Chapter V: Part 5

“I mean that I must have an X-ray of your elbow immediately and surgical resources at my disposal or I won’t answer for the consequences. The yacht must make for harbour at once.”

“Am I in danger, Mr. Fortune?”

“I hope to save your arm if you give me the chance.”

“I am in your hands, Mr. Fortune,” said the Prince feebly. “Oh! If you could do something to stop this neuralgic pain in my arm----”

In fact, Reggie had a difficult time with him, which you may think was only fair. It was very late before His Highness (who took a morbid interest in his limbs) could be got to sleep; very late--or early--before Reggie went to bed, but all the while the _Giulia_ was steaming back to Tormouth, and when Reggie came on deck again “pink and beautiful”, as he remarked to his mirror, thanks to a razor and linen of Spoleto’s, the brown Tormouth headlands loomed through the morning haze.

Already upon deck were Spoleto and Hilda, walking together, negotiating, as it appeared, a defensive alliance.

“This is very gratifyin’,” said Reggie.

“How is my uncle, Mr. Fortune?” said Spoleto.

“Still asleep, thank Heaven.”

“He is not in any danger?” said Hilda.

“Well, you know, he’s so anxious about himself.”

“I should never forgive myself if anything happened!” Spoleto cried.

“Oh, I should, you know, I should,” Reggie murmured thoughtfully. They did not attend to him.

“But you are not to blame.” Hilda was interested in Spoleto. “You are not to blame for anything.”

“You say that!” Spoleto cried. “Thank you, my cousin,” and he kissed her hand.

“Oh, but you are absurd,” said Hilda, and flushed faintly and turned away.

Spoleto made a gesture of despair. “Quite, quite,” Reggie said. “So we’d better have breakfast.” During that meal he might have heard, if he had listened, the full history of the emotions of the Comte de Spoleto. He escaped from them to visit his patient.

The Prince was much cheered by a night of sleep, still excessively interested in his injuries, but now hopeful about them. He gave great honour to Reggie’s treatment of the case. “My dear sir, I must consider it providential that you were on board. Oh, but certainly providential.”

“Well, sir, the affair might have taken a different turn without me,” Reggie admitted modestly.

“Indeed, yes,” said His Highness. “Good God, Mr. Fortune, and how I resented your appearance yesterday!” He became thoughtful. “I think what annoyed me most was that any one should have discovered my plans.” He gazed at Reggie. “Are you free to tell me, Mr. Fortune? I am much interested to know what brought you here. Did Hilda say anything to her mother? Or is there a traitor in my camp? Spoleto--that little actress?”

“Here’s the traitor, sir.” Reggie took out of his pocket the Hottentot Venus.

“Good heavens!” The Prince took her affectionately. “My new palæolithic Venus.”

“You left her in the library at the Tormouth school. There are not many men in the world who have a Hottentot Venus to lose. So she suggested to me that the Prince of Ragusa was taking action with regard to Hilda Crowland.”

“You have a great deal of acumen, Mr. Fortune,” said the Prince, and the sound of the cable broke off the conversation.

There is a hospital at Tormouth. The Comte de Spoleto went on shore to bring off its X-ray man. Reggie stretched himself in a deck chair to wait events.

They were not long in arriving. A shore boat brought off the Hon. Stanley Lomas, dapper as ever, and a woman whom Reggie identified by her hair and her magnificent figure as the mother of Hilda--Mrs. Crowland--the Princess of Ragusa. Reggie went down the gangway to meet them.

Lomas sprang out of the boat. The Princess was handed out and went up the gangway. “Good God, Fortune!” Lomas shook hands. “You’re a wonder! How did you bring them back?”

“Genius--just genius.”

The Princess had met her daughter who was not abashed. “Hilda! Why do you do this extraordinary thing?”

And Hilda said quietly, “I wanted to know my father.”

“You make us all ridiculous,” the Princess cried.

“I don’t feel that.” Hilda put up her chin.

“May I present Mr. Fortune, ma’am?” Lomas put in.

Reggie bowed. “I am sorry to tell you, madame, that the Prince has had an accident. A fall down the companion. He is in bed. I am waiting for an X-ray to be taken of his arm. But I assure you there is no cause for alarm.”

“I am not alarmed,” said the Princess. “I wish to see him.”

“Certainly. You will not forget that I have told him I represent you.”

“It was an impertinence, Mr. Fortune,” said the Princess, and swept to the companion. The door of the Prince’s cabin was shut on her.

“Jam for the Prince.” Reggie made a grimace at Lomas.

“Strictly speaking, what’s my _locus standi?_” said the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department.

“Don’t funk, Lomas. I dare say she’ll murder him. That’s where you come in.”

So they were depressed till the return of the anxious Spoleto with his X-ray man. Reggie descended upon the Prince and Princess. She was sitting upon his bed. She was smiling. She kissed her hand to His Highness as she went out.

All which Reggie observed with a face of stone.

“I am infinitely your debtor, Mr. Fortune,” His Highness beamed. “You are not married, no?”

“It becomes every day less probable,” said Reggie grimly.

“One never knows the beauty of a woman’s nature till one is suffering,” said His Highness.

The X-rays were put to work on the arm, and the operator and Reggie went off to the yacht’s dark room. As the plate came out, “I see no injury, Mr. Fortune,” the operator complained.

“Fancy that,” said Reggie.

Outside the dark room the Princess was impatiently waiting. “Well, Mr. Fortune?”

“Well, madame, there will be no need of an operation.”

The Princess frowned at him. “I suppose I am much obliged to you, Mr. Fortune. I wish to hear more of your part in the affair.”

Reggie, he has confessed, trembled. The Princess swept on. She opened the door of the music-room. She revealed Hilda and Spoleto. Hilda was being vehemently kissed.

