the reply. Haliburton's eyes, following theother's, now saw Gilmour walking stolidly along, his eyes on thegrass, like a worried owner thinking of re-turfing, and besidehim, her face turned up to his downbent one, which did not evenglance at her, pattered the little white shoes of Miss Pratt.
Haliburton frowned and watched Ingram serve another fault.
"Women always want what they can't get," Haliburton said atlength, and for once his good nature sounded a trifle forced."Miss Pratt has all the rest of us at her feet, and just becauseGilmour holds out, she means to have his scalp."
Moy came closer. He overheard the words. "She's a dreadfulflirt," he threw in lightly. Moy wanted to hear what Haliburtonwould reply. Motives and cross currents, just now, were to Moywhat rats are to a terrier. He could not pass them by.
"I wouldn't call her a flirt," Haliburton said uneasily.
Moy laughed at him.
"You wouldn't call her anything but perfection." Haliburtonreddened. He had a trick of that.
"Oh, I don't know," he spoke awkwardly, "I don't mind owningthat I wish she would stop trying to sweep Gilmour off his feet.There's no harm in her trying, of course, but—" He stopped,not quite sure how he intended to finish the sentence.
"She'll soon tire of her effort," Moy now said soothingly, andin silence the three watched Ingram miss a ball that he couldhave caught with his eyes shut had he been his usual nimble-footedself. He won in the end, it was true, but the games he hadlost he had given away. He now made for Miss Pratt, and Gilmourat once stepped back, waving them towards the house for drinks.Miss Pratt would have lingered, but Gilmour fairly swept them ontheir path and stood smiling a little as they went.
Mrs. Pratt touched his arm. She, too, was smiling, but hereyes were not gay.
"A word with you, Mr. Gilmour. Suppose we have a look at themalmaisons?" They turned a corner of the artificially intricatelittle garden. It cut them off from the courts. As they stoodbefore the flowers she went on:
"Mr. Gilmour, I think I must speak plainly to you."
"By all means." His sunburned face smiled encouragingly downinto her worn one. Mrs. Pratt had been as lovely as Winnie in herday, but no one would have guessed it now.
"I want you to stop throwing my daughter at Mr. Ingram'shead." She lifted her chin as she spoke and looked him straightin the eyes. For the first time, Gilmour really noticed her. Hesaw energy and will power in that face—qualities that healways admired. He saw more—the determination that makesthings come to pass—another of his own likings.
"I don't agree with your way of putting it," he said now,quietly, "but if you mean, that because Ingram is my friend, Iwant him to have the girl he loves, you're right. I do. He'llmake her a splendid husband. Any mother could hand her daughterto Charles Ingram with confidence. I've known him for years, andI assure you that he——"
She made an impatient snap with the fingers that hung down ather side.
"Winnie is going to marry Mr. Haliburton. That was why I gotout of all our other engagements to come here for this month. Butyour friend, Mr. Ingram, is quite another matter. I do not thinkshe would be happy with him."
He looked his dissent.
"Please, Mr. Gilmour," the mother said to that, "please don'ttry to encourage your friend. He hasn't a hope of marrying her.She really does love Mr. Haliburton. She told me as muchherself."
"When?" he asked skeptically. "Months ago? But that's over, ornearly over."
"Winnie's affections have a way of circling round," themother, too, spoke a trifle dryly. There was a short silence.
"As for your own conduct," she went on frankly, "it'ssplendid. But then, you're a born realist."
"What's that?" he asked.
"I mean by that, a person who goes for the substance and notfor the shadow. Winnie is born to go for shadows. You have thegood sense and cleverness to know that she's only making a fussover you in order to tease poor Basil Haliburton."
Gilmour liked being thought clever. "Is that it?" he asked. Helooked genuinely relieved—and was.
"It makes it damned awkward for me sometimes," he saidhonestly. "I wish she wouldn't!"
For a second the mother's eyes flashed. And Mrs. Pratt's eyescould shoot fire on occasions, he saw to his surprise.
"You're the first man who has ever complained about it," shesaid, and he grinned at once placatingly and ruefully.
"I don't suppose I would either, but for—" He hesitated."I'm giving you confidence for confidence, Mrs. Pratt. There's acertain girl whom I hope very much will some day be my wife. Iwant her to come up to The Tall House for a couple ofdays—"
"That's just what I told Winnie!" she said almost jubilantly."I felt sure there was something like that. I do congratulateyou, Mr. Gilmour. What's her name?"
"Alfreda Longstaff. But it's not settled—unfortunately.It's only a hope," he put in hastily.
"Do have her up here," she begged. "I'll chaperone her withpleasure. But now to come back to my first, my only grievance,"she smiled at him now with genuine kindliness, "please don't tryto wreck your friend's life—for if he were really to fallin love with my daughter, it would be such a pity!"
"It's too late to say that," Gilmour replied gravely. "He isdeeply in love with her."
"He'll have to get over it," she said bruskly.
"I still don't see why he should have to." Gilmour's face wasthat of a man who would not easily give up his chosen path. "Idon't in the least see why he should."
There was no mistaking the change in Mrs. Pratt's look. For asecond she stood pressing her lips together, then she saidslowly:
"Does Mr. Haliburton strike you as a man of unlimitedpatience? He doesn't me."
"He's very good-natured..." he began vaguely. Gilmour hardlyknew Haliburton.
"He has that reputation," Mrs. Pratt threw in,"but—well—I doubt his standing much nonsense. He'snot been accustomed to it. Besides, why should he? And if he letWinnie go—" Her face seemed to grow pinched at the merewords. "No, listen!" she said imperiously, "I'll be quite frank.I'm living on my capital. I was a wealthy girl myself, andmarried a man who was believed to be well off. So he was—sowe both were for a time. But we were both extravagant, and whenhe died I found that even his insurance had been mortgaged. I wasleft to struggle along with Winnie as best I could, for weneither of us had any relations. Bit by bit my capital has beeneaten into, until—well, I can't keep the flag flying muchlonger. Now Basil Haliburton at the moment would settle half theworld on Winnie. And she loves him. In reality." The last twowords came defiantly. "Anything else is just play. I want theaffair settled when we leave here. And so it will be if you headoff your friend."
"But he's quite well to do," Gilmour urged.
"Not as Mr. Haliburton is!" was the unanswerable reply. "Letalone as well off as Basil will be when his grandfatherdies."
"I know he has big expectations," Gilmour agreed, "but Iassure you that Ingram's means—"
"Are not the kind that I want for Winnie," snapped Mrs.Pratt.
"But perhaps the kind that she wants for herself," came thereply with a smile that Mrs. Pratt called "positively fiendish"in its impudence.
"It's no good, Mrs. Pratt. I'm backing my friend to win."
There was a moment's silence.
"Do you suppose I've endured what I have to be thwartednow—when the struggle is nearly over?" Her tone startledhim by its intensity. He saw that he had gone too far.
"Look here, Mrs. Pratt," he spoke in a more conciliatory tone,"give Ingram a trial. You talk as though he were a pauper. He'sanything but."
Again came that snap of her fingers at her side, and suddenlyGilmour guessed—rightly—that Mrs. Pratt had borrowedmoney on the strength of her daughter's coming engagement toHaliburton. But she only gave him a rather fierce look and movedaway. Gilmour looked after her ruefully. He very much dislikedunpleasantness.
"Mrs. Pratt seemed peeved with me—just like you," hesaid under his breath to Moy.
"I don't wonder. You're a sort of involuntary dog-in-the-manger.And she looks a good hater."
"Well, if my corpse is found some fine day lying in the toolshed, you'll know where to look," and Gilmour broke off to watchwith open pleasure Ingram capture Miss Pratt and lead her off tothe house under the plea of some books having come fromHatchett's and wanting her help to choose a couple for hissister's children.
Ingram led the way into the library which had been handed overto him for his exclusive use all the more absolutely in that noone else wanted it. He was the only member of the five who had tocontinue his work at The Tall House itself, and it evidently waswork that admitted of no putting off. During the day and earlyevening he might—and did—dance attendance on WinniePratt, but from ten onwards every night he shut himself into thelibrary and let nothing disturb him. Sometimes it was long pastmidnight when he went up to his rooms. No one at the house got upearly. Moy talked as though he let the milkman in on his way tohis office in Lincoln's Inn, but a quarter to ten was theearliest that ever saw him running down the steps to his littlecar. At half-past nine Gilmour would have started for the tube.Half-past ten saw Haliburton off the premises. Moy sometimesthought that it was because Ingram could be with Winnie so manyhours of the day, that he left suppers and the evenings toHaliburton. Certainly as far as the two men were concerned, thebalance seemed only too even. Whichever one was with her appearedto be the favored man.
In the library she carefully selected the books whose bindingspleased her the best, and then stayed on listening to Ingram'seager words about the popular book he was planning on thearithmetical aspect of the universe. He was a charming talkerand, as she listened, as she watched his rapt eyes, something ofthe fascination which he could exert over her came back again. Noone but Ingram ever talked to Winnie as though she had a brain.He appealed to it, and Winnie's intelligence struggled forward tomeet the appeal. Perhaps, too, something was due to Gilmour'sflat refusal to be led on her string. At any rate, for the timebeing, Ingram regained something of his old ascendency over her.There had been a week or two when he had entirely eclipsedHaliburton.
That young man now strolled in and joined in the chat. Heseemed genuinely interested in Ingram's talk and gave a littlesigh when Winnie drifted out again in answer to Mrs. Pratt'surgent reminder that she and her daughter were due at a friend'scocktail party.
When she was gone Haliburton would have lingered, but Ingrammade it clear that he wanted to write a few pages before the postleft. As a rule he let no one inside his writing-room. By sheerpersonality he had established a sort of frozen line at the dooracross which no one stepped uninvited. The door had stood openjust now and the room had been free to anyone who cared to stepin, but, with the going of Winnie, Ingram changed, as he was wontto change, at his desk. For one thing he seemed to grow yearsolder, for another he tolerated no time-wasters.
Moy was certain that Ingram often locked himself in. He had anidea that the scientist was working against time, or at leastworking on something where time counted. And apparently thatsomething was to be kept a dead secret until publication.Ciphers, probably, he thought. Once he had heard a sound he knewwell enough, the clang of the lid of a deed box and the turningof a key. That was just before Ingram had hurried out to join theothers. Evidently Ingram kept his ideas well safeguarded.
ALFREDA LONGSTAFF was not happy, and did notlook it. But there were possibilities in her pale, dark face. Shelooked the kind to break records, had she the chance, behind awheel, or in a 'plane. If so, Fate had not given her much of ahand to play, so far. Alfreda was the only child of the rector ofBispham, and was expected to keep house for her father andmother. She rebelled, naturally, but as no money was forthcomingfor any training that would enable her to earn her own living,she had rebelled in vain—though by no means in silence, orin secret. But this last spring she had hoped for a release.Chance had brought down to Bispham a young man whose good looksattracted her immensely. She thought that he cared, too...he hadcome to the rectory in the first place because he heard that therector played a good game of chess—as he did—butafter that Alfreda had flattered herself that Lawrence Gilmourcame because of her. He was the only marriageable man of goodposition and of her own age who had come into her life so far.Alfreda went all out for his capture. He liked games—well,she had a one figure handicap and a magnificent service, andgradually the links and the lawn tennis courts seemed to oust thechess board. She had shown her hand quite openly, sure of herprize. But he had gone away with only the usual civil partings.Flowers and a box of chocolates had come—once. That wasover a month ago—a month of the village's open andconcealed amusement or pity.
She was thinking of Gilmour today, when the secretary of thegolf club asked her to play a round with a London man whosepartner had failed to turn up, as had Alfreda's. Men met on thelinks meant little, she had found, and this one wore a weddingring. He had a clever face, she thought, and decided, with one ofher inward sighs, that he had not lived all his life in Bispham,or he would never look like that. The rector's wife had just beenrebuking her daughter that morning because the sugar basins hadnot been properly filled. Alfreda was expected to see to this.What a life, or rather what a death! thought Alfreda.
She never played better, and Warner, the man from town, wastwo down at the ninth hole.
"You ought to give me a stroke a hole," he said with a smile,"but then, I'm—"
"Oh, don't say you're feeling ill!" she interrupted almostfiercely.
"Feeling ill?" he repeated wonderingly.
"Whenever I beat a man, he's 'got a touch of liver,'" came theretort, "or he's 'coming down with the 'flu.' Or he's 'mostfearfully knocked with the heat,', or his 'wrist is wonky,' or'one of his knees is giving him trouble again.' It's the aim ofmy life to live long enough to beat a really well man."
Warner burst out laughing. "So a grouch against the world wassteeling those wrists," he said placatingly. "Let's have a restand a talk. You've got me sunk already." He held out hiscigarette case.
"But haven't you come down for a game?" She hesitated, takingone.
He shook his head. "For quiet."
"Good Heavens!" She sat so as to face him, her lip curling."Fancy coming for quiet! Fancy wanting the stuff! Well, you'vechosen the right tomb."
"So that's the trouble," he murmured in a kindly tone, "ah,yes, you're straining at your bonds. We all do—did. I'm notsure—-"
"Don't tell me that you aren't sure we're not happier whentoddling round in pinafores, or lisping our prayers at mother'sknee than when sitting on the Woolsack, or hobbling into theHouse of Lords," she interrupted again, even more hotly thanbefore.
Warner eyed her. He felt a bit sorry for mother. This younglady looked as though she might have an awful temper. There wasfrustration in her face—and bitterness. She was quitehandsome in a hard, clear-cut way. He was not attracted to her.But she had arresting eyes.
"I'm on a newspaper," he said simply, "and naturally the ideaof quiet appeals."
"On a newspaper!" She drew a long breath, and almost chokedherself with her cigarette. "Heavenly job!"
"Hardly." His eyes twinkled. "Interesting, if you like. Buthardly heavenly."
"What are you? An editor?" She regarded him with envy.
He nodded. "Something of that sort." He was a newspaperproprietor.
"How does one get newspaper work?" she asked breathlessly.
"By writing clever articles," he said vaguely. Suddenly he sawan abyss opening at his feet. "That is to say—for realgenius, that's the way," he corrected hastily.
"Oh, genius!" she said heavily. "But—had you genius?"She spoke with an air of sincerity that took the rudeness out ofthe question.
His shake of the head answered.
"I suppose you had a tremendous lot of determination," shewent on, looking thoughtfully at his shovel of a chin. "There'snothing like a will of one's own for getting on, they say."
In Warner's case it had been a will of his uncle's that haddeposited him in one of the high places of the newspaper inquestion. But he nodded. She, too, had a forceful jaw, hethought.
"Tenacity of purpose is necessary, yes," he agreed. Then hechanged the subject of his own arrival on the mountain top bysaying, "But, besides genius, you know, the thing to do is to beon the look-out for a scoop. By that—" Her ironic gaze toldhim that even in Bispham that word was familiar.
"I'm afraid there's not much chance of a scoop down here," shesaid. "My father's sermons, and my mother's chats at meetings,hardly lend themselves to that sort of thing. As forcrimes—well, it's true a policeman got drunk once, and westill shudder at the tale, but that was years ago, when my fatherwas a boy. The only dramatic happening I remember was when awoman lost her purse on the station platform, and I lent her halfa crown—all my worldly possessions. As it was in this partof the world, she returned the money next day."
He laughed too. Then he tilted his cap further over his eyesand said meditatively, "And yet, that's what first gave me mytaste for newspaper work, and set me on my feet—a scoop. Abody was found floating in the river. Well, it might have beensuicide. I worked it up into a three weeks front page thriller."He spoke with pride.
"Was it suicide?" she asked.
"I believe it was." His tone implied that what it really wasdid not figure in the balance sheet, except as enhancing thecredit of the decorations, "but it isn't the facts. It's the waythey're handled—treated."
"I see." She sat silent a moment. "But if nothing happens,what does one do to get out of the rut? I should love newspaperwork," she finished, in a tone of fervor that was positivelyalarming—to an editor.
Warner decided to go all out on the scoop theory ofadvancement. He did not want a young female besieging him withpostal packets of manuscript which would probably have no returnstamps. He decided to be more wary.
"A scoop is really the only way," he repeated dogmatically."Something mysterious happens, or something that can be made tolook so."
"Here in Bispham?" Her tone was raillery itself, but she wavedto him to proceed.
"If you're the first in the field you can offer your stuff toalmost any newspaper and, later, you can possibly work into apost on it. Now what about finishing the round?"
She played so badly that he knew her mind was wandering. It isa curious fact, he reflected, that your mind may be on somethingelse, and you can do your work quite decently, but let your mindwander ever so slightly at a game, and the game is ruined. Whichlooks as if games were harder than work...a little third articlemight be made out of the idea, treated humorously...
He thanked her when they were back at the clubhouse again, andsuggested cocktails. She declined. Her father expected her to behome to pour out tea, but she spoke as though half dreaming. Hewatched her long stride making for the gate with somemisgiving.
"I hope she won't murder the verger so as to qualify for apost with me," he thought. "She looks capable-of a gooddeal."
At the rectory, Alfreda came to a sudden halt in the shabbyold hall. Surely she knew that hat, that voice, and steppingthrough on to the veranda there rose up before her the man whomshe had never expected to see again—Lawrence Gilmour. Thesun glinted on his brown hair and seemed to shine in his browneyes. Suddenly a wave of hatred passed over Alfreda such as shehad never dreamed that she could feel. He to stand there smiling,after leaving her to the tender mercies of the village gossips!For the first time she dared to realize how much she hadsuffered. In pride, in dismay, in hopes lost, in the pity and thescarcely veiled amusement of the countryside, and which of thosetwo last had been the harder to bear she could not tell. It allwelled up inside her now. Usually pale, there was a flush like asoft rose in her thin cheeks, her lips were a vivid bow of colorunhelped by any cosmetics. Alfreda did not use cosmetics. Theywere expensive, and what was the use—at Bispham? Her eyeswere sparkling as she looked into his.
"Alfreda!" he said, coming forward and taking her hand. "Ifind that I can't get on without you. Have you missed me,too?"
She could not speak. She dared not. Words were throngingbehind her clenched teeth which it would have been madness toutter. She seemed to be standing outside herself, and she wasamazed at what she was watching. A shiver passed over her.Alfreda closed her eyes, and as he put his arms about her, feltas though she could have struck the face bending down to kissher, and struck it again and again. Hard.
"Why did you leave me?" she asked in a low whisper. "Because Iwanted to be sure. And to give you time to be sure too," hereplied gravely. "I am sure now. Will you marry me, darling?"
"No!" she said with a sort of shout, and then saw her mothercome into the room. Mrs. Longstaff jumped. "Alfreda! Mr.Gilmour!"
"Mrs. Longstaff, I've come back to marry the dearest girl inthe world."
Mrs. Longstaff could not conceive of Alfreda in quite thatlight.
"Indeed?" was all she could say for the moment, then came theknowledge of all that this would mean. Only last week thecharwoman had ventured to speak pityingly of "Miss Freda" forbeing so lonely. Her daughter well married...Gilmour was in theCivil Service, and had ample pay...there would be no pension forhis wife, but he would, of course, carry a handsome lifeinsurance...
"My dear children," said Mrs. Longstaff and gave a hand toeach. Alfreda took it, and committed herself. After all, anythingwas better than the life she had been leading—the life withno outlook. Yet she felt for Gilmour only burning resentment. Hecould have spared her all this, these wounds to her pride, andyet he had not. She would never forgive him. But she would usehim. He should be her stepping-stone to somethingdifferent—larger. She told herself that she did not evenbelieve in his supposed affection for her. It had suited him toplay with her and leave her. It now suited him to come back toher...what was he saying? He wanted her to come and spend afortnight in town at a big house in Chelsea which he and somefriends had taken furnished for a few weeks. There was a ladystaying there, a Mrs. Pratt, who would chaperone her. PerhapsMrs. Longstaff would ring her up on the 'phone, the number wasFlaxman 0000, and perhaps Alfreda would come back with him now,his car could wait. He had really gone into the friendlysyndicate because he thought how heavenly it would be to haveAlfreda up in town, staying in what would be, for a week, hishouse. He explained the idea to the two women, and Mrs. Longstaffwent to the telephone and was soon in talk with Mrs. Pratt.
Mrs. Pratt was charming. She had taken such a liking to youngLawrence Gilmour, "a really delightful young man," and would bevery pleased to chaperone Miss Longstaff during her stay at TheTall House. She hoped she could come soon. Her own daughter wasthere too. In fact, another engagement was expected...the twowomen chatted most pleasantly.
In the veranda Gilmour pleaded his cause.
"I thought, I hoped, I believed you felt as I did," hestammered.
"And you shall suffer as I did!" was her unspoken addition.Aloud she said, "I'll come to The Tall House for a fortnightsince you ask me, but I don't promise to marry you, you know. Atthe end of the time I'll give you my answer."
"Oh, no, no!" he begged. "Surely I've left you time enough toknow your own heart. Why, I brought you down this!" He opened asmall case and something inside it flashed. Alfreda, for thefirst time, felt one of the bands of ice around her heart breakwith a little splintering sound, like the girl in the fairytale...he must really love her to have bought her this...it was acharming half-hoop of diamonds. For a second she wavered. A monthago how she would have rejoiced. But four weeks of sufferingleave a scar...she closed the case with a snap, and returned itto him.
"I'll give you my answer at the end of the fortnight," shesaid quietly, "and meanwhile I'm to be quite free. I promisenothing, except to come to town." Let him, too, feel the pleasureof uncertainty. "Is that agreed?"
It was not in the least what he hoped and wanted. Butsomething in her tone warned him not to press her, unless hewanted to lose her. As for Alfreda, suddenly she knew what shewanted. She would go to town for the two weeks, and by hook or bycrook at the end of them land a job on a newspaper. As formarriage—she had only wanted it as a key to open the worldoutside Bispham. Perhaps she could open it for herself byherself.
She refused to go back in his car with Gilmour, and her motherupheld her in this. After all, tomorrow would do quite nicely andone evening would give the two women and a seamstress time enoughto alter that frightful evening frock that Alfreda had orderedfrom the sales because it was so cheap...So Gilmour went offalone, but with the promise that Alfreda would come to town onthe following day in time for lunch. He had no doubt as to herultimate answer, and decided that it was only her girlish way ofpaying him out for his delay in proposing, little dreaming howexactly he had hit the nail on the head, and yet how he had givenit a slant quite off the true. He wanted to tell all the house-partyabout her, and burst out with the news to Moy that eveningafter dinner. They were playing billiards together.
"I can't keep it to myself!" Gilmour was playing wildly. "I'veas good as got engaged to the dearest girl in the world, andshe's coming here on a fortnight's visit. It's still Haliburton'sweek, but he's an awfully understanding chap...I'm not worthy totie Alfreda's shoe-strings, but—well"—he gave achoked little laugh, "she'll be here in time for lunchtomorrow."
Moy was intensely interested. How would this Alfreda and thelovely Winnie get on together? He hoped there would be nounpleasantness. So far, things had been such a success. EvenFrederick Ingram's presence now and then had done no harm. He wasdropping in more frequently with papers for Charles, and wouldsometimes stay and have a chat or even a bite with the house-party...yes, he repeated to himself, everything was going onsplendidly. As for Haliburton's kindness in letting Gilmour askthis girl up, Moy liked Haliburton, but in this instance he sawno reason to fall over backwards because of his altruism. Ingramtoo must be charmed with the notion, he thought. Just then thedoor opened, and Ingram, looking anything but charmed, steppedin.
"I heard voices, and thought my brother-in-law was here," heexplained. "Why do one's relations always want to see one?" heasked in what might be assumed discomfort as he closed the dooron himself.
"I'm afraid, if rumor is correct in the case of thisparticular brother-in-law, it's because he hopes to touch Ingramfor a fiver," Gilmour suggested with a grin. Moy noddedagreement. "What between Frederick and his brother-in-law EdwardAppleton, Ingram must have plenty of use for his spare cash."
"Yet he was once a first-class actor, I've been told," hesaid.
"He's a first-class gambler now." Gilmour bent over the tableagain. "The two don't see much of each other. I don't thinkAppleton has been to the flat more than twice this year. Now, asto Frederick, he'd live on Ingram's doorstep if he could. Afterall, poor Appleton's no one's enemy but his own. WhereasFrederick is a regular out-and-out wrong un."
"It was you who stopped Ingram from putting his money intothat silver-fox ranch, wasn't it?" Moy asked. "Ingram consultedus, and, of course, we advised against it. But I rather thoughthe would do it, until he mentioned next time that you'd shown himregular proofs that it was all a clever swindle."
Gilmour's teeth flashed out of his tanned face for a second."I showed Frederick up proper, as the Tommies say, and enjoyedit. Mind you, on paper the scheme was beautifully workedout..."
"It was." Moy remembered it. "We only advised caution onprinciple and Ingram refused to hear a word against it at first.Frederick had pleaded with him for a chance to earn an honestliving, and Ingram thought if he could settle him in the wildsof Scotland it would be cheap at any price."
"I hated to destroy his dreams of a future home without anyFrederick around the corner," Gilmour said sadly, "but I had todo it."
"Did Frederick thank you for it?" Moy asked, grinning in histurn.
"At any rate, he's not the kind to bear malice," Gilmour saideasily.
Moy raised his eyebrows. "Think so? For a couple of years, Iwouldn't go strolling along the edge of a volcano with him if Iwere you. Nor play at who can stay down longest under water." Buthe too was only chaffing and after a few more words about MissLongstaff, Gilmour went in search of Mrs. Pratt.
Meanwhile Ingram had found his brother-in-law. He shook hands,with the look of a man steeling himself againstsomething—himself, or his visitor.
Appleton looked at him very sharply as their fingers touched.Appleton had been a handsome man once, in a rather flamboyantway, and he still carried himself well. But everything about himtwitched these days. His face was never still, and when for amoment his features seemed to rest, he would fall to pinching hisear or rubbing his nose with his thin, curved fingers. The handswere those of a fever patient, one would say, so hollow were thebacks, so ridged and dry the nails.
He stood looking at the other, as though longing to plungeinto some all-absorbing subject of his own, and yet not quitedaring to do so. Ingram caught the glance and shook his head withan almost apologetic smile.
"Don't let's talk of it, Edward, there's a good fellow. It'sfar too dangerous a gift. My sister would never forgive me forone thing. And now, what about cocktails? Will you have them inhere or in the garden?"
Appleton did not speak for a moment; he was standing with hisface turned to the fireplace, his back to Ingram. After a shortpause he said that he would rather stay where they were and, sosaying, he began to examine some of the prints on the walls. Fromthem he passed to the furniture. He seemed so appreciative ofboth that Ingram, apparently anxious to make up for his verydefinite refusal of something much wanted by the other, took himupstairs, and showed him the floor on which his own bedroomwas.
Appleton seemed greatly interested. "I wonder if the chap whoowns these would be willing to sell anything," he murmured.Ingram knew that Appleton often acted as intermediary in suchtransactions. The one-time actor had long ago run through thefortune left him and, except for his wife's steady income, hishousehold would have been in straights long ago. Ingram hadhelped Appleton many a time, and would do so many a time more,but not to any large amount. He had learned that that wasfolly.
He did not feel at liberty to show him the inside of any ofthe rooms except his own and Gilmour's, who, he knew, would notmind all the world tramping through his quarters. As it was, thetwo rooms and the corridor kept them quite a while, for Appletonseemed to have a passion for trying to date furniture. Hesuggested once or twice that his brother-in-law should leave him,but Ingram assured him that at the moment he had the time tospare. But at last he grew restive and frankly glanced at theclock on the landing below them. Appleton caught the glance.Ingram apologized. "I had no idea the time had flown so," he saidthen. "As a matter of fact I am rather rushing some work to itsend—and to the printers. So if you really won't stop andhave a drink?..."
Appleton said that he too was rather in a hurry, and tookhimself off, after insisting that Ingram should not come downwith him.
Moy happened to be coming down the stairs as Appleton wasshown out. In the shadowy recess of the landing sat Tark, hishead bent over his note-book. He seemed to have as much love forfigures as had Ingram. Whenever Moy ran across him, if he was byhimself, Tark would be writing in his rather large note-book whatlooked like sets of figures. He would do this in the oddestplaces, perched on the side of a tub, squatting on the stairs orastride the window ledge. Wherever an idea struck him, if idea itwas, Tark would bring out his note-book and well-sharpenedpencil, and seem to lose the world for some few minutes. He neverappeared to be afraid of being overlooked, though, as far as Moyknew, he never talked of what he was entering with such care.
As Appleton took his hat from the butler he turned and facedthe landing. At the same second Tark looked down to the frontdoor. The two men looked at one another. It was an odd look, Moythought, to pass between a couple of strangers, or mereacquaintances. It was so straight and so long and so utterlyblank. Then the door closed behind Appleton and Tark, putting hisnote-book away, ran lightly down the stairs into a little room onthe left of the front door. As it happened, Moy was on his way tothe room on the right, and there, thinking of Appleton and Tarkand that silent look, he glanced through the window netting.Appleton was lighting a cigarette on the pavement. He was justoutside the window of the room where Tark was and, as he threwaway the match, he looked at it and shook his head with a quickbut decided shake, then he walked on. Moy told himself thatwriting plays, or trying to write them, was bad for one's brain.Appleton was always shaking his head or twitching his forehead orwhisking something invisible off his cheek. And as for Tark, hisindifference towards his fellow-men was quite real, Moy feltcertain, and went to the bone. It was no acquired armor. True, hehad seemed at first desirous of talking to Ingram, but thatdesire was so patently not shared by the mathematician that Tarkseemed to have quite given up all attempts to have a word alonewith him, and now to include Ingram in his cold lack ofinterest.
EVEN Tark looked quite alert, for him, next daywhen he came to lunch. Gilmour and his fiancée—for so thehousehold called her—had not yet come in. Mrs. Pratt wasradiant and chatting gaily to everyone. Winnie was silent, buther cheeks glowed with so vivid a rose and the color faded sonoticeably as the minutes passed that Moy wondered whether Mrs.Pratt had just slapped them. A slanderous thought. They were dueto firm applications of a sponge and hot water. When Winnie didtalk it was to Ingram, ignoring Haliburton.
Then the door opened and there fell an absolute hush asGilmour and a lithe, dark-haired, pale girl came in. Every eyewas riveted on Alfreda. Even Ingram who had heard her namementioned in connection with Gilmour some time ago, had never mether, managed to be looking at the door. He was curious to see theface that could eclipse the beauty of Winnie Pratt's. MissLongstaff stood a second half-smiling at the interest that mether. It was an enigmatic smile, Moy thought. And a ratherenigmatic face. Perhaps that was what had attracted Gilmour, whobegan to introduce her to Mrs. Pratt in a boyish way that wasvery taking.
As for Ingram, he could hardly believe his eyes. He had knownbeforehand that she would fall short of Winnie's standard, butthat this elfish, peaky-faced chit could keep a man fromrealizing the loveliness of Winnie—why Gilmour must beblind! Haliburton thought the same. Moy too was disappointed. Yethe could see something, that, supposing it appealed to you, wouldbe found in Alfreda's face but not in Winnie's. For one thingMiss Longstaff looked clever, he thought, alsodiscontented—or was it merely dissatisfied? She talked wellat lunch, with an air of doing so for her own amusement, notmerely to brighten the lives of others. Mrs. Pratt alone hadwelcomed the newcomer warmly. As for her daughter, after oneswift glance at the other girl, she ignored her. Gilmour did notseem even to remember Winnie's existence as he devoted himself tothe girl now seated beside him. Once when Gilmour got up to layher gloves aside for her, she followed his figure with a lookthat intrigued Moy. There was not a spark of affection in thatglance, he would have said, only something coldly inquisitive.She caught his own meditative look full, and in return fixed herown dark, unfathomable stare on him. Neither seemed to wish to bethe first to look away. Then she finally turned her head aside toMiss Pratt. Looking at the beautiful curve of the slightlyaverted fair head there came into Alfreda's face a smile thatshowed unexpectedly strong white teeth, and there was somethingelse, something sardonic, Moy fancied for an instant, before thesmile passed. Miss Pratt seemed to sense it too, for she lookedaround swiftly, came to life, and began to chat and laugh, andfinally went off gaily with Alfreda for a trial on the tenniscourt. There was no question as to who was the better player.Miss Longstaff seemed to have tireless muscles. Moy, watchingwith the other men, decided that she was playing Miss Pratt aswell as the game. She sent her merciless balls at mercilessangles and made a pace with which Winnie could not possibly cope.But Winnie fought with unexpected pluck and grit. She did not letany game go without a struggle. At the end, hopeless though itwas, she was playing better than at first, that mark of the goodfighter. One advantage she had. She looked like a child ofsixteen with her tumbled curls against her softly flushed littleface. It was wet with exertion, but it only looked like the dewon a flower. Miss Longstaff showed no hint of color in her thinpale cheeks, but she shot a glance at the other when the set wasover that looked vexed, Moy thought, and as though something hadnot turned out quite as she meant it to. Fortunately Winnie tookit all with great dignity, Moy thought, until later when he wentinto the hall to consult an A.B.C. on a side table. From a roombeside him a voice which he knew was Winnie's and yet which hehardly recognized as hers.
She was saying: "I won't let her have him! It's no use,mother. She shan't have him!"
"Haven't you got any pride?" came in withering tones from hermother. At least Moy called the tones withering, but Winniesurvived. For she said still in that tense, desperate voice: "Iwon't give him up to her! She doesn't love him. Oh, mother, if itcame to a test between us, he would see which of us really lovedhim! A real test would soon prove——"
"I don't recognize you," Mrs. Pratt interrupted in a voicethat suggested a genuine difficulty to do this. "He doesn't carefor you. He loves this charming young girl."
"Young girl! She's old enough to be his m—well, she'sover thirty." Winnie had evidently realized that by no stretch ofdislike could Alfreda be Gilmour's mother.
"She's about three years older than you in years I fancy, mydear, but a lot in sense," her mother replied. "The trouble withyou, Winnie, is that you're spoiled. You've always had what youwanted, so you're tired of what you can get, and are hankeringafter what you can't have. Let me tell you, my dear girl, there'snothing more fatal to happiness in man or woman." Mrs. Prattspoke with real feeling. "The fox was wise who said the grapes hecouldn't have were sour. A fool would have set his heart on themjust because he couldn't have them. That's what you'redoing."
"I'm not! Lawrence Gilmour would love me if I only could showhim—"
"You've shown him sufficiently, and everyone else too. Come,Winnie, pull yourself together. Have some pride. Haliburton wantsto marry you. But if you keep this sort of thing up he won't feellike that much longer. You ought to show Lawrence Gilmour thatthough he may not care for you, others do." Mrs. Pratt's tacticswere too transparent to succeed, Moy feared. He himself at themoment was no more conscious of the impropriety of listening thanif he had been at a theater.
"But I like Charles Ingram better." Miss Pratt sounded asthough she was smiling again. "And he too wants to marry me."
Moy had taken a step sideways and could now see into the room.Mrs. Pratt's face startled him. She stood looking down on thebent head of Winnie as the girl fiddled with something on themantel as though she could burst out into a perfect flame ofviolence—vituperation—despair—pleading—but by an effort that was patently all but beyond her, she bither lip in silence and led the way out through a fartherdoor.
Two mornings later, Alfreda told Gilmour that she would not beable to go with him to a dog show as they had planned, or ratheras he had planned for her.
"I've got so much fitting-out to do," she said with one of herunfriendly smiles, "and shan't be visible until one o'clocktoday." She seemed to have an early morning appointment, for itwas only half-past eight when she left the house. She took somecare to see that she was not followed, rather an odd idea onewould have said, but she saw no one, and tests such as jumping onto a bus at the last moment and off when all but started, whichreduced two conductors to close on apoplexy, assured her that noone had any interest in her movements. That ascertained, she madefor a tube which landed her at Hammersmith Broadway. Here sheturned into a street that was once lived in by city men whowanted the country. At a house with a black door and orange-paintedpillars, she ran up the steps, inserted a latch-key withwhich she did not seem at all familiar, and finally let herselfinto a hall. A woman in a rather elaborate frock for the morningcame forward with a mixture of graciousness andcondescension.
"Miss Gray, isn't it? Your room's all ready for you. Butwouldn't you like to write in the lounge? As I told you yesterdayafternoon when you took the room, no one will disturb you there,only Mrs. Findlay ever uses it at this hour, and you'll find itwarm and cosy. Better than being in the basement, don't youthink?"
"Thanks awfully, I'll try it," Alfreda said brightly. And in acorner of a glassed-in lounge she ensconced herself, writing-padon knee. But she did not write much. Her dark eyes flashed to andfro about the main corridor which showed through the side of thelounge. Presently the manageress entered with a big stout womanof middle age, who wore a sort of mantilla of black lace on herhead fastened to her white hair in front with a large silver starand floating below her waist at the back. Two corkscrew ringletsdangled over each ear.
"This is Miss Gray." The manageress steered the older woman tothe newcomer's corner. "She's interested in disarmament too, Mrs.Findlay, so I thought you and she would be congenial spirits."And the manageress left them.
"Oh, do you care too?" Alfreda asked eagerly, scanning thewoman in front of her closely. "I didn't know anyonecared—really. Anyone but myself and the man I'm engaged to,Lawrence Gilmour."
"Lots of people care," Mrs. Findlay answered a trifle coldly.She had rather a forbidding eye and jaw. The woman was one ofthose people who are often pitied for being solitary, but who arethat by choice. True, she had outlived all her family, and waspractically alone in the world, but had she had a host ofrelations the result would have been the same. Now, after a fewmoments' silence, she made as if to go out again, but Alfredasprang up.
"Don't go!" she said appealingly. "I'm so frightfully pleasedto have met someone who can tell me about what we women can do.The idea of all these war preparations is awful. Surely, if weband together, we can be of some use."
Mrs. Findlay was conquered for the moment. This was her hobby,or rather it was more than that. It was the window through whichher soul drew in a little air and light and so managed to existin the desert that she had made of the rest of her life. At firstreluctantly, then more freely, she let Alfreda draw her out onthe subject. Alfreda, for her part listened as though to aSibyl.
"Oh, I would like to join!" she breathed, when Mrs. Findlaymentioned the Women's Peace Movement, of which she was anhonorary secretary. "So would Lawrence—Mr. Gilmour. I thinkyou must have seen him at some of the meetings—" and shedescribed Gilmour. Mrs. Findlay looked a trifle impatient. Shesaid that she had not seen any young man at any of theirmeetings. Something quivered across Alfreda's face and was gone,but whether she wanted to hear an affirmative, or the negativethat had been forthcoming, it was difficult to say.
At ten she put her papers together. "I write, you know," shemurmured. "Just little things of no account. But I might be ableto get in some article which would help."
This time it was Mrs. Findlay who looked eager and, on hearingthat Alfreda expected to be in the lounge on the followingmorning at the same hour, said that she would like to continuetheir talk. Alfreda put her blank paper away in the littlebasement room that she had taken late yesterday afternoon andhurried to the door. But the manageress stopped her.
"I saw you having quite a nice chat," she said pleasantly,"and to no one else does Mrs. Findlay ever open her mouth. I toldher it would be a change for her to meet someone who shared herinterests. Generally she just sits there while her room is beingaired, and we daren't talk to her."
Alfreda nodded and hurried off, her face a mixture ofemotions; she jumped on a bus that would take her close to TheTall House, satisfaction and dissatisfaction were to be read inher quick, dark eyes. But at nine on the following day she was inthe lounge again, and again she and Mrs. Findlay talked of peace,and of how to stop the preparations for war that were darkeningall the world.
The next morning after that Mrs. Findlay referred to somebooks she had in her room, and Alfreda seemed so keen on seeingthem that, after a second's hesitation, she asked the youngerwoman in to a large dreary bed-sitting-room as it is called. Thebooks in question were stacked on a table, and Alfreda promptlytook off the top one.
"May I take this home and read it?" she begged. "I'll bring itback tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow a friend is coming to see me about this time," Mrs.Findlay quid in her stiff way. "As a matter of fact he too hasjust read that book."
"Can't I run in and hand it to you?" Alfreda asked, her faceall innocence.
"I'm afraid my friend is elderly, and has so few minutes tospare, and counts too much on finding me alone," Mrs. Findlaysaid coldly, and she remained very cool for the rest of the timethat Alfreda as usual spent with her, and when the girl left withthe book, rather earlier than usual, Mrs. Findlay stopped for aword with the manageress in the hall.
"That Miss Gray who's just come seems rather a pushing youngperson," was her remark. "I'm afraid she'd be quite a nuisance ifI weren't leaving next week. Please don't let her know I'm going;she's quite capable of asking herself down to my cottage in thecountry."
"I wouldn't breathe a word about your going," the manageressassured her. Mrs. Findlay had the largest room in the house, hadtaken it at a time when rents were at their highest, and,therefore, paid nearly double what it would now bring. Besides,she was leaving, she had just had an unexpected windfall, and themanageress hoped that some parting present might brighten her ownnone too gay lot.
"How did she come to speak to you about me in the firstplace?" Mrs. Findlay asked.
"She came in just after you the other afternoon. She waslooking for a room, and after she had taken hers, we stood amoment chatting, and she said she thought she had seen you atSpiritualistic stances near here. I told her I didn't think thatat all likely."
"Preposterous!" chimed in Mrs. Findlay.
"She said something about the star you wear, and I told herthat was the Star of Peace, and that you were tremendously keenon there being no more wars, and disarmament and so on...Shehardly let me finish, she was so eager to tell me that she and agentleman friend, a Mr. Gil—something, I think that was thename, were both so keen on that too. She said she'd like ever somuch to have a chance of talking to you. That you looked soclever she'd love to hear your views."
Mrs. Findlay's face relaxed.
"Well, of course, it was quite natural, under thecircumstances I mean, for you to have introduced her that firstmorning...the truth is," Mrs. Findlay lowered her voice, "Iwondered if she had got on the track of that little money I cameinto so unexpectedly the other day...it's to be paid me shortlyand I she stopped herself.
"Oh, no! No one knows about that! You said it was strictlyconfidential!" the manageress assured her. "I do hope this MissGray hasn't been troublesome. She seemed quite the lady."
"Oh, I don't doubt it's all right, just youthfulfervor"—Mrs. Findlay smiled a little at her—"butsomehow, it seemed to me so sudden...and so very pronounced..."She half-stopped herself. "I felt doubtful of her sincerity," shefinished, "but, as you say, it's probably just her way. But don'tlet her take to coming to my room. Should she ever speak to youabout it, while I'm still here, please discourage her. I did askher there just now in a moment of weakness, but she's such astayer...and I'm so busy getting my things together...she spokeof coming in tomorrow morning, for instance, but I told her Ishould be engaged. Poor old Mr. Nevern would be quite swamped byher. It's his day to drop in for an hour..." and with a nod Mrs.Findlay swept on to her room and castle.
The manageress passed the conversation on to the headhousemaid, her trusted assistant.
"Funny!" that young woman murmured. "I mean Miss Gray being sokeen on Mrs. Findlay. She's not everybody's fancy, is she? Iwonder if she has heard about that money and is making up to Mrs.Findlay because of it."
"She can't possibly know. And don't forget, you don't knowanything about it, either!" the manageress warned her.
"Mrs. Findlay told me about it herself, just now. Said she hadcome in quite unexpectedly for some money and might easily comein for more. Said she was going round the world. I said I didn'twonder. I'd go round the world twice over if only someone wouldleave me a five-pound note for doing it. Wouldn't you?" and thetalk drifted to what one would do if one came into wealth.
As the days passed, Winnie and Alfreda avoided each other, butwhen they met they were quite civil, especially Alfreda, who wentout of her way to be nice to the other. She openly admired herbeauty, and spoke of feeling as though Winnie were a lovelyflower to be shielded from rough winds, something fragile that notempest should touch. This much was gained by Alfreda's presence,that Miss Pratt spoke very little to Gilmour. She really retiredinto something resembling polite sulks, talking to Ingram, buthardly deigning to see Haliburton, and spending most of her timeat other houses. As for Miss Longstaff, Moy thought her in herown way as aloof as Tark, but with something watchful added. Shewould fix that odd unreadable stare of hers now on one, now onanother of the house party as though trying to understandsomething which puzzled her.
Frederick Ingram came more frequently to the house now. Heavoided Gilmour as much as possible, but when the two met theyseemed to be able to meet on a footing of indifferent civility.Miss Longstaff appeared rather to like Frederick, and as thatyoung man was fond of an audience, he would often be found by herside if Miss Pratt were out of reach. He did not stay at The TallHouse, but came and went, taking and bringing papers to hishalf-brother.
