*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79160 ***




                          THE MAN IN THE DARK

                             JOHN FERGUSON

                         FRONT PAGE MYSTERIES
                             Second Series

                      P. F. COLLIER & SON COMPANY
                              PUBLISHERS
                               NEW YORK

                           COPYRIGHT, 1928,
                    BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC.

                         Published, June, 1928
                      Second printing, July, 1928
                     Third printing, August, 1928
                    Fourth printing, October, 1928

                        PRINTED IN THE U. S. A.

                                  TO
                            F. P. AND P. P.




                               CONTENTS


                                BOOK I

                   THE MURDER IN THE HOUSE AT EALING

                                BOOK II

                NARRATIVE OF GODFREY CHANCE, JOURNALIST

                                BOOK III

                         STATEMENT BY DR. DUNN

                                BOOK IV

                THE SECOND NARRATIVE OF GODFREY CHANCE




                                BOOK I

                   THE MURDER IN THE HOUSE AT EALING




                               CHAPTER I


Along the Embankment the fog was even worse than it had been in the
Strand. Kinloch thought it queer that in so short a distance there
should be so much difference. But worse it was. The sulphurous taste
became intensified, while in addition a new and acrid flavour, probably
the river's contribution to the mixture, made its presence felt on the
roof of his mouth.

But progress was far easier on the Embankment. Up in the street he
barged into and cannoned off some other pedestrian at every step. The
handling he suffered! Hands some of them, it is true, gently warding
off the impact of body on body; but others there were who thrust one
impatiently aside, digging hard with elbows, so that, for a fellow
in Kinloch's condition, the street quickly became something like a
nightmare. But down on the Embankment, though his advance was still
slow and uncertain, he had more room to feel his way, and to breathe
freely, for that road was as silent and deserted as a Scottish village
street on a Sunday afternoon.

With such sounds as did come the fog, he found, played strange tricks.
Some it magnified and others it muffled up. The cough and sneeze of
an occasional pedestrian would come quite audibly across the wide
road; and while the rumble of a train crossing the bridge sounded like
thunder, the chimes of Big Ben striking seven came through the sheeted
air refined, as if by increased altitude, into a faint and silvery
whispering.

At the foot of Villiers Street, however, he once more stumbled into the
stream of hurrying people. Now, at least, there was no risk of missing
the Underground. He was jostled inside the vestibule by a quick-footed
crowd all going one way, and all equally eager on such a night to reach
the shelter of their suburban homes.

As he moved on in the queue towards the ticket grille the sharp tones
of the clerk, the smash of coins on the counter and then the scurry of
feet running for the stairs made him contrast his own case with that
of all these bustling, purposeful people. He had nothing to hurry for.
Nobody listened for his latch-key. Time was nothing to him. The fog? He
counted on being back in the thick of it within a couple of hours. It
was curious how much alone he felt. He went down the stairs, clinging
to the hand rail, while numberless people flitted past him, not one of
them more to him than a tattoo of rapid feet, swarming for the trains.
Yet had he been sensitive enough that feeling of being so alone in the
crowd might well have served as a premonition. It was perhaps Fate
singling him out, and separating him off from his fellowmen for the
strange sequence of events destined to begin that night. Fate seems to
work like that, using a man for a purpose he cannot see at the time. He
goes down one street rather than another, for no apparent reason, and
something happens in that street which alters the whole of his life.

When Kinloch left the train at Ealing Broadway the fog was still there,
coming cold and dank to the face, though some of its more virulent
ingredients had gone. After getting the direction from a forlorn but
kindly taxi man who must certainly have seen from his clothes that he
was not a possible fare, Kinloch set out to grope his way to Albany
Road. It was in Albany Road Peter Dunn lived; and on Peter Dunn his
hopes were centred. A man who lived in the same doss had looked him up
in the medical directory at the municipal library; and it was this same
man--a begging-letter writer by profession--who advanced the amount
of the fare to Ealing. A sporting fellow he was in his way, for their
combined resources did not run to more than the ticket from Charing
Cross to Ealing, and even at that it meant the pair must go supperless
to bed if Kinloch failed.

It was the first begging call of his life and, though he never doubted
about success, the fact that it was an old friend to whom he was
applying made the journey very distasteful. This surprised him in a
mild way, for he counted himself pretty tough at that time. And so
while he stumbled on in the dark, and as if to fortify his resolution,
he fell to thinking over Peter Dunn, mentally recounting all the
incidents in which, in happier days, he and Dunn had been associated.
It was the worst thing he could have done, to think of the old days.
It forced up the contrast between what life had been and what it had
become; between the lad he looked at in the early days and the man he
was at the moment, hardened, bitter, and almost unscrupulous. In a
word, while he looked at himself as he once had been he saw himself as
he was.

Hugh Abercromby had brought them together, the unforgotten, the
unforgettable Hugh, beloved of both. A fine, fresh day in spring it
was when he first met Dunn on the links at St. Andrews--all three
were third-year students. At first Peter and he had eyed each other
askance, like two young dogs jealous of the place the other might have
in Hugh's affections. But Dunn proved to have a taste for literature,
and though he kept this taste under control, so that it never, as in
his own case, interfered with his professional studies, yet it served
to draw both together. Many times they fell out, for Dunn was of a
queer, dour temper, and his mental processes, if sure, were annoyingly
slow in working. Then Kinloch's mind turned to their last meeting. To
him, then, that also seemed long ago. It had taken place in the General
Hospital outside Boulogne to which he had been brought with his first
wound. Coming into the ward Peter must have recognized him as he lay
tossing uneasily, that hole in the shoulder making itself a centre of
pain that gathered almost all thought to itself, so that he could give
heed to little beyond its small circumference. Unperceived by him, Dunn
in his white overalls had seated himself beside the bed in which he
lay, feverish and stifled by the hot motionless air and the fire of his
wound. Then bending forward Dunn began slowly, and almost in a whisper,
to recite certain lines, the first words of which made him jump:

    _St. Andrews by the Northern Sea
    A haunted town it is to me._
    A little city, worn and grey,
    The grey North Ocean girds it round,
    And o'er the rocks, and up the bay
    The long sea rollers surge and sound.

Startled by the familiar words, Kinloch had twisted round to look
at this man who from what he said might at that moment have been
eavesdropping at the door of his heart. "Peter!" he had cried,
recognizing the broad face, so rugged, and the grey eyes bent over him.
But Dunn put him down again by laying a hand on his chest.

    O broken minster looking forth
    Beyond the bay, above the town,
    O winter of the kindly north,
    O college of the scarlet gown!
    And shining sands beside the sea,
    And stretch of links beyond the sand,
    Once more I watch you, and to me
    It is as if I touched his hand....
    _St. Andrews by the Northern Sea
    A haunted town it is to me._

Well, as has been said, all this, and much more, came back as Kinloch
was fumbling his way along those desolate Ealing roads and avenues.
One may wonder why these memories gave him no confidence. It is,
perhaps, the measure of the abyss into which the man had fallen to say
now that such memories daunted rather than encouraged him. The more
he remembered and the nearer he got to Dunn's door, the more clearly
he saw what he had become. A false pride was in it too. The _hash_ he
had made of life, while Dunn had prospered. And--another thing--for
the past six years he had heard nothing of Peter Dunn. How much may
happen in six years! The truth is he feared to find his old-time friend
with a wife and perhaps a family; a settled and sedate medical general
practitioner. For, as he used to argue in the old days, in no calling
is the change from roystering youth to smug and portly respectability
so rapid and complete as in the medical. There lurks something of a
poet in the wildness of the medical student; but once that student
becomes a G.P. he treats his poetic soul as a disease; and invariably
it yields to treatment. Invariably! The thought made Kinloch pull up
short. Peter's wife instantly grew terribly real to him. He visualized
Dunn as ill at ease about having to introduce an out-at-elbows friend
to her; and he saw the lady herself regarding him with a fixed smile,
and hostile eyes, while she wondered whatever the parlourmaid would
think.

Then as he stood hesitating in that deserted road, a prey to sickening
indecision, struggling between a sense of shame and a knowledge of his
pressing needs, the heavy tread of a policeman sounded at his back.

Fate had stepped in and again decided for him. He was, little as he
knew it, being pushed on to his destiny, and the choice as to whether
he would go on or turn back was now less than ever in his own hands.
For as he automatically resumed his walk the following footsteps
quickened and a heavy hand descended on his shoulder.

"What are you loitering here for?"

"I have lost my way."

He spoke like a child, confusedly, as one coming back too suddenly from
a dream. He was a little frightened. Lost his way! So indeed he had.
But long before that night. Some vague perception of this may have
added to the bewilderment with which he spoke. This the policeman took
for guilt. The walking-stick was dexterously twisted out of Kinloch's
nervous hand.

"Gammon! A clearer case of loitering with intent I never saw. Had my
eye on you for the last half-hour. You come along."

His grip shifted to the coat collar.

"I am looking for 28 Albany Road," Kinloch protested, now fully awake.

The policeman gave a grunt of scorn.

"Dining there, I suppose."

"No--er--consulting Dr. Dunn."

"Don't try that gaff on me. Dr. Dunn has no patients of your
class--except when he acts as our casualty surgeon. Now then!"

He gave Kinloch's arm a twist, and at the same time trod heavily on his
left foot. The old Sandy Kinloch fired up momentarily.

"Are you trying to make me a casualty?" he asked, shoving him off.

The man was on him with a bound, in joyful brutality. Kinloch had heard
tales of his sort from other unfortunates. The wantonly inflicted pain
was probably intended to provoke resistance, which of course would
serve as corroboration of any serious charge. Why should a guiltless
man resist? Kinloch knew from experience that here and there a type of
officer still remains who believes he must produce cases to justify his
own existence.

His foot throbbed with pain, but he restrained the natural temptation
to prolong the struggle.

"All right," he said. "So long as I see Dr. Dunn it's all one whether
you take me to him or bring him to me."

Have you ever tried to make a policeman change his mind? A forlorn
hope it usually is. It puzzled Kinloch as to how he succeeded with
that animal. Possibly the careless indifference of his last words had
an effect; but more probably it was due to the memory of some recent
reprimand for an equally wanton arrest. Anyhow the thick fingers
gripping his garments at the back of the neck again shifted to his arm.
The officer said:

"Albany Road is on our way. We can call in as we pass." But his grasp
was less assured than before.

Albany Road indeed proved to be round the next corner, and the man had
just pushed open a gate a little way along it when Kinloch heard a door
bang. He could not tell whether it meant some one entering or leaving.
Hastily he felt at his torn collar and tried to get it down to meet the
tie, also damaged by his recent rough handling. Then a voice boomed out
from the doorway:

"What is it, officer?"

The policeman pulled his captive forward, half uneasily.

"This man, sir, I got him loitering. Says he knows you, and was coming
here."

"Says he knows me, does he? Put your lantern on his face...."

The next moment a cry came.

"Sandy--Sandy Kinloch by all the--" Dunn broke off short. He must
with his quick, professional eye at once have observed the other's
affliction. The policeman dropped the arm he held as if it had burned
his fingers.

"Oh, Sandy, my poor lad, Sandy!" Dunn said in a low voice.

The policeman here returned the walking-stick, and stepped out nimbly
for the gate. A mighty relief it was to hear him go. Dunn slipped a
hand under his old friend's arm.

"Och, och, come away in," he said.

"But, Peter, your--your wife," the other stammered.

"My what?" he cried, pulling up.

"I'm in rather a disreputable condition. Will she mind?"

"You mean about her chintz chairs and so on, I suppose. Who told you I
was married?"

"Nobody; I guessed it."

"A bad guess, Sandy: there's no minx here to mess up my place with
china ornaments and female fallals. So wipe your feet on the bass, lad,
and step inside."

Dunn has said that he saw at the first glance just what Kinloch's
condition was. No doubt this is correct; his professional eye would
give him information not so apparent to others. He says, however, that
he made no comment at the time on his old-time friend's affliction,
though he admits making a joking remark on the length of Kinloch's hair
to put him at his ease. This remark the other turned aside, probably
because Dunn would not have understood that where Kinloch had lived for
the past year there was a prejudice against the owners of close-cropped
heads. Most close-cropped heads in Rowton Street were cropped, without
their owners' consent, at their country's expense.

In Dunn's cosy study that night, after such a meal as had become no
more than a dim memory to him, Kinloch told his story. Much more of it
was told than need be set down here. Not so much because of its dull
and sordid details, but because it has no direct bearing on what was to
follow. The real story in fact only began that night--little as either
of the men dreamed so then.

Dunn heard it out in silence, except for an occasional grunt or sign of
indignation. When he had finished the doctor hit the coal a resounding
blow with the poker, as if he wished it had been Maxtone's head. For
Kinloch had rounded off his story by telling him of his experiences
with Maxtone. Maxtone was the editor who had turned him down.

At the end of a long silence Dunn's voice broke in plaintively:

"I never could understand why you did it, Sandy."

"Did what?" the other asked, coming back startled from his memories of
Maxtone.

"Took up this silly writing business, and wrecked such brilliant
prospects."

"Because I couldn't help it, Peter."

Dunn gave a grunt of incredulity.

"I had leanings to poetry myself, once," he said, "but it was one of
the few temptations I've found it easy to resist."

Kinloch laughed the first mirthful laugh for many a day.

"Yes, you old pill-pusher, and proud you are of it. But then you will
never know the joy of creation--to take up an idea and give it flesh
and blood, to see the germ of excellence spring out of nothing."

"Ay--and lead to nothing."

The sharp disgust in this muttered rejoinder was probably due to what
seemed the extravagant enthusiasm of the other's previous words. But
at that moment, when Kinloch was over-sensitive, and in great need,
it came to him suddenly that Dunn was now anticipating an appeal for
help, and was half-resentful over it. It was like a cold douche after
his mirth. His long lost pride came back, as other things came back
that night. He would show Dunn he would ask for nothing. So taking this
reproach as a warning, he got to his feet. But Dunn took no notice.

"Well, I must be going," Kinloch said with a flourish.

"Going," he repeated; "going where?"

"To the place this scribbling has led to--a cubicle in a doss in Rowton
Street," Kinloch replied bitterly.

Dunn shoved him back in the chair with some violence.

"You needn't be so touchy. If I am angry it is solely for you, Sandy,
knowing what your capacities once were. Man, man, but you were aye an
unco thin-skinned lad."

Dunn, like many of his race, was accustomed to use the broad dialect
of his country whenever he was under the stress of some strong emotion
of which he was half ashamed. But well as the other knew this national
trait he was too fantastically sensitive by this time to be influenced
by that knowledge.

"What is the good of reproaches now?" he said wearily. "After all, as
things have turned out, what else could I do but write? What sort of a
doctor could I make now, after the war has done with me?"

It was here that Dunn blundered.

"No; but if you had qualified in medicine you would never have been
in the fighting line, and so have escaped your present calamity," he
persisted.

Kinloch fired up at once.

"Been safe at a _base_ hospital, you mean," he retorted hotly.

After that things somehow went from bad to worse. There is no doubt
Dunn had intended to stand by his friend. When the other had leisure,
with a cooler head, to think over what happened, he saw that, for he
knew that Dunn was not of the sort who give good advice when they mean
to give nothing else. Dunn no doubt meant to do probably a good deal
more than his friend had hoped for, but on that very account he claimed
the right, like the dour Scot he was, to improve the occasion.

The rupture came suddenly, before either was aware. Dunn, hot headed,
began to preach at him, and Kinloch, sore and sick with the picture
of himself as drawn by his candid friend, stung him with a gibe that
smacked of the den from which he had emerged.

Dunn rose in wrath.

"You spoke of a _base_ hospital just now," he cried. "It might have
been better for you had you died in that same base hospital; it might
have saved you from a base existence."

Both were now on their feet; and this time Dunn made no effort to
detain the other. He was breathing heavily, and his keys jingled in a
hand trembling with anger as he opened a drawer. But Kinloch rejected
the money when he offered it: it was not possible for him to do
otherwise after the particular gibe he had used, and the retort Dunn
had made to it.

"As you please," he said.

"Fortunately I'm not quite penniless," Kinloch proclaimed with
ludicrous dignity and entire untruth. "It would be painful to have to
pocket your insult with your money."

"Oh, I did not mean to insult you," the other man said, almost humbly.

Kinloch said nothing.

When they reached the door Dunn gave a sudden exclamation.

"Lord, I had forgotten that!" he cried.

"What?" Kinloch asked, surprised at his sharp exclamation.

"The fog. I can't let you go, Kinloch. It's thicker than ever. Even a
beggar's dog would lose his way to-night."

It may have been his unaccustomed use of the surname--never had he
been other than Sandy to him--or perhaps his reference to a beggar
that touched Kinloch on the raw once more. Without a word he stumbled
quickly to the gate.

"Come back, Sandy," Dunn called, following. "On a night like this--"

"Fog makes no difference to me, Dunn," Kinloch cried, as with an
affected laugh he slammed the gate.

Touched with remorse the other started after him, but Kinloch hurried
away; and it needed but a few steps in that fog to be beyond finding.

Kinloch, indeed, had not gone far in the fog before the awkwardness of
the situation pulled him up. It was somewhere after eleven, he was many
miles from Rowton Street, and with not a penny in his pocket to get
there. Cool enough he was now as he stood against a wall and under a
dripping, overhanging tree in that sodden, deserted road. For half an
hour he must have leant against that wall dully considering the plight
in which his foolish quarrel with Dunn had placed him. His clothes,
too, had suffered much in his brief interview with the policeman.
Though worn threadbare, his suit had been of good quality originally,
and he had always taken care of it. It is extraordinary how important
the condition of a last suit becomes to a man who has reached the
end of his resources. At an interview with a possible employer boots
can be more or less hidden, and a shabby hat can be held negligently
behind one's back, but one's suit takes the eye, and supplies the first
impression by which most men judge. But these were not thoughts that
occupied him for long. His one thought soon turned to how he could get
back to Rowton Street. For the Underground barriers cannot be passed
without a ticket. Then he remembered the Ealing Great Western Station,
close to the District. If he could slip into a carriage there he should
reach Paddington, where, in such a large station, it would be easier to
evade the collectors at the exit. If not--well, arrest at least would
provide a shelter for the night.

He had gone some distance towards the station when a new thought
came, one which would probably never have occurred to him but for the
recently recovered memories of better days. It was this: if he had to
risk arrest he must see to it that his name did not come out. It is
almost comical that he should have been so sensitive about this all at
once. Anyhow the fact remains that he went methodically through every
pocket, and tore into scraps every paper that could serve as a clue
by which his identity could be traced. Dunn must not know--this was
his motive, probably. So all along those suburban roads and avenues he
laid down something like a paper-chase trail, and only when the job was
finished and he had left himself with nothing in his pockets did he
begin to heed where he was going.

The fog seemed to be as thick as ever. Behind its almost impenetrable
wall he knew there lay on each side of him rows and rows of houses,
each separated by no more than a yard or two of turf from the road, but
for all that showed of the life within them he might as well have been
limping through a dead city.

A little later, finding himself alongside a great line of massive iron
railing, so stout that he knew they must have been built with public
money, he felt he was passing beyond the suburban villa region, and
became doubtful of his direction. When the road began to make a great
sweeping uphill curve, doubt became certainty: he knew he had not come
that way.

Something like a tremor of anxiety passed through him, while he
stood, doubtful as to what course to pursue. It was very cold, in a
raw, penetrating fashion; for by this time his clothes were fairly
sodden from exposure to the fog. Eagerly as he bent for any sound, his
ear caught nothing but the eerie drip, drip, drip of the condensing
moisture falling from some trees inside the railings.

Using the stick on these same railings he worked along them, trusting
to come on the gate of some house at which he might obtain guidance.
Failing in this he crossed the road in the hope of finding houses
on the other side, and eventually after fumbling along a high blank
wall he came on a little iron gate that certainly belonged to a villa.
Without one thought as to the late hour, Kinloch mounted the steps
and pulled the bell. By this time he was so eager for the sound of a
human voice that if any inmate were only to lift a window to curse at
him he would have welcomed the voice. But that did not happen. No one
responded. Peal on peal he sent through that house before realizing
from the hollow, ghostly re-echoing of the bell that the house was
empty.

Up and down how many roads he went after that in search of something
human he never knew. What, however, he could never forget is that
in rounding a new corner in a dull despair he walked suddenly into
something soft and human--a stout man of middle height in a thick
overcoat with fur collar and cuffs. The man gripped at Kinloch to save
himself from a tumble.

"Damn you," the stranger cried, irascibly shaking him. "Are you quite
blind?"

The unexpectedness of the meeting more than the violence of the
collision left Kinloch for a moment speechless.

"Sorry, sir, but you were certainly going the faster," he said.

The stranger was passing on, but stopped at the other's words.

"H'm, a man of some politeness. You recognized who I am, no doubt."

When Kinloch haltingly explained his plight, he emitted a quiet
whistle; but not, as it turned out, from any sympathy.

"Not acquainted with this neighbourhood?" he queried, coming nearer
again.

Wondering who this man could be who expected to be recognized by any
chance passer-by the young man explained that, so far from being
familiar with the locality, he had not the least notion of where he
then was. If, he went on, he could be put on the way to the railway
station he would be very thankful. For a moment the stout gentleman
said nothing, but seemed to stand there in the fog debating something
with himself.

"I can put you on the way to something much better," he said at length.
"You are just the man I want. There's something providential in our
meeting. Yes, sir, I seem to detect a Higher Hand in this, though I am
not a superstitious man."

When he took him by the arm, his hand trembling with eagerness, it
struck Kinloch that the man was in a state of agitation or anxiety. He
freed himself half uneasily.

"Look here, come to business. What do you want?" he asked.

"A small service, for which I will pay much."

"How much?"

The man in the fur coat hesitated. It is significant of Kinloch's
desperate condition rather than of his nationality that he enquired as
to the amount of the reward before asking the nature of the service.

"Five pounds for half an hour or so seems ample."

Kinloch laughed, exhilarated by the prospect held out to him. The
stout man evidently took the laugh for one of derision.

"Five pounds. It's surely enough," he said.

"That depends. I've gone through half-hours I wouldn't repeat for five
hundred."

"But this is merely to sit still in a chair, in a quiet room, and
rustle some papers."

Kinloch's heart sank as he realized the man must be a lunatic, a
harmless wandering lunatic. Of course he was! Who else would be abroad
on such a night--owning a fur-lined coat? When he recalled, too, that
the man had expected to be recognized, no doubt from supposed portraits
in the papers, suspicion of his insanity turned to certainty. Kinloch's
hopes sank to zero.

"If you tell me where you live," he said soothingly, "I'll take you
home. Your people must be getting anxious."

"You think it too little?" the stranger said sharply, and the tone was
not that of a man with wandering wits.

Kinloch shook his head.

"No; too much, unless something shady lies behind it."

"Nothing lies behind it that need concern you. I offer you so much
because, to be quite frank, I admit that if I had searched all London
I might not have found a man better suited for my purpose. Come; time
presses. Is it a bargain?"

But his ill-concealed eagerness roused a new suspicion.

"You must be more explicit," he said, wondering to find himself so
curiously unwilling to go with the man.