Reggie fled. Professional instinct, he explains, took him back to his patient. “I am very pleased to tell you, sir, that there is no serious injury to the arm. Rest and good nursing are all that is now needed.”

His Highness laughed like a boy and began to chatter--all about himself.

Reggie broke in at the first chance. “It is a satisfaction to me that I leave you in such good spirits, sir.”

His Highness overflowed with gratitude. He did not know how to thank Mr. Fortune--what to offer him.

“If I might have this little lady, sir.” Reggie took up the Hottentot Venus. “It would be a pleasant memento of an interesting adventure.” And so he went off with the Hottentot Venus in his pocket. He hurried on deck to the uneasy Lomas. “You were right, Lomas. You are always right. We have no _locus standi_. And where’s that shore boat?” They embarked hurriedly and rowed away from the royal house of Ragusa. “In heaven,” said Reggie, “there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. That’s why I’m going there. Look at her”--he produced the Hottentot Venus--“she’s the only sensible woman I ever knew. Lomas, my dear old man, do you know you will have to explain all this to your sister?”

The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department groaned aloud.

CASE VI

THE BUSINESS MINISTER

PHASE I.--THE SCANDAL

“‘Oh, to be in England now that April’s here,’” said Reggie Fortune as, trying to hide himself in his coat, he slipped and slid down the gangway to his native land. The Boulogne boat behind him, lost in driving snow, could be inferred from escaping steam and the glimmer of a rosette of lights. “The Flying Dutchman’s new packet,” Reggie muttered, and hummed the helmsman’s song from the opera, till a squall coming round the corner stung what of his face he could not bury like small shot.

He continued to suffer. The heat in the Pullman was tinned. He did not like the toast. The train ran slow, and whenever he wiped the steamy window he saw white-blanketed country and fresh swirls of snow. So he came into Victoria some seven hours late, and it had no taxi. He said what he could. You imagine him, balanced by the two suit-cases which he could not bear to part with, wading through deep snow from the Tube station at Oxford Circus to Wimpole Street, and subsiding limp but still fluent into the arms of Sam his factotum. And the snow went on falling.

It was about this time, in his judgment 11 p.m. on 15th April, that a man fell from the top story of Montmorency House, the hugest and newest of the new blocks of flats thereabouts. He fell down the well which lights the inner rooms and, I suppose, made something of a thud as his body passed through the cushion of snow and hit the concrete below. But in the howl of the wind and the rattle of windows it would have been extraordinary if any one had heard him or taken him for something more than a slate or a chimney pot. He was not in a condition to explain himself. And the snow went on falling.

Mr. Fortune, though free from his coat and his hat and his scarf and his gloves, though scorching both hands and one foot at the hall fire, was still telling Sam his troubles when the Hon. Stanley Lomas came downstairs. Mr. Fortune said, “Help!”

“Had a good time?” said Lomas cheerily. “Did you get to Seville?”

“Oh, Peter, don’t say things like that. I can’t bear it. Have the feelings of a man. Be a brother, Lomas. I’ve been in nice, kind countries with a well-bred climate, and I come back to this epileptic blizzard, and here’s Lomas pale and perky waiting for me on the mat. And then you’re civil! Oh, Sophonisba! Sophonisba, oh!”

“I did rather want to see you,” Lomas explained.

“I hate seeing you. I hate seeing anything raw and alive. If you talk to me I shall cry. My dear man, have you had dinner?”

“Hours ago.”

“That wasn’t quite nice of you, you know. When you come to see me, you shouldn’t dine first. It makes me suspect your taste. Well, well! Come and see me eat. That is a sight which has moved strong men to tears, the pure ecstasy of joy, Lomas. The sublime and the beautiful, by R. Fortune. And Sam says Elise has a _timbale de foie gras_ and her very own _entrecôte_. Dine again, Whittington. And we will look upon the wine when it is red. My Chambertin is strongly indicated. And then I will fall asleep for a thousand years, same like the Sleeping Beauty.”

“I wish I could.”

“Lomas, old dear!” Reggie turned and looked him over. “Yes, you have been going it. You ought to get away.”

“I dare say I shall. That is one of the things I’m going to ask you--what you think about resignation.”

“Oh, Peter! As bad as that?” Reggie whistled. “Sorry I was futile. But I couldn’t know. There’s been nothing in the papers.”

“Only innuendoes. Damme, you can’t get away from it in the clubs.”

They had it out over dinner.

Some months before a new Government had been formed, which was advertised to bring heaven down to earth without delay. And the first outward sign of its inward and spiritual grace was the Great Coal Ramp. Some folks in the City began to buy the shares of certain coal companies. Some folks in the City began to spread rumours that the Government was going to nationalize mines district by district--those districts first in which the shares had been bought. The shares then went to a vast price.

“All the usual nauseating features of a Stock Exchange boom,” said Reggie.

“No. This is founded on fact,” said Lomas. “That’s the distinguishing feature. It was worked on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Whoever started the game had exact and precise information. They only touched those companies which the Government meant to take over; they knew everything and they knew it right. Somebody of the inner circle gave the plan away.”

“‘Politics is a cursed profession,’” said Reggie.

Lomas looked gloomily at his Burgundy. “Politicians are almost the lowest of God’s creatures,” he agreed. “I know that. I’m a Civil servant. But I don’t see how any of them can have had a finger in this pie. The scheme hadn’t come before the Cabinet. Everybody knew, of course, that something was going to be done. But the whole point is the particular companies concerned in this primary provisional scheme. And nobody knew which they were but the President of the Board of Trade and his private secretary.”

“The President--that’s Horace Kimball.”

“Yes. No politics about him. He’s the rubber king, you know. He was brought in on the business men for a business Cabinet cry. He was really put there to get these nationalization schemes through.”