It was just a little over a week after Alfreda's arrival whenall happened to be in the lounge around six. The cocktails hadbeen handed about, and the talk turned on ghosts. No oneafterwards seemed able to remember exactly how it started.Someone—Moy said he thought it was Tark, Tark said it wasHaliburton, Haliburton maintained that it was Frederick,Frederick insisted that it was Gilmour, and Gilmour said that hefelt sure it was Ingram—mentioned that a man whom he hadmet lately had spoken to him of what a splendid display Appletonused to give as a ghost in a Grand Guignol play. But all agreedthat it was Frederick who said that The Tall House had a ghost,that one of its former owners had been found hanged. It wassuspected though never proved that his valet did the hanging. Theold man's ghost was said to walk.
Ingram said that a ghost was always part of the furniture ofan old house, and asked Moy whether on the expiration of atenancy it had to be handed back in the same condition as whentaken over.
"Fair wear and tear excepted," Moy said at once, amidlaughter.
"A safe provision," Haliburton pointed out, "as nothing coulddamage ghostly bones or clothes, not even bullets."
"The ghost had better not bank on that," Gilmour said with amost unaccustomed edge to his voice. "Personally, if I meet one,I shall fire at sight."
Something in his tone made the group fall silent.
"How will you let the ghost know of its danger beforehand?"Winnie asked with one of her tinkling laughs. "By a notice to thePsychical Society?"
"I think I have given notice by what I am saying." Gilmour'stone was still hard. "There aren't such things as real ghosts,there are only practical jokers. And, as I say, I warn any jokerhere that that particular piece of foolishness isn't a safe oneto play on me."
"You seem rather warm about it," Ingram said dryly.
"Sorry!" Gilmour's tanned face looked apologetic. "I'm afraidI did rather get on my hind legs, but I was badly frightened by aso-called ghost as a kid, and the mere mention of them makes mesee red ever since."
He looked round for Miss Longstaff. But that young lady hadmoved behind him to an open window. She was standing very rigid,her head and chin stuck out at an angle that was not at allpretty, but which suggested breathless excitement. One hand wasfingering a string of beads she wore; it had an effect of beingpressed against her heart. Moy remembered afterwards that nottill the talk changed did she relax that absorbed pose of hers.Gilmour, still without seeing her, rose and left the lounge.Frederick Ingram followed him for a moment.
"He means it right enough," he said, coming back. "He's got itinto his head that one of us is going to play that same prank onhim again, and he wants everyone to know that he really intends'to shoot at sight. I think he suspects me."
"Is he a good shot?" Tark asked in his creaky, expressionlessvoice. Everyone laughed.
"Very," Ingram spoke up now. "Very," he repeated, lookingsharply at his brother. "But I don't think I'm giving anyone muchof a surprise when I add that his revolver is loaded withblank."
"Blank or loaded, I have no intention of amusing Gilmour,"Frederick said promptly. "But it's as well for the rest of you toknow that you needn't drop on the floor when you hear abang."
Ingram turned away and picked up a book near him. When he wasnot writing he was sure to be reading, Winnie had once told him.She crossed to his side now. "I can't imagine you without books."She smiled at him one of her softest, most radiant smiles.
"Let's take a turn in the fresh air," he said under hisbreath. "Somehow the air in here's a bit hot...electric...but asto being without books, there are other things I couldn't livewithout. When this month is up, Winnie"—he had never calledher by her first name before—"how are you going tochoose?"
"My mother wants me to marry Basil Haliburton," she saidevasively.
"Are you going to?" he asked, standing still and taking holdof a spray of Bokhara vine.
"You've spoiled matters," she said with one of her mostflirtatious upward glances. "But for you, I shouldn't havehesitated. Until you came, I felt so sure I cared for him."
"What about Lawrence Gilmour?" The question came before hecould check it. She cocked a supercilious chin at him.
"Lawrence Gilmour? Why, he's engaged. It isn't because of Mr.Gilmour that I'm not sure what I shall say to BasilHaliburton."
Even the adoring Ingram looked a bit doubtful, and the chinswept up still more.
"You alone complicate matters," she said softly and yet ratherwearily. As she spoke they turned a corner and almost stepped onHaliburton himself. It was an awkward meeting. Even Winnie wasnonplussed for a second, then she made some remark about theflowers, and the evening light, and the young man took it uppleasantly, but he avoided looking, or speaking, directly toIngram.
THAT night Moy was awakened by the last soundthat the young solicitor ever expected to hear in ahouse—the sound of a shot. With it came a loud cry and thena thud.
Still rigid with bewilderment, he heard a sort of sobbingfalsetto:
"Where's the light? God, where's the switch?" The voice seemedthat of a stranger and yet there was something about it whichreminded him of Gilmour.
Moy came to life and sprang out of bed. He rushed into thepassage. Bright moonlight flooded it. Just in front of him wasthe big main passage leading down to Gilmour's room, the door ofwhich faced him across the landing at the farther end. Halfwaydown the passage was Ingram's room and it was in front of thatroom that something bulky and white was lying.
Coming towards Moy and towards the heap on the ground,staggering as though he were drunk, and clawing at the wall withhis left hand, was a man in pajamas. The right hand wasoutstretched and held something small that glittered in the cold,white light; glittered all the more because it wavered and swungto and fro, as though the arm were a broken signpost in a gale ofwind. In the moonlight the man's face showed so blanched, sodistorted with its protruding eyeballs and open mouth that Moythought it was a stranger's for a moment. Then he saw it wasGilmour. Just by the white heap on the floor both almost collidedwith each other. Their hands met and closed on a switch. At thesame instant other voices, men's voices, called out to know whatwas wrong, and lights blazed out in the cross passages.
Moy and Gilmour were both on their knees beside thatmotionless heap on the ground. It was heavy, and seemed to bewrapped in sheeting, but at last Moy got hold of a loose end ofthe stuff and flung it back—to show the dead face ofIngram, with a small red hole in the exact center of theforehead. He was still warm, still flexible. Moy stared down athim in horror. Yet there was nothing horrifying in the faceitself. On the contrary it was beautiful in its own marble way,with a certain grand air of peace, profound and real.
"A doctor! A doctor!" Gilmour almost sobbed. "It's some awfulmistake—it can't be! It was loaded with blank!"
Moy heard a sort of shocked cluck over his shoulder. It wasHaliburton who was now bending down beside him.
"He can't be dead! The cartridges were blanks, I tell you.Where's a doctor? One hears of people being resuscitated afterhours—" Gilmour was all but inarticulate, and was shakingviolently. The revolver dropped from his grip as he spoke, and hepushed it to one side while he tried to raise Ingram's head andturn it to the light.
"A doctor will be fetched at once," Moy spoke in a whisper.This was a most dreadful affair. "But how did it happen? Wherewas Ingram? I mean, when you fired?"
The solicitor in Moy was seeking data, but Haliburton touchedhim on the shoulder.
"We must get a doctor here at once!"
They were in front of Ingram's own room. It had a telephone init. Gilmour caught it up with shaking fingers. Then he turned hisface to the others. He looked like a man living in anightmare.
"I—I can't remember the name of any doctor. Quick! Whoknows one? And what his number is?"
Moy reached for the directory. The shock had driven his owndoctor's number out of his mind too, but Haliburton, with asympathetic glance at Gilmour, took the receiver from him and ina steady firm tone gave the Mayfair number of his father'sphysician.
Moy laid down the directory. As he did so, he saw Tark justinside the door which he was holding open. But a Tark with allhis usual air of sardonic detachment shed. This was Tark with thelid off, Moy decided, and the inside of the man seemed to be aseething cauldron. Neither then nor afterwards could Moy name theemotions that he saw frothing up together. In almost the sameinstant Tark stepped back, shutting the door noiselessly behindhim, but not before Moy saw, on the stairs behind, hanging as itwere like a moon in the darkness, a girl's white face andrecognized it as Alfreda Longstaff.
"Look here," Moy said again while Haliburton was trying torouse the household of the great man in Harley Street, "how didit happen, Gilmour?"
"I fired at a ghost, a blank cartridge, and then I heard itcry out, and—" Gilmour stopped and sank into a chair,covering his face with his hands.
"Where's the revolver?" Moy urged. It was partly kindness. Hethought that anything was better than letting Gilmour live overin memory what had just happened. Gilmour did not lift his head.Moy, on the instant that he spoke, remembered the littleglittering thing dropping beside Ingram's body, and, opening thedoor, now stepped into the passage again. He almost trod on MissLongstaff, who, the revolver in her hands, was turning away fromthe body on the carpet. On her face was the last look that Moyexpected to see, a look as unexpected as the shot had been, forit had in it a sort of vindictive satisfaction; a sort of excitedgloating, he called it to himself afterwards.
"Hand me that revolver, please," he said sharply. "Is ityours?" she asked.
"I represent the absent owner of the house. And I representIngram's relatives. Hand me that weapon, please."
She let him have it, though reluctantly.
He broke it open. All five remaining cartridges seemed to beblank.
"How did it happen? Who shot him?" she asked, and again therewas that suggestion of eagerness about her that was so ghoulishat such a moment.
"Do go back to your room," Moy urged. "This is no place for agirl. As you can see, there's been an awful accident, andIngram's been shot." Suddenly he stopped. He noticed now thatIngram's body now lay covered by a sheet. He eyed Miss Longstaffinquiringly.
"He looked so dreadful staring up," she said, and for thefirst time there was a hint of confusion in her voice.
Ingram had not looked dreadful. This covered mound was muchmore horrible.
"No one should touch him," Moy said with the same sternness inhis voice as when he had asked her for the revolver.
"Why? Was it murder?" She drew a deep breath and looked at himwith that odd, unreadable stare of hers. "Who shot him?" shepersisted.
"I did," came a dull voice from behind them. "I did, Freda."Gilmour had come out into the corridor again.
"Oh, please don't call me Freda, Mr. Gilmour," came theinstant reply. "There's no question of any future engagementbetween us—after this. Of course, you realize thattoo."
Gilmour looked as though she had struck him. His white facewent even whiter.
"You don't mean it! It's not possible! You can't—" hebegan in a strangled voice, taking an imploring step towards her.Her answer was to turn her back on him and walk away. As she didso there came the swift rush of feet down the stairs. Miss Pratt,looking a dream in a floating gown the color of sweet peas, rantowards Gilmour, her two hands outstretched.
"Mr. Tark tells me—oh Lawrence, I'm so sorry! So sorry!For you!" She thrust her little white hands into Gilmour's fists,who dropped the white fingers after the most perfunctory touchand took a step after the other slender figure, the one fullydressed, with the short straight dark hair brushed smoothly backlike a boy's from the hard but vivid face.
"Alfreda! Miss Longstaff!" he began again. She turned, andstanding still, bent on him again that inscrutable stare of hers,and something in it was so inimical that he stepped back andstood staring at her. As she turned a corner, he at last lookedat Winnie.
"You shouldn't be here. Your mother wouldn't like it." Hespoke as though his thoughts were quite elsewhere.
Alfreda had gone straight to Mrs. Pratt's rooms. She knockedat the bedroom door and called through the panels. "It's me, Mrs.Pratt, Alfreda Longstaff. Something has happened. Your daughterneeds you." There came a muffled sort of squeak from within, butthe door was not opened for quite a long minute.
Then Mrs. Pratt stepped out. "What's that about Winnie? Whereis she? What on earth has happened?" Her face looked oddlyblotched as though some strapping or top dressing had beenroughly pulled off.
"Mr. Gilmour has killed Mr. Ingram, and your daughter istelling him how sorry she is for him." The tone was dry.
There was nothing muffled about Mrs. Pratt's squeak this time."Winnie, where are you? Wait for me! Wait!" And as though aperformance were about to begin which she would not miss forworlds, she scurried in the direction of Alfreda's pointing hand.In front of Ingram's bedroom she stopped in horror. For once shehad nothing to say for a full minute. Then she turned toWinnie.
"Come, dearest, we're only in the way here. We must get Yatesup, and see to our packing. The kindest thing we can do foreveryone is to get away as soon as possible. Come, Winnie!"
"I won't leave now—like this." Winnie spokeindignantly.
Mrs. Pratt turned to Moy. Her eyes asked her questions.
"Ingram played the part of a ghost and Gilmour fired at him ablank cartridge, as he thought—which must have been loaded.He's dead," he murmured, his eyes on the white mound to whom the"he" referred.
Mrs. Pratt turned to Gilmour with what looked like genuineemotion.
"Oh, you poor boy! You poor, poor boy! And, and—howawful!" She did not try to put the rest of her feelings intowords.
Winnie let her mother lead her away. They found Alfreda pacingtheir little sitting-room.
"I suppose you're leaving, too?" she asked, as Winnie hurriedon to her own room with her lips pressed together.
Mrs. Pratt closed the door. "I'm so sorry for you, my deargirl," she began gently, "and so shocked—so indescribablyshocked for that poor boy!"
"We're not going to be engaged, if you refer to LawrenceGilmour," Alfreda said composedly.
"What?" Mrs. Pratt fairly jumped. "But surely! But this isdreadfully sudden!" she finished lamely.
"His shooting of Mr. Ingram was dreadfully sudden," was thereply.
"But surely, for a time, you'll let things stand over!" Mrs.Pratt was almost pleading. "It will look so dreadfully heartless,to drop him the very instant it happened."
"I have no intention, now or ever, of getting engaged to Mr.Gilmour. I think you ought to know."
The door opened. Winnie came in. She could not stay in any oneplace for long.
"You're acting horribly!" she began.
"I'm not acting at all." There was meaning in the look theelder girl gave the younger. Winnie seemed to pay no attention toit.
"He needs you!" she protested instead.
Mrs. Pratt nodded her head emphatically. Alfreda shot themother a glance openly mocking. But she said nothing.
"I'd go through anything with the man I loved!" camepassionately from Winnie.
"Supposing he loved you," the other girl finished dryly."Perhaps it's just as well for you that Mr. Gilmour doesn't seemto fill that condition."
Winnie's cheeks flamed.
"A girl would have to have a perfect passion for notoriety tomarry him after this," Alfreda went on.
The door slammed behind Winnie. Mrs. Pratt looked half-gratefully,half-indignantly, at her visitor, who gave her one ofher odd stares and went out to run lightly down into Ingram'sstudy. She closed the door noiselessly behind her. For a secondshe stood sniffing the air. It smelled of...yes, of that oddtobacco Mr. Tark liked...but she had not come here to smelltobacco. She slipped over to the bureau, found its top unlocked,stood obviously listening for any sound from outside and, hearingnone, opened it and with swift, deft fingers looked through it.Every scrap of paper was glanced at. It was fairly empty. Sheturned over the drawers. Only blank paper was in them with theexception of the bottom drawer, which was locked. She was pullingat it when she heard steps coming down the back stairs close tothe library door. Instantly she slipped out of the door by whichshe had entered, into the lounge and on up the stairs, along apassage, and up another flight of stairs. Here she let herselfinto an empty bedroom, and, closing its door to with the utmostcaution, sat down at a little bookcase table on which stood atelephone extension. Very quietly she gave a number. It was thatof the proprietor of theMorning Wire.
"Hello!" came a man's voice in answer to her ring. It was notthe voice that she had heard on the golf links. "What is it?"
"I want to speak to Mr. Warner."
"Who are you? What do you want to speak to him about? I'm oneof Mr. Warner's secretaries." The voice was not encouraging.
"Will you tell Mr. Warner that the Miss Longstaff who played agame of golf with him on the links at Bispham is staying in ahouse at Chelsea with a Mr. Ingram who has just been killed byhis friend. The friend claims that it was an accident."
"Ingram...what is his first name, do you know?"
"Charles."
She heard a sound. The secretary had sprung out of bed. Acouple of minutes more and Miss Longstaff heard Warner's voicesaying sharply:
"What's this about Ingram's death? And who is speaking?"
Miss Longstaff reminded him of the game they had playedtogether. "Now, Mr. Warner, I've really got hold of someinteresting news. No other paper has it—yet. You told methat a scoop would get me a position—"
"What is this about Ingram's death? Where did he die? How washe killed?" Warner's tone was that of a man who would hang upunless answered immediately.
"He's been shot by the friend who shares his flat at Harrow, aman named Lawrence Gilmour. He claims it was an accident. He sayshe fired what he thought was a blank shot at someone pretendingto be a ghost, and found that it was Mr. Ingram whom he hadkilled. The shot was not blank. That's Mr. Gilmour's story."
She heard another voice speaking, the voice of the man to whomher first telephone message had gone. "Yes, Gilmour. Of the CivilService...That much is all right, sir. But as for therest—"
"One moment," Warner's voice came again. "Now give me all thefacts again, please. But only the ones you are sure of. First ofall, where are you? And when exactly did this happen?"
Swiftly, she had that journalistic quality, and briefly,another great gift, and, all things considered, very objectively,she told of what had just happened.
"Now, Mr. Warner," she wound up, "suppose this could be shownto be not an accident...wouldn't it be the scoop which you saidwould give me a post on your paper?"
Warner had not said quite that. "She's probably just trying iton," was his murmured comment to Ryland, his secretary, "I mean,about its not being an accident...but if there's anything init...she struck me as being a very resourceful young woman...andunscrupulous as they're made." Warner added this last thought asthough it were an added point in her favor.
"Well?" she asked sharply, "have I the promise of a post onthe paper if I can prove what I claim? That Mr. Gilmour's storycan't be true?"
"If you can prove that, Miss Longstaff, we'll give you atrial."
"I want the offer in writing," came her answer.
Warner, with a faint smile, told Ryland to write a note whichwould do until the usual contract could be sent. The draft wasread her and she graciously deigned to approve.
"It's not often a paper has such a chance offered it," shesaid.
"Nor an outsider either, Miss Longstaff," Warner barkedback.
"Oh, of course. These things have always to be mutual," shemurmured as cynically as an old company promoter. "My namemustn't come out, of course. That's to be absolutelyguaranteed."
"I'll send one of my men down at once. Name of Courtfield.Give him all the information you can. He'll know how to put itinto shape. Be on the look-out for him and let him in yourself,if possible. He's a small man—dark—turned-upnose—cleft in his chin. He'll be wearing a big yellowbuttonhole and will loiter about on the pavement opposite TheTall House. You'll have to prove all your assertions."
"I don't know about all," came Miss Longstaff's voice, "but Ishall be able to prove the one that matters most."
"You'll have to prove, or be prepared to prove, any we print,"Warner said authoritatively. He thought this young woman neededfirmness.
"Personally, I shouldn't be surprised if she killed himherself in order to get a chance with us." Warner's hand was overthe transmitter. "But Courtfield will soon find out..." Heuncovered the instrument. "Who else is staying in the house, MissLongstaff?"
She told him. He passed it on, again with the transmittercovered.
"Miss Winifred Pratt?" Ryland spelled it with one "t" in hisinterest, "the Beauty? We have her picture taken the night shewas presented..."
"Ah," Warner murmured, "possibly she's the explanation. Well,if so, Courtfield will find out. If the beautiful Miss Pratt isroped in to the affair, so much the more stir. I don't need totell Courtfield to keep his eye open for libel actions. Though Idon't think Miss Longstaff will cross the line. Too clever byhalf."
MEANWHILE a hitch had occurred. The doctor towhom Haliburton had telephoned was just getting into his car,when an urgent summons reached him from a patient who washovering between life and death. He dashed off to her bedside,and left his secretary to suggest over the 'phone to Haliburtonthat, since death had already occurred, and from an accident,Haliburton had perhaps better send for the police. This wouldhave been suggested in the first place, had it not been thatimportant young man himself who had spoken over the wire.
Haliburton jerked his lower lip sideways and set his teethtogether as he did when anything happened which he greatlydisliked. He glanced at Moy and repeated what had just beensaid.
"Of course!" Moy said impatiently, "obviously we need thepolice, and at once. It's like a ship with plague on board. Youmust get the officials in before the passengers can get off.We're in quarantine until the regulations are complied with."
"The police..." Haliburton hesitated. "It's most unpleasantfor—the women. There's no mystery here."
"No, but there's been a death by misadventure. Of course wemust have the police."
Haliburton looked up the name of the nearest police station.Moy went out into the corridor. He felt as though unless he movedso as to keep pace with his surging thoughts, they would leavehim behind—an idiot—and rush on whirling and spinningof their own volition. As a matter of fact, he was not thinkingat all. He was feeling, and feeling to the exclusion ofeverything else. Horror. Regret for Ingram, that finemathematician and charming personality; sympathy with Gilmour;amazement at Alfreda Longstaff...There she was, by the way,scanning the carpet as though intent on mending it...He caught upwith her.
"I wonder if you realize," he began, "how greatly yourbreaking off of your engagement will bias the police againstGilmour." He spoke temperately, but he felt warm. She looked athim with a smile that increased his dislike of the girl. Oh, shewas deep...unfathomable. Quite unlike lovely warm-hearted WinniePratt.
"I wonder," she murmured, and stood a moment quite still withdowncast lids.
"Perhaps I've been too hasty," she said now with a singularlyunconvincing accent of regret. "I really know nothing of what'shappened, except what Mr. Gilmour has said, and, of course, he isso upset. Did he really fire at Mr. Ingram?" she asked in a toneof intense interest which he found hard to answer civilly.
"As you heard. He did. With a cartridge which he thought wasblank and which by some horrible mistake was loaded. And whichkilled Ingram."
Again she looked him straight in the face with that unreadablestare of hers.
"What a good shot he must be!" was her quite unexpectedcomment.
Moy almost jumped. "Look here, if you say a thing like that,you render yourself open to a libel action." He spokeseverely.
"But why? If he thought he was firing blank?" She met hisscrutiny with bland nonchalance. "I think he and Mr. Ingrampractised revolver shooting a good deal," she went on.
"I don't know," he muttered.
"The first time I met Mr. Gilmour he said something about it."She was standing in the window now playing with the tassel of thecurtain.
"Where did you first meet him?" he asked and, on that, he hadthe satisfaction of seeing a look cross her face that said quiteplainly that she wished the words unsaid. Then her gaze returnedto the street. She saw a small man walking briskly along theopposite pavement. In his coat was an enormous yellowbuttonhole.
"Oh, down in the country," she replied, as she began to walktowards the stairs and descend them with an air of doing soalmost mechanically. The front door was out of sight of where Moywas standing. With cautious care she opened the door. It was notbolted, she saw. Instantly the man with the yellow buttonholecame in. He dropped the decoration into his pocket as he didso.
"Thank heaven it was early. The only yellow flowers I couldfind were some paper daffodils from my diggings and two menalready have asked me if I was doing it for a bet. Now, MissLongstaff, will you give me your news, please. My name isCourtfield. Here's my card."
He was studying her as he spoke with a pair of eyes that tookher in from head to heel. Everything for his paper would dependon this young woman's trustworthiness. Could she be relied on?That was the paramount question. But behind it was another thatinterested the crime expert almost as much. Why had shevolunteered to give the information in the first place? Was itvengeance for the dead, or against the living? He had met Ingram,and he had met Gilmour. He knew of the friendship between the twomen. Why did this girl believe, or pretend to believe, that thelatter had killed the other? Civil Servants are not, as a rule, abloodthirsty lot. Gilmour had seemed quite the averagepleasant-tempered chap one meets at every turn. Ingram had not shownany irritating peculiarities...then why had this young woman 'phonedas she had done? Meeting that stare of her black eyes he felt apersonality here, a will of steel...Was it merely because of theoffer of a permanent post on the paper that she had come forwardor was there some other sharper spur? The presence in the houseof the lovely Miss Pratt, did that stand for anything?
But Miss Longstaff was now speaking to him. She led him into asmall room rarely used by any of the present household. It waschiefly given over to some defunct owner's butterfly collection,and there she said a few swift sentences to which Courtfieldlistened as though they were directions concerning the finding ofhidden treasure. Then he slipped out again. He did not want tomeet the police. No paper would care deliberately to flout them,and he would be at once asked how he got into the house, and whathe intended to print. His name, for once, would not appear belowhis article. It was to be strictly anonymous and to remainso.
Upstairs Moy paced the corridor back and forth, that strangelook on Alfreda's mobile face haunted him. And the look that shehad fastened on Gilmour's bowed head as she came into the roomwhere Haliburton stood telephoning. A suggestion of a futuretriumph, of a "you wait!" vindictiveness about it...What was shegoing to do? For Moy felt sure that she meant to take some activehand in matters...or could it be that she had already taken it,and was now waiting for the harvest to appear? He believed thatshe was glad of the awful position in which Gilmour stood...Butsurely no one could even pretend that this was anything but agenuine accident? Or a terrible blunder. Though Gilmour was anunusually careful and neat-fingered young man. Was it possiblethat this was a crime on Gilmour's part? But Moy, putting asideall preconceived idea as to Gilmour's character, could not seethe likelihood of that. The two lived together. If Gilmour, forsome as yet absolutely hidden reason, wished to murder Ingram, hecould have done so in a dozen better ways without ruining his ownlife. For no matter how sympathetic the jury or the coroner mightbe—supposing him, or them, to be in a kindly mood—thefact remained that Gilmour's whole life was ruined. He couldnever forget, and the world would never forget, that he hadkilled Ingram. There was only one chance for Gilmour that Moycould see, and that was that, supposing a crime to be here andnot an accident, Gilmour could discover its author. But even ifhe succeeded in doing this, or even if the police succeeded,could it be proved? Say that someone who hated Gilmour, hadsecretly substituted a loaded cartridge for the first blank one,the deed was done. Could the past give up its secrets in anythingso difficult to prove, so swiftly accomplished? Moy did not seehow Gilmour could ever be set free from suspicion, or rather fromthe pillory of being a marked man all his life unless the crimecould be brought home to the real criminal—if a crime, anda criminal, existed behind this death of Ingram. Assuming it notto be due to accident, the murderer, Moy reasoned, must besomeone with a motive for killing Ingram, and also someone whoknew where the revolver and the cartridges of Gilmour were kept.Suddenly his face blanched a little. He saw that he must gofurther—much—than this, and he realized that if acrime lay here, then the criminal must have overheard or beentold of, that talk only this evening in the lounge, when Gilmourhad warned the company that if anyone tried to frighten him byplaying a ghost he would fire at it. A sound came from behindhim. It was the butler, looking quite gay in pajamas of rainbowhue and a green dressing-gown.
"Is anything wrong, sir?" he asked, looking about him andquickly taking in all that there was to be seen. Hobbs had servedin the War and his gaze dwelt on the white mound farther down thepassage.
"It's Mr. Ingram," Moy said. "I rang for you for nearly fiveminutes on end."
"We sleep on the top floor now, sir, and the bells don't reachus. But I heard doors closing, and came along to reconnoiter, andnearly ran into Mr. Tark who was coming to wake us up...He toldme what had happened. I've told the housekeeper to let the othersknow. Have the police been notified, sir?"
As he asked the question, came the sound of a car drawing upwith a swish, and a quiet press of the electric bell. Quiet andyet insistent.
Hobbs ran down, and Moy bent over the landing balustrade. Hedid not intend to leave the corridor to itself again. Through thebig front door slipped a short, stout man, a doctor, Moy rightlyguessed. Then came a figure that filled it well. Chief InspectorPointer was a tall, soldierly-looking man with a tanned, pleasantface and a pair of very steady, tranquil, dark gray eyes, thegray of the thinker, without any blue in them. He was followed inhis turn by three other men.
"It's Mr. Moy, sir," the butler said as he looked up at theyoung solicitor.
Moy thought that such an introduction was open tomisconstruction seeing what had just happened, but he only leanedover and asked if they would all come up to him as he did notwant to leave the corridor.
"The body is here," he added.
The chief inspector said a word to the butler, who remainedbehind with one of his men, then he took the stairs three at atime, noiselessly as a cat.
Moy introduced himself. "I represent the dead man, Mr.Ingram's relatives, as well as the owner of the house. Bothare—were, in the case of Ingram—clients of mine." Hestared hard at the young man facing him. Much would depend on theofficer in charge of this case.
From Gilmour's point of view one could almost say thateverything would depend on the inquiry being conducted withabsolute open-mindedness and fairness. Let him fall into thehands of a stupid man and he might find himself in a positionwhich Moy did not care to contemplate. The longer Moy looked intothe face of the chief inspector, the more reassured he grew.Here, he felt, were better brains than his own, brains of nocommon order, and there was, besides, that indefinable somethingthat makes a man stand out above his fellows as a leader, as anorganizer.
Chief Inspector Pointer, too, was giving the young man infront of him a far more searching scrutiny than his apparentlycasual glance would have suggested. He, too, liked what he saw.Moy was tremendously upset, and not at his best, but the shrewdobserver facing him knew that he was not trying to be at hisbest. Here was a young man frankly rattled, not in the leastendeavoring to pull himself together, not seeking to make anydefinite, arranged impression. Also Moy's face was his fortuneall his life long, little though he guessed it. For somethingwarm, and impulsive, and unselfish, looked out of his uglyfeatures and spoke in his voice.
"Just what has happened?" Pointer asked, as Moy led him andthe doctor to the white heap at the farther end.
Moy explained very briefly what he himself had seen and heard,and what he had been told by Gilmour.
"Who drew the sheet out from under the body?" Pointer askedas, after giving it a look, he lifted it off and began to fold itup. So his one glance had told him that the sheet's position hadbeen altered. Moy, on that instant, realized a little of thequick perceptions behind the chief inspector's quiet, steady,gaze.
"One of the ladies. She thought his face should be covered,"he said slowly. Time enough to name Miss Longstaff later on.
Pointer and the doctor now bent over the stiff form.
"Bullet still inside the head," the doctor said. "Well,there's nothing further for me to do here." He had an urgent callto an ambulance case. In a few words he and Pointer arranged forthe fetching of the body and for the post-mortem. The doctorhurried off. Pointer turned to Moy again.
"How do you know this is the same sheet as the one which yousaw draped about him. Were you here when it was drawn out fromunderneath?"
Moy had not been, but he identified it by the bullet holeclose to the hem. Pointer asked him to initial in pencil one ofthe corners and then locked it away in his case. He had Moy showhim where he was standing when he first caught sight of Ingramand Gilmour. Where Gilmour's room was, where Ingram's.
Then Pointer went over the floor of the passage inch by inch.He picked up from a cream-colored flower in the carpet a piece ofwhat looked to Moy like a torn scrap of cream wrapping paperroughly the size of his hand, and near it a spent cartridge case.He sniffed at the latter. When he had made quite sure that therewas nothing else to be found on the ground, he examined the wallsand the few articles of furniture standing against them. Last ofall, he stopped for a moment at one blind, whose cord was tiedinto a sort of bunched knot.
"I saw that done," Moy explained, "one of the girls staying inthe house did it absent-mindedly, while talking to me only a fewminutes ago."
"Then the blind was up?"
Moy, for a second, did not see how this simple fact was sopatent. Then he nodded. "Yes, she pulled it up whiletalking."
"And pulled it down again?" Pointer asked.
Moy nodded.
"Did she open the window?"
"Yes, it was for that reason that she had drawn up the blind,"Moy said. "Then after a moment's gulp of fresh air, she closedit, drew down the blind, and went off."
Pointer looked out of each of the others in turn and saw thatthis window was the only one in the corridor that showed theopposite pavement. The view from the other windows was blocked bya ledge above the first floor.
"Was it the same young lady who drew the sheet out from underthe body?" he asked when leaving the window as he found it.
Moy assented, saying that he supposed the signs of hauling onthe sheet had made the chief inspector guess what had beendone.
This time it was Pointer who nodded and then asked if theposition of the body had been much altered. Moy said that as faras one could judge by looking at it, the body lay exactly whereit had been before and in the same attitude, Pointer next askedwhere Gilmour was, as he would now like to hear his account ofwhat had happened.
"I suppose he still has the weapon with which he claims thathe fired the shot?"
Moy said no, that he himself now had it, and could vouch forits being the identical weapon. He handed it over. Pointer lookedat the little nickel-plated thing, examined it carefully, smelledit, broke it open and counted the cartridges still init—all of which were blank—and put it, too, away inhis attaché case after requesting Moy to make quite sure that hecould identify it again in court.
"Now who exactly are the people in the house?" was the nextquestion. "And where is the host or hostess?" Moy explainedbriefly, but sufficiently, what the position was. Then Pointer,leaving one of his men to watch the body unostentatiously,followed Moy to Gilmour's room at the end of the corridor whereWinnie Pratt hurried up to him. She had been lurking on thelanding above, apparently.
"You're the police, aren't you? Or from Scotland Yard?"
Moy introduced the chief inspector.
"Oh, please don't arrest him! Please don't believe it wasanything but a dreadful accident!" she begged in tragic accents."Why, Mr. Ingram was his great friend! Besides—Mr.Gilmour's engaged to someone else."
Pointer said nothing. She was very cryptic. Was this reallyjust a silly girl defending a man in peril? There is no morecharming sight if sincere than that reversal of the usual rolesbetween the sexes, but it must be sincere.
He asked her why she thought that he would look on the deathas anything else but an accident.
She wrung her exquisitely kept hands with theirtangerine-enameled nails.
"Because the police always do doubt things. And suspectpeople! But in this case that's absurd. It's not in Mr. Gilmour'snature to do such a dreadful thing!"
Pointer asked her a few questions about herself, aboutGilmour, about Ingram. But she would hardly give an answer to anyset question.
"Mr. Ingram wanted to marry me, you'll hear all about thatside of the story, and I—I—well, I wasn't sure...andI liked Mr. Gilmour—just as a friend. And I showed that Idid. And...well...some people will say, so my mother says, thatit was all my fault. That I oughtn't to've talked so much withMr. Gilmour...but that's such nonsense. He's in love withAlfreda. Longstaff. And besides, it was onlyfriendship—ever. And besides, even if it hadn't been, hewouldn't have shot Mr. Ingram. It's a ridiculous and horribleidea."
Again Mrs. Pratt appeared looking for Winnie. Moy did notwonder. Really, what the girl needed this morning was anattendant from a Home for the Feeble-minded, he thought savagely.Of course it was all Mrs. Pratt's fault, trying to make Winniesee the error of her past ways and overdoing it. But what aperfect simpleton the girl was...though a dream ofloveliness...
Pointer looked after the dream with a thoughtful frown.
MOY took Pointer into the room where Gilmour satwith his head hidden in his hands. He looked up with a start asthe two came in. Moy, after a word of introduction, would haveleft them alone together, but Gilmour asked him to stay.
"My memory seems to've gone spotty. You may be able to promptme."
An assenting glance from the chief inspector said that theyoung solicitor's presence would be quite welcome, then he turnedto Gilmour and asked for an account of what had happened.
Gilmour said that he was awakened by someone opening hisbedroom door with a snap and giving a hollow moan or groan. As hesat up in bed, the door was left open, the corridor outside wasflooded with moonlight, and he saw a sheeted figure walking downit away from his room. He stepped to a chest of drawers by thedoor and took out his revolver which he had loaded with blank forjust such an occasion. In answer to another question he said thatowing to some talk about ghosts in the evening, he had ratherthought that someone might play that old joke on him. He hadnever thought of Charles Ingram, but of Moy, or possiblyFrederick. Taking his revolver, he went into the passage, wherethe ghost was now half-way down. At his call of "I'm going toshoot, you'd better disappear!" the "ghost" turned round andfaced him with another moan. He fired full at it, and, to hishorror, heard it give a cry, and then sag to the floor. Afterthat awful second Gilmour said he could not be sure of whathappened. He tried for a switch on the wall but could not seem tofind one. The next thing he remembered clearly was lifting thehead of the ghost and finding that it was Ingram, and that he wasquite dead.
Pointer then began his questions. Gilmour said that he was agood shot, but that on this occasion he had not troubled to takeaim, though it was possible that, as the head would be throwninto relief against the oak paneled door, it would have offered atarget at which he had fired without consciously selectingit.
Pointer asked for a very careful account of the ghost'sappearance. Gilmour, looking very white, shut his eyes, anddescribed minutely a figure draped in a sheet, with the end drawnover the head and covering the whole face to below the chin,walking with head thrust forward and a shuffling gait.
Moy noticed that Pointer took Gilmour over this part verycarefully, harking back and repeating several of his questions,though in different forms.
Next he produced the revolver just handed him by thesolicitor. Gilmour identified it as his, and again went over howhe had loaded it, where the box of blank cartridges were in thedrawer, and where the loaded ones. He said that he and Ingramshared a flat in an old house in Harrow which stood quiteisolated, and for that cause both of them kept a revolver andsome cartridges handy. He went into details about where he hadpurchased his, and finally handed the chief inspector hislicense.
Pointer next wanted to know whether anyone had been in theroom with him when he had loaded with blank. Yes, Gilmour said,Ingram had been. He had done it on coming up from the lounge onlythis evening, or rather, since it was now early morning, onlylast evening, after the talk in the lounge.
He gave a brief outline of that talk.
"So that Mr. 'Ingram would have expected you to fire blankshots?" Pointer said thoughtfully, "and would not be concernedwhen you pointed the revolver at him?"
Moy was sorry for Gilmour. Gilmour looked appalled at thequestion, but he answered it with a brief acquiescentgesture.
"Was the dead man fond of playing practical jokes?" was thenext question.
Gilmour said that that would be the last thing anyone couldsay of Charles Ingram. "But," he went on, "he had a theory, whichI now think he must have been testing last night. He said that,given any sudden emergency, or waked from sleep—as Iwas—a man would only do what he was accustomed to doing.That is to say that, however much I, or any other ordinaryLondoner, laid his revolver ready, given an emergency, he wouldnever think of using it, but would dash out empty-handed.Unfortunately he was wrong," Gilmour added.
Pointer asked next on what footing he and the dead man hadbeen. Gilmour said very simply that he and Ingram had always goton well, and that no subject of discord had ever come betweenthem.
"Has he any close relations?" Pointer asked next, turning toMoy, so as to give Gilmour a little time to recover. He looked asthough he needed it.
Moy said that Ingram had a sister married to a man calledAppleton, and a half-brother, Frederick Ingram. Mrs. Appleton hadtwo children and she and they were, according to Ingram's willleft with Moy's firm, Ingram's sole legatees. As to how much hehad to leave, Moy said that he had no exact idea. But he fanciedthat the dead man's income was around five hundred pounds a year.Gilmour, appealed to for corroboration, said that figure would befairly accurate, though, as Ingram lived at the rate of fourhundred, there were possibly some savings to be divided up.Ingram, Pointer was told, as he knew already from Who's Who, hadtaken high honors in mathematics at Cambridge, where he also helda Fellowship for a few years, only relinquishing it to becomeexaminer and lecturer in his especial field. He wrote on manyother subjects as well, though they were all more or less kindredones, such as ciphers and odd numerical puzzles.
Pointer now asked something which was exceedingly painful toboth men. He wanted Moy and he wanted Gilmour again to go overthe incidents of the shooting. That is to say, Gilmour was to actas far as possible as he said that he had when he was firstawakened, and Moy to do as nearly as possible what he said thathe had done when he heard the shot, the cry, the thud.
It was an ordeal for both, but they each of them bore out whatthey had said as to their different stations at the differenttimes of the tragedy.
Pointer thanked them and went on by himself into Ingram'sroom. It was the bedroom of a very orderly man. The only untidything in the room was the bed, which showed that the sheet hadbeen hauled off without any regard as to what other bedclotheswere dragged on the carpet with it. Rather oddly so, Pointerthought, considering that the man who was supposed to havedragged it off would be supposed to want to sleep in that samebed again. But it had been the top sheet, so, though the foot ofthe bed was undone, the bolster and pillow end were apparentlyuntouched. Slipping his careful hands under the bolster, Pointerfound some shreds of tobacco; Player's Navy Cut. Yet Ingram'swaistcoat hung over the back of a chair by the armholes, and hehad no pipe in the room. Examining the waistcoat, Pointer foundsome shreds of tobacco in the pocket where the tobacco pouch waskept. He also found a very unusual long inner pocket on the lefthand side running down nearly to the bottom and closed at the topby a zip fastener. It came well below the top of the waistcoat sothat it would not show, whether open or closed. Pointer examinedit very carefully. There was nothing in it now. The size was fourinches wide by nine long. It would hold quite a long envelope. Heput the waistcoat away in his attaché case. The dust of thatpeculiar pocket might tell what it usually held. Ingram's otherpockets held a handkerchief, a fountain pen, a book of stamps anda small pencil stub. A letter case with letters of no importance,a key ring with keys on it fastened by a chain, and somemoney—under three pounds.
He rang for the butler. Since there was no sign of any booksor writing materials in the room, the chief inspector rightlyguessed that Ingram used some other room in the house as well.But first Pointer wanted to see the footman who usually woke Mr.Ingram and probably valeted him. Pointer had learned from Moythat the staff consisted of two men and four women. Windover, afresh-faced young countryman, was summoned by the butler. Hewaked Mr. Ingram at half-past seven every morning, he said, tookaway his shoes and anything that needed brushing, and turned onhis bath.
Where did Mr. Ingram usually keep his waistcoat? Pointer askednext. Windover fancied that it was under Mr. Ingram's pillow orbolster, as it was never in sight of a morning. In the evenings,Mr. Ingram would often leave it out. Now Pointer had noticed justsuch another pocket down the back of Ingram's only pair ofevening trousers. He asked the two men whether either of them hadever seen Mr. Ingram use it, or the inner one in his waistcoat.Neither had. Nor had the footman ever found anything in thoseparticular pockets when he brushed either article of clothing.Windover, however, closely questioned, seemed to be concealingnothing and really to have nothing more to tell, so Pointerfollowed the butler to the ground floor and into the library,which he was told was given over to Mr. Ingram's sole use. Mr.Ingram had last been seen by Hobbs sitting writing at the bureauin the window when he brought him in, as usual, a decanter ofwhisky and a siphon. Mr. Ingram was a very moderate drinker, thebutler added, generally asking for a small bottle of beer inpreference to anything stronger but occasionally, as last night,whisky would be brought him. Mr. Ingram had told him to take itaway again and had seemed unwilling to be disturbed by even thebriefest of questions as to what he would prefer instead.
"He had that small clock over there down beside him on thewriting-table, sir, and motioned me when I came in not to comecloser," Hobbs went on. "Stopped me just by the door, and told mehe wouldn't want the whisky."
Was it usual for Mr. Ingram not to let him come up to him?Pointer asked. The man said it was Ingram's invariable rule.
Questioned further, the butler could only say that Mr. Ingramhad no visitors last night as far as he knew, but in a householdof five young men who brought their friends in with them at allhours, it was impossible for him to be sure on this point. As toMr. Ingram himself, the butler evidently had liked himimmensely. The same seemed to be true of all of the fivetemporary owners of the house except of Tark. Of him the butlercould only say that he had a nasty silent way, which the maidsmuch resented, of showing when he did not like things. However,bar that trifle, he had never served easier gentlemen than thefive. Yes, they all seemed to get on very pleasantly together.Mr. Ingram and Mr. Gilmour too? Oh, certainly. The butler wasquite sure that up till last night, at any rate, there was noslightest hint of ill-feeling between them.
The butler seemed to have been squeezed dry and Pointer lethim go, and began to go over the room inch by inch. Three pipeslay neatly on the mantel, pipes that had smoked Navy Cutrecently. The top part of the writing bureau yielded nothing ofinterest. Ingram apparently did not use the blotter except as anunderlay for his hand. On a copy of yesterday's late eveningpaper was a candlestick with some drops of sealing wax on it. Thewax itself lay on another corner. So something had been sealedsince that paper came into the house. In the bottom drawer of thebureau was a locked attaché case. The lock was a most peculiarone. Unpickable, Pointer fancied. Unlocking it with one of thekeys on Ingram's bunch, he found it chiefly filled with booksneatly strapped together and three piles of manuscripts.
The first was onBaphomet of the Templars. The secondconsisted of the first seven chapters of a book onThe Law ofRationality of Indices. The third was the first volume,finished apparently, of a work on cryptography. It dealtexclusively with ciphers. Ingram seemed to be just finishing anexposition of Dr. Blair's clever three dot system with sidelightson an adaptation of the A.B.C. system in use during the war.
He stood awhile looking down at the pages. They seemed to havebeen proof-read by some other hand, a sprawling, rather smudgedhand. Apparently the bundle was just about to be sent off to thepublishers...He examined the books. They were works on ciphers,such as that of Andrew Langie Katscher, there was one on LordBacon's famous two-letter cipher, a copy of Bacon'sDeAugmentis...and many others, mostly on the same subject, oron some mathematical point. He also found, last of all, twodictionaries, one a Chambers, one a Nuttall's. Opening them hefound beside many words a dot or a collection of dots. Thecompiler of a cryptogram might well have made them. That was all,barring some notes onThe Theoretical Measurements ofAngles.