An impatient exclamation came. A masterful, domineering man Kinloch
now judged him to be, certainly no lunatic in the ordinary sense. It
was evident that he could barely restrain his temper while the young
man dallied with his proposal. With quite apparent effort he now spoke
calmly:

"An important interview lies before me at my own house. A man is coming
to confer with me, and it is essential that a third party should be
present. Not to see, still less to overhear what is said, but simply to
make it evident to my visitor that I am not alone. Now I am the last
man in England to be caught in a corner, as you would know if I were to
reveal my name. So, needless to say, the witness had been arranged for;
but he has failed me. This cursed fog," he burst out uncontrollably,
breathing heavily. "Chance has got lost in it, no doubt."

"Chance?" Kinloch repeated, bewildered.

"Did I say Chance? Well," he laughed, "chance has put five pounds at
your disposal, my needy friend. You agree?"

"Sir," was the reply, "I am one who has had to part with most of his
scruples, and to earn five pounds at this moment I would do much."

From the other came a grunt of coarse satisfaction.

"So I judged," he remarked. "A gentleman on his uppers! Just the man
for my money; I cannot understand why you hesitated."

But the coarse joviality of his new tones had an effect opposite to
that he probably intended.

"I said most of my scruples. Unfortunately I have still one or two
left."

"Set your mind at rest, then. Had you retained as many as your
maiden aunt, you might still come with me. You are not engaged for
housebreaking or deeds of violence. You will expose yourself to no
danger of arrest, for I am asking you to my own house solely for my own
business. Is that enough assurance?"

"Quite," Kinloch agreed with great relief. "So long as the police are
not in it, five pounds will do."

And, as the stranger slipping an arm through Kinloch's began to lead
him eagerly down the road, the younger man puzzled over the way
in which the other had used the word "chance." In his own mind no
doubt existed that, despite his clumsy attempt to use the word in
another sense, Chance was the surname of the man whose job he was now
undertaking. The name had slipped out in the stress of the other's
anxiety and excitement. Chance: it was a name too uncommon to be
readily forgotten.

But, however that might be, the man in the fur coat meant to let
nothing else slip out; for, as if annoyed with himself, he remained
silent till they reached his house. Having opened a door with a
latch-key--a door which was certainly not the main entrance to a house
of the size this proved to be--he led the way through a corridor into
his study. The room was very long, and rather narrow. A big, crackling
fire diffused a warm glow as they passed it to reach the niche at the
far end which it appeared had been prepared for Mr. Chance to occupy.
This niche seemed like a semi-circular bow window opening possibly on
to a lawn, and into this apse he was placed after stumbling against the
screen drawn across its entrance to prevent Mr. Chance from seeing--or
being seen. Only when he had Kinloch seated at a table behind the
screen did he speak again.

"Your part in this comedy is not a speaking one," he said. "All you
have to do is to prove your presence when I give you the signal. Then
you may make a rustling noise as if busy with papers. But on no account
are you to speak or show yourself. And remember this"--his stumpy
forefinger tapped Kinloch's ribs--"the signal may _not_ be given at
all."

"What is the signal to be?"

"Three taps with the poker," he replied promptly. "We'll rehearse it
now."

It was at once evident that all had been carefully arranged--even to
keeping control of the poker, Kinloch said to himself, while feeling
about on the table for the paper with which he was to operate. When his
host returned after making three audible taps and the alert young man
remarked that he appeared to have forgotten the paper, the man threw
something on the other's hands.

"There, try that; it will sound like music in your ears."

Kinloch tried it, and it made an admirable sound, the crackling sound
that a new crisp Bank of England fiver always makes. Still, as Kinloch
remarked, it wouldn't be so audible at a distance, and in the midst of
talk might be unheard.

"Then you are to cough. Yes, as the night is raw you may cough. Indeed,
it may be well to do so from time to time--of course after I have given
the signal--as a reminder to my caller of your presence."

He left his guest alone after that. What he did, or where he went,
Kinloch did not know. And at the moment he did not care. For at once
he fell to spinning glorious dreams as to the spending of the fiver.
He held it between his fingers, making it talk to him with its cheery,
crackling whispers. Untold wealth that crinkly note seemed to him
then. To the passage of time he gave no heed. But to judge by the
number of things he decided to do with the money it was certainly an
under-estimate on his host's part to say that the business would only
take half an hour.

Then with a start he heard the murmur of voices at the far end of
the room. A door shut. Kinloch came out of his dreaming and sat up
attentive. Chairs were moved about, as if for more comfort before
settling down to business. But when he heard the clink of glasses that
spoke of friendly intercourse, it struck him that his host had been
unduly timorous in engaging anyone for protection.

Very little of the talk came to Kinloch's ears for some time. Both
men were speaking in an even murmurous undertone which might have
been chosen either to be persuasive or to prevent him from hearing.
Not that he had any other thought than to be alert for the signal and
honourably earn the reward he had already received. He was happy in a
quiet way, feeling assured that his luck had turned, that his dark hour
had passed, and he sat behind the screen with his hand motionless on
the fiver which he dare not play with any more for fear of prematurely
indicating his presence. He was hard put to it in his damp clothes to
restrain from the coughing which was not yet required.

Then quite abruptly, heat and excitement broke out between the
two men. One voice rose in pitch as if to warn Kinloch the crisis
approached.

"So you think you have me cornered!"

In a flash Kinloch thought he understood--a blackmailing visitor.

"That depends entirely on yourself."

"How?"

"Tut, tut. For a man of the world like you, that is surely a needless
question to put."

"Ah, needless, is it? Yes, I suppose so--to put to a devil like you."

"No devil at all," said the other, "neither devil nor angel, but just
a plain business man ready for a deal. Do not pretend that anything in
this takes you by surprise."

"It does not. I am prepared for it."

There was something in the way the man snapped out these words that
Kinloch at least found ominous. A quiet laugh came.

"In that case we had better get down to business at once."

The last three words were accompanied by three distinct taps as if to
emphasize the statement, so anyhow Kinloch took them, for he promptly
made the prearranged reply.

"_What was that?_"

To leave the man in no doubt he followed up his signal by a cough, and
a very genuine cough it was.

"We are not alone," he heard his employer say in a bantering tone. "I,
too, prepared for our meeting here to-night."

Again there was a pause. The stranger seemed to be readjusting himself
to the new situation created by the revelation of Kinloch's presence.
He did not take long.

"By God, so that is your game, is it? This time you've mistaken your
man!"

There came a sudden quick scramble of feet: a crash of glass followed
as a table overturned with a dull thud.

"Keep off, keep off!"

The sudden, wild scream sent Kinloch's nerves leaping. He rose amid
the struggle and the thud of chairs overturning on the thick carpet.
He knew the man who had hired him was stumbling towards him, calling
for help. But almost before he could move there came a sound he
recognized--a sound more horrible to the ear than the startling cry of
pain or terror--a tired kind of sigh followed by the noise of a heavy
body collapsing in a heap on the floor. Starting up in the dark Kinloch
blundered into the screen, plunged forward in an effort to retain his
balance, tripped over a chair and shot headlong to the floor. Groping
about quickly with both hands to recover his stick as a weapon, his
hands went slithering into something warm and wet.

"Ah, the rat leaves his hole!" a voice cried viciously.

He knew the man was coming for him. He came slowly, though, walking as
if he himself had been hurt, or was impeded by the scattered furniture.

Kinloch worked rapidly along the wall with some dim idea of finding a
window or a door. He heard the man close behind, but by an instinctive
swerve he evaded the clutching hands and went on. The room was silent
now, so silent that in the darkness Kinloch could hear the man's quick
breathing, and the smothered oath that followed his own momentary
escape. Yes, the man appeared to have been hurt himself in the
struggle, for his soft padding steps sounded uneven.

Then abruptly the stillness was rent by a piercing cry:

"Don't. Oh, don't!"

It was a woman's voice, and at the shrill and imploring cry, which
revealed to Kinloch the unguessed presence of a woman, he stopped dead.
In a moment the man was on him. One hand clutching his hair, pulled the
head backward. The strength of madness was in that man.

"_Safe bind, safe find_," he shouted fiercely, as if it were some sort
of slogan.

In the horror of that paralyzing moment Kinloch's nerve snapped, and he
began to plead, weakly re-echoing the woman's entreaty.

"Don't, oh, don't! Look at me, I--"

But something struck him heavily. A brilliant light flashed through his
brain, and he went in a heap to the floor.




                              CHAPTER II


Consciousness came back to Kinloch at no definite moment. It was
like rising slowly to the surface through deep waters. What he first
recalled was a sound, a low murmuring that somehow had determination
in it, and never ceased. For a time he thought the sound was in his
head, and with that the remembrance returned that some one had just
knocked him on the head. He felt horribly sick and shaken, and the
instinctive attempt he made to move showed him he was lying full length
on his back, helpless. So he lay still, nerving himself at first for
the second blow he expected to fall, and was unable to avert. Then as
the blow did not come at once he remained motionless in the hope of
escaping another by pretending it was needless.

For a time he lay like that, still as death, but thinking brokenly
about the nasty, violent business into which he had walked. He knew
the man meant murder, knew that the flutter of an eyelid now would be
enough to make him finish the job. So, shamming death, he listened
hard, seeking to catch a hint of the other's movements in the room.

It was very difficult to hear anything because of that dull, continuous
drumming in his head. He tried to ignore it, to listen, as it were,
through the throbbing sound. But nothing else could he hear. In a dazed
way he then began to be surprised that so soon he should feel so cold
and stiff. It was exactly like what he had experienced when he lay for
hours against a shattered wall at La Boiselle with his first wound.

But there was a difference. Then he had felt no resentment towards the
hand that had struck him down. Then it had been a fight for life on
equal terms. This time he had been helpless, defenceless in the hands
of a man who had shown no mercy. And as he remembered how his broken
spirit had forced from his lips the cry for mercy his shame gave birth
to a hatred of the man, all the more intense and enduring because he
must lie there incapable of fight. To have to die like a dog cowering
on the floor in a corner. Was that to be his end? How much better to
have died at La Boiselle then than in this sordid way, in some quarrel
between two blackguards whose names he did not even know! He felt so
sick and cold and stiff. Then with a start the question burst on him:
had he been lying where he now found himself for a long time--a longer
time, at all events, than the man was likely to stand over him to see
if he were dead? A gleam of hope came. Remembering he had been struck
down close to the wall on his right along which he had been feeling his
way, he cautiously stretched out a hand with the notion of verifying
that wall.

But it was not a wall he felt: it was something that recoiled from his
touch with a smothered exclamation. The cry was instantly followed by
a metallic click exactly like the sound made in releasing the safety
catch in an automatic pistol.

"Oh, damn!" he cried, thinking that he had after all betrayed himself.

A hand was laid on him gently but firmly.

"No need to be afraid. You are safe now."

The voice was a woman's, and, remembering, he did not doubt it was she
who had tried to stop the man's murderous attack.

"Has he gone?" he asked in a whisper.

Again there came that ominous, metallic click.

"You have a pistol," he said. Lifting his hand, he found his head and
half his face swathed in bandages.

"No, no, that was the switch for the light under the dash you heard. I
turned it on to see if you were all right. Try to sleep again. I must
watch the road."

But he did not go to sleep. He lay awhile trying to piece together what
she could mean, wondering most as to why she must watch the road. The
noise in his head made thinking very difficult. It was like the word
"thud" repeated unendingly, in a low, murmuring tone, yet infinitely
more rapidly than mortal lips could articulate the word.

All at once he understood. That dull pain was indeed inside his head,
but the drumming sound was an external sound. It was the beat of a
motor engine. Instantly the woman's words about the light under the
dash, and about having to watch the road became intelligible. She was
carrying him off. She was taking him out of danger. They were out and
away on the open road!

How that perception changed his feelings about that drumming engine!
So long as he thought the noise was in his own head, it wearied him.
Now it seemed unutterably friendly, and he lay prone, rejoicing
in the sound, feeling from the engine's eager strokes that it was
whole-heartedly on his side. He gave little or no thought to the woman,
or where she was taking him; he did not then even wonder who she
could be. His whole thought went to the purring engine that whispered
continuous comfort to his ear. To him that engine was, even more than
the silent woman, a living thing, making heroic efforts to carry him
into safety. Lying prone he thrilled to think he was safe so that,
sooner or later, he would get even with the man who had struck him
down....

The next thing Kinloch remembered was the sound of a great bell,
sonorous and so exalted that it might be the bell on some lofty
cathedral tower. It struck six times, with a magnificent slow dignity
between each stroke, and he began to wonder in a half dazed fashion
what little town owned so great a clock. That it was a little town he
knew because presently he felt from the ceasing of all echoes that the
car had left the narrow streets and was speeding upwards on a straight,
smooth road.

Afterwards, however, he was to be glad at having heard that bell, glad
that its tone stuck in the memory. But just then such thought as he was
capable of filled him with shame. The woman had heard him plead for his
life, bleating like a sheep, he put it to himself. The remembrance made
him shiver with mortification. Her pity flayed him like a whip, for he
fancied there was in it a tinge of contempt. Later he heard the click
of that switch again.

"You are putting on the light," he cried, almost involuntarily; for he
did not wish to be seen by her at that moment.

"No, turning out the head-lights. It will soon be day."

They must then have been running along a wood-lined road, for now he
could hear the twitter of birds, that preliminary twittering and trial
of their notes they all seem to make in the early dawn. He lay awhile
listening. The air was cold but dry. Presently the chatter of the birds
faded and died out behind.

Almost at once the woman spoke:

"Why do you come to be associated with evil men? Your face is not--not
altogether an evil face."

After his kindly thoughts of the woman and the car the question
surprised and wounded him.

"Is it light enough to see that?" he asked in sarcasm.

She hesitated a moment as if not quite understanding.

"If you will sit up and look you will see the daybreak," she said, "and
the light creeping through the trees, and--and"--a catch came in her
words--"and the birds." The horn sounded for something on the road.
"But," she added in a changed voice, "I suppose a person like you cares
for none of these things."

"No--not--not now," Kinloch said.

"Used you to? I would like to think you not a bad man at heart."

There was an almost eager note in her voice that irritated him again.

"Look here," he said shortly, "don't you start worrying yourself about
my heart. My heart is no better than my face."

Now, at all events, he began to wonder who this woman could be.
Evidently she had mistaken his previous hesitation, and imagined her
description of the morning had touched his better nature. She was so
sure of his badness too! No doubt, he admitted to himself, he must
look, that morning, with his bandaged head, torn clothes, frowzy,
unshaved and unwashed as he was, an offence to the pure dawn. He could
imagine the contrast present itself to her. But, after all, he was no
criminal. His mild feeling of irritation deepened.

No more was said then. But she had started him off thinking things out,
and presently, when the car turned a corner, and was clearly taking a
side road at a reduced pace, it occurred to him that he had a right to
put a few questions on his own account.

"Where are you taking me?" he demanded.

"Not much farther; I am going to drop you on the road."

"Drop me by the road! What for?"

"To get rid of you--a better fate than you deserve," she said.

On that he awakened to realities.

"Is that man dead?" he asked in a whisper.

"Oh, yes. There are worse things than death, you know."

Kinloch shuddered violently. He thought she was referring to his own
pitiful pleading for mercy, and tried to be cynical.

"Are there? I wonder if--if _he_ thinks so?" He paused, breathing
heavily. "This is a hanging business, then."

"Well, you will be out of it--unless the police take you," she said.

"I see, it is for the murderer's safety, all this. You thought I saw
the man who did the deed, and on his account it was judged better that
I should not fall into the hands of the police. An awkward witness I
might have been against that man! So you propose to drop me by the
roadside."

She heard him out in silence. Then after a pause she coolly said:

"Yes, you so far profit by my interest in his safety."

It was her calm assumption of his badness that he found exasperating.
She took his evil character for granted, and seemed to regard it as an
accident that he himself had not committed the murder. He struggled to
a sitting posture, cold with anger.

"Your interest in the murderer must be very deep," he retorted. "How
is it you come to be associated with such an evil man--you who seem to
have such high standards of morality, and care so much for the clean
sunrise and the guileless birds?"

That touched her up. He heard her sharp indrawn breath. Presently, with
the car slowing down to a creep, she said:

"After all, I've had some trouble to save you from arrest, and may
have saved your life. Why shouldn't I be glad to know that life not so
worthless as it looks?"

"Drop me here," Kinloch said shortly. "Your preaching makes me sick."

Promptly the brakes were applied.

While he was fumbling with the catch of the door she bent forward and
undid it herself, flinging the door wide open. Kinloch stumbled on to
the road.

"By Heaven, you are a cool creature," he remarked. "How old are you?"

"Not so old as I look this morning."

Standing there on the road he laughed derisively, and then got his
parting-shot ready. For he had a parting-shot, and a nasty one, he
considered it.

"If you only knew it, you might have gone to bed, and left your car in
the garage: there was no need to carry me so far."

"Oh, Jane doesn't mind," she said.

"Jane?" he repeated, mystified.

"That is what I call my little car. Plain Jane, for she has no frills."

The flippant tone of the remark, and the fact that it delayed the
retort with which he meant to crush her, irritated him again.

"And you are plain too?" he said.

There was no response to this impertinence, except that the engine
began to throb more quickly, as if in indignation. Then the brake was
taken off with a sharp clatter of metal over the stops.

"If you will kindly remove your hand from the door--" she said icily.

But he held on, grimly nodding up at her, taking the opening at last
given him.

"I'd like you to know this first," he said. "I never saw the man who
was murdered nor the man who--who did the deed, so I could never have
been a damaging witness against him."

"That is incredible," she said coolly. "Impossible unless you were
quite blind."

"Quite impossible," he agreed, "unless I were quite blind."

It took her a moment or two before she understood. Then the engine
ceased racing as if her foot had slipped from the accelerator.

He knew she was staring hard at him now.

"Blind," she whispered. "Oh--it--it--can't be--it can't be! I'd need to
be blind myself not to have seen that."

The man laughed harshly.

"Sharper sight than yours missed seeing that last night, in that fog,
which makes you all grope about like the blind," he said.

But she did not seem to be listening.

"Oh, dear God, what am I to do now? What am I to do?" she said, her own
eyes riveted on the careworn face and the unseeing eyes of the man on
the road.

Kinloch was taken aback by the blank horror in her voice. What
difference could this make to the plans she had formed for his
disposal? She ought to feel safer. He recalled the man in the fur
coat. That man had been glad to discover he was blind. It had made him
laugh aloud with relief. So ought she to be glad--at least after, as
was natural, a little irritation over her needless journey. Why didn't
she say something? Why didn't she clear out? The news of his blindness
should be good news to her and to--Then his ear caught an unexpected
sound; it was like some one quietly weeping.




                              CHAPTER III


The breakdown was at once so utter and so unexpected that it amazed
Kinloch. He could not understand it. It was the last thing he expected
from her. Up to this point she had shown such cool, masterful
self-assurance, and, as he judged, such calculating selfishness, that
he had been sure she was either a tough, middle-aged, hard-bitten woman
of the world, or one of those modern young women who are without the
least grain of tenderness, even for themselves. Hard she might be, but
evidently she had her breaking point. As the man stood silent, feeling
helpless in the face of this distress, the tinkle of a bicycle bell
recalled him to action.

"Some one coming," he said quickly. "Pull yourself together."

Then going down on his knees beside a wheel, with his back to the road,
he affected to be looking at some damage to the tyre; for it were well,
he thought, if she could not control herself, to make it appear as if
she had some cause for distress. While so engaged he heard the soft
whir of wheels flitting past on the gritty lane. Only when he heard the
bell again as the cyclist dropped down to the main road did he stand up.

"He stared hard at you," she whispered over the side.

"Who was it?"

"A policeman, a country policeman, on his round." It startled the man
queerly to find himself so soon after the incidents of the previous
night in contact with the police. But the ruse he had adopted to
divert attention from himself to what he was doing pleased him.

"I pretended you had a puncture."

"Oh, dear," she cried, "no wonder he turned round to look at you.
Didn't you notice the tyres are solid?"

His hand went out to be assured she spoke the truth. He had never heard
of a solid tyred car till that moment.

"We had better push on," she said, throwing open the door. "This is a
bad beginning."

"They can't possibly have heard yet," he argued.

"No, but when the news comes out that policeman will remember us."

Her voice was so full of foreboding that Kinloch was surprised.

"Oh," he said, with an attempt at reassuring her, "the thing may make a
noise in Ealing, but after all--"

A strange sound cut him short. He could hardly believe his ears. She
was laughing. Not that it had any mirth in it. He noted that. And it
ended as abruptly as it began.

"What did you laugh at?" he asked sharply. "Seems to me you've not much
to laugh at."

"No. But that wasn't laughing."

He became suspicious.

"It really happened at Ealing, didn't it?"

"Oh, yes."

"Well?"

"If--if--it would make a noise only in Ealing," she said with a sigh,
as if to herself.

But he overheard.

"You go on"--he spoke almost gently--"I dare say you're not a bad
sort, and I'm too dangerous for you to have on your hands."

"No. I can't leave you here."

There was a world of quiet decision in that utterance. But the man
thought she spoke from mere impulsive sympathy, and had not calculated
the dangers.

"My dear lady, look at me, and then look at yourself. What sort of a
pair do we make--to sit together in a car? The difference must be a
difference that would excite notice wherever we went."

"Then we must in some way reduce the difference, that is all. Leave you
here to be caught by the police I dare not."

Kinloch stood awhile, his head still throbbing with pain, so that
clear thought was impossible, trying to envisage the situation. As he
hesitated a cry came from her.

"O God, there is the policeman coming back. I thought he would. Oh, be
quick," she pleaded in an agony of dread.

Kinloch got somehow into the car, and she raced it up and shot away.

For about half an hour they ran on without further speech. He was
afraid some word of his might unnerve her again. But from the turns and
twists he knew they were among lanes with the main road far behind.
After that she began, as it were, to breathe more freely. He sat
wondering how it would all end, and was rather bewildered by the quick
march of events.

"Where are you taking me now?" he asked at length.

There was no tremor in the voice that now replied:

"Where I had meant to go myself for a time--a queer lonely village on
the top of this ridge. It's shut in with gates at either end, and has
a village green--well, I suppose it's more of a common than a village
green, for it's a mile long and has clumps of trees on it, and furze."

She appeared in fact to be talking to put him at his ease.

"And when we get there--what then?"

"There's a house--some one I know has a little bungalow which he uses
only in summer. An old woman, a neighbour, has the key. It will be all
right; she knows me. You can stay there for a few days to get well and
to see what has happened--whether anything has been discovered. Not one
soul need know you are there."

"What is this place called?" he asked.

She hesitated over her answer.

"Ah, you don't want me to know?"

She did not reply, so he added: "Never mind, I know it isn't many miles
from Chichester."

She seemed to give a start of surprise at his shot, and after a moment
said:

"Why do you think so?"

"From the bell striking six, and the time we took to reach the small
town in which there was such a bell. Besides that, the way we've been
going up and down among hills would tell me these hills can only be the
Sussex downs."

After a moment she said:

"If you are wise you won't try to find out where you are."

The reply let him see exactly where he stood with her. Evidently he
was to be told as little as possible. He nodded his understanding of
that fact to himself. So, in spite of her earlier breakdown and her
tears, she was now on her guard, with all her wits about her, and knew
how to take full advantage of his want of sight.