“And he begins by arousing city scandal. Business men and business methods. Well, well! Give me the politicians after all. I was born respectable. I would rather be swindled in the quiet, old-fashioned way. I like a sense of style.”

“Quite--quite,” said Lomas heartily. “But I must say I have nothing against Kimball. He is the usual thing. Thinks he is like Napoleon--pathetically anxious you should suppose he has been educated. But he really is quite an able fellow, and he means to be civil. Only he’s mad to catch the fellow who gave his scheme away. I don’t blame him. But it’s damned awkward.”

“If only Kimball and his private secretary knew, either Kimball or the private secretary gave it away.”

“My dear Fortune, if you say things like that, I shall break down. That is the hopeless sort of jingle I say in my sleep. I believe Kimball’s honest. That’s his reputation. As keen as they make ’em, but absolutely straight. And why should he play double? He is ridiculously rich. If he wanted money it was idiotic to go into the Government. He would do much better for himself in business. No; he must have gone into politics for power and position and so on. And then at the start his career is mucked by a financial scandal. You can’t suppose he had a hand in it. It’s too mad.”

“Remains the private secretary. Don’t Mr. Kimball like his private secretary?”

“Oh, yes. Kimball thinks very well of him. I pointed out to Kimball that on the facts we were bound to suspect Sandford, and he was quite huffy about it--said he had the highest opinion of Sandford, asked what evidence I had, and so on.”

“Very good and proper, and even intelligent. My respects to H. Kimball. What evidence have you, Lomas, old thing?”

“You just put the case yourself,” said Lomas, with some irritation. “Only Kimball and Sandford were in the secret. It’s impossible in the nature of things Kimball should have sold it. Remains Sandford.”

“Oh, Peter! That’s not evidence, that’s an argument.”

“I know, confound you. But there is evidence of a sort. One of Sandford’s friends is a young fellow called Walkden, and he’s in one of the firms which have been running the Stock Exchange boom.”

“It’s queer,” said Reggie, and lit a pipe. “But it wouldn’t hang a yellow dog.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Lomas cried. “We have nothing to act on, and they’re all cursing me because we haven’t!”

“Meaning Kimball?”

“Kimball--Kimball’s calling twice a day to know how the case is going on, please. But the whole Government’s on it now. Minutes from the Home Secretary--bitter mems. from the Prime Minister. They want a scapegoat, of course. Governments do.”

“Find us some one to hang or we’ll hang you?”

“I told you I was thinking of resigning.”

“Because they want to bully you into making a case against the private secretary--and you have a conscience?”

“Lord, no. I’d convict him to-day if I could. I don’t like the fellow. He’s a young prig. But I can’t convict him. No; I don’t think they want to hang anybody in particular. But they must have somebody to hang, and I can’t find him.”

“It isn’t much in my way,” Reggie murmured. “The Civil Service frightens me. I have a brother-in-law in the Treasury. Sometimes he lets me dine with him. Meditations among the Tombs for Reginald. No. It isn’t much in my way. I want passion and gore. But you intrigue me, Lomas, you do indeed. I would know more of H. Kimball and Secretary Sandford. They worry me.”

“My God, they worry me,” said Lomas heartily.

“They are too good to be true. I wonder if there’s any other nigger in the wood pile?”

“Well, I can’t find him.”

“Hope on, hope ever. Don’t you remember it was the dowager popped the Bohun sapphires? And don’t you resign. If the Prime Minister sends you another nasty mem., say you have your eye on his golf pro. A man who putts like that must have something on his conscience. And don’t you resign for all the politicians outside hell. It may be they want to get rid of you. I’ll come and see you to-morrow.”

“I wish you would,” said Lomas. “You have a mighty good eye for a face.”

“My dear old thing! I never believe in faces, that’s all. The only one I ever liked was that girl who broke her sister-in-law’s nose. But I’ll come round.”

Comforted by wine and sympathy, Lomas was sent away to trudge home through a foot of snow. And the snow went on falling.

PHASE II.--THE PRIVATE SECRETARY

The snow lingered. Though hoses washed it out of the highways, in every side street great mounds lay unmelted, and the park was dingily white. Reggie shivered as he got out of his car in Scotland Yard, and he scurried upstairs and put himself as close as he could to Lomas’s fire--ousting Superintendent Bell.

“I’m waiting for you,” said Lomas quietly. “There’s a new fact. Three thousand pounds has been paid into Sandford’s account. It was handed in over the counter in notes of small amounts yesterday morning. Cashier fancies it was paid in by a stoutish man in glasses--couldn’t undertake to identify.”

“It’s a wicked world, Lomas. That wouldn’t matter so much if it was sensible. Some day I will take to crime, just to show you how to do it. Who is Sandford, what is he, that such queer things happen round him?”

“I don’t know so much about queer, sir,” said Superintendent Bell. “I suppose this three thousand is his share of the swag.”

“That’s what we’re meant to suppose,” Reggie agreed. “That’s what I resent.”

“You mean, why the devil should he have it put in the bank? He must know his account would be watched. That’s the point I took,” said Lomas wearily.

“Well, sir, as I was saying, it’s the usual sort of thing,” Superintendent Bell protested. “When a city gang has bought a fellow in a good position and got all they can get out of him, it often happens they don’t care any more about him. They’d rather break him than not. It happened in the Bewick affair, the Grantley deal----” He reeled off a string of cases. “What I mean to say, sir, there isn’t honour among thieves. When they see one of themselves in a decent position, they’ll do him in if they can. Envy, that’s what it is. I suppose we’re all envious. But in my experience, when a fellow isn’t straight he gets a double go of envy in him. I mean to say, for sheer spiteful envy the crooks beat the band.”

