Chapter IV: Part 4

Lomas stared at him, apparently trying to believe that he was real. “My dear fellow!” he protested. “Oh, my dear fellow! This is fantastic. Why should anyone suddenly decoy little Tetherdown? He never made an enemy. He would have nothing on him to steal. It’s an old joke that he don’t carry the worth of a shilling. He has lived in that hovel with his two old fogeys of servants for years and sometimes he goes off mysteriously and the fellows in his club only notice he has been away when he blows in again.”

“You’re a born policeman, Lomas,” Reggie sighed. “You’re so commonplace.”

“Quite, quite,” said Lomas heartily. “Now tell me. You’ve been to Tetherdown’s place. Did his servants say they were surprised he had gone off?”

“The old dame said he often went off on a sudden,” Reggie admitted, and Lomas laughed. “Well, what about it? You won’t do anything?”

“My dear Fortune, I’m only a policeman, as you say. I can’t act without some reason.”

“Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie. “Reasons! Good night. Sleep sound.”

In comfortable moments since he has been heard to confess that Lomas was perfectly right, that there was nothing which the police could have done, but he is apt to diverge into an argument that policemen are creatures whose function in the world is to shut the stable door after the horse is stolen. A pet theory of his.

He went to the most solemn of his clubs and having soothed his feelings with muffins, turned up Lord Tetherdown in the peerage. The house of Tetherdown took little space. John William Bishop Coppett was the seventh baron, but his ancestors were not distinguished and the family was dwindling. John William Lord Tetherdown had no male kin alive but his heir, who was his half-brother, the Hon. George Bishop Coppett. The Hon. George seemed from his clubs to be a sportsman. Mr. Fortune meditated.

On his way home he called upon the Hon. George, whose taste in dwellings and servants was different from his half-brother’s. Mr. Coppett had a flat in a vast, new and gorgeous block. His door was opened by a young man who used a good tailor and was very wide awake. But Mr. Coppett, like Lord Tetherdown, was not at home. His man, looking more knowing than ever, did not think it would be of any use to call again. Oh, no, sir, Mr. Coppett was not out of town: he would certainly be back that night: but (something like a wink flickered on the young man’s face) too late to see anyone. If the gentleman would ring up in the morning--not too early--Reggie Fortune said that it didn’t much matter.

He went off to dine with her whom he describes as his friskier sister: the one who married a bishop. It made him sleep sound.

Thus the case of the magic stone was left to ferment for some fifteen hours. For which Mr. Fortune has been heard to blame himself and the conjugal bliss of bishops.

Over a devilled sole at breakfast--nature demanded piquant food--his mind again became active. He rang for his car. Sam, his admirable chauffeur, was told that he preferred to drive himself, which is always in him a sign of mental excitement. “Country work, sir?” Sam asked anxiously, for he holds that only on Salisbury Plain should Mr. Fortune be allowed to drive. Mr. Fortune shook his head, and Sam swallowed and they came down upon Oxford Street like the wolf on the fold. The big car was inserted, a camel into the eye of a needle, into the alleyway where Lord Tetherdown’s house lurks.

Again the old woman in the overall was brought to the door. She recognized Reggie Fortune and liked him less than ever. “There’s no answer,” she cried. “The master’s not back.”

“Really?”

“You heard what I said.”

“He’s not let you know when he’s coming back?”

“No, he hasn’t, nor I’ve no call to tell you if he had. You and your curios!” The door slammed.

Reggie went back to his car. When it stopped again in a shabby street by Covent Garden, Sam allowed himself to cough, his one protest from first to last: a devoted fellow. Reggie Fortune surveyed the shop of Demetrius Jacob, which displayed in its dirty window shelves sparsely covered with bad imitations of old pewter. Reggie frowned at it, looked at the name again and went in. The place was like a lumber room. He saw nothing but damaged furniture which had never been good and little of that until he found out that the dusty thing on which he was standing was an exquisite Chinese carpet. Nobody was in the shop, nobody came, though the opening door had rung a bell. He made it ring again and still had to wait. Then there swept through the place a woman, a big woman and handsome in her dark oriental way. She did not see Reggie, she was too hurried or too angry, if her flush and her frown were anger. She banged the door and was gone.

Reggie rapped on a rickety desk. After a moment an old man shuffled into the shop, made something like a salaam and said: “You want, Yes?” Not so old after all, Reggie decided on a second glance. He shuffled because his slippers were falling off, he was bent because he cringed, his yellow face was keen and healthy and his eyes bright under black brows, but certainly a queer figure in that tight frock coat which came nearly to his heels, and his stiff green skull cap.

“Mr. Jacob?” Reggie said.

“I am Demetrius Jacob,” he pronounced it in the Greek way.

“Well, I am interested in savage religions and cults you know, and I’m told you are the man for me.” Mr. Jacob again made salaam. “What I’m after just now is charms and amulets.” He paused and suddenly rapped out: “Have you got anything from Borneo?”

Demetrius Jacob showed no surprise or any other emotion. “Borneo? Oh, yes, I t’ink,” he smiled. “Beautiful t’ings.” He shuffled to a cupboard and brought out a tray which contained two skulls and a necklace of human teeth.

Reggie Fortune was supercilious. He demanded amulets, stone amulets and in particular a stone amulet like a cigar with zigzag painting.

Demetrius Jacob shook his head. “I not ’ave ’im,” he said sadly. “Not from Borneo. I ’ave beautiful _galets colorés_ from France, yes, and Russia. But not the east. I never see ’im from the east but in the Museum.”

Reggie Fortune went away thinking that it took a clever fellow to be as guileless as that.

The car plunged through Piccadilly again to the flat of the Hon. George Coppett. Mr. Coppett’s man received him with a smile which was almost a leer. “I’ll see, sir,” he took Reggie’s card. “I’m afraid Mr. Coppett’s partic’larly busy.” As Reggie was ushered in he heard a bell ring and a woman’s voice high and angry, “Oh, yes, I will go. But I do not believe you, not one word.” A door was flung open and across the hall swept the big woman of Demetrius Jacob’s shop. Reggie looked into the crown of his hat. She stopped short and stared hard at him. Either she did not recognize him or did not care who he was. She hurried on and the door banged behind her.