Later, when they approached the village, she left him in a thicket a
little way off the lane, and went on to interview the old woman who had
charge of the house. It needed considerable trouble to fix things up,
evidently, for she was away about two hours. When she came back she
brought some food for him. The old woman was then getting the place
ready. She had shown no surprise over the unexpected arrival. The
doings of the town people--foreigners as they were called--were always
odd, even when they were not altogether mad. Much more, while he ate,
she told Kinloch, sitting beside him on the rug. Although she seemed to
be talking for talking's sake, he noted that she did so warily all the
same, for nothing to give him a clue as to where he was slipped out.

"What is this village called?" he asked, as if forgetting for the
moment her previous reluctance to tell him.

"I call it Minnis," she said.

And he gathered from her tone that it was so called by no one else.

Another thing he noted: for all her volubility there were occasionally
sudden, oddly abrupt silences. He could feel she was thinking hard.
He thought she was troubled, nervous, strained. And in those uneasy
silences from among the wood below there came the clear strokes of a
woodman's axe.

It was, of course, impossible for him to enter the bungalow before
darkness came. He must stay where he was till nightfall. So after
she had slipped away again he had nothing to do to keep him from
thinking. His thoughts went straight back to that room in Ealing. What
had that man in the fur coat been up to to get himself blackmailed?
Beaumont--it was unlikely that was his real name--the begging-letter
writer in Rowton Street, had told him tales of that fashionable crime.
Not that blackmail was Beaumont's own game; he hadn't got the nerve
for it, he had admitted. Nothing paid better; but, unfortunately, it
was dangerous, he said. Then another thing Beaumont said came back
to Kinloch--that in almost all cases of blackmail there was sure to
be a woman somewhere. A lady of high position, he had said, smacking
his lips, whose reputation afforded the leverage necessary to extract
substantial amounts. It was only in such cases, he asserted, that
sufficient pressure could be applied. And as Kinloch filled a second
pipe his mind turned to the woman in this case. Was this the woman?
Something of what was afoot between the two men she must have known.
But she came into the room just too late. That fog again, he thought.
The man must have envisaged murder from the start, for he had carried
a knife, and no man carries a knife capable of inflicting death at one
stroke--Kinloch had heard the heavy sigh that follows the use of steel
too often not to draw that inference--except with murder in his mind.
Besides, his hand had gone into that pool of warm fluid in about a
minute after the blow.

At this last remembrance he sat up in sudden apprehension, the match
burning itself out over the unlit pipe. Had he left any traces of his
presence there? The man who came prepared to do murder, thoughtfully
choosing a noiseless knife rather than a revolver, _he_ was unlikely to
scatter proofs of his own presence, or of his identity, around. But he
himself could have had no such forethought; and it gave him a sudden
qualm to remember he had left his stick in that fateful room.

No, decidedly, it would be safer to lie low for a time. Remote as the
place was, newspapers would no doubt penetrate even there, and with
safety he could hear what they contained from her. Meanwhile no one had
seen them come there, and no one need see him enter the bungalow. So
she had said. He was rather content to take the course she proposed,
for he did want to know more about the case, and about this girl's part
in it. His first dislike of her had passed away. She was not quite
what he had first thought; and, anyway, he determined to see the thing
through.

It was very cold lying among the damp trees on the northern slope of
that ridge; but he had lain in worse places.

And it consoled him to remember that if the January day is raw it is
also short.




                              CHAPTER IV


He started up at the sound of a snapping twig, aware that he had been
nodding with fatigue and sleep. The next instant a hand was laid on his
shoulder.

"Come," she murmured, "it's safe now."

"Is it dark?" he asked with surprise.

"Quite--a black night."

Walking was difficult at first, for he was stiff and numb with inaction
and cold, and as if from the long exposure the wound in his head began
to ache and throb worse than ever. But taking his arm she guided him
through the undergrowth, and out on to the road.

Close as she was to him he could hear her draw a sharp breath now and
then, though whether from some fancied alarm or painful memory he could
not say.

After a time they passed through a heavy gate across the road.

"Now," she breathed, "quick as we can go; we are on the open common
beside the first house."

For a village, that Minnis was a queer place. Once inside the gate his
feet were on a road as smooth and even as is the drive to some great
house. And when they left the road for the turf, which they did very
soon, he found the turf as springy and level as any lawn. But there
was gorse on it, and bracken too, in patches, for once catching sight
of some object looming up a short way ahead she made him lie down in a
clump of bracken while she herself went forward to reconnoitre.

Kinloch could tell when they were nearing the house from the way in
which her hand tightened on his arm, and her breathing quickened. From
her movements, so close was she to him, he knew her to be glancing this
way and that, peering into the darkness. All around them the night was
as still as the grave, and on that turf feet made no sound. What with
all this dread of being seen, and the convulsive grip on his arm, an
uneasy feeling came to him, a vague sense of disquiet as to what he
might encounter in that house. But before this feeling had time to grow
very strong he found himself at the door.

The sharp, deep sigh of relief too, with which she shut and bolted that
door, gave him the measure of her previous anxiety. He knew terror
had gripped her lest they should be seen. She must have sunk down
into some chair as soon as they stumbled into the room. Kinloch, left
to himself, after standing at a loss for a little, groped about to
discover another chair. There seemed to be very few in the room, but
coming on one he drew it towards the glow of warmth that told him where
a good fire was burning. For the slow, cautious crawl they had made
from his hiding-place among the trees had done little to restore his
circulation, cold and numb as he was with so many hours of inaction and
exposure.

But the first thought she showed afterwards was one to take note of.
For her first act as soon as she recovered breath was to attend to his
damaged head. She undid the bandages, and having deftly snipped the
hair from around the wound, and washed it carefully, she readjusted the
bandages in a way that revealed experience. From this he concluded
that his mystery woman had probably done nursing at a war hospital.
Then from her movements he knew she had set about preparing a meal.

After a little, as he sat holding out both hands to the blaze, she came
over beside him to kneel before the fire.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Like a piece of frozen mutton."

By the simile he meant to convey no more than that he felt very cold
indeed; but she appeared to imagine he had laid emphasis on the last
word.

"You cannot blame yourself for what has happened," she said. He noticed
now that her voice seemed almost youthful, clear in tone, yet low in
pitch. But blame himself! He was far from doing that! He wished the
man who knocked him out had been there. He'd have done more than blame
_him_. He had a score to settle with him--one day sooner or later. But
he kept quiet about that intention then. He said:

"Well, as to that, I've been in the control of others in this affair
all along--at their disposal, I mean, driven like a sheep--an ignoble
part."

She began to stir up the fire. From the abstracted, mechanical way in
which she used the poker, he gathered she was deep in thought. In the
end she left him without saying more.

Kinloch listened hard to see if he could detect the presence of any one
else in that house. As the numbness melted out of him before the log
fire, and his faculties began to thaw, the first human quality that
seemed to come back was a quickly growing curiosity about that woman.
That she was deeply involved in the affair was plain enough; that she
had carried him off to save the other man he felt certain. Yet it was
not upon such facts that his thoughts now mainly turned, not even on
what the graver issues of the tragedy might be, but merely on who she
was, and what she was like. And here, once for all, certain facts set
forth afterwards by Dr. Dunn, need to be understood by all who possess
their eyesight. They are these: the mind of a blind person tends to be
more active and alert than that of a sighted person. He lives in his
mind more exclusively, for he is thrown in upon himself in a variety
of ways, and is almost certain to make up for lost physical activity
by an increased mental life. In consequence, and as if in compensation
for the lost sight, certain other senses become more acute--touch
and hearing immensely more, and his memory and imagination are more
developed. The point in asking that these facts should be remembered
lies in this: many people regard a blind man as a more or less helpless
creature. He is so only in regard to one of his five senses; in the
other four he is not unlikely to be more efficient than the person who
pities him.

Thus, for the answers to the questions as to who this woman was and
what she was like, it might be thought that Kinloch was helpless except
in so far as she chose to enlighten him. But that was not his view;
and he made up his mind, sitting there that night, to get an answer to
them, and to others. For he did not feel under any weight of obligation
to her. It was clear enough that, though she had carried him away from
what might have proved more than an awkward situation, she had done so
only because his story of what had happened might, if it were believed,
make things much more awkward for the other man, and perhaps herself
also.

The woman too, he thought, must have begun to do a lot of thinking
just then. Whether it was that the house in Minnis had associations
connected with happier days, or whether she had little chance and
less liking for thought up to the time they reached the shelter of
the house, Kinloch didn't know; but she had precious little to say to
him that night. Still, she must have had her eyes on him, for after
the meal, when he returned to the fire, she at once perceived the
drowsiness that stole over him, and packed him off to his room. It
would be time enough, she said, to talk plans over in the morning.

The next morning, however, Kinloch was made aware that even in that
lonely house their situation was not without its dangers. Very early he
was awakened by a peremptory tapping at his door, followed by a summons
to breakfast. The decision in the knocking caught his attention: it was
that of one who had taken command. He was unwilling to stir at once,
wishing to luxuriate awhile in such a smooth, warm bed as he had not
lain in for ages. And when he sat up and felt his stubby chin it did
not add alacrity to his movements. But he scrambled out, feeling almost
glad he could not himself see what he looked like.

Over breakfast the delicacy of the situation was made known to him.
The old woman, Mrs. Spedding, was coming to do the housework, and he
would have to be concealed for the two hours she would be moving about
the house. But this seemed easy. He had only to stay in his room, a
room which, since it was supposed to be unoccupied, the old dame would
have no occasion to enter. As it chanced, they were almost caught
straight away; for he had not finished eating before the old woman was
at the door. In her eagerness to please, she had come before the time
appointed. Kinloch was breathlessly smuggled into a sort of cloak-room
cupboard in a corner of the little lounge hall in which they were
breakfasting. But she got the door shut just as the old woman opened
the other. He heard all that passed.

"Mornin', ma'am. Thought I'd best be a bit early this first morning in
case anything 'ad 'appened."

"That was good of you, Mrs. Spedding. Did you think I'd burn the bacon
or spill the milk?"

Mrs. Spedding chuckled.

"No, miss, not 'zackly, though I might 'ave, you not being used a-doin'
for yourself. What was in me mind was that you might be scared outen
your wits your first night alone, what with all them there cat burglars
we reads on nowadays."

When the girl laughed, or rather tried to, Kinloch knew she was
standing with her back close against the cupboard door, more afraid of
Mrs. Spedding than Mrs. Spedding would have believed. Afraid, too, she
must have been of what the old woman might let out in his hearing.

"Well, you see I'm not a bit scared."

From her shaky tone Kinloch would have said she was in mortal terror;
but the old woman cackled wheezily.

"No, miss--ma'am, I mean--but all the same if you'll 'scuse me, you've
lost your roses. Quite pale you be. Last night I was putting it down to
your travels, but now I sees 'tain't."

The voice stopped abruptly and then there came rather tremulously the
question:

"What is it, Mrs. Spedding?"

"I thought you was alone here."

What the old woman had seen Kinloch could not guess, but he felt as if
their game was up already.

"What makes you think I'm not?" came faintly from the other side of the
door.

"The table's a-laid for two, and two's been using the things!"

Then in the horrible pause that followed the old woman laughed.

"Ah, I see how 'tis--seein' them two cups give me quite a turn; but
that on t'other side be the one you used last night, I reckon."

"I was so tired last night, Mrs. Spedding."

There came a quick clatter as the old dame began to collect the dishes.
Kinloch waited for another exclamation. Fortunately, however, her
eagerness to gossip kept her from discovering what he expected her to
discover, what his own touch would have instantly told him--that _both_
the cups were warm.

"Ah, reckon the air of the Downs will put ee to rights. You used to
thrive on it when ee was a little un." She sighed reminiscently. "Folks
ain't forgotten you 'ere, Miss Stella. And that reminds me, we all saw
your fortygraft in the papers the time you was wedded. Tolputt--you
remember Mr. Tolputt at the post office--ee twisted it round a pot o'
molasses for Mrs. Prebble, and never noticed it were you. But there,
men don't never notice nothin', except it hits them somewheres. But
Mrs. Prebble saw who 'twere--trust her!--and she cut the fortygraft
out, and showed it all round. It was that picture of you stepping out
o' church under a harchway of swords, and you holding a nosegay. 'Appy
you looked! I'd have knowed your smile anywheres. Yes, I reckon it were
that smile first showed us who 'twas."

The door behind which Kinloch stood creaked as if some one had leant
heavily against it, and after the cheerful Mrs. Spedding had stumped
off with her loaded tray he heard in the empty room something between a
sigh and a sob. And this at least was more than he wanted to hear.

Mrs. Spedding came bustling back in a moment, however, brushing the
cloth as she resumed her talk.

"Jane Prebble, she put the fortygraft in her Prayer Book next Sunday
to show the folks coming outer church. It was wonderful to see how it
waked them all up. Crowdin' round her they all came. Farmer Noakes
first 'ad it in his hand, and what with all the rest a-craning of
their necks over his shoulders to see what 'twas, while he was getting
out his glasses--well, if he didn't have to set down on the late Mrs.
Uden's tomb to keep 'em off his back. But all the same some on them
cried out your name afore ee got the glasses to his nose. 'So 'tis,'
ee says, holding it out and a-cockin' his head, 'so 'tis. Townified
of course, but Miss Stella it be.' Then ee hold it outen to show 'em.
'Folks,' ee says, 'who'd a-thought of that grand lady once a-riding my
old Buller bare back, and a-stroddle, as bold as brass?' Old Jacob
Wytch caught up the talk then. 'A taking young 'ussy she always were.
Whoi, masters, afore I knowed who she was didn't I catch her in the
orchard among my cherries one marnin', and dang me if I didn't find
myself afore I knew a-showing 'er where t' best ones was.' Young Bob
Ames, ee cut in then: ''Twasn't perticklar like you, Jacob Wytch, that
wasn't,' he says. But Mr. Noakes nodded as he tooken off his glasses.
'No,' he says, 'it wasn't like Wytch to act so, but it were main like
she to get un.' And all the folks laughed _so_ hearty at Jacob. 'So
t' little maid's married?' Mr. Noakes says. Then young Bob, he says,
'Let's look at the fellow she's a-wed to,' taking over the picture. But
Jane Prebble snatched it away, proper angry, and Jacob Wytch cuffed
young Bob's ear. 'Be that a way to speak of the high nobility? Fellow
indeed,' he says."

Mrs. Spedding might apparently have rattled on, but a sudden pause
almost coincided with a sort of moan that came from the other side of
the door.

"Bain't you feeling well, ma'am--m'lady I mean?"

From her tone Mrs. Spedding was aghast.

"Oh yes--quite--well. Just a little--faint after--after yesterday. A
glass of water, please."

"There, drat me if I haven't wearied you out with my gabble!"

The old woman hobbled off to the kitchen. In a moment the other, as
if recovered from her faintness, had Kinloch out of his cupboard and
along the passage, pushing him into his own room. The rapidity of the
change left him breathless. For the clever fashion in which he had
been manœuvred out of earshot by a woman who had seemed to be on the
point of collapse gave him food for thought. His sympathy, he now felt,
had been wasted. He was almost certain that that sudden faintness,
with the demand for water, if real at all, was due less to the dread
of detection by Mrs. Spedding than to the fact that the old woman was
on the verge of saying more than the lady would wish him to hear.
Of course she did not trust him. Her refusal to tell him so much as
the name of the village proved that, and now he felt sore over that
distrust--and the sympathy he had wasted. In consequence, at lunch,
after the old woman left, he said:

"So your name is Stella?"

"Yes."

"Stella means a star."

"Yes."

"I've been wondering how to address you; it's awkward to be with a
person who is--well, anonymous as well as invisible."

"You may call me Stella."

"But I don't want to. A star means nothing to a blind man--doesn't
exist for him."

She said nothing at all to this.

"She called you 'm'lady' once," he reminded her. "That might be better."

"That means nothing either--just a poor old woman's courtesy."

"So as I don't know your surname I shall have to call you Stella?"

"Circumstances give you that privilege," she said coldly.

"Well, it does seem a little over intimate after one day's
acquaintance."

He waited in vain for any response.

"So I am going to be told nothing?" he said at length.

"The less you know the better."

"Better for whom?" he asked.

"Yourself."

"Is that a threat, then?"

He heard the door shut as she left the room.




                               CHAPTER V


From that day a silent fight began between them. Piqued by her distrust
of him, and heedless of her warning, Kinloch appears to have become
determined to find out all he could about the affair at Ealing and the
people concerned in it. And the lady seems to have been quite confident
that he could only know what she liked to tell him.

He did not use her permission to call her Stella. When he called her
anything it was "m'lady"; and just because he did not think she had any
right to that form of address, the title came easy to him in the half
serious fashion in which he used it.

But he was certainly wholly serious in his determination to dig out the
facts. With her he had no quarrel. Indeed he thought he rather liked
her. The fingers that dressed his wounded head were very gentle. And
he had learned to judge people's souls by their touch. But whether she
were innocently or guiltily involved in the Ealing affair he was quite
sure that for his own sake, and probably for hers in the long run, he
must get at the facts.

He began by cross-examining himself on what he already knew or could
safely infer. Why had he not been left lying in that room with the
other victim? Why take him away at all? To have left him there to be
found with the murdered man--wasn't that the real game to play? For
what could he say, when he came round, to explain his presence in that
house? Anything he said would count as nothing in the face of what the
eye could see: the man lying there murdered, and himself a wandering
vagabond of disreputable appearance. His tale of being invited to the
house by the dead man--how ridiculous and fantastic it would sound!
Indeed, the case against him was blacker than the real criminal knew.
For a blind man's weapon naturally would be a knife and not a revolver.
And the murderer, leaving him where he fell, could have placed the
knife in his hand and so put the halter round his neck as surely
as--Kinloch pulled up suddenly. A strong motive for his own removal
became apparent to him. He himself had been knocked unconscious; there
was the wound in his head to witness to that fact. Therefore when
he was found in the room the question would arise as to _who_ had
inflicted that wound. Obviously the dead man couldn't have struck him
down after he was dead! And if this blow that knocked him out had been
struck before the other was dead, the man who received it would never
have been able to strike back. Therefore that wound in his head would
testify to the presence of a third person in that room, and so far
support the otherwise incredible story he would have to tell of that
night's happenings. Have to tell?

Kinloch's thoughts fastened on the words. Yes, have to tell if he had
been found lying unconscious in that room. But, he asked himself, would
he volunteer the story _now_? Could he come forward with the tale now?
And in the answer he gave to the question he found a sufficient answer
to the questions as to why he had been carried away from the Ealing
house. It would never have suited the criminal that an _unconscious_
man should be found in that room--a man who, when he came round,
could, for all that was known to the murderer, fully and accurately
describe the man who struck the blow. But it would not suit himself
now, with the wound in the head almost healed, to fall into the hands
of the police. A cock and bull story it would all sound at this date,
especially if he had to end it up by admitting that he did not even
know the name of the village to which he said he had been taken!

Then, sitting on his bed, thoughtfully nursing his knee, he saw with
sudden, startling clarity the problem he had to solve. He must find out
the name of that village. He had to know where it was, as safeguard
against future chances. He sat a long time racking his brains over
this. For the first time he became fully aware of the woman's quiet
determination to keep him ignorant of where he was, and of the terrible
danger this ignorance might yet be to him. He didn't feel hopeless,
though, about beating her. There was that great bell he remembered, and
the little town through which they had passed. Was this queer scattered
village somewhere in Sussex as he had guessed? He went over Mrs.
Spedding's gossip. How easily the name of the place might have slipped
out! But it hadn't.

Still, there were all those names the old woman had mentioned. Many
names had, he knew, a place connection. From a surname you could often
tell from what part of England a man came. Tyldesley, for instance,
meant Lancashire; Fosters were common in Worcestershire. Were Prebble,
Ames, Tolputt, Uden, common names in Sussex? He did not know; but he
knew there were men who were authorities in such matters. And these
names, taken together, had the air of belonging to some particular
locality. And yet this was not much to go on. Rather like clutching at
straws, he felt. He must somehow find out the name of the village she
called Minnis. The problem, he saw, was a double one: to find out where
he was, and to find it out without letting her know that he knew. For
he had a suspicion now that this knowledge would be a very hazardous
possession to him if it were known he had it.

Yet for all his brooding on the subject, on that day and on others
following, he was quite unable to see how he could come by the
information.

Once, a few days later, he almost got what he wanted by accident.
And again it was through Mrs. Spedding. Of course after that first
mischance the lady had taken care there should be no more surprises of
the sort. But this once she was caught napping.

One of her precautions was to keep out of Mrs. Spedding's way whenever
the old lady was at work anywhere in the house within earshot of his
room. In consequence he never heard them talking together except at a
safe distance, the lady never entering her room, the door of which was
almost opposite his own, till Mrs. Spedding had left the house. On this
particular morning, however, Kinloch heard Mrs. Spedding come stumping
along the passage and, the door evidently having been left open, he
heard her voice at once.

"This list of things you want, Miss Stella, it can't be right."

"Let me see."

He heard the flutter of paper.

"Sakes alive, you can't 'ave used all them things already. Unless it be
as Ben Horrockes is a-givin' short weight."

Kinloch, suddenly aware of a new and unforeseen danger, bent forward to
listen. The lady seemed to become aware of the danger too.

"I--I--like to--don't like to run short," she said.

"Lor', Miss Stella, but ye do eat 'arty, nowadays, though you've little
enough to show for it," the old woman grumbled, "you not bein' nigh so
plump as a young girl oughter be."

He heard the lady attempt a laugh.

"You don't think I--I look right, Mrs. Spedding?"

The uneasiness was obviously misinterpreted by the old woman.

"Oh, m'lady, don't you worry about your looks. You've no call. Folks
here think you better looking than ever yu was," she said reassuringly.
"Why, even that old nabbler, Jacob Wytch, must a got 'is head turned
when he saw you yesterday; turned 'im into as big a nissy as young Bob
Ames, the sight of you did. Didn't I 'ear him myself telling old Uden
as hadn't seen y' yet, that you was lovelier than the Queen of Sheba in
a chariot what they'd got painted on the walls of Brooky church where
he was a lad nigh sixty years agone. But I wasn't meaning them sort
of--" The voice diminished as the old woman was led or hustled out of
earshot, and he heard no more.

Kinloch, however, sat very still for a long time thinking over what
he had just heard. And at first his thoughts had nothing to do with
the discovery he was so keen to make. Up till then he had scarcely
ever wondered what the lady looked like. To a blind man people's looks
didn't matter much. The voice counts for more, and from her voice,
deepened perhaps by her own recent experiences, he had vaguely judged
her to be older than it now appeared she was. But what a light this
revelation threw on the whole of the tragedy at Ealing! He recalled
Beaumont's words, that behind most crimes, if you could only find her,
there was a woman. And this one must be beautiful indeed. There was
the impression she had made on Jacob Wytch to prove that. Kinloch was
deeply impressed by the effect she had made on old Wytch. The sight
of her had reawakened in this old man, after an interval of sixty
years, the memory of what, in his youth, had no doubt stood to him for
a vision of all that was beautiful in woman. It almost awed Kinloch
to see the significance of that. And his mind went back to recall
the names of the fair women, good and bad, women like Helen of Troy,
Deirdre, Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and Mary, Queen of Scotland, whose
beauty had brought men to ruin and death.