Reggie nodded. “Do you know, Bell, I don’t ever remember your being wrong, when you had given an opinion. By the way, what is your opinion?”

Superintendent Bell smiled slowly. “We do have to be so careful, sir. Would you believe it, I don’t so much as know who did the open-air work in the Coal Ramp. There was half a dozen firms in the boom, quite respectable firms. But who had the tip first, and who was doing the big business, I know no more than the babe in arms.”

“Yes, there’s some brains about,” Lomas agreed.

But Reggie, who was watching the Superintendent, said, “What’s up your sleeve, Bell?”

The Superintendent laughed. “You do have a way of putting things, Mr. Fortune.” He lit a cigarette and looked at his chief. “I don’t know what you thought of Mr. Sandford, Mr. Lomas?”

“More do I, Bell,” said Lomas. “I only know he’s not a man and a brother.”

“What I should describe as a lonely cove, sir,” Bell suggested. “Chiefly interested in himself, you might say.”

“He’s a climber,” said Lomas.

“Well, well! Who is Sandford--what is he, that all the world don’t love him?” Reggie asked. “Who was his papa? What was his school?”

“Well, now, it’s rather odd you should ask that, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.

“He didn’t have a school. He didn’t have a father,” said Lomas. “First he knows he was living with his widowed mother, an only child, in a little village in North Wales--Llan something. He went to the local grammar-school. He was a kind of prize boy. He got a scholarship at Pembroke, Oxford. Then Mrs. Sandford died, leaving him about a pound a week. He got firsts at Oxford, and came into the Home Civil pretty high. He’s done well in his Department, and they can’t stand him.”

“Good brain, no geniality, if you take my meaning,” said the Superintendent.

“I hate him already,” Reggie murmured.

“That’s quite easy,” said Lomas. “Well, he’s a clever second-rater, that’s what it comes to.”

“Poor devil,” Reggie murmured.

“There’s swarms of them in the service. The only odd thing about Sandford is that he don’t seem to have any origins. Like that fellow in the Bible who had no ancestors--Melchizedek, was it? Well, Mrs. Sandford had no beginning either. She wasn’t native to Llanfairfechan--that’s the place. She came there when Sandford was a small kid. Nobody there knows where from. He says he don’t know where from. Nobody knows who his father was. He says he don’t know. He says she left no papers of any sort. She had an annuity, and the fifty pounds a year she left him was in Consols. He never knew of any relations. Nobody in Llan-what’s-its-name can remember anybody ever coming to see her. And she died ten years ago.”

“You might say it looked as if she wanted to hide,” said Superintendent Bell. “But, Lord, you can’t tell. Might be just a sorrowful widow. It takes ’em that way sometimes.”

“Has anybody ever shown any interest in Melchizedek?” said Reggie.

“O Lord, no! Nobody ever heard of him out of his Department. And there they all hate him. But he’s the sort of fellow you can’t keep down.”

“Poor devil,” Reggie murmured again.

“You won’t be so damned sympathetic when you’ve met him,” Lomas said. A slip of paper was presented to him. “Hallo! Here’s Kimball. I thought he was leaving me alone too long. Well, we’ve got something for him to-day.”

“He has a large fat head”: thus some perky journalist began a sketch of the Rt. Hon. Horace Kimball. And he faithfully reported the first elementary effect of seeing Mr. Kimball, who looked a heavy fellow, with the bulk of his head and neck supported on a sturdy frame. But on further acquaintance people discovered a vivacity of movement and a keenness of expression which made them uncomfortable. Yet he had, as I intend you to observe, a bluff, genial manner, and his cruellest critics were always those who had not met him. For the rest, he aimed at a beautiful neatness in his clothes, and succeeded.

He rushed in. “Well, Lomas, if we don’t make an end of this business, it’ll make an end of us,” he announced, and flung himself at a chair. “Anything new?”

“I have just been discussing it with Mr. Fortune.”

“That’s right. Want the best brains we can get.” He nodded his heavy head at Reggie. “What do you make of it?”

“I don’t wonder you find it harassing,” Reggie said.

“Harassing! That’s putting it mildly. I’ve lost more sleep over it than I want to think about.” He became aware that Reggie was studying him. “Doctor, aren’t you?” he laughed ruefully. “I’m not a case, you know.”

“I apologize for the professional instinct,” Reggie said. “But it does make me say you ought to see your doctor, sir.”

“My doctor can’t tell me anything I don’t know. It’s this scandal that’s the matter with me. You wouldn’t say I was sentimental, would you? You wouldn’t take me for an innocent? Well, do you know, I’ve been in business thirty years, and I’ve never had one of my own people break faith with me. That’s what irritates me. Somebody in my own office, somebody close to me, selling me. By God, it’s maddening!”

“Whom do you suspect?” said Reggie.

Kimball flung himself about, and the chair creaked. “Damn it, man, we’ve had all that out over and over again. I can’t suspect any one. I won’t suspect any one. But the thing’s been done.”

“As I understand, the only people who knew the scheme were yourself and Sandford, your secretary?”

“I’d as soon suspect myself as Sandford.”

“Yesterday three thousand pounds in notes was paid by somebody, who didn’t give his name, into Sandford’s account,” said Lomas.

“Great God!” said Kimball, and rolled back in his chair, breathing heavily. “That’s what I wouldn’t let myself believe.”

“Have you got any brandy, Lomas?” said Reggie, watching his pallor professionally. Lomas started up. Reggie reached out and began to feel Kimball’s pulse.

“Don’t do that,” said Kimball sharply, and dragged his hand away. “Good Lord, man, I’m not ill! No, thanks, Lomas, nothing, nothing. I never touch spirits. I’ll be all right in a moment. But it does rather knock me over to find I’ve got to believe it was Sandford.” He struggled out of his chair, walked to the window, and flung it up and dabbed at his forehead. He stood there a moment in the raw air, took a pinch of snuff, and turned on them vigorously. “There’s no doubt about this evidence, eh? We can’t get away from it?”