The Hon. George Coppett was a little man who walked like a bird. “Damn it, damn it,” he piped, jumping about, “what the devil are you at, Brown?” He stared at Mr. Fortune, and Brown gave him Mr. Fortune’s card. “Hallo, don’t know you, do I? I’m in the devil of a hurry.”

“I think you had better see me, Mr. Coppett,” said Reggie. Mr. Coppett swore again and bade him come in.

Mr. Coppett gave himself some whisky. “I say, women are the devil,” he said as he wiped his mouth. “Have one?” he nodded to the decanter. “No? Well, what’s your trouble, Mr.--Mr. Fortune?”

“I am anxious to have some news of Lord Tetherdown.”

“Well, why don’t you ask him?” Mr. Coppett laughed.

“He’s not to be found.”

“What, gone off again, has he? Lord, he’s always at it. My dear chap, he’s simply potty about his curios. I don’t know the first thing about them, but it beats me how a fellow can fall for that old junk. One of the best and all that don’t you know, but it’s a mania with him. He’s always running off after some queer bit of tripe.”

“When do you expect him back?”

“Search me,” Mr. Coppett laughed. “My dear chap, he don’t tell me his little game. Old Martha might know.”

“She doesn’t.”

Mr. Coppett laughed again. “He always was a close old thing. He just pushes off, don’t you know, on any old scent. And after a bit he blows in again.”

“Then--you don’t know--when you’ll see him again?” Reggie said slowly.

“Give you my word I don’t,” Mr. Coppett cried. “Sorry, sorry.”

“So am I,” said Reggie. “Good morning, Mr. Coppett.”

Mr. Coppett did not try to keep him. But he was hardly beyond the outer door of the flat when he heard Mr. Coppett say, “Hallo, hallo!” He turned. The door was still shut. Mr. Coppett was using the telephone. He heard “Millfield, double three” something and could not hear anything more. Millfield, as you know, is a quiet middle-class suburb. Mr. Fortune went down stairs pensively.

Pensive he was still when he entered Scotland Yard and sought Lomas’s room. “Well, how goes the quest for the holy stone?” Lomas put up his eyeglass. “My dear Fortune, you’re the knight of the rueful countenance.”

“You’re confused, Lomas. Don’t do it,” Reggie complained. “You’re not subtle at Scotland Yard, but hang it, you might be clear.”

“What can we do for you?”

“One of your largest cigars,” Reggie mumbled and took it. “Yes. What can you do? I wonder.” He looked at Lomas with a baleful eye. “Who lives at Millfield? Speaking more precisely who lives at Millfield double three something?” Lomas suggested that it was a large order. “It is,” Reggie agreed gloomily, “it’s a nasty large order.” And he described his morning’s work. “There you are. The further you go the queerer.”

“Quite, quite,” Lomas nodded. “But what’s your theory, Fortune?”

“The workin’ hypothesis is that there’s dirty work doin’ when a magic stone gets stolen and the man who wants the magic stone vanishes on the same day: which is confirmed when a female connected with a chap who knows all about magic stones is found colloguin’ with the vanished man’s heir: and further supported when that heir being rattled runs to telephone to the chaste shades of Millfield--the last place for a sporting blood like him to keep his pals. I ask you, who lives at Millfield double three something?”

Lomas shifted his papers. “George Coppett stands to gain by Tetherdown’s death, of course,” he said. “And the only man so far as we know. But he’s not badly off, he’s well known, there’s never been anything against him. Why should he suddenly plan to do away with his brother? All your story might be explained in a dozen ways. There’s not an ounce of evidence, Fortune.”

“You like your evidence after the murder. I know that. My God, Lomas, I’m afraid.”

“My dear fellow!” Lomas was startled. “This isn’t like you.”

“Oh, many thanks. I don’t like men dying, that’s all. Professional prejudice. I’m a doctor, you see. What the devil are we talking for? Who lives at Millfield double three something?”

“We might get at it,” Lomas said doubtfully and rang for Superintendent Bell. “But it’s a needle in a bundle of hay. And if Tetherdown was to be murdered, it’s done by now.”

“Yes, that’s comforting,” said Mr. Fortune.

Superintendent Bell brought a list of the subscribers to the Millfield exchange and they looked over the names of those in the thirty-fourth hundred. Most were shopkeepers and ruled out. “George Coppett don’t buy his fish in Millfield,” said Reggie Fortune. Over the doctors he hesitated.

“You think it’s some fellow in your own trade?” Lomas smiled. “Well, there’s nothing like leather.”

“Brownrigg,” Reggie Fortune muttered. “I know him. 3358 Dr. Jerdan, The Ferns, Chatham Park Road. Where’s a medical directory? 3358 Dr. Jerdan is not in the medical directory. Ring up the divisional inspector and ask him what he knows about Dr. Jerdan.”

There was nothing, Superintendent Bell announced, known against Dr. Jerdan. He had been at the Ferns some time. He didn’t practise. He was said to take in private patients.

“Come on,” said Reggie Fortune, and took the Superintendent’s arm.

“My dear Fortune,” Lomas protested. “This is a bow at a venture. We can’t act, you know. Bell can’t appear.”

“Bell’s coming to be a policeman and appear when it’s all over. I’m going in to Dr. Jerdan who isn’t on the register. And I don’t like it, Lomas. Bell shall stay outside. And if I don’t come out again--well, then you’ll have evidence, Lomas.”

Neither Reggie Fortune nor his chauffeur knew the way about in Millfield. They sat together and Mr. Fortune with a map of London exhorted Sam at the wheel and behind them Superintendent Bell held tight and thought of his sins.