He was startled by this revelation. More lay behind the affair at
Ealing than he had supposed; the waters were deeper than he had
guessed. But startled as he was, he soon perceived that in more senses
than one now he _must know where he was_.

So he was thrown back on his original line of action. He began to
ponder over Mrs. Spedding's words from a new angle. But what he knew
seemed precious little. The old woman had mentioned Brooky church. Yet
though that was definite, it might well be a long way off; and in any
case it seemed to be a diminutive of some fuller name. Still, he stored
the name of the place in his memory, for possible future use. He had,
on the whole, more hope from the peculiar dialect words Mrs. Spedding
had used. She called Wytch an old nabbler who had been turned into as
big a nissy as young Ames by the sight of the girl. The two words,
nabbler and nissy, he had never before heard, but the very sound told
him their meaning. They were dialect words, certainly not in common
use, yet, like all dialect, familiar in a more or less restricted area.
The scent was strengthening. Kinloch, pleased with his astuteness, was
quite sure that a professional detective would have let these two words
pass unheeded. They were not the sort of clues he would understand. For
himself, he was resolved to let nothing pass.

But his self-satisfaction proved to be short lived. Days went by and
brought nothing to him--nothing but a growing conviction that the girl
was going to be too much for him. She countered his every move. One day
she said suddenly:

"You haven't found out very much, have you?"

It was the first time she had openly referred to the struggle between
them. And from this open reference he saw she considered him beaten.
There was even a touch of pity in her voice as if she took him for a
rather naughty child.

"Not much," he admitted.

"Nothing," she said, in the tone of one who had the situation well in
hand.

"Only that you are younger than I thought, and something of a beauty,
it appears."

"And that is hardly what you hoped to find out." She almost laughed.

Kinloch fired up, responding with grim humour.

"Well, you'll find I'm impervious to beauty's eyes, anyhow. Here's one
man, at least, whose head isn't to be turned by any woman's looks."

But this was said merely to cover his sense of defeat. She had no need,
he knew, to turn his head with her beauty, for he had not discovered
anything likely to make him dangerous. He went straight off to his
room. And there, sitting on his bed, kicking his heels, he started to
think the thing out afresh. She had almost laughed at him. How sure
she must be that she had him in her pocket! And he must stay there,
it seemed, till--Kinloch sat up suddenly, under the shock, as an idea
struck into his mind, an idea that had about it the brilliancy of an
inspiration!

That same night he was sitting with her before the fire behind the
closely curtained windows. The strong southwester that had sprung up
with the fall of night made it safe for them to talk above the usual
subdued monotone. No one approaching the house unseen could hear voices
above that wind. He said to her:

"I can guess what a derelict I look."

"There's no one to see you but me," she said.

"It's not a matter of vanity. If any one else chanced to see me,
wouldn't it be dangerous?"

"Dangerous?" she echoed sharply.

"A man like me seen in the house."

"But you're not going to be seen."

"It might happen by some accident. You can never tell. Anyway it's a
needless risk to run when you could so easily get me some new clothes."

She seemed doubtful, and he felt her eyes on him when he produced the
crisp, clean fiver he had received from the man in the fur coat.

"The nearest biggish town," he said. "You'll find some outfitter with a
selection of ready mades. How far will you have to go?"

"Oh, not very far," she said evasively. "I can go in the car to-morrow
afternoon after Mrs. Spedding has left."

She seemed pleased to find him so thoughtful of a danger that had not
occurred to herself. He showed her how to take his measurements with a
piece of string.

But the next afternoon a disappointment came. She returned without the
clothes. It was early closing day in the unknown town, and the shops
were shut.

"Didn't you know?" he asked disappointedly.

"No. Most towns close on Wednesday," she replied innocently.

Kinloch instantly forgot his disappointment. Another clue had been
presented to him. Putting things together he now knew that the house in
which they were hiding was one in a village of widely scattered houses
which stood on a ridge of downs not more than--to judge by the time
taken in going and coming--ten or twelve miles from a town whose early
closing day was Thursday.

"And to-morrow will be market day," he said, fishing.

"What do you mean?"

She seemed a trifle startled, for the words came quickly.

"It will be very busy," he prevaricated, "if it's market day."

"Oh, I'll get the things to-morrow," she said, leaving him no wiser as
to whether Friday was or was not market day. So he failed to get that
further clue as to the identity of the town.

But had she seen him open the parcel next day she would have been still
more startled. He, however, did not open it before her. When he got to
his room with the new clothes the first thing he did after locking the
door was to feel the inside of the coat just below the collar. A thrill
came as he found what he sought. Yes, it was there, the small square
of silk that bore the name of the outfitter from whom the suit had
been bought--the name and, his fingers told him, the address. He could
not read the lettering; and there was, as yet, no one whom he could
ask to read it for him. But, he said to himself, while shaving with
the new razor, it was a satisfaction to know that he now carried the
information about with him!

And he fell to thinking of how easy it would be to ascertain the
identity not only of the village but of the woman herself. For, the
name of the town once known, it would be simple to identify the village
about ten miles distant which among its inhabitants had people of the
names of Prebble, Ames, Tolputt and the rest, not to mention a farmer
called Noakes; a village which had in the churchyard a tomb to a lady
evidently of some position, named Uden. As for the house, he could
describe every corner of it. But that wouldn't be necessary. For Mrs.
Spedding once found, the lady's identity could no longer be concealed.

Kinloch was so full of all this that, his toilet completed, he returned
to the sitting-room without thinking of the very different appearance
he now presented to the eye. A smothered cry followed his entrance.

"What is it? Anything wrong?" he said. And then he recalled his altered
appearance. "Is it as bad as all that?" he asked.

"I--I--didn't know you at first," she stammered. "I thought some one
had come to--" She broke off and added tamely, "I didn't know clothes
could make so much difference in a man."

He brushed this aside.

"You were frightened, not surprised," he said.

"No."

"You thought it was--"

"No, I didn't. Come, here is your chair."

Kinloch put out his hand. She took it in her own to lead him, and he
found that the hand in his shook like a frightened bird. Beyond doubt
she had taken him for a police officer. But her eyes must have been on
his face.

"What has happened?" she asked as soon as he was seated.

"Happened?" he repeated, taken aback in his turn.

"You look so different to-night--happier."

Inwardly Kinloch cursed his tell-tale face.

"Of course I do. Who wouldn't after getting rid of those rags?"

"Sorry I didn't think of it before," she said humbly.

"So am I. Feel ever so much better now."

He certainly did. He was tremendously conscious of that little square
of silk at the back of his neck, just on the spot at the nape of his
neck where the knot of the hangman's halter might have come one day, he
reflected.




                              CHAPTER VI


With the last days of January a week of wild rough weather set in, the
wind, accompanied with alternating showers of sleet and drenching rain,
blowing in great gusts over the exposed uplands. The storm kept people
to their houses, and the few outdoor winter occupations in that remote
agricultural region were at a standstill. There were days when even
Mrs. Spedding did not come to the house. Now and then a lonely horse
and cart, with the driver huddled up, and heading into the blast, might
be seen crossing the common among a sea of tossing gorse bushes. But
scarcely another sign of life showed for several days.

Inside the house the storm, and the increased sense of isolation it
brought, had the effect of making the man and woman draw somehow nearer
to each other. Thrown together they had been by a strange stroke of
Fate, but with fear overshadowing them and mutual distrust between
them, there had been so far little scope for understanding. Now,
however, when Kinloch felt he had the secret sewn on to his coat, his
half-felt antagonism died away, and the girl, no doubt feeling the
change, without knowing its real cause, responded to that change in
him. Kinloch, in fact, had come to regard her as much more the victim
of the man whose identity she was struggling to hide than he was
himself.

One night while brushing out her hair--she had probably come to see
there was nothing in letting down her hair before a blind man--she said
to him suddenly:

"Didn't they give you a disability pension?"

Kinloch, who had been listening to the long soft swish of the brush
and trying to judge of the length of her hair from the length of the
stroke, was taken aback.

"Oh, yes," he said, "but I commuted for a lump sum."

Her insistence amused him. But the brushing stopped even before his own
short laugh.

"You squandered it, I suppose. Is that why you laugh?"

"No; it was your inquisitive questions. So like a careful,
old-fashioned wife, before the days of shingling, cross-examining a
husband."

He heard the brush get to work again, but more slowly, as if she were
looking at him thoughtfully through the strands of her hair.

"Look here," he said defensively, "I didn't 'blow' the money--not in
the usual sense anyway. It went into tea shares, Kalindar, a company a
friend told me of. Ninepence each they were then, and I believe there
are thousands registered in my name, all quite unsaleable. They mostly
belonged to the friend who advised me to buy and who swore they were
bound to rise."

After this outburst he was surprised to find himself so anxious she
should not think ill of him.

But although she was always ready and even eager to talk about his
past and his future, he did notice that the moment he turned the talk
to her own past and her own future she became dumb at once. He could
see she dreaded all questions. He was certain, too, it was to head him
off herself and keep his mind occupied that she not only read aloud
to him but set him on to study the Braille system of reading for the
blind. But he had quite enough of the embossed letters, sitting on
his bed fingering away at them in silence during the three hours Mrs.
Spedding was at work about the house. Then the Braille book saved him
from infinite boredom; so that, presently becoming keen about it, he
made rapid progress. In the evenings she would listen to his stumbling
efforts to read her some passage. It was exactly like some child
learning to read. The same halts, hesitations, long pauses and false
starts. But having at last attained the end he would seem still more
like the small boy in his deep sigh of satisfaction, and his face lit
up by sense of triumph. Then she in her turn would pat him on the back
and he would glow with pride. Thus insensibly, but very effectively,
her mental ascendancy over him grew. She was the school-mistress, he
the scholar.

But the man in him reawakened sharply one night. They were seated
before the fire, the lamp unlit, the big book with its embossed
characters on a small table between them. He had, with the usual
stammering and straining, and puckering of the facial muscles, just got
through his day's task, and was about to sit back when he felt her hand
take hold of his. That had happened before when she wished to test his
progress by putting his hand on some unfamiliar new page in the Braille
book. But this time he felt the touch had in it a different quality,
and as he heard her turn the pages he found himself detaining her hand,
and somehow thrilling and responding to her touch. For a second this
lasted. He felt the soft warmth of the hand. Then hastily she put his
own fingers in contact with the page.

"Read me that," she ordered.

But her voice had a break in it and was not at all like that of a
governess. And as he bent to read he felt her breath like a caress on
his cheek, while a strand of her loosened hair touched his face.

He jumped up. Was she trying to dominate him, to capture and subdue
him? To put him in her pocket and make him safe? A suspicion of this
flashed to his mind.

"What is it?" she asked, with an appearance of astonishment.

"Not any more to-night. You're--you're pushing me too hard, you know."

"Sorry. Shall I read to you, then?"

"Yes, it's your turn."

She got up, and while lighting the lamp asked:

"What shall I read to-night?"

"'Travels with a Donkey,'" he said, promptly now conscious of the
ascendancy she had won, and of how near he had come to making a fool of
himself.

"But we have no Stevensons," she said.

"Then for a change let's have the newspaper."

Not for an instant did he believe she would read him anything of the
sort. She had never even admitted that she saw a newspaper. So he was
correspondingly surprised to hear her presently unfold a paper. But he
was amazed when he heard the first words. He had supposed she would
choose some innocent political leading article, or something about the
present condition of the Iron Industry, or the prospects of the Boot
and Shoe Trade. A leader it was, but not one on politics, and she began
in a voice not quite in perfect control:

                          "THE EALING MYSTERY

    "That section of the public which has begun to fear that the
    present day police methods in the detection of crime are too
    stereotyped will have had their fears confirmed by almost
    everything that has happened in connection with this case. While
    ourselves not entirely in sympathy with the blame now being so
    freely showered on New Scotland Yard, we are bound to admit frankly
    that it is very disquieting to remember that already two weeks have
    elapsed since the date of the tragedy without an arrest having been
    effected. We stress this fact not to disparage the Yard, whose
    methods are admirable in some respects, but as palpable evidence
    of the fact that the new type of criminal who has arisen in our
    midst calls not only for new methods but for a new type of officer.
    Unfortunately there seems little chance that we shall see this
    new type yet. The authorities still adhere to the rule that all
    detective officers must first serve as ordinary police constables.
    The absurdity of this rule is manifest when we remember that the
    ordinary policeman is selected more for his muscular than for his
    intellectual endowments."

This was the first time he had heard a word from the outside world
about the crime. And it made him realize the thing in a new way. He
felt somehow solemnized. When the reading stopped he said nothing for a
moment.

"Why did you read me that?" he asked quietly.

"Because you wanted me to."

"No! You knew I've wanted news all along, and you wouldn't say a word.
Why do you read this to me now?"

He heard her folding up the paper before she replied.

"To reassure you," she said. "Nothing is known. You'll soon be able to
go your way and I mine, safe."

Safe! The word took his ear.

"So," he said, "up till now you have hidden what you read because the
news was not good?"

"Partly," she admitted.

"You read things in the paper that made you feel we were not safe?"

"Oh, yes."

Again he felt awed. He could now visualize the forces of the law and
all the wide-flung resources of the press combining to hunt them down.

"Well, m'lady," he said finally, "if you keep the newspapers from me
after this I'll know what to think."

She came over and sat down. He heard her take up the paper and stir the
fire in an abstracted way, as if thinking of something else.

Perhaps they might have parted and gone their different ways after that
night but for the gale that began in the early hours of the morning.
Probably she had to wait for instructions from the man for whom she
was presumably acting. Kinloch certainly meant to go. But the wild
weather came and it lasted eight days. Eight days and never an hour in
all their number in which Kinloch did not remember the small hand he
had held for a moment nor feel the place where her hair had touched
his face burn like fire. But he was on his guard once more against
her. Knowing from that newspaper how soon they could now part, she
had attempted those blandishments to capture him, to make him safe,
to ensure his silence, if any doubt about that remained. Perhaps she
had even been acting on instructions in what she did--caressing him by
order! Under his breath Kinloch swore.

On the fourth day of the storm he said to her:

"You have read me nothing more from the newspaper."

"I haven't seen it. I've to go to"--she checked herself--"a long way
to get it." Then she added, "To-morrow I must see one, whatever the
weather."

Next day he was waiting for her when she returned.

"Well?" he said.

"There's nothing, not a word of any kind in it."

His ear detected uneasiness in her voice that made him sure she was
lying.

"No news is good news. Why are you frightened?" he asked contemptuously.

He expected a denial to his question.

"You--you still feel sure you can't be traced?" she said hesitatingly.

"Quite," he replied, wondering what this meant.

"You think you can't be connected with--with what happened?"

"Don't see how. I left only a walking-stick in that room."

"A walking-stick can be traced to its owner."

"Not this one," Kinloch asserted. "Men who live where I lived don't
have their names and addresses engraved on their walking-sticks."

"But the policeman who stopped you that night, he would know you
again?"

"Perhaps. But I'm not going to let him see me."

"He couldn't fail to see you were blind."

"It's what he did fail to see. Otherwise he would hardly arrest a blind
man for loitering with intent. And you must remember that for the short
distance we had to walk he held my arm, leading me. I didn't tell him I
was blind; I kept that fact in reserve till we should reach the police
station. I owed him one, you see, for he was rather a nasty brute."

"But surely there's some one who will miss you?" she persisted.

Kinloch laughed grimly.

"Not a soul. Not one will have raised a clamour, unless it's Beaumont,
the begging-letter chap who lent me the fare to Ealing that night, but
he'll say nothing about my disappearance."

"Why not?"

"Why, don't you see, he'll take it that I didn't return so as to escape
repaying him. I'm sorry for that: his estimate of human nature is low
enough already. Now," he added, "will you tell me the meaning of all
this. You have read something in the paper, haven't you?"

"No, there's nothing in the paper about the case; but there's something
in it about you."

"About me?" he cried incredulously.

"Listen. It's from the 'Agony' column:

    "Alexander David Kinloch, last seen at Ealing on the night of
    Monday, 15th of January. Will any person in a position to supply
    information as to his present whereabouts kindly communicate with
    Messrs. Selwyn & Smith, Devon Chambers, Chancery Lane. Liberal
    reward."

He was utterly amazed and bewildered.

"Somebody seems to want you for something," she said doubtfully.

The remark brought a smile in the midst of his perplexity.

"It isn't Beaumont anyhow--he'd have cut his losses long ago."

"The police?" She breathed the question.

"Might be. Read it again."

While she read he noted the peculiar form in which the notice was put.
It did not, as was usual in such advertisements, invite Alexander David
Kinloch himself to reply. Why not? They either knew that he could not
or would not. Then another peculiarity caught his attention: "Last seen
in Ealing." Last seen by _whom_? he asked himself. The more he thought
of it the less he liked it. Even if the thing did not come from the
police it would certainly attract their attention. For the night of
Monday, 15th January, on which Alexander David Kinloch was last seen in
Ealing, was also the night of the Ealing murder. And that coincidence
was certainly one into which they would enquire.

"It looks," he said to her finally, "as if they were after me."

There was no fear in his words. He was simply surprised. He could not
imagine how it had been done: how they had managed to connect him with
the case.

They were both silent for a time.

"We must stay on," she said. "No one can know where you are."

He then remembered a saying of Beaumont's. There had been a discussion
in their doss on the best way to avoid the police. The subject
always led to lively and animated arguments there. It was Beaumont's
contention, he remembered, that the police owe more to the stupidity
of the men wanted than to their own cleverness. "Lie low!" That was
Beaumont's advice. "It may take some nerve but it's the correct game.
Once they get you on the run that's telling who done it, and then
you're as good as lost."

"Yes," he said to her, "it seems best to lie low here for a bit." He
listened to the wind raging outside. "If this isn't a safe place there
isn't any."

And up to the last day of the storm they lived in peace, seeing no
more newspapers. Then the thunder-clap fell. And from a quarter both
had overlooked. Mrs. Spedding had just left, and the girl was in her
room getting ready to dash away for the latest newspaper. Kinloch was
about to emerge from his own room when he heard quick, determined
steps coming down the passage. A peremptory knock sounded on the door
opposite. Then he heard Mrs. Spedding's voice.

"Miss Stella!"

"Yes?"

"I got a question to ask you. This can't go on no longer. I can't keep
it back no more, I can't, I can't!"

The old woman's voice was charged with high excitement, and this time
the reply, if there was any, he did not overhear. But he heard the
question easily. It came with a rush, loudly, uncontrollably:

"_Be there a man in this house?_"




                              CHAPTER VII


He expected some such question after he had noted the excitement under
which the old woman was labouring. But the lady appeared speechless
with surprise, for it was a moment or two before he heard her stammer a
reply:

"A--a man in this house?"

"Yes, a man you're a-hiding."

"Are you crazy? The question is an insult. What gave you such a
ridiculous suspicion, Mrs. Spedding?"

"Several things, m'lady. Perhaps I am crazy." She sighed heavily. "It
is a crazy question, come to think of it." She paused doubtfully.

"Then don't think of it any more, Betsy. The weather must have got on
your nerves."

"Maybe 'tis so. That wind a-whistling all day and a-howling all through
the night gives you the idea there's voices all round ye. Last night
while I lay wakeful in bed I could have took my oath I 'eard Joe
Spedding a-callin' to me from the garden, though ee's lain up in the
churchyard nigh thirty years."

The old woman seemed shaken. Kinloch heard the low murmur of sympathy
with which she was led away down the passage.

Later they talked over the incident. Kinloch thought she should have
found out what had raised the old woman's suspicion of his presence.
But it appeared she had been too frightened to ask, and had preferred
to leave well alone. Mrs. Spedding had gone away reassured, and would
probably be thoroughly ashamed of herself next day. But all the same he
noted that she had now put off her intention of going for the newspaper
as soon as the old woman left. He himself shared in the feeling
of vague insecurity he divined in her. Discovery by Mrs. Spedding
neither of them had ever thought likely. Yet something had evidently
awakened the suspicions of that quite unsuspicious creature. What was
it? Neither of them could guess. But they would have to find out if
the same danger was to be avoided in the future. For the old woman's
suspicions once awakened would be more easily reawakened, but not be so
easily dispelled a second time.

Kinloch brooded long over the situation, when after dusk fell he was
left alone in the house. His thoughts were not about himself. He had no
apprehension for his own safety. Once he might not have minded much had
Mrs. Spedding seen him, and been able to identify him afterwards and so
far corroborate his story. But now that he had all that was necessary
sewn inside the collar of his coat, identification by her, if arrest
came, was unnecessary. By a hundred details of the life in that house
he could prove his presence there, and secure Mrs. Spedding's support
in what he said. But he was conscious now that he was unwilling to see
the girl come to grief. She carried some dark secret, and was fighting
well. He tried to analyze his feelings about her. What if the man for
whom she fought was a criminal? Many a good soldier has fought in a bad
cause. Like himself she was the victim of that man. And, he saw now, it
was because he did not mean her to be left in that man's hands that he
had been content to remain with her in that house.

A long time he sat absorbed in the thoughts that followed. But a moment
came when he sat up with a start, all at once alert and fully conscious
of his surroundings. Something had happened to disturb him. He saw
that. But it puzzled him to think what it could be. A noise in the
house? He listened hard, and heard nothing beyond the wind whistling
on the roof. Then a door banged. The wind, he told himself, only half
believing. But if so the noise had been caused by a sudden inrush of
air as some other door or window was opened.... He waited, rigid with
attention. Then he heard a board creak. There was a loose one--he knew
it well--at the threshold of the sitting-room. _That_, at least, was
not the wind. His mouth went suddenly dry, and he sat petrified. He
could hear the wind moaning above the interior stillness. Then the
distant door banged again.

After a long time he ceased to listen and began to urge himself into a
belief that it was nothing, that no one had stared at him from the open
door. Doors do sometimes bang mysteriously, and even a mouse can make
a board creak. Anyway, nothing had happened. He was getting as nervous
as Mrs. Spedding herself, and far more fanciful. They had nothing to be
afraid of. It was impossible that the police could trace them to that
lonely house. Any clue they might have held would have been used long
ago. And since none had been used it was now obvious they had none to
use. He ought therefore with every day that passed to be getting less
and less, instead of more and more, jumpy and uneasy.

And yet some unknown sense seemed to be telling him as he sat on that
danger was drawing nearer. The storm seemed to have spent itself, for
the wind had dropped quite suddenly, half an hour ago. And now there
had come what seemed after those days of unending tumult a great calm
in which nothing moved. He was almost sorry the storm had passed. That
gale was like a wall that shut off the rest of the world from them.
But in this sudden hush and stillness there was somehow not peace
but expectancy. The world seemed stilled with the sense of something
terrible about to happen.

Yet it was a good hour before he heard the sound for which he had sat
listening, the quick, sharp click of a key in the lock of the front
door. He stood up to meet her, noting the hurry of her approach.

"You have news," he said to her.

"You know?"

"Felt it in my bones. What is it?"

She did not reply, but when he heard the glass shade tinkle as with a
trembling hand, when she removed it to light the lamp, he knew both
that the news was bad and that it was something she must read to him.
He heard her spread out a newspaper on the table.