Pointer stood a moment deep in thought. Was the motive forIngram's death, if it were, as he thought it might be, a murder,to be found in this attaché case which had been so carefullylocked? Was it possible that he had been killed for the sake of aclever cipher? Had he by chance stumbled on one like, orsufficiently like, one in use by some foreign power, or greatbusiness interest, to make it necessary to remove him? It seemedrather a melodramatic idea for the present day, but so was thenotion of murder.
Ingram's despatch case was laid beside the one which Pointerhad brought to the house with him. He passed on to the fireplace.In the open grate was the remains of a wood fire. On the tilesinside the fender were some burned matches evidently pitchedthere by a smoker. Three were like the ones on the mantel, twowere of a different kind taken from a match booklet. There was nosuch booklet among Ingram's belongings. The carved oak fender wasmoveable and, lifting it out, he found underneath it, as thoughblown there by the draught, some little scraps of paper withwords or parts of words printed in Ingram's writing. They werequite fresh. The paper had been torn so small that none of themheld more than four letters on it. Each scrap was carefullycollected and put away in an envelope.
He next turned to the waste-paper basket. It had a lot of oddsand ends of paper in it but someone had knocked the dottle of hispipe over all, presumably Ingram, since it was still the sametobacco. He stood looking at it thoughtfully. Then his eyes wentback to the bureau. Its was odd. The bureau had been searched, ofthat he was quite sure by many a little sign, things laid wherethere was dust beneath them, dustless vacant places...the outlineof a rubber in one place and the rubber itself in another...thevery way the papers were put together told the experienced eye ofa good searcher that all these had been gone through. But not thebasket...Whoever had been hunting here was looking for somethingwhich they were sure would not be thrown away; something ofvalue. The basket stood where it was impossible to be overlooked.Pointer added its contents, too, to his collection, and continuedon around the room.
In the seat of an armchair beside the bureau he found a busticket. It was for a Fulham-Sloane Street stretch. It was rolledinto a tight squill. That too he took. Then he left the room. Thedoor remained unlocked, but one of his men was placed in aninconspicuous position in another room through whose wide opendoor he could watch the library. Pointer wanted to know if anyonein the household had been interrupted in their hunt for anything,and would resume it if they thought that the coast was clear.
He asked for a word with Moy again. They went into thedining-room, a huge and spacious place where, in a corner by thefire, no one could overhear them.
"It's about Miss Pratt," Pointer said, "and Mr. Gilmour."
Moy broke in. "I've been wanting to tell you about her, chiefinspector. It would be so easy, even for you, to get quite amistaken idea of how things are. Ingram, poor chap, was in lovewith her, so is Haliburton, but as for Gilmour, as Miss Prattsaid, he's all but engaged to another girl who is also stayinghere, a girl called Alfreda Longstaff. Just at present she'sangry at the idea of getting into the newspapers and, of course,Gilmour will be in the spot-light for a while. That can't behelped. But though Miss Pratt is evidently kinder-hearted thandiscreet, I can assure you that all of Gilmour's heart andattentions were devoted to his own girl."
Pointer said that he had got that, and then asked how thehousehold now at The Tall House had got itself together. Bywhich, he explained that he meant who had proposed the plan inthe first place.
"Frederick Ingram," Moy said promptly. "Because he knew hisbrother Charles wanted to please Miss Pratt who had said she'dlike immensely to stop in a really fine old London house for afew weeks, not just for a few days."
"And Frederick Ingram is by profession?" Pointer asked.
Moy hesitated for the fraction of a second. But there was nouse trying to make Frederick out a man of substance held in highesteem in the best clubs. He acknowledged that he was abookmaker's partner for a season. By original profession he wasan architect who did very badly and tried to turn his hand tomany things since he left Oxford. His mother died when he was alad and left him originally a much larger fortune than eventuallycame to his elder half-brother from their father.
"Where did he live?"
"All over the place," Moy said. He went on to explain thatmost of the time Frederick lived with his half-sister, Mrs.Appleton, or had lived with the Appletons, paying his share oftheir little house in Markham Square, but that he, Moy,understood him to say that he had left there some months ago andtaken rooms in Hampstead. Since Charles had come to The TallHouse for five weeks, Moy believed that Frederick had gone backto Markham Square in order to be nearer his brother.
Markham Square, Pointer reflected, was off Fulham Road. Anyoneliving there and wanting to take a bus to The Tall House woulduse just such a ticket as he had found. As for Appleton, Pointerlearned that Edward Appleton had once been a well-known actor,that Miss Ingram had married him—he was a distantconnection of the Ingrams—just before he came into quite alittle fortune, on which he had left the stage and appeared tohave gone the pace a bit. Certainly very little of the fortuneseemed to be left. There were two children of the marriage.Appleton had been raising, or trying to raise, money lately onhis life insurance, Ingram had learned, but that was securelytied up.
"Look here, chief inspector," Moy broke out, "you don't thinkthere's anything wrong about this shooting, do you? Some of yourquestions seem to me a bit wide sweeping."
"In case it should turn out different from what you think,it's always just as well to have all preliminary questions overand cleared up," Pointer said evasively. "And now, I'd like tosee Miss Longstaff."
Moy looked worried. "She's not herself at all this morning,"he repeated and left it at that.
Pointer rather expected to see a case of wrecked nerves, butthe girl who came in almost immediately did not look as thoughshe knew the meaning of the word. She explained at once that,though she had come to the house as Mr. Gilmour's guest, therewas no question of any closer relationship growing up betweenthem.
"Mr. Moy told me that it would prejudice you against Mr.Gilmour to be told that," she wound up. "I don't see why." Shefixed that baffling stare of hers on the chief inspector.
He had a feeling that he was seeing her in some moment oftriumph, and yet her face struck him as fierce and starved andrepressed all at once. Three dangerous ingredients to mixtogether. As far as words went, she was very controlled. Ofcourse she did not disbelieve Mr. Gilmour's account of what hadhappened, she said, it was corroborated by Mr. Moy, but she hadno intention whatever of marrying the man to whom such amisfortune had happened.
"Once unlucky, always unlucky, I think," she said with acurious little smile. "I really couldn't marry an unluckyman."
"Am I to understand that you and Mr. Gilmour were engagedthen, until the death of Mr. Ingram this morning?" Pointer askedstolidly.
"Not at all," she replied at once. "We weren't engaged at all.He asked me to stay here for a fortnight, while Mrs. Pratt wouldbe here, and I don't deny that the idea on his partwas—that after my visit, I might perhaps agree to marryhim. I think Miss Pratt's stay in the house here suggested thescheme to him. The agreement was that I should have a little timein which to make up my mind. It's quite made up now."
"When did you first meet Mr. Gilmour?" Pointer asked. And sheexplained, a trifle hastily, that they had met at her father'srectory. Questioned as to what she herself had heard of thetragedy, she said that she was awakened by a shot and a cry, andrushed downstairs as soon as she had collected her startledwits.
Pointer was rather surprised that she, or any woman, wouldhave known that it was a shot that she had heard, for Gilmour'sautomatic would make but a comparatively small pop, not anythinglike as loud in the front of the house on an upper story as a carbackfiring, and her bedroom was at the other end of a sidewing.
"Why did you draw the sheet out from around and under Mr.Ingram?" Pointer asked next in his most official voice.
Miss Longstaff shot him an odd look from those impenetrableeyes of hers.
"Oh, just the natural impulse to cover up a dead body," shesaid, still eyeing him with that blank but by no meansmeaningless stare of hers. Had she picked anything up in thecorridor, he asked her next. She said that she had looked at theautomatic before handing it to Moy. She had seen no spentcartridge case. Pointer asked her to describe exactly how thesheet had been wrapped about the body, and the position of thebody itself. Her account tallied with Moy's but was much moredetailed. She had a most unusually accurate eye for details,Pointer saw. He left the question of the sheet and asked herabout the dead man, but she seemed to have no knowledge of himexcept from her stay here at The Tall House, and nothing helpfulto say about him. Yet he was certain that something was stirringin her connected with the death. If so, she refused to let himcatch hold of it. Whenever he thought that he was getting close,she would dive from sight with it down into deep water again.Finally he thanked her, and, with an ironic little acknowledgmentof his thanks, she left him.
A dangerous young woman to a detective just now, he thought,for she was keen on some purpose of her own, and quite capable,he believed, of putting a false clue down, or taking a real oneaway, as suited her own plans. She was mentally agile too, forPointer had been clever with his questions. Both by nature and bytraining he knew how to ask the one slight query which, added toone previous little question, would make a quite unexpectedlycomplete answer.
He stood staring down at his shoe-tips after she had gone,rocking himself backwards and forwards deep in thought. Was shein the crime itself, if a crime had been committed here? EvenPointer could not yet say, but if this was a crime, it might verypossibly be one into which malice entered, and certainly AlfredaLongstaff could not be set on one side in that case.
POINTER saw Mrs. Pratt next. She struck him as awoman of great force of character. Also of unusual energy. Sheseemed to have some difficulty in knowing, or at least in saying,just what she did think of the dreadful event. Pointer got theimpression that, provided her daughter took it sensibly, it wouldrank as a wise decree of Providence, though very sad anddreadfully pathetic, of course. But if her daughter lost her headstill further, then Mrs. Pratt would look on Ingram's death as anact of God ranking with plague, pestilence and earthquakes. Shestruck Pointer as being more on edge, tenser, than he would haveexpected. Where her daughter was concerned he could understandit, but that would only be connected with Gilmour, one wouldthink, whereas she seemed, to the astute and penetrating brainstudying her, to be most in tension where Ingram was concerned.More than that he could not gather from his brief talk. Mrs.Pratt was an experienced wielder of shields, and turned hiscleverest points aside with nimbleness. She had hardly left himwhen the door was opened and in darted the lovely girl he hadseen before, but now in something jade green and white which madeher look more like an exquisite flower than ever. She was stillall exclamations, all protests.
"Oh, he's not guilty! He never did it! He never meant it!"
"Who says he's guilty?" he asked quietly. She checked herselfand stared at him.
"Why, my mother says that everyone says—I thought heacknowledges that he shot Mr. Ingram—"
"By accident, yes," he finished.
"And of course it was an accident," she protested again, withthat air of defying the world to say it was not, that seemed soutterly uncalled for. She made a bad impression. It might be butthe result of some nerve-storm, but she certainly protested toomuch. Was it love defending, or its opposite suggesting? She fledout again as swiftly as she had entered. Pointer looked afterher. If her looks covered a criminal, there was nothing in themto suggest a pioneer, a high flyer. Pointer would expect alwaysto find Winnie Pratt on the beaten path whether that path werethe right one or the wrong one.
Tark came next. His face would have arrested any detective'sinterest at once, it was so intentionally impenetrable, his eyesso studiously blank, his mouth suggested so rigid a curb. He gavehis answers as briefly as possible. He was a mining engineer byprofession, he said, but he had been at a loose end for someyears, owing to the closing down of some mines in Russia. He wasborn in Beausoleil, aged thirty-seven, the son of the Curator ofthe Duke of Monaco's Deep Sea Museum. He remained docketed inPointer's mind as the man with the coldest eyes and the tightestlips that he had met for some time. It was a very determinedface, nevertheless, with its hint of utter callousness to humanemotions. It was the face of a man of no nerves, who would hardlyknow the meaning of the word fear. He claimed to know nothing ofthe dead man and never even to have seen him until his visithere, except for a chance meeting at Haliburton's flat.
Haliburton came next. He explained about himself and Tark withhis usual air of quiet frankness. Tark was at The Tall Housesimply and solely as his friend, he said. Like Tark, Haliburtonseemed to take it for granted that Ingram's death was, as Gilmoursaid, the result of a terrible accident. A taxi drew up as he wastalking. Pointer had expected the dead man's sister orbrother-in-law before this. He knew that Moy had notified them ofthe accident as soon as the police had been telephoned for.
Now he saw a neatly-dressed woman get out and glance up at thehouse with dark eyes full of horror. It was Mrs. Appleton.Pointer went to the door to meet her. She came in with a look ofalmost unbearable anxiety, and hardly listened to the chiefinspector's brief introduction of himself and his few words ofgrave sympathy.
"How did it happen?" she asked breathlessly.
He told her.
A look of relief swept over her face. "I see," she said,drawing a deep breath. "Poor Charles! Poor Charles!"
Moy came down the stairs murmuring in his turn someexpressions of sincere sympathy.
"Were you there—when it happened?" she asked, catchingat some word of his that seemed to bear that meaning.
"I was."
"Do you mind telling me again just how it happened?" sheasked, and resting her hands on a little occasional table in thehall beside her, she listened very intently. When he had done sheasked:
"Where is Mr. Gilmour? I want to see him."
Moy was afraid of a scene. Something in the woman's facesuggested nerves that had been, if they were not now, strung upvery tensely. He temporized.
"He feels it terribly—naturally. He's not fit to bequestioned much and give coherent replies, I'm afraid, Mrs.Appleton."
"Of course I want to hear what he has to say! You didn'treally see how it happened! Of course I must know! Charles was myonly brother."
She did not seem to rank Frederick as even half a brother. Onher face the look of terrified anxiety that had been there whenshe hurried into The Tall House was returning in part.
"Shall I ask him to come down here?" Moy turned to Pointer,who nodded. While they were alone he did not speak to Mrs.Appleton, who stood staring down at the table as though some mapwere spread out on it, and she were trying to find her way byit.
When Gilmour came in, he stood for a moment in the doorway, anexpression in his brown eyes that was at once dumbly pleading andheartbroken.
Mrs. Appleton came to what seemed like natural life for thefirst time since Pointer had seen her. She took Gilmour's handvery warmly.
"Poor Mr. Gilmour! How terrible for you! But please tell meexactly what happened. Forgive my asking you to speak of it sosoon, but I must know. Imust!" For a second her voiceshook, and Pointer saw her bite her lip hard.
Gilmour drew a deep breath. "I fired what I thought was ablank shot full at him, Mrs. Appleton," he began brokenly,"and—and I killed him. There was some mistake. Thecartridge was loaded—not blank."
"But what was he doing?" she asked, as though groping in amist.
He explained about the dressing up as a ghost. "Charles?" shesaid in a tone of utter bewilderment. "Dress up and play a jokeof that kind!"
He repeated the explanation that he had given the chiefinspector, and a little of her amazed look passed off. "Yes,that's quite a possible reason..." she murmured. "Testing atheory...? Poor Mr. Gilmour!" she repeated gently, and her facelooked as though some terrible weight had slipped from shouldersthat could hardly bear it. "Thank you for telling me everything.There are still lots of questions that I want to ask. Naturally.But I don't think there's anything more I must know immediately."She held out her hand, and Gilmour, taking it, thanked her with atwisted sickly smile for her kindness and walked up the stairs asthough he could hardly lift his feet.
Mrs. Appleton turned to Moy.
"Can I see him? Is he—is he—much disfigured?"
Moy told her that the body was not in the house. He explainedabout the necessity for an autopsy. "And there's another littlematter," he went on. "Have you any objection to my opening yourbrother's will? It's still in my possession. It leaves everythingto you, as you know. Do you mind if I let the chief inspectorhere see it at once?"
"The chief inspector? Oh, I took you for someone staying inthe house—for a friend of my brother's." A taut line showedfor an instant around Mrs. Appleton's well-cut, decisive mouth.Pointer saw that she could be quite formidable on occasions, andalso that she had not heard one word of his own self-introduction.
"Of course the police have to look into it, Mrs. Appleton,"Moy said soothingly, "and with a man of your brother's position,since it is within the Metropolitan area, the Yard takes chargeof the investigation. Just as a precaution."
"Fortunately my brother's death is so evidently due only to aterrible accident," she said, and immediately looked as thoughshe wished the words unsaid. Pointer took her to be a verytruthful and not particularly diplomatic woman. The relief in hervoice was the most interesting part of her remark.
"I'd like to sit a while and pull myself together," she saidnow. "The room my brother used as a study is on this floor, isn'tit?" She turned to Moy who, after an assenting glance from thechief inspector, opened the door of the study and closed it afterher.
"Well, really," he said in a low tone, coming back to thechief inspector, "if I didn't know Mrs. Appleton, I should fancyshe was trying to get points as to how to shoot a person bymistake. She seemed positively insatiable—couldn't seem tohave the account of how it happened told her often enough."
Pointer waited for three minutes by the clock while Moy talkedon, then:
"I want another word with her," he said in an equally lowtone, and walking lightly across the hall's thick runner, heopened the door of the library and stepped in. Moy followed.
Mrs. Appleton was leaning far out of the window. She turnedher head over her shoulder and with no sign of emotion, drew backinto the room.
"I was smelling the heliotrope in the window boxes," she said."I love flowers. Well, I feel better now. I think I'll go home.My husband wanted to come, but as he had a most importantengagement, I wouldn't let him put it off. The children will bewondering what has become of me. How they will miss their uncle!"With a little bow, she went on out and they heard the front doorclose behind her before Moy could get to it.
"She was very attached to Ingram, I know," Moy said. "She's adomestic sort of person anyway. Devoted to her home and herfamily, whether brother, or husband and children."
"Devoted to flowers, too," Pointer murmured dryly, and Moylooked at him inquiringly.
Pointer had decided to take the young solicitor into hisconfidence to a certain extent. As far as Moy could help him,that was to say. Even if guilty, there were certain facts whichthe criminal could not now alter. Supposing there was a crimehere, and even supposing Moy was connected with it, which Pointerdid not suppose, knowledge of how the inquiry progresses is oftenof no use whatever to the criminal, who cannot change the pastnor alter the traces left by it.
"I wonder if she thinks cigarette ash helps flowers to grow,"Pointer indicated a Majolica saucer which he had last seen fullof cigarette ash. "I have quite a lot of the ash that was theredone up in an envelope. The rest is now on the window-box. She'sshifted that blotting pad, too. But the paper basket hasn't beentouched..."
"Those books, too." Moy followed the other's keen eyes. "Yes,they've been shifted. Every one of them. Ingram always kept theline forward, so that the backs projected over the shelves.They're all back now against the wall behind them."
They had been pushed back when Pointer had seen them before.It only confirmed his belief that the room had been searchedbefore he got to The Tall House. But he had a test of his own asto whether Mrs. Appleton had also gone through them.
"I put slips of paper in at page twenty in six of these books,beginning with the first and taking every tenth on this row. Iwonder if they're still there."
Two of the slips were in the paper basket. The others hadeither not yet been touched, he thought, or had been put back atrandom.
What was she looking for? Both men speculated. A later willcutting her out? But some of the books were too short to take asheet of paper the length of the usual will. Whatever she hadbeen looking for, again in her case, it seemed to be somethingwhich she felt sure would not be in the paper basket; it wasodd—taken in conjunction with her manner of seemingrelieved—immensely—by the account of how her brotherhad been killed.
Pointer believed Ingram might have sent some letter or parceloff by late registered post from the sealing-wax and candle onthe late evening paper. But he had not yet found any registrationslip. Was this what was being hunted for? And hunted for byseveral people?
Pointer next interviewed the servants. He learned that thefront door had been left unbolted last night. The butler neverbolted it, but the last in of the five usually saw to it, thoughit had been forgotten once before—by Mr. Haliburton, whohad assured the butler that he would be more careful in future.The fact, therefore, did not amount to much, for supposing therewere a crime here, a murderer with any sense, if a member of thehousehold, would have taken the elementary precaution of undoingthe door so as to suggest an outsider. But there was also thefact that Ingram had sat on working in the library last nightafter the others had gone to bed.
It would have been quite easy for him to have stepped out, anddrawn the bolts back and admitted anyone. Did his sister think,or know, that he had, and was that why she had tipped thecigarette ash out into the window box so that it could not beidentified?
Apart from the fact of the door being found unbolted thismorning, there was one other interesting piece of informationthat came to the chief inspector. The second housemaid told himthat last night, while crossing the landing, she saw Mr. Ingramand Mrs. Pratt meet, on their way out to the car with the othersfor a dinner to which all were going. Mrs. Pratt had saidsomething very low and very quickly to Ingram as thought notwanting to be overheard. But the maid's sharp ears had caught thefinal sentence. "Please be Sure and burn it." Mr. Ingram hadnodded and said what looked like words of reassurance andagreement. He looked very grave and very disturbed, the housemaidthought. Where exactly had this meeting taken place? Just outsideMiss Longstaff's door, the maid said. Miss Longstaff was still inher room, she thought, but she could not be sure. As for the busticket, the housemaids had found similar ones several timesbefore and all during this last week. And always in the morning,when there had been no known visitor to account for it in theevening. The butler added one more time during the day when asimilar ticket had been left on a wine tray after Mr. FrederickIngram had been in.
Pointer asked for another word with Mrs. Pratt when he hadfinished with the servants.
"What exactly did you ask Mr. Ingram last night to burn?" Heput the question without any preamble, as soon as he had closedthe door behind himself.
"I beg your pardon?" she asked as though hard of hearing.Pointer repeated his question.
"Oh, a ridiculous doggerel I had written about some theory ofhis, to do with circles and squaring them," she explainedlightly. "It really was such silly stuff that I didn't want itlying around and read by everyone who might think that I fanciedsuch rhyme poetry!" She smiled pleasantly at Pointer.
"When had you written it?" he asked, as though chatting.
"A few days ago," was the airy reply. Mrs. Pratt evidently didnot intend to be pinned down to hours.
"By the way, have you seen Mrs. Appleton this morning?"Pointer asked next.
She opened her eyes. "Who's Mrs. Appleton, pray?"
"Mr. Ingram's sister. I had an idea—" Pointer's toneexpressed surprise that the two did not know each other, buteither Mrs. Pratt was a splendid actress or she really had noteven heard the name before, and thanking her, Pointer opened thedoor for her.
Those burned papers in the library fireplace, were they theresult of this talk? Was it for them that someone had searchedthe room this morning before the police arrived and was it forthem that Mrs. Appleton was looking? It was because of thesimilarity in the double search that Pointer had asked Mrs. Prattwhether she knew the sister of the dead man.
There was a ring at the front door. Pointer went on out. Ashort, rather round-shouldered, slender, young man was steppingin with the air of one of the family. Moy hurried past withoutstretched hand. This was no moment to stay on personal likesor dislikes. After a few words of horror and regret he turned andintroduced the chief inspector to Frederick Ingram. Had he been ahorse, or a dog, the chief inspector would not have bought him.Frederick Ingram had a treacherous eye.
Frederick listened now with an appearance of deep grief toMoy's account of how his brother had met his end. Then he movedtowards the library.
"As his literary executor, I take possession of all hispapers, of course. I think I'll have them removeden blocto my rooms at Hampstead."
"All of them?" Pointer asked.
"Well, perhaps I needn't burden myself with all," Fredericksaid promptly, with the air of a man conferring a favor. "I'llmake a selection." He walked on into the room. Pointer and Moyfollowed.
"The work I was correcting of his was locked in a case in thebottom drawer. If you'll hand me over his keys I'll take it alongfor one thing—and his letter case and so on...I'd betterhave those too..." He spoke carelessly, but his small eyes dartedround the room in a very searching look as he bent over thepigeon-holes. For a second he ran through their contents then heturned. "The keys?" he said pleasantly.
"They're at the Yard," Pointer said as pleasantly and ascarelessly. "Just for the moment, of course. They and the attachécase."
Frederick's smile turned into a mere show of teeth. But hesaid nothing.
"You were here last night," Pointer went on, remembering thebus ticket. "Did Mr. Ingram seem just as usual?"
Frederick Ingram said nothing for a moment, merely went onturning over some papers in his hand.
"Just," he said, laying them down and turning round. He hadpleasant manners as a rule. The trouble with Frederick was thatwhen they were not pleasant they were so very much the otherway.
Now if ever a loosely hung mouth spoke of garrulity, thisyoung man's did, but not even Tark's tight lips could haveanswered the chief inspector's question more briefly. There was ashort silence.
"I take it that my brother's papers—and keys—willbe handed to me as soon as all the usual formalities have beencomplied with?" he asked the chief inspector, who said that heshould have them back as soon as possible. "I think I ought to gothrough them to see if there's anything missing. Among hispapers, that is..." Frederick went on.
Pointer said that if Mr. Ingram would use his, the chiefinspector's car, he would be taken to Scotland Yard and shown allthe papers belonging to Mr. Ingram.
"I can soon tell you if anything is missing," Frederickpromised.
"Do, and we'll send them, as soon as we've done with them, toMarkham Square." Pointer seemed to be finishing the interview ona note of meeting the other's wishes as far as possible.
"Oh—eh—Hampstead, please. I only stopped with mysister while running in and out of here, as I had to do severaltimes a week. After this terrible tragedy, I shall go back to myown digs."
"But Mrs. Appleton is her brother's chief legatee, and also anexecutrix. I think it might be as well if you and she workedthrough them together with Mr. Moy," Pointer persisted.
"But surely I'm his literary executor," spluttered Frederick,turning indignantly to Moy who shook his head.
"He's left a bequest to the Author's Society and asks thesecretary to appoint a regular literary agent to act in that'capacity—we to settle the remuneration," Moy murmured.
"Still—even so," Frederick went on as though in anger,"even so, there will be all sorts of family papers and so on thatmy sister won't be competent to deal with. I'll just look throughwhat you've taken, chief inspector, let you know if any aremissing, and then we can talk over what had better be done withwhat's left."
He was clearly in a hurry to see the papers.
"Mrs. Appleton seemed to miss nothing," Pointer threw incasually.
Instantly the little dark eyes fairly snapped as they lookedat him.
"Oh, indeed? My sister has been here, has she? Gone throughhis papers?"
"She probably did when she was here in the library," the chiefinspector seemed to think that of no importance.
"She was in here? When?" There was something very attentive inFrederick's voice and face.
Pointer explained how Mrs. Appleton had gone into the room torecover after coming to the house. Frederick's eyes had a gleamin them as he said good-by rather abruptly.
At the Yard he went through everything very carefully afterasking to be left to himself—he put it that he need notdetain anyone as he would ring when he had finished, he knew howbusy the Yard always were, etc. They seemed charmed with histhoughtfulness, and one pair of eyes was on him throughout hiscareful but most painstaking search. When every paper had beenunfolded and shaken out, every envelope searched, he had lockedthe case again and laid the keys on top of it. Then he sat amoment smoking a cigarette with what looked like a frown ofconcentration on his face.
He took quite a brisk walk along the embankment until he madehis way by tube to Chelsea, and to Markham Square. Here, in alittle two-story house that looked on to one of the melancholycats' gardens of town, he rang a bell. The outside of the housemight be dingy, but inside everything glittered, and it was avery efficient-looking elderly woman who greeted him with a smileof acquaintance.
"Mr. Appleton's in, Mr. Fred. He's been 'phoning you, so Ithink he expects you."
He walked on past her into a neat but cold room.
"Please excuse there being no fire. It's gone out and Ihaven't had time to lay it again yet. We're upset with Mr.Ingram's dreadful death. Dreadful to think of! His own friendto've done it! And him being all dressed-up as a ghost makes itseem worse, somehow." She was shedding her prim "official" manneras she spoke. Fred stared at her for a second as though hewondered impatiently of what she was talking, his narrow littlehead, the head of a man who would always prefer to gain his endsby scheming, rather than by force, a little aslant, as hemurmured some brief acknowledgment. The next moment the door wasswung open with a certain deliberate regal air and there stoodAppleton. And he stood a full minute framed in the cream painteddoorway staring at his brother-in-law with his head thrown back,an eyeglass fixed in one rather wrinkled eye, before, with aneffect of some spiritual meaning in the physical act, he took astep into the room and, still staring at Fred, closed the doorbehind him without shifting his steady gaze.
POINTER had got from Moy—to that youngman's bewildered curiosity—the name of the painters anddecorators who had last done up The Tall House. At the shop inquestion, he produced the piece of torn paper which he had pickedup from the carpet where Ingram's dead body had lain. Thecream-colored scrap was a torn fragment of wall paper printed intones of dun, blue and heliotrope. It had lain in the passage withits reverse side uppermost.
The firm stocked no such papers, he was told. The foreman, whohad worked at The Tall House, could further assure the chiefinspector that nowhere there—not in any cupboard, nor onany wall, had paper been hung. All throughout was paint, ordistemper, or paneling; and had been so for the last twentyyears.
The scrap shown him was, he thought, about ten years old. Verycheap in quality, and put on with cheap paste. It must have driedaway from its wall—some chimney breast he would suggest,and have been loose some considerable time. A couple of monthswouldn't be too long. As to its makers, he could only shake hishead. A cheap old pattern that would not be found anywhere instock today. Of that he felt sure.
The two detective officers went on to the Yard together, andthere Pointer decked his subordinate in a sheet which was theexact duplicate of the one which, with a hole shot through it, hehad at the moment in his locked attaché case. The hole on this,the experimental one, was marked with red ink.
The chief inspector worked hard draping the linen on themystified Watts now in this way, now in that. He had him liedown, he had him sit up, he had him walk about, or stand at ease.Finally he took the sheet off and handed it to the other.
"Suppose you try it by yourself. You're about Ingram's height.How would you put that sheet around yourself if you wanted todress up as a ghost. Remember Gilmour says that it more or lesscovered the body and came down over the head to below thechin."
Watts flung it around himself in a quick swirl, and drew oneend over his face, hanging loose at the lower edge. Pointernodded.
"Just so. That's how I've been trying to do it. Now don'tduck, this is the fatal shot!" and he flung something light andsticky at the other. Watts could feel it strike fair and squarein the center of his forehead.
"Do I give a screech here and topple over, sir?" he asked. Hecould not see the other's face, only the floor in front of hisfeet.
Pointer's hand raised the loose end.
"No good. You've done no better than I. The point is this: Iwant you to see if your ingenuity can devise some way of wearingthat thing that will bring it fairly round your body, over yourhead and over your face below your chin, and yet let a shot whichhits you bang in the forehead make a hole only four inches infrom the edge. Personally I don't, and didn't, think it could bedone. But have another try. Or you might drape it on me."
"Might as well drape it on the Cenotaph, sir." For Pointer waswell over six feet, though he did not look his height. "But thisreally is a teaser! I don't often feel as certain that a chap istelling the truth as I do with Gilmour...let me have another goat it this way..." and again and again Watts turned himself intoa mannequin and pulled and twisted while Pointer flung the fatalshot of dyed putty. All to no good, the putty would not markwithin a foot of the red outlined shot hole.
"I didn't think of that at the time," Watts said finally, "butit can't be done, that's plain."
It had been plain to Pointer from the first, and he believedthat it had been plain to Miss Longstaff too. Or so he read hermanner when he had spoken to her about the sheet.
"You see, sir," he said a little later to the assistantcommissioner when finishing his account of what he had found atThe Tall House, "the trouble is that the body was left in thepassage for five or ten minutes with no one watching it. Mr.Gilmour, Mr. Haliburton and Mr. Moy were all concerned withtelephoning for a doctor or the police. The result is that thesheet found lying on the body when I arrived may not be theoriginal sheet worn by Mr. Ingram as a 'ghost' at all."
"What makes you doubt it?" Major Pelham asked.
"The hole doesn't fit his story, sir." Pointer went intodetails. "What it fits is an idea that Mr. Ingram was shot in hisbed, lying down with the sheet drawn up to just cover his face.The hole fits that perfectly, given the marks of the tuck-in atthe end, and Ingram's height."
"No scorch marks on it?" Pelham was interested.
"If he was shot in his bed, we may possibly find that a pieceof asbestos was put over the linen sheet. There is some in thehousemaid's pantry, used for an ironing stand. But it's a verysmall revolver, sir. Even without any asbestos there would havebeen very little scorching if anyone had fired from even the footof the bed."
"You think Gilmour's lying, then?"
"He speaks and looks like an honest young fellow, but hisstory doesn't fit the hole. It may not be the same sheet. Someonemay have purposely substituted one that won't hang together withhis explanation. It would have been a simple matter to burn ahole of the right size in another sheet, and then change them. Itcould even have been done in the time that the door of Ingram'sroom was shut with Ingram's body lying just outside. In fact, ifany substitution has taken place it was probably done then."
"And the sheet Ingram really wore?"
"May have been disposed of in some way. Packed with articlesof clothing. We have no power to search for it, of course. Orhanded to someone outside the house. The one person known to havelaid a sheet over Ingram, the sheet in my attaché case, is alsothe same person who stood watching from the one window that showsthe opposite pavement." He explained about the blind and MissLongstaff.
"She knew about that hole, of that I've no doubt," Pointerwent on, "though whether merely from sharp powers of observationor not, I can't say."
"She's the girl Gilmour is in love with, isn't she?" Pelhamglanced at the notes.
"She is, sir. But she's by no means the girl who's in lovewith Mr. Gilmour," Pointer said dryly and again explained aboutMiss Pratt.
"Odd," Pelham thought, "now if the girls were reversed onecould understand some act of revenge...that sort of thing...butapparently that doesn't fit."
"Apparently not, sir," Pointer agreed.
"And what about the cartridge being loaded when he thought itwas blank, what about that?"
"Anyone could have substituted a live cartridge, sir. Mr.Gilmour placed the automatic, after loading it, in an unlockedbureau drawer in his bedroom late yesterday evening, before hewent on to a theater with the ladies of the house party."
"How about alibis? Anything possible in that line?"
There was not. Everyone in the house claimed to have been inhis own bedroom and in bed long before the time that they wereall disturbed by Gilmour's shot and the subsequent cry. Thewhereabouts of the trio of the dead man's sister, half-brotherand brother-in-law was not yet established.
"Has all the look of a pretty nasty little plot," Pelhammurmured with a grimace, "and perhaps directed as much againstGilmour as against Ingram. Unless it's really entirely aimed atGilmour, and the author of it didn't care a hang who was fired atwith that first shot, so long as it would place Gilmour in thedock on a charge of murder. He's in an appallingposition—if innocent. And he certainly could have hit onsome quieter, simpler, method of making away with Ingram than inthis public way. He and Ingram were climbing in the Peak countryonly last month, I've learned."
"Plenty of openings there for an enterprising young man,"Pointer agreed with a smile—he himself was a fine rockclimber.
"Anything to make you suspect a crime besides the hole in thesheet which is too near the hem?" Pelham asked after a littlepause.
"Several curious odds and ends, sir."
Pointer explained that the dead man's bureau had quiteevidently—to Pointer—been searched, though not thepaper basket. That it looked as though Mr. Ingram had sent off asealed letter or package, unless it had been taken. FinallyPointer came to the specks of pipe tobacco under Ingram'sbolster, though his pouch and pipe were in the ground floorlibrary.
"And that means?" Pelham started a fresh cigar.
"It looks as though the someone who had searched, or stolenfrom, the waistcoat, did not know of his habit of placing itunder his pillow. Or rather, didn't know that we would at oncelearn of it, and so had hung the waistcoat over the back of achair to prevent us from guessing that it had held anything ofimportance." Pointer went on to speak of the curious long innerpocket in it, and in the dead man's evening trousers.
"Couldn't Ingram have placed it under his pillow the nightbefore with whatever he sent off last night, by post or byhand...the something he sealed, you think? Isn't it possible themaid was slovenly, and didn't make the bed properly?"
"The housekeeper told me the sheets in the house were onlychanged once a week, but yesterday was the day for changing them,and the sheets themselves bore out her words. They were quitefresh from the laundry."
"Ingram would hardly have undressed and gone to bed, placinghis waistcoat in security, and then decided—for somereason, some spasm of distrust or fear—to send off what wasin the pocket, have got up, removed the waistcoat, taken out thecontents, disposed of it—or them—and then gone backto bed hanging his waistcoat on his chair now that it was nolonger of importance?" Pelham asked.
Pointer had thought of this, but it seemed to him, as he said,that for Ingram to have again got up and played theghost—supposing Gilmour to be telling thetruth—seemed rather erratic behavior on the part of a youngman of very quiet, very routine habits. If Gilmour was nottelling the truth, and Ingram had not played the ghost, stillthis idea meant that Ingram had gone to bed, then got up againand dealt with the mysterious valuable thing in his possession,and then returned to bed and had time to fall soundly asleepbefore he was shot. All that left rather too little time, Pointerthought. Unless something else suggested it, he thought itsimpler to assume that someone else, rather than Ingram, had hungthat waistcoat on the chair. He went on next to speak of thescraps of paper beneath the moveable oak curb. "I handed the lotto Mr. Twyford-Brees just now," the chief inspector named one ofthe cipher experts of the Foreign Office Intelligence Department,"as Mr. Ingram was so good at ciphers—"
"A perfect genius at them," Pelham said.
"Mr. Twyford-Brees promptly got together two little groups ofthree words each, which he thinks might mean that they are partof some tri-lingual cipher," Pointer went on.
"Ingram specialized in foreign ciphers," came from Pelham ashe stretched his hand out for two sheets of glass fastenedtogether around their edges with adhesive tape. Between the glasswere gummed two groups of three words each. They were:
VON and HELL OF LIGHT DE CLAIRE
"All the words were printed in characters, sir. And there aresome more bits which Mr. Twyford-Brees thinks he may makesomething of."
Pelham looked musingly at the paper. "Ciphers...humph...Anyonein the house whom you suspect of having been the searcher orsearchers of the library?"
"Before I got there? Well, Miss Longstaff doesn't strike me asthe sort of person to be prevented from any feeling of delicacy,had she felt curious. And curious about that whole affair, shecertainly is. Then there's this Mr. Tark. He seems to've beenfloating around rather freely. The butler ran into him on thestairs that lead up past the library to the top of the house.Miss Pratt says he was passing her door—which would be oneway down to the library—altogether, I shouldn't besurprised if either, or both of them, had been there. Thenthere's Mrs. Appleton—" he described her visit. "She wasthankful, I think, to learn that there seemed nothing odd abouther brother's death. She was tremendously keen on tilting outthat rather peculiar cigarette ash...find out the smoker of thatkind of cigarette, and I fancy one would have a lead as to whomshe suspected of having been with Ingram last night and of havingmurdered him. In other words, sir, Mrs. Appleton, I think, knowsof a reason why her brother might have been murdered, and isthankful that his death seems to be from misadventure."
"Umph...like the two girls, that's odd,"-Pelham saidthoughtfully, "for as far as we can find out, there's nothinglinking Mrs. Appleton with ciphers. Whereas Mrs. Pratt! Knowanything about her? I've just had my mind refreshed for me."
Pointer had expected to get from Major Pelham the particularsof the people at The Tall House which he had not been able toobtain on the spot. He murmured that he would like to hear allthat the other had learned.
"There was a frightful scandal at Geneva," the assistantcommissioner said, "where, as you know, her husband was one ofthe British secretaries. Her maid was found to be aninternational spy. Name of Aage Roth. One of those convenientpeople who work for any paymaster and bring in everything theyfind to one of the big international bureaus there who sell tothe highest bidder. She went rather too far and got caught. Sentto an Italian prison. Mrs. Pratt was much pitied for the awkwardposition, but still...well, it didn't do her husband any good.Accidents like those shouldn't happen in well regulatedhouseholds. He resigned a year later and he and his wife went fora sea voyage. He fell overboard one dark night. Tragic story."But there was more, something else than pity in the Major'sbright blue eye. "Oh, I'm not hinting at anything," he went onvirtuously, "I'm merely giving you the facts. They may be of use,they may not. But taken together with those two little groups oftorn words it does rather make one wonder...Mrs. Pratt at TheTall House...Ingram, the cipher expert, asked by her to burnsomething...anyone in the house who strikes you as possibly beinga foreigner?"
"Tark has certainly other than English blood, by the look ofhim, but I rather thought Hungarian, or that sort of thing."Pointer was putting his papers together as he spoke.
"It boils down to this, so far, then," Pelham was ticking theitems on the table with his pencil point.
"Ingram seems to have been in possession of something whichothers knew that he owned, and which they seemed to think worthhunting for, and which they felt sure would not be in the paperbasket. He may have posted it late last night by registered postor otherwise. If the former, the registration slip is missing.This idea that Ingram owned something of value holds good foryour two alternative solutions. First, that Gilmour isconsciously lying as to how Ingram's death took place. Secondly,that he is telling the truth, but that the cartridge was changed,and so was the sheet through which the shot went which he firedand which killed Ingram; the changed sheet to look like theoriginal one, and yet to have been faked so as to throw doubt onhis story, by the position of the hole. That it, in anutshell?"
In a cocoanut shell, Pointer thought, but he only said that itwas.
Pelham watched him with the absent-minded gaze of one whosethoughts are elsewhere.
"I said just now that this might be a crime aimed at Gilmourand the exact victim be almost immaterial to the author, but it'salso possible, isn't it, that he was used as a convenient way ofgetting rid of Ingram without its being suspected that a crimewas being committed."
Pointer agreed that this explanation was possible.
"There's one thing, sir. If it's been aimed at Mr. Gilmour ourattention will be called to the hole in that sheet. So far, noone has tried to make me think it anything but an accident.Personally I'm wondering if the newspapers will give thesuggestion...Miss Longstaff may be in touch with areporter..."
"You seem to think anything's possible with her," chaffed theA. C.
"Pretty well, sir," Pointer agreed as he left the room. Withinhalf an hour the chief inspector knew that his guess was right,and that it was to be by way of the papers that doubt was to becast on Gilmour's account of what had happened. Or rather by wayof theMorning Wire. Its front pages were black withcapitals and snapshots of The Tall House and portraits of CharlesIngram. Diagrams of the sheet, too, were spread across prettywell the whole page with a cross for the hole and another forwhere it ought to be. Diagrams of ghosts and ghostlywrappings...Pointer felt that he knew the writer of the article,no matter what the name was printed below it.
At the house itself it was Gilmour who first secured a copy ofthe paper from a passing newsboy who was shouting "The Tall HousePuzzle" as he ran down the street.
A few minutes later he stepped in to where Moy was busywriting. His face startled the young solicitor. Had some freshtragedy occurred?
"Anything else wrong?" he asked. Gilmour sank heavily on tothe arm of a chair.
"This is just out! Read it!" He thrust the early edition intoMoy's eager hands and stared straight ahead of him.
Moy read the article, and dropped the paper with anexclamation.
"Just so! If that's true, I was lying. But I didn't lie. Soit's not true." Gilmour spoke doggedly. "The hole can't have beenwhere they mark it in that diagram, for everything took placeexactly as I described it. Am I ever likely to forget one item ofwhat happened? I've just been in my room and in the passage andtried to live it all through once more. I haven't been out in thetiniest detail, I'll swear."
"Yet the hole was like that, near the hem," Moy murmured."There's no use in getting rattled. I wonder if you've beenmistaken in the whole thing. I mean if Ingram wasn't shot by youat all, but that in some devilishly clever way you were just madeto think you did it?"
Gilmour stared at him. Then' he shook his head.
"Impossible! I fired. I heard him scream. I heard him fall. Iturned up the switch—at last—to see him lying deadwith my bullet hole in his forehead. Ingram, who never hurtanyone in all his quiet life!" His voice shook. There wassomething bewildered in his face since he had read the paper. Hetook a turn up and down the room.
"This article!" he went on passionately. "Someone's notcontent with what I shall suffer all my life. Someone wants me tobe publicly branded as what I'm not, and that's a murderer.Should the worst come, as it may, after that article, will youact as my solicitor?"
Moy held out his hand and gave the other's a warm clasp.
"Depend on me. But it won't come to that—probably." Thelast word was brought out reluctantly. "Though there's no usedenying that the situation is serious. Something's goingon...something underhand...but there's one thing foryou—the lack of all motive. But about this article in thepaper," Moy was thinking hard, "who on earth could have writtenit?"
"Some reporter, of course, or some press agent got it all fromthe police." Gilmour did not show much interest in theauthorship. Whereas Moy was keenly interested. He did not believethat the chief inspector would have been so guarded just now ifhe had meant to speak to the press. But supposing someone wantedto harm Gilmour, that piece of print had given him a terriblechance. He pulled himself together.
"The inquest is this afternoon. We must be prepared, ofcourse. Fully prepared. Now suppose I go through the questionsthe coroner's sure to ask you. Among them will be when did youmeet Ingram, how did you come to share a fiat with him, and soon."
Gilmour answered truthfully but baldly. His answers toldnothing new. His best defense, as Moy had just said, was lack ofmotive and plenty of better opportunities, as the solicitor hadnot said, but contented himself with thinking. He looked again atthe printed diagram of the sheet and the hole.
"Whoever did that is trying to fasten a murder on you," heagreed.
Gilmour looked at him a long minute.
"There's only one person here who hates me," he saidfinally.
"Frederick Ingram?" Moy asked promptly. He had thought of himat once.
Gilmour looked surprised. "Fred? Bless me, no! He wouldn'thave the grit to hate any one. Besides, all that old story isforgotten between us. We're quite good friends now. No, I meanMiss Pratt."