The car came by many streets of little drab houses to a road in which the houses were large and detached, houses which had been rural villas when Victoria was queen. “Now go easy,” Reggie Fortune said. “Chatham Park Road, Bell. Quiet and respectable as the silent tomb. My God, look at that! Stop, Sam.”

What startled him was a hospital nurse on a doorstep.

“Who is she, sir?” Bell asked.

“She’s Demetrius Jacob’s friend and George Coppett’s friend--and now she’s Dr. Jerdan’s friend and in nurse’s rig. Keep the car back here. Don’t frighten them.”

He jumped out and hurried on to the Ferns. “I don’t like it, young fellow, and that’s a fact,” said Bell, and Sam nodded.

The woman had been let in. Mr. Fortune stood a moment surveying the house which was as closely curtained as all the rest and like them stood back with a curving drive to the door. He rang the bell, had no answer, rang again, knocked and knocked more loudly. It sounded thunderous in the heavy quiet of the Chatham Park Road.

At last the door was opened by a man, a lanky powerful fellow who scowled at Mr. Fortune and said, “We ain’t deaf.”

“I have been kept waiting,” said Reggie. “Dr. Jerdan, please.”

“Not at home.”

“Oh, I think so. Dr. Jerdan will see me.”

“Don’t see anyone but by appointment.”

“Dr. Jerdan will see me. Go and tell him so.” The door was shut in his face. After a moment or two he began knocking again. It was made plain to all the Chatham Park Road that something was happening at the Ferns and here and there a curtain fluttered.

Superintendent Bell got out of the car. “You stay here, son,” he said. “Don’t stop the engine.”

But before he reached the house, the door was opened and Reggie Fortune saw a sleek man who smiled with all his teeth. “So sorry you have been waiting,” he purred. “I am Dr. Jerdan’s secretary. What can I do for you?”

“Dr. Jerdan will see me.”

“Oh, no, I’m afraid not. Dr. Jerdan’s not at home.”

“Why say so?” said Reggie wearily. “Dr. Jerdan, please.”

“You had better tell me your business, sir.”

“Haven’t you guessed? Lord Tetherdown.”

“Lord who?” said the sleek man without a check. “I don’t know anything about Lord Tetherdown.”

“But then you’re only Dr. Jerdan’s secretary,” Reggie murmured.

Something of respect was to be seen in the pale eyes that studied him, and, after a long stare, “I’ll see what I can do. Come in, sir. What’s your name?” He thrust his head forward like an animal snapping, but still he smiled.

“Fortune. Reginald Fortune.”

“This way.” The sleek man led him down a bare hall and showed him into a room at the back. “Do sit down, Mr. Fortune. But I’m afraid you won’t see Dr. Jerdan.” He slid out. Reggie heard the key turn in the lock. He glanced at the window. That was barred.

“Quite so,” said Reggie. “Now how long will Bell wait?”

He took his stand so that he would be behind the door if it were opened, and listened. There was a scurry of feet and some other sound. The feet fell silent, the other sound became a steady tapping. “Good God, are they nailing him down?” he muttered, took up a chair and dashed it at the lock again and again. As he broke out he heard the beat of a motor engine.

Superintendent Bell drawing near saw a car with two men up come out of the coach-house of the Ferns. He ran into the road and stood in its way. It drove straight at him, gathering speed. He made a jump for the footboard, and being a heavy man missed. The car shot by.

The respectability of Chatham Park Road then heard such a stream of swearing as never had flowed that way. For Sam has a mother’s love of his best car. But he was heroic. He swung its long body out across the road, swearing, but nevertheless. The fugitives from the Ferns took a chance which was no chance. Their car mounted the pavement, hit a gate-post and crashed.

Superintendent Bell arrived to find Sam backing his own car to the kerb while he looked complacently at its shining sides. “Not a scratch, praise God,” he said.

Superintendent Bell pulled up. “You’re a wonder, you are,” he said, and gazed at the ruins. The smashed car was on its side in a jumble of twisted iron and bricks. The driver was underneath. They could not move him. There were reasons why that did not matter to him. “He’s got his,” said Sam. “Where’s the other? There were two of them.”

The other lay half hidden in a laurel hedge. He had been flung out, he had broken the railings with his head, he had broken the stone below, but his head was a gruesome shape.

In the hall of the Ferns Reggie Fortune stood still to listen. That muffled tapping was the only sound in the house. It came from below. He went down dark stairs into the kitchen. No one was there. The sound came from behind a doorway in the corner. He flung it open and looked down into the blackness of a cellar. He struck a light and saw a bundle lying on the ground, a bundle from which stuck out two feet that tapped at the cellar steps. He brought it up to the kitchen. It was a woman with her head and body in a sack. When he had cut her loose he saw the dark face of the woman of the shop and the flat. She sprang at him and grasped his arms.

“Who are you?” she cried. “Where is Lord Tetherdown?”

“My name is Fortune, madame. And yours?”

“I am Melitta Jacob. What is that to you? Where have you put Lord Tetherdown?”

“I am looking for him.”

“You! Is he not here? Oh, you shall pay for it, you and those others.”

But Reggie was already running upstairs. One room and another he tried in vain and at last at the top of the house found a locked door. The key was in the lock. Inside on a pallet bed, but clothed, lay a little man with some days’ beard. The woman thrust Reggie away and flung herself down by the bedside and gathered the man to her bosom moaning over him. “My lord, my lord.”

“Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie Fortune. “Now, Miss Jacob, please,” he put his hand on her shoulder.

“He is mine,” she said fiercely.

“Well, just now he’s mine. I’m a doctor.”

“Oh, is he not dead?” she cried.

“Not exactly,” said Reggie Fortune. “Not yet.” He took the body from quivering arms.

“What is it, then?”

“He is drugged, and I should say starved. If you----” a heavy footstep drew near. She sprang up ready for battle, and in the doorway fell upon Superintendent Bell.