“I’m afraid we must ask Sandford for an explanation,” said Lomas.

“Most unpleasant thing I ever did in my life,” Kimball said. “Well, there’s no help for it, I suppose. Still, he may have a perfectly good explanation. Damn it, I won’t make up my mind till I must. I’ve always found him quite straight--and very efficient too. Cleverest fellow I ever had about me. Send for him then; say I’ll be glad to see him here. Come now, Lomas, what do you think yourself? He may be able to account for it quite naturally, eh?”

“He may. But I can’t see how,” Lomas said gloomily. “Can you?”

“I suppose you think I’m a fool, but I like to believe in my fellows,” said Kimball, and they passed an awkward five minutes till Sandford came.

He looked a good young man. He was rather small, he was very lean, he wore eyeglasses. Everything about him was correct and restrained. But there was an oddity of structure about his face: it seemed to come to a point at the end of his nose, and yet his lower jaw looked heavy.

He made graded salutations to Kimball his chief and to Lomas. He looked at Reggie and Superintendent Bell as though he expected them to retreat from his presence. And he turned upon Kimball a glance that bade him lose no time.

Kimball seemed to find some difficulty in beginning. He cleared his throat, blew his nose, and took another pinch of snuff. “I don’t know if you guess why I sent for you,” he broke out.

“I infer that it is on this matter of the gamble in coal shares,” said Sandford precisely.

“Yes. Do you know of any new fact?”

“Nothing has come before me.”

“Well, there’s something I want you to explain. I dare say you have a satisfactory explanation. But I’m bound to ask for it.”

“I have nothing to explain that I know of.”

“It’s been brought to my knowledge that yesterday three thousand pounds in notes was paid into your account. Where did it come from?”

Sandford took off his eyeglasses and cleaned them, and put them on again. “I have no information,” he said in the most correct official manner.

“Good God, man, you must see what it means!” Kimball cried.

“I beg your pardon, sir. I have no notion of what it means. I find it difficult to believe that you have been correctly informed.”

“You don’t suppose I should take up a charge like this unless I was compelled to.”

“There’s no doubt of the fact, Mr. Sandford,” said Lomas gloomily.

“Indeed! Then I have only to say that no one has any authority to make payments into my account. As you have gone into the affair so carefully, I suppose you have found out who did.”

“He didn’t give his name, you see. Can you tell us who he was?” Lomas said.

“I repeat, sir, I know nothing about the transaction.”

“And that’s all you say?”

“I need hardly add that I shall not accept the money.”

“You know the matter can’t end there!” Kimball cried. “Come, man, you’re not doing yourself justice. Nothing could be worse for you than this tone, can’t you see that?”

“I beg your pardon, sir. I do not see what you wish me to say. You spoke of making a charge. Will you be so good as to state it?”

“If you must have it! This boom was begun on information which only you had besides myself. And immediately after the boom this large sum is paid secretly into your account. You must see what everybody will say--what I should say myself if I didn’t know you--that you sold the plan, and this money is your price. Come, you must have some explanation for us--some defence, at least.”

“I say again, sir, I know nothing of the matter. I should hope that what scandal may say will have no influence upon any one who knows my character and my career.”

“Good God, man, we’re dealing with facts! Where did that three thousand pounds come from?”

“I have no information. I have no idea.”

For the first time Reggie spoke. “I wonder if you have a theory?”

“I don’t consider it is my duty to imagine theories.”

“Do you know any one who wants to ruin you? Or why any one should?”

“I beg your pardon. I must decline to be led into wild speculations of that kind.”

Kimball started up. “You make it impossible to do anything for you. I have given you every chance, remember that--every chance. It’s beyond me now. I can only advise you to consider your position. I don’t know whether your resignation will save you from worse consequences. I’ll do what I can. But you make it very hard. Good morning. You had better not go back to the office.”

“I deny every imputation,” said Sandford. “Good morning, sir.”

Half apologetically Kimball turned to the others. “There’s nothing for it, I suppose. We’ll have to go through with it now. You’ll let me have an official report. The fellow’s hopeless. Poor devil!”

“I can’t say he touches my heart,” said Lomas.

Kimball laughed without mirth. “He can’t help himself,” he said, and went out.

“I shouldn’t have thought Kimball was so human,” said Lomas.

“Well, sir, he always has stuck to his men, I must say,” said Superintendent Bell.

“I wonder he could stick to Sandford for a day.”

“That Mr. Sandford, he is what you might call a superior person,” Bell chuckled. “Funny how they brazen it out, that kind.”

“Yes, I don’t doubt he thinks he was most impressive. Well, Fortune, there’s not much here for you, I’m afraid.”

Reggie had gone to the window and was fidgeting there. “I say, the wind’s changed,” said he. “That’s something, anyway.”

PHASE III.--THE MAN UNDER THE SNOW

The porter of Montmorency House, awaking next morning, discovered that even in the well of his flats, where the air is ever the most stagnant in London, the snow was melting fast. After breakfast he saw some clothes emerging from the slush. This annoyed him, for he cherished that little court. The tenants, he remarked to his wife, were always doing something messy, but dropping their trousers down the well was the limit. He splashed out into the slush and found a corpse.

After lunch Reggie Fortune, drowsing over the last published play of Herr Wedekind, was roused by the telephone, which, speaking with the voice of Superintendent Bell, urged him to come at once to the mortuary.

“Who’s dead?” he asked. “Sandford hanged himself in red tape? Kimball had a stroke?”

“It’s what you might call anonymous,” said the voice of the Superintendent. “Just the sort of case you like.”