Moy almost gasped. Gilmour smiled a trifle crookedly.
"You've wondered at my standing out against the fair Winnie.Apart from being in love, deeply and truly in love, with anothergirl, her display of interest in me strikes me as so—so,"he seemed to be groping for words, "so artificial. I can'texpress it in words, but she doesn't care a hang for me really,Moy. Whatever the reason for her apparent preference for me, itwas only apparent. Miles away from the real thing."
Moy stared at him. He was certain that Gilmour was mistaken.He felt sure that he himself had got Winnie Pratt well taped, allher measurements taken, and they were those of a silly youngwoman who had hitherto always had what she wanted presented toher on a silver salver, and so from sheer mischief had decided toask for the moon. Now, had Gilmour said that Miss Longstaffdidn't care a hang for him, Moy would have quite agreed with him.Suddenly Gilmour leaned forward. He had decided to say more, gofurther than he had intended to a minute ago.
"You said just now there was no motive that could be drummedup against me. I'm not so sure. Ingram was madly in love withWinnie. It might be twisted to look as though I, too, had been,and had shot him to get him out of the way."
"Come, come!" Moy could scotch this idea at once. "We all knowto the contrary, and could show that you avoided her whenever andwherever you could. Besides, she herself—" He stopped. Itwould be a very unpleasant avowal for Winnie Pratt to be asked tomake.
"Just so!" Gilmour said meaningly. There were tense linesabout his young mouth. "What about Winnie Pratt herself!Supposing she chose to say—swear that my manner was only apose."
Moy was genuinely worried. "But I say! Good Heavens! Whyshould she?"
Gilmour did not reply.
"You mean, that you think she will?" Moy asked in horror, forif Miss Pratt did any such thing Gilmour might indeed be in atight place.
Gilmour was silent quite a long minute, fingering thenewspaper. Then he said with a sigh:
"Being in danger alters one's point of view. I should havesaid yesterday that nothing would make me give a girl away, butafter that article there," he flicked at the front page, "thismay be a hanging matter. You've said you'll act for me, so, well,I wouldn't bank on her not taking that line."
Remembering whom he had seen adjusting the all-important sheetover Ingram's body, Moy felt sure that Gilmour was exactlyreversing the feelings of the two girls, and that time would yetshow that Winnie really loved him, whereas it was Miss Longstaffwho, for some reason of her own, had chosen to pretend, verycasually and carelessly, that in time she might be willing tomarry him.
"She's got at Alfreda in some way," Gilmour went on, loweringhis voice. "Alfreda wasn't like that down at Bispham. I know aswell as I know my own name that the other has made her thinkthere have been tender passages between us, and that it's onlybecause of my not wanting to stand in Ingram's way that Iwouldn't openly join her train of worshipers."
A short silence fell. Moy was re-reading bits of the articlebefore them. Then he turned a quick, excited face to the other'shopeless one.
"Look here, I begin to wonder if the sheet was changed. Whilewe were in here. If so...where could the real one have beenput...any place near by?" He was talking to himself, and steppedout into the corridor as he spoke. Suddenly he pounced on a doorclose to Ingram's room. "That's the linen cupboard! It's justpossible! I wonder! You wait here. It's better that I should lookby myself!" Moy was almost incoherent, but Gilmour waited quietlyenough. Two minutes later Moy reappeared. "Andy! Andy! Puss,puss!" he called, and in answer to his voice along stalked ablack Persian which had adopted Moy as his particular friend.After another two minutes or so Moy came out again. His eyes werealight, but he said nothing until he had drawn Gilmour into aroom and shut the door.
"Got it! The sheet is there! The real one, for it's got thehole in the right place!" he said in an exultant whisper. "Oh,no, I didn't take it away. I had a brain-wave instead. I got holdof the cat, took off his collar with its bell, teased a corner ofthe sheet through the hamper where it had been tossed with othersoiled linen, worked the cat's bell into the bit that hung out.The basket stands in a corner, the bell doesn't show, but shouldanyone try to get hold of that sheet, it'll ring. Now, stay here,and keep your ears open for a tinkle-tinkle, while I go and tellthe policeman on the landing all about it."
He was gone, and for the first time since he had fired theshot Gilmour's face showed a slight relaxation of its lines.
The detective listened carefully to Moy while the cat sat byand washed a paw.
"You've found another sheet? Also with a bullet hole throughit?" He looked keenly at the young solicitor. "I see. And you'vefastened a bell—" He stopped. Tinkle-tinkle-tink! came alight, clear sound.
Andy, the cat, listened with a bewildered look upon hisintelligent face. Surely that was his bell...he scampered downthe passage straight for the linen room and only just dodged outof the way as someone slipped out of the door. The someone wasMiss Longstaff. Behind her came Frederick Ingram. "The maids seemquite demoralized," she said promptly, "I've been ringing forhours for a towel for Mr. Ingram. Do you know where they'rekept?" She had nerve, Moy thought, as he replied stiffly that hehad no idea where the linen at The Tall House was stowed, butthat a pile of hand-towels was usually to be found in the lockerof the downstairs lavatory.
"Were you ringing for her in there?" he asked blandly, "itsounded for all the world like a cat's bell."
Miss Longstaff murmured a word that did not sound like anybell, and went on downstairs with Fred. The detective sat on thebasket which Moy had pointed out to him, from which a littleround bell still dangled, fastened into a corner of a sheet.
"I wasn't present when you found this?" the detective, a youngOxford man, said with a faint grin, eyeing Moy very closely.
"You weren't present either when Ingram was shot," Moycountered. "Yet you don't deny that fact."
"Oh, no, it's no use denying facts!" the young man gaveanother grin.
"Why this attitude then?" Moy held out his cigarette case.
"Because this hamper and the two others were searched when wearrived this morning. You don't suppose Chief Inspector Pointeroverlooks any mouse-hole, do you? No sheet with a bullet hole wasin this room then."
Moy stared at him. "I found it at the very bottom..." he saidslowly.
Bosanquet shook his head. "Not there this morning. However,that's between ourselves. At any rate, this has got the hole inthe right place." He was spreading out the sheet and looking atthe little round scorched hole which was a good foot and a halfin from the edge.
Moy initialed it carefully with an indelible pencil. Then theyput it back in the basket and the detective announced hisintention of sitting on guard on the hamper until the chiefinspector could see it.
FREDERICK INGRAM touched Moy on the arm.
"Look here, that was just Miss Longstaff's idea—thattowel excuse—the fact is, I think as my brother'srepresentative, he was your client, that you oughtn't to takesides with Gilmour, as you do."
"Take sides?" Moy repeated, ruffled. "I don't understand. Whatdo you mean? I'm in the house when a terrible accident happens; Isee it happen—practically. Naturally, I form my ownconclusions. Who's more able to than the man on the spot? I dobelieve Gilmour's story. Why shouldn't I?"
"Because Charles was your client," Fred said slowly andweightily. "Gilmour shot to kill, Moy. You should consider thatview of my brother's death and see if it leads youto—Gilmour's side."
"It's just as well there are no witnesses," Moy said to that."You must have some reason for your words."
"Oh, it's so obvious," Fred Ingram said loftily, "so obviousthat you're all overlooking it. Of course my sister, Mrs.Appleton, swears that it's an accident, but then"—a verynasty sneer crossed his face—"what's easier? Shoot a manopenly, and then claim you thought you were shootingblank...Perfectly safe to get away with that."
"And the motive?"
Frederick hunched his shoulders. "Some private feud, ofcourse. They shared a flat together. A dozen motives may havearisen of which no outsider would know anything."
"The chief inspector is coming over at once," Moy said after amoment's thought. "Why don't you speak to him of yoursuspicions?"
"I'm going to," was the reply, and Fred swung on down thepassage.
Pointer was on his way to The Tall House when the message fromhis man was received for him at the Yard. He heard the news withhis usual impassive gravity. Then he went up and inspected theplace where the second sheet had been found. The detective whohad taken charge of it had already made his inquiries. The roomwas naturally never locked, the sheets had all been changedyesterday morning in readiness for the laundry which would callfor them some time during the afternoon.
"We looked them all over, sir," Bosanquet murmured. "Wasn'there then. But unfortunately all the sheets in the house areexactly alike, except those used by the servants."
"So we shan't know off whose bed it came," Pointerfinished.
Up till now it had not been possible to examine any bedrooms,let alone beds, except those of the dead man and of Gilmour.Pointer went there now. The sheet was still missing from Ingram'sbed. It was quite impossible to say which of the two claimants tobe the original top one was genuine. Even the housekeeper couldnot tell any of the linen apart.
"Quite useless trying to find out," Pointer said to his man."Evidently it was in, or on, a bed when we first came early thismorning." He examined the hole. If not caused by such a shot aswould come from Gilmour's little automatic, then it had beenburned with the pointed end of something of a size so exactlyright, that whoever did it must have known exactly what size waswanted, even though the other sheet had been taken away byPointer.
A tap came on the door. Fred Ingram would like to speak to thechief inspector when he should be at liberty, said one of theplain-clothes men.
Pointer had finished here. He took the second sheet and laidit away in the despatch case which always accompanied him whilean inquiry was on. Pointer saw Frederick in one of the downstairsrooms. Frederick informed him that he felt sure that Gilmour hadintended to kill Ingram. That all this "stuff" about thinking itwas loaded with blank was "tosh." Of course the cartridges now init are, but the first one was a genuine affair, and known to beby Gilmour..
"And what did your half-brother own, Mr. Ingram, that wouldmake Mr. Gilmour—or anyone else for that matter—wantto murder him?" was the query, and the gray eyes just swept theother's by no means ingenuous face.
Frederick clenched his teeth together until his cheek musclesbunched. "That's a very police way of looking at things," hesneered. "His purse or a five pound note, you mean? I don't knowwhat the motive is, but I can guess." He shot his ratherunderhung jaw forward. "When there's a lovely girl staying in thehouse with two men keen on marrying her, it wouldn't be difficultto add a third."
"But Mr. Gilmour claims to care for another lady."
"Oh, that! Have you seen them both?" Frederick demandedrudely. "Well, where are your eyes, chief inspector? They'll tellyou how much truth there could be in that tale. But whether shewas the reason or not, the fact is all that matters here. And thefact is that Gilmour has very simply, but quite successfully,drawn the wool over all your eyes. All except Miss Longstaff's.Look here, if Gilmour were innocent wouldn't she be the first tofeel it? She doesn't. She's so sure he's guilty that she's havingnothing more to do with him."
"Well," Pointer said with carefully obvious patience, "as Iunderstand it, Mr. Ingram, you have only suspicions, nothingdefinite, to go on? No past quarrels, for instance, overheard byyou?"
"Nothing but my common sense," Fred said shortly.
"And what about your own little disagreement with Gilmour?"Pointer asked pleasantly. His shot at a venture went home. Fred'sface flushed.
"That has nothing whatever to do with my certainty that theman's lying, and is gulling you all." And with that he left theroom rather hurriedly.
Pointer was entering a note or two when Moy came in search ofhim.
"Has Frederick Ingram spoken to you yet?" he asked.
"On several occasions," was the reply, with a twinkle. "AboutGilmour, I mean. Just now?"
Pointer said that he had.
"Then please listen to Haliburton, too. Here, Haliburton, youpromised to be kind enough to tell the chief inspector the taleof the foxes that weren't clever enough to fool Gilmour. I mustbe off to the office."
Haliburton, in his slow, pleasant way, rather jibbed a bit atfirst, but finally told Pointer all about that old affair. Headded that Fred claimed to have been as much taken in as was hishalf-brother, and Ingram apparently believed him, since it wasafter it that he offered him the post of his reader, but Fred hadnever let an opportunity pass, since then, of jumping on Gilmourbehind his back. Before his brother he was forced to show acertain neutrality for fear of arousing even Ingram'sunsuspicious mind to make a few connections.
"You're confident that Mr. Frederick Ingram knew the realstate of things?" Pointer asked.
"I don't see how he could help it. And any other business manwould tell you the same. Charles Ingram wasn't a business man.And one didn't like to call his half-brother a swindler, so onehad to let it pass. As, thanks to Gilmour, he hadn't lostanything, one could let the matter rest and hope that Fred Ingramwould be more cautious in future."
"Did Mr. Gilmour show any especial skill in detectingthe—weakness—of the proposal?" Pointer asked. Hewanted to know if the dislike of Fred for Gilmour wasreciprocated.
"None. Just used his brains, read what was written between thelines as well as what was in them. Ingram was the sort of finechap who never would dream that anything could exist betweenlines."
"Yet I thought he was rather an authority on ciphers," Pointersaid.
Haliburton said that he too had heard as much, but he seemedto feel no interest in that subject and referred back to thesilver fox farm without telling anything fresh.
"Did Mr. Frederick Ingram ever threaten to make it unpleasantfor Gilmour?" Pointer asked.
Haliburton drew in his rather long upper lip. He shot thedetective officer a speculative look.
"He did. Told him he'd teach him to mind his own business. ButI don't think Fred Ingram the sort of chap who would keep hisword—even to himself—if it were at alltroublesome."
"What terms were he and his brother on?"
"Excellent. As far as any one could judge Charles andFrederick were united by a really strong family tie."
Pointer drove on to the Yard turning Frederick Ingram over inhis mind. Where lay the key to the motive for thismurder—if it had been one?
He informed the assistant commissioner of the discovery of asheet, whose hole would fit Gilmour's statement, tucked awaywhere it would have been sent to the wash with the other sheetsand where the hole, even if noticed, would have been taken for aburn from a cigarette end.
"And it may be just that—or something hot—whichdid it," he wound up. "Mr. Gilmour even might have recollectedits position before the paper came out, and tried to put ablunder on his part right before it should be too late. He couldhave done that, of course, and just waited for someone to makethe discovery."
"Yes, like his story, it's inconclusive," Pelham agreed."Can't you clinch the matter by the sheets themselves? Or do theyall match each other?"
He was told that they did.
"And again it was Miss Longstaff who is connected with this,sheet as with the other. Amusing notion of the cat's bell. Andyou say Fred Ingram was with her? Odd..."
Pointer went on to speak of the fox farming idea and Gilmour'spart in preventing Ingram dropping quite a nice little sum overit.
"Aha!" Pelham cocked an ear like a hunter who hears acrackling out in the bushes. "So Frederick Ingram told you hesuspected Gilmour of murder, did he?" The assistant commissionerpassed a paper over to Pointer. "Here are the brief outlines ofFred Ingram's career, as far as we know them," he said. "Not atall the sort of saint who wouldn't try to do his half-brother outof a few shekels. Trouble with him seems to be that he once madea really good win at Cannes, baccarat it was, that mostfascinating of naughty little games, and since then he fluttersaround any casino candle like the proverbial moth, and to verysimilar effect. However, this last couple of years, as Haliburtonsays, he seems to be a reformed character. Though he still knowssome shady people...I wonder if it was he who sold the story ofthe sheet to the paper, and not Miss Longstaff...somehow shereally seems so incomprehensible...if she did it, I mean. Gilmourapparently so in love with her while she sells him to thepress..."
"Yet it is Miss Pratt, sir, who by her words throws thegreatest suspicion on Gilmour, the suspicion of a possiblemotive. As far as I can learn there is no foundation whatever forher idea that Gilmour cares for her. But she seems to think hedoes. Must."
"Perhaps more may come out at the inquest. What's yourposition going to be at it?"
"Knowing nothing, suspecting nothing, and believingeverything," Pointer assured his chief, and the other let him gowith a smile.
Back in his own room, Pointer looked through the Yard'snews-sheet of crimes that had happened last night. It was part ofevery officer's routine. There was one item on it at which hestopped, an attempted robbery of a small post office offLeicester Square. That office had happened to have rather a largesum of money in its safe last night, a fact that seemed to haveleaked out; but not so the other fact that the authorities hadtaken precautions accordingly.
A masked man had entered the office only to find himselfconfronted by a group of resolute postal officials—allarmed. He had decamped on the spot. He had rushed down a sidestreet, and it was this fact that interested the chief inspector.For, supposing Ingram to have posted a letter late last night,then he would have done so from either the Leicester Square orthe Fleet Street post office, as being the two nearest to himwhich' were open all night. And coming from Chelsea, there was ashort cut from Piccadilly Circus by way of Lisle Street which wasthe identical street used by the masked man in running away.Lisle Street had just been freshly laid down, and on a pair ofshoes, neatly placed under the foot of Ingram's bed, were themarks of having recently been walked over some newly tarred roadsurface. Pointer already had sent a man to that office askingwhether Ingram—to be identified by his portrait in thepaper which had printed the diagram of the sheet with the hole inthe wrong place—had registered a letter or parcel therelast night. A message on the 'phone while he was still studyingthe map, told him that a clerk on late duty had recognized Mr.Ingram as the sender of a late fee letter or package by letterpost, some time shortly after one o'clock last night. There hadbeen some question of making exact change and Ingram had offereda half-crown which was bad. He had handed in another, and hadstood chatting about his first piece and how to identify such aone in future. Unfortunately the clerk could not remember thename to which he had posted the package or letter, and knew thatby no effort could he do so, but he was certain of Ingram'sidentity, and his description of the rather hesitant, pleasantvoice tallied exactly with the dead man's, who, the post officeclerk said, had been alone. He had glanced at the clock at thesame moment that Ingram had pulled out his watch and compared thetwo, and he was willing to swear that the hour was shortly aftermidnight. Five or six minutes past twelve.
Now that was just a little before the time that the masked manwould be running down Lisle Street, which would probably beotherwise quite deserted at that hour.
Pointer was making a note about the bad half-crown when ChiefInspector Franklin came in. He was looking for a ledger onPointer's shelves. Franklin was an older man than the other, acheery soul, with a liking for a joke which found little scope inhis profession. He was in charge of this attempted robbery.Pointer looked up quickly.
"I was just wanting a word with you about this post officerobbery of yours," he began. To judge by their talk, all the menat the Yard might have been criminals, there were such constantreferences to 'this forgery of yours,' 'this attempted larceny ofyours,' this blackmail of yours that didn't come off.'...Pointerexplained to Franklin now how Ingram might well have met therunning man.
"Of course the man would have had his mask off...Ingram mayhave recognized him...had no idea what he was hurrying awayfrom...the man would see to it that he slowed down to a quickwalk...if he knew Ingram, he would have snatched at the chance ofwalking on with him, supposing Ingram to have been hurrying home,which would give the man an excuse for running—he couldclaim to be running after Ingram..."
"And what about bad half-crowns?" Pointer went on.
"Ah!" Franklin nodded again with a grin this time. "I toldBlackwell that we hadn't heard the last of that coining den ofhis, but he would have it that it was all cleaned up. You neverclean up forgers or coiners."
"I wonder if that bad coin had anything to do with Ingram'sdeath," Pointer mused, "...or did he meet this running man ofyours and recognize him?...I've been rather inclined to the ideathat he had some important document, cipher or cipher-reading,which was wanted by the murderer. But a false half-crown...and aman desperately trying to escape detection..." Pointer's voicedied away into thought.
Franklin was greatly interested. "Of course, supposing my manwas known to Ingram, he might have told him some cock and bullstory about always running at night in full evening rig so as toslim, but he would know that when Ingram got the morning paperswith their account of the attempted robbery in them, his talewould be torn. I think you've struck a good line there,Pointer."
Pointer did not look delighted. "It's a pleasant mixture," hesaid. "As a rule, in a shooting case, if a man wasn't on thescene of the crime, then he's presumably innocent. But here, themembers of the house party who were out of the house last nightwill be the most suspected, and heaven only knows where anybodywas. I've only their word for it...No way of checking it..."
"Well, if your murder is the result of my raid," Franklinsaid, quite unconscious of anything humorous in the phrasing ofhis sentence, "then it looks to me as though a bigger and betterraid was being planned. You think he was someone staying in thehouse?"
"Whoever murdered Ingram was either stopping at The TallHouse, or knew the house well." Pointer explained about the sheetand the blank cartridge and Franklin agreed that that seemedcertain. Pointer ran over the people in the house to him,describing them.
Franklin was not interested in Haliburton or in Gilmour, onewealthy, the other with a good pay and a good pension. Both menhe did not consider as probable post office robbers, but Tarkseemed another matter. He, too, however, seemed to have means ofhis own, apart from his profession of a mining engineer.
"He's the one we know least about," Pointer finished. "But sofar what he says should be easily verified. Born at Beausoleil,studied at Bologna, studied mathematics...got his doctorate therein Letters...claims to have a moderate but sufficient income fromhis father who was an English biologist worker for the Duke ofMonaco on some of his deep-sea expeditions. Hence the house inBeausoleil which the father bought."
"Beausoleil, not Monaco, I notice," Franklin saidmeaningly.
Pointer had noticed that too. It might mean little. But anyoneliving in Beausoleil can spend as much time as he wishes at theMonte Carlo Casino, which is not the case should he live withinthe walls of the little principality itself. On the other hand,Beausoleil has its admirers, quite apart from any question ofgaming, and it was understandable that a man working for the Dukewhen not required to be in residence might prefer to be outsidehis jurisdiction, and yet almost as near as though living inMonaco itself.
"I suppose it's out of the question for Ingram himself to havehad a hand in anything shady," mused Franklin; "been thedirecting spirit, say? Come out to watch how his little planswere getting along? That bad half-crown was very casually'planted.'..."
Pointer could only say that few things were impossible, whichwas what made life, and especially the life of a detective,interesting, but that it seemed a strange idea. Not borne out byanything yet found.
"It's much more in Fred Ingram's line, one would say, but evenwith him—" he proceeded to pass on his information aboutthe younger Ingram.
"Do you want this robbery of yours mentioned at the inquest?"Pointer asked. He was folding up theYard News.
Franklin emphatically did not. And said so. He watched theother mark some papers and tie them together.
"What do you call this case—The Tall House puzzle?" heasked.
"Personally I think of it as the 'Either-Or' case," Pointerreplied.
"Either Gilmour is telling the truth, and is innocent, or he'slying and is the murderer." Franklin laughed a little. "Nothingpeculiar about that I should say. This suggestion as to apossible motive in my robbery for Ingram's death seems rather tosuggest that he's telling the truth."
Pointer nodded in his turn. "But here again, taking Ingram'sdeath as a murder, either the motive was to escape detection whenIngram read the morning papers or it is something quitedifferent. And I don't see what part the posting of the packageor letter would play in the plot if Ingram was merely killed toavoid recognition, or to prevent his handing over someone to thepolice next morning."
"And why should the posting of the letter play any part in thecrime?" Franklin paused in the act of lighting a cigar toask.
"Well, the murderer knew about the ghost talk, and the threatof Gilmour's to shoot at sight, he would certainly know aboutIngram's going out to post or register a letter. The odd thing isthat he was allowed to send that package...and that no attemptwas made on his life beforehand..."
"Well?" Franklin was forgetting to light up.
"Yet one would think that the murderer must have foreseen itsposting. He was so well up in all the other details of life atThe Tall House. Ingram was working hard at something allafternoon, and more or less all evening...the murderer must havebeen expecting that it would be sent off. It looks, so far, asthough he wanted it posted."
"Waited for it, you think?"
Pointer said that it looked like it so far. "If so, it cutsthe ground out from under my idea of Ingram's chance encounterwith the man who took part in your robbery."
"Unless," Franklin's blue eyes darkened, "that packagecontained something to do with counterfeit coining? Say Ingramwas suspicious...had got on the track of some coiners, tested apiece of silver and found it bad, and...but he had posted thepackage first."
They discussed the further possibilities for a brief moment.Then Pointer was ready to go.
"I always think of you as soaring far above facts in yourdeduction flights." Franklin chaffed him.
"When I'm in a fog, my dear chap, facts are like palings towhich I cling, groping for a fresh one before I let go of thelast. You've laid my hand on some fine fat fellows with thisrobbery of yours, and I'm much obliged, though a bit lost yet asto where they're going to lead me."
Franklin burst into one of his big laughs. "Are you in a foghere?"
"Either—or," was Pointer's only reply.
"I don't envy you this murder of yours," Franklin said as theyparted. "Which of the people up at The Tall House strikes theoddest note? Fred Ingram or this Tark?"
"Neither. Miss Longstaff," Pointer said promptly, and wasgone.
POINTER turned over very carefully the new ideaas to why Ingram might have been murdered, as he drove back toThe Tall House.
It was rather suggestive, the notion of a man escaping from abalked robbery, running slap into someone whom he knew, fobbinghim off for the moment with some sketchy excuse, and having tokill him before the papers should give the details, unless he wasprepared for arrest and penal servitude. Someone who knew TheTall House, who had heard or had been told of this talk aboutghosts...seeing the lateness of the hour the probabilities werestrongly in favor of it being someone who had himself heard thatthreat of Gilmour's. In fact, the only certainty that Pointerhad, so far, was that the murderer knew of that talk.
He let himself quietly into the big house with its raking skyline of five floors and a battlemented coping. The room next tothe library was locked. Why, no one seemed to know. Inside it sata plain clothes man watching the unlocked library. The man had acareful list of all who had gone into the room, and through thekeyhole, by means of a tiny ended periscope, had been able towatch what each person did. Pointer had "salted" the library alittle while ago with papers tucked in books or odd corners. Someof the papers were quite blank, some of them were written on inwhat looked like Ingram's peculiar, and, therefore, easilycopied, writing in what purported to be either mathematicalformulas or ciphers. Green of the Yard could dash off a forgeryin a couple of seconds which would defy any but his own eyes todetect. His formulas and his ciphers were the merestconglomeration of figures or letters, but they looked quiteimpressive. Tark had been in that room for nearly ten minutesnow.
"Mrs. Pratt has been in twice just to have a look—see,"the man finished. "She's as good a watcher as one of us. Hangsround one of the rooms opposite, seems to give everybody threeminutes, and then slips in and is quite surprised to find anyonethere, offers to help and is politely thanked, and then whoeverit is goes off and, after a second, she looks about her and goesoff too."
Pointer was now watching Tark pounce on a slip of paper,studying it with the look of a ravenous animal on his usuallyimpassive face. Then he stood a moment the picture of indecision.As the door opened he tossed the paper behind the couch.
It was Mrs. Pratt in a smart black and white frock which onlymade her look gray and lined.
"Back again?" she murmured with a faint contemptuous smile."Perhaps I can save you trouble, Mr. Tark," she said with thatsparkle in her eye that Pointer generally found meant hastyimpulse in man or woman. "The letter isn't here. It wasburned."
"I don't understand you," Tark said stolidly.
"Oh, I think you do," she replied, still with heightenedcolor. "I saw you looking up at us when I handed it to Mr.Ingram. Well, it's burned and you won't be able to useit—as you would like!"
"I don't know what you mean," Tark repeated. "I saw you hand apaper to Ingram, yes, but papers you hand your friends don'tinterest me, Mrs. Pratt." His cold eyes flickered contemptuouslyover her.
Mrs. Pratt only gave the equivalent of a toss of her head. "Asthough I don't know how much you would like to find it—anduse it!" and with that she was gone again.
Tark stood looking after her, and seemed to think that thiswas no time to continue his hunt, for he too went on out, leavingthe door ostentatiously wide open. After a second Mrs. Pratt cameback, closed the door, stood a second listening, and thenscrambled at full length under the sofa for whatever it was thatTark had tossed there on her entry.
Pointer decided on a few words. He stepped in so swiftly andso noiselessly that until he shut the door she had no idea anyonehad entered. Then she tried to wriggle back from her undignifiedposition and Pointer gravely assisted her, moving the sofa to lether get up. She looked anything but grateful to him as she didso.
"Look here, Mrs. Pratt," he said on that, "I have an idea youwant something back that you lent Mr. Ingram. Something besidesthat poem you asked him to burn. Now we've taken quite a lot ofpapers away with us. Unless it concerns the murder we don't wantto keep any of them. Yours may be among those that we have.Suppose you tell me what is in it."
She stared hard at him, pursed her lips and straightened herdress, flicking the dust off it here and there. "Mr. Ingramburned those silly verses, as I just told Mr. Tark, who wouldlike to get hold of them and tease me about them."
"A playful nature, evidently," Pointer murmured.
She shot him a cold and haughty glance, but he did not seem tosee it as she made for the door. He held it open without anotherword. Mrs. Pratt was not going to talk. She did not return to theopposite room but went on up the stairs too. Pointer had his manjoin him in the little room which he used as a sort of temporarypolice station. There he looked through the man's list of namesand times spent in hunting in the library. First had come MissLongstaff; she had spent a quarter of an hour when Mrs. Pratt haddropped in. The detective thought that Mrs. Pratt was distinctlysuspicious of the younger woman's motives for being there at all.Miss Longstaff had said that she had mislaid a return ticket anda letter from her mother while in there earlier in the day, and"must have them back." Mrs. Pratt, as had been said, showed acertain skepticism of this reason.
"Your letter in here? How very odd! Did you bring it downhere, or do you think one of the maids carried it downstairs fromyour bedroom?" she had asked sweetly. Miss Longstaff said she hadno thoughts on the matter but that she had been reading it whenthe dreadful shock of this morning had made her come running downwith it, and possibly the ticket too, in her hand. Since thenboth had disappeared. Like everyone else (here the detective saidshe had given Mrs. Pratt a certain lingering look) she had wantedto see the room where Mr. Ingram had worked...she might havedropped it then...but did Mrs. Pratt want anything inparticular?
Mrs. Pratt said that she had handed Mr. Ingram a very sillyset of verses about angles and angels, and so on, and only hopedit had not fallen into the hands of the police; she would feel sovery silly if any eye but her own and Ingram's ever saw thelines. And then it had been Miss Longstaff's turn to besurprised. "You wrote poetry on Mr. Ingram? Now do you know thatis the last thing I should connect with you, Mrs. Pratt," and soit had gone on for a few more sentences. Then Mrs. Pratt had satdown and said she wanted to write a letter, would Miss Longstaffmind letting her have the room to herself for a few minutes? Shehad always found that she could write best in the library."Poetry?" Miss Longstaff had asked with one of her stares but shehad left the other woman alone. After a minute or two Mrs. Pratthad gone out. Her aim had evidently been to see the girl off thepremises. Then had come Frederick Ingram. He had gone over everyscrap of paper, and the description of his face while doing sotallied remarkably with the look on Tark's face, with the effectof half-savage desire, half-indecision which the chief inspectorhad watched on the man to whom Mrs. Pratt had spoken her oddwords. Then again Mrs. Pratt had drifted in, and again had askedthe seeker what he was looking for. Frederick said that he hadleft some very valuable notes here, which Ingram particularlywanted him to rush through for his next book.
That he had laid them down while talking with Ingram and didnot remember where...Mrs. Pratt seemed to have two strokes tomost people's one, and she saw Frederick Ingram safely out of theroom, having another look when he had gone. What was the womanafter? Pointer could only guess that she was not so satisfied asshe seemed that Ingram really had burned whatever she had handedhim. What could that be? The field was too wide and rested tooentirely on speculation for the chief inspector to waste any timeover it. Certainly the two men examined any scrap of paper nomatter how tiny, whereas Mrs. Pratt only looked at sheets ofnote-paper that resembled that stocked in the writing-tables ofthe house, and used by Ingram himself in the library, a graypaper with black heading.
That much bore out her statement about the silly rhyme, butonly that much. At all events, she and the two men did not seemto be in each other's confidence.
As for Tark and Frederick Ingram, they seemed to be strangersto each other, at any rate neither had been seen talking to theother at The Tall House since Ingram's death.
The inquest was fixed for the afternoon. For a while thecoroner seemed inclined to dally with the idea of the unboltedfront door, but as a coroner's court has only to decide the causeof death, and in this case it was most clearly and undisputablydeath from a bullet, he could not waste much time on that.
Frederick Ingram ventilated his doubts of Gilmour's story asto a blunder having been made. But all the other witnesses whoknew the two men, including his sister, spoke so warmly of theyears of uninterrupted friendliness between them that he did notmake the impression which he obviously hoped to do.
And, very fortunately for Gilmour, a very eminent Cambridgedon, a friend of the dead man's, told of an incident which hadhappened only this last Easter on Scawfell. Ingram and Gilmourhad tried a rather hazardous cross cut, Ingram had slipped to anarrow ledge and lay unconscious. Gilmour had reached him withsome difficulty, and sat between him and the precipice, signalingand calling for help. The Cambridge master had been out, too,with some friends, and had heard the cries.
Ingram had been rescued, and after a day in bed was none theworse for an adventure which, but for Gilmour, might have turnedinto a tragedy. This piece of evidence flattened out any effectmade by Frederick.
As for Winnie Pratt, she gave Gilmour an impassionedtestimonial which secretly roused him to feelings little short ofhomicidal, and even Moy bit his lips nervously. But Winnie wasonly questioned for a moment, she could give no evidence of anyfresh kind. Miss Longstaff was not called.
The weapon was produced, the man who sold the blank cartridgesshowed how next to impossible it would have been for thesuppliers to have made a mistake in a box labeled "BlankCartridges." The police put in the two sheets each with a hole init, one near the hem, one a good fifteen inches from the edge.Gilmour gave his version of what had happened and explained thesubstitution of a faked sheet for the real one as an idea of somemember of the house party fond of a dramatic incident, who wantedto see how the police would come at the truth. Here his glancefell on Winnie Pratt, who smiled gently and encouragingly back athim.
The police themselves offered no objection to this theory. Thecoroner summed up in a way certainly not hostile to Gilmour, thejury went further, and brought in a verdict of death bymisadventure, expressing their sympathy with the sister of thedead man, and with his friend, the unfortunate firer of the fatalshot. They put in a rider as to the danger of practical jokes,and the likelihood of them having unforeseen consequences.
"I congratulate you," Moy said warmly to Gilmour as they leftthe coroner's court together. Gilmour looked at him.
"Would you like to have to sit down under a verdict of NotProven?" he asked quietly. "Would you let the woman you lovethink you a murderer?"
"How can she think it! What motive—-" Moy said again,almost impatiently.
"Miss Pratt has represented me as being secretly devoted toher own fair self, and only faithful to Alfreda because I thoughtI owed it to her." Gilmour spoke bitterly. "I knew something hadpoisoned her mind when she came up to town—it's all thatwretched girl's doing. Alfreda loved me sincerely, down atBispham. I gave her, as well as myself, time to be sure of ourfeelings and went down there and got her to come and stay withus. I noticed a slight change then...a coldness, a sort ofindifference...I thought she was vexed that I had gone away, butI think now that she had heard something about the beautifulWinnie being here. At any rate, the girl who turned up next dayfor lunch was no more my bright, amusing Alfreda, best ofcompanions, cheeriest of comrades, than it was a Dutchman. Shehad been 'got at.' In other words, she thinks she has reason tobe jealous, and a jealous girl is never at her best." Gilmourfinished with a sigh. "She'll come round of course," he added,"but when—how—" and he fell silent. Moy said nothing.He had told the police, but not Gilmour, of the meeting in thelinen room this morning. What was Frederick Ingram doing in therewith Alfreda Longstaff?
The assistant commissioner had been presenttoo—unofficially—at the inquest. He was discussing itwith Pointer as they drove away.
"I rather hoped to find out who was Gilmour's and Ingram'senemy," Pelham said, lighting up, "for if the man's telling thetruth, and he made a truthful impression, he has an enemy and abitter one! Personally, apart from the impression made on me, hisabsence of any sort of a good yarn to account for that firstsheet sounds like an honest man. You've been delving deep intoIngram's past. Have you found out any peculiarities? Moy speaksas though it were the plain and level high road."
"There's one odd thing," Pointer said. "Moy doesn't seem toknow about it. How did Ingram manage to change the eight thousandodd his father left him, after death duties were paid, intothirty thousand odd? For that's the sum he has left behind him.Allowing for the rise in the securities his father left him, andthe ones he himself has put his money into—and he seems tohave chosen well—that still leaves the fact of eightthousand pounds turned into thirty."
"Fact? Call it a miracle these days," Pelham saidwistfully.
"He went in chiefly for gold shares," Pointer said.
"Well, that does explain the miracle a little. Still, even so,I wish I had taken him as my financial adviser!" Pelham spokeenviously now. "Or is this where the counterfeit half-crowns comein? Blackwell will be still more on his toes when he hears this.He's still hoping to be able to find in Ingram the devilishschemer, the secret head of all coiners who, according to him,really exists somewhere in Europe or America." Pointer was silentfor a moment, then he said, half to himself:
"Faces mislead, of course, as I'm the first to acknowledge,but generally because they're only looked at as features, as itwere, two-dimensionally—breadth and height—but depthis in Ingram's face too. If ever a dead face looked like that ofan upright, honorable man it is the face of the 'ghost' at TheTall House. Fastidiously honorable, I should say, unbendablyupright."
"That's his reputation," Pelham said. "Everyone seems to agreeon that. But how he turned that eight into thirty..." Pelham losthimself in financial speculation.
"He regularly, every quarter, these last five years has hadhis stockbrokers send in to his bank securities to the total ofroughly a thousand pounds. He has spent for some six yearsexactly four hundred a year on himself—one hundred everyquarter. His scholastic books seem to've brought him that and abit more. His father's capital constantly turned over very muchto its increase, and this strange thousand pounds every quarterof the last five years, also well invested and frequentlychanged, makes up the rest."
"What do his stockbrokers say? Who are they?"
"Cash and Weirdale."
"I know them. Good but old-fashioned. Nothing dubious wouldpass them, I think. What do they say about the thousand pounds aquarter? Was it sent them by check in the usual way on SettlingDay—or paid in by half-crowns?" Pelham finished with asmile.
"Neither, sir. Mr. Ingram would personally drop in everyquarter day, quite irrespective of whether it was End Account orBuying for New Time, and hand over personally ten packets ofone-hundred pound notes."
"'Forgeries?' asks Chief Inspector Blackwell at that point inthe story," Pelham said with interest.
"No, sir. Not as far as we know. The firm had had dealingswith Mr. Ingram for years or they would have refused such a wayof dealing, but in his case, of course, they accepted it as aquaint bit of oddity."
"Very quaint, and most uncommonly odd!" agreed Pelham. "Athousand pounds every quarter day...is it possible we have herethat never-yet-seen-in-the-flesh character, the gambler with acertain System which consistently wins?"
"I thought of that, sir," Pointer said.
"You would!" Pelham spoke in a resigned tone. "Well?"
Pointer laughed. "Well, sir, we sent his picture to all thebig gambling resorts and he's definitely not known there. Nor hashe ever been away for long from his flat or house. But there is aroulette table, old and dusty, in his rooms in a cupboard, snowedunder, and not been used for at least a year. But there it is.For what it's worth."
"Do you think it's worth anything?" Pelham asked, cocking aneye at him.
"It may be some legacy of Fred Ingram's, sir. But I confessit's odd...Yet against the gambling idea, apart from no hint ofit ever having been whispered about him, as far as we know, isthe fact that he only paid in, never out from, his account anylargish sums."
"Looks like the half-crowns," Pelham murmured in jest.
"It's a case with many possibilities," Pointer agreed. "Thatpossible encounter with the masked man after the post-officerobbery—"
"Mrs. Appleton looks twenty years older," Pelham saidsuddenly, "yet she and her brother didn't see much of each otherthese latter years, and if Gilmour's story is true, she wouldconsider that he died as the result of a sheer accident. You saidshe looked vastly relieved when Gilmour told her exactly whathappened."
"She did. But as you say, sir, she didn't look relieved todayat the inquest."
"Has she been searching the library too?"
"Not since her one search. But I told her that we wonderedwhether any visitor had been in Mr. Ingram's bedroom last night,and she promptly made an excuse and slipped inthere—unobserved, as she fancied. Again she emptied all thecigarette ash out of the window."
"Was there any? I thought Ingram didn't smoke cigarettes."
"There was some left in a couple of ash trays," Pointer saidwith a faint smile, "just to test Mrs. Appleton."
"You think she's afraid someone was there last night? Appletonor Fred Ingram?"
"Her relations with her half-brother seem very cool, sir. Norcan I think she would have looked so immensely relieved if he hadbeen in her mind—I mean when she first heard of how herbrother was actually killed. It looked to me, and still does, asthough she feared that someone very near to her had had a hand inthat killing."
"Which means her husband?" Pelham asked.
"Yes, sir."
"And you think she thought he might have left somethingcompromising, identifying, behind him?"
"I think so, sirs. But the curious thing is she didn't knowwhat to look for, nor where. Odd, if her husband really had spentthe night at Markham Square as she says. Anyway, it looks asthough she knew of the existence of a motive...and knows that herhusband was not where she says he was, at home and in bed at oneo'clock last night."
"All four women then stand for larger or smaller mysteries inthis case. The two elder women as well as the two girls."
"Mrs. Appleton seemed oddly disturbed when Moy told her justnow—I was present—of the amount of her brother'sfortune. I couldn't say it was alarm, but it certainly was notpleasure, when she heard the unexpectedly large sum he has leftbehind him." Pointer was looking at his shoe-tips, deep inthought.
"Well, that is odd!" Pelham said frankly.
"Moy has told me something that rather alters things," Pointerwent on. "By their marriage settlements she and Appleton agreedto go halves in any legacy left them. There was a wealthy greatuncle of both who was expected to leave one or other his money.He did, to Appleton, who quietly wriggled out of paying over thehalf to his wife until he had spent it all. But the settlementwasn't changed. So Appleton is really a co-heir with his wife,though it's only a question of the interest on the money, whichgoes intact to the children."
Pelham smoked thoughtfully without making any comment. Theywere back at the Yard by this time, in the assistantcommissioner's room. He reached for a book behind him and openedit at a page which he had marked with a slip.
"I bought this at an auction last week. It's an old work oncrime by Luigi Pinna, translated by some contemporary. There's adelightful passage which puts the case beautifully, and in wordsof one syllable. Listen: 'In numerous cases the sole differencebetween success and failure in the detection of crime is a sortof osmotic mental reluctance to seep through the cilia of whatseems to be and reach the vital stream of what actually is.' Howdo you propose to seep through the cilia, Pointer?"
"Well, sir, it sounds rather odd. But I want to have alldisappearances during the last three months to six months in, ornear, London looked up. I'm only interested in solitarypeople—men or women—preferably odd looking. No dwarfswanted, nor giants, nor very thin people..."
"What in the name of Minerva are you up to?" the A. C. asked."Disappearances and Ingram's death? How are they linked?"
"I hope you won't press that question, sir. I would be verygrateful if I needn't answer it at this stage. I may be quitewrong. It's just a possibility..."
"The classic answer of the gifted sleuth," Pelham murmuredgood humoredly. "The dark curtains being drawn before they partwith a bang and the lights go up, while the audience cheers,eh?"
"I wish I could feel certain of that last part, sir. What ifthe lights refuse to go up, and the audience laughs instead? Butseriously, there is just a possibility which has been in my mindfrom the beginning...if I can find what I'm feeling for, it wouldlead straight to the solution of the puzzle."
"And to the motive at the same time?" Pelham asked. Pointershook his head.
"Not necessarily, sir, but it would lead to thecriminal—if it leads anywhere."
"Humph...well, I'll let you answer my questions at your ownconvenience then. But as to motive...no ideas at all?"
"I can't think of anything that will fit the case, sir. And Iassure you, it's not due to osmotic mental reluctance."
Pointer laughed. "I've been trying to find out if Mr. Ingramwent in for crossword competitions. It would be odd to win soregularly, but he has brains that would lend themselves to thatsort of thing, one would think.
"It seems, however, that he particularly disliked them. Mrs.Appleton told me that if the children started asking 'what wordof four letters means feeble,' or 'one of seven means dashedhopes,' and so on...he would fly, and everyone else tells me thesame thing."
"Looks like ciphers," Pelham said, serious again. "Bigbusiness firms will pay anything you like for unreadable ciphers,or for help in solving those stolen or intercepted from rivalfirms. And of course there still remains government ciphers andMrs. Pratt's one-time maid, you know..."
"And her husband who fell overboard..." Pointer finished."I've looked up the record of that. Apparently Mr. Pratt wasreally out on deck by himself when he fell over."
"It's a subtle crime," Pelham said after a moment's silence."This of Ingram's death. And clever. To get another man to doyour shooting for you is really good. The curious thing was thatchange in the sheets..."
"Very," Pointer agreed. "It paid us such a compliment. Most ofthe people one meets seem to think a detective can't see thingsunless he stumbles over them."
"I never heard anyone who ever met you, let alone saw you atwork, speak of that as one of your failings," Pelhammurmured.
"Still, sir, it was a compliment to us to feel so sure that wewould notice the wrong placing of that hole, if donepurposely..."
ABOUT an hour after the inquest, Moy got amessage that Mrs. Appleton would like to speak to him on thetelephone.