“Easy, easy,” he received her on his large chest and made sure of her wrists. “Mr. Fortune--just got in by the window--what about this?”

“That’s all right,” Reggie mumbled from the bed. “Send me Sam.”

“Coming, sir.” Sam ran in. “Those fellows didn’t do a getaway. They’re outed. Car smash. Both killed. Some smash.”

“Brandy, meat juice, ammonia,” murmured Mr. Fortune, who was writing, “and that. Hurry.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Bell detached himself from Melitta Jacob. He took off his hat and tiptoed to the bed. “Have they done for him, sir,” he muttered.

Mr. Fortune was again busy over the senseless body. One of its hands was clenched. He opened the fingers gently, and drew out a greenish lump painted with a zigzag pattern in red. “The magic stone,” he said. “A charm against death. Well, well.”

* * * * *

On his lawn which slopes to the weir stream Reggie Fortune lay in a deck chair, and a syringa, waxen white, shed its fragrance about him. He opened his eyes to see the jaunty form of the Hon. Sidney Lomas tripping towards him. “Stout fellow,” he murmured. “That’s cider cup. There was ice in it once,” and he shut his eyes again.

“I infer that the patient is out of your hands.”

“They’re going for their honeymoon to Nigeria.”

“Good Gad,” said Lomas.

“Collecting, you see. The objects of art of the noble savage. She’s rather a dear.”

“I should have thought he’d done enough collecting. Does he understand yet what happened?”

“Oh, he’s quite lucid. Seems to think it’s all very natural.”

“Does he though?”

“Only he’s rather annoyed with brother George. He thinks brother George had no right to object to his marrying. That’s what started it, you see. Brother George came round to borrow his usual hundred or so and found him with the magnificent Melitta. It occurred to brother George that if Tetherdown was going to marry, something had to be done about it. And then I suppose brother George consulted the late Jerdan.” Mr. Fortune opened his eyes, and raised himself. “By the way, who was Jerdan? I saw you hushed up the inquest as a motor smash.”

“Bell thinks he was the doctor who bolted out of the Antony case.”

“Oh, ah. Yes, there was some brains in that. I rather thought the late Jerdan had experience. I wonder what happened to his private patients at the Ferns. Creepy house. I say, was it Jerdan or his man who threw the fit at the Museum?”

“Jerdan himself, by the description.”

“Yes. Useful thing, medical training. Well, Jerdan saw he could get at Tetherdown through his hobby. He came with tales of anthropological treasures for sale. The old boy didn’t bite at first. Jerdan couldn’t hit on anything he wanted. But he found out at last what he did want. Hence the fit in the Museum. That night Jerdan turned up with the Borneo stone and told Tetherdown a friend of his had some more of the kind. Tetherdown fell for that. He went off to the Ferns with Jerdan. The last thing he remembers is sitting down in the back room to look at the stone. They chloroformed him, I think, there was lots of stuff in the place. Then they kept him under morphia and starved him. I suppose the notion was to dump his dead body somewhere so that the fact of his death could be established and George inherit. There could be no clear evidence of murder. Tetherdown is eccentric. It would look as if he had gone off his head and wandered about till he died of exhaustion. That was the late Jerdan’s idea. Melitta always thought George was a bad egg. He didn’t like her, you see, and he showed it. When Tetherdown vanished she went off to George one time. He laughed at her, which was his error. She put on that nurse’s rig for a disguise and watched his rooms. When I rattled him and he rang up Jerdan, Jerdan came to the flat and she followed him back to the Ferns and asked for Tetherdown. Jolly awkward for Jerdan with me knocking at the door. He was crude with her, but I don’t know that I blame him. An able fellow. Pity, pity. Yes. What happened to brother George?”

“Bolted. We haven’t a trace of him. Which is just as well, for there’s no evidence. Jerdan left no papers. George could have laughed at us if he had the nerve.”

Reggie Fortune chuckled. “I never liked George. I rang him up that night: ‘Mr. George Coppett? The Ferns speaking. It’s all out’ and I rang off. I thought George would quit. George will be worrying quite a lot. So that’s that.”

“Yes, you have your uses, Fortune,” said Lomas. “I’ve noticed it before.”

Reggie Fortune fumbled in his pocket and drew out the magic stone. “Tetherdown said he would like me to have it. Cut him to the heart to give it up, poor old boy. Told me it saved his life.” He smiled. “I don’t care for its methods, myself. Better put it back in a glass case, Lomas.”

“What did Melitta give you?”

“Melitta is rather a dear,” said Mr. Fortune.

CASE V

THE SNOWBALL BURGLARY

A TELEGRAM was brought to Mr. Fortune. It announced that the woman whom his ingenuity convicted of the Winstanton murder had confessed it in prison just after the Home Secretary decided not to hang her. Mr. Fortune sighed satisfaction and took his hostess in to dinner.

He was staying in a Devonshire country house for mental repairs. This is not much like him, for save on visits of duty country houses seldom receive him. The conversation of the county, he complains, is too great a strain upon his intellect. Also, he has no interest in killing creatures, except professionally. But the output of crime had been large that winter and the task of keeping Scotland Yard straight, laborious; and he sought relief with Colonel Beach at Cranston Regis. For Tom Beach, once in the first flight of hunting men, having married a young wife, put central heat and electric light into a remote Tudor manor house, and retired there to grow iris and poultry. Neither poultry nor young wives allured Reggie Fortune, but gardens he loves, and his own iris were not satisfying him.

So he sat by Alice Beach at her table, and while her talk flowed on like the brook in the poem, while he wondered why men marry, since their bachelor dinners are better eating, surveyed with mild eyes her and her guests. Tom Beach had probably been unable to help marrying her, she was so pink and white and round, her eyes so shy and innocent. She was one of those women who make it instantly clear to men that they exist to be married, and Tom Beach has always done his duty. “But she’s not such a fool as she looks,” Reggie had pronounced.