“I never like a case,” said Reggie, with indignation, and rang off.

At the door of the mortuary Superintendent Bell appeared as his car stopped.

“You’re damned mysterious,” Reggie complained.

“Not me, sir. If you can tell me who the fellow is, I’ll be obliged. But what I want to know first is, what was the cause of death. You’ll excuse me, I won’t tell you how he was found till you’ve formed your opinion.”

“What the devil do you mean by that?”

“I don’t want you to be prejudiced in any way, sir, if you take my meaning.”

“Damn your impudence. When did you ever see me prejudiced?”

“Dear me, Mr. Fortune, I never heard you swear so much,” said Bell sadly. “Don’t be hasty, sir. I have my reasons. I have, really.”

He led the way into the room where the dead man lay. He pulled back the sheet which covered the body. “Well, well!” said Reggie Fortune. For the dead man’s face was not there.

“You’ll excuse me. I shouldn’t be any good to you,” said the Superintendent thickly, and made for the door.

Reggie did not look round. “Send Sam in with my things,” he said.

It was a long time afterwards when, rather pale for him, his round and comfortable face veiled in an uncommon gravity, he came out.

Superintendent Bell threw away his cigarette. “Ghastly, isn’t it?” he said with sympathy.

“Mad,” said Reggie. “Come on.” A shower of warm rain was being driven before the west wind, but he opened everything in his car that would open, and told the chauffeur to drive round Regent’s Park. “Come on. Bell. The rain won’t hurt you.”

“I don’t wonder you want a blow. Poor chap! As ugly a mess as ever I saw.”

“I suppose I’m afraid,” said Reggie slowly. “It’s unusual and annoying. I suppose the only thing that does make you afraid is what’s mad. Not the altogether crazy--that’s only a nuisance-but what’s damned clever and yet mad. An able fellow with a mania on one point. I suppose that’s what the devil is, Bell.”

“Good Lord, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.

“What I want is muffins,” said Reggie--“several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I’ll feel safe.”

He spread himself out, sitting on the small of his back before his study fire, and in that position contrived to eat and drink with freedom.

“In another world, Bell,” he said dreamily--“in another and a gayer world it seems to me you wanted to know the cause of death. And you didn’t want me to be prejudiced. Kindly fellow. But there’s no prejudice about. It’s quite a plain case.”

“Is it indeed, sir? You surprise me.”

“The dead man was killed by a blow on the left temple from some heavy, blunt weapon--a life-preserver, perhaps; a stick, a poker. At the same time, or immediately after death, his face was battered in by the same or a similar weapon. Death probably occurred some days ago. After death, but not long after death, the body received other injuries, a broken rib and left shoulder-blade, probably by a fall from some height. That’s the medical evidence. There are other curious circumstances.”

“Just a few!” said Bell, with a grim chuckle. “You’re very definite, sir, if I might say so. I suppose he couldn’t have been killed and had his face smashed like--like he did--by the fall?”

“You can cut that right out. He was killed by a blow and blows smashed his face in. Where did you find him?”

“He was found when the snow melted this morning in the well at Montmorency House.”

“Under the snow? That puts the murder on the night of the fifteenth. Yes, that fits; that accounts for his sodden clothes.”

“There’s a good deal it don’t account for,” said Bell gloomily.

“I saw him just as he was found?” Bell nodded. “Somebody took a lot of pains with him. He was fully dressed--collar and tie, boots. But a lot of his internal buttons were undone. And there’s not a name, not even a maker’s name, on any of his clothes. His linen’s new and don’t show a laundry mark. Yes, somebody took a lot of pains we shouldn’t know him.”

“I don’t know what you’re getting at, sir.”

“Don’t you? Is it likely a man wearing decent clothes would not have his linen marked and his tailor’s name somewhere? Is it likely a man who had his tie and collar on wouldn’t do up his undershirt? No. The beggar’s clothes were changed after he was killed. That must have been a grisly business too. He’s not a tender-hearted fellow who did this job. Valet the body you’ve killed and then bash its face in! Well, well! Have some more tea?”

“Not me,” said Bell, with a gulp. “You talked about a madman, sir, didn’t you?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Not the kind of mad that runs amuck. Not homicidal mania. This isn’t just smashing up a chap’s body for the sake of smashing. There’s lots of purpose here. This is damned cold, calculating crime. That kind of mad. Some fellow’s got an object that makes it worth while to him to do any beastliness. That’s the worst kind of mad, Bell. Not homicidal mania--that only makes a man a beast. What’s here is the sort of thing that makes a man a devil.”

“You’re going a bit beyond me, sir. It’s a bloody murder, and that’s all I want.”

“Yes, that’s our job,” said Reggie thoughtfully. Together they went off to Montmorency House.

“How would you describe deceased, sir?” said Bell.

“Man of about fifty, under middle height, inclined to be stout, unusual bald.”

“It ain’t much to go by, is it?” Bell sighed. “We don’t so much as know if he was clean shaved or not.”

“He was, I think. I saw no trace of facial hair. But it’s rash to argue from not finding things. And he might have been shaved after he was killed.”

“And then smashed? My Lord! And they smashed him thorough too, didn’t they?”

“Very logical bit of crime, Bell.”

“Logical! God bless my soul! But I mean to say, sir, we haven’t got much to go on. Suppose I advertise there’s a man of fifty missing, rather short and stout and bald, I shall look a bit of an ass.”

“Well, I wouldn’t advertise. He’d had an operation, by the way--on the ear. But I wouldn’t say that either. In fact, I wouldn’t say anything about him just yet. Hold your trumps.”

“Trumps? What is trumps then, Mr. Fortune?”

“Anything you know is always trumps.”

“You’ll excuse me, but it’s not my experience, sir.”