"Do come round to see me as soon as you can," she begged. "I'mthinking about Mr. Gilmour. It's a dreadful position for him. I'mstaying at my brother's flat at Harrow for the present, as youknow, but I shall be at Markham Square all the afternoon."
When Moy went round, as he did at once, he found to hissurprise that Tark was in the little drawing-room talking to arather distrait-looking hostess. As Moy was shown in, Tark saidthat he would wait until Moy had finished, and go back with him,if he might, as there was something that he wanted to talk to thesolicitor about.
Mrs. Appleton gave a nod that suggested inattention more thanagreement, and Tark stepped out into the little passage, and Moyheard him opening and then closing a door farther down on thesame side. The door of Appleton's den. So he could find his wayabout the house...Moy had thought that he did not know Ingram'ssister or brother-in-law...but Moy dropped Tark, and what hemight have to say to him, and devoted himself to Mrs.Appleton.
She had been deeply moved, she said, by the look of sufferingin Gilmour's face and she had just heard that Miss Longstaff hadbroken with him.
"I don't know that there's anything one can do, Mrs.Appleton," Moy said rather hopelessly. "I quite agree with you,it's awful for him, but how to help him is another matter."
"I can't bear the situation!" she said suddenly to that. "It'san intolerable one for me, Charles's sister!"
So it was not for Gilmour that she wanted to see him afterall, Moy thought.
"You know, I've been wondering whether some one couldn't haveshot Charles over Lawrence Gilmour's shoulder, just as he firedthe blank cartridge..." She looked very white and very tense asshe said this. "I mean, Mr. Gilmour may be right in thinking hefired a blank shot, and yet Charles may have been shotdead—but by someone else."
"I've thought of the same possibility myself," Moy said, "butit seems so far-fetched. Besides, it would mean that someone wasin Gilmour's room, unknown to him, who fired through the opendoor at the exact second that Gilmour did."
"Well? He would lift his arm to fire. There would be plenty oftime to know when he was going to pull the trigger." Her voicesounded harsh, as though her throat were dry. "Mind you," shewent on hastily, "I wouldn't say this to the police for worlds.Nor have them know I ever thought it." Her vehemence told Moythat her nerves must be frightfully on edge. "But as you're ourfriend—friend to all three of us, Charles, Edward, Gilmourand to me—I know I can talk things over with you withoutfear of consequences."
Moy assured her that she could. But he looked at her a trifleoddly.
"As Gilmour thinks that he was alone," he went on, "your ideawould mean that some one hid in his room and stepped out just ashe himself stood in the doorway with the door open, and whileyour brother was walking away down the passage."
"Well," she said, "there is a built-in cupboard just by thefireplace exactly opposite to the door. It's not used. The roomis carpeted from wall to wall."
"True," Moy said slowly, "he wouldn't have had even to stepout, just swing the cupboard door wide open...counting on thefact that when Charles fell Gilmour would rush forward and leavethe bedroom door open...but I think I should have seenhim..."
"You too rushed to Charles's side. And were trying to find aswitch that would work," she said under her breath, her eyes wideand dark.
It was true. He had paid no attention to the rest of thepassage except to the white mound on the floor outside Ingram'sroom half-way down.
"That would mean that your supposed murderer was a good dealtaller than Gilmour—which might easily be, for he'sshort—or have stood on a hassock."
"There is a hassock in that room, a huge leather one." Shetwisted her fingers tightly together on her knee.
"He'd have to be a crack shot, as well as a particularlycallous brute," Moy finished hotly. Mrs. Appleton kept her eyesfastened on her tightly clenched hands. "Yes," she said so lowthat he barely caught it. "Or have been mad."
"Mad! No madness in such a plan!" he retorted almostreprovingly.
"But madness is wanting a fortune at any cost—at anyprice!" she finished still under her breath.
"But how would Ingram's death have given—" Moy stopped,and suddenly he saw what all this meant. The woman's white face,the horror in her dilated eyes...So Appleton had not been at homelast night. The alibi that she had given was false. She suspectedher husband of having murdered her brother...a horrible position.But she had nothing to go on, surely...Of course Appleton was asplendid shot. He got many an invitation on that account in theautumn, and he was just the right height to have fired overGilmour's shoulder, or even over his head, at Ingram...But hewouldn't know about that cupboard. Appleton had never beenupstairs in The Tall House. Besides, he couldn't be sure that hiswife would still inherit under her brother's will, though itwouldn't be like Ingram to change his will without letting Mrs.Appleton know...Where was Appleton, by the way? He had not seenhim except for a few minutes at the inquest. Moy remembered nowthat he had come in after his wife and sat down some distanceaway. Near the door.
"You didn't see anything that bears out my fantastic idea?"she said, looking at him with tragic eyes. "I mean, now, thinkingback?"
He assured her that as he had just said, he thought the ideanot easily credible, but was not prepared to say it was quiteimpossible.
"Then—then"—he saw her pass her tongue across herlips—"if not impossible, it must be looked into. I meanit's our duty to do so. For Charles's sake, and above all forLawrence Gilmour's sake! I can't imagine anything more horribleto Charles than to have his friend suffer for something that henever did."
"One has to think these things over very carefully, Mrs.Appleton," Moy began. She flashed him an almost scathinglook.
"Do you suppose I've thought of much else since—it firstoccurred to me as a possibility," she said. "I hoped, I thoughtthat Mr. Gilmour might quite clear himself—I mean..." Shestopped and then went on with another sentence. "Friends talkingon the way home showed me that because of that article about thesheet with the hole in the wrong place he's by no means cleared.Who could have written it? It seems so motiveless. Just to throwa wicked suspicion on him and not to carry it any further. Itcouldn't be just a newspaper idea, could it? To help theirsales?"
Now Moy himself was rather thinking along those lines. Had heknown of any person belonging to that particular paper being atThe Tall House he would have thought of it much sooner. But thissmaller mystery sank into insignificance besides the oneconcerning her husband...He must ask after him in commondecency...He rose and murmured something about her having givenhim a great deal to think over, and the necessity of great carein such matters. He supposed Appleton was out? And hoped she, thechildren were well. Moy ran it all together in a sort of vaguemist of good hopes. She did not reply to his words.
"I'm going away for a long voyage with the children." Sheseemed to be already far away. "That's why I had this talk withyou. You will know just what to do about everything."
Moy did not in the least share her confidence in his universalknowledge. He could imagine few more perplexing positions. Anycareless move on his part, one incautious word, and the twoAppleton children would or might, be in the position of thechildren of a suspected murderer. How could he help Gilmourwithout harming them—Ingram's little nephews? He left thehouse feeling as though a weight too heavy for him had beensuddenly thrust on him. He had completely forgotten Tark and anytalk with him. But that gentleman did not seem to mind beingforgotten. He had drawn up an easy chair to the window and satlooking through the lace curtains, smoking a cigar, and now andthen entering figures in his note-book as Moy had so often seenhim doing. He put it in his pocket as Appleton passed the window.A minute later the master of the house came in. Tark waited untilhe had closed the door of the little room, before he rose fromhis deep easy-chair. Appleton swung round with an exclamation ashe saw his guest.
"How did you get in? I had no idea—"
"You have been out each time that I asked for you before. Nowthen, Appleton, what's your best offer?"
The two faced each other in silence. A long silence.Appleton's forehead and lips began to twitch.
"I don't understand you," he said at length.
"I think you do. Which is why you've refused to be in wheneverI've 'phoned. Now then, what's your best offer?"
"I don't understand you," Appleton repeated. He tried to speakdefiantly, but his voice suggested a bleat.
"Try a little harder," suggested Tark with a sardonic smile,"for I don't want to go into details. I don't want to know them.I'm quite willing that you should enjoy what you've run suchrisks to get."
"I haven't run any risks. I haven't got hold of anything!"came from Appleton fiercely. Tark waved him away with his hand asthough he were a smoke ring.
"I'm quite willing, as I say, not to start any unpleasantinquiries, provided you give me a written understanding that wego shares in your—we'll call it 'purchase.' Fifty-fifty,Appleton. Come now!"
"You're mad!" came angrily from Appleton, whose eyebrows weregoing up and down like some sign in a window. "Mad! Fifty-fifty?For what?"
Tark came quite close. "For your neck, Appleton. Fifty percent is none too high for that, and I mean to have that promise.Or hand you over to the police. I know you've gotthe—information—I want. And I know how you got it.And if the police knew the first fact, they too would know thesecond. At present, they're hunting for a motive. One word fromme, Appleton, one word as to what I expected them to find amongIngram's papers, and what becomes of you? You with your doublemotive, that paper, and Ingram's will?"
"You're all wrong! All wrong!" Appleton said hotly. "He gaveme the paper. Handed it to me as a free gift."
Tark's short, low, sneering laugh was his answer to that lastassertion.
"Your wife feels as sure of that as I do," he said. "It'strue!" flamed out Appleton suddenly. "Damn you, it's true! She'sbeen talking to you, has she!"
Tark eyed him with the intent, unmoved, watching gaze of a manaccustomed to use his fellow-men, to make the most of anyopportunity that came his way.
"No matter how I learned about it," he said briefly, "I doknow, that's enough. Now then, what about the offer in writingfor which I'm here, to be left behind when we set off for foreignparts? Just in case history should repeat itself, eh? Just youand me on a trip together—Fred Ingram is stillhunting."
Chief Inspector Pointer had taken the bus ticket tothe head office. There they told him that it had been punchedlate on the evening on which Ingram had been shot, and was forthe distance from before Markham Square to a little beyond thestreet in which was The Tall House. He was now for the first timeable to see the ticket collector who had been on duty at thetime. Pointer reminded him that it was the night of the heatwave, one of the hottest nights in England for the last fiftyyears. The man remembered it perfectly. He had only had onepassenger inside. A tall chap with a twitchy face. He rememberedhim, because he had jumped off the bus so hastily on catchingsight of a friend on the pavement that he had all but fallenheadlong in the road. The conductor had steadied him.
"Did you see his friend? The man on the pavement?"
"He was just turning a corner. Couldn't catch sight of hisface."
So that Appleton, for the description fitted him, must haveknown the man quite well to have recognized him from thatglimpse.
"Was your fare any of these?" Pointer laid some photographsbefore the man.
"That's him!" The collector touched Appleton's picture. "He'soften up and down our way. Lives along there."
He had not seen him in company with any of the other facesshown him. Did he see the actual meeting between the passengerand the man on the pavement? "A bit of it." His fare had hurriedafter the other man, overtaken him, and caught hold of his elbow.They seemed quite friendly. At least the other had not snatchedhis arm away. Pointer further learned that the pedestrian mightwell have been Ingram, though this was purely negative, inasmuchas the man had not been old, nor big, nor fat...
Pointer next went on to see Appleton, and that was how he cameto send in his name just as Tark was putting a folded paper awayin his letter-case while Appleton stood watching him with a faceof fury. Tark shot a swift glance around as the maid entered with"a gentleman to see you, sir," and held out Pointer's card.
"I'll go out that way," Tark breathed in the other's ear, andmade for the double door leading into some other room. Appletondetained the maid.
"When you've shown, the gentleman in, show this other out. Besure he goes at once."
Pointer looked very grave and very stiff.
"Mr. Appleton, why have you not told us that you walked backto The Tall House with Mr. Ingram the night on which he was shot?That you had a talk with him in the library there." This wasguess work, due to the ticket, and Mrs. Appleton's interest incigarette ash. Appleton was smoking a very peculiar Greek brandof cigarette.
"For the very good reason that I did none of these things,"Appleton said sharply. His twitchy face was absolutely still ashe turned it to the other. Pointer felt as though it were held sorigid that a finger pressed against the cheek would not even makea dent.
"You were recognized," he said warningly.
"I couldn't have been, since I wasn't there," Appleton tossedback in as firm a voice. "What you mean, chief inspector, is thatsomeone thought he recognized me. He made a mistake. I often diddrop in for a chat with my brother-in-law, but not as it happenson that evening." He drummed on the table. His fidgets began tocome back, now that the strain for which he had pulled himselftogether had gone, or lessened.
"Pity," Pointer said thoughtfully. "You might have been ableto help us. Supposing Mr. Ingram's death was not accident, can'tyou suggest anything, Mr. Appleton, which might have been amotive for his murder?"
Again the face stiffened, grew still and set.
"His work, for instance," Pointer went on, not apparentlyglancing at the other man, "or something connected with hiswriting."
Appleton was quite pale, but he shook his head. He sat down ina chair so hastily that it looked as though he fell into it.
"The inquest has just decided that it was death bymisadventure," he said in a curiously halting voice. "I don'tpretend, chief inspector, that I think things don't lookodd...anyone could have tampered with that revolver, as I've saidfrom the beginning." He shot an odd, sly look at the chiefinspector, sly and yet determined. "I don't pretend to agree withthe finding of the inquest," he said again. "I'm glad you'relooking into the matter." He did not look glad, but he did lookoddly persistent and haunted.
"Yes, I have a horrid sort of fear that perhaps it wasn't anaccident," he went on. "I had intended to say nothing about sucha possibility, but—well—somehow I feel it would beletting Ingram down. I have an idea he had some cipher or otherof great potential value, and that he was murdered for that..."Appleton threw out his chest and pulled himself in until helooked like a majestic pouter pigeon. His dark, large, flat eyesfastened themselves on the chief inspector's face. "Don't youthink yourself, chief inspector, that there's something odd aboutthe affair?" he asked.
"It's quite an idea," Pointer replied evasively, and as thoughmuch struck by its novelty. "But can't you suggest what sort of acipher...where we ought to look for the criminal if there isone?"
No. Appleton assured him that he had only a vague uneasinessthat things were not right, but that he had no idea as to whocould possibly want to murder his brother-in-law.
"Of course if it was a cipher," Pointer murmured, as thoughconfiding in his cigarette—one of Ingram's—"onewonders whether his proof-reader wouldn't know something aboutit..."
Appleton drew in a quick breath, his eyes bulged for a momentbut he said nothing, only tapped the knuckle of his first fingerreflectively against his teeth, which gave him an odd appearanceof uneasiness.
"Possible," he muttered. "That's really what I wondered.Whether...it's a ghastly idea, suspecting this person and that,but if it was anything to do with his papers, why of courseFrederick Ingram would be by way of knowing about it..."
Appleton leaned forward, one hand on the table, a white,well-kept hand but thin and hollow-sinewed; the hand of a manwho was really very ill.
"It's ghastly for everyone," he went on in a tired voice, "Imean anyone who also feels uneasy, not to know who did it. But inconfidence, chief inspector, I think you ought to keep an eye onhim—and on Tark," he added vindictively and suddenly.
"I thought you were doing that," Pointer said innocently.
Appleton turned very gray. "Tark? I, or no, he...I...no, Ihardly know him," he murmured.
"Yet you correspond..." Pointer seemed puzzled. "I may as welltell you that I saw a letter from you to him—" So Pointerhad, but in Tark's letter-case. Appleton had a very odd writing,rather beflourished and with exaggerated capitals.
"Oh, merely a reply to a question that came up once at TheTall House," Appleton said swiftly. "We were discussing somequestion of engine power of the new little B.S.A. cars, you knowthe ones with the fluid Daimler drive, and I stated definitelysome figure which surprised Tark. When I got home I found that Ihad misread a statement of the B.S.A. Co. chairman's, and wroteputting right my mistake." His fiat eyes flitted nervously acrossthe other's impassive face. Pointer could not tell him he was aliar. It was a possible explanation but Tark hardly looked thekind of man to carry such a letter around with him. And theenvelope that Pointer had seen in his case was quite wellworn.
When Pointer left, together with Appleton's cigarette, he knewthat Appleton had been to The Tall House for somereason—after some object—that he could not, or wouldnot, avow. That search of Mrs. Appleton's for some paper orpapers...it looked to Pointer as though her husband had got it,or them, since he himself made no effort to rummage amongIngram's belongings. But Tark had done so, and Tark had beenfollowed to this house, and had been heard several times askingfor Appleton over the 'phone. He knew that he was in the housewhen he himself had arrived. Pointer's watcher had told the chiefinspector that Tark had come quite openly. Was that because hehad to? Because Appleton would not meet him outside? Pointerwould learn with interest whether Tark now discontinued hissearch or not. From the look of purple fury on Appleton's face,he, Pointer, would not be surprised if Tark had got the better ofthe other in some battle of wits or wills or threats. Thequestion was—even supposing that Appleton had got somedocument for which the other, and possibly his wife too, had beenlooking—did it stand for anything in Ingram's death? Mrs.Appleton had shown plainly enough, Pointer thought, that shesuspected something of the kind She had left Markham Square atonce after the tragedy and gone, with her two little boys, to herdead brother's flat at Harrow, merely notifying Gilmour of thefact after she had installed herself, saying that the childrenneeded fresher air than they were having in Chelsea and that shewould see to it that they did not overflow into his rooms.Gilmour had assured her that the entire flat was at her disposalfor as long as she would like to stay there.
Mrs. Appleton's face and manner quite negatived—toPointer—the idea that she had come on some clue pointing toher husband which she had suppressed, and that her husband felthimself safe for that reason. Appleton did not look as though hefelt himself safe. Quite the contrary. Appleton looked a manliving in the shadow of some fear, but Pointer thought that thefear was a definite, not a vague one. There were parts of hispath in which he felt himself quite safe, and parts where heinwardly trembled, so the chief inspector, an unusually astuteand penetrating observer, read the man. Tark disclaimed allknowledge of Appleton, as Appleton did of him. Appleton hadtraveled a good deal...gambled a good deal...Tark lived nearMonte Carlo...Mrs. Pratt came from Geneva...VON OF DE which theexpert still claimed was part of a cipher...Mrs. Pratt had oncehad a maid who was an international spy...HELL LIGHT CLAIRE...Thetobacco shreds under the pillow, and yet Ingram's waistcoat,empty of everything that could interest anyone, lying on hischair. The inner secret pocket with its fastening...Did they allbelong together, or were they but shattered bits of many circles?He was thinking them over as he left Appleton, left without anyinquiry as to Tark. Let Appleton think himself unobserved, hisnext step in that case might be a helpful one as to settling hisown status in the death of his brother-in-law.
WHEN the chief inspector had left him, Appletonfell back into a chair looking as though he were half-fainting.For a long minute he lay passive, breathing hard, then he gotbetter, and sitting up, dived into an inner pocket of hiswaistcoat, a pocket rather on the style of his dead brother-in-law's.From it he drew an envelope of oiled silk, such as is usedby travelers to carry soap. From it he took another envelope andfrom this a paper covered with minute but very legible figuresand writing.
He bent over it. So engrossed was he that he did not hear alight step come into the hall. After a minute his study door wasopened, and his wife came in carrying some flowers in her hand.She turned with a start. So did he. The paper slid from his knee.In an instant she and he both swooped on it. He, being nearer,got it first. She turned, her face a dreadful, livid white, and,with her hand outstretched before her as though suddenly strickenblind, made for the door. But, again, he got there first.
He drew himself up, hand on knob, and thrust out his chest inhis pouter pigeon attitude. "Ada!" came in round sonorous tones."What do you mean by looking at me like that?"
"I think I knew all along," she said under her breath, hereyes now half-closed. "And because of the children, I have tostand by and do nothing. As you knew that I would!"
"Charles gave it me," Appleton said to that, "he gave it mehimself."
She made a gesture of incredulity and despair, and seemed towalk through him as white fire will cut through anyopposition.
Tark, meanwhile, had left the house in Markham Squareimmediately the chief inspector arrived, and returned to The TallHouse. He was leaving that same afternoon, he said.
Now that the inquest was over, the household was fleeing asthough from a plague spot. Miss Longstaff asked for a word withhim. She began about the inquest first, which she had notattended, then suddenly looked at him with that odd stare ofhers.
"Mr. Tark, I have a conviction that you know the motive forMr. Ingram's death."
He returned her stare with one as unreadable.
"You frighten me," he said, his tight lips hardly moving."Next thing, you'll be accusing me of having caused his death.The inquest brought it in as 'Death by Misadventure,' youknow."
"You were hunting all yesterday on the quiet," she went on asthough he had not spoken, "for something definite, too. A paperof some sort. Look here, why not take me in as a helper? I'mdesperately keen on solving this crime—if it was acrime."
"You evidently think it was, from the position you've taken upwith regard to Gilmour," he replied indifferently. And hisindifference was real. This man did not care whether Ingram hadbeen shot by accident or of deliberate intention. She sawthat.
"It's the only possible position until things are clear," sheretorted, but without heat. "Come, Mr. Tark, why not let us worktogether?"
There was open derision now in his unmerry smile that for asecond just loosened those closed lips of his. "I'm afraid Ishall not be able to help." There was no attempt at concealmentof the mockery in his tone. "I'm leaving for my hometonight."
"Is Mr. Haliburton going with you?" she asked.
"Possibly. Possibly not. We occasionally leave each other'sside, Miss Longstaff. May I ask you why you thought he might becoming with me? Did you think Miss Pratt and I were eloping, andhe would want to be the third?" The man's manner was courteousenough, however jeering his tone, or his words. He held the dooropen for her with almost a bow as she walked towards it. MissLongstaff looked at him, but not even the chief inspector couldread that face above hers, except that he now showedintentionally a sardonic amusement at her effort to read it. Hesaid good-by, still in the same key, and then went in search ofHaliburton. That young man was pacing to and fro in thedrawing-room, evidently on the watch for Miss Pratt. He looked uphopefully at Tark's light footfall, a step almost inaudible evenon creaky parquet.
"Oh!" he said lamely, and again Tark permitted two lines tocrease each side of his mouth.
"I'm saying good-by." He came in. "I'm going back hometonight. This sun makes me long for the real thing."
Haliburton nodded. He was not paying much attention.
"Who would have thought that she would take it like this!" heburst out suddenly. Anyone less suitable as a confidant forlove's vaporings could not be imagined than the leather-facedTark, but he only nodded.
"You never know how the cards will run," he murmured. "By theway, Haliburton, care to make a speculative investment? 'BigProfits probable, Small Loss possible' sort of thing?"
"What do you mean by big profits?" Haliburton spoke as thougha trifle bored.
"Four hundred per cent." Tark's voice was low. "This isentirely confidential, mind you. Even the offer, I mean. Even theexistence of the offer. But if you like to let me have fivehundred, I can promise you two thousand in three months' time, tothe day."
"You can have the five hundred," Haliburton said after amoment's thought. "But as a personal loan. To be used in any wayyou like. And I want no interest on it."
"Thanks," Tark said briefly. "But you've missed a chance. As amatter of fact, I wouldn't have made the offer to anyone butyou."
As is human nature, when the offer was not pressed, it temptedmore.
"Then you did have your talk with Ingram?" Haliburton asked."You told me that if it was successful you'd have a magnificentproposition to offer a friend."
"It turned out not to be necessary," Tark said, and for asecond a corner of his lifted lip showed his teeth.
"Well, good-by then, and thank you for getting me in here as aguest."
"I'm afraid that's hardly a pleasant experience." Haliburtondid not smile. "Well, come in before you go. I'll have my checkready for you. Unless you would rather have it in notes?"
"I would rather," Tark said.
Haliburton replied that in that case he would go round to hisbank of which a branch was very near and cash a checkhimself.
Again Tark said that he would prefer it like that. "Best ofwishes about Miss Pratt," he said as he moved to the dooragain.
Haliburton's face looked sad. "It's no use, Tark, she'sbewitched. She's entirely wrapped up in pity for Gilmour."
"Who wants none of it," Tark finished callously, "and I'd giveyou back a fiver to know why."
"Why what?" Haliburton looked like a man holding himself inwith difficulty, who has resolved, however, to pretend to feel nopricks.
"Why he won't have her pity. What he sees in that Longstaffgirl. There's a crabbed filly, for you. She'd love to see himhang. Well, she may yet." And after this, for him, amazingly longspeech, Tark went upstairs, and rang for his suitcases to bepacked. That done, he went in search of Gilmour for a last word.But Gilmour was out. He was in Moy's office, and that was thereason the solicitor had not stayed longer with Mrs. Appleton.Just now the two young fellows were both looking tremendouslystirred up. Gilmour was speaking.
"I appreciate your reason for trying to dissuade me, Moy, butI've stumbled on something very odd...You know, I've been certainthat Ingram died just as I described it. But—" He stoppedand seemed to fall into a brown study. Moy stared at himexpectantly. "Well?" he asked, as the other said nothing. "Well?Have you told the police about it?"
Gilmour shook his head, and Moy wondered if the clue led toAppleton, for Gilmour was a sort of unofficial uncle to the twoAppleton children.
He waited in great anxiety for the next words.
"It's nothing they could deal with," Gilmour said slowly."It's not a clue—yet. It's only existence—sofar—is in someone's recollection of something. Well,they're hardly likely to go all out on such a foundation. But asit happens, a chance word has made me remember something too,that half fits...might fit..." He broke off again.
"Whose was the memory that jogged yours?" Moy asked.
"Miss Longstaff let slip something—oh, she had no ideaof any importance in what she said—but it fitted most oddlyinto something—" and again to Moy's impatience, Gilmourstopped.
"I hope you're going to let me in on whatever it is," Moy saidpromptly. What could Alfreda Longstaff know? But Gilmour went onto dash his hopes.
"I don't want to talk about it to anyone. But I wish you wouldtake charge of this envelope"—he took one out of hispocket—"and if I don't turn up by this time next week, oryou haven't heard from me over the 'phone, I want you to hand itin yourself to Chief Inspector Pointer. Look, it's addressed tohim. Now I'll enclose it in this blank one, on which I scribbleyour name." Gilmour proceeded to do so. "Have you a candle andsome wax?" Moy had. Gilmour sealed the covering envelope andhanded it to the other. "Everything is in that. It tells what I'mafter, and why. But for heavens' sake don't let any one read itunless I don't come back, for I'm quite frank in it, and sayprecisely to whom my information points. Someone who may beperfectly innocent."
"Well, if you don't come back, the likelihood is that theyaren't innocent," Moy said reasonably enough.
"By God!" Gilmour spoke in a tone of passion that startled theother, "I'd be willing enough not to come back, if that would bea help!"
Then his voice became calm once more. "I want you to explainto Miss Longstaff tomorrow." He looked at Moy with rather ahangdog look. "You know, I think it's very fine of her, I mean,not being willing to marry a man whom she thinks capable ofmurdering his friend. That she does think me that, isn't herfault. I know whose tongue has dropped sweet poison into herears! But about Alfreda, there aren't too many standards in theworld, and it's up to the women, the young women, as I see it, tokeep their flags flying."
"Unless like Miss Pratt they believe you incapable of murder,"Moy said to that. "Frankly, since you've brought the subject up,I must say that's the attitude I prefer in a girl."
Gilmour was not listening. He was intent on giving the othervery careful instructions connected with that letter.
"I said to hand it on, unless you hear from me over the'phone. Well, I want to arrange with you about that. If you get amessage that sounds sensible enough, but as though it referred tosomething about which you know nothing, then I want you to takeit as an S.O.S. and hand that letter on as I asked you just now.What I mean is this: Suppose you hear me—undeniably nearthe end of the wire saying something like this: ''Fraid I shan'tbe able to come down with you to the Smiths' cocktail partytonight' or 'You'll have to count me out for the box I promisedto share' or any other excuse about my not being able to be, orgo, somewhere of which we've never spoken, then you'll understandthat it's an appeal for the Yard's help. You see, if I were in atight place, I might spoof the people who had me there intoletting me telephone you some perfectly innocent sounding excuseas to why I couldn't turn up with you, but, as I say, you'll knowwhat it really means, and will act at once."
They discussed it for fully another minute. Moy rather shrankfrom such a frightful responsibility, but apparently it was thebest thing that Gilmour could arrange in his own protection,flimsy though it seemed to Moy. He begged Gilmour to be more openwith him. Gilmour thought it over for a while, then shook hishead.
"I think it would only arouse suspicion. But I'll tell youthis: I shouldn't be surprised if I had to leave England tofollow the clue I'm after, or rather to get hold of it. More thanthat I can't say. But I assure you you couldn't help half as muchby knowing what I'm going to try to do, as you will by sitting onthat letter. I may not need it, in which case when I'm back I'lleither ask for it again and burn it, or let you open and read it.But should I be on the right track, and should that track lead meinto a hole, it'll be a wonderfully pleasant thought to know thatyou have it and will pass it on at a word from me. No, I won'tsay more. And I won't even tell you how I mean to make what theHollywood films call my getaway. Which is a pity. For I'mfearfully proud of it—my plan, I mean. But you'd muchbetter know nothing."
In that much Moy agreed with him.
"You won't get clear," he said confidently, and warningly,"and for your own sake, as I've said a dozen times in thisinterview already, you mustn't try it. We both know you're beingwatched. Of course you are! You'd never be able to show a cleanpair of heels to a Yard man, and the attempt would only beabsolutely misunderstood. Seriously misunderstood. And frankly,well, you know yourself you can't afford that! Which is the soleand only reason why I don't insist on coming with you."
Gilmour only gave a little confident laugh. "Wait and see!"was all he said as he finally left the other.
He went back to The Tall House, his head full of his plans.There he asked if Miss Longstaff were in. She was, and he foundher in the library putting some books back in their place. It wasamazing how popular the library was with three at least of thewomen connected with The Tall House and two of the men.
"Alfreda, I've come to say good-by—for a little while."Gilmour tried to hold Alfreda's long, rather bony, fingers inhis, but she drew them away quite sharply.
"Well, good-by then," was her calm reply. He looked at her insilence for a long minute, rather a pathetic look on his face,helpless and pleading. It softened her for one instant "I wish Iknew," he said finally, and quite frankly, "what has changed youso. I thought—once—that you cared for me.I—I—was sure of it."
"Quite so," all softness had gone from Alfreda now, "quitesure of it, as you say! So sure that you thought you could comeand collect me any old time like a parcel left to be kept tillcalled for." Her tone was venomous.
"My mistake, I see," he said quietly. "You lived in a littlevillage—we hadn't known each other long. How could you besure of your own heart—or—or I of mine?"
"Well, we're both sure of our own hearts now," was her replywith a little laugh. "You of yours, and I of mine!"
"I don't believe it!" He spoke warmly now. "No, I refuse tobelieve it. You're vexed with me. Something has spoiled itall—for the moment, but I'm as sure that you'll yet come tolook on all this as a momentary madness as I am of anything inlife. And I wish more than I can say, I'm not a clever chap atwords, that you'd trust me. And be again as you were those daysat Bispham." His voice was very tender. Again for a half secondshe hesitated. Was she all wrong? Jaundiced? Unfair?
She shook her head. "I can't feel like that—not sincewhat has happened here."
"You really think I had a conscious, intentional hand in thatdreadful blunder?" he asked.
She did not reply except by her silence and that unreadablestare of hers fixed unwinkingly on him.
"If that horrible thought is all that stands between us, thenI don't think it will stand long." He spoke in a low eager tone."But I wish you'd be frank with me."
"I don't think you do," she retorted, her chin in the air. "Orif you do, you're mistaken. You wouldn't really wish me to tellyou all I think about—us—Mr. Ingram'sshooting—everything."
"If you would tell me why you have this awful suspicion," hewent on doggedly, "supposing it's really yours and not justsuggested to you by someone else then it might help me. Wait!" asshe would have spoken, "you said something the othermorning—oh, no, if you won't be frank, neither will I benow, which—" He fell silent, gazing out of the window withwide open eyes and a sort of breathless look to his face. Hestood like that for a full second before he went on quietly."Which fits in with something I know which I thought of no use,no importance...but as we're not to be friends—yet—Iwon't say more. When I can clear myself I shall speak againAlfreda, and again ask you to marry me, and if I'm successful inwhat I'm going after, I don't think you will refuse me next time.Tell me, if I can clear myselfabsolutely—undeniably—of any suspicion of havingkilled Ingram intentionally, your answer would be yes?"
Again, in spite of herself, Alfreda was touched by tone andlook, and by his words too. Supposing, just supposing, that hersuspicions were all wrong, what an utter beast she had been, wasbeing. She drew a deep breath.
"I don't think you could ever forgive me for acting as I'vedone," she said in a voice which, for her, was quite faltering,"and I don't think I should care to be forgiven and have to livewith my forgiver—" Her smile had real mischief in it foronce, "but if you can explain Ingram's death, the puzzle of itall, why, of course, I should be more than glad! More thanthankful! But how are you going to set about it? How can you hopeto solve this puzzle?"
"I have an idea where to look and what to look for," he saidguardedly. "I can't be franker now, but when I reappear, youshall hear everything."
"Oh, you're going to disappear?" The old tone was back now,the old look in her eyes.
"Take that as confidential, please," he spoke almost sternly,"that much at least I have a right to claim from you."
"You have no right to claim anything!" she retorted hotly.
"Oh, yes, I have. That much of loyalty." And his tone shamedher.
She put out her hand swiftly. "I wish I could feeldifferently. I think I haven't a heart—just a sort ofonlooker's interest in life...but I do honestly hope you'llsucceed in clearing yourself. Not just because of what I think ofyou, but for"—she faltered under his steady gaze—"forhumanity's sake," she finished almost shamefacedly. And shewatched him go with a sudden feeling of ridiculously illogicalremorse. Supposing he did—could——clear himselfabsolutely, which both knew could only be done by bringing theguilt home to another—how she would feel! How small, howmean, how shriveled of heart.
She was still standing there, lost in thought, when Moy cameback from his talk with Mrs. Appleton, and was still standingthere when Mrs. Appleton herself was shown in. The butler thoughtthat Moy was in the library. Even in her mood of intensepreoccupation Alfreda noticed the look on the other woman's face,and in her eyes, a look of blank despair, of utter misery.
It startled her. Coming just after her talk with Gilmour andhis words, it seemed to open a vista to her of something whichmight be in his mind...but surely she, Alfreda, could not bewrong in what she had hitherto called her intuition about theidentity of the real criminal in this case?
Mrs. Appleton barely nodded to her. She wanted a word with Mr.Moy, she said, very urgently. Moy hurried in to the little parlorwhere she stood nervously playing with her gloves. She refused achair. She wanted, she said, to see him about her brother'swill.
"I want you to arrange for endowing scholarships atPembroke—that was his college, and he loved it—andperhaps a couple of scholarships at his old school, Clifton, ifthe money will run to it. I want everything that remains, afterputting aside all that may be necessary to safeguard Mr. Gilmour,to be used in one of these two ways or both. I don't want mybrother's money. I know he really would have liked to do thishimself, and only left me the money because he thought I mightneed it. I don't."
Moy looked at her in surprise. What a whirlwind way of doingthings people seemed to be developing just lately.
"But what about Appleton?" Moy explained to her that, owing tothe terms of her marriage settlements, she would have to have herhusband's consent to any such proposal. "Not that there's anyhurry," he said pleasantly, "you've no idea how long it takes towind up an estate. And you've got to allow in your mind for thedeath duties, which will take about..."
He was prepared to go into detail, but she did not want tolisten.
"I'm not interested, you see, in his estate," she saidfinally, "having no need of it—"
"But the children?" Moy knew that only Ingram's help had sentthe two boys to the preparatory school at which they were juststarted.
"They won't need it either," she said resolutely with atwisted smile that left him a little alarmed for her sanity. Andthen she said a word about doing his utmost to help Gilmour clearhimself, no matter where the trail might lead. Again she lookedat him, and again Moy felt a little shiver at the look in hereyes. If ever a woman looked as though her sanity were rocking,Mrs. Appleton did. She left him after he had agreed to do as shewished, by which he meant to mark time until her nerves were inbetter trim. It was all very well to help Gilmour, he reflectedwith a smile almost as twisted as Mrs. Appleton's, but Gilmourwas intending to help himself, and that by taking a step which,in Moy's judgment, meant disaster immediate and absolute.
As a matter of fact, he was wrong.
Gilmour's method of escape, as he called it, was simplicityitself, and like many simple things, it worked. He went to hisclub, and took a room for two nights, there, telling the chiefinspector where he was going. Quite unnecessary this last, asboth men knew. Then he went to bed and slept for the first nightsince the death of Ingram. Next morning at half-past six, ared-haired, shock-headed man in his shirt sleeves and wearing a greenbaize apron came down the steps swinging a brown paper parcel inone hand. Under his arm was a broom. The club was on thecorner—he lit a gasper and walked round it, still danglinghis parcel by its string. It was obviously a suit of clothes forthe pressers. The watcher continued to keep an eye on thebuilding as instructed. It was a languid eye, for the room hadbeen taken for two nights, and nothing about Gilmour at The TallHouse had suggested a passionately early riser. Once well aroundthe corner, Gilmour took off his green baize apron and took outof the paper parcel a coat, rather a threadbare affair, which henow carried on his arm, leaving broom and baize apron around yetanother bend. Down a street he hurried, and turning off it again,added a cap to his outfit, and arrived at that street's endlooking like any of a thousand breadwinners walking to his job.He had paid a royal tip to the man to get apron and broom, a tipand a hint as to a most excruciatingly good joke to be played,and a bet to be won, through their means.
NEXT morning Chief Inspector Pointer found aletter waiting for him at the Yard which he opened before any ofthe other correspondence in his basket. It was in Gilmour'srather sprawling writing and ran:
Dear Chief Inspector Pointer,
I am sorry if my going away bothers your inquiry in any way, and Iknow that, strictly speaking, I should not have tried to dodgeyour man, but a clue has come my way, or rather it has been infront of me all the time, but I have only just recognized it aswhat it is. I am on the right road, I know, but should I findthings getting too hot for me, I may be glad of your assistance.In which case I will manage to get a message through to you. Ionly hope that you will not take my disappearance as a sign ofguilt, but I must risk that.
Faithfully yours,
Lawrence Gilmour.
Pointer docketed the letter and reached for another. He knewalready how Gilmour had got away, and a certain watcher was evennow sadly making for a provincial town where detection might besimpler an demand less keen wits. For the moment, there was nopossibility of laying hands on Gilmour, and Pointer thereforedismissed him from his mind. He had many things to see to thismorning. There was his—to him—engrossing hunt for amissing person who should fulfil the few stipulations that he hadlaid down. Town seemed to be half-empty, judging by the accountsthat had already come in of people who were no longer seen intheir accustomed places. Pointer flung most of them into thediscard as soon as he glanced at them, but there were a few whichhe reserved for inquiries.
As for the party at The Tall House, it had broken up with avengeance yesterday. Mrs. Pratt and Winnie were in a Dover Streethotel. Later on it was understood that the mother had accepted aninvitation for both of them on Haliburton's yacht. Haliburtonhimself had left his usual club and home addresses with thepolice, but at this time of the year he generally spent afortnight anonymously with one of his boys' camps at the seaside,acting, it was said, merely as a friendly scoutmaster, and hidingthe fact of his being the provider of the camp from all but a fewof the men helping him.
Mrs. Appleton was leaving as soon as possible for Capetown,where she had friends. Appleton would not be able to go with her,he had explained, but as he too needed a change, he was goingover to Paris almost at once.
Tark had told the police that he was off for his home inBeausoleil and was likewise leaving today. Miss Longstaff hadleft The Tall House last night, giving an address nearHammersmith Broadway, where she had taken a room. She had nointention of leaving England.
Frederick Ingram had left last night by 'plane for Paris, andalready Pointer knew that he had gone on at daybreak toMarseilles. The south of France is not often chosen in midsummer,especially by as poor a sailor as Pointer had learned thatFrederick Ingram was, unless there is some strong attraction. Inhis case, since he still seemed devoted to Winnie Pratt, Pointerfancied that it was the green of the tables rather than of thewaves that drew him. The chief inspector would have to see forhimself if this were so or not, and also why Tark seemed to havesuch a sudden attack of home sickness just now. He had a wordwith the assistant commissioner before leaving.
"You think the case can breathe by itself, that you won't haveto stay to apply artificial respiration?" Pelham asked him.
Pointer said that there was no reason why he should not absenthimself for a short time, especially as all the wheels would turnjust as well without him as with him.
The other shook his head. "Too modest, Pointer. Fatal flaw inan otherwise sensible man. However, perhaps you'll give me just anotion of what your merry men will be at?"
"Overcoming an osmotic reluctance to seeping through thecilia, sir," Pointer said gravely. One of the superintendentscame in at that moment, and stared at him with a dropped jaw.Pelham burst out laughing, and gave Pointer his blessing. "Anyspecial time limit?" he asked.
"Well, sir, there's something that may help us coming alongshortly. And that's quarter day."
"Next week," murmured the superintendent mechanically.
"Just so, sir. Hitherto for some five years past Mr. Ingramhad a thousand pounds to dispose of just after that date. It'spossible some or all of it may come in to his estate...I'm rathercounting on that...until then we must just seep, as I said," andhe was off.
He traveled as plain Mr. Pointer, and went directly to Cannes.The air service has tremendously shortened that weary journey toMarseilles. In his case he flew directly to the little townitself lying in a half-circle around its Croisette. He had oftenbeen there before. Pointer was no lover of the Riviera. Manyother parts of France have wonderful things to show, but Cannes,to him, holds all the vice of Monte Carlo, all its rapacity, itsmisery, its pitilessness, only with a little more gilding. Hedined at the Casino where the prices, at our rate of exchange,made him decide to do a little slimming. Frederick Ingram wasthere at a table well in front of Pointer, who sat in a cornernear the door.
Frederick did not order a long meal. He looked like a man in asort of pleasant dream, but a dream which entailed a lot oflooking at a little black note-book that he carried in an innerpocket. After his dinner, he made for the gaming rooms, greatlyto Pointer's interest, for baccarat had been the young man'spassion in former days. But he passed that great chamber, passedthe Boule room and finally took a seat at a table at the end ofthe Roulette room. Pointer had learned from a word with the headof the Casino detectives that Frederick had played at that tableand in that room last night, winning all the time, but playingfor modest stakes, so that he came away with about ten thousandfrancs.
"It's not any system we have come up against before," the headdetective added, "but it must have been one from the fact that inthe beginning he noted every stake in a little pocket-book. As hedid nothing but win he stopped his entries but he consulted itregularly each time before staking."
Pointer was exceedingly interested. There are several cast-ironsystems of playing roulette, by which, in the long run, theplayer is bound to win. The trouble is that the run may be sovery long that a fortune has to be spent to win a few francs. HadFred Ingram got hold of a shorter, better one than any yet known?If so, where had he found it? Pointer thought of that dustyroulette wheel in a cupboard of Charles Ingram's flat. A systemwas just the sort of thing that a genius at figures might havedevised. And apparently it had come into Fred Ingram's hands onlyafter his brother's death.
Pointer watched Fred seat himself with a certain air ofassurance. He staked, after consulting his little book with thesame air, and took his winnings with a smile that said that allthis was a matter of course. He won again and yet again, but healways staked low. There was a flush on his cheeks and a light inhis eyes as he did so. The third time he lost, and then he lostin an unbroken sequence for the next couple of hours. Yet in all,Pointer calculated that he was only some thousand francs downwhen he jumped up, his face which had first seemed only a littletroubled was now that of a man half beside himself withamazement. He pushed back his chair onto the toes of anotherwaiting gambler, and hurried into the gardens, looking as thoughhe had received the shock of his life. He fairly ran to a seatoutside in the gardens under a lamp, and spread his pocket-bookopen beside him, before drawing out with great difficultysomething from an inner pocket. It was a sheet of writing paper,which he laid down and began to compare with his notes, figure byfigure.
Pointer came up behind him on the grass, fortunately the lightfell so that he cast no shadow, and waiting until Fred had buriedhis nose in his pocket-book again, reached over, and snatched upthe paper. It was covered with what, to his sharp sight, wereIngram's figures, those neat small figures of the deadmathematician's, which looked as though drawn with tinywires.
Frederick whirled about with a shout, making a grab at hisproperty. But Pointer held it high in the air.
"I'll have you broken for this!" Frederick was very whiteabout the gills. "You've no more right to take that, than anyfootpad has. Hand it back at once!"
"I want first to know that it is yours," was the reply. "Yousee, Mr. Frederick Ingram, we are not satisfied that yourbrother's death was not for the sake of something that he owned.Say, a system of play. It might be considered by some people asmuch more to be coveted than jewels or securities. This sheet ofpaper was in your brother's possession at the time of his death.How did it come into your hands?"
Pointer spoke with such an air of certainty that no one, noteven the assistant commissioner, let alone rattled FrederickIngram; would have known that he was guessing.
Frederick Ingram turned blue.
"You mean that you think Gilmour shot him intentionally?" heasked, his eyes round and staring.
"That's just what you've maintained all along, isn't it?"Pointer asked.
"But I didn't really believe it!" burst out Fred, his facestill shiny and streaked with red from his play in the hot rooms."I didn't really think it!" he repeated.