With pity if not sympathy he glanced down the table at Tom Beach, that large, red, honest man who sat doing his best between dignity and impudence, dignity in the awful person of Mrs. Faulks and the mighty pretty impudence of his wife’s sister, Sally Winslow. Mrs. Faulks has been described as one who could never be caught bending, or a model of the art of the corset. She is spare, she is straight; and few have seen her exhibit interest in anything but other people’s incomes, which she always distrusts. A correct woman, but for a habit of wearing too many jewels.

What she was doing in Tom Beach’s genial house was plain enough. Her son had brought her to inspect Sally Winslow, as a man brings a vet to the horse he fancies. But it was not plain why Alexander Faulks fancied Sally Winslow. Imagine a bulldog after a butterfly. But bulldogs have a sense of humour. Sally Winslow is a wisp of a creature who has no respect for anyone, even herself. Under her bright bobbed hair, indeed, is the daintiest colour; but when some fellow said she had the face of a fairy, a woman suggested the face of a fairy’s maid. She listened to Alexander’s heavy talk and watched him in a fearful fascination, but sometimes she shot a glance across the table where a little man with a curly head and a roguish eye was eating his dinner demurely. His worst enemies never said that Captain Bunny Cosdon’s manners were bad.

Now you know them all. When they made up a four for bridge, upon which Mrs. Faulks always insists, it was inevitable that Reggie Fortune should stand out, for his simple mind declines to grasp the principles of cards. Alexander Faulks in his masterful way directed Sally to the table; and scared, but submissive, she sat down and giggled nervously. Reggie found himself left to his hostess and Captain Cosdon. They seemed determined to entertain him and he sighed and listened.

So he says. He is emphatic that he did not go to sleep. But the study of the events of that evening which afterwards became necessary, makes it clear that a long time passed before Alice Beach was saying the first thing that he remembers. “Did you ever know a perfect crime, Mr. Fortune?”

Mr. Fortune then sat up, as he records, and took notice.

Captain Cosdon burst out laughing, and departed, humming a stave of “Meet me to-night in Dreamland.”

Mr. Fortune gazed at his hostess. He had not supposed that she could say anything so sensible. “Most crimes are perfect,” he said.

“But how horrible! I should hate to be murdered and know there wasn’t a clue who did it.”

“Oh, there’ll be a clue all right,” Reggie assured her.

“Are you sure? And will you promise to catch my murderer, Mr. Fortune?”

“Well, you know,” he considered her round amiable face, “if you were murdered it would be a case of art for art’s sake. That’s very rare. I was speakin’ scientifically. A perfect crime is a complete series of cause and effect. Where you have that, there’s always a clue, there is always evidence, and when you get to work on it the unknown quantities come out. Yes. Most crimes are perfect. But you must allow for chance. Sometimes the criminal is an idiot. That’s a nuisance. Sometimes he has a streak of luck and the crime is damaged before we find it, something has been washed out, a bit of it has been lost. It’s the imperfect crimes that give trouble.”

“But how fascinating!”

“Oh, Lord, no,” said Mr. Fortune.

The bridge-players were getting up. Sally Winslow was announcing that she had lost all but honour. Mrs. Faulks wore a ruthless smile. Sally went off to bed.

“Oh, Mrs. Faulks,” her sister cried, “do come! Mr. Fortune is lecturing on crime.”

“Really. How very interesting,” said Mrs. Faulks, and transfixed Reggie with an icy stare.

“The perfect criminal in one lesson,” Alice Beach laughed. “I feel a frightful character already. All you want is luck, you know. Or else Mr. Fortune catches you every time.”

“I say, you know, Alice,” her husband protested.

A scream rang out. Alice stopped laughing. The little company looked at each other. “Where was that?” Tom Beach muttered.

“Not in the house, Colonel,” Faulks said. “Certainly not in the house.”

Tom Beach was making for the window when all the lights went out.

Alice gave a cry. The shrill voice of Mrs. Faulks arose to say, “Really!” Colonel Beach could be heard swearing. “Don’t let us get excited,” said Faulks. Reggie Fortune struck a match.

“Excited be damned,” said Tom Beach, and rang the bell.

Reggie Fortune, holding his match aloft, made for the door and opened it. The hall was dark, too.

“Oh, Lord, it’s the main fuse blown out!” Tom Beach groaned.

“Or something has happened in your little power station,” said Reggie Fortune cheerfully, and his host snorted. For the electricity at Cranston Regis comes from turbines on the stream which used to fill the Tudor fish-ponds, and Colonel Beach loves his machinery like a mother.

He shouted to the butler to bring candles, and out of the dark the voice of the butler was heard apologizing. He roared to the chauffeur, who was his engineer, to put in a new fuse. “It’s not the fuse, Colonel,” came a startled voice, “there’s no juice.”

Colonel Beach swore the more. “Run down to the powerhouse, confound you. Where the devil are those candles?”

The butler was very sorry, sir, the butler was coming, sir.

“Really!” said Mrs. Faulks in the dark, for Reggie had grown tired of striking matches. “Most inconvenient.” So in the dark they waited. . .

And again they heard a scream. It was certainly in the house this time, it came from upstairs, it was in the voice of Sally Winslow. Reggie Fortune felt some one bump against him, and knew by the weight it was Faulks. Reggie struck another match, and saw him vanish into the darkness above as he called, “Miss Winslow, Miss Winslow!”

There was the sound of a scuffle and a thud. Colonel Beach stormed upstairs. A placid voice spoke out of the dark at Reggie’s ear, “I say, what’s up with the jolly old house?” The butler arrived quivering with a candle in each hand and a bodyguard of candle-bearing satellites, and showed him the smiling face of Captain Cosdon.

From above Colonel Beach roared for lights. “The C.O. sounds peeved,” said Captain Cosdon. “Someone’s for it, what?”

They took the butler’s candles and ran up, discovering with the light Mr. Faulks holding his face together. “Hallo, hallo! Dirty work at the crossroads, what? Why---- Sally! Good God!”