                          THE EALING MYSTERY

                           ARREST IMPENDING

    "Events continue to move rapidly in connection with this crime,
    and the general public will learn with relief that it is not one
    destined to be added to the long list of unsolved mysteries which
    have of late so frequently baffled the police. The strictures this
    paper was impelled to make on the out-of-date methods of the police
    will yet be fresh in the memory of our readers. In consequence of
    the strong exception taken in certain quarters to what we then
    said, we may now reveal the fact that to justify our contention
    this paper set a specially selected crime expert to work upon the
    case. And the peculiar qualifications possessed by our agent have
    yielded the most gratifying results. Working along lines quite
    different from those being followed by the many police engaged on
    the case, he is now so close on his quarry that an arrest may be
    looked for within the next twenty-four hours.

    "In the interests of justice we must of course still write in the
    most guarded terms. But in amplification of what we have said
    in previous issues we may assert that the public interest will
    not cease with the arrest of the man and woman concerned in this
    remarkable case."

Kinloch heard her put down the paper. He was silent too. It was not the
confident tone of the paragraph that shook him, but the reference to
the man and woman implicated. The precision of that reference impressed
him; and from its correctness he did not doubt that much was known
which was left unsaid.

He heard her get up and begin to walk about the room. There might be a
doubt as to whether the wanted man were the other man or himself; but
there could be no doubt that this was the woman wanted. And now Kinloch
found that he wished to save the woman. That was the discovery he made
as he sat there. He wished to save her. Men, he told himself, are
what they make themselves, and women are what men make them. His hands
clenched in hate of that man. Her voice came in a hoarse whisper:

"How long do you think we've got?"

"Is that to-day's paper?"

"Yes. Oh, I shouldn't have minded the weather. The weather! And there
were things in the paper that would have shown me sooner what was
coming. But for five days I haven't seen a paper, on account of the bad
weather. Oh, but I felt so safe--safe with you here."

He was not listening to her. If this was that day's paper then they
might expect to hear that peremptory knock on the door at any moment
now. Half hypnotized by the expectation he lifted his head to listen.
And it was so quiet after the storm that he could hear the girl's
steps, and even her breathing, as she passed restlessly up and down the
room.

"Is it worth while trying to get away--is there time?" she asked,
stopping in front of him.

He shook his head doubtfully.

"Don't know."

Then just as he spoke his ear, tuned to listening, caught a sound
somewhere in the house. The remembrance of his earlier suspicion of
some one in the house returned. He knew it now! Of course that had been
no fancy: they had merely waited till she came back to take them both
together. He held up his hand.

"Listen," he whispered sharply. "Listen!... There is the answer to your
question."

And the quick indraw of breath told him she too had heard. But the
next moment she had him on his feet, and half leading, half pushing,
scrambled him into the embrasure of the nearest window. Kinloch yielded
himself, aware of the uselessness of the attempt at concealment. Not
till the house was surrounded would they be offered a chance of escape
by a window. But, making no attempt to open the window, she stood him
behind the curtains and herself stepped back into the room. Though
he believed this to be equally futile he played up to her, leaning
back against the glass to avoid contact with the curtains. There
followed the briefest interval in which nothing happened. Then a sharp
exclamation came from the girl. This Kinloch read as meaning that the
intruder was not the person she had expected to see.

"Oho," the voice came, "popped out o' sight again, 'as ee, that
Jack-in-the-box o' yourn?"

"Mrs. Spedding, what on earth--"

The girl's indignant expostulation was cut short.

"Oh, I seen 'im, not 'alf an hour agone, and not for the first time
neither, and seein's believing, they say. Locked 'im in, did ye, while
yu was away? Yes, but I unlatched the kitchen window this morning. So I
crept in and had a good look at 'im settin' before the fire. Leastways
I saw enough of him to know from the picture in the paper that _he_
wasn't the man what went to church with you."

The old woman was almost shrill with reproach and anger.

"The innocent I was! I believed you about them two cups on the table
the first mornin'. But I didn't know I'd been doing only half the
washin' up ever since. Nor the lot you eat didn't start me suspecting.
Nor even the smell o' baccy. Nor nothing else, till I saw you was
buying things elsewheres. I knowed it from the printed names on the
bags as ye sometimes forgot to burn. See? 'Something queer, 'ere,' I
says to myself."

"And you came to spy?"

"That's just what I done," the old woman cried defiantly. "But with no
bad in my mind. You wouldn't 'ave me to sleep 'ere as I wanted to do,
and the thought of you all alone wouldn't let me rest o' nights. So I
began to come round 'ere in the dark to see if yu was all right. Yes,
but I soon found out you wasn't so lonely as I thought for."

"But he's only a friend, you silly old thing."

This assurance seemed to exasperate rather than to mollify Mrs.
Spedding.

"Only a friend, is he? Didn't I see ye setting with him last night?
Didn't I see ye through the window whenever the draught swayed the
curtains, and you a-brushing your hair wi' your arms and shoulders
white in shameless nakedness afore his very eyes? 'That ought by rights
to be 'er 'usband,' I says, 'but if so,' I says to myself, 'if so, why
be she a-hiding of un?' So I made up my mind as I'd have a closer look.
See?"

"But there's nothing wrong."

"Nothing wrong? Then what's he a-hiding for? Having a game of
peek-a-boo with old Spedding, I s'pose, like what you played in the old
days? I reckon not! Townified ways this--us country folk don't hold
wi' them. It ain't proper for him to be livin' 'ere, not you and him
alone." The voice began to quiver and break. "Us--us country folk knows
the same conduc' as we 'olds to isn't to be expected from gentlefolk,
but--" Mrs. Spedding broke down.

Behind the curtain the man stifled the curse that rose to his lips, and
listened to hear the girl defend herself. Not a word came from her. And
so still was it in that room that he could hear the old woman's heavy,
agitated breathing.

"You're--you're in love with him, that's how 'tis."

"Y-es. Of course I--I love him. Why else should he be here?"

The words came quickly.

So that was the line she was taking! Well, it did explain his presence.

"Oh, it ain't right, it ain't right."

"One can't help one's feelings. They get too--too strong before you
know."

"Oh, but we can all help what we do. And, oh, Miss Stella, even if you
can't, why didn't ee go somewheres else? Why didn't ee take him where
ye wasn't known, and leave us free to think on ee as us used to think."

Mrs. Spedding seemed to go closer, raising her voice in a quick
passionate appeal.

"Give him up," she cried. "No good can come of it--nothing but scandal.
And that mayn't be so far off, neither." She drew near to whisper
loudly. "Look, m'lady, when I was a-coming across the common I came on
a stranger man."

"A stranger?"

"Yes, a man I didn't know, and who didn't know the common from the
way he was movin' among the gorse bushes. Didn't 'ear my feet on the
grass, and he seemed to be looking for something. Then the thought came
to me. 'What if it should be her husband?' I says to myself."

"What was he like, this man?"

"Couldn't tell. It were too dark. Turned away soon as he saw me, but he
was a big man, and nobody belonging to these parts. Oh, I don't go for
to say as 'twas your husband, but it's a warning, it might well have
been. So give him up, m'lady, give this other up."

There was no reply at first. But presently the words came in a rush:

"Yes, I'm taking him away to-night--to-night. You'll never see or hear
of him again. But you'll tell no one, will you? If--if any one came
asking about him, you won't tell, Betsy?"

"Tell? Tell a thing like that? Wild 'orses couldn't drag it from my
mouth."

Half an hour later Kinloch was sheltering in the lee of a haystack in
the corner of a field. He had been hurried out of the house by the back
door; and they had scaled a fence and wormed a way through several
hedges to reach this shelter. Then before either had recovered breath
she had gone back to get the car, bring it round as quietly as possible
and pick him up.

Left to himself Kinloch made some of the hay into a little heap and sat
down against the rick to think things out. She had warned him that she
might not be able to come back for a long time. Who was this man who
had been seen nosing about on the common? Mrs. Spedding, to frighten
her, had suggested it might be the girl's husband. Well, it might be.
But on the whole the man was more likely to belong to the police.
Anyhow she might have to face this man, and even outwit him, before
she could get away with the car. Kinloch here considered a notion that
came suddenly to him. Why not go away alone? Walk clean out of the
business--and leave all trouble behind. His presence in that house had
put the girl into a horrible position with Mrs. Spedding, forcing her
to lie brazenly, and in the end forcing her to pretend to be in love
with him. With him! She said that unwillingly--he recalled her low,
halting murmur--and only when hard pressed by the necessities of the
situation. There simply was nothing else left for her to say. That,
and that alone, certainly was the only convincing reason, short of the
truth, which she could give for keeping a man hidden in that house.

Yet the curious thing was that, lie though he felt her pretence of
love to be, ever since he had heard her faltering admission to Mrs.
Spedding, he wanted to help her. Up till then he had fought her to find
out what he could--fought her not unfairly considering his handicap.
It had been a struggle between them, each wary of the other, fencing,
feinting, each alert, he for what he needed to know, and she determined
to conceal it. But now, as he sat there with his head leaning back
against the pungent hay, he was conscious of a complete change in his
attitude towards her. In the presence of this new danger he felt wholly
on her side. And the question arose in his mind as to whether the best
help he could give her would be to go away, to disappear before she
returned. Was not that, he asked himself, the decent thing to do? But
no sooner had he reached this conclusion than a doubt arose in his
mind. Would it be fair to go off and leave her uncertain as to why he
had gone and what he meant to do? He tried to imagine what her feeling
would be when she came back and found him gone. Would she feel relief
or fear? He could not decide. He did not know enough. Perhaps, if he
fell into the hands of the police, they could infer from whatever he
told them more than he meant them to know. He might blunder out some
damaging fact which he himself took to be quite innocent. He could not
tell. It depended on how much the police already knew.

That advertisement asking for information about Alexander David
Kinloch's whereabouts seemed to show they knew something about himself.
At least they seemed to know he could not read. And if it were known he
was blind how quickly they would get their hands on a blind stranger
found wandering about a neighbourhood which they were evidently then
searching. No; he must stay there till she came back. And having
reached this conclusion he was surprised to find himself rather glad.

Then in this moment of danger Kinloch's thoughts ran back once more to
the thing's beginning, and the tragic night when he had become involved
in the crime. The murdered man himself had no desire to be known, he
remembered. There was his delight, his unconcealed delight, on learning
that he had found a blind man who did not know who he was. Kinloch
smiled grimly. Too clever by half that man had been. The carefully
staged trap, and all his neat pre-arrangements to frighten his visitor,
had only served to make the assassin's job easier. Probably the deed
would not be discovered for hours afterwards. For the victim who, like
the murderer, had laid his plans so carefully, would have seen to it
that there was no likelihood of any intrusion into that room by any
member of his own household.

But some one must open that door sooner or later. The speculation as
to who it would be somehow fascinated Kinloch. In the end he decided
it would be a housemaid, a sleepy housemaid, early next morning. He
pictured her opening the door, pulling up the blinds with a yawn, and
turning broom in hand to begin her work. And then he could see the
wild-eyed horror come suddenly to her face, and the stupid stare,
before she began to scream, when she saw what lay there on the floor.




                                BOOK II

                NARRATIVE OF GODFREY CHANCE, JOURNALIST




                             CHAPTER VIII


At the time he was murdered Ponsonby Paget was one of the most
popular men in England. It is true he was eyed askance by some of his
colleagues in Fleet Street; but that was on personal grounds, and none
of them ever denied his journalistic genius. There were those indeed
who said he could interest any one in anything he chose to write about.
On matters affecting public morals he put into words what the plain man
felt but could not express, and he was a master of that piquant and
witty paragraph of society scandal which all women love. Where he got
his information none of us knew; but he was certainly familiar with the
private, and even secret, lives of the most distinguished people in
England.

With the masses he enjoyed a reputation second to none for blunt,
outspoken honesty. He never claimed to be spotless, but he never ceased
to proclaim that he was British; and the public, taking this to be
much the same thing, took Ponsonby Paget to its heart. On the platform
after he entered Parliament he was immense. His squat, full-bodied,
bull-necked figure topped by the blunt, rugged face made him so like an
incarnation of John Bull himself that his audience believed what he had
to say before he had time to say it. But trenchant orator as he was his
real forte was journalism. He wrote prose as brilliant as Macaulay's.
And it was in the _Eye Opener_, the weekly paper he owned and edited,
that his genius found its full vent.

The _Eye Opener_ has now passed into other hands, and like some of
those who were pilloried and exposed in its columns has changed its
name. Statesmen are no longer apprehensive, nor do, I imagine, Society
ladies tremble or gloat, as the case may be, while they turn its pages.
It is not what it was in the days of the Ponsonby Paget _régime_,
when I, an apprentice in journalism, carried it in my overcoat pocket
against my heart. In those days genius was stamped all over that
paper--even on the buff coloured cover. On the upper half of the cover
appeared the head and nude shoulders of a massive woman with a very
long neck and features of classic beauty. Her head was thrown proudly
back, the lips apart, and each eye was shut by a penny piece, twopence
being the price of the paper. I remember pointing out the symbolism of
these two pennies to Matheson, my chief on the _Record_, when, in my
early days on that journal, he caught me with the _Eye Opener_ on my
desk.

"For twopence she opens the eyes of the British public," I said.

I was a callow youth then, having lately left a country town for Fleet
Street, or I would have known better than to try to teach him anything.
Matheson sniggered as he eyed the female bust.

"It doesn't say how much it costs to shut her mouth. Probably that
price varies," he sneered.

I knew what he meant: that rich rogues who liked to pay the price could
escape exposure.

"Nothing can shut that mouth," I asserted hotly.

And now--the thought comes with sudden solemnity--something _has_ shut
it--Death! The great Ponsonby Paget is dead. White as alabaster and
incredibly still I saw him lying, murdered, in the police mortuary at
Ealing, with two penny pieces on his own eyes.

       *       *       *       *       *

As we viewed the body in the presence of the police that day, my
thoughts returned to the day on which I had first seen the man on whom
my eyes now rested for the last time.

My acquaintance with the late Mr. Ponsonby Paget had begun with a
contribution I sent to his paper. The subject matter of that article
was derived not from any gossip in the sub-editors' room, but through
my association with Francis McNab, the private enquiry agent, a man
of whom I shall have to speak presently. The _Eye Opener_ returned my
article; but instead of the usual rejection slip there came back with
it a personal note from the editor asking me to call and see him.

How vivid is my first personal impression of the man! After a few
enquiries into the sources of the information my article had contained,
and also as to my position on the _Record_, he talked on nothing but
literary style. He held out hopes of employing me provided I could
liven up my style. How I hung on his words! Hung on them like a new
gospel, as he paced that room, a stout, short-legged figure, more like
an English farmer talking on turnips than a master discoursing on
English prose.

"Above all," he said, "shun parenthetical clauses. The English don't
like them. The English are a blunt, straightforward people, and they
like language like themselves. There's always something Frenchified
about a parenthetical clause; it sounds as if you weren't quite sure;
and it seems to shilly-shally with the subject. And don't be afraid
of repeating yourself. It is necessary to repeat yourself. You can no
more get a point home to the British public by saying a thing once than
you can get a nail home by hitting it once. Besides, the English like
repetitions. They like repetitions for the same reason that they like
the big drum. The big drum is the only instrument in the band they
understand; it is the only instrument that keeps on saying the same
thing over and over again, and therefore it sounds in earnest."

And yet, looking back, I now recognize that with all his surface
simplicity and directness there was in Ponsonby Paget a subtlety and
adroitness equally exceptional, though less evident to a raw recruit
in journalism, as I then was. In the column of his paper headed _P. P.
Peeps_, which he himself wrote, things were said about distinguished
people, public men and society ladies, which no other paper would have
dared to print. Not because the things were false but rather because
they were true. For these things he was never prosecuted. Partly, no
doubt, he owed this liberty of speech to the place he occupied in the
nation's heart, and partly to his known skill with juries; but most of
all probably he owed his immunity from actions for slander to the fact
that no man in England could suggest so much in words so apparently
innocent.

Such was the man I found lying dead, that black January night, on
the study floor of his Ealing residence. Matheson had never viewed
my acquaintance with him with favour, had in fact warned me against
him; but Matheson owed it to me that his paper appeared with an
exclusive report of the tragic discovery. And it was one of the
biggest sensations the _Record_ ever created. How well I remember
lingering in the street to witness the sensation our news of his awful
death would create when the newsboys appeared with their papers and
placards. Weary, hungry, heavy with sleep after that terrible night's
experiences, I yet lingered on to hear the cry that would startle
London. My eager ear caught the yell they made afar off. Like a flood
they burst along the Strand, every one with a big armful of papers, and
this bill dangling against their legs:

                             DAILY RECORD

                                MURDER!

                            PONSONBY PAGET

                                MURDER!

As I turned away to seek my long overdue sleep I felt sure Mr. Ponsonby
Paget would have approved of that bill--had he himself, that is, not
been the subject of it. For there was in it not only the repetition
that he favoured but also that irresistible appeal to curiosity in
which he delighted. One, that is, had to buy the paper to know whether
Ponsonby Paget was criminal or victim, or even to be sure that the bill
was not an incitement to murder by our own paper. No doubt that bill
was the grim Matheson's own idea; but anyhow the matter behind it had
been provided by me. And it proved to be one of the finest selling
bills that has ever appeared on the streets of London.

       *       *       *       *       *

This is the story of how I came to be the discoverer of the crime.

About one o'clock on the day of his death, which was Monday, January
15th, Mr. Ponsonby Paget rang me up as I was going out for lunch:
could I, he enquired, dine with him at his house in Ealing that night?
The invitation sent a pleasant glow coursing through me; it marked
such a definite step forward in one's career to be taken up by a man
of his standing in the world of journalism. But my heart fell as I
recalled that I was booked for duty at the big political meeting in the
Albert Hall that night. When I explained this regretfully there was
what sounded like a muttered oath at the other end of the phone. This
startled me, for he was not given to swearing. Then his cheery laugh
came through.

"You're my second disappointment," he said.

"Sorry to be that," I rejoined, "but Matheson wouldn't let me off; so
it's useless asking him."

"Look here," he said briskly, "what time will you be free--by ten?"

I considered a moment. To come back to the office and turn in my copy
would not take half an hour. Before I could reply his voice came again,
rather eagerly:

"What I want to know is: can I rely on your being here by eleven?"

"Oh, certainly."

"You are absolutely sure?"

The emphasis he put into that question was startling and I replied with
becoming gravity.

"I'll let nothing stand in the way, Mr. Paget, you can depend on that."

"Good!" Then his cheery laugh came again. "Take the sack rather than
disappoint me. It is a big thing for you. Afraid you'll get no dinner,
though."

"Perhaps I may hope for a little supper," I suggested jocularly,
meaning to respond to his change of tone.

"Eh?"

I repeated the remark.

"Oh, well, a man on whom _I_ can rely may hope for more than
that--before long," he added significantly. And when the jar of his
receiver came through as he rang off, I felt like a man whose future is
assured.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the fog that led to his death. But for the fog Ponsonby Paget
would be alive to-day, for I should have reached Ealing in time to
save him. The fog came on about four o'clock, as night began to fall.
Matheson had sent me round to see Francis McNab about a promising crime
story I had reported from Bow Street in the forenoon. From the little
window in McNab's office, which was in the Adelphi, right on the top
of a lofty edifice overlooking the river, I watched the Surrey side
gradually being washed out as the fog crept up, like waves of smoke
rising out of the river. I watched it idly while waiting for McNab,
attaching no sinister importance to its coming, my thoughts for the
moment turning on the little man for whom I waited.

For some considerable time the _Record_ had specialized in the
treatment of crime; not, of course, pandering to depraved tastes for
the grotesque or the morbid, but, all the same, supplying matter
unobtainable through the ordinary channels. The paper had come into
touch with McNab rather curiously. At the time when the mysterious
Acton Green affair was creating such a splash in the press, McNab
sent us a letter propounding a theory on the crime so startling
and apparently far-fetched and incriminating that Matheson, as I
have heard, not trusting the wastepaper-basket, himself put the
communication, spitted on the end of the poker, into the fire. When,
however, subsequent events proved McNab right in regard to the high
placed criminal, Matheson grabbed the private detective as a special
contributor. He it was who over the _nom de plume_ of "The Lamplighter"
contributed those illuminating articles on current crime which were so
long a special feature in the _Record_.

Well, just as I was giving him up McNab came into the office. He was,
with his thin, clean-shaven face and thoughtful eyes, more like a
youngish doctor than a detective--except that there was nothing affable
about him.

"Hullo, Chance--business or pleasure?" he asked with a nod.

"Matheson's business: my pleasure," I returned. "Come over to the Blue
Bird and have tea."

"And pay half a crown for threepence worth of tea? No, no, laddie."

Then he struck a match and lit the gas ring upon which a kettle
stood ready prepared. This done he sat down astride a chair to read
Matheson's letter.

McNab was painfully Scotch. Matheson was Scotch too, but it flattered
him to be taken for an Englishman, which was the one thing I liked
about Matheson. McNab, however, was of the brand of Scotch labelled
extra special. His accent made his English sound like a foreign
tongue. Yet he was the only Scotchman I ever really liked, and the
only acquaintance I had who never made puns on my name. At first this
fact led me to infer he had no sense of humour. How well my mind goes
back to that afternoon in McNab's office: it was the calm before the
unsuspected storm.

"Business slack?" I enquired as he poured out the tea.

He sighed, nodding at Matheson's letter.

"So-so. A sort of haberdasher's time I'm having, big turnover but small
profit."

"Matheson says he's found out you had a university training and
took high distinction in logic at Aberdeen," I blurted out like an
interviewer.

He threw up his hands in protest.

"Heaven forbid--not Aberdeen! I resent the accusation."

Then I broached a matter that had puzzled me for some time.

"An English university man would never think of taking up your kind of
work, you know."

"Wouldn't he? Why not?"

"He'd have more--well, ambition."

"Ambition!" he cried. "Man, man, do ye not see the world is full of
men just _not_ good enough for their jobs? And what is responsible for
that? Ambition. Ambition pushed them on to take jobs just beyond their
powers. Whereas, if they'd been content with a job well inside their
capacity, they would be successful men. But no! Ambition is the itch
that spurs them on to make a hash of it."

"Then, Mac," I protested, "if these are your opinions why in the name
of Samuel Johnson didn't you stay on in Scotland?"

His dark eyes twinkled at me.

"Laddie, now you are making yoursel' more stupid than Nature intended
ye to be. Why didn't I stay in Scotland? ye ask. Well, in the first
place Scotland is an honest, law-abiding country; in the next place, in
England intelligent competition is less severe."

He handed me over the biscuit tin, leaving me doubtful as to how much
of all this was seriously meant.

When we had finished tea, and cigarettes were produced, I sprang the
surprise on him which I had kept to the last.

"Mac, I mentioned your name in a letter to my people the other day, and
I hear my maternal grandmother was Scotch."

"Not so bad. But it's highly diluted."

"What?"

"The Scots blood that's in you; it will be swamped, I doubt, or will
only show in exceptional moments."

"I'm told she had red hair, and came from Aberdeen."

"From Aberdeen? That alters the case. They're all made of granite up
there, like their city. So I'll not deny that the Aberdeen fluid isn't
the better of a strong dilution. It needs a large infusion of the soft
English blood to give it a touch of humanity."