Pointer, looking at him, thought that excitement had brokendown the barriers of self-control as far as speech was concerned.It can act as insidiously as scopolamin on some natures.
"It's quite possible that someone intentionally changed aloaded for a blank cartridge in his little automatic," Pointersaid slowly, "someone who wanted something that Ingram refused tohand him over." Frederick's eyes only looked excited, he saidnothing. "Come," Pointer went on pleasantly, "leaving that on oneside, suppose you tell me exactly how this paper came into yourpossession. And when."
"I've lots of my brother's papers, of course—and books.This was among some he handed to me a few days ago."
"You place yourself in a dangerous position," Pointer went onvery seriously, "unless you can establish the fact that it wasfound by someone else—or that someone else was present whenyou found it." Frederick seemed to think that very likely.
"As a matter of fact, Miss Pratt and I were looking throughCharles' books at my flat the afternoon of the day when he wasshot. I knew that such a paper existed. She didn't. She droppedin to find something—any thing—that would prove thatthose cartridges of Gilmour's were all blanks. The receipt fromhis gunsmith was really in her mind, I think. But from the firstbook that she picked up, by the merest chance, out flutters this.She didn't know what it was, of course, and picked it up and putit back until she had gone, but knew that my brother had devisedwhat he believed to be a unique system of winning at roulette. Hewas certain that it was so perfect that any casino would purchaseit, if tried out at their tables." Here Fred Ingram gave a bitterlaugh. "I thought he couldn't be mistaken, but, my hat!" Again hegave a laugh that was half a groan. "Fortunately, I tried itquietly, or should be in queer street. It's an absolute wash-outthought I must have made some mistake in copying out, but not abit of it! Besides, I knew I hadn't."
Pointer was looking at the paper which he had just taken fromhim. At the top was written: System for Winning at Roulette. Theletters were Ingram's, and yet...the figures were his, andyet...
Pointer himself could copy any writing with a lot ofmechanical accuracy, such as had been at work here. But there ismuch more than that in a good forgery. Quite apart from the sillynotion that forgery is always done slowly, for only a half-witcopies swift writing without at least equal speed, there issomething that cannot be put down on paper and yet which must beimitated. A something much more subtle than accuracy of angle orlength of stroke. The more Pointer looked at the sheet beforehim, looked at it as a whole, not into its details, the less didit convey the peculiarly firm, settled, orderly, almost sedatemind that the other writing of the dead man had done. He thoughtit highly probable that what he held in his hand was aforgery.
Another incidental confirmation was the fact that, as far ashe had yet seen, Ingram always wrote with an ordinary pen, thiswas a similar nib to his, but had been written with a fountain-pen.One thing was certain, this system, as he had seen, wascalculated to ruin anyone who staked high on it. Had Ingramintended this? Had he reason to suspect that his life was indanger?...Could this system be linked with those quarterlythousand pound increases in his capital? Had he sold the originalsystem for a quarterly pension? This was a new possibility. Butthere was a more immediate one. Was Frederick Ingram by playingit, trying to place a shield between himself and any suspicion?Say he had the real thing, and was only pretending that he hadbeen taken in by a worthless dud? Who better than he would knowIngram's writing? Who could easier place a paper where he wantedit found. Was it likely that Ingram the careful would have leftsuch a paper lying in a book?
He questioned Frederick cautiously on this last doubt.Frederick could not but acknowledge the singularity of the placewhere the so-called system had been found. But he suggested that,as it had been devised some years ago, about five, he thought,Ingram might have mislaid it. The book in question was one ofArabic Equations which Ingram rarely opened. That, too, mightexplain, Frederick went on to say, why his half-brother had quitebruskly refused to discuss letting him have the system of whichhe had himself once spoken as infallible.
There still remained the possibility that Frederick, havingopenly played this travesty, would be freer, he might think, toproduce what he might claim was his own improvement or revisionof it, and play the real system devised by that brilliantmathematician, Charles Ingram. He had staked very small sums lastnight and tonight. He had lost only a matter of some fourteenpounds. Pointer broached that question now. Frederick lookedawkward.
"It's odd. I'm generally a bit of a plunger. I meant to go allout on this. But—somehow—at the last moment, when Idrew that pocket-book out and laid it beside me, I found myselfonly willing to try it for small stakes. I can't account for itmyself." He looked genuinely puzzled.
Pointer eyed him closely with his seemingly indifferentglance. Fred Ingram was a good actor, if he was not honest. Butthen, if false, all this would have been carefully prepared, andmentally rehearsed many times.
"You aren't going to try the system again?" he asked.
Frederick said that he was returning to England at once.Having proved his half-brother's great idea to be a failure, heintended to forget all about it. "After a flutter at baccarat,"he added with a smile. "I brought a hundred with me with which tobreak the bank, a lot of it still remains, thanks to my luck lastnight, which I thought was the system. And thanks to thatunexpected wind of caution that suddenly blew on me when I satdown at the tables."
The baccarat room at Cannes is a noble hall. Vaulted ceilings,beneath which crystal chandeliers glitter like hanging baskets ofdiamonds, luxurious chairs for those who wish to sit on a centraldais and watch the scene, while sipping cocktails or blackcoffee.
Two long rows of baize-covered tables at some of which peoplewere standing three deep already. This is the Court of Midas.There was silence in the big hall. Only the clack of chips andthe sound of the croupier's flat wooden rake as he called his"Banco. Mesdames, messieurs, marquez vos jeux. Rien ne vaplus." Frederick passed on to the next room, where the stakeswere still higher. Here he bought some brown thousand-francchips, others were playing with oblong blue chips worth ten timeshis, and many with white ovals which represented a hundred timeshis stakes. It was late. The hour of the real gamblers. The airof the room was tense in here. Within a few minutes it was tenserstill. And when an hour was over Frederick Ingram was the richerby the equivalent of ten million francs, roughly eighty thousandpounds.
Pointer meanwhile had had another word with the chief of theCasino detectives. Could a man have a system at baccarat orchemin de fer? Impossible, the chief thought, as did Pointer. Butthey were puzzled. It is held not to be possible for a man to winat baccarat except by sheer luck, any more than he could cheat atthat nimble gamble which may run to thousands of pounds on thedraw of the all-important third card. The doubts of the two weresoon answered. When another hour had passed Frederick was thepoorer by some seventy-nine thousand eight hundred pounds.Finally he made way for another player, his face all streakedwith the curious red that gambling brings out on a pale face. Hisvoice shook a little as he drew a deep breath outside. "Well, I'mstill my journey out and back in hand, and the hundred poundswith which I started." He turned in at his hotel. Pointer who wasstaying there too, asked him to his room. He did not think thepaper a shield any longer. After his first run of luck atbaccarat, Frederick would only have had to return to the roulettetable and try the real system, if he had it, claiming that hisluck was still holding. But he had left the Casino with no effortto get back again the ephemeral fortune which had been his.
Pointer left his own door unlocked, making an excuse to popout and speak to Frederick as the latter was leaving, so as tomake him aware of this, just as he had placed the paper takenfrom him on the mantel while he was still in the room.
No attempt was made on room, or paper, during what remained ofthe night. If Frederick really left Cannes in the morning,Pointer felt that he would have gone far to substantiate hisstory. Frederick did, repeating that, after all, he had had achange of air, and would be back home not a penny the worse, andwith the charming memory of having been worth eighty thousandpounds for over half an hour.
Pointer stepped up into his compartment, which he had tohimself. There was still five full minutes before the train wastimed to start.
"Look here, Mr. Ingram, did you ever speak of your brother'ssystem to anyone?"
Frederick seemed to think back.
"I may have," he said, looking up. "It's the sort of thingone's apt to mention."
"I very much want the names of anyone who knew of it, as wellas you."
"Well, of course my sister and her husband know. Charles spokeabout it once, before the three of us. Then, well, I think I oncetold Mrs. Pratt about it, not that she was interested...I thinkMiss Longstaff knew, too, whether from me or not, I can't say.Haliburton? No, he didn't know. Gilmour? I fancy he must haveknown, but I couldn't say for certain. You see, Charles neverreferred to it after the one week during which he worked itout."
Pointer saw him off, went back to his own room, and took outthe paper again. He had brought with him several letters ofIngram's to Moy. He compared them all. Yes, he feltsure—though experts could be asked to pronounce on it if itshould ever be necessary—that this paper was a forgery. Itwas empty of all significance, and Ingram's writing had plenty ofpersonality. Who could have forged the paper, if it was aforgery, as he assumed it to be? Someone who wanted to stopFrederick's search? Therefore someone who knew both of thathunt's purpose and of the existence of such a paper amongIngram's effects? Someone had searched the bureau before Pointerfirst saw it. Mrs. Appleton had hunted for what might well havebeen just such a half-sheet as this...Appleton had been withIngram on the night that he died...
One thing the chief inspector expected, and that was, that ifsomeone had intentionally forged a system, the original was inhis possession, for there had been no interest of late inIngram's papers. Gilmour had never shown any. Nor had Haliburton.Nor had Moy, except for those papers with which, as a solicitor,he was expected to deal. Moreover, if the room had been searchedafter the murder, and the body was discovered, then Moy,Haliburton and Gilmour could all give each other alibis.
He could make a guess as to where that system was now. Beforethe day was over, he knew that his guess was beingstrengthened.
APPLETON had crossed by the noon boat fromVictoria, and gone on down to Mentone by air. That meant that hewould have arrived last night. Pointer rang up the town police,and learned that rooms had been engaged for Ingram's brother-in-lawat a comfortable but highly-expensive hotel there. He droveon out to it, along the beautiful Grand Corniche. The colors ofsea and sky, the turns and twists of the road, are things of realloveliness. Mentone itself looked the usual arid desert of aRiviera town in the summer. And indeed, even in the winter itsflowers and verdure are the result of money and art, not nature.Nature refuses to let even vegetables grow here, nor any fruitbut the olive. In winter, when the mimosa and the heliotropes runfrom end to end of the main street, Mentone has its visitors wholove its sunshine and its flowers, but in summer, likeBeausoleil, it is merely a respectable name for Monte Carlo fromwhich it is separated by but some ten minutes in the tram.
Pointer drew up at the handsome Palace Hotel. There is nofault to be found with the big hotels of the Riviera, providedyou like that kind of thing. Not Arnold Bennett himself couldhave suggested better plumbing or bigger crowds. The chiefinspector loathed them, but then his idea of comfort was an old,well-kept, quiet English inn, with cooking that can beat that ofany other country in the world when at its simple best.
He arrived too early for even a French lunch, but the maîtred'hôtel who used to be at Ciro's remembered him, and gave him theinevitable omelette and poulet en casserole in the bigrestaurant. Pointer questioned him about Mr. Appleton. The maîtred'hôtel smiled. He would not be up for another four hours or so."Look at that!" He indicated a table at the other end stilllittered with champagne corks. "The result of last night. AtMonte Carlo they draped a table in the roulette room with black.Oh, yes, he broke the bank twice. Not difficult to do these days,you think? Still, he did it. Twice. Mr. Tark? Oh, yes, I know Mr.Tark quite well. Apart from his father—quite apart. He usedto play incessantly, and with fair luck. He had one of thesesystems which do quite well if you do not force them. Losses andgains about equal. They have not seen him at the rooms for sometime, they tell me, until last night." He went on to say that Mr.Tark had, in common with about twenty other people, had a sort ofcelebration supper with Mr. Appleton last night. They appeared tobe but the merest of acquaintances. Mr. Tark, like the otherguests at the supper, had followed Mr. Appleton's lead with, as arule, great success.
Pointer drank his coffee and then took the little tram withits sensible division of first and second class on up to MonteCarlo. There are many things claimed for Monte Carlo which it isnot, but it has an outstanding virtue, it is one of the cleanesttowns in existence. When it rains, which it does more often thanthe papers will reveal, torrents of clear water rush down itsstreets like mountain rivulets, and add a charm of their own tothe steep slopes.
At the Casino, he had a word with the head croupier whohappened to be up, owing to the necessity of a visit to hisdentist. He was a tall thin man with a white puffy face, and thecuriously dead eyes of his profession, eyes which yet missnothing.
"Yes, Mr. Appleton had won a great deal last night. He hadplayed a new system, and it had worked. For that one evening,"the head croupier added with a faint smile. "There are manysuch."
"Mr. Tark?"
"He had mostly followed Mr. Appleton's lead."
"Did they talk together?"
Not as far as the man knew. Both were well known in MonteCarlo. Mr. Tark lived at Beausoleil, of course, but he was neverfar from the tables for long. Mr. Appleton only came to MonteCarlo for about a fortnight each year. He used to play quitehigh, but of late years his stakes, and therefore his losses, hadbeen slight. Last night he, the head croupier, had noticed onlyone oddity. Whenever Mr. Appleton lost, he had staked muchsmaller sums than when he won. That might, of course, meannothing.
On the whole, Mr. Appleton had won four times out of six. Anygood system would show the same results, provided the player hada run of luck. Tonight or to-morrow the money won would be sureto return to the Casino, probably with interest. Yes, the bankhad been broken twice, which, as Pointer knew, only meant thatthat particular table had run out of its reserves of money. Theusual farce of draping it in black, and sending for more money,which was brought in by a guard was gone through. It was a goodadvertisement. The head croupier shrugged. And in these days,parbleu, one needed advertisement.
Pointer put on his war paint that evening, and presentedhimself at the glittering palace of pleasure on the rocks whichat night seemed built all of moonbeams and dewdrops and ivory.Lit up inside as superbly as outside, thronged with gorgeousflunkeys, it is still a spectacle to be seen, though the days ofincredible toilettes are gone and makeshift evening frocks onvery dowdy looking bodies abounded. There are seven hundred roomsin the huge building, though quite a quarter of these are secretlittle cupboards where, through artfully concealed openings,members of thebrigade de jeu—the Casino's privatedetective force—can watch all that goes on.
One of these was put at Pointer's disposal. Inside he seemedto be separated from the roulette tables by a mere white grating.From the gaming room itself, nothing showed but rich panelledwalls of stucco and plaster wreaths and flowers in very highrelief. It was skilfully done. Pointer watched the garish scene.Appleton came in rather early. His step was jaunty, his headthrown back, his shoulders well squared. He had all the effect ofa man with flowing evening-cloak and hat well on the side of hishead. He sat down in a chair with almost a bang, and produced anote-book with something of a conjuror's flourish. Then he beganto play. Tark was not far behind him, wooden faced, quiet, but ashe looked around him Pointer realized that he was looking at aman whose only avenue of life was gambling. Only here, in sceneslike this, did Tark really exist. He seemed to belong to thetables as some men belong to the fields, some to the towns, andsome, Pointer among them, to the open spaces. Watching the twomen, Pointer felt sure that they were not acting together. On thecontrary, he had an idea from something that flitted acrossAppleton's face once or twice when he staked and lost, that hewas amused. Tark was not. As a rule Appleton won, and Tark,following him, won too, but once when Appleton staked the maximumin the maximum ways, and Tark had followed suit, Appleton at thelast fraction of a second altered his stake. Tark looked blackmurder down at the other's well-groomed head. His eyes for onceshowed his feelings. That time Appleton smiled openly. A swiftgrin of intense amusement. Watching him make his entries andcalculations, Pointer saw that Appleton knew beforehand when hewas going to lose. He had a chart by which he was steering. Tarkknew it too, and all but showed his teeth each time that he,following, was led astray—deliberately astray. Butoutwardly there was no communication between the two players.
Again the bank was broken. Again the usual ritual followed ofdraping the table in crape, of bringing in great boxes of bundlesof notes. The head croupier hovered about, but no one was muchinterested except those who were following Appleton. Pointer kepta careful tally of the man's winnings. In all he put them ataround fifteen hundred pounds when he finally rose and letanother have his seat. Tark stayed for a couple of chances, andlost, then he too went down to the station. Appleton was alreadyin a compartment, Pointer bundled himself in, bearded and muffledand bespectacled. He drew out some Russian papers and seemed tolose himself in them as he took the farthest corner fromAppleton. At the last second Tark jumped in, stumbled over a pairof elastic-sided boots thrust out, and apologized curtly. Pointershrieked something in Russian, and nursed his toe, splutteringthat he did not understand when Tark tossed him another negligentapology. Then he buried himself in his newspaper again.
"How much was it?" Tark asked, "we may as well divide up now.Tolstoi over there doesn't matter."
"Just over fifteen hundred of our money," Appleton replied,looking as though the words hurt him.
Tark gave a grunt of acquiescence. Evidently he too had madeit that.
"Why did you stop playing?" he asked in a tone as though hehad a right to an answer.
"Better so," was the reply. "Arouses less comment. Less riskof articles in the papers. Well, here's your half." And may itchoke you was suggested by his voice as he handed over a thickwad of notes which Tark went through carefully, before stowingthem away in an inner pocket with the briefest ofacknowledgments.
"You led me up the garden now and again," he grumbled as hedid so.
"I told you I would!" was the retort, and Appleton took up apaper and seemed to forget his companion.
The next evening Appleton did not play quite so long. But heagain won over a thousand pounds. The fourth evening he won overtwo thousand, and this time the head croupier had himself takenthe table after Appleton began to play. The man's eyes never leftAppleton or Tark. Suddenly Pointer caught sight of Mrs. Appletonin the thick crowd around the table. He knew that she had leftfor Paris. That there she had taken a ticket to Mentone. Pointer,therefore, expected to see her here tonight. She stood, a paletired-looking woman where she could watch her husband's play, andnot even the head croupier followed it more intently. Pointer hadarranged with a member of thebrigade de jeu to take hisplace if need be, and now he slipped out and drove back toAppleton's hotel in Mentone. He himself was staying at MonteCarlo. He wanted a certain corner in Appleton's little suite, oneof the usual hotel arrangements, where a sofa was backed acrossthe angle of two walls by a four-fold screen. For he had promptlyinspected the rooms with the aid of a card from the Monte Carlohead detective, since showing which, he was allowed to do what heliked in Appleton's rooms. Just now, this was to insinuate achair into one of the two bays made by the screen, draw it aroundhim again, and wait. He might have an all night's vigil, but hethought not. There was that in Mrs. Appleton's face which wouldneed privacy, he thought, to be spoken. What happened at theCasino after he left, he learned later. Mrs. Appleton got nearenough to her husband to touch him on the shoulder. He looked up,and smiled a pale sort of greeting—very forced, verysurprised apparently at sight of her. She only stared down at himwith unsmiling eyes.
She bent forward as though to say something and Appleton roseat once. "Not here! Come with me to my hotel. I'll take the tramsince you're always frightened of taxis abroad." He got up andlead the way out, those around smiling at what they fancied wasthe meek husband detected by his puritanical wife. "She'll be allright when she hears that he has won!" one man said cynically ashe slipped into the vacated chair.
Tark, as Appleton afterwards learned, took a taxi to theAppleton's hotel, asked for him, was told that he was at MonteCarlo, showed a card of Appleton's on which was scribbled in whatcertainly looked like Appleton's writing, "Permit the bearer towait for me in my room," showed it to the floor waiter, and hadthe suite unlocked for him at once.
Tark gave but a glance around the apartment. Pointer knew whatwas coming. Straight towards his screen refuge came Tark.Fortunately Pointer had taken the farther bay, just on some suchoff-chance as this. Tark drew out the sofa, slipped into hiding,and was just moving back the end of the screen against the wallon his side when the creak of the lift and steps sounded outside.He left the sofa's end where it was.
But the two people who entered together had no eye for theposition of the furniture. Had the men hidden in the corner stoodout in the middle of the room, they might have escapednotice.
Appleton shut the door behind himself and his wife and thenturned to her quickly.
"Sit down and let me explain things—"
"No, no!" She shrank away from him against a table. "I don'twant a confession. I only came on here with you to tell you thatif you play again I shall go straight to the chief inspector. Heknows, I feel sure, that I searched Charles' writing-room at TheTall House. And I think he guesses that I was trying to make surewhether you had left any of your cigarette ends or ash about. Oh,Edward, that you, you should have done such a thing." Anguish wasin face and voice. "No, don't try to lie to me. You were never agood liar. And I know that what I'm saying is the truth. God helpus all. God help Jackie and Bill."
"You're wrong—-" he burst out imperiously, but she onlyshook a shuddering head and would not let him finish.
"Oh, don't pretend to me! I've known it, feared it, from thefirst. I who knew how wild you were to get his system. Remember,I heard you, and that dreadful man Tark, talking about it once.Oh, yes, I know that you told him that Charles might let astranger try it out, where he wouldn't you, just because he knewwhat a dangerous gift it would be."
"Tark may have shot Charles," Appleton said, very white andset of face, "but I didn't, Ada. I know he got himself asked toThe Tall House on purpose to get to know Charles better."
"He tipped Mr. Haliburton overboard probably for that reason,"she threw in scornfully, "but it's you, not he, who is playing asystem. You've got the paper, not he. Now listen, as I said, Idon't want a confession from you, but I swear that you shan'tprofit by my brother's murder. If you play again, I shall giveyou in charge. I'll tell Chief Inspector Pointer the whole truth.How you badgered Charles for years since he let drop thatunfortunate remark that he had devised a system that really wasinfallible. How he always refused to let you or anyone try itout, because he knew where it would lead. Or no, he didn't. Henever thought that it would lead to his own death. Oh, Edward, towhat depths have you sunk! To what depths!"
Appleton had had perforce to let her rave on. Something in herface said that to silence her you would have had to gag her.These words were too dammed up to stay behind locked lips anylonger. But for the moment she was spent. She leaned against thetable behind her, her hands now over her face.
"I see I must go into something I'd rather not speak of. No,you shall listen!" He towered over her. "Youshall hear meout. I went to Charles that last night because—" his facetwitched—"because we're ruined, Ada. Ruined. I've let mybrokers keep my securities for me, as you know. They're bonds.Well, Graves pledged them with others to his bank to secure anadvance to himself. He's gone smash."
Pointer knew of the big crash of Farral and Graves about afortnight ago. Graves had shot himself, and many a man and womanwished that he had done it sooner.
"He's gone smash," Appleton repeated, "and now the bank, hisbank, won't part with my bonds. My solicitors tell me that Ican't force them to do so. Yet they talk of our Justice and ourLaw! We haven't a penny except the three hundred in the bank thatI always keep for emergencies, and your two hundred which youhave there for the same reason. Got that clear?"
"I don't care for your reasons—I don't want to hearthem." She almost moaned the words. "I don't want to know thesteps which led you down to Hell. But you did go down them. Andyou shall never touch the children or me again. Never. Nor shallyou profit by your crime. Keep if you want to—" her lipcurled—"the blood money you've won up to now. But enter agaming place again, and let me hear of it, and you'll hang!"
"Will you listen!" roared Appleton, and by sheer volume ofsound silenced her. "I was told, perhaps worry aggravated it,that I've got to have a major operation, yes, that old tumoragain, within six months. The fees will run into a thousandpounds with Sir Rankin Rowbottom as surgeon, and he's the onlyman who can do it and give me a chance of surviving. Well, Icaught Charles just as he was on his way back to The Tall House.Earlier in the evening he had told me that he wouldn't have amoment's time until midnight. There was something he had tofinish and get off by twelve, to catch the midnight post. Well, Iwalked about, wondering how best to put it to him, wondering whatwould happen to you and the kids if he wouldn't let me have a tryat that system. You see, no loan would help. It would have to bethat system of his, or we were all beggars for the rest of ourlives, though in my case the rest would only be a couple ofyears, but they would be years of increasing agony. I went homeonce, thinking I would try again next morning. But I didn't comein. I turned around with my key in the door and went back."
"I heard you," she said in a whisper. "I heard yourstep—your key—and your going away again."
"I caught a bus and by chance spied Charles just turning acorner close to that furnished house. I joined him, and we wentback into the library there and had a long talk. I told himeverything. I didn't want a loan. I wanted that system. In theend he handed it to me. I swear by God, I swear by Jacky andBill, and my love for you, Ada, that I'm telling you the exacttruth. He saw what an awful place we were all in. He got up,unlocked a despatch box beside' him, took out an envelope fromthe bottom, and handed it me. 'There you are. You'vewon—and you'll go on winning,' were his exact words. Thenhe added, 'I didn't think I could reconcile it with my conscienceto hand that to any man, let alone to Ada's husband, but I giveit you on one condition.' He made me give him my word of honorthat if a casino offered to buy me off—as he said theycertainly would—I would accept their offer, provided it wasa reasonable one. He thought that Monte Carlo would offer me anannuity of two thousand a year for it. And the other big placeseven more. I had to promise that, and I did so gladly. Well, Iwent home as happy as a boy. I know what you felt aboutgambling-money, so I decided—Charles and I had decidedthat together—to say nothing about it...Then came the news ofhis dreadful end. I saw that you didn't think it an accident. Isaw that you suspected me—"
"For the last month, Edward, you've talked in your sleep ofgetting that system. Over and over you would mutter that 'I musthave it. He must give it me. It'll save us. I've a right toit..." She panted the words rather than spoke them.
"I didn't kill Charles, but I was—afraid—ofyou—of the police—of the whole position. Then Tarkaccused me of murdering him for that paper. He offered to keepsilence for a half share in all profits. It's my belief that ifanyone murdered Charles, if it wasn't an accident, then it wasTark, before he knew that Charles had already given the systemaway. He guessed to whom then, because we had talked it overtogether. Oh, I knew Tark by sight as well as he knew me. Youcan't live at the Casino rooms as both of us did, without knowingone another perfectly by sight. But it was from Fred that helearned about the system. So he says."
"But you were the two who plotted to get hold of it," she saidfiercely, accusingly.
"We talked of how to get it—of course we did. Once weknew of its existence. And as you know I thought he might give mea chance...Charles was so afraid I would turn into a desperategambler...I didn't think he'd care so much whether Tark did ornot. The chap only lives for gambling anyway...When he saw hischance of pretending to me that he thought I had shot Charles, Igave in...there was nothing else for it...And now, I swear again,Ada, that I've told you the exact truth. Look at me, look into myface, my darling. Surely you can read the truth there."
She fixed a haggard, intent stare on him, she half stretchedout one hand, the other now tight pressed against her heart.
"Oh Edward, if only I could! I might, if you'lldestroy—at once—that awful paper—"
Tark came out from behind his end of the screen. Mrs. Appletongave a little cry. Appleton seemed too amazed even to gasp.
"Didn't know I was here, did you?" Tark said in his harsh,level voice. "Mrs. Appleton, I can't stand silent and see such alie pass. Your intuition or suspicion was right. He shot yourbrother. I happened to see him at The Tall House, but untilafterwards I didn't reflect just what it was he was at. No,Appleton, it's no use. I won't stand for it. You know that youshot Ingram, and unless you hand me his system—the rightone, mind you—not the one we spoofed off Fred with, I shallgo myself to the police. If you think it's worth while swingingfor, keep it!" And Tark seated himself on the arm of a chair.
"How dare you repeat your lying accusation to me in front ofmy wife!" Appleton looked the outraged husband to the life.
Tark gave one of his short hard cackles. "Mrs. Appleton willbe called as a witness against you, unless you're careful. Iagree with her that it's a foul thing to kill her brother and usethat money. Hand it over to me. I wanted to buy it from Ingram,as you know, not to murder him for it. You said that you thoughtyou could get it without paying for it, if I'd put up fivehundred to try it out with. Well, I got the money, and you gotthe system." His last words were full of meaning. "And now, handme over that paper," he went on, his words suddenly cold andsteel hard.
"Don't let him have it!" came from Mrs. Appleton. Her eyeswere alight. She was quite undaunted now. "Never mind whathappens. Burn it!"
"I haven't got it with me, Ada." He ignored Tark. Something inhis face and eye suggested that there was no Tark, that it onlylay between himself and his wife. His hand went to an innerpocket...
"You've got the copy," came Tark's hard voice. "I want thatcopy. Hand it over! Dare to go near those matches—" Hisbody seemed to thicken, he was ready for a spring when Pointerstepped out from the remaining pocket of the screen. It waspurest vaudeville, but no one in the room smiled. Pointer countedroughly on the surprise of his sudden appearance giving him justtime to snatch a paper from Appleton's fingers. The man, with anashen face, made a clutch at his hand.
"How dare you! You have no right whatever to be here...to takethat. It's mine. Return it at once, or..." He choked.
"Or what?" Pointer asked coldly.
"Keep it!" Mrs. Appleton said suddenly, and her face lookedyounger and, in some deep way happier, than Pointer had yet seenit. "Keep it, chief inspector. My husband told us the truth as tohow he got it. It is honestly his. Keep it for the time being. Ilend it you—he lends it you on condition that you clear upmy brother's murder, if it was one!"
"Bring it home to your husband!" sneered Tark. His eyes showeda curious red. Rather strange eyes had Tark. He looked a man mosteminently capable of murder as he stood there, his thin smalllips stretched away from his teeth in a sort of snarl.
Pointer turned to Mrs. Appleton. Her eyes, resolute andunwavering, met his. The two talked without words in a long look.He saw that she really did believe in her husband, that she wassure at last of his innocence, and that she was willing for himto run the terrible danger of being accused of her brother'smurder, if need be.
But Appleton looked shrunken and withered. She crossed to him,and stood shoulder to shoulder beside him.
"Just what did you mean, Mr. Tark, when you said that youdidn't know what he was at, when you saw him at The Tall Housethe night on which Mr. Ingram was shot?" Pointer asked. Hedominated the room, as he usually did any room where he was. Tarkshot him one glance from his calculating eyes that had now growncold again, and answered promptly.
"I saw him in Gilmour's room when I went to myown—around one o'clock at night—doing something tothe drawer by the door, just putting something back into it to beprecise. Putting back the case that held the automatic with whichIngram was shot a couple of hours later."
"It's a lie!" burst from Appleton in tones of indignant horrorand outraged truth. But the trouble was that, being a good actor,Appleton could assume that look and tone at will. Mrs. Appletonturned her head, gave her husband one look, and then turned away,her own face serene and tranquil.
"Is it? I think not!" came Tark's reply. If a liar, Tark wasquite as good an actor as Appleton had ever been. "It's true. Andyou know it. And your wife knows it. Well, you've failed to pullit off. And now, I think I'll go home."
"What about being arrested as an accessory, Mr. Tark?" wasPointer's inquiry. "If you conceal information in a murdercase—"
"In a murder case—yes. But this was not openly that,"was the retort. "The coroner's jury brought it in as Death byMisadventure. How was I to guess the truth that Appleton was thereal murderer?"
"Why else did I go halves with you but because you blackmailedme into doing it?" Appleton asked indignantly. "I agreed, becauseI needed the money and at once, and must at all costs avoidtrouble. But make no mistake. Don't think that if I go to prisonI won't take you with me, and if it comes to the rope—thento the drop with me." He spoke resolutely. Tark only lit acigarette.
"Empty words! You murdered your brother-in-law, not I. Ibelieved your account of the handing over by him to you of thesystem, and only offered to find the money with which to try itout. Naturally that being the case, I asked for half shares. Ihoped, as I say, that Ingram would have sold it to me, but he wasevidently not in need of money. You took a simpler and swifterway of getting what you wanted."
"Why were you hiding in this room?" came from Appleton.
"Because I rather thought your wife might want you to give upthe system. That she knew the truth. In which case, I wantedit."
Pointer interposed. "And now, Mrs. Appleton, and you twogentlemen, I would like you to return to England."
Tark stiffened.
"You see," the chief inspector went on, "I particularly wantto avoid any scandal, any calling in of the French police, andthat can only be, if you all three voluntarily return to England,and stay there till things are clearer."
Tark looked for an instant as though he would demur but hethought better of it and when asked for his prospective addressgave his former hotel. The Appletons would return to MarkhamSquare, they said, and there place themselves unreservedly at theservice of the chief inspector. One of Pointer's men in plainclothes would accompany them. Inspector Watts was staying at aquiet hotel ready for just such a duty. That done, the oddlyassembled little group broke up.
Pointer waited until Appleton came back after seeing his wifeoff to her hotel. He had a long wait, but he counted rightly onthe fact that Mrs. Appleton was too worn out to be capable of anyfurther long conversations without a rest. At length her husband,looking some ten years older, returned alone and entered hissitting-room heavily, a night waiter carrying a tray followinghim. Pointer expected a protest at his own presence but on thecontrary Appleton looked relieved. He offered the other a whiskyand soda, which was refused, and helped himself, drinking as aman does who needs the stimulant.
"There's something been burning me all the time, chiefinspector," Appleton began as he set the glass down. "About mybrother-in-law. I tried to give you a hint that I thought hisdeath wasn't accidental, but I was reluctant to mention hissystem. I was afraid that at the best I should get no chance ofplaying it, if I did, and at the worst, well, that what my wifethought would be your first idea. And one hears so often thatwhat a detective thinks first he thinks all the time,that—" Appleton shrugged his shoulders and poured anotherdrink. "There is something that I knew all along I ought to tellyou—it's this. Ingram had had a fearful shock. He wasn'thimself in the least. Which was one of the reasons why he let mehave that system so easily. He was very pale and...I can't giveyou particulars, but his whole appearance, as well as manner,suggested a man who was fairly reeling under some blow.
"Now that had not been the case when I looked in and wanted aword with him before midnight. Nor was it the case when I met himon his way back from the post. Both times he was exactly himself,in looks and in manner. When we entered he didn't take me intothe library, but into a little room by the door, a room whichTark and I used to signal to each other from, by theway—oh, just an arrangement of a signal each was to make tothe other through the window should either of us have got thesystem—but to go back to Charles...He left me there for amoment, saying that he had a few papers he must see to before ourtalk, said he wouldn't keep me more than a minute...It was quiteten minutes before he came in and when he did, as I say, he was achanged man. However he led me into the library, though I thinkhe had to force himself to take any interest in what I wanted tosay, didn't ask me to have a drink, or a smoke, just stood by thefire staring at me from a white and rather ghastly face. But Icouldn't afford to put off what I had to say...well, the restI've told you...but even when we parted he looked just thesame—a man who had had an awful blow, I thought."
"You don't think so now?" Pointer asked, in answer to histone, rather than his words.
"Oh, I do still. But I'm afraid now that his shock wasconnected with what happened so soon afterwards. Whether he hadcaught sight of his murderer...and knew he was indanger...whether he had received the traditional warning dear toold-fashioned novelists...something of that sort was the cause ofhis appearance and absolute inability to really care for what Iwas telling him..."
"Had anything been burned in the hearth?" Pointer asked.
"Yes, papers. They were still smoking, but Charles said thathe had burned the draft of the papers he had just posted, and hewas a man who never told a lie."
"Do you mind telling me how he came to say that to you? Didyou ask him what the papers were?"
"Certainly not." Appleton looked surprised at thequestion.
"Then did he go out of his way to tell you what they were?"Pointer persisted, and Appleton now saw the reason for thequestion.
"Now you ask me, he did. And now you've made me think of it,that wasn't at all his way. Excusing himself, explaininghimself."
"I suppose you couldn't see what the papers had been? Iconsider this may be an important point, Mr. Appleton. You mighthave watched them smoking quite idly and without noticing themconsciously, and yet, on reflection, you might be able to tell menow if they were letters, or printed papers, or bills...
"The topmost paper looked like a letter. It was a sheet of theletter paper from the house that he himself used."
"Did Mr. Tark use it?"
"Certainly."
"And Mr. Frederick Ingram?"
Appleton nodded. "Yes, it was the house paper, with the headedaddress and telephone number and so on on it. Everyone stoppingin the house would use it, I fancy."
"You couldn't see anything of the handwriting? Or whether itwas in consecutive lines and so on?"
Appleton thought a moment and shook his head. "It was curledover, blank side up...underneath were other papers, quite astack, I fancy, but of manuscript. All torn up small. The topsheet, evidently his covering letter draft, was a wholesheet."
"Could you see whether there was any margin or not to thewriting?" Pointer persisted. "Even when turned blank side up, ifstill burning, you might have noticed that, the very fire mightcause the writing to show as writing—"
"There was no margin," Appleton said slowly. "No, I recallthat now."
"Mr. Ingram left a wide margin on the letters I've seen ofhis."
"Always. Yes, that's odd. I've never known him to write fromedge to edge as was done on that sheet. Yet it was a letter...Imean there was the usual short first line and the usual two veryshort last lines, one of conventional closing, and one asignature...Appleton was trying to picture again what he had seenwithout interest so short a time ago.
"Two lines, not three?" Pointer asked. "For a very formal, ora business note, would be likely to have three, including thesignature."
"By Jove, now you've made me think back so closely, I don'tbelieve it was Ingram's writing at all," Appleton said withoutreplying to the question just put. "No, it was all over thepage...and the signature was very short...Charles always had along signature. His middle name was Augustus and he used it insigning, so that Charles Augustus Ingram made quite a littlestrip of letters on a page. Yet he told me he was burning thedraft of what he had just sent off..."
More than this he had not seen, or could not recall. AgainPointer took him over each little item. Appleton changed nothing,and added nothing, except his growing conviction that the letterflung last of all on the torn-up scraps of white manuscript papermust have been a warning of his coming death.
Before returning to his own room Pointer went for a long walk.He wanted to think. First of all, there was the question as towhether Tark or Appleton could be the solution to The Tall Housepuzzle. Either or both might be, and yet...if so, it was a muchsimpler affair than he had fancied it...Putting aside all thathad just been told him, for it was told him by a very suspectman, a man who might easily be the criminal himself, there wasstill the posting of that letter or package of manuscript...thelast fitted in with the idea of ciphers...No one had so faracknowledged the receipt of a communication of any kind from thedead man, though the coroner had asked the public to do so. IfAppleton's account was to be trusted, the way his brother-in-lawhad spoken beforehand about wanting to catch the midnight postsuggested a man doing an accustomed thing...knowing just whatpost would be in time...Here fitted possibly the quarterlypayments of a thousand pounds, a very large sum for a man to havewithout any note as to the services paid so liberally.
Judging by his well-known mode of life those services musthave been written ones. Again came the notion of cipher readingor compilation. But Pointer could not see why, if so, the policehad not been confidentially informed of the fact...some foreignpower? Some distant business house? But if Ingram was earningfour thousand a year, his services must be important; his death,published in the papers, must have been wirelessed or cabled,whether in one of his own codes or not to his employer...yetnothing had been heard in reply...
Well, much would depend on that search for a missingman—or a missing woman—whose disappearance the chiefinspector thought might still be the shortest cut to clear upIngram's murder, supposing it to have been a murder. As to thesystem being the motive, that was quite possible. In fact, butfor the posting of something of which the registration slip wasmissing, Pointer would be quite willing to accept it as themotive. Appleton assured him that only four people besides itsauthor knew of the existence of Ingram's system: himself, hiswife, Fred Ingram and Tark. Appleton was quite sure of this. Hehimself had imparted the information to the last-named, andIngram had told them, when speaking of it, that only they to whomhe was talking knew of such a paper. Yes, the system did providean adequate motive...Appleton's account of the change in Ingramon his return might be connected with that mysterious person ofthe post-office robbery...Appleton had joined Ingram some timeafter he had left the neighborhood of the attempt and of theescape, but Pointer thought there was a simpler explanation ofIngram's state of mind as described by his brother-in-law. He wasgoing to test this explanation as soon as possible and in doingso a part at least of Appleton's account.
MOY found the silence on Gilmour's part veryhard to bear as one day followed another. He was not what isknown as psychic at all, and yet he had a growing feeling thatsomething was wrong.
Three days after Gilmour had left the letter with him, he rangup Miss Longstaff and asked her if he might drop in for a chat.She sounded quite willing. He found her sitting in a littlebasement room lit by what purported to be dungeon lanterns, asuitable choice he thought.
She was looking tired and dispirited, but the stare that shebent on him was as inscrutable as ever. She brightened up,however, after a moment.
"You've never been here before, have you?" she asked, waving ahand around. "Can you imagine a more naive attempt at deceit.That bookcase is supposed to be absolutely undetectable. Couldanyone suppose it to be anything, but what it is, a bed on end?The manageress assured me that the wash-stand looks just like anantique bureau. It doesn't. It looks just like a wash-stand, fromwhere it was bought—Tottenham Court Road. And do sit downon this Early English dower-chest, as she calls it, which screamsaloud that it's a dwarf wardrobe. Now tell me why you'veconquered your aversion to me, and actually paid me a visit?" Shelooked very wicked as she said the last words, and Moy fidgetedon his hard seat.
"You're joking," he murmured. She had a hard stare and a hardjaw but she was a young and handsome girl none the less.
"Look here," he said impulsively, "I dropped in to ask you ifyou haven't heard from Gilmour—" A shade passed over hermobile face.
"That's an egg that didn't hatch out at all as I hoped," shesaid with apparent frankness, lighting a cigarette. "Gilmour...Ifeel I've been rather a pig to him, but what's done's done. Ihate turning back. It's always a mistake."
"Not in your case," he said urgently. "You see, I know howdeeply attached to you he is—how much he felt yourattitude. No other girl had a look in with him." He paused andrepeated this last sentence.
"Well, perhaps," she said rather oracularly. "I mean perhaps Ihave been all wrong about him..." She fell into a reverie. Thenshe looked up.
"If he can find out who did do it, that's what he's gone for,isn't it? Well, I might go back to things as they once were. Ifinnocent, he's had a rotten time. I wish you could tell him that.Can't you really get a message through to him?"
Moy told her that he could not. "Something you said gave him aclue, or rather set him off remembering something connected withit," he said, "and where he was, and when he's coming back, Ihaven't the wildest notion." Suddenly catching her eye, herintensity, he began to talk of something else, and asked her howshe liked the house she was in.
She shrugged. "Beggars mustn't be choosers. I had hoped to beable to afford something better than this, but—well, myfinances won't admit of it." She did not say that the post on thepaper which she had secured was turning out to be a very weakreed on which to lean, if indeed she was allowed to keep it, forshe had had a hint that a good many changes were beingcontemplated, and guessed that they would include her name eventhough, or rather because, her appointment seemed to be purelyhonorary—like her salary.
"Did you ever hear Mr. Gilmour or Mr. Ingram speak of a Mrs.Findlay?" she asked abruptly. Moy said that he never had. She satvery quiet at that, almost lost in the deep wicker chair whicheven the manageress could not say looked like anything but whatit was.
"I hadn't meant to speak of it," she said slowly, and asthough not quite sure yet if she wished to let it slip, "but Iwondered once, and now I'm wondering again, if Mr. Gilmour'sdisappearance has anything to do with her."
"Who's she?" Moy asked promptly, all interest.
"This is confidential!" she said and waited for his"Certainly" before continuing. "I was with Mr. Gilmour oneafternoon, we were going by tube, and stepped into the lift. Orrather were just going to, when he stepped back with a sort ofjump. Now, I happened to be looking at him just then, and I couldswear that he stepped out from the lift so quickly because he hadcaught sight of a rather odd-looking woman standing inside. Closeto where we should have had to stand. She was a big woman, ratherstout, with a floating black veil flung over the crown of her hatand hanging down behind. It was fastened on in front with asilver star." Miss Longstaff was speaking slowly, and Moy feltthat she was watching him very closely. So much did he feel thisthat he wondered if she were telling him the truth, or merelytesting out some tale on him to see whether it passed fortrue.
"Yes?" he said as she paused. He decided to make no comment.She looked disappointed, he fancied, and his distrust of her wasnot lessened by the notion.
"You've never met such a person?" she inquired curiously."Never seen anyone who answers to that description?"
"I've never met a flowing black veil and a silver star," heassured her, "that's all you've described to me, except big andstout. What was the woman like besides?"
"Oh," Miss Longstaff looked almost contemptuous, "can't yousee her from what I've said? No? Well, she had an earnest face,wore spectacles, and at the present moment has a fearful sorethroat that makes her whisper."
"You know her then?" Moy was getting interested. Alsopuzzled.
"Yes and no. She lives or lived here in this house. But she'sgone. And went without letting me know about it. But I'll goback, and as it's quite confidential I'm going to be very frank.You'll be horrified but I shall bear up." Again that wicked snapcame into her dark eyes. "Well, I asked Mr. Gilmour why on earthhe let the lift go up without us, and he asked me if I had seentwo stout men standing by the liftman. One couldn't help seeingthem—like the woman with the floating veil. I said that Ihad, and he told me that he wanted very much to dodge them. Theywere a couple of men who were collecting for some fund or other,and had badgered the life out of him so much a week ago that hehad been weak enough to give them a half promise of asubscription. He regretted it the moment after, and wantedparticularly to avoid them for a while. So he waited for the nextlift and that was that."
"Well?" Moy asked again as she sat back. "What then?"
"Well, I didn't believe him, Mr. Moy. As it happened, boththose men had been sitting in the same car on the undergroundwith us, and he hadn't turned a hair. No, I knew then—as Iknow now—that it was the woman with the veil who kept himfrom entering the lift."