On the floor of the passage Sally Winslow lay like a child asleep, one frail bare arm flung up above her head.

“Look at that. Fortune,” Tom Beach cried. “Damned scoundrels!”

“Hold the candle,” said Reggie Fortune; but as he knelt beside her the electric light came on again.

“Great Jimmy!” Captain Cosdon exclaimed. “Who did that?”

“Don’t play the fool, Bunny,” Tom Beach growled. “What have they done to her, Fortune?”

Reggie’s plump, capable hands were moving upon the girl delicately. “Knocked her out,” he said, and stared down at her, and rubbed his chin.

“Who? What? How?” Cosdon cried. “Hallo, Faulks, what’s your trouble? Who hit you?”

“How on earth should I know,” Faulks mumbled, still feeling his face as he peered at the girl. “When Miss Winslow screamed, I ran up. It was dark, of course. Some men caught hold of me. I struck out and they set on me. I was knocked down. I wish you would look at my eye, Fortune.”

Reggie was looking at Sally, whose face had begun to twitch.

“Your eye will be a merry colour to-morrow,” Cosdon assured him. “But who hit Sally?”

“It was the fellows who set upon me, I suppose, of course; they were attacking her when I rescued her.”

“Stout fellow,” said Cosdon. “How many were there?”

“Quite a number. Quite. How can I possibly tell? It was dark. Quite a number.”

Sally tried to sneeze and failed, opened her eyes and murmured, “The light, the light.” She saw the men about her and began to laugh hysterically.

“Good God, the scoundrels may be in the house still,” cried Tom Beach. “Come on, Cosdon.”

“I should say so,” said Captain Cosdon, but he lingered over Sally. “All right now?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh, Bunny,” she choked in her laughter. “Yes, yes, I’m all right. Oh, Mr. Fortune, what is it? Oh, poor Mr. Faulks, what has happened?”

“Just so,” said Reggie. He picked her up and walked off with her to her bedroom.

“Oh, you are strong,” she said, not coquetting, but in honest surprise, like a child.

Reggie laughed. “There’s nothing of you,” and he laid her down on her bed. “Well, what about it?”

“I feel all muzzy.”

“That’ll pass off,” said Reggie cheerfully. “Do you know what hit you?”

“No. Isn’t it horrid? It was all dark, you know. There’s no end of a bruise,” she felt behind her ear and made a face.

“I know, I know,” Reggie murmured sympathetically. “And how did it all begin?”

“Why, I came up to bed, Mr. Fortune--heavens, there may be a man in here now!” she raised herself.

“Yes, we’d better clear that up,” said Reggie, and looked under the bed and opened the wardrobe and thrust into her dresses and turned back to her. “No luck, Miss Winslow.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she sank down again. “You see, I came up and put the light on, of course, and there was a man at the window there. Then I screamed.”

“The first scream,” Reggie murmured.

“And then the lights went out. I ran away and tumbled over that chair and then out into the passage. I kept bumping into things and it was horrid. And then--oh, somebody caught hold of me and I screamed----”

“The second scream,” Reggie murmured.

“I was sort of flung about. There were men there fighting in the dark. Horrid. Hitting all round me, you know. And then--oh, well, I suppose I stopped one, didn’t I?”

There was a tap at the door. “May I come in, doctor?” said Alice Beach.

“Oh, Alice, have they caught anyone?”

“Not a creature. Isn’t it awful? Oh, Sally, you poor darling,” her sister embraced her. “What a shame! Is it bad?”

“I’m all muddled. And jolly sore.”

“My dear! It is too bad it should be you. Oh, Mr. Fortune, what did happen?”

“Some fellow knocked her out. She’ll be all right in the morning. But keep her quiet and get her off to sleep.” He went to the window. It was open and the curtains blowing in the wind. He looked out. A ladder stood against the wall. “And that’s that. Yes. Put her to bed, Mrs. Beach.”

Outside in the passage he found Captain Cosdon waiting. “I say, Fortune, is she much hurt?”

“She’s taken a good hard knock. She’s not made for it. But she’ll be all right.”

“Sally! Oh damn,” said Cosdon.

“Did you catch anybody?”

“Napoo. All clear. The Colonel’s going round to see if they got away with anything. And Faulks wants you to look at his poor eye.”

“Nothing of yours gone?”

Cosdon laughed. “No. But I’m not exactly the burglar’s friend, don’t you know? My family jewels wouldn’t please the haughty crook. I say, it’s a queer stunt. Ever been in one like it?”

“I don’t think it went according to plan,” said Reggie Fortune.

He came down and found Faulks with an eye dwindling behind a bruise of many colours, arguing with an agitated butler that the house must contain arnica. Before he could give the attention which Mr. Faulks imperiously demanded, the parade voice of the Colonel rang through the house. “Fortune, come up here!”

Tom Beach stood in the study where he writes the biographies of his poultry and his iris. There also are kept the cups, medals and other silver with which shows reward their beauty. “Look at that!” he cried, with a tragic gesture. The black pedestals of the cups, the velvet cases of the medals stood empty.

“Great Jimmy!” said Captain Cosdon in awe.

“Well, that’s very thorough,” said Reggie. “And the next thing, please.”

Colonel Beach said it was a damned outrage. He also supposed that the fellows had stripped the whole place. And he bounced out.

Reggie went to his own room. He had nothing which could be stolen but his brushes, and they were not gone. He looked out of the window. In the cold March moonlight he saw two men moving hither and thither, and recognized one for his chauffeur and factotum Sam, and shouted.

“Nothing doing, sir,” Sam called back. “Clean getaway.”

Reggie went downstairs to the smoking-room. He was stretched in a chair consuming soda-water and a large cigar when there broke upon him in a wave of chattering Tom Beach and Alice and Captain Cosdon.

“Oh, Mr. Fortune, is this a perfect crime?” Alice laughed.