That is the kind of man he was. One could rarely be sure whether he
was serious, although he always looked so. But as I took leave of him
later, thinking on this, I little thought of the seriousness of what
then lay so close ahead.

       *       *       *       *       *

After my duty in connection with the Foreign Secretary's speech at the
Albert Hall was over I found myself with an ample margin of time to
reach Ealing before eleven. But I had no sooner put my nose outside
the door than I determined not to surrender control of my progress
to the district railway. The risk on such a night of a probable hold
up in some tunnel was too great. I therefore took a taxi--they were
having a pretty thin time of it that night. A taxi if slower and more
expensive was surer. Besides, I reckoned on getting clear of the fog
belt somewhere beyond Kensington.

At first our pace was no more than a crawl; but this I had expected,
and it caused me no uneasiness since my driver asserted he was so
familiar with the route that he could travel to Ealing blindfolded.

There is this to be said for the man; he ran into nothing, nor did he
once touch either kerb or refuge. Indeed, to me it seemed miraculous
how he divined his track to an inch merely by the dim glow overhead
that marked the position of the invisible lamp-posts. When, however, my
watch showed 10.15 uneasiness began, for we had not yet passed beyond
the fog radius. In a few minutes more the brakes jarred, and as the
cab came to a halt the figure of a policeman loomed up alongside. My
heart sank as I saw his uselessly extended arm giving directions to
my driver. Hastily lowering the window I heard him speak of taking
the third on the right and the second on the left: we had crossed the
direct road a couple of miles back!

I am not going to give the history of our further wanderings that
night. Heaven knows where we went; but at no time did we get free of
the fog. In the end we found ourselves in Ealing before knowing we were
near it; and I left the cab and, on the plea that it was a matter of
life and death, got a policeman to take me up to Mr. Ponsonby Paget's
house in Tookworth Avenue.

When he left me to return to another section of his beat I stole a look
at my watch. For a long time, sitting in that wandering vehicle, I had
not dared to look at it. It was almost one o'clock. I pulled up in the
drive to consider what to do. The large house I dimly discerned ahead
stood eerie and ghost-like in that veil of mist, without a lighted
window.

Was it worth while, I asked myself, to go on? To decide the question I
determined to walk round the house and see if any window behind showed
a light. It would be something, at least, to prove to Mr. Ponsonby
Paget that I had done my best to keep my word to him. Scouting about,
I came on a bricked path, circling in among shrubbery, and taking
this, found that it led me on to the lawn fronting the house. Crossing
the lawn I turned the corner at the far end, and at once saw light
streaming out from the windows of what appeared to be a one-storied
addition to the main building. There was no door that I could see,
but the brick pathway took me right up to the single step that gave
entrance to the room by means of a French window. This window was
slightly ajar.

After waiting a moment I tapped on the glass.

Possibly the noise I made was much less than it sounded in my nervously
sensitive ears. The place was so weirdly still. Even the fog itself
seemed petrified, standing thick and heavy, so that it needed a mental
effort to thrust one's hand through it. Anyhow, when no response came
I could not bring myself to repeat the knock. Instead I stood up on
the step and tried to peer into the room. Immediately inside there
appeared to be a dark curtained-off recess; but, as the curtains did
not quite meet, the opening between them permitted a diagonal view
into the interior beyond. I could see the soft glow of a fire showing
above the back of an intervening lounge chair; but the room seemed
unoccupied. Possibly, I thought, my host had fallen asleep in that
huge chair beside that fire. After debating what course to pursue I
tapped on the glass again, more loudly. The hollow, glassy rattle
seemed to reverberate suddenly at my back. No doubt the illusion was
caused by some high parallel wall behind me, invisible in such a
night; but, coming from behind like that, the echo so startled me that
involuntarily I pushed the glass door open, and stepped just inside the
room.

My first glance showed me there was something wrong.

There had been a struggle in that room. One of the heavy curtains
had, I now saw, been half torn from its suspension; a table inside
the recess lay overturned, with a draught screen toppled against its
upraised legs. The room itself was in great disorder, a jumble of
displaced furniture, some chairs broken, with white shattered fractures
showing oddly, and almost everything in disarray, or standing at
unwonted angles. Somehow it was horrible to view all that evidence of
violent motion in its present almost frozen stillness. Only one thing
appeared to be in its normal place--the massive oak table, covered
with books and writing materials, which stood opposite the fire. As I
regarded it in wonder a sudden crackle came from the fire, and a flurry
of gassy flame lighted up the shadowed end of the long table. Then
something else caught my eye, something that protruded beyond the far
end of that table--a human foot. Yes, a human foot, with the firelight
now flickering brightly on the patent leather of the upraised toe.




                              CHAPTER IX


How long I stared at that shoe I cannot tell. I must have been waiting
in the hope of seeing it move. There were moments when I could have
sworn it did move. It must have been an illusion, created by the spurts
of firelight playing intermittently on the polished toe as the fire
began to break through. Emboldened by the illusion of movement, I crept
round the other side of the table and found--well, instant proof that
the foot had not moved, that it would never move again.

The body lying there on its back, one foot doubled awkwardly
underneath, and with the arms extended, palms upward, was that of Mr.
Ponsonby Paget. On his white pleated shirt front there was a dark red
circle, and on the grey, thick-pile, Indian carpet, a puddle of crimson.

It was quite clear to me he was dead. I had attended police courts
and inquests too often, and heard too much about the symptoms and
appearances of death not to be assured of that. And the moment I was
assured of his death I started off to rouse the house.

Once outside the room I found the house in total darkness, and in haste
went blundering and fumbling about, seeking the back stairs to find the
servants' quarters. For though I knew Ponsonby Paget to be a widower
I was unaware of what relatives might form his household, and judged
it safer first to establish contact with some domestic. As it happened
the servants found me rather than I them; for as I stumbled up the
service stairs, a man in shirt and trousers, holding a candle in one
hand and a poker in the other, appeared at the top.

"What do you want?" he cried shakily.

"Hush," I motioned to him. "My name is Chance. Come and show me where
the telephone is--something's happened."

As he stared down at me uncertainly some figures in white appeared
behind him, huddled together with scared faces.

"Come at once," I urged.

"Are you the gentleman Mr. Paget was expecting?" he asked.

"Yes." Then to reassure him I added, "You were to give me supper."

"That's right, sir; it's laid in the morning-room now," he said, as if
I had merely mounted there to ask about it.

"Oh, you fool, send those women back to bed and come at once."

But he was all right by the time I got him down. Indeed, from the
manner in which he surmounted the shock of finding his master dead, he
was either a man of good nerve or had small affection for the deceased.
With some relief I learned from him that Mr. Paget had no relatives
in the house. My first act was to ring up the local police, which did
not take long, and my second was to get on to the _Record_ with the
news, asking them to keep space for further particulars. One is not a
good journalist for nothing. While I waited for the police I wrote
furiously, knowing that already in the office they would be hunting out
the obituary and the stock half-tone block of the murdered man.

The weather conditions did not delay the arrival of the local police.
First one came in, off his beat apparently, and he took over charge of
the room. On his heels came an inspector and two others, accompanied
by a doctor. To the inspector I presented my card and told my story.
But all on edge though I was to get away to my paper, he refused
permission. Indeed, he seated me in a chair against the wall, with one
of his men pretty well standing over me, while the doctor examined the
body.

I could hear them talking together, but did not catch what passed. When
the medical man came across and had a look at my coat sleeves he shook
his head to the inspector after giving me a grim smile of apology.

"Must have been drenched," he said, turning to the inspector. "I'll
tell you this, Green, the hand that sent that knife to the heart was
expert--accustomed to the use of it. He struck upwards, not downward as
is the natural inclination."

The inspector was nosing about among the _débris_ of furniture, clearly
looking for some signs of the murderer's presence. Nothing was being
disturbed I saw; he used his eyes only, while the rest of us watched.
In a very short time we saw him stoop swiftly and fish out something
from beneath the overturned screen. I could see it was a light-coloured
walking-stick, and after examining it thoughtfully for a moment he came
across to us.

"This seems out of place in a study," he said. "I wonder if--" He
checked himself and said, "Dr. Dunn, how tall was the man who used this
stick?"

The doctor took the thing in his hand. All at once he started rather
violently.

"My God!" he whispered.

"What?" the officer said in surprise. "What is it?"

"Oh, I see what you mean," the doctor stammered hurriedly. "You think
this may have been left by the criminal?"

The other nodded.

"Must have been at least six feet to use a stick of that length
comfortably."

"At least," agreed the doctor rather eagerly, trying it at his side,
"if not a bit over."

How impatiently I listened as they talked on. Would they never let me
go! The provincial editions, and the home editions of my paper were
already out. My only hope now was for the 3 a.m. London edition. That I
must catch.

At last, when I had reached despair, the inspector, after taking
counsel with his chief on the phone, and then verifying my identity
by referring to the _Record_ office, let me go. But in the police car
only. And it was still early morning when they set me down at the
office.

I found myself almost famous, the printers on tiptoe for my copy.
And when my job was completed the saturnine Matheson informed me
that Babbington would want to see me later. Lord Babbington was the
proprietor of the _Record_, and seeing the surprise on my face Matheson
grunted.

"It is not often that keeping doubtful company leads to so great a
distinction," he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

It seemed to me I had not been ten minutes in bed that same morning
when there came a furious knocking at the door. A note was slipped in,
and on tumbling half awake out of bed I found it directed me to go at
once to Ealing to assist McNab, who had been sent there to investigate
on the paper's behalf. As I dressed, the clearness of the day outside
made me look at my watch: it was close on noon. I had slept for nearly
five hours, and the fog had gone. It was only then that I had time to
think of poor Ponsonby Paget as a human being whom I had known and
liked, and not as a sensational case which I had to report. But I can
say that I thought of him with a personal sorrow all the way to his
house.

There was little difficulty in knowing which that was once I reached
Tookworth Avenue. A constable stood at the gate to prevent the scores
of curious sightseers from entering the grounds. I observed, too, that
a rope across the drive now prevented any one from entering that way.
This was a precaution that appeared to fascinate the onlookers, for
they craned their necks and pointed at the drive beyond the rope. But
nothing was on the path except the wheel tracks and footprints of many
who had come and gone before the rope had been placed there to stop
them. On the lawn press photographers were mighty busy getting the
deceased's residence from every sort of angle. My friend, the Ealing
inspector, I found inside the hall, reduced now to little more than
doorkeeper since the arrival of the big men from New Scotland Yard. He
nodded to the officer to let me enter.

"Inspector Snargrove wishes to see you," he said, beckoning. "Come this
way."

Snargrove I knew by repute. So far I had been too busy with the fact
of the murder to theorize on its motive. But I had taken it almost for
granted that it was the work of some burglar, or prowling vagabond,
who, like myself, had come on the unlatched window. To hear, however,
that the local police had called the Yard in at once dispelled the
notion that this was a case without complexity.

The Ealing inspector tapped softly, as if at a sick room door, and
popping his head in to announce me stood aside.

Inspector Snargrove, a magnifying glass at his eye, was on his knees
closely examining the wall opposite the fireplace. As a greeting he
waved me to one side without speaking. Another man stood with his back
to the fire, close to McNab, who was seated. Except that the body had
been removed the room appeared to be untouched since I first entered
it. Neither McNab nor the thin man with the sharp ascetic face of a
priest took any notice of me, both being intent on Snargrove. So I also
turned to watch him.

The detective was peering at certain dark spots showing on the plain,
grey wall-paper, about three feet from the floor. There was a series of
these spots, disposed irregularly in sets of three, close together, the
one in the centre slightly higher than the other two beside it. Each
set was separated from the next by about two feet. The spots varied in
density, those nearer the inner door being fainter.

Before I had ceased to wonder Snargrove pocketed his lens, rose to his
feet and came across. He was a burly man with a drooping moustache, was
rather high in colour, and had eyes of the cold grey-blue so frequent
in men of his complexion.

"I think," he said as he took a chair, "we are now able to put a few
questions, a few intelligent questions, to our young friend."

The man with the thin-lipped, priest-like face sat down also. McNab
motioned me to a small chair next his own. Snargrove turned towards me
pleasantly, producing from his pocket the report I had intended for the
_Record_.

"Your notes have been very useful, Mr. Chance, very useful so far as
they go. Still, from my point of view, they leave several details
uncertain."

"All I know is at your disposal."

"Good." He waved his powerful hand. "Mr. Freely's affair."

The thin-lipped man referred to nodded curtly. His questions were quick
and snappy. One somehow had to be quick in reply. Snargrove gave one
time to think, but Freely didn't.

"Mr. Paget expected you last night?"

"Yes, he had asked me to dine with him."

"What hour was fixed?"

"Eleven."

Mr. Freely lifted his eyebrows. It was as if he meant to disconcert me.
I recounted the telephone talk I had held with the dead man.

"He was anxious to have you here?"

"Oh, yes."

"Hm, how are you so certain of that?"

"Well, I remember he swore to himself, quite softly, when he thought I
couldn't come. And I never heard him use an oath in any circumstances
before."

"He was agitated?"

"Very much."

"Did you gather there were to be any others present?"

"He mentioned none, and I certainly expected to find him alone."

"Mr. Chance, if a decanter of whisky and two glasses were set out on
this table, would you take it that one of the glasses was meant for
your use?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Mr. Paget was aware of my habits. When I first went to his club he
pressed a drink on me."

"And he never did so again?"

"Never. He was a man who remembered little things very well."

"You reached here about one, the officer says?"

"Three minutes past by my watch."

"You were so anxious to see Mr. Paget that you entered even at that
hour? What made _you_ so determined to see him?"

"I debated the question of entering with myself when I got here, and
finally walked round the house to see if any room showed a light. I was
anxious to show Mr. Ponsonby Paget that I had not failed him without an
effort."

Mr. Freely came over to me.

"Hold up your left hand," he said, fingering in his pocket.

When I held up my hand half resentfully he examined it closely through
the lens he had brought out. It struck me as stupid to look at my hands
after all the time that had elapsed.

"Thank you. Now tell us what first attracted your notice when you
entered the room."

"The torn curtain and the overturned chairs. Then I saw a foot
projecting from behind the table."

"It frightened you, and you gripped the table?"

"Startled me, not frightened; I saw the foot before reaching the table."

"You are mistaken, Mr. Chance. You did not see the foot till you stood
at the table. Although the room was lit the body lay in the shadow at
the far end of the table."

"I do not recall gripping the table, though."

Mr. Freely smiled.

"Don't be so eager to deny that. It is a fact which serves to clear you
of any complicity in the crime. Look here."

He led me to the farther side of the big table, and, removing a
newspaper, revealed four chalk marks on the outer edge of the polished
wood.

"These are the four fingers of your left hand. The thumb is underneath.
Excellent impressions they are, just because you gripped hard, and your
hand became suddenly clammy. The man who made that impression came
on an unexpected sight, in fact he broke into a cold sweat. Compare
the whorl in the middle finger and the lines making a half circle as
if to avoid contact with the double transverse line behind the first
joint--they are your marks."

Freely was certainly right, as I had to admit on making the comparison;
but I had no recollection of ever having gripped that table.

"We had a reason for demonstrating this to you, Mr. Chance. Your
profession, with its acquired habit for observation, makes you a more
reliable source of evidence than we usually get, but not--er--as you
see--infallible. Be careful about the answer to my next question."

He paused for my nod of assent.

"James Brown, the butler, says the key of that door always remains in
the lock inside. When you left the room to summon help was that door
locked or not?"

It was humiliating to me not to remember, but I did not, and, after a
pause, said so.

"A pity," Freely commented, "but quite natural while the one thought of
getting help occupied your mind. However, here is something easier." He
stepped over to the table, lifted from it the walking-stick I had seen
the Ealing inspector find beneath the screen, and held it out. "Is this
your stick by any chance?"

"No, I never use a stick."

"Look at it. Have you seen it before, with Mr. Paget for instance?"

It was a long stout oak stick of the ordinary kind, with a plain rather
grimy handle.

"Never. It would be too long for Mr. Paget," I remarked, "and not half
smart enough."

"Capital! That corroborates the butler, who scoffs at the idea of his
master possessing such an article. It was almost certainly left by the
criminal."

Mr. Freely's satisfaction was very manifest, and Snargrove nodded
agreement. While he replaced it a knock came at the door, and an
officer entered carefully carrying a square of white paper on the palm
of his hand. Freely directed him to put the paper on the table. From
the five smudges I could see on its upper surface I divined they were
imprints of the dead man's fingers.

"Better settle this at once, eh, Snargrove?"

For answer to his confrère's question the inspector rose and approached
the table. McNab remained where he was, elbows on knees, his face
between his hands and his brow furrowed, obviously lost in thought.
More than interested in the proceedings, I took up a position on the
side of the table opposite the two Scotland Yard experts. When one is a
journalist one becomes hardened to possible rebuffs. But they did not
seem to mind my watching them at all.

It was now that I observed on the table an array of articles which my
experience in the law courts told me the police called "exhibits." A
queer lot they were to be brought into connection with each other! At
the far end of the row was an overcoat with fur collar and cuffs; next
to it a pair of dress shoes, followed by a little heap of broken glass,
a plain envelope, a decanter half full of what looked like whisky, then
a wedge-shaped splinter from what seemed a hand mirror, and, last in
the row, the stout oak stick already mentioned.

The two Yard men began on the little heap of glass. With a pair of
forceps Freely lifted and set out each piece into one or two separate
places, and when he had finished I saw they now formed the remains of
two tumblers. Snargrove, watching, took a small box from his pocket.
But Freely upon reconsideration shuffled one or two pieces from the
remains of one tumbler to the other heap. Then the inspector dusted
the whole with grey powder from his box. Waiting a minute or so Freely
began to go over the powdered surface, delicately, with a soft brush.
The result amazed me. It was like watching a photographic plate being
developed, for finger-prints came up on the glass as if by magic.

"Got him!" Snargrove murmured. "Got him: this is the glass he used."

Freely stood up and, after a glance at the paper with the dead man's
imprints in black, nodded assent. I could see myself those fingers on
the glass were different, even in size. They left untouched the other
glass, which had evidently been Mr. Ponsonby Paget's.

But it was a disappointment when they returned to their seats, for I
was curious about the other "exhibits," especially so in regard to what
the envelope contained.

"We are now almost in a position to reconstruct the crime," said
Snargrove, settling himself comfortably. "Call James Brown, the butler.
I've one or two supplementary questions yet to put."

The butler seemed a trifle nervous with his hands as he entered. In
the excitement of our first meeting I had scarcely looked at him.
But I took note of him now as he stood in front of Snargrove. He was
in the early fifties, stoutish, puffy under the eyes and with the
smooth mask-like face peculiar to his calling. There was no hint of
nervousness, though, in the bow he made to the inspector.

"You have said you admitted no visitors to this room last night?"
Snargrove began.

"Yes, sir, that is so."

"Did Mr. Paget ever have visitors you had not admitted?"

"Frequently."

"Late at night?"

"More often than not, sir."

"You could hear their voices?"

"When I went round locking up, or as happened sometimes when the bell
rang for me to serve refreshments."

"Did you ever happen to hear a woman's voice?"

"Oh, yes, sir, quite often."

Snargrove nodded.

"Of what class were these ladies?" he next enquired. And as the butler
hesitated he added quickly, "Come, a man in your position must know how
to 'place' people by their appearance or their voices."

"Well, they were of all classes, from ladies' maids to--well, to the
lady herself, as you might say."

"And did you ever form any notion as to their business and why they
came so late?"

Brown moved uncomfortably for a moment.

"Well, sir, it was generally understood--in the Room I mean--that they
came on business connected with the paper, and so naturally they did
not wish to be seen."

At this reply I saw McNab glance swiftly up at Brown's face. He too, I
know, was asking himself if this mask-like butler was capable of the
irony his answer implied. Snargrove also caught at the word.

"Naturally, you say. Do you mean they came to supply Mr. Paget with
gossip for the _Eye Opener_?"

But Brown was not to be drawn. The flicker of light died from his eyes
and like a man who had said more than he had intended his face became
wooden again.

"That I don't know; I never heard they did, sir."

Snargrove gave a laugh--to my ear of bluff carelessness.

"And how about the men who came, Mr. Brown?"

"There never were any, leastways so late as that."

"So if a man was here about midnight last night you would regard it as
exceptional?"

"Indeed yes, sir, very exceptional indeed."

"Thank you, that will do."

"And now," Snargrove said when the door closed softly behind the
butler, "we can proceed to the reconstruction."

To me there was something appalling in the cold, slow, unruffled
deliberation of these men. For all they knew the murderer might with
every minute that passed be putting another mile between himself and
pursuit. Yet here they were, slowly and methodically thinking it out;
and, to judge from McNab's attitude, they might have been at it for
hours. All the same at Snargrove's words McNab looked up alertly.

"Go on, inspector," he said.




                               CHAPTER X


Inspector Snargrove began his reconstruction of the murder in a quiet,
even tone.

"Last night," he said, "Mr. Ponsonby Paget sat where I am now. He was
expecting some one who did not come. That person was not Mr. Chance.
The deceased, knowing his abstemious habits, would not have got a
glass ready for Mr. Chance's use, nor would he, as James Brown, the
butler, has said he did, have directed the decanter to be refilled.
Mr. Paget became very uneasy as time passed and his expected visitor
did not arrive. He opened the French window leading into the garden.
Why? Not perhaps to look for his visitor there, but because from there
he could most quickly and conveniently see if the fog still held. He
wondered if the person had been delayed by, or gone astray in, that
fog. Therefore that person was neither a neighbour nor, probably, one
familiar with the neighbourhood, but one who had to travel some quite
considerable distance. It may or may not be symptomatic of Mr. Paget's
nervous condition that he left the window unbolted. But his uneasiness
assuredly went on increasing as the night passed. He left the house by
the front door, and walked for some considerable time, presumably in an
attempt to find the person who he must have concluded had lost his way.
That he did this on the smallest chance of lighting on him reveals the
anxiety he now felt. He returned alone, re-entering by the front door."

At my exclamation of surprise McNab touched me.

"Hush!"

But Snargrove was quite mild about it.

"The overcoat he wore is kept in the cloak-room beside the front door,
Mr. Chance. The coat is still damp. Soaked fur retains moisture a long
time, especially in muggy weather, such as has prevailed, if _well_
soaked. So he was out some considerable time."

"He was a considerable time in town yesterday," I said dryly.

"Not wearing this coat, Brown asserts. Besides, there's the grit and
mud on his dress shoes, and these he certainly did not wear in town."

After that crushing retort I kept a respectful silence.

"He returned alone," Snargrove resumed, in his former dreamy tones,
like a man retelling something seen in vision, "replacing the coat in
the cupboard where we found it. Why do I say alone?" Snargrove paused
with his eyes on me. "Because of what that decanter tells me. When I
cross-question it, at first its testimony seems to say he did _not_
return alone. But a little careful questioning gives us the truth.
Its measured capacity is one quart, and it was filled to capacity by
the butler after dinner last night. Now one pint two ounces are gone.
Who consumed that amount? We have the broken pieces of two glasses,
both of which were used last night. But note this: that used by the
criminal has but one set of clearly defined traces of the right hand
finger-prints. That is, it was but _once_ used, and its capacity is a
half-pint."