They came to Montmorency House, where detectives were already domesticated with the porter, and had done the obvious things. The body, it was to be presumed, had fallen from one of the windows opening on the well. The men who had flats round the well were all accounted for, save one. Mr. Rand, tenant of a flat on the top story, had not been seen for some days. Ringing at Mr. Rand’s door had produced no reply.

“Well, we do seem to be getting a bit warmer,” said Superintendent Bell. And his subordinate in charge of the inquiries at the flats beamed and rubbed his hands, and remarked that Rand seemed to have been a mysterious chap--only had his flat a few weeks, not used it regularly, not by any means; no visitors to speak of, civil but distant. “That sounds all right,” said Bell, and looked at Reggie.

“What was he like?” said Reggie.

“Middle size to biggish, wore glasses, well dressed, brown hair, which he wore rather long, they say,” the inspector reeled off glibly.

“That’s put the lid on,” said Bell. “Won’t do for the corpse, Warren. Not a bit like it. Well, sir, where are we now?” He turned to Reggie.

“You will go so fast,” Reggie complained, and sat down. “I’m pantin’ after you in vain. What’s the primary hypothesis, Bell?”

“Sir?”

“Do we assume the corpse is Rand, or that Rand chucked the corpse out of window?”

“Ah, there’s that,” said the inspector eagerly. “We hadn’t worked on that.”

“We haven’t worked on anything, if you ask me,” said Bell gloomily. “What’s your opinion then, Mr. Fortune?”

“The primary hypothesis is that we’re looking for an able, masterful madman. Therefore my opinion is that the whole thing will look perfectly rational when we’ve got it all combed out--grantin’ the madman’s original mad idea.”

“Am I to go round London looking for a rational madman?” Bell protested.

“My dear chap, you could catch ’em by the thousand. There’s nobody so damned rational as the lunatic. That’s where he falls down. Do not be discouraged. He’s logical. He don’t keep his eye on the facts. That is where we come in.”

“We’ve come in all right, but we don’t seem like getting out,” Bell grumbled. “I’m keeping my eye on the facts all right. But they won’t fit.”

“You’re very hasty to-day, Bell,” said Reggie mildly. “Why is this?”

“I can see that fellow’s face,” Bell muttered.

“Well, well! He’s told us all he can, poor devil. We’ll get on, if you please. Because Rand’s away, it don’t follow that Rand’s the corpse. It might have come out of some other tenant’s window. Know anything about the other tenants?”

“All most respectable, sir,” said the inspector.

“My dear man, the whole affair is most respectable. Do get that into your head. I dare say we’ll find the corpse was a conveyancer murdered by a civil servant. A crime of quiet middle-class taste. What sort of fellows are the other fellows?”

“Well, sir, there’s a retired engineer, and a young chap, just married, in the Rimington firm, and a naval officer, and several young doctors with consulting-rooms in Harley Street, and one of the Maynards, the Devonshire family. That’s all with any rooms on the well. I’ve seen ’em all, and, if you ask me, they’re right out of it; they’re not the sort, not one of them.”

“I dare say,” said Reggie. “They don’t sound as if they would fit. None of them heard anything?”

“No, sir; that’s queer, to be sure.”

“It happened the night of the blizzard. You wouldn’t have noticed a bomb. Well, who was Rand?”

“That’s what no one knows, sir. He’d only been here a few weeks. They’re service flats, you know, and furnished. He gave a banker’s reference. Bank says he has no money reason to be missing. Quiet, stable account. Income from investments. Balance three hundred odd. But the bank don’t know anything about him. He’s had an account for years. He used to live off Jermyn Street, apartment-house. The landlady died last year.”

“And the landlady died last year,” Reggie repeated. “He’s elusive, is Mr. Rand. Same like our corpse. But is Rand missing, Bell? He’s not been seen for a few days. There’s not much in that. He never used his flat regularly.”

“And, so far as we know, deceased isn’t Rand.”

“Well, I don’t know quite as far as that,” said Reggie.

“Good Lord, the porter who found him didn’t recognize the body.”

“Remember his face.”

“My God, don’t talk about his face.”

“Sorry, sorry. Well, I dare say the porter was upset too.”

“Yes, but the porter said Rand was biggish, and the body’s on the small side. The porter said he had a lot of hair, and the body’s absolutely bald.”

“My dear chap, give a man a straight back and a bit of manner and lots of fellows think he’s biggish--while he’s alive. And a man that’s absolutely bald is just the man to wear a wig.”

“I thought we were to go by facts,” Bell said gloomily.

“And so we are, Bell. Just a-going to begin, Mr. Snodgrass, sir. No rash haste.”

“Have you got something up your sleeve?”

“Not one little trump. Oh, my dear Bell, how can you? Did I ever? My simple open heart is broken.”

“You’re damned cheerful, aren’t you?”

“My dear man, I never made you swear before. My dear Bell! Sorry. Let’s get on. Let’s get on. I want to call on the elusive Rand.”

There was nothing individual about the rooms of Mr. Rand. He had been content with the furniture supplied by the owners of the place, which was of the usual wholesale dullness. Reggie turned to the manager of the flats. “I suppose there’s nothing in the place Mr. Rand owns? Not even the pictures?”

“The pictures were supplied by the contractors for the furniture, sir. So----”

“The Lord have mercy on their souls,” said Reggie.

“So there is nothing of the tenant’s personal property except his clothes.”

“He is elusive, our friend Rand,” Reggie murmured, wandering about the room. “Smoked rather a showy cigar. Drank a fair whisky. Doesn’t tell us much about him. Do the servants come here every day?”

The manager was embarrassed. “Well, sir, in point of fact, we’re short-handed just now. Not unless they’re rung for. Not unless we know the tenant’s using the rooms.”