Reggie shook his head. “I’m afraid it had an accident in its youth. The crime that took the wrong turning.”

“How do you mean, Fortune?” Tom Beach frowned. “It’s deuced awkward.”

“Awkward is the word,” Reggie agreed. “What’s gone, Colonel?”

“Well, there’s my pots, you know. And Alice has lost a set of cameos she had in her dressing-room.”

“Pigs!” said Alice with conviction.

“And Mrs. Faulks says they’ve taken that big ruby brooch she was wearing before dinner. You know it.”

“It’s one of the things I could bear not to know,” Reggie murmured. “Nothing else?”

“She says she doesn’t know, she’s too upset to be sure. I say, Fortune, this is a jolly business for me.”

“My dear chap!”

“She’s gone to bed fuming. Faulks is in a sweet state too.”

“What’s he lost?”

“Only his eye,” Cosdon chuckled.

“That’s the lot, then? Nice little bag, but rather on the small side. Yes, it didn’t go according to plan.”

“Oh, Mr. Fortune, what are you going to do?”

“Do?” said Reggie reproachfully. “I? Where’s the nearest policeman?”

“Why, here,” Alice pointed at him.

“Cranston Abbas,” said Tom Beach, “and he’s only a yokel. Village constable, don’t you know.”

“Yes, you are rather remote, Colonel. What is there about you that brings the wily cracksman down here?”

“Mrs. Faulks!” Alice cried. “That woman must travel with a jeweller’s shop. There’s a chance for you, Mr. Fortune. Get her rubies back and you’ll win her heart.”

“Jewelled in fifteen holes. I’d be afraid of burglars. Mrs. Beach, you’re frivolous, and the Colonel’s going to burst into tears. Will anyone tell me what did happen? We were all in the drawing-room--no. Where were you, Cosdon?”

“Writing letters here, old thing.”

“Quite so. And the servants?”

“All in the servants’ hall at supper!” Colonel Beach said. “They are all right.”

“Quite. Miss Winslow went upstairs and saw a man at her window. There’s a ladder at it. She screamed and the lights went out. Why?”

“The rascals got at the powerhouse. Baker found the main switch off.”

“Then they knew their way about here. Have you sacked any servant lately? Had any strange workman in the place? No? Yet the intelligence work was very sound. Well, in the darkness Miss Winslow tumbled out into the passage and was grabbed and screamed, and the brave Faulks ran upstairs and took a black eye, and Miss Winslow took the count, and when we arrived there wasn’t a burglar in sight. Yes, there was some luck about.”

“Not for Sally,” said her sister.

“No,” said Reggie thoughtfully. “No, but there was a lot of luck going.” He surveyed them through his cigar smoke with a bland smile.

“What do you think I ought to do, Fortune?” said Tom Beach.

“Go to bed,” said Reggie. “What’s the time? Time runs on, doesn’t it? Yes, go to bed.”

“Oh, but, Mr. Fortune, you are disappointing,” Alice Beach cried.

“I am. I notice it every day. It’s my only vice.”

“I do think you might be interested!”

“A poor crime, but her own,” Captain Cosdon chuckled. “It’s no good, Mrs. Beach. It don’t appeal to the master mind.”

“You know, Fortune, it’s devilish awkward,” the Colonel protested.

“I’m sorry. But what can we do? You might call up your village policeman. He’s four miles off, and I dare say he needs exercise. You might telephone to Thorton and say you have been burgled, and will they please watch some road or other for some one or other with a bag of silver and a set of cameos and a ruby brooch. It doesn’t sound helpful, does it?”

“It sounds damned silly.”

“But I thought you’d find clues, Mr. Fortune,” Alice Beach cried, “all sorts of clues, finger-prints and foot-prints and----”

“And tell us the crime was done by a retired sergeant-cook with pink hair and a cast in the eye,” Cosdon grinned.

“You see, I’ve no imagination,” said Reggie, sadly.

“Confound you, Cosdon, it isn’t a joke,” Colonel Beach cried.

“No, I don’t think it’s a joke,” Reggie agreed.

“One of your perfect crimes, Mr. Fortune?”

“Well, I was sayin’--you have to allow for chance. There was a lot of luck about.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“The time, Mrs. Beach. Yes, the flight of time. We’d better go to bed.”

But he did not go to bed. He stirred the fire in his bedroom and composed himself by it. The affair annoyed him. He did not want to be bothered by work and his mind insisted on working. Something like this. “Philosophically time is an illusion. ‘Time travels in divers paces with divers persons.’ Highly divers, yes. Time is the trouble, Colonel. Why was there such a long time between the first scream and the second scream? Sally tumbled down. Sally was fumbling in the dark: but it don’t take many minutes to get from her room to the stairs. She took as long as it took the chauffeur to run to the powerhouse. He started some while after the first scream, he had found what was wrong and put the light on again within a minute of the second. Too much time for Sally--and too little. How did Sally’s burglars get off so quick? Faulks ran up at the second scream. The rest of us were there next minute. They were there to hit Faulks. When we came, we saw no one, heard no one and found no one.” He shook his head at the firelight. “And yet Sally’s rather a dear. I wonder. No, it didn’t go according to plan. But I don’t like it, my child. It don’t look pretty.”

He sat up. Somebody was moving in the corridor. He went to his table for an electric torch, slid silently across the room, flung open the door and flashed on the light. He caught a glimpse of legs vanishing round a corner, legs which were crawling, a man’s legs. A door was closed stealthily.

Reggie swept the light along the floor. It fell at last on some spots of candle grease dropped where the fallen Sally was examined. Thereabouts the legs had been. He moved the light to and fro. Close by stood an old oak settle. He swept the light about it, saw something beneath it flash and picked up Mrs. Faulks’s big ruby brooch.

The early morning, which he does not love, found him in the garden. There under Sally’s window the ladder still stood. “That came from the potting sheds, sir,” his factotum Sam told him. “Matter of a hundred yards.” Together they went over the path and away to the little powerhouse by the stream. The ground was still hard from the night frost.