Snargrove's eyes glittered brightly as he looked round his audience. He
pointed to the second broken glass, the fragments of which Freely had
not brushed.

"I am going to say that if the finger-prints on that glass, the glass
used by the dead man, were exposed, they would show that the glass had
been used more than once."

Freely, rising hurriedly, produced his powder and the little brush, and
set to work on the glass.

"Assume that is so till we know," the inspector continued, "the
inference will follow that the two parties who used these glasses used
them at different times. Notice this well! This stranger took his
whisky in one gulp. Does a guest do that? I think not. Neither, on the
other hand, does a host go on helping himself while his guest's glass
is empty. And if I am right about his glass that is what Mr. Paget
did--if the two men drank together."

"You're right, Snargrove," Freely announced. "He took up and put down
this glass five times at least."

Snargrove waved a hand.

"That settles it: the man who used the other glass is the man who _had
already_ killed Ponsonby Paget, and he used the glass put there for
some one else _who never came_."

All this close reasoning was startlingly impressive and convincing to
the mind. The detective inspector drew a deep breath through his teeth.

"And now," he said grimly, "let us have a look at the murderer."

Freely returned to his seat. As for me, I hung on Snargrove's words,
startled by his tone of certainty.

"He crept in by the French window while his victim sat where I now sit,
with his back to that window. Mr. Paget had given up all expectation
by this time, and sat low down in his chair so that he was hidden
from the man who examined the room from behind the curtains. This man
was tall and dark, well under middle age, of exceptionally powerful
build, but lame. After a glance around the room he concluded from
seeing the lights left on that it had been only temporarily vacated.
He must therefore be quick and take what lay to his hand. He had just
emerged from behind the curtain when Mr. Paget rose from his chair
and approached the table to replenish his empty glass. The stopper
found lying on the table beside the decanter tells its own tale. It
tells us that at the precise moment he was about to lift the decanter
he heard a noise, probably the intruder's awkward attempt at stepping
backwards behind the curtain. Thinking it might be the delayed guest,
or Mr. Chance here, Mr. Paget hurried to the alcove. The intruder could
not get away in time, and his lameness made it certain he could not
finally get away at all. Mr. Paget seized him; there was a struggle,
the curtain was torn, and the small table and the draught screen were
overturned. Mr. Paget raised an outcry and held on. Though a foot
shorter, his weight, and the other's lameness, enabled him to hold his
own. The struggle carried round the room. In the end youth told, and
the older man, in the act of being thrown, clutched desperately at
the other's hair. Only then did the murderer draw his knife. He was a
man who knew how to use a knife. But before he could use it Mr. Paget
saw what was coming and, dropping his hold, started back, stumbled,
fell here." Snargrove moved across to a spot on the carpet on which
a little circle of chalk was drawn, and indicated the spot with his
foot. "He was trying, you can see, to put the big table between them.
He was too late."

The inspector stepped to the place marked by the dark crimson stain.
For a moment he stood regarding that stain. Then approaching the table
with the exhibits he picked up the envelope. From it he very carefully
shook a few strands of dark hair into his palm, and as he looked at
them said:

"Freely, he was not one of your chronics. The habitual criminal whose
outfit includes a weapon, carries a revolver, not a knife of the sort
used here. Your type of criminal has a prejudice against the sight of
blood; and in addition he knows all about finger-prints. But this man,
though unaware of the danger of finger-prints, was a fellow used to the
sight of red. He was probably a soldier, an ex-service man, to judge
by the length of this hair. A bit of a fop too"--Snargrove touched
the splinter of the mirror--"young men carry that sort of thing now.
Ten years ago that would have meant a woman in the case!" He laughed
shortly. "This chap whipped it out to see if his face had got--well,
splashed. The glass had got cracked in the struggle and this splinter
dropped out. Something scared him then. Probably some noise, real or
imaginary, for he left in a mighty hurry, before he had time to recover
his stick, which was only out of sight under the overturned draught
screen, at the spot where he was seized by the murdered man."

Inspector Snargrove, his eyes brightening, nodded satisfaction.

"Yes, it ought not to be a long hunt, Freely. A regular amateur in
crime, though not in killing, this fellow. Why, look at that"--he
wheeled round dramatically, pointing to the smears on the wall
opposite--"who but an amateur would think of wiping his fingers on
the wall! In the whole of my experience I never saw anything like
it--never."

At this juncture McNab looked up, and, nursing his left knee in his
clasped fingers, nodded his agreement.

"Nor have I. That's what makes me wonder." He whistled meditatively for
a moment. "But, after all, these smears tell you little."

We were all now looking across at the marks on the wall.

"Yes," Snargrove agreed, "that is so. The dragging of the fingers
downward, and the rough canvas surface, destroyed the finger-prints, if
that is what you mean."

"Partly," McNab rejoined. His eyes narrowed. "You say he was a tall
man. If so he must have gone on his knees to put those marks where they
are. He may have gone down to do that, of course, but it bothers me to
think why he took the unnecessary trouble. You say he was scared too.
There again I'm in a difficulty. The marks were made by the right hand
of a man going towards the door--those nearest the door being fainter.
But if he was scared by anything at all his natural impulse would make
him run for the exit, the window by which he had entered, which was
that French window at the other end of the room. But as a fact he made
for that door leading to the interior of the house."

"The scare possibly came from the garden," Snargrove said.

"Quite--if there was a scare at all. By the way, you have examined the
path for footprints?"

Snargrove smiled.

"We have not--it is only in works of fiction that criminals leave
footprints on a brick path."

McNab ignored the gibe.

"Suppose there was a scare, inspector, did the man take the whisky
before or after he had wiped his hands on the wall?"

Snargrove smiled still more indulgently.

"After, otherwise the glass would carry traces of blood. Wiping his
hands on the wall was sufficient to remove the stains at just the
points where the finger-tips made contact with the glass."

"Then if he stayed to drink the whisky he must have discovered his
scare to be a false alarm, and did not leave in such a hurry after all?"

Snargrove thoughtfully licked the end of his moustache in between his
teeth, and then frowned as if he did not like its taste.

"And yet," McNab continued, "he takes nothing, except the whisky--not
even his victim's watch and chain, which glittered in the light before
his eyes, ready to his hand!"

"He was an amateur in burglary but not in killing, as I read him,"
Snargrove said; adding significantly, "Like most amateurs he bungled."

"What's your theory?" Freely asked bluntly, turning to McNab.

"I've got none: it fair beats me," McNab admitted, "to account for
all the--the--phenomena." He turned to the inspector. "I'll allow,
Snargrove, that some of your inductions were masterly in certain
details, but in the total I find your reconstruction does not carry
complete conviction. There's that matter of the walking-stick for
example."

From the surprised look on Snargrove's face it was clear he plumed
himself on his deductions from the stick.

"Well, what about it?"

"You infer the murderer was lame because he used a stick. Put that
into logical form and see what happens: _All lame men are men who use
walking-sticks._ Is that what you say?"

The inspector after a moment nodded assent.

"That's about it."

"Very good. Here then we have a walking-stick. If the conclusion you
draw from it is sound, it should be capable of conversion into this
other complementary proposition: _All walking-sticks are things that
are used by lame men._ Which is a manifest absurdity, since many
who are not lame use walking-sticks. There's the fallacy for you,
arising from the fact that the predicate in your proposition is an
undistributed predicate. Therefore such a proposition can only convert
into this proposition: _Some walking-sticks are things used by lame
men._"

"Quite so, and I say this one was."

"But why? Just because you _want_ to believe it. I defy you to give any
reason in logic for that belief."

Snargrove, reddening at the gills, pursed out his lips.

"Logic! What is logic?" he asked contemptuously.

The retort that came must have been as little expected by him as it was
by me. Perhaps the previous sneer about bungling amateurs had stung
more than appeared at the moment.

"Logic," said McNab coldly, "is the science which teaches foolish men
a respect for truth not theirs by nature; it trains our ignorant minds
to take account of _all_ the facts, and not merely--like lawyers,
policemen and politicians--those facts which suit their case."

Snargrove went quite pale--more pale than Freely himself. But I will
say this for him--although he may have been a poorer logician, he had a
better control of his temper than McNab. McNab called logic a science,
but he was as touchy about it as if it had been a religion. Indeed to
him it was a religion. So in the silence that followed his rude retort
I made a mental note never to speak disrespectfully of logic in his
presence. And the next moment I was admiring the amazing way in which
discipline told on Inspector Snargrove.

"What are the facts to which you allude?" Snargrove asked calmly.

"Besides those I have already mentioned there's this. You say the
murder was not done by the man Ponsonby Paget waited for. He never
came, you say. Then, doubtless, a letter of apology or explanation has
come in. No? Odd, surely, one would have expected a letter of apology
or explanation by first post from a guest who had failed to turn up."

Freely looked over quickly.

"Oh, I don't know," he said pointedly, "bad manners are not so uncommon
as all that."

McNab smiled as he took the thrust.

"Sir," he said, turning to Snargrove, "for classifying you with
lawyers and politicians just now I apologize humbly."

"That's all right," the inspector said with brusque awkwardness. Then
turning to Freely he added, "We'd better be moving now."

McNab must have seen that he had mortally offended Inspector Snargrove,
and he stood up eagerly.

"Before you go, inspector, I beg you to consider one possibility
overlooked so far in this case. Was the light on or off when those
hands touched that wall? It's almost incredible the man knew of the
blood on his hands. If the light was off, was the man who left the
traces of his blood-stained hands on that wall not feeling for the
switch? He was going in its direction, crawling--he was _certainly_
crawling--along the wall, anxiously feeling for something. Why did
he crawl? Because the furniture was all scattered over the floor. He
was afraid of falling over something, and making more noise, or, more
likely, getting hurt. And, if he was in the dark, consider how that
fact explains more than the blood-stains. He did not see his hands, and
so of course did not observe what he was leaving on the wall-paper. But
this would explain, too, the fact that nothing was taken, or could be,
till he found the switch; and the darkness would also account for the
fact that he left his stick behind. The room was in _darkness_, man."

Snargrove laughed.

"That it wasn't. You are forgetting the mirror. He would hardly take
out a mirror in darkness. Besides, Mr. Chance found it lit up."

"Yes, but _not_ lit up by the man who crawled along the wall, and who,
as the marks show us, never reached the switch."

"I beg your pardon, you are--"

But McNab threw up his hands on recognizing that Snargrove's mind was
closed.

"Oh, man," he cried with a weary sigh, "do not bother to beg my pardon;
it would be more to the purpose if you didna beg the question."

And he turned his back on Snargrove.

The inspector wheeled round.

"You go your way, I go mine," he said challengingly. "We'll see who
lays him by the heels."

When we in turn left the room we found Freely trying for finger-prints
on the glass of the French window, and Snargrove himself busy inside
the roped off portion of the drive. That anything could be got there
seemed to me incredible. The footprints on the drive, which was spongy
after the days of soft rain and fog, were numberless. While McNab
watched I tried idly to pick out my own of the previous night, and soon
saw how impossible it was. So I turned to see if on McNab's face there
was reflected anything of the futility I felt Snargrove's examination
to be. But he was not looking at the inspector's broad bent back.
He seemed to be occupied in much the same way himself. I waited as
patiently as I could, till after a time he perhaps became conscious of
me as a disturbing presence and straightened himself.

"You needn't wait," he said. "I won't be coming yet. There's still
something I want to ask James Brown, the butler."




                              CHAPTER XI


On the following Wednesday, after returning to the office from the
inquest, which was adjourned for seven days at the request of the
police, Matheson asked me to go round to the Adelphi to remonstrate
with Francis McNab.

"He seems to have fallen out with Snargrove," Matheson said
disagreeably. "The _Record_ will suffer for it. This will never do.
Snargrove has turned uncommunicative."

He lifted a police bill with the usual heading, and handed it to me.

"Take that round to him; it is all Snargrove has seen fit to give us
about the case. Nothing more than is to be read on every hoarding. Show
him what he has done. And you can add that it will be difficult for
Lord Babbington to secure him special privileges for his work if he
becomes--er--_persona non grata_ with the authorities."

While Matheson was laying it off I read the bill:

    "WANTED. Young, dark, well-dressed man, about six feet in height
    and of strong build, but walks with a pronounced limp. Known to
    have been in Ealing on the night of Monday, January 15th. Any
    information should be sent to New Scotland Yard or to the nearest
    police station."

"McNab won't like this; it's contrary to his own theory," I said.

Matheson pricked up his ears.

"He has a theory, then? What is it?"

"He hasn't said."

"But he thinks Snargrove wrong?"

"Astray--like a lost sheep."

Matheson ruminated for a rather long time. I knew just what was passing
in his mind: he was thinking of the possibility of working up a stunt
on the Ponsonby Paget case, supposing the paper took a line at variance
with that taken by the authorities. In other words, he was thinking
that even if a break with the police were inevitable it needn't be
unprofitable.

"Tell him," Matheson said at last, "this paper will back him in any
reasonable line he cares to take."

"Against the police?" I asked.

"Against any one," he snapped.

I found McNab in his eyrie overlooking the river.

"Matheson says he'll back up any attack you make on our police
methods," I announced.

"Does he? Well, I'm not proposing to begin one. The police do their
best, and that more often than not is pretty good." He walked up and
down for a little. "A fine thing if I were to attack the police!"
Stopping, he eyed me quizzically. "Look here, you once asked me why I
took up this kind of work. The true answer is that it's in my blood--my
father was a policeman."

"Oh, I didn't know."

He nodded.

"Yes; though he ended a county inspector he was once a humble village
constable who did fine work in the matter of some Irish Fenians just
before I was born." McNab looked down thoughtfully. "Still, of course,
this Snargrove isn't the police; we must not commit the fallacy of
arguing from the particular to the general."

I seized the moment to produce the police bill.

"Matheson wants to know if you wish to write him anything on this," I
said.

He read it through, making a running commentary:

"'_Young, dark, well-dressed man_'--ay, all that's because his hair was
kept well brushed. They've had the microscope on it. At what age do men
cease to use a hairbrush?

"'_About six feet in height_'--that's an inference from the length of
the walking-stick.

"'_Walks with a marked limp_'--that's the stick again, a _non
sequitur_, I think." He looked up at me in disgust. "Man, the thing
fair reeks with fallacies." Then he thrust the bill back on me. "No,
tell Matheson I've nothing to say." And with that he bundled me with
the police bill outside.

       *       *       *       *       *

When, however, the day of the resumed inquest arrived I went round, at
Matheson's request, to see if McNab would accompany me to the court.
But he met me with a point-blank refusal.

"I've washed my hands of that case," he declared shortly.

"Well, of course, it is a rather difficult case," I admitted.

He met the remark with a snort.

"Matheson," I continued, "is keen about it. He will give you carte
blanche as regards expense, if you are sure you can make a big splash
of it on _Record_ lines. But he won't stand a penny piece, he says, if
all you can do is to say 'Amen' to what Snargrove says."

He wheeled round on me.

"Is that likely?"

"It's not what I gathered from what you said to him at Ealing. Still,
as you now refuse to get on with it I suppose, after deeper thought,
you've changed your mind."

"Look here, Chance," he cut in, "I'll at least go out with you to hear
the evidence offered at the inquest. It's just possible Snargrove may
have modified _his_ notions."

That was all I wanted.

We arrived at the court rather early, and to pass the time went into
the small ante-room in which the various exhibits connected with the
case were laid out on a table. While we were there Snargrove came in to
post a constable in charge of the productions. He affected not to see
McNab.

The little court was crowded to excess by the curious public. But,
after I had repeated my evidence as already recorded, I secured a place
at the press table. In the small gallery at the back of the hall I saw
McNab's intent face as Inspector Snargrove gave his evidence in the
presence of a hushed court. Before that evidence--unaltered in any
particular of vital importance--had closed, however, I was startled by
a change of countenance in McNab. Seen against the dark woodwork of the
gallery his face had previously looked pale, worn and harassed--the
face of a man disgusted and disagreeing with what he heard, yet unable
to say why--but now there was a complete change. His face, still pale,
had become--it is the only word--illuminated! His dark eyes shone
like lamps. Catching sight of me he rose, made a gesture towards the
door, and left his place. My heart began to thud. Something big had
happened. I got up from the table. There was no real need to wait for
the verdict, it would come through on the tape later. After Snargrove's
evidence the finding was a foregone conclusion--wilful murder by some
person or persons unknown. I hurried out.

McNab stood in the corridor waiting for me, with his eyes shining.
Seldom have I seen a man so eager. Beyond all doubt he had lighted on
something startling and unexpected. And knowing the kind of man he was
I felt certain it was no mare's nest but something that threw fresh
light on the perplexing case.

"Just let us have one more look at the exhibits," he said, taking my
arm.

We passed into the ante-room with a nod to the policeman guarding
the door. He gave little heed to us, for with outstretched neck and
awe-struck eyes he was trying to catch the evidence then being given by
the great detective from the Yard.

McNab almost pounced on the walking-stick, examining it all over, top
and bottom. It trembled in his hands.

"Ye heard me suggest the room was in darkness when those hands with
blood on them marked that wall?" he demanded, his voice vibrating in
suppressed excitement.

"Yes, I did. You were wrong, of course, for the room was brilliantly
lit when I entered."

He shook his head with decision.

"I was not wrong, lad. You see this stick? Examine it well and tell me
what you make of it."

I took the stick and examined it narrowly.

"Describe it," he ordered.

"It is a common, cheap, heavy, oak stick. Except that it must have been
used by a very tall man it is not different from others of its kind," I
said, wondering and mystified, for I had expected something big.

"There is a difference, though. Look! Hold it out straight as if you
were walking. Do you see the _sole_ of it bevelled towards what you
may call its heel? A stick you used would be bevelled slightly on the
side next your right leg. Because you are right-handed it would sooner
or later get worn down on the nearest side. Similarly in the case of a
left-handed man his stick would have a bevel towards his left leg. For
no man holds a walking-stick quite perpendicular; it is always closer
to his flank than to his boots."

"But this is neither," I interrupted, turning up the end. "It is worn,
very much worn, not at either side but right across the heel."

"Precisely. I said that man did his fell work in darkness. I was right.
He did. This stick proves that."

To me it seemed McNab had gone off his head, for all his assured tone.
I watched him anxiously as he stood eyeing the wretched stick, now in
his hands again. There was an expression of rapture on his face. In
fact, he looked like some professor reverently handling the body of
some vile but uncommon reptile. What to make of it I did not know.
It was one of those moments when thought is paralyzed. Some vague
remembrance of Moses and the rod that turned into a serpent came to me.
Then McNab looked up and began to talk just like a professor starting
to lecture.

"Here," he said, "we have a demonstration of the value of the logical
method. In spite of Inspector Snargrove's presentation of the case, and
in spite of your own confident evidence in support, I just could not
believe the room was lighted up when those marks were put on that wall.
No, that I could not believe. Such an act was devoid of sense. And all
actions have some sense traceable in them somewhere. So as a reward of
my fidelity I come on the amazing truth."

He was as maddening then as any long-winded, fossilized professor.

"Don't see how that stick can tell you anything," I said to hurry him
up.

"No? Well, it quite transforms the case. A queer man that! But the rope
is already as good as around his neck."

He replaced the stick on the table and, as it were, awoke from his
ecstasy.

"Must see Matheson at once," he said in a new tone. "Money will be
needed--lots of it. But, Lord, it will be worth it to his paper! This
is a case that will make a noise in the world, Chance."

He began to make for the door. I stopped him, eager enough now.

"Tell me more," I urged.

But he shook me off.

"You bat! You unbeliever! It's all before your eyes. If you can't see,
it will be a good discipline for you to wait."

Again I seized his coat. But he broke free.

"No, no! Matheson must be the first to hear of this."

Then he fairly ran for the door.




                              CHAPTER XII


But for the officer in charge of the exhibits I should have caught
McNab before he got down the steps. For I had no mind to undergo the
discipline of waiting to learn what the startling discovery was. The
tantalizing refusal to tell me I owed to the evidence I had just given,
which happened to support Snargrove's theory. But the policeman at
the door stopped me. Recalled to a sense of his duty, I dare say, by
McNab's dash past him, he became uneasy, and detained me till he had
counted and scrutinized all the exhibits. That needn't have taken very
long, but by the time he had finished scratching his head over them
McNab was beyond reach.

When I got to the office I heard McNab had been closeted with Matheson
for the last twenty minutes. That, I thought, settled my chance of
hearing more. Matheson would be sure to order McNab to say nothing. But
just as I was resigning myself to the situation the chief's phone rang
sharply, and the order came through to send me up the moment I came in.

When I entered it was to find Matheson at his table in the hunched up,
thoughtful attitude I knew so well. McNab on the hearth-rug, his story
apparently finished, stood fiddling with a cigarette. Matheson, unlike
McNab, cared nothing for the niceties of a criminal case, and McNab,
unlike Matheson, cared nothing as to whether or not a case would make a
rousing stunt for the paper. I knew therefore that I had been called
in not by McNab but by the chief, so that he might be sure the affair
was worth the _Record's_ money. And that told me two things. First, as
I already knew that Matheson wanted McNab to take up the case, I saw
that the case must have taken on an unexpected aspect; secondly, that
it seemed likely to cost more than Matheson bargained for.

But for a time neither of them even glanced at me. McNab, having
unloaded his mind, stood at his ease, breathing out a cloud of smoke,
and looking more than ever like a doctor who has completed the
successful diagnosis of some perplexing case. Matheson, though, seemed
doubtful. He twisted uneasily in his chair, looking down at the notes
he had evidently made of what the other had said.

"If one could only be sure."

"Sure of how much--all?" McNab enquired.

"Well, less would do. But some indubitable facts we must have." He
pondered heavily for a moment. "Perhaps if you were to recapitulate the
absolute certainties in the case it would help us to a decision."

I could see McNab stiffen as he listened.

"If you will only back a certainty," he said tartly, "you'd better drop
this and wait for the Derby."

It was good to hear some one speak like that to Matheson; but I thought
McNab rash if he wanted the paper to take up the affair. Yet Matheson,
fingering his notes, replied quite mildly:

"Didn't you say you were certain the police were on the wrong scent?"

"In my own mind; but there's nothing absolute in that."

Matheson grunted.

"Then just enumerate any other points on which in your own mind you are
equally certain." He glanced over at me to add in quite another tone:
"Attend, please; this is where you come in, Chance."

McNab threw his cigarette into the fire.

"First," he said, "it seems a certainty to me that Mr. Ponsonby
Paget that night expected a visitor whom for some reason he feared.
It is Snargrove's view that this visitor failed to come, and that
the deceased went out to look for him. But on the latter point the
balance of probability surely is that it was Chance for whom he scoured
the roads that night. For some reason unknown, Ponsonby Paget felt
compelled to face his visitor, otherwise he might have evaded the visit
by an absence from home. I regard his dread as proved by the anxiety he
showed to secure Chance's presence. Naturally, then, it was for Chance
he searched, for Chance who had never before been to the house, and who
might well, on such a night, be stumbling about in search of it.