“Don’t apologize, don’t apologize. In point of fact, they haven’t been here since”--he looked critically at some dust upon a grim bronze--“since when?”

“I should say some days,” said the manager, with diffidence.

“I should say a week. No matter. Many thanks.”

Superintendent Bell with some urgency ushered the manager out. When he had done that he turned upon his inspector. “Confound you. Warren, what do you want to stare at the waste-paper basket for? That chap would have seen it if Mr. Fortune hadn’t got interested in the smokes and drinks.”

Reggie laughed and the inspector abased himself. “Very sorry, sir. Didn’t know I stared. But it is so blooming odd.”

Bell snorted and lifted the basket on to the table. It was nearly full of black burnt paper. “Why did they burn it in the basket?” said the inspector.

“Because the fireplaces are all gas stoves, I suppose,” said Bell. “But I don’t know why they couldn’t leave the stuff on the hearth.”

“Because this is a tidy crime,” said Reggie. “Nice, quiet, middle-class crime. No ugly mess. I told you that.”

The Superintendent gazed at him. “Now what can you know, you know?”

“I don’t know. I feel. I feel the kind of man that did it. Don’t you? I’ll lay you odds he came of a neat, virtuous, middle-class home.”

The Superintendent started. “Who are you thinking of?”

“You are so hasty to-day, Bell. I haven’t got a ‘who’. Still anonymous is the slayer. But I’ll swear I’ve got his character.”

“Have you, though!” said Bell. “Tidy fellow! Don’t make a mess! Remember that face?”

“Oh, I said he was mad.”

“Well, I’m not yet. I’m only feeling what I can feel.” He began to examine the burnt paper. “Letters mostly. Some stoutish paper. Some stuff looks a bit like a notebook. That’s all we’ll get out of that.”

“Well, except the one thing. Whoever did that was clearing up. Clearing up something that might have left traces that might have been dangerous. Same like he cleared up the dead man’s face. Don’t you see? Somebody and some affair had to be absolutely abolished.”

“Yes. What was it?”

“We mayn’t ever know that,” said Reggie slowly.

“I believe you,” said Bell, and laughed. “I feel that, sir.”

The inspector and he began to examine the room in detail, opening drawers and cupboards. But except for tobacco and spirits they found no trace of Mr. Rand. Nothing had been broken open, but nothing was locked. “No keys on the deceased, were there, Mr. Fortune?” said Bell suddenly. “And that’s a point, too. Very few men go about without any keys.”

“Well, hang it, very few men go about without any money,” Reggie expostulated. “The corpse hadn’t a copper. You can take it the way we found him wasn’t the way he used to go about. He’d do his vest up, for instance.”

“Ah,” said Bell sagely. “You’ve got it all in your head, I must say. That’s the thing about you, Mr. Fortune, if you don’t mind my saying so. You’ve always got a whole case in your mind at once; there’s some of us only see it in bits, so to speak.”

Reggie smiled. He understood that Superintendent Bell was repenting of having lost his temper, and was anxious to make it up. “I never found so good a fellow to work with as you. Bell,” he said. “You always keep a level head.”

Superintendent Bell shook it and stared at Reggie. “Not to-day. As you know very well, Mr. Fortune, begging your pardon. I’ve been rattled, and that’s the truth. Ought to know better at my time of life, to be sure. I’ve seen a good deal, too, you might say. But there’s some things I’ll never get used to. And that chap’s face upset me.”

Reggie nodded. “Yes. I was sayin’--the only things that make you afraid are the mad things. And the only thing that does you good is to fight ’em. That’s why I’ve cheered up.”

“That’s right, sir. Well, now, these facts of yours. There’s no papers anywhere. All burnt in that basket. Rather odd there is not so much as a book.”

“I don’t think he was a man of culture, the elusive Rand. But you’ve missed something, haven’t you?”

“I dare say,” Bell grinned. “I generally do when you’re about.”

“There’s not a sign the murder was done in this room.”

“Oh, I saw that all right. But we hadn’t any reason to think it was.”

“No,” Reggie sighed, “No. So tidy. So tidy.” And they went into Mr. Rand’s bedroom.

That also was tidy. No trace of a struggle, of blood. That also had no papers, no books, nothing personal but clothes.

“Spent a good deal at his tailor’s,” said Bell, looking into a well-filled wardrobe, and read out the name of a man in Savile Row. “Hallo. They’re not all the same make. Some cheaper stuff. Why, what’s the matter with his boots, sir?” For Reggie was taking up one pair after another.

“Nothing. All quite satisfactory. About a nine and rather broad. The corpse wore about a nine and had a broad foot. What’s that about his clothes? Different tailors? Are the clothes all the same size? All made for the same man?” Suit after suit was spread out on the bed. They were to the same measure; they all were marked “W. H. Rand”. “Quite satisfactory,” Reggie purred. “They’d fit the corpse all right. Pretty different styles, though. He dressed to look different at different times. He is elusive, is W. H. Rand.”

They began to open drawers. There was the same abundance, the same variety of styles in Mr. Rand’s hosiery. “Yes, he meant to be elusive,” Reggie murmured. “Anything from a bookmaker to a churchwarden at a funeral. 16½ collars, though. And that’s the measure of the corpse. Is all the linen marked?”

It was, and with ink, so that the mark could only be removed by taking out a piece of the stuff. “If the corpse is Rand, where the devil did his shirt come from?” said Reggie. “The slayer unpicked the name from his coat. That was one of the Savile Row suits. But the shirt? Did the slayer bring a change of linen with him? Provident fellow, very provident.”

Bell, on his knees by a chest of drawers, gave a grunt. “Lord, here’s a drawer tumbled. And that’s the first yet. It’s new stuff, too--not worn.”