It was Moy who stared hard at Miss Longstaff this time. Wasthis true? Any, or all, of it? He waited.
"And just lately, since I've begun to rather waver in my ideasas to his accident with the revolver, I've wondered..."
"Wondered what?" Moy asked.
"Whether he hadn't an enemy after all. Which means someone whowanted to harm him. You know, Mr. Moy, I didn't believe his storyat first—about shooting Mr. Ingram by sheer accident, butsomething in the way he spoke when he left me—when hedisappeared—rather made me waver. And I've been thinkinghard ever since, and bit by bit I've wondered whether therearound that woman—might lie the clue to his disappearing sosuddenly—she's left here too," she finished.
"How do you know her name, and that she lives here?" Moyasked.
"Mr. Gilmour met a friend, and I slipped away as soon as thelift got to the top, and looked around for the floating veil.Fortunately it was waiting for a bus just close to the tubeentrance. So I waited too. And got out where she did. And camehere after her, and took a room here and made her acquaintance.And all to no result!" She opened dramatic hands at the lastsentence to show the palms empty. "She says she never heard ofGilmour, refused to recognize his description when I gave it toher. She swears that her life is entirely wrapped up indisarmament propaganda."
"Well?" Moy asked again, as she seemed to have quite finished.She hunched a shoulder. "It's not true, Mr. Moy. I saw LawrenceGilmour's eyes fall on her and I saw the look of real uneasinesscome instantly into his face and the look of relief when westepped back and the lift shot away. She wasn't looking in ourdirection, but trying to get her purse back into her handbag. Nowthat's what's bothering me...I had to speak of it. At first, Ithought it was connected with something underhand on his part.Something with which the death of Mr. Ingram was linked—ifonly I could find the link. But just lately—well, I'mfeeling a little uneasy."
"Where's she now?" Moy asked, jumping up. "I'll have a wordwith her if you like."
"No one knows—or at least no one will tell me whereshe's gone to," Alfreda said to that. "I found it quiteimpossible to become friends with her in the short time I've beenhere. She was oddly distrustful of any overtures."
Not oddly, wisely, Moy thought, considering the motives whichhad actuated at least one maker of friendly advances. But he didnot think Miss Longstaff had much sense of humor except asardonic one.
"Perhaps I tried to hurry too much. Anyway she rather markedlyheld me at a distance. And then, one morning, I found her roomdoor standing wide open and was told that she had gone. As amatter of fact I had borrowed a book just the day before, becauseI saw she was packing, and I wanted her to give me her address.But either she forgot about the book, or, as I now think, shewanted me to think she would let me know where to send it on, inorder to get clear the easier. They tell me that she's been seenpassing the house, so I have taken to haunting the streets latelybecause of a certainty that she knows more than she acknowledgedof Gilmour, and therefore may know where he is now."
Moy asked if Mrs. Findlay had any other friends in the house.Miss Longstaff said that, as one would expect with a verydour-looking, plain, middle-aged body, she had no other friendswhatever. "The manageress says she has no idea where Mrs. Findlayis. I suppose she's speaking the truth..." Miss Longstaff againshowed that rather worn, dispirited look which she had worn whenMoy came in. "But somehow lately I'm worried about LawrenceGilmour. Uneasy. Almost apprehensive. He's cut himself completelyoff from all help. Anything might happen..." Moy saw what reallylooked like genuine concern in those bright dark eyes, andanswering it, in return for what, finally, he believed was a trueaccount which might help towards clearing away the shadows aroundGilmour, he told her of the envelope left with him should anS.O.S. come. He did not tell her how the summons might come. Sheseemed very interested.
"He knew he might be going into danger," she murmured. "Oh,more and more I feel that I've wronged him."
"You changed the sheets, didn't you?" Moy said suddenly.
She looked at him with large eyes. "No," she said simply. "No.I drew out the sheet from under Mr. Ingram on which he washalf-wrapped and half-lying. It struck me that the hole wasn't asfar away from the edge as it ought to be, if the end had covered allof Mr. Ingram's face, and I pulled it out to have a betterlook...but I didn't change the sheet." Moy did not believe her,and his disbelief of this part of the talk swept over all thathad gone before. He doubted everything that he had just heard,her change of mind, her tale about her first sight of the ladywith the star. He rose and they parted on rather a forced note ofconcern for Gilmour. He wanted to think over what he had justheard, but an acquaintance buttonholed him and accompanied himnearly to his door, and Moy had to rush to be in his flat in timefor Mrs. Pratt and her daughter, whom he had asked to have a lookat his rooms now that they were finished. It would be a sort ofleave-taking too, as they were going off on Haliburton's yacht soshortly.
It struck him, as he hurriedly put some flowers into water,that the steps outside sounded very heavy for two ladies.
The mystery was explained by the entrance of Miss Pratt,accompanied by Haliburton. The young man did not stop.
"He's coming back for me," Winnie explained. "My mother wasdetained by that dreadful chief inspector."
"Oh?" Moy was startled. "Detained" had a professional sound.Unconscious of it, Winnie bent over some canapes, and selectedone with a sort of mosaic of egg and ham on it.
"I much prefer tea to cocktails, it's ever so much better forthe complexion. Yes, my mother won't be able to get here afterall. That dreadful man asked for a word with her, and I left themboth looking very glum and busy. Fred Ingram is back," sherambled on. "I thought he was going to be away for weeks andweeks, but he says he tried a new system at roulette and gotcleaned out. I'm glad he's back. He's so sympathetic...such ahelp to me these dreadful days. So is Basil. They're both suchdears. Basil, of course, is simply wonderful. I do begin torealize that. But I can't forget poor Lawrence Gilmour...he mightbe dead for all we hear of him or from him."
At her words a little chill seemed to come into the room. Sheleaned forward. "Why did you let him do it, Mr. Moy, vanish likethat?"
"How do you know he has vanished?" he countered swiftly.
"Miss Longstaff is beginning to worry too," she went on,without answering his question. "She's rung me up several timeslately. I feel I haven't done her justice. I thought her sofrightfully hard, but, of course, if she doesn't love Mr.Gilmour, perhaps there was a certain honesty in saying so atonce...I begin to think that she didn't care for him ever...andwould have broken with him anyway. But speaking about him, Mr.Moy, didn't he leave any message, any address?" She was quite acharming sight in the plainly-furnished room, like a spray oflovely flowers all soft colors and grace; Moy's heart warmed toher. She was leaning towards him so that he could see the textureof her smooth pink and white skin, the sheen on the curls overher ears. "I believe there's someone who's his enemy," shebreathed, "and who wants to harm him. Who hoped to have himarrested for murder, and still wants to harm him. He shouldn'thave gone all alone, where no one can help him. He may be in somemost frightful danger."
Moy could not refrain from a little comfort.
"He left an envelope with me that I'm to send on to the Yardshould things go really wrong," he blurted out.
"How will you know if they are wrong!" she asked almostaccusingly. Moy could only assure her that he would know, andexplained.
"But you ought to have that precious envelope always with you!Think how awful it would be if he were to need your help and youhad to waste time sending for it."
He assured her that no time would be lost.
Haliburton and Fred Ingram and Tark all came in together atthat. Haliburton said he was sorry to bring the regiment, butthey had all happened to meet and decided to go on together toone of the non-stop variety shows which had a really remarkabledancing turn of which all the town was talking.
Tark seemed as close-mouthed as ever, except that he shot FredIngram one swift look from expressionless eyes as he murmuredthat he had been home for a little visit which had done him aworld of good.
He added something about being off shortly for Diamantino. Moyhad no idea where that was, but it sounded as though it wouldsuit Tark. Frederick and he seemed to eye each other so closelythat Moy wondered whether each had come because the other wasthere.
Haliburton asked Moy whether he had any news of Gilmour, andWinnie, turning to the three visitors, passed on the informationjust given her before Moy could stop her. He had not bargained onthat.
"He believes now that it was murder, and he's gone afterwhoever did it. All by himself. Isn't it splendid, Basil?"
For the first time since Ingram's death Moy thought shesounded insincere. Was it possible that Gilmour's distrust of herwas based on some real foundation? A sort of panic seized Moy atthe thought of what his tongue might have done. Then he reassuredhimself. He had not shown anyone the envelope. True, Tark's eyesand his had met when just a second ago he had glanced at hisbureau to see that it was locked as usual. But Tark would notconnect his, Moy's, swift glance, with the place where Gilmour'sletter was kept. That letter lay heavily on Moy's mind. So muchmight depend on it. Of course, in all probability, it would neverbe needed, but...his visitors all began to talk at once. MissPratt absolutely insisted on Moy coming to the show with them.She said he was looking worried. He had already made hisarrangements with the porter to answer his telephone, and, asalways nowadays, left word with him where he could be at oncereached, if asked for by Mr. Gilmour.
Moy found the entertainment dull. He excused himself after thefirst turn. Tark and Frederick Ingram had drifted out before ithad properly begun. Back inside the building where his flat was,the porter came out to meet him as he made for the lift.
"One of your friends left his gloves behind him, sir. I lethim in. They were lying on a chair. That all right? He said hisname was Ingram."
Moy assured him it was and went on up. He remembered noticingTark's gloves lying in a chair, as that silent man reached up totry one of the concealed lights in the dining-room. However,perhaps Frederick had left his too, at any rate there were nogloves to be seen now as he looked round his flat.
He felt out of sorts. Miss Pratt's words that Gilmour might bedead haunted him, try as he would to shake them off. Where wasGilmour? On what dark trail? His mind went to Miss Longstaff'sodd tale about his reluctance, or rather his dread, of being inthe same lift with the woman—Mrs. Findlay...but was thereany truth in that story? If not, for what purpose had that astuteyoung woman told him it? Was something about to happen which shewished to be able to attribute to the woman with the floatingveil? Or...again a sort of chill swept over the young solicitor.Had she stuffed him with any story just to get him into aconfidential mood, into a frame of mind to exchange hisconfidence for her rubbish? His account of the letter left withhim for her account of a mysterious terror on the part ofGilmour? He went to his bureau, unlocked it and then the drawerwhere he kept the precious letter in another locked box. Yes, itwas still there. That awful fear that had suddenly gripped himwas absurd. Slightly comforted, but not at all pleased withhimself, he returned to his chair and picked up a book.
The telephone rang. In an instant he had lifted the receiver.He heard Gilmour's voice, but speaking very, very quietly, asthough anxious not to be overheard, saying:
"That you, Moy? It's me, Gilmour. Oh, I'm quite all right,thanks—" This in answer to a swift inquiry on Moy's part."But listen, don't get worried if I don't drop in at the Eggs andBacon tonight as I promised. I may not be able to get up to town.And as I promised you to look in and report, I was afraid youmight do something silly if you didn't see me. Cheerio!"
"Righto!" came Moy's eager voice, "that's all right, old man."He heard the receiver dropped at the other end on to its hook,and sprang across the zoom. He unlocked the bureau with fingersthat shook a little. The signal had come. He pulled out theenvelope from its locked box, ran the paper-cutter carefullyalong the edge and drew out—four blank envelopes. Just suchenvelopes as were in his pigeon-holes always. He stared at thefour, and felt as though his heart had stopped beating for asecond. He had let Gilmour down He had let him down in what wasperhaps his utmost need, his last extremity. That quiet inGilmour's voice; was it fear, was it exhaustion, was it...
In a second he had the 'phone in his hand again and was askingfor Chief Inspector Pointer, but Pointer was not at the Yard. Hissuperintendent, however, took the urgent message that Moy almoststammered into the 'phone. That official seemed to know all aboutthe case, and Moy was assured that the telephone call could, andwould, be traced at once, and help, if possible, sent to the manwho might need it so sorely.
Moy walked his room in an agony of horror and self-abasement.Someone had got in here, picked the locks protecting that whichhad been entrusted to him to guard, that which might mean life ordeath to the man who had given it him, and after getting theenvelope, had taken out the precious contents and left him butthe empty shell, as one gives a child a bauble to keep it quiet.He had only one hope—fingerprints.
POINTER asked to see Mrs. Pratt. He couldimagine quite easily what it was that she had written to CharlesIngram, the reading of which had so upset him that hisbrother-in-law thought that he had received some sort of warningnote, but Pointer wanted facts.
Mrs. Pratt received the chief inspector coldly, with the lookof a woman with whom the past is past, and who has no intentionof being at the beck and call of Scotland Yard because shehappened to have stayed in the house when a death hadoccurred.
"Mrs. Pratt," Pointer said, looking thoughtfully at his hatthis time, instead of at his shoes, "I'm afraid I must ask youfor some information which may be painful to you to give. Butit's really important—in clearing up all the circumstancesof Mr. Ingram's death—to be sure of what was in that letterwhich you wrote him. The letter which he burned after reading itin accordance with your own wishes. You say it was a rhyme ofsome kind, but I think that can hardly be this paper to which I'mreferring. This one upset Mr. Ingram very badly. So badly that Ican guess, we can all guess, what was in it. But I must havecertainty before turning it down and passing on to otherpoints."
Mrs. Pratt listened with an absolutely mulish face. But it hadflushed. She had neither a mean nor a cowardly face, and thatbeing so, he persevered.
"I do really beg you to be frank with me, as I say, until Iknow for certain that the letter in question only referred toMiss Pratt, was only written with the intention of preventing Mr.Ingram falling in love with someone who was going to marryanother man. I can't disregard it. I must try to find out itscontents."
"This is confidential?" Mrs. Pratt asked suddenly.
"Supposing it is something which has nothing to do with Mr.Ingram's death—absolutely." Pointer promised her.
"Of course it has nothing to do with his death!" But Mrs.Pratt was pale now, and her teeth set themselves after eachsentence. "You've guessed rightly, Mr. Pointer. The letter youseem to've heard about was one in which I showed Mr. Ingram howhopeless it was for him to fall in love with my daughter."
"By telling him something about herself or her ancestry?"Pointer went on. The request of Mrs. Pratt that Ingram shouldburn the note suggested this, and her fear lest it fall intoother hands—and its supposed effect on Ingram.
She flushed again and hesitated, then looked up frankly.
"In confidence I told him something quite untrue. I had to. Itold him that Winnie had fits. That her father had had one whenhe fell overboard and was drowned. I knew Mr. Ingram was verystrong about eugenics. It seems a horrid thing to havedone—but—well, I had very real and dreadfully urgentreasons." Pointer waited. She had not finished. She was screwingherself up to say more.
"I'm tormented. I don't mind owning to you, and in strictconfidence—by an awful thought, chief inspector. And thatis that Mr. Ingram may have wanted to commit suicide and drawnMr. Gilmour's bullet intentionally—after reading myletter."
Pointer listened very carefully now.
"You see, Mr. Gilmour was a very good shot, as was Mr. Ingram,I believe. And a good shot, when aiming a dummy cartridge atanyone, would aim it true, wouldn't he? He would shoot straight,thinking it was blank...nothing else would be natural. I've beentormenting myself with the fear that Mr. Ingram may have reasonedjust like that and—and——after myletter—thought that life wasn't worth living. Of course Ihaven't breathed a word of all this. And I should deny it if itcame out," she flashed a glance of fire at the detective officer,"but between ourselves, and since there's still so much suspicionof poor Mr. Gilmour about, I'm afraid that's how it may havehappened."
"That Mr. Ingram walked into the revolver, so to say, asanother man might under a train, or a bus..." Pointer lookedthoughtful.
She nodded. "I'm dreadfully sorry. But it had to be done." Shespoke as a surgeon might have, after an operation which has costthe patient his life.
Pointer asked her a few questions, the drift of which she didnot see. They were to find out if she knew, or could think of,any motive other than the one she had suggested. Then he had aword or two with her as to Miss Longstaff, and that young woman'sprobable feelings about the kindly interest which Miss Pratt tookin Mr. Gilmour. Mrs. Pratt was a frank woman by nature. Sheseemed to be very open with Pointer.
"She's not in the least jealous, chief inspector, because Mr.Gilmour is entirely and most devotedly in love with her, andbecause of that he's quite safe from my daughter, however sillyshe may be. She's just crying for the moon because she's so tiredof things that fall into her hands for the asking. But for MissLongstaff my daughter wouldn't give Mr. Gilmour a secondthought. As it is—well, it's passing off. I think I caneven say it has passed off already. By the way, did Mr. Ingramburn that letter? Or did you find it? I was terrified of Mr. Tarkgetting hold of it and handing it to Mr. Haliburton. Of course hewould prefer Mr. Haliburton to stay a bachelor. Mr. Tark won'thave the run of his houses when he's married as he hasnow—just because of a lucky dip!"
"You may be quite reassured as to that. I believe that Mr.Tark can't show that letter to Mr. Haliburton, now or ever," andthen Pointer thanked her and left. Supposing anyone knew orassessed Miss Longstaff's character, and attachment to Gilmouraright, and guessed the line which she had taken, the shooting ofIngram by Gilmour had removed two men from Miss Pratt's paththerefore: Ingram by death, and Gilmour by making him no longerinaccessible to Miss Pratt. Pointer could see how anyone who knewthe two girls and the two men might have expected just what hadhappened to happen.
This thought led to some reflective pauses in the chiefinspector's brisk steps—he was walking to theYard—but if so, this was one of those motives which canonly be tested by elimination. Incidentally, Mrs. Pratt'sconfession as to what had been in the note which she had given toIngram, and signed with her brief signature ofAnn Pratt,bore out part of Appleton's story, and therefore practicallydismissed the theory of an encounter with the third "post-officebandit." Yes, Pointer decided to drop that idea entirely for thepresent. He next thought over the woman's suggestion as toIngram's death being really suicide on his own part. It waspossible, but Pointer would have expected a man with such anintellectual side to him as had Ingram, to take refuge from anygrief in the impregnable citadel of the spirit, like many anotherman and woman.
Pointer's mind passed on, as so many times before, to theposted papers. TheOf Von De and theLight HellClaire scraps belonged possibly to these. Yet if ciphers, ortheir deciphering, had played so much part in Ingram's income,one would have expected to learn of many, or heavy, postaldeliveries at his flat. This was not the case. He had no officeanywhere, as far as could be learned, nor did his infrequent andshort absences from his study suggest this. Ingram seemed to havelived the quiet uninterrupted life dear to a man of letters. Hishalf-brother and his sister claimed to have no idea that couldassist the police in explaining the dead man's unexpectedaffluence. At The Tall House he had worked as one carrying outroutine work. There was one other tiny detail. Pointer, in goingover the proof-reading which Fred Ingram had done lately for hisbrother, noticed a great falling off in Ingram's output since alittle before he went to The Tall House. Frederick said that hishalf-brother had spoken of being very busy on some work which didnot need proof-reading. On Frederick expressing surprise,Ingram—according to the younger man—had said curtlythat it was work for a firm who had all their proof-reading doneby a member of their own staff.
What work would bring in four thousand a year withoutspreading the author's name abroad? And there was no knownregular contribution of Charles Ingram's to account for theincome paid him. Pointer felt that he ought to be able to thinkthrough this problem, as he had so many another. He dearly lovedthis part of his work. He stopped at a newspaper stall and, as sooften before in this case, let his eyes and hands play over allpapers spread out. Gardening articles weren't signed...but Ingramwas no gardener...besides four thousand a year...Racing? Ingramhad never gone to more than a couple of races, and had no booksbearing on the sport of kings. Disconsolately, but doggedly, heturned the pages of a daily that he himself never glanced at,except from professional duty. A large square block caught hiseye...held his eye...filled his eye...a crossword puzzle forwhose solution three thousand pounds was offered. The author's namewas not mentioned. He must be a clever chap, and possess a mindthat was mechanical in a way, and yet extremelyflexible...scholarly...mathematical...Pointer dropped the papersand walked on deep in thought. Ingram had wanted to catch themidnight post...quarter day was a week ago; the thousand hadalways been invested shortly after quarter day, would it againcome to hand now that he was dead? It should have done so by now.Two days after quarter day had seen Ingram investing thatthousand for the last five years. Could he test the possibilitythat Ingram was a crossword writer in any way? He himself did notgo in for that amusement, but Chief Inspector Franklin did. Hewas known for his love of them. Pointer decided to go to hisrooms at the Yard as soon as he had seen if there was anythingimportant waiting for himself. But he found his superintendentwith the telephone in one hand and two constables taking downnotes in front of him.
"Gilmour left a message to be sent to you should he findhimself in danger." The superintendent rapped out the news justreceived from the stricken Moy.
"The 'phone call has been traced. It came from a publictelephone booth in Brixton. I sent Inspector Watts there at oncewith Evans and Ridgewell." The superintendent left the other tocarry on.
Within half an hour Watts was telephoning from the box inquestion. There had been so many robberies from these publictelephone boxes lately that a watch had been kept on them. Noneof the users had in the least resembled Gilmour. But Pointer hadnot thought they would.
Pointer set all wheels in motion, and then drove round toMoy's flat. He found him almost beside himself with worry.
"This envelope—I slit it at the top—but it stillbears Gilmour's seal—his ring, you know—just as itdid when he handed it me. Nothing shows to the eye—but whatabout fingerprints on it and on the bureau? There were nofingerprints on the blank envelopes. As for the one in which theywere enclosed, Pointer examined the back with his lens. As heexpected, he found so many of them that it would take the Yard'sexperts at least a day to sort them. It was a hopeless task. Moyagain repeated that the envelope handed him had looked quiteuntouched when he took it out just now.
"I think we shall find that this seal has been shaved off witha hot knife, and fastened on with some form of spirit or gum,"Pointer said finally. "May I keep it for fingerprints? It will bea long job. But some may turn up which will be ofuse—though, frankly, I doubt it."
Moy said he could keep it for any reason which might possiblyhelp Gilmour.
"He's placed himselfhors la loi, in a way," he wenton, "but can't you save him? Can't he be reached?"
Pointer could only say that they were all working theirhardest on the case and might yet come up with Gilmour.
"Not too late," came almost as a prayer from Moy.
"I hope not too," Pointer said very warmly to that, and askedMoy when his flat had been left vacant since the envelope hadbeen handed him. When had it not, would have been easier toanswer, it seemed. The flats were a simple form of service flat,the porter was a careful man, but he had four buildings to lookafter, and he could not, and did not, pretend to see who went inand out. If anyone had managed to obtain Moy's key, or had asimilar one—it was not at all peculiar, Pointerfound—it would be the easiest thing in the world to comeand go unnoticed. Moy kept regular hours of a morning, andgenerally of an afternoon. He was seldom in of an evening fromeight till past eleven. Altogether Moy's heart sank lower andlower, the more facts bearing on the matter he gave the chiefinspector.
"And who knew of the letter?" The question he dreaded came atlast. Dreaded and yet welcomed. For Moy was aflame to catch theperson who had done this thing. He told the other of all thosewho certainly knew of the whereabouts of the letter, and addedthose who might do so.
"Fred Ingram and Tark both left the music-hall almost atonce," Moy went on. "Tark first slipped out with a word about aforgotten engagement, and Frederick followed at once. I had anidea he wanted to say something to him."
"I should think that's quite possible," Pointer repliedgravely enough outwardly, but with an inward chuckle. For thatFred Ingram, when he heard of Appleton's and Tark's successes atMonte Carlo, must have guessed that he had been spoofed was aforegone conclusion. Frederick was by no means a fool. Moy spokeof the incident of the gloves. Fred, when rung up just now, saidthat he had returned for his, and been shown in and out by theporter. Tark said that he had not left his behind, him. LeavingMoy to feel how inadequate is even Scotland Yard when confrontedwith some situations, Pointer went back to the Yard. After aglance in at his own rooms to make sure that nothing more hadcome for him to alter the lines of The Tall House puzzle, he sentfor all the papers with crossword competitions running in them,beginning with the current month. Scotland, Yard has a well-stockedroom, where papers and periodicals stay for a while,before being passed on to a sort of Home for Decayed Print in thesuburbs.
His colleague, Chief Inspector Franklin, had notyet come in, and Pointer had to work alone, sorting out on oneside those Crosswords whose clues seemed to him of the kind to bewritten by such a man as Ingram, to be worth such a salary asPointer believed might have been paid him for theircomposition.
Then he took these selected ones, discarded for the momentthose with no money prizes attached, though he was not so sure ofthis being necessary, and concentrated on what remained. Thefourth paper which he studied suddenly made his eyes sparkle. Hewas looking at the answers to the last week's puzzle, readingthem along with the clues re-printed beside them. The first cluehad read:
"Was called an idol, and whether one or not, contributed tothe loss of an order." The solution wasBaphomet.
A pamphlet rose before Pointer's mind, a nearly-finishedarticle on the little copper image of a man with a beard and acrown found in every Chapter of the Knights Templar when theirOrder was broken up.
Ingram was one of those who believed that the name. Baphomet,or the little idol, as their enemies called it, stood for acipher in which their True Rule and the Rite of Initiation hadbeen written.
And then further down among the solutions was a word whichagain brought him up with a mental shock—the wordDevon and further down still was anOf.
He thought of the so-called tri-lingual cipher OF VON DE andchuckled. From the first he had seen no reason why the lettersmight not stand for "Of Devon." He looked forHell, Light,Claire, which also had seemed to him a fortuitouscombination, but did not find them. He finished the clues andtheir solutions and sat back. The solver, the prize-winner, wasgiven as a Mrs. Sampson of Lordship Lane, Dulwich. She must be awell-read woman to have solved this puzzle. A scholar had setthese clues, and meant them to be tricky. The paper was theWeekly Universe, one which was pre-eminently a lotterypaper, that is to say, its sales were influenced by the size andnumber of its prizes. This crossword for instance was a weeklyfeature it seemed, and always with a three-thousand pound prizefor an all-correct solution.
He picked up the telephone and was put through to a newsagency whose manager was a personal friend.
"Who is the writer of theWeekly Universe'sCrosswords?"
"Lord Bulstrode himself," came the reply. "He's awfully proudof them. Some crosswords, aren't they?"
Lord Bulstrode was a man who, from the position of a cigarettesalesman, had risen, first to be a tobacco merchant, and then tobe the founder and editor-in-chief of theWeekly Universe,which had been running its sporting life for some eight yearsnow. Lord Bulstrode...self-made if ever that adjective can beused...There was erudition in these puzzles...
He laid down the receiver and decided to try once more forFranklin. This time he found the other in, and with a minute tospare, while some fingerprints were being identified for him.
"First of all," Pointer began, "I want to say that I'mdropping your post-office robbery for the time being. I can'tfind anything to support it. But look here, Franklin, you're keenon crosswords; what about the one set by theWeeklyUniverse? The three-thousand pound prize one. Is it a goodone?"
"Best going," came the unhesitating reply. "And the hardest.No initial letters or spaces to help you. And I don't say theclues aren't a bit too clever. Oh, none of yourPersonalPronoun orJapanese Coin tricks, but for sheerdifficulty, well, I've never known more than one person at a timeto win it, if that. Often there's no correct solution. I gotwithin two breaks of it myself once."
"I was wondering whether it would be possible to deduce thewriter of a puzzle from his crosswords," Pointer said slowly.
Franklin was a man of quick apprehension.
"Easily. The difficulty would be to check one's guesses ordeductions. As a matter of fact, we discussed theWeeklyUniverse's man at my Crosswords Club some time ago. And wethink we've got him pretty well taped. You see, to win a reallygood puzzle, you've got to get yourself into the writer's skinmentally. We mean to capture that prize yet between the lot ofus. But about the writer—he's one person. Has been for atleast the last five years. He's distinctly a gentleman. ACambridge, not an Oxford man. No great cricketer or footballer.Fond of tennis and fair at golf. Possibly a rowing man; wediffered on that. No knowledge of animals. Traveled very little,if any. Well up in science. Personally I think he's a clergyman,but the others decided he was a schoolmaster, probably sciencemaster at some public school. He's unmarried. Post-war, ofcourse. Rather young, I think. They say early middle age. Fond ofJohn Masefield. Staunch Conservative. Member of at least one goodLondon club. Lives out of town. Fair knowledge of flowers buthardly enough for a really good gardener. No good at music. Fondof a good play with a weakness for Ibsen. Loathes Strindberg. Afirst-class knowledge of chess. And one of the men of ourCrosswords Club, a very brainy chap, says he's an authority onthe Knights Templar or at least on their Order. I don't quitefollow him there...but it's possible. There, that's the outcomeof five years' close study—very close study."
"I'm told that Lord Bulstrode writes these crosswordshimself," Pointer said innocently.
"Rot!" was the reply. "You mean that he wants it thought hewrites them. That's true enough. So keep my opinion and that ofthe club to yourself. But what have crosswords to do with yourmurder?"
"Have you had any clues lately thatHell orLight orClaire would fit?" Pointer asked.
"Claire!" Franklin said in a tone of anguish."Claire! I never thought of that. Well, it's not too lateyet. That one has to be sent in this week. Half a minute—"He dived into his pocket and out with his letter-case. From itcame a folded note-book, and opening it at a page, he jotted downon a printed Crossword squareClaire. Pointer looked overhis shoulder. He saw no words among the other's solutions thatinterested him. But four of the words found on the scatteredbits, four of the so-called "tri-lingual cipher," had turned upalready. The others would doubtless follow, for none of themfitted here. He was still studying the squares and making quitesure of this, which was not so easy as it sounds—for theclue toClaire was "Means light in some places, and yetmay mean much more"—when Franklin was called away by hissuperintendent. He picked up his note-book and ran for it, with amurmur about having no time to waste ashe was not on amurder case.
Pointer stood a moment quite still, looking down at hisshoe-tips. That Ingram was the writer of crosswords for which he waspaid a thousand pounds a quarter, each of which carried big prizemoney, explained several things...that inner pocket with itsspecial fastening...the folded waistcoat under hispillow...supposing he had some notes or memoranda of thesolutions...still in it, or even a notification of where he hadsent his registered letter. His refusal to help with crosswordsolutions, or even to hear them discussed in his presence. Andthe crossword puzzle with Claire in it had only come out the daybefore yesterday, Sunday. AndHell andLight werenot yet out. For they would not answer any of the clues publishedso far. That meant that Ingram had sent off several crosswords,not merely one on the night of his death. Probably, as he waspaid quarterly, he posted thirteen puzzles. And if the murdererwas out to get Ingram's most carefully guarded copy of thethirteen solutions which Pointer now believed was the real motivefor Ingram's death, then the murderer would naturally have waiteduntil the puzzles were posted. But not longer. The next morningmight see Ingram taking his copy of the solutions to some safe,or Pointer was much mistaken. He judged the dead man to have beenscrupulous down to the last detail in his work. He'd been in ahurry to get something—manuscript—to the post intime...He had worked as a rule with his door shut, if not locked.No one had been allowed to see at what he was working. No one, asfar as Pointer could find, knew that he was a composer ofcrosswords. Thirteen puzzles possibly sent off in one batch.Thirteen times three thousand is thirty-nine thousand pounds.Quite a nice little sum. Yes, here was a motive which was quiteas good as even an infallible system, and which explained all theactions of the dead man as well. It was a motive, moreover, whichwould not be as dangerous as playing the system would be. Forthat was known by at least four people to exist. It would have tobe played openly. The solutions could be worked in secret. No oneseemed to have suspected Ingram of being the author of thesepuzzles. Pointer went through the papers on his table, and made alist of the winners. The lady who had solvedBaphometinterested him, for the clue set for that word had been all butbeyond the allowable in sketchiness. The week before, the prizehad been won by a Mr. Nevern, of Pawcett Road, Hammersmith. Theweek before that, there had been no winner. The week before that,it had been a parson...Pointer had his constable clerk write downall this year's winners. Meanwhile he picked up the telephone,and again talked to his friend of the news agency. How did peoplereceive their money, if they won one of theWeeklyUniverse three-thousand-pound prizes?
He was told that if living in England, the winner had to applyin person at theWeekly Universe's office. If they livedin some impossible place, Bulolo for instance, the check would bepaid into their account on receipt of a duplicate of the couponsent in showing the claimant's writing and with a photograph ofhimself attached. The paper wanted advertisement, of course, andtried to interest the local press in the matter. As far as hisinformer could say, the prize had only once been won by a manoutside the British Isles, and that had been a Remittance man whohad died of drink two days before his check was sent him.
Pointer said he wanted information about the last four winnersof this particular prize. He wanted some bright intellect sentalong to secure it, while he himself made his swift way to theroom of the Competition Editor of theWeekly Universe,whose name the agency gave him as Henry Orlebar. As he walkedaround to the huge white building only a stone's throw from theYard, he remembered that Lord Bulstrode had got his barony forhis financial aid to the Conservative party, that Ingram had donewell when he stood as Conservative candidate for his universitytown, lowering the Liberal majority handsomely. That Bulstrodeand Ingram were both members of the Junior Carlton Club, of whichHaliburton was a member too. Could the link be political as well,supposing it to exist, between Bulstrode and that quarterlythousand pounds?
He found Henry Orlebar ready to see him immediately on hisofficial card being sent in. Orlebar was a lean, horsey-lookingman who might have sat for a painting of the horse prophet theworld over. But his manners were good, and his smile veryengaging.
"Circumstances look as though Mr. Ingram's death might be dueto foul play, Mr. Orlebar, which is why I have called on you fora full account of why a thousand pounds has been paid him once aquarter from this office for the last five years." Orlebar letthis pass, so Pointer had guessed right.
"It's really Lord Bulstrode's fine feeling," Orlebar beganwith a frank gaze bent on his visitor, as though delighted toclear up any perplexity. "Of course this is quite confidential,but Mr. Ingram was of such enormous use to him when he met himnot long after starting this paper. I mean, by working outfigures concerned with advertising and circulation whichrevolutionized all hitherto conceived ideas of such things.Bulstrode followed his advice—his system really—andthe paper has advanced by leaps and bounds. Lord Bulstrodeoffered him a sort of extra post as Director of Circulation andSales but Ingram turned the offer down quite decidedly. SoBulstrode insisted on his accepting a salary of four thousand ayear, a mere one per cent, of what he saved the paper, thanks tohis genius for figures."
It all sounded so straightforward. But apart from hispreconceived notion as to what the payment was for, Pointer wouldnot have believed a word of it. Such a sum, paid for such areason, would have been sent in directly to Ingram's bankingaccount, or posted him by check.
"And why has not the usual thousand been sent in this quarterday?" he asked.
"We're waiting for Lord Bulstrode to be back and give hisdirections as to sending it in," Orlebar said brightly. "Ingram'sdeath, of course, alters the usual procedure."
"Why was it always sent in such a fantastic way?" Pointerasked next.
"Ingram's own wish entirely. He insisted on notes being postedhim in a registered envelope. Whether he has any relatives whosponge on him...of course, it's not for me to say. But getting itin this way, it's obvious that he need not pay it into hisaccount unless he wished to. Say it was overdrawn...he saidsomething to me once—" Orlebar seemed to have a perfectspasm of frankness at the remembrance, his eyes lookingpositively infantile in their candor—"which rathersuggested that. Though I've forgotten the exact words bynow."
The one-hundred-pound notes looked to Pointer much more likeBulstrode's own preference, but Pointer thanked him, was assuredthat Orlebar had only been too delighted to be of use, as LordBulstrode would be, if he were not in South Africa getting somecool breezes instead of this heat. Of course, Orlebar went on tosay, had he himself had any idea that Ingram's salary, for it wasvirtually that, was of any interest, he would have at once toldthe Yard all about it. But seeing that there seemed no questionbut that the poor chap had been shot by Gilmour—mostunfortunate devil—he, Orlebar, had not even considered thematter.
"But now that you do know our suspicions, now that I tell youin confidence that we are thinking of murder as an explanationfor Mr. Ingram's death, are you willing to put in writing whatyou have just told me, and swear to it?" Pointer asked. "I meanthe reason given by you for his salary. I don't mind telling you,Mr. Orlebar, that what you have just told me does not square atall with certain information in our possession. Certain writteninformation."
Orlebar no longer beamed frankness and candor. His thin facegrew stiff. He rubbed his chin.
"Umph...I couldn't do anything like that, of course, withoutconsulting Lord Bulstrode," he said promptly. "I might bemistaken...I wouldn't care to swear to anything withoutconsulting him."
Pointer said that he thought that just as well, and inquiredwhen the editor-in-chief would be back. He was expected nextweek. Pointer said the Yard would try and wait for his return,leaving Orlebar looking as though he would like to chew a straw,and meditate a while. Pointer quite understood his silence. Theposition was one which only Bulstrode himself could clear, up.Fortunately, the Yard would insist on having a fullacknowledgment from him of the exact work done by the dead man,for that work—the concoction of the weekly crosswordpuzzles set by the paper, would, Pointer now felt sure, be themotive put forward by the prosecution for the murder of CharlesIngram.
Back at the Yard, Pointer was deep in his notes, when aclever-looking young reporter was shown in. He was from theagency.
"Here you are!" He pulled out some papers from his pocket."Mrs. Sampson, winner of TheWeekly Universe's Great CrosswordCompetition. Very little but that is known about her. Here'sher picture, and I'm told it's a very poor one." He showed agrim-looking, middle-aged woman wearing a rather obviously falsefringe that came down into her eyes.
"I got on to theWeekly Universe's reporter who hadbeen sent down to break the glad tidings to her and interviewher. He said she refused to tell anything about herself exceptthat she was a widow, and was fond of crosswords. She claimed tohave solved this one with the help of a friend. Friend to remainanonymous. The paper wanted to give her a reception, but she saidshe had a sore throat, and must not expose it to the night air.She really did seem in pain, and could hardly croak, theWeekly Universe man said, so they let her off thefunction, as she said she was leaving for a trip around the worldas soon as it could be arranged. She was handed the check lastweek at the newspaper office, thanked them in a way thatsuggested that she was only getting her deserts, and cashed thecheck at once at Cooks, as had been arranged at her request bythe paper. One of the editorial staff went along with her. Shepaid for a tour round the world, which took close on five hundredpounds, and had the rest handed over to her in French francnotes."
Pointer looked at the date of the payment. It was the daypreceding Ingram's death.
"I went on to her address myself," the reporter continued."It's a small house which lets out rooms. She had taken hers fora fortnight, the time just covering the reception of the newsthat she had won the prim and the receiving of the check. She hadleft there, though her tour is not due to start for another weekyet, but she looked in at Cooks twice since then, once three daysago, once this morning. Only to pick up some folders. She's thesort of vision not encountered by the dozen. Corkscrew ringlets,and a black veil floating down her back pinned to her hat by asilver star in front. She didn't dress like that in Dulwich, andtherefore it doesn't show in her picture. TheWeeklyUniverse chap thinks she put them all on in honor of thegreat occasion of coming to the office."
Judging by the fortnight for which the rooms were taken, italmost looked as though Mrs. Sampson had known that they wouldcover just that particular period. Which, Pointer thought, wasextremely likely.
"Now as to the winner of the week before," went on thereporter, "he's a chap called Algernon Nevern, and lived off theHammersmith Broadway, a retired schoolmaster. Pawcett Road, No.21, is the address. He was given quite a reception at theHammersmith Town Hall a week ago, has left his room in PawcettRoad, and has vanished. I can't find anyone who has seen himsince."
So Nevern had vanished. That brought things looping back againto Pointer's idea of a disappearance being connected withIngram's murder. He would look up Mr. Nevern at once, otherwisethe lady with the obviously added fringe, would have had hisfirst attention.
He felt in his letter case for a fragment of wall paper whichhad never left him since he picked it up in the passage where layIngram's dead body, a piece of wallpaper which, so far, he hadnot been able to match. He was now going to see fresh rooms. Onecertainly, and probably two. He would not be at all surprised tolearn within a few hours where this scrap came from. Since it wasNevern who seemed to have vanished, he would expect it to matchNevern's paper, supposing as he did, that it had been dropped inthe corridor by the merest mischance, and had not been noticed bythe person dropping it.
POINTER went first to Lordship Lane. But thehouse in question neither knew, nor cared to know more, of thetaciturn Mrs. Sampson, who had lodged with them so short a time,had won such a fortune, and had not distributed it among theinmates of the house. He learned no more than what had been toldto the news agency reporter. They claimed to have no idea whenceshe had come to them, except that they fancied it was out oftown. She brought in flowers on occasions which suggested agarden some distance away, as they were always drooping andflagging. She had had no luggage except one suitcase. Now, shehad spoken to Cooks of luggage for the hold, and had the rightlabels for big trunks given her. Where was that luggage? Had sheno friends, he asked. No, none. No letters had ever come for heruntil she had won "all that money," when the house had beenswamped with communications for her, 'phone calls for her,telegrams for her, visitors asking for her. Had she had no 'phonecalls at all before? Pointer had tipped the elderly housemaidwell, and she was inclined to thaw. He explained that it was aquestion of wanting Mrs. Sampson as witness to a street accident.It was most important to get into touch with her. The housemaidsaid that Mrs. Sampson used to get a telephone call almost everyevening. Always the same voice speaking. A man's voice.Dreadfully difficult to make out what he was saying. He nevergave his name, not that she would have understood it, probably,if he had, but only asked for Mrs. Sampson, who seemed to expectthe call and was always ready to answer it. Had the housemaid anyidea of where the speaker at the other end came from? She hadnot. Did Mrs. Sampson ever ring him up, and if so, had she heardthe number. Mrs. Sampson often did. She couldn't remember thenumber, but it was River something or other...That meantHammersmith.
He was permitted to look into Mrs. Sampson's rooms. They hadbeen let again, and did not interest him after one keen lookaround:
He asked about Mrs. Sampson's throat, and learned that shecould hardly speak aloud, and could be heard gargling morning andevening with maddening thoroughness. Mrs. Sampson usually worecorkscrew ringlets and a floating veil on her hat, didn't she?The housemaid stared. He must be thinking of another woman. Mrs.Sampson wore her hair right into her eyes, straight untidy hairit was. As for hats, she lived in a black felt hat of severestcut while at the house.
Pointer drove to Hammersmith. Mrs. Sampson fitted the ideawhich he had had at the back of his mind all along as a possiblesolution to the puzzle at The Tall House. A rather unusuallooking woman, large and full of figure, who seemed to have norelations or friends to inquire about her...she had, moreover,presumably had at least two thousand five hundred pounds infrancs in her possession, and whatever other money sheowned...But she had not disappeared. And Nevern had.
Pointer stopped at the house in Pawcett Road, a dingyplace.
"He's gone!" the untidy but good-natured looking maid saidpromptly as soon as Pointer mentioned his name. "You mean him aswon all that money? Said he couldn't stand 'the notriarty.' Iasked him what he meant by that and he says people coming cadgingall day long." She flushed. "I mean—" she began awkwardly,"I mean—well, of course I don't mean—I wasn'tintending nothing, sir, in repeating that. Not in your case."
"I haven't come about the money he won," Pointer saidreassuringly. "I only want him as a witness in a street accident.How did he win his money? Horses?"
He heard all about the crossword competition, and interspersedthe hearing with questions which gave him a very good idea of Mr.Nevern's appearance and habits.
"Any friends who might know where he is now?" he askedfinally.
"He had a lady friend. She used to ring him up ever so oftenon the 'phone. She's had a bad throat lately. Said it hurt her toraise her voice. Oh—" in answer to furtherquestions—"she was ever such an old friend. They used totelephone to each other nearly every day. She did crosswords too.Wonderful to think that there's all that money waiting for you ifyou only guessed right, isn't it!"
"What was her name? You mean Mrs. Sampson, don't you?" Pointersaid easily.
"I never heard her name. She never gave it. 'Just ask Mr.Nevern to step to the telephone please,' was what she used tosay, or 'Please tell Mr. Nevern that I think I've solved itmyself,' and when I would ask who was speaking she'd just say,'He'll know who it is.' She never even so much as gave hernumber."
"And didn't you hear him ask for it?" Pointer said with realcuriosity.
"He had a telephone of his own put into his room. It's beentaken out when he left, of course. That's why he never had noletters or hardly ever. He said he liked 'phones best and alwaysused them himself."
Pointer asked if Mr. Nevern's room had been taken? It had not.Could he see it? He was often asked by young men if he could tellthem of pleasant inexpensive rooms somewhere central. She tookhim down a passage and up a flight of stairs to what wasevidently the best room in the house. And on the wall Pointer sawa rather pretty but faded wall paper of dun and blue andheliotrope, the same pattern as on the little piece in hispocket-book. Over the mantel-shelf a long strip had been tornaway. He pointed to it now.
"What a pity! Spoils the room," he murmured.
"Mr. Nevern did that just at the end. He always kept piles ofbooks there and caught it up with one of them. It had been loosefor ever so long. I saw him do it. He was hurrying out, and cameback in a rush, snatched up two books, and ran for it. That waswhen he did it."