“Not a trace,” Reggie murmured. “Well, well. Seen anybody about this morning, Sam?”

“This morning, sir?” Sam stared. “Not a soul.”

“Have a look,” said Reggie and went in shivering.

He was met by the butler who said nervously that Colonel Beach had been asking for him and would like to see him in the study. There he found not only Colonel Beach but Mrs. Beach and Sally and Captain Cosdon, a distressful company. It was plain that Mrs. Beach had been crying. Sally was on the brink. Cosdon looked like a naughty boy uncertain of his doom. But the Colonel was tragic, the Colonel was taking things very hard.

Reggie Fortune beamed upon them. “Morning, morning. Up already, Miss Winslow? How’s the head?”

Sally tried to say something and gulped. Tom Beach broke out: “Sorry to trouble you, Fortune. It’s an infernal shame dragging you into this business.” He glared at his wife, and she wilted.

“My dear Colonel, it’s my job,” Reggie protested cheerfully, and edged towards the fire which the Colonel screened.

“I’m awfully sorry, Colonel. I’m the one to blame,” Cosdon said. “It’s all my fault, don’t you know.”

“I don’t know whose fault it isn’t. I know it’s a most ghastly mess.”

“It’s just like a snowball,” Alice laughed hysterically. “Our snowball burglary.”

“Snowball?” the Colonel roared at her.

“Oh, Tom, you know. When you want subscriptions and have a snowball where every one has to get some one else to subscribe. I thought of it and I brought in Sally and Sally brought in Bunny and then Mr. Faulks came in--poor Mr. Faulks--and then Mrs. Faulks got into it and her rubies.”

“And now we’re all in it, up to the neck.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s very lucid,” said Reggie. “But a little confusing to an outsider. My brain’s rather torpid, you know. I only want to get on the fire.” He obtained the central position and sighed happily. “Well now, the workin’ hypothesis is that there were no burglars. Somebody thought it would be interesting to put up a perfect crime. For the benefit of the guileless expert.”

They were stricken by a new spasm of dismay. They stared at him. “Yes, you always knew it was a fake,” Cosdon cried. “I guessed that last night when you kept talking about the time.”

“Well, I thought a little anxiety would be good for you. Even the expert has his feelings.”

“It was horrid of us, Mr. Fortune,” Sally cried. “But it wasn’t only meant for you.”

“Oh, don’t discourage me.”

“It was all my fault, Mr. Fortune.” Alice put in her claim and looked at him ruefully and then began to laugh. “But you did seem so bored----”

“Oh, no, no, no. Only my placid nature. Well now, to begin at the beginning. Somebody thought it would be a merry jest to have me on. That was you, Mrs. Beach. For your kindly interest, I thank you.”

Mrs. Beach again showed signs of weeping.

“Please don’t be horrid, Mr. Fortune,” said Sally, fervently.

“I’m trying to be fascinating. But you see I’m so respectable. You unnerve me.”

“I thought of a burglary,” said Mrs. Beach, choking sobs. “And I asked Sally to do it.”

“And she did--all for my sake. Well, one never knows,” Reggie sighed, and looked sentimental.

“It wasn’t you,” said Sally. “I wanted to shock Mr. Faulks.”

“Dear, dear. I shouldn’t wonder if you have.”

“Oh!” Sally shuddered. “That man is on my nerves. He simply follows me about. He scares me. When I found he’d got Tom to ask him here I----”

“Yes, of course, it’s my fault,” Tom Beach cried. “I knew it would come round to that.”

“You didn’t know, dear, how could you?” Sally soothed him. “He doesn’t make love to you. Well, he was here and his mamma and--oh, Mr. Fortune, you’ve seen them. They want shocking. So I talked to Bunny and----”

“And I came in with both feet,” said Captain Cosdon. “My scheme really, Fortune, all my scheme.”

“All?” Reggie asked with some emphasis.

“Good Lord, not what’s happened.”

“I thought we should come to that some day. What did happen?”

And they all began to talk at once. From which tumult emerged the clear little voice of Sally. “Bunny slipped out early and put a garden ladder up at my window and then went off to the powerhouse. When I went to bed, I collected Tom’s pots from the study--that was because he is so vain of them--and Alice’s cameos--that’s because they’re so dowdy--and locked them in my trunk. Then I screamed at the window. That was the signal for Bunny and he switched the lights out and came back. All that was what we planned.” She looked pathetically at Reggie. “It was a good crime, wasn’t it, Mr. Fortune?”

“You have a turn for the profession, Miss Winslow. You will try to be too clever. It’s the mark of the criminal mind.”

“I say, hang it all, Fortune----” Cosdon flushed.

“I know I spoilt it,” said Sally meekly. “I just stood there, you know, hearing Tom roar downstairs and you all fussing----”

“And you underrate the policeman. Do I fuss?” Reggie was annoyed.

“You’re fussing over my morals now. Well, I stood there and it came over me the burglars just had to have something of Mrs. Faulks’s.” She gurgled. “That would make it quite perfect. So I ran into her room and struck a match and there was her awful old ruby brooch. I took that and went out into the passage and screamed again. That was the plan. Then I bumped into somebody----”

“That was me,” said Captain Cosdon. “She was such a jolly long time with the second scream I went up to see if anything was wrong----”

“Yes. The criminal will do too much,” Reggie sighed.

“Then Faulks came. He tumbled into us and hit out, silly ass. I heard Sally go down and I let him have it. Confound him.”

Sally smiled at him affectionately.

“Oh yes, it’s devilish funny, isn’t it?” cried Tom Beach. “Good God, Cosdon, you’re not fit to be at large. A nice thing you’ve let me in for.”

“Well, you’ve all been very ingenious,” said Reggie. “Thanks for a very jolly evening. May I have some breakfast?” There was a silence which could be felt.

“Mr. Fortune,” said Sally, “that awful brooch is gone.”