Chapter VI

"You wish to consult me," suggested the amateur detective wearily. You might have thought Mr. Nape was so weighed with the secret investigations and the detection of crime that he regarded any new case with resentment.

"Ye-es," confessed Hal: he was not overburdened with tact. "You see I wanted a chap to do something for me, and I didn't want to go to one of those rotten detective agencies--their charges are so devilishly high."

Mr. Nape dismissed the assumption of his cheapness with a mystical smile.

"Alicia--that's my cousin ye know--was talking about you the other night, and it struck me you were the very chap for me."

Half the art of detection lies in preserving a discreet silence at the right moment and allow the other man to talk: this much Mr. Nape had learnt.

"Now what I want to know is this: can you find out something about this Duke fellow--the man at 64? I'm pretty sure he's a rotter, and I'm absolutely certain that he has documents in his house that would prove, beyond any doubt, what an out and out rotter he is."

It was a task after the detective's heart: internally he was ecstatically jubilant; outwardly he was seemingly unaffected. He walked to his little desk, and with a great display of keys opened a drawer, taking therefrom a locked book. Again the flourish of keys and the volume was opened.

A fluttering of leaves and----

"Ha! here it is," said the detective gravely, "I have already noted him: George Francisco Louis Duc de Montvillier, Marquis Poissant Lens, Baron (of the Roman Empire) de Piento----"

"Oh, I know all that," interrupted the practical Hal, "you've copied it out of the Almanac de Gotha."

Mr. Nape was disconcerted, but dignified. He tried to think of some crushing rejoinder, but, failing, he contented himself with a slight bow.

"It isn't the question of who he was or who his father was," said Hal testily, "any fool could find that out."

Mr. Nape bowed again.

"What we--I, do want information about is"--Hal hesitated--"well, as a matter of fact, this is how the matter stands. We want to know what he is _going_ to do--that's it!"

Mr. Nape looked thoughtful as this tribute to his prescience was paid.

"For a week or two at any rate we would like him watched, and if he shows any attempt at leaving the country I wish to be immediately informed."

Mr. Nape was relieved that the services required did not verge upon the practice of black magic, for Mr. Nape was a strict churchman.

"We thought," continued Hal, "of employing an ordinary detective but, as I say, their charges are so high, and this duke person would be pretty sure to notice a strange man hanging about, so we have decided to ask you to take on the job. He would never suspect you."

Mr. Roderick Nape was on the point of indignantly refuting this suggestion of his obscurity: it was at the tip of his tongue to inform Mr. Hal Tanneur that his fame was widespread through Brockley, Lewisham, Eltham, Lee, to the utmost limits of Catford, and it was next to impossible for him to walk along the Lewisham High Road without somebody nudging somebody else, and saying audibly, if ungrammatically, "That's him!" But he forbore.

"Here's my address." Hal pulled a handful of letters from his pocket in his search for a card case. "If you see this chap getting ready to bolt, send me a wire, and you had better have some money for expenses."

Mr. Nape closed his eyes pleasantly, and waited for the conventional bag of gold to fall heavily upon the desk, or to hear the thud of a thick roll of notes.

"Here's ten shillings," said Hal generously; "you won't want all that, but I don't want you to stint yourself. Take a cab if you want to, but motor buses go almost everywhere nowadays."

Mr. Nape had had visions of special trains, but no matter.

He picked up the ten shillings with a contemptuous smile, and flicked it carelessly into the air, catching it again with no mean skill.

"You'll remember," said Hal at parting, "I want him watched so that he cannot get out of the country without my knowing."

"It shall be done," said Mr. Nape coldly and professionally. He said "good-bye," to his visitor on the doorstep and walked back to his "laboratory" slowly and importantly.

He found the scattered manuscript of his monologue and mechanically tidied it together. He missed the dummy newspaper "agony" and looked round for it. He saw a cutting on the floor, picked it up and put it away with the manuscript. Then he sat down to plan out his campaign.

He had a number of disguises in his room upstairs....

Two hours later a grimy workman with a heavy moustache and a bag of tools called, at 64 "to examine the gas fittings."