How long had Mr. Nevern lived here? Nearly a year, it seemed.Had he always had this lady friend who telephoned him? Not tillabout three months or maybe a bit more, the little maid thought.No, there wasn't no one in the house who could tell the callermore about Mr. Nevern, because he hadn't any friends. "Nice oldgentleman he is too," she went on, "if only one could understandhim. Cleft palate he told me it was. Made him talk so funny!" Shegiggled. "Not that he ever tried to talk much. I liked him. Hemade you sort of sorry for him, no friends nor nothing, andalways so easy to please."
Pointer took the room at once for a Mr. Jones. He did not wantthat wall paper removed. Mr. Jones was moving in at once, he toldher, though he might not always be able to sleep there. "He oftenhas to take night duty," he finished up.
The little maid said they had had a reporter once in the houseand once a couple of girls from a dance club who were just thesame. The main thing to Pointer was that the room was taken andthe paper safe for the time being. His next move was to find Mrs.Sampson. Since Nevern was linked with The Tall House by thatpiece of wall paper and his disappearance, then the winner of thenext crossword prize was equally linked. For from Nevern on,Pointer believed that all the next thirteen prizes were destinedfor one and the same person—the murderer. The trouble washow to find this so-called Mrs. Sampson, for he did not thinkthat her name, any more than her fringe, was genuine. After a cupof coffee at a nearby Lyons, he returned to Pawcett Road. Hehoped that the little maid would have either recollectedsomething more or have talked with others in the house who mightremember something more. As the taker of Mr. Nevern's room he wasadmitted at once. Wasn't Mr. Jones in yet? Pointer seemedsurprised, but, as he himself had paid for a week's rent inadvance, not dismayed.
"That lady who 'phoned to Mr. Nevern keeps worrying me," heconfided to the maid, "she might be the very lady who had thestreet accident, and we particularly want to find out who she is.No name in her purse, poor soul. Nothing to tell where shelives."
"There's a charlady what helps once a week, Emmie," anothermaid listening near broke in now, "she says that she heard Mr.Nevern saying over the 'phone once in a funny voice, 'Ask Mrs.Findlay to come here to the 'phone, please. No name. Just ask herto come to the 'phone.' Well, that sounds as though it might bethis Mrs. Findlay who telephoned him that often."
Mrs. Findlay! Pointer had seen that name written in a bookwhich Miss Longstaff had among some of her books. Mrs.Findlay...and the address had been the house where Miss Longstaffherself had taken a room since leaving The Tall House, a house ofwhat are quaintly called American flatlets, the other side ofHammersmith Broadway from Pawcett Road. Miss Longstaff...Mrs.Findlay...Nevern...Ingram's murderer...Pointer walked on with aquickened pulse. The house in question was, as he knew from hismen's reports, a most respectable one chiefly lived in bybusiness men and women or professional people with smallsalaries. He found it without any difficulty, and asked for Mrs.Findlay.
"She's left here, sir. About three weeks ago. Gone down to hercottage in the country, before going abroad."
Along came a stout woman in black. This was the manageress.She took charge of the inquiries.
"The lady is wanted as a witness in a street accident,"Pointer explained, handing her his official card.
"She's gone to her cottage in the country before going on atour round the world. Thinking of settling in New Patagonia, orNew California, or one of those places...She hasn't started yet,for I saw her only this morning passing the house."
"The address of her cottage?" he asked. The manageress did notknow it.
"How about some friend who can tell me where to find her?" hesuggested. "She doubtless has quite a number."
"Only one. An old gentleman."
"You don't mean a Mr. Nevern? To whom the accident hashappened?" Pointer asked quickly. "Could you describe him?"
The manageress did. An elderly gentleman with curly gray hairworn rather long. The manageress did not know his name, and,though she had often seen him, had hardly ever really looked athim. "Personally I couldn't have stood his way of talking. He hada cleft palate. But there, I dare say he was ever so nice an oldgentleman, really!"
"Has he called since Mrs. Findlay had left?"
"Yes, twice. But not lately. Just at first. He never gave hisname, just walked to her room and knocked, if she was in, orasked for her and said he would come again if she was out."
"This is Mrs. Findlay, isn't it?" He showed a copy of thenewspaper portrait of the winner of the crossword puzzle. It hadbeen cleverly blurred to look like a snapshot. The manageressshook her head.
"Same sort of fat face and that, but Mrs. Findlay had hairgoing over so far back on her forehead, and long ringlets overher ears."
"Perhaps she's put a fringe on to be taken in," a maidsuggested, looking at the picture in her turn.
"Catch Mrs. Findlay doing that sort of thing," scoffed themanageress.
"And where's her veil and her star?" asked the maid, laughing."She wouldn't be found drowned without them, would she?"
Pointer obtained a very close, but not very useful descriptionof the real Mrs. Findlay. The chief thing both maid andmanageress insisted on was a floating black veil which she alwayswore fastened to her hair or hat by a silver star—the starof peace.
"How about a Miss Longstaff who lives here?" Pointer askedfinally. "Does she know her?"
"She lives here, but she's not in at present. She knows Mrs.Findlay all right—in a sort of way—or did. I mean sheknew her to speak to while Mrs. Findlay lived here, but theyhaven't kept it up."
"Mrs. Findlay wouldn't know who Miss Longstaff is, would she!"giggled the maid. The manageress shot her a reproving glance.
"She means that Miss Longstaff took her room under her pen-name,'Miss Gray.' She writes as that, and we called her that atfirst. But now that she's really going to live here she gave usher real name. Lots of writers do the same." The manageress spokedefensively.
"Wouldn't she know where this cottage of Mrs. Findlay's is?"Pointer persisted. "I really do want to get into touch with thelady."
"Miss Longstaff wouldn't know!" The manageress was certain ofthat. She explained that certainty in the next sentence. "Sheasked me for it after Mrs Findlay left. But I hadn't got it."
"Did she too know the old gentleman with the cleftpalate?"
The manageress thought that most unlikely, for Mrs. Findlaynever let anyone into her room when he called. "On account of hisinfirmity, I think," she explained in her kindly way. She lookeda good-natured soul.
Pointer asked about Miss Longstaff herself, and was told ofhow she arrived in the house. The manageress repeated that, "ofcourse, as soon as she came here really to live she gave her realname."
Pointer returned to Mrs. Findlay and his desire for a wordwith her. Where did she generally have her meals? No one knew,except that she was never gone long. That finished his talk forthe moment. He remembered the large Lyons where he had had hisown coffee, and went back there. At this hour it was almostdeserted. He again spoke of trying to find a lady—hedescribed Mrs. Findlay with her floating veil—who waswanted as a witness to an accident.
"That's our star!" the manageress, a young and merry-eyedgirl, said with a laugh. "We call her that because of the silverbadge she always wears. She used to come here regularly twice aday, but we haven't seen her for—getting on for three weeksit must be now...Or rather, she passed here only this morning, soI've seen her, but not to come in. She's left us."
"And perhaps you know the old gentleman who had the accident.Nice old gentleman everyone says he was, cleft palate..." Pointerdescribed Mr. Nevern.
"Oh, you mean him as won all that money—Mr. Nevern!" Themanageress and a couple of waitresses were genuinely sorry tohear of an accident to him, "he's awfully short-sighted," one ofthem added. "Fancy having had an accident now!"
"They were friends, weren't they?" Pointer inquired, as thoughhe knew that they were.
"In a sort of way," the manageress said rather hesitatingly,"they used to just exchange a word. Crossword puzzles was thehobby of both, you see. I heard him speak to her first of all.She'd been coming here ever so much longer than he had, oh, yearsand years, before I was moved here, and he's only been ourcustomer for a few months. But he leaned across her table oneday, and asked if she would pardon his asking it, but he saw sheworked at crosswords too, and could she suggest a word of eightletters for Manifestation. And quick as quick she said 'Epiphanywill that fit?' I was working on that one myself at the time inThe People, so I've remembered it. She was quite right, too.After that they'd exchange a word or two, and then he sat down ather table once and they started talking in earnest. Not aboutcrosswords. All about wars and killing men by thousands and soon. Made your flesh creep to hear them..."
Pointer said that apparently no one knew where Mrs. Findlaynow lived. She had gone down to a cottage that she hadsomewhere—-
"In Buckinghamshire," put in a waitress. "I'm from there. Itold her so, and she said as she had a cottage there. She didn'tsay where exactly."
That was all Pointer learned, but it was quite a good deal. Hewent back to the apartment house and asked for Miss Longstaffagain. She was in and greeted him with perfect composure.
"I came to find out the address of a Mrs. Findlay, she'swanted as a witness in an accident case," he said easily. "Do youknow where she is living now?"
Miss Longstaff said that she did not.
"How did I happen to meet her? Oh, hasn't the manageress toldyou?" She looked at him quizzically. "By the merest chance. I'mtremendously interested in disarmament, and when I heard that itwas her life-work —well—of course, I was pleased tohave as many talks with her as possible."
So she had had many talks, so many that she had thought thathe, Pointer, would have been told about them. Pointer glanced ather, she stared back at him with that impenetrable stare of hers.A "Have you ever met an old gentleman in her room, with a cleftpalate?" he asked.
With what he thought was genuine indifference, Miss Longstaffsaid that she had seen him once or twice through the glass sideof the lounge, but had never spoken to him. Mrs. Findlay seemedto be afraid that he would be captured, she added dryly, and kepther door as good as locked whenever he was expected. Her eyeswere on him all the time, he was sure that in some way hisinterest in Mrs. Findlay intensely interested this girl. Whetherit did more, whether it disquieted her, even Pointer could notsay.
"I understand that you borrowed a book from Mrs. Findlay," hewent on, "how are you going to return it, if you don't know heraddress?"
"I suppose she'll write me about it, or it'll have to stand asa sort of farewell offering," Alfreda said flippantly. "Usefulbook, too. A thesaurus."
"Do you know if she had ever lent it before?" he asked.
She frowned, as though intrigued by this interest in thevolume.
"As a matter of fact, this man you've asked me about, the oldman with the cleft palate, had just borrowed it and brought itback. May I ask why?"
"Was there any kind of bookmark in it?" Pointer asked."Frankly, Miss Longstaff, I consider that detail, though itsounds trifling, quite important."
"I like your 'frankly'," she murmured, eyeing him with eyesthat almost glittered. "Bookmark...there were quite a lot ofscraps of paper in it. Marking places II suppose. I think they'remost of them still in it." She stretched out a hand and picked upa well-worn looking volume from a shelf that formed part of whatlooked like a Tudor dresser—in the manageress'sopinion—and fluttered it. Nothing fell out. "Sorry, I musthave lost them one by one."
"Could you tell' me if they were plain, or colored?"
She shook her head. "I don't think I ever noticed." A silencefell.
"Did you have that book with you at The Tall House?" he asked.She said that she had. Pointer knew as much.
"Anywhere where people could open it and read it—or losethe bookmarks?" he asked.
"I wish I knew why possible bits of paper interest you! But Ihad it lying out in my room for days, and I left it downstairs inthe little Chinese room we used as a sitting-room more thanonce."
"Why?" Pointer asked.
She adjusted her skirt over her knees with care. "Justchance," she replied, then she looked up at him. "Frankly, justchance," she said, and smiled.
Pointer took his leave. Had that piece of wall-paper beenamong the 'scraps' in the book which she had borrowed? If so, itconfused the issue instead of helping to clear it up.
IT did not take the chief inspector long to findout from the land registry that a Mrs. Findlay owned the freeholdof a small cottage in Buckinghamshire near Hotspur. Its name wasCloud Cottage, and though it was on an A.A. Throughway, it wasquite secluded. Lying in a sudden little dip you had almost tostep on it before you saw it, and then its encircling hedge,which looked much older than the little building, screened it butfor its one chimney. Pointer circled it in his car and then madefor the police station. He had his bag with him, and in a fewminutes a tall, lean, elderly man who would have looked like ajobbing gardener even without the spade and fork over hisshoulder, hobbled along the road which led past the cottage. Hisdrooping mustache, his eyes, the very slant of his shoulders,suggested one of those traveling pessimists whose worstprophesies as to the flowers they plant usually come true.Leaning on the garden gate, he had a leisurely look at thecottage. Four rooms, he guessed, which was one too many,well-thatched and neatly painted, with a trim garden. It looked theretreat of someone whose means were ample for its small upkeep.The diamond panes glittered, the curtains and gay chintz behindthem were spotless.
Pointer made his way to the back. He stepped very lightly. Hedid not knock on the kitchen door but opened it without a soundby means of a curious tool he took from his pocket, not oneusually carried by gardeners.
Should Mrs. Findlay, contrary to his belief, be inside, hewould touch his forehead and mention that he had knocked for fiveminutes before trying the back door and finding it open. She wasnot in, and he was able to walk quickly, but carefully, over thecharming interior. But dead flowers smelled from the jugs of oldpottery and a dirty hand towel hung on the washstand in thebathroom. The bed was badly made. So badly that Pointer wouldhave supposed that the owner of this cottage could not have madeit, and yet...or was it that she was in some great preoccupationof mind?
He left everything as he had found it, and locked the kitchendoor behind him, before, spade and fork on shoulder, he ploddedoff for the village shops. At the nearest one he stopped. Couldthey tell him where he could find a Mrs. Findlay? As he hoped,being closest to her, that lady dealt here. But Mrs. Findlay, hewas told, had stopped living at the cottage some days ago. Thewoman gave the date. It was the day of Ingram's murder. Mrs.Findlay herself had told the boy that she would want nothing morefor some time, as she was going traveling. She often ran downstill, but not to stop—and not to order things in.
The jobbing gardener scratched his long dark hair which wasthickly flecked with gray, with a workworn earthy forefinger.
"Yet she arranged with me to come and fork over her garden,"he said in the patient tones of one used to employers'vagaries.
"Bit early for that," the shop woman suggested.
Pointer agreed that it was, but he rather thought she wasgoing to make a lawn, and in that case, if you wanted the groundto be properly drained, and settle well...
"I suppose the pay will be all right?" he wound upanxiously.
"Anything she ordered she'll pay for," the shop woman saidconfidently. "Pays to the minute always. But Ronnie here says shetold him she wouldn't be back for close on a year maybe."
"What about a little old gent who was with her when she gaveme my orders to fork up the back garden?" Pointer asked."Long-haired little gent, funny way of talking...I works for a manin Ilford where she ordered some bulbs as wants to be put insoon..." he added, to explain his own unfamiliar face.
"I seed a little old gent come in the day she left," the boyput in. "Drove her down."
"Ah, but did you see her leave?" Pointer asked. "I can't thinkshe'd place an order for bulbs and for her whole garden to be dugover and then just go away and leave it. Doesn't seem natural. Idon't believe she's gone away yet. For a day or two perhaps, butnot really left."
"I saw her driving off with all her luggage myself," the shopwoman put in, "but as I say, she's been back since. But only justin and out, as you might say, with her car. Not living downhere."
"Might be another lady," the gardener said doubtfully.
The woman was amused. "Who else wears a silver star, and hasside curls like my granny used to wear?"
"Well, she never said nothing at the shop about leaving."Pointer seemed irresolute but finally said that as his master hadsent him down to do the work he supposed he had better do it. Heasked the boy to come along and, show him the way to the cottage,he wasn't sure he mightn't miss it.
The lad carried his fork and spade for him since the gardenerseemed to have a stiff knee. They chatted about the cottage asthey walked slowly along. Pointer seemed most interested inlearning what he could of the one time when the boy had seen thelittle old gentleman arrive.
At the cottage the two walked round to the back Pointer seemedto see it for the first time.
"Looks to me as though she had had someone working herealready," he said sourly. But he had never been more alert. Thisgarden in this secluded spot—Nevern seen to arrive, notseen to leave...He went on: "Something's been moved here. Yuss,something's been turned about t'other way too. I don't know what,for I never seed the garden afore, but you did ought to know whatit is, son. What d'ye think yer eyes be for? Something in thisyere garden's been moved. Now just you tell me what?" and thegardener filled a briar with shag and began to smoke, hanging hiscoat on the hedge and rolling up his sleeves from sinewy armsburned black—apparently—with years of sun and wind.His heart was beating a little faster than usual. Would his guessprove right?
The boy stood with knitted brows studying the sceneintently.
"That there shed!" he announced triumphantly.
"Ah!" Pointer said equably, and yet as one pleased with apupil, "and where was it afore?"
"Over in that corner!" The young voice almost squeaked now."That's right! And where it now stands was a pit for manure,chicken manure, she gets it from our chickens. That's it, andMrs. Findlay has cleared it out, filled it up, and put the shedover it. The old gent and she must have worked hard. She neverhas no one to help her with her garden."
"Ah, I knowed something had been moved," Pointer said, noddinghis head sagely. "When did you last see it in the corner? It's nogood raking over ground for at least a fortnight what's had ashed stood over it. Needs that time to air, or ye digs in thesour top-soil."
"When I delivered here larst, it stood in its old place," wasall the boy could tell him, and that, it seemed, was about a weekago—just before Ingram's murder, Pointer finally madeout.
"Well, here's a penny, son, and thank ye," and the gardenerbegan in a leisurely way to light his pipe until the boy could nolonger see him, which meant only until he had closed the gate,for the little path turned so abruptly in joining the road thatthe cottage was out of sight in a minute. Then the gardener had alook at the tool shed. It was locked, but what interested himmost was that it was on a four-wheeled truck base.
Around the bottom ran some wire netting as though to keep ratsout from the ground immediately below it.
It was this very ground that interested the chief inspector,once he had noticed that the shed had been recently shifted.Below the shed his flashlight showed him black soil, evidentlysub-soil. He bent up the wire netting for half a foot or so allaround and with a vigorous shove moved the shed a couple of feetfarther on. All the time he kept his eye out for the big outlineof Mrs. Findlay appearing round the corner of the cottage,wearing her hat with its floating veil, silver star and danglingear curls. Of one thing he felt fairly sure and that was that itwould never again be accompanied by the little old gentleman whotalked as though he had a cleft palate.
On the whole, he thought it very unlikely that she would beback here again. Though you never knew...if she remembered thatshe had not left the cottage in what Pointer felt sure was itsusual order...
He dug down with the spade, for a trial had shown him thatearth, such as was now on top of this little patch of roughlyseven by four feet, could be found two spades deep in the rest ofthe garden.
At his third attempt he felt the spade come against something.He moved it half a foot along the length of the patch and againfelt something below. Very swiftly and carefully now, scoopingwith his hands, he burrowed until he came on something, until hecleared a coat sleeve...a hand...and finally, working withextreme care, a dead face. So he was right. And the murder ofIngram and the body lying under the shed were linked.
Miss Longstaff was walking slowly along Hammersmith HighStreet thinking of Gilmour. Suddenly she was roused from herreverie. A woman had come out of a shop farther down, steppedinto a passing bus, and been whirled away. It was Mrs. Findlay.Her throat was evidently worse, for she held a fur stole wellacross her mouth. But the silver star shone as gaily, the silveryringlets nodded as briskly as ever. It was a chemist's shop fromwhich she had come. Miss Longstaff recognized the name over thedoor as one which her sharp eyes had seen on several bottles ofthroat medicine in Mrs. Findlay's room. She stepped in.
"Mrs. Findlay was in here just now, wasn't she? I've justmissed her. And I particularly want to see her. I suppose she'sordered something for her throat to be sent down to her at hercottage? If you'll give me the address, I can take it along withme. I'm going down that way."
Alfreda Longstaff had one asset. She looked thoroughlyrespectable. The shop man did not doubt her. After a little delayhe handed her a bottle and the address, which she tucked into herpurse. Then she too caught a bus and arrived at PaddingtonStation just as a train was due to leave for Hotspur. Her luckwas in, she decided, and settled down in a corner of an emptycompartment to think over the questions she would put to Mrs.Findlay. She walked up from the station. Cloud Cottage seemed tobe deserted, but she rang the bell. There was no answer. Shewaited, uncertain what to do. Mrs. Findlay had ordered themedicine to be sent her by post so as to reach her that night. Soshe must be going to run down...After a long wait a car could beheard. It was an open little two-seater, Mrs. Findlay at thewheel. Alfreda walked to the gate to meet it.
"Don't scold me for having found out your little retreat. Ishan't bother you but this once, and I've brought your throatmedicine along with me. May I come in and have a short talk withyou?"
Mrs. Findlay stood quite still, not even looking at Alfreda,after the one swift recognizing glance. She tapped the groundwith her umbrella. Then she nodded, pointed to her throat, and tothe fur still around her mouth and nose, walked with her majesticstride up to the door, unlocked it, and motioned to Alfreda topass in. In the hall she took her to a room on the right, andwhispered that she would be down in a minute, as soon as she hadgargled. She did indeed come down within five minutes or so. Shehad not taken off her outside things, nor her hat, or put asideher fur stole which she still held in the same way across hermouth...
"And now, what is it, Miss Longstaff?" she whispered over itstop, seating herself and motioning her visitor to take a chairopposite her, facing the light.
"Mrs. Findlay, I want so much to ask you a question. What doyou know of Lawrence Gilmour? I asked you once before, butplease, please be frank with me."
"Never heard of him," the reply came instantly, and withconvincing firmness. "Who is he?"
"He is the man who shot Mr. Charles Ingram—bymistake—as he maintains. I've been rather against him...andI wondered whether...but perhaps you know him under another name?This is what he looks like. Mrs. Findlay had not even drawn offher gloves. She scrutinized the picture very carefully, butfinally shook her head.
"Never saw him. But I have heard the name before! Oh, not fromyou or the papers! One day in the tube, I heard one man nudge hiscompanion, and say rather eagerly, 'That's LawrenceGilmour—that man there with the girl. Let's try him again.He won't refuse when he's got a skirt with him.' I didn't look tosee what man or girl was meant, but on that occasion I did hearthe name."
"When was this?" Alfreda asked.
Mrs. Findlay thought back. "I think it was when I was on myway to the first of the Universal Sisterhood and Brotherhoodaddresses...that would make it—" and she named the datewhen Alfreda had first seen her in the lift and thought that itwas because of her that Gilmour had backed out so hurriedly.
"That's all I know," Mrs. Findlay said, adjusting her glasseswith her thumb, a trick of hers. "Sorry. Very sorry that you'vehad your journey down here for nothing. I'd offer you tea, but Idon't think you ought to stop. My throat trouble is rathercatching—and very painful to me, even to whisper."
That it was catching Alfreda, had learned from the chemist whohad had a look at Mrs. Findlay's throat in the beginning. Butthat did not worry Alfreda when bent on getting information.
"Look here," she said impulsively, "I'm sorry to stay evenanother minute. But—"
This time Mrs. Findlay rose. "It's too painful," she murmured,her hand to her throat. It was all of a keeping with Mrs.Findlay's grim unfriendly character. Alfreda thanked her, excusedherself, and closed the front door behind herself after thebriefest of leave-takings. So it was all a mistake. And she hadwasted a good many very dull hours on a will-o'-the-wisp. Halfwaydown to the station a sudden thought struck her. How on earth hadMrs. Findlay known her real name? And known it without anyquestioning or remarks as to why she had gone under the name ofGray. She must be in closer touch with her old rooms than she,Alfreda, had been allowed to guess. Why this deceit on the partof manageress and maids? She walked back. She would ask Mrs.Findlay herself? She might never have another chance of a wordwith the woman. The bell-push gave no results. It was evidentlyout of order. There was no knocker. Alfreda thought of rapping,and then decided that in all probability Mrs. Findlay would stillbe in the room looking into the garden where she had left her.The French window had been at once opened by the lady,incidentally throwing a still clearer light on Alfreda's face.She went to it now, intending to tap and call to Mrs. Findlay.She was on grass. The afternoon sun was shining into the room shehad just left, shining on the overmantel—a tall, old-fashionedmirror.
In front of this, standing close against it, Mrs. Findlay wasnow staring at her own reflection with close scrutiny.
For a second Alfreda stopped where she was. It would be atrifle awkward to surprise the lady taking such an evidentinterest in her looks. Mrs. Findlay would step away in a moment,Alfreda would wait a short interval, and then walk up and knockon a pane.
But Mrs. Findlay now dropped her fur stole, and seemedsuddenly to cease to be Mrs. Findlay...she smiled at herself inthe glass, and with the smile she became someone else...but who?Who? The figure in front of her with the hat with its flowingveil, put her hands to her ringlets, patted them into position,laughing at herself the while. Alfreda stood rooted to the spot.Down went her handbag with a jingle of coppers at her feet. In aflash the figure staring at itself in the mirror had wheeled. Forone awful second the two stood face to face, then there was aleap, Alfreda was seized and lifted within the room. She wasflung with fearful strength against the farther wall, while theglass doors were shut and latched and the blinds snatched down,then the figure turned again, and Alfreda knew that if she was toleave the room alive, she would have to fight for her life, andknew, too, that she had no more chance of escaping than has amouse under the paw of the cat. That grasp, that fling, thatawful glare in the eyes staring at her had told her as much.
ALFREDA tried to swing a chair up, but it wasknocked from her grasp. As it fell with a crash, something thecrashed too—the French window. The linen blind was tornaside. A rock struck full on her assailant, who fell away andslowly lurched to her knees. Alfreda did not wait for furthermiracles. Again she swung the chair up, and, however clumsilythis time, brought it down full on the swaying figure. The nextmoment it was taken from her.
"You're safe now! Steady on—he's down!" came a wellknown voice as a hand was laid on her arm. But Alfreda's bloodwas up. She twisted herself free.
"Of course he is! That's why I'm going to hit him!" She spokewith passion, and Chief Inspector Pointer had to fairly shove heraside with his elbow, while he bent down over the hat and veiland lifted them off, showing a head of beautifully parted grayhair, and with little ring curls all around and long corkscrewsover each ear. He felt the skull.
"Nothing broken," he murmured with inward relief. He had flungthat rock with more of a swing than he would have done had notthe circumstances been a bit pressing. Magistrates have apreference for undamaged prisoners, and Pointer himself was verysharp with his own men as to any rough handling of theircaptives.
"I'll put these on him," he clicked handcuffs around the neatlace cuffs and the man's hands protruding from them.
"What—what—" came thickly from beneath thematronly hair, in a hoarse voice.
"Lawrence Gilmour, I arrest you for the murder of Mr. CharlesIngram and of Mrs. Mary Findlay—" followed swiftly thecaution.
Gilmour said nothing now. He set his teeth and gave AlfredaLongstaff a look that she never forgot, that would sometimes wakeher up bathed in cold perspiration of a night.
Alfreda said nothing in answer to it. Something in the grave,stern, almost sad, face of the detective officer made her realizethe tremendous moment that this was...She, a living human being,was looking at a man who might very soon be that no longer.
"You damned spy," he said now between his teeth. "Take yourugly face out of my sight."
Pointer spoke sharply. "Mr. Gilmour, I think you had bettersay nothing, unless you wish to make a statement to me."
"What motive do you intend to allege? Of course I'm innocent."He caught the direction of the calm gray eyes that just for amoment rested on the shed outside. Gilmour's face went white.Again his eye fell on Alfreda. Again she shrank from the look ofit.
"What motive?" he snarled at the chief inspector.
"Crosswords," Pointer said briefly, and Gilmour after thatsaid no more. There was a sound behind them. A man in blue camein. Pointer said a word to him and then took Alfreda into anotherroom. He made her sit down there, for she was tremblingviolently. She was afraid that she was going to be sick.
"Badly frightened?" he asked.
He got the instant reaction that he knew would come.
"Not in the least. I'll telephone for you, if you like." Butshe would have found it difficult to unhook the receiver. Pointertook out a flat flask and unscrewed the cup. He filled it.
"It won't hurt you," he said. "I really advise it. I don'tdoubt your pluck. But you were within an inch of death, MissLongstaff." Pointer had had to leave the cottage for a brief wordover the telephone to the Yard. The constable had misunderstoodMiss Longstaff's approach by the back, had thought her a friendof the so-called Mrs. Findlay, and only Pointer's return and hissight of the dropped handbag on the grass outside had savedAlfreda. That handbag left there did not suggest a confederate tohis quick brain.
She swallowed the brandy obediently while he telephoned. Thenhe turned to her. Even as he did so a car whizzed up. It was hisown men whom he had summoned from town just after first proddingthat place in the garden under the shed.
"Suppose we go back to town together in my car," he suggested,and Alfreda was glad of the offer.
"Now tell me how you came to be down here, how you knew, afterall, where to come?"
She explained. "And where is Mrs. Findlay? The real Mrs.Findlay?"
"Beneath that shed out in the garden we have just left,"Pointer said truthfully. This was no nature that neededshielding. "Gilmour, in the guise of an old man he assumed thename of Nevern—became friendly with her, and murdered her.Strangled her and buried her in her own garden."
"You spoke of crosswords. Do you mean she won a crosswordprize and he killed her just for that?" she asked in horror.
That was but a small part of Gilmour's intended haul, Pointercould have told her. But he did not. That would all come out atthe trial.
"And why, why did he pretend to care for me?" she asked. "Youknow, Mr. Pointer, that's what started all my suspicions." Sheplayed with her gloves on her lap. "When he came down to ourvillage, I was very much impressed with him. I went for him,they'll all tell you down there. I suppose I did." She spokejudicially, quite objectively. "He stood to me foropportunity—escape—and all that sort of thing. But heflirted with me, and then dropped me. Then he came down again. Iwas perfectly certain, as I say, that he was not in love with me,I was sure of it. And I decided that two could play at that gametoo. I would come to London and have a pleasant time whilelooking around for work that would lead on to something, and thenI would drop Lawrence Gilmour just as he had dropped me. For, yousee, Mr. Pointer, I knew that he didn't care for me. I couldn'tthink why on earth he should pretend to, but I did have senseenough to know it was only a pretense. Why did he do it? Withthat silly, beautiful Winnie Pratt willing to take him anyday?"
"Ah, she might be considered as a motive, Miss Longstaff. WhenGilmour shot Ingram, he wanted there to be no shadow of apossible motive. I think he could have murdered Miss Pratt withpleasure. She tried to spoil his shield of no earthly reason forkilling his friend. But please go on—"
"There isn't anything to tell. I wish there was. When I metWinnie Pratt I was more than ever puzzled. Some real game must beon to make him pretend he cared for me with her at his elbow!Then came the shooting of Ingram. Poor Mr. Ingram. I liked Mr.Ingram," she said suddenly.
"So did everyone—but Gilmour," Pointer agreed.
"I had been up night after night listening, and waitingabout—always expecting to come across something that wouldgive me a clue to what the game was. I thought of Mrs. Pratt'sjewels..."
Pointer did not tell her every one was paste.
"I didn't know what to think...and the one night whensomething really was on, I was asleep in bed! Worn out with beingup so much!" She gave her head a toss of self-disgust. "But Iknew it was a shot! Just because I was expecting something orother...anyone else would have thought it a burst tire...but Iwas too late to find out how it was done. Then I noticed the holein the sheet which never could have been made by a bullet throughIngram's forehead if the sheet had hung down over his face, and Igot into touch with theDaily Wire. I passed on that pieceof news to their reporter."
She told how she had done this.
"I rushed down to the room Mr. Ingram used to write in, to seeif I could find anything there. Any clue...you always do inbooks, you know."
"So you do in real life," Pointer could have said, but he onlynodded.
"That's all, I think. I've told you about why I followed Mrs.Findlay and tried to get to know her...Then when Mr. Moy told meabout Gilmour having gone off to find the murderer I—forthe first time—weakened. I told myself I had been anabsolute idiot...especially when Mrs. Findlay, as I thought shewas, spoke as though she had never heard of Gilmour or seen hisface before. Oh, she—he—quite took me in just now!But I knew he had stopped back at that lift door to avoid Mrs.Findlay!"
"Half involuntarily, I think," Pointer said. He wanted to keepher talking. It was the best way, in her case, to ease the shockthat she had had, he rightly thought. "She only knew him asNevern. But he probably also thought it just as well not toobtrude himself, his real self, on her."
"I saw him once, I mean as Nevern. Through the glass window ofthe lounge at the apartment house, and never recognized him! ButI only gave him half a glance, and he slouched so, and wore suchshabby clothes, and had a muffler around his neck and such abattered old felt hat turned down all around his eyes...Youknow," she went on at a half tangent, "I left the book I borrowedfrom her lying about at The Tall House, open at her name on thefly leaf, to see if it would catch his eye. But someone alwaysshut it. So I got tired of trying it."
"Had it lain before him he was probably too concerned with hisdouble murder to pay much attention to trifles," Pointersuggested, as he went on out to complete his ownarrangements.
"She won't stay a reporter long," Pointer said to theassistant commissioner. "I heard that they're going to make her avery good offer to watch the case for them as it were...I thinkMiss Longstaff is bound to go ahead in the newspaper world."
"I suppose they'll get her to write what it feels like to bethe fiancée of a murderer. What it feels like to suspect one youlove..." Pelham spoke in a tone of disgust. He loathed theDaily Wire. "Let's hope they'll get her to do one on 'Whatit feels like to have the man you wanted to marry, hung,'" hefinished, and Pointer hoped that the opportunity might yet comeMiss Longstaff's way. It did, had she cared to use it.
"Did you suspect Gilmour from the first?" Pelham askedcuriously. He himself had been rather favorably impressed by thatastute young man.
"Well, sir, if Gilmour's story was true and the second sheetfound was the right one, however intricate they might seem, theother knotty points surrounding it would untie themselves, asthey always do if worked at. But if his story was not true, if heintended to kill Ingram that night, why did he choose that way?And why The Tall House? The locality and time might mean that hewanted to confuse the hunt, if it had been an ordinary murder.But he himself openly confessed to having killed Ingram—'bya blunder' If he was guilty, why did he take this dangerous step?He who would have, and had, such ample opportunities of gettingrid of him quietly."
"Yes, that affair on Scawfell at Easter seemed such acertificate of good intentions," murmured Pelham. "Why not then,Pointer? But I see the answer to that. The quarterly thirteenpuzzles weren't out then. Or didn't he know about them?"
"I don't think he knew about them until that accident, sir,which took place just after the last lot had been sent off. Ishouldn't be surprised if it was while opening his clothes, tofeel if his heart were beating, that Gilmour came upon some paperwhich made him suspect or learn what Ingram's secondary line was,financially his most important line. Ingram's climbing plus fourshave just the same kind of a pocket made in them as have hisevening bags...yes, I think the prosecution can assume that thenand there he learned the facts which he—onreflection—decided could be of such great use tohimself."
"But about your suspicions," Pelham harked back, "I want tosee them at work again."
"Well, sir," Pointer said, looking at his shoe tips as thoughthey were a diary which he was reading, "I could only say tomyself, that if Gilmour was guilty, then time must be allimportant. That Ingram's death must be wanted to take place nosooner and no later."
"Not during the Easter rock climb, nor during the snowclimbing planned far July," Pelham nodded. He saw the obviousnessof this.
"This idea fitted in with first the belief, then the knowledgethat Ingram had posted something for which I thought it likelythat he had had that inner secret pocket made. Something of greatimportance, that meant. Shall I boil down the rest of mylaborious thinking, sir?" Pointer would never have made a goodlecturer, he was too afraid of boring people.
"Anything but!" His superior protested, "take me step by stepwith you."
"Well, sir, if Gilmour were guilty, it looked as though he,too, would want to be free as quickly as possible after themurder. I could think of no other reason for him to have takensuch a risky course as he did but one. Because Ingram's death wasnot to have a long inquiry tacked on to it, which meant that noquestion of murder was to be attached to it. As Gilmour plannedit, absolutely without a motive, it would look just what he saidit was, a horrible accident. And it would further give a man achance of disappearing utterly without arousing suspicionafterwards. What more natural than that the poor chap who had hadsuch a misadventure should drop out of sight, go round theworld—and never return?"
"Did your—to me—inexplicable idea ofdisappearances fit in here?"
"Well, yes, sir, it did at once suggest that he must have someother identity waiting for him into which to pass. And when hedisappeared 'to look for the criminal' as he put it, I thought Icould put the odds at ten to one on, his being the criminalhimself. Though I began to fear that he wouldn't be easy to comeup with. I had no motive yet...Of course as soon as I thought ofIngram as a writer of crossword puzzles with big prizes,obviously the character that Gilmour had turned into would winone, and ultimately, all of them. I expected, first of all,before making inquiries, that both the winners after Ingram'smurder would be incarnations of Mr. Gilmour. But they were seentogether. One had disappeared entirely after taking his prizemoney, and the other had left her usual haunts but had been seenabout, a person whom I would have chosen myself in Gilmour'sposition. A strange, unfriendly, solitary woman whose outlinewould identify her, without a scrutiny of her features. Thoseringlets, that floating veil, that star...no one would lookclosely under the big hat. And she had a sore throat...couldmuffle up."
"Bit of luck that, for Gilmour."
"Assisted by Gilmour," Pointer said, "I suspect he putsomething into her tea to make her throat sore. And be able todrop in—after she was dead—at the chemist's for the'same throat medicine as you put up for me before.'"
Pointer was right. Gilmour had done just that.
"Where was Gilmour supposed to be when he was murdering theold lady?"
"With Miss Longstaff, sir. He constantly lately has taken daysoff, out of his leave, on the plea of his fiancée being up intown, and of course has had it made easy for him to do."
"All the world loves a lover," quoted Major Pelham withmacabre relish.
"Her liking to have her mornings to herself suited himexcellently, of course," Pointer went on. "Just as she tells methat he often excused himself after a bare half hour or evenless, on the plea of a colleague being down with the flu, and hishaving promised to take his duty for him. As Nevern, he went downto her cottage with Mrs. Findlay the morning of the day on whichIngram was to be shot. Got her to send a message to a man sheoften employed, a stupid sort of half idiot to move the tool shedon the next morning to a place over the manure pit, and thenkilled her. Buried her and left the idiot to hide the spot nextday with the shed, while he made up as Mrs. Findlay, went totown, changing on the way into Gilmour."
"Busy bee," Pelham said with a shudder.
"And the dislike of Miss Pratt?" he asked. "Got that combedout?"
Pointer had.
"Well, well! How hard is the path of crime," murmured Pelham."Fancy having to turn a stony eye and ear on the lovely Winnie,and beam instead on the distinctly waspish Miss Longstaff. Whatabout Miss Pratt, by the way? Does she talk of committingsuicide?"
"Not unless you call marrying Mr. Haliburton that," Pointersaid. "She and her mother and Haliburton have all agreed that thewedding is to take place at once and young Mrs. Haliburton willbe on her honeymoon to Greenland or Finland by the time the trialcomes off."
"Quite right," Pelham said. "She's much too lovely a butterflyto pin up in a law court for everyone to stare at. Did she carefor the brute, do you think?"
Pointer thought that Mrs. Pratt was right, and that Winnie,having met a man who was not bowled over by her looks, whorefused to be won by her blandishments, thought that she must,indeed, have met a demi-god, a being not of mortal clay. Theshock of Gilmour's arrest had put quite another complexion onthings. She now agreed with her mother that Gilmour was not"normal," and had allowed Haliburton to decide that there shouldbe no more shilly-shallying.
"I suppose that note Gilmour left..." pursued Pelham, wholiked to tie his bundles up with everything inside them, "wasjust to spoof Moy?"
"Exactly, sir, and explain his non-appearance...You see,things had gone so contrary that he couldn't just set off on atrip round the world as he had planned. He was more than a littleafraid of us...Lord Bulstrode might reveal the real writer of thecrosswords...Gilmour decided that he had better go...and turninto Nevern until he could become Mrs. Findlay. Once safely her,he would have gone on that world trip, and duly sent in correctsolutions to theWeekly Universe as Miss Smith, DoctorBrown, Mr. Jones, Mrs. Robinson, as need be; appear in adifferent form each time and take the check..."
"Neat," Pelham said. "Pity is that these simple ways ofgrabbing what doesn't belong to you, rarely work out according toplan. Ingenious chap, I think, Pointer, though you don't seem tolike him. And perhaps he was a bit careless to drop that scrap ofwall paper. How did he come to have it in his dressing-gownpocket?"
"I confess I can't say, though I could hazard a guess. But, bygood luck, a fragment of it stuck to the lining of the pocket, sothat even our searchers didn't spot it, yet it'll prove the linkbetween him and meek little Mr. Nevern."
"What do you guess?" Pelham asked promptly.
"From the way the paper has been screwed up, sir, I should saythat he wrapped a ring in it. He only wears one, a fine scarab.My guess is that he forgot to take it off once when he was Mr.Nevern, decided to be on the safe side and wrapped it in a scrapof paper before dropping it in his pocket because of its veryshallow setting. It is just a little loose."
"But why put it in his dressing-gown pocket?" Pelhampersisted, "he hardly strolled across London wearing that when hebecame Mr. Nevern, did he?"
"A scarab is supposed to bring luck," Pointer said. "It looksto me as though he had put it in his dressing-gown when hemurdered Ingram for luck. And when he dropped the cartridge case,picked up off the bedroom floor, in the passage, he must havedropped the paper out too, tearing it as he scooped out thecartridge case. He, or someone else, stepping on it, flattened itout on the cream ground of the carpet, and never noticed it."
"Quite a neat little guess," Pelham said approvingly. Lateron, they both learned that it was the truth.
"By the way, what about the system?"
"I let Mr. Appleton have it, sir, or a copy of it. He's justworked it with such success in Ostend and the Casino has offeredhim three thousand a year for life to sell it to them. He'saccepted. What with what he's made before I stepped in, and thisnice little annuity, he feels quite comfortable about the futureand is going to have his operation with a tranquil mind nextmonth. Mrs. Appleton can't do enough to make up to him for herterrible suspicion. As for Appleton, he really did suspectFrederick Ingram—and a cipher motive."
"The trouble was Appleton always acted," Pelham said, "andit's deuced difficult to spot when an actor's real, and when he'splaying a part. I'm glad that shark Tark won't get any of thespoils."
So was Pointer. "I went so far as to explain to Mr. Haliburtonwhat I had happened to overhear once in Appleton's room abroad,"he said gravely, quite undeterred by the grin of Pelham at theword 'happened,' "and he's dropped Tark. Definitely. I think hesuspects that the ramming of his skiff may have just been part ofa plan to meet Ingram under unimpeachable auspices. Tark, ofcourse, is the type you meet in out-of-the-way places of theworld playing poker for his boots—or yours. He must havebeen the one who hunted through the study before Miss Longstaff.That was why he had to go on and wake the servants. She cut himoff from the main stairs. Tark has resource and a face ofgranite."
"Why not say he has a face like Gilmour's 'heart," suggestedPelham. "I suppose Gilmour put that second corrected sheet intothe linen hamper himself, and then waited for Moy to think oflooking there?"
"I think that's what happened, sir. That hole was a badblunder. He shot Ingram in his bed, to the best of my belief,Ingram was an unusually heavy sleeper, we know. I think Gilmourdrew the sheet up over his face when he lay on his back fastasleep, stood at the end of the bed, or the other side of theroom with his automatic fitted with a silencer, and shot himdead, through the sheet and the center of the forehead. It was avery small caliber automatic. There was practically no bleeding.I fancy he would have changed slips had there been any stains. Hetwisted the sheet around Ingram and dumped him on the floor justoutside his own door, then went to his room and fired out throughthe bedroom window over the gardens after loading with sixblanks. So that the shot would rouse the household. He hadpreviously, on his way to his room, dropped the cartridge casefrom Ingram's room on the carpet near his door. Along with thatscrap of wall paper.
"After firing—with his door open—he staggeredabout in the passage and felt for the switch, put out of actionby himself, of course. And so on..."
"All that upholding of Ingram's suit of Miss Pratt was so mucheyewash, of course."
"I suppose every murderer who undertakes a premeditated crimepaints a picture, sir, and wants the investigators to take thepicture he has colored so skilfully for real life. It's just acase of seeing through it, or as your book puts it, of 'seepingthrough the cilia."'
Pelham nodded, pushing a box of cigars across to Pointer. "Thestance of the faithful friend, just so. He was a cleverchap."
"Well, he made two bad breaks, sir. The hole too near the edgeof the sheet, and then picking on Miss Longstaff to be his girl.I suppose the latter was hardly his fault, rather hismisfortune," Pointer ruminated aloud. "When he found Miss Prattupsetting all his arrangements by trying so hard to fall in lovewith him, he looked around for cover. He remembered how welcomeMiss Longstaff had found his company, how she had, to use her ownwords, 'gone for him,' and thought that he would get engaged fora short time to a little trusting country maid who would bedelighted to say yes, and never question his actions. Miss Longstaffdid. He overrated badly what he fondly believed was herlove for him, and underrated as badly her brains."
"Yours were the brains he underrated," Pelham saidaffectionately, "as everyone does who thinks they can get thebetter of you."
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