"The next point is still more certain. Those two whisky glasses show
us that the host expected but one visitor. But the visitor did exactly
what Ponsonby Paget tried to do when he rang up Chance from his club:
he too arranged to have another person present. And he succeeded where
his host failed."

Matheson looked up.

"What reason have you for that conclusion?" he asked.

"The list of exhibits is before you. A blind man does not carry
a mirror. Neither did Mr. Ponsonby Paget. It follows that the
walking-stick and the mirror belonged to different persons. It is thus
established that two at least were concerned in the murder."

Here I felt bound to intervene.

"But," I burst in, "how do you know there was a blind man there at all?"

A smile flickered from McNab as he saw me agape with incredulity.

"That stick is a blind man's stick," he said. "It is worn away across
the heel, as you saw, just where he held it well out in front of him to
feel his way. If you doubt it, stop the first blind man you meet and
examine the end of his stick. Yet," he continued, "the walking-stick
alone might have told me nothing without those marks on the wall. Those
marks were, and are, simply inexplicable unless the man who made them
did not see what he was doing. Therefore, one of two things: either
the room was in darkness or he was blind. But you yourself, Chance,
asserted the room was not in darkness when you entered it a few moments
after the murder had been committed. Now--"

Again I had to cut in.

"Not so fast, McNab. You say I entered a few moments after the murder.
That is news to me."

"There are two facts that 'time' the deed. First, we must conclude that
it was at a late hour, long after you were expected, since the man
went out to look for you. That act implies a high degree of prolonged
nervous strain, for really it was long odds against finding you. The
man was fairly desperate before he went out. But better than that is
the witness of the fire. You said in your evidence before the coroner
to-day that you were startled by a sudden crackling from the fire
which then burst into flame, and revealed a foot lying where the table
had previously cast a shadow. That crackle of coal was significant. It
is only newly added coal, expanding with the heat, that crackles like
that. So unless we are to suppose that the murderer thoughtfully mended
the fire before leaving, that coal was added _before_ the murder was
committed."

This reasoning carried conviction. It staggered me to think I had been
so close to the criminal. But just as I found my voice Matheson cut in
impatiently.

"Let's get back to the blind man, if you please."

I knew what Matheson was nosing after: more sensational and exclusive
matter for the _Record_. McNab turned to him.

"Only two facts remain which I can regard as certainties," he said.
"The first is that the blind man is innocent."

With my eyes still on Matheson I saw, and understood, his
disappointment. Indeed, as a journalist I sympathized with him there.

                           THE EALING MURDER
                         HUNT FOR A BLIND MAN

What a provocative bill that would have made! And Matheson was good
at bills. When he had anything exclusive to put on them he did them
himself.

"Hm," he almost grunted, "let's hear why you so conclude."

"A review of the known facts forces me to it. First there's the medical
evidence. The job was so neat--one stroke under the fourth costal
rib. By a miracle a blind man might have been so neat. And miracles
sometimes happen. But remember the smashed and scattered furniture!
That took my eye the moment I entered the room. Had the dead man made
all the fight implied by that confusion? I asked myself. If so his body
would have borne the marks of it, and he would not have been knifed so
neatly by any one. Now, with a blind man present, I can account for
what I saw. Most of that confusion at all events could result from a
blind person's frantic blundering about in an unfamiliar room among
furniture he could not see. Further, those marks on the wall tell the
same tale--a frantic and useless effort to get away. But they got him
down at last. Yes, and took him away with them by force."

As McNab stopped speaking and began to pace the room with rising
excitement, I believe our presence was forgotten. His kindled
imagination was seeing the successive events that followed the murder.
But the practical Matheson drew him back to earth.

"By force," he said after a moment, "where is the evidence for that?"

McNab wheeled round impatiently.

"Lord, man, are you still forgetting that stick! Have you considered
what a walking-stick is to a blind man? It is what your eyes are to
you. No, take that as settled, he did not go willingly without his
stick. He was carried off by some one--oh, yes--by some one who may
very well have been unaware he was blind, and who supposed the blind
man would be certain to know him at sight."

"You mean he was an acquaintance?"

"I do not. For in that case he would have known he was blind."

Matheson sat up.

"So you mean the murderer was a person of distinction--a public man?"

McNab, I remember, did not reply. He stood gazing dumbly into vacancy
with his hands thrust deep in his pockets.

"There are things in the case I cannot fathom, though. Why didn't they
finish off the blind man when he was on the floor against the wall? He
was certainly not an accomplice. One cannot visualize any one bringing
a blind man as an assistant in murder. Therefore he was there by
accident. He stumbled in at the garden window--just as Chance himself
did later on--probably while the man was being murdered. There must
have been a cry, you know. Something that told him something untoward
was happening; and he went forward to help, fell, and got the man's
life blood on his hands. What happened when he felt the fluid was
_warm_? But, Lord, how he must have startled _them_! Ay, but what have
they done with him? Where is he _now_? That is the new mystery."

He withdrew his hands, and turning to us smote one fist on an extended
open palm with great violence.

"Matheson, the Acton Green affair was nothing to this."

"Oh, of course, in that affair it was only the social position of the
guilty man that attracted interest."

McNab nodded.

"And in this case we have that interest too, and others as well."

Matheson pricked up his ears. But I knew it was not because some one
had come knocking at the door. Several times in the last half-hour
people had knocked at that same door, and he had paid no heed. He said:

"I don't exactly see how the--er--social status of the guilty man is
evident in the present case."

McNab, pausing as he walked about the room, opened his eyes in surprise.

"No? Why, that to me is so palpable that I took it for granted. You
don't see it? Well, consider this. You know Ponsonby Paget and his
paper. The most popular man in England they called him. He was--with
the masses. But he had his enemies. Big ones! In his paper he shot only
at the biggest game--eh? The smaller fry were not worth his powder
and shot. Well, we needn't look in the East End, or even in Suburbia,
for the man who killed him. And he was sure the man who stumbled into
that room would recognize him. Och, I've no doubt you've published his
portrait in your own paper often enough."

Matheson's face lighted up.

"Go ahead, then. We'll be ready to insert his portrait again--when the
time comes. The _Daily Record_ is behind you," he said, rising. "In the
interests of Justice that man must be unmasked."

       *       *       *       *       *

And McNab at once began to set his machinery in motion. In the corridor
outside, where I waited for him after Matheson had dismissed me, he
gripped my arm.

"You are to work with me," he said. "I stipulated for that. But nobody
is to know," he added. "You're to act as go-between, you understand,
between me and the _Record_."

This was better than I had hoped.

"Right," I cried joyfully, shaking his hand.

"Here's your first duty, then. Find out if any report has recently
come in of a blind man missing from his home. Bring me round all
particulars."

"That won't take five minutes. If you wait--"

"No! That is the point. Not a soul must guess for whom the information
is wanted. And that's not all. Look out too for any item that may come
in reporting the finding of the body of some unknown man. And, if these
news items haven't already appeared, don't forget I want them before
publication."

The second request startled me. McNab had stirred the imagination by
his conjectures on the blind man's share in the tragedy. It had moved
me to think of that man stumbling innocently by the same entrance as
myself into that room and getting caught in the whirlpool of crime.

"You don't think--" I began.

But he cut me short.

"What I think will keep," he said. "You go and get me what I want to
know."

It took me longer than five minutes to get the information he desired
in the way he ordered. For I could see that if I had to go on repeating
the request for possible news of a missing blind man, or the discovery
of a body, questions would be asked which would be awkward to explain
away. The thing might even become a joke against me, and be bandied
about among the staff. So I had to think out a plan, and set it in
motion tactfully. But I did elicit the information that no such reports
had come in since the date I gave. About five o'clock I went round to
the Adelphi to tell McNab. He seemed to be working out notes on the
case, for his table was littered with foolscap, and I observed a piled
up quantity of the _Eye Opener_ on his left hand. He looked up eagerly.

"Nothing come in yet," I said. "Nobody missing, and no body found."

"Sit down."

"McNab, you don't really think they'll do away with this blind man now?"

A snort of indignation came.

"There's nobody, it seems, would miss him much. Queer that nobody's
asking for him. Does that tell you anything?"

"Possibly he got back to his home."

"And said nothing?"

"They'd have done him in before now, wouldn't they? Why haven't they
done it already?"

He turned on me.

"You offer a fine field for unprofitable speculation there. Why does a
parrot always eat from its left hand? The point is that they have not,
and as long as he remains alive he is likely to prove very useful to
us. For after all, Chance, there are not so many blind men in England,
and of homeless ones still less, thank God."

"You speculated long enough before Matheson."

He laid down his pencil.

"Now don't get huffy. I said unprofitable speculation. I'm ready enough
to speculate where I have data on which to work. On the question as to
why he wasn't finished off along with the old gentleman I have none."

He glanced at me quizzically.

"That doesn't content you?" he asked, feigning indignation.

"Well," I said, "it isn't true. You must have formed _some_ theory as
to why the man's life was spared that night."

"Half a dozen! Here's the best of them, and if you can choose between
them it's more than I can do," he cried in a sudden burst of impatient
disgust. "First, it's possible they turned squeamish, especially if
there was a woman in it. She would be for cajoling him into silence.
A woman's weapon is not violence but guile. Second, they may have
discovered he was blind after they got him down on the floor near the
door, and so knew he could not be sure as to what exactly had happened
in that room, or even, if he had lost his way and strayed in, in whose
house he was. Again, they could have no grudge against him, such as
had moved them to murder in the case of Ponsonby Paget. Thirdly, the
condition of the room points to the fact that at first the blind
stranger was attacked. That scrap of human hair, whoever it belongs
to, tells the same tale. Yet they evidently changed their minds about
him. Why? Chance, can you visualize that scene! Suppose you had strung
yourself up through black hate to the point of murder, and unexpectedly
found yourself, in the midst of your deed, confronted by a stranger.
The first instinct, with your weapon still in your hand and your blood
up, would be to attack him. But think! When you had him on the floor,
and saw those sightless eyes turned on you, straining to see, fearful
of your blow, yet not knowing where, or when, it was to fall. What
then? Could you do it?"

"No; it must have been that."

"Ay, maybe. We cannot tell. But I can tell you this, Chance"--the
impatience had dropped from his voice and he spoke with the utmost
solemnity--"little as he may dream of it now, if they once discover how
dangerous he is to them his fate is sealed. Blindness will only have
bought him a respite."

       *       *       *       *       *

It was only on that first occasion that McNab talked so freely with me
on the case. In the course of the next few days he turned much less
expansive, and it seemed the affair so gripped him that he must go like
a hound with his nose on the scent, looking neither to right nor left.
On the few occasions on which he did speak at all, I had the fancy that
he was merely using me as a whetstone to stimulate thought, or focus
certain ideas floating in his fertile brain. For, careful as he had
been to warn me against talking to others about the case, I must here
say that in his irritating, Scotch fashion he made doubly sure of my
prudence by telling me no more than he could help. And even then he
broached the matter in the most roundabout way. One day he said:

"I suppose your paper has representatives in different parts of the
country?"

"We have our own correspondents in most places, if that's what you
mean."

He nodded assent.

"Well, ye see, the other day a car knocked down a plumber in Maida
Vale, and I'm particularly anxious to trace it." He looked up at my
exclamation. "What is it now?"

"Have you abandoned the Ealing case then?"

"Oh, no; but this affair in Maida Vale--I'm sure it was Maida Vale--has
upset the equanimity of my mind, you see. It must be settled first, and
I've thought your correspondents might help me."

"What can they do?" I asked in disgust at what seemed a desertion of
the momentous Ealing tragedy for a petty accident in Maida Vale.

"Report to you the presence of the car in their locality. The car, you
see, has certain well defined characteristics."

"Oh, well, if you give me a description I'll see that it goes into
to-morrow's issue."

"But that's exactly what I don't want it to do, the car's chief
characteristics being removable. My notion was that the description
could be sent out privately, and so we could cover a large area. It's a
case in which I'm particularly keen to beat Snargrove," he added.

"Is Snargrove in this too?" I asked, surprised.

"He is that. But whether he found traces of the car when we both
examined the drive at Ealing I cannot say."

"Ealing? You said Maida Vale just now."

"Did I? Well, it was one or the other. But you'd better be careful to
call it Maida Vale to your correspondents."

Then I comprehended.

"Damn you, McNab," I cried, irritated, "why do you trifle with me like
this?"

"Oh," he said coolly, "you're very young, and I put it like that just
to impress you with the need for caution."

Caution! But I sat down again, relieved to find he had not abandoned
the big case.

"You recall that day at Ealing," he resumed, "when we came on Snargrove
examining the drive, and I joined him while you looked on, pitying us
both?"

"The road had been trampled by scores that morning," I said defensively.

"True. It was all trodden by sightseers--women mostly--too curious
to mind the mud. Still, I found something there. Nothing to do with
footprints, you know."

"You found a clue?" I cried, starting up. "Tell me!"

He said nothing at first. I could see it was something big, from the
way he looked at me. And he had kept it to himself all the time. I
never knew a man like McNab for keeping a thing till it was ripe.

"What sort of clue was it?" I demanded.

"An amazing one. The wheel-marks took my eye first. I was idly
wondering why there were so few. Then I remembered that no vehicles
had come to the house that morning, which was Tuesday, since the gate
was closed by the police, and that since there had probably been none
on the Sunday, such wheel-marks as showed very likely belonged to the
Monday's traffic. It was quite easy to count three marks--a studded
Dunlop, the criss-cross of a Michelin, a third with grooved tyres
much worn on the tread, but with the pattern quite discernible at the
two sides of the deep impression made in the soft road. Besides these
three there was a plain unpatterned track, too narrow in the tread to
be made by a tyre, which zigzagged slightly as if from the stride of
an eager horse. 'Four tradesmen, three of them prosperous,' I said to
myself, 'called at the house on Monday.' Merely as a matter of routine
I went to verify this at the house. Brown could not tell me much, and
took me to the kitchen, where the domestics put their heads together.
There was disagreement at first, and a rather hot dispute began between
a housemaid and the cook as to whether the greengrocer's man had, or
had not, called. But when I got it into their heads that I was not
interested in tradesmen who called on foot, or on bicycles, there was
general agreement that three motor vehicles only--the laundry, the
general stores and the baker--had been to the house. As I made a note
of the names and addresses I said, 'And whose was the horse drawn van?'
Then came the surprise. There was no disagreement about the horse van:
no such vehicle had been to the house. I tried to dispute this, but
found that on that point at least they were all quite positive.

"It is queer how a trifle will vex a man. I took Brown out, almost by
the scuff of the neck, to let him see those narrow wheel tracks which,
being far more visible than any of the others, spoke of a vehicle
heavily loaded. Then just as I lifted my finger to point them out to
him I saw the strange thing."

McNab paused, and ceased twiddling his thumbs.

"A car is heavier than a man, and therefore makes deeper marks on a
moist road. But a horse is also heavier than a man, and hoofs cut deep
in pulling a weight. Well, in between those narrow ruts there were
_no hoof marks_. Not one in the whole length of the drive, Chance.
Not one. To tell you the truth their absence struck me dumb, for this
was no hand cart, the wheel-marks were too far apart for that to be
conceivable. What I said to the butler I don't know, but when he had
gone I made a close inspection of those same tracks."

McNab opened a drawer, extracted a paper and handed it over to me.

"That is what I found."

On the paper there appeared two upright lines two inches apart, and
close to the line on the right there was a circle about the size of a
shilling.

"That," said McNab, "is the brass cap of a number .8 cartridge which
this tyre had picked up, and which became embedded in the solid rubber.
Very firmly embedded it was, for when dug out it brought away a
clean-cut disc of rubber. In the soft earth of the drive that hole left
a protuberance which for neatness might have been stamped out with a
baker's biscuit mould.

"You see that tyre was solid rubber, but it was on no horse van, for
there were no hoof marks. Well, there is only one type of car that
answers to these facts, and on this particular one that hole appears
on the outside edge of the offside back wheel of a Trojan car. That
is why I want a copy of this drawing to be sent out to all your local
correspondents."

"But Matheson will want to put this in the paper, probably with a
drawing of the wheel showing its exact position," I said. "It's
irresistible, a thing like this. I'd put it in myself if I were in his
place, especially in so sensational a case."

McNab lifted his eyebrows.

"Sensational--a plumber knocked down in Maida Vale!"

Then I saw the reason for his earlier pretence. Matheson assuredly
would not trouble about an accident in Maida Vale which had not even
got into the press. I was so thinking when McNab, laying his hand on my
arm, spoke in a quiet, confidential tone.

"It was this car that stood somewhere behind the house, that night,
when you stumbled about the garden or were maybe already in that room.
You understand, Chance? This car which no one saw, which none of the
servants knew of, is the car that carried off the blind man." His grip
tightened. "If they keep him we have them," he whispered with eyes
aglow.

       *       *       *       *       *

And it was only when I caught myself in the midst of this eager hope
of McNab's that I realized how intense was the interest I felt in that
blind man's fate. His would be a story worth telling once we found him.
But it wasn't only as a journalist I wanted him. The human element was
in it too. The man himself as McNab had pictured him, unconscious of
the sudden death that hovered over him, aroused one's sympathy.

Well, news came at last. News that I had indeed planned and schemed to
receive, but had ceased to look for by this time. For in my concern
with posting up the local correspondents I had almost forgotten that
news might come in independently. This news item was ticked off by the
tape machine about 6 p.m. and was laid on my desk with other items from
the same news agency. As soon as I had read it through I put on my hat
and took it round to the Adelphi. How did I know I should find McNab at
home that night? I cannot tell. We always seem to be at home when bad
news comes knocking at the door.

McNab was in. He looked up quickly at my entrance, divining I brought
news, and supposing, no doubt, that something about the car had come in
from one of our correspondents.

"We are too late, McNab."

"Too late?" he repeated, a sudden shadow coming on his face.

"Read this."

I laid the flimsy piece of paper before him on the desk. As his eyes
took in the first words I saw him stiffen suddenly, pass a hand over
his eyes with a quick gesture, and then go on reading. Over his
shoulder I followed the words again:

    Man Found Dead. Rye, Sussex. At a lonely spot near Stone, Isle of
    Oxney, the dead body of a man was to-day discovered among some
    bushes close to a hayrick by a farm labourer proceeding to work.
    The body is that of a man in the early thirties, clean-shaven,
    with dark hair and refined, regular features, and it is regarded
    as curious that though well-dressed nothing was found on him which
    could establish identity. The cause of death was not apparent, and
    is so far unknown.

McNab sat looking fixedly at the slip of paper long after he must have
finished reading it. Then a sigh came.

"So they've done it after all," he said.

"I had ceased looking out for this."

"It was always a probability. Pass me that time-table."

The pages whirled under his deft fingers.

"Charing Cross to Ashford ... 9.15 Appledore.... Yes, we can just do
it, Chance."

"You are going to Stone?"

"You too. I'll need you. Phone Matheson now."

I was more than ready for the expedition. Then as I stepped to the
phone a thought pulled me up.

"McNab, how can you identify this man? I mean, how can one tell a man
has been blind after he is dead?"

McNab, already stuffing some things into a handbag, looked up.

"From the track of a car, if we find any in those lanes," he said. "If
a small disc shows in its tread this dead man was blind. Yes, and by
God, the man that did this thing shall die too, because he was strong
and had no pity."




                               BOOK III

                         STATEMENT BY DR. DUNN




                             CHAPTER XIII


This is a voluntary statement. It includes all the facts within my
knowledge regarding the Ealing murder, and covers the time from the
night of Monday, January 15th, when Alexander David Kinloch came to my
house in Albany Road, Ealing, till the 26th day of April following,
when I saw him for the last time.

Kinloch was brought to my house by a constable about 8.30 on the date
given. The officer said he had found him loitering, and that he claimed
to know me. He pushed him forward for inspection. The darkness of the
night was intensified by a thick fog, and I requested the constable to
put his lantern close to the man's face. The moment this was done I
recognized Kinloch. He looked in a deplorable condition, his clothing
torn and spattered with mud, and himself nervous and shaken like a man
labouring under strong but suppressed excitement. But as soon as the
light was thrown on his face it was demonstrated to me that something
had happened to him since we had last met. He was different. The next
moment I saw what had happened. The glare from the officer's electric
torch went full into his face, and yet he stared back into it with
unwavering eyes. When the officer thrust a walking-stick into his hand
I didn't need to be told what had happened: the man he had brought to
me was blind.

Kinloch had been an old friend of mine, though I had heard nothing of
him for some years. He had come to me that night for help. That he
came unwillingly I deduced instantly from the fact that he had not
sought me out earlier, but had put off till he had fallen to the state
in which he stood before me, in the last extremity of want.

He was with me about four hours. But he left my house without receiving
any help from me. We disagreed on a matter unconnected with this
case. We had often disagreed before. Indeed, it might be said that to
disagree was part of our friendship. But no previous disagreement had
ever made any rupture in our relations to each other.

When he had gone, however, I sat down filled first with perplexity and
then with remorse. For a long time I sat bewildered by the suddenness
of the rupture. Had he become more touchy? I asked myself. Had I failed
to make allowances for the hammerings of misfortune which he had
endured? Or was the change in myself? Which, I asked myself, has the
worse effect on a man's character--prosperity or adversity? Then the
remorse came when I saw I had taken a too high-handed line with a man
who had come to me unwillingly and ashamed. I want to make this clear.
Many men I have met who eye and appraise a new acquaintance from the
standpoint of their own interest and advantage. Kinloch was not of that
sort. He never tried to make _useful_ friends. And then, just when I
was thinking with increased shame that he certainly had not made one in
me, I heard the telephone bell ring up in my bedroom. It was a welcome
interruption; a night call on the most trivial case would be better
than being left to my present thoughts. I remember glancing at the
clock in the hall as I passed through to mount the stairs: it showed
twelve minutes to two.

But it was not the plaintive voice of some long-suffering attendant on
a querulous patient that awaited me on the other end of the wire. The
voice of the station sergeant came, gruff and hasty:

"Tookworth Avenue, number 15, case of stabbing. Quick as you can go,
sir."

"Ambulance?"

"No."

Knowing from this what instruments and dressings to take, I packed a
bag and ran. At the entrance gate of the house which I recognized as
that of Ponsonby Paget as soon as I sighted it, I met Inspector Green
and two constables approaching as quickly as myself from the opposite
direction.

"Not Ponsonby Paget?" I said.

The inspector nodded breathlessly. We entered together.

In the long oblong room into which we were shown by a white-faced maid
we found a constable and two men. Ponsonby Paget lay on the floor near
his writing-table. But as soon as I got down to examine his wound I
knew he was beyond my help. The position of the wound was clearly
revealed by the puncture showing on his pleated dress shirt, and the
stroke from the knife was one that must have gone through the arch
of the aorta. No need to tell the inspector the man was dead. Green
whispered to me to have a look at the two occupants of the room, who
appeared to have been detained there by the constable in charge when
we entered. One was an elderly man, who turned out to be the butler;
and the other, a young, fair-haired fellow, seemed rather restless and
excited. But a cursory look was enough to show me that neither could
have administered that wound within the previous half-hour and got rid
of the traces from their persons. It was in fact a mere formality to
look at them. So Green took it, for he had already taken his keen eyes
elsewhere.

Then the shock came. Green, who had been poking delicately about among
the wreckage of furniture, pulled out a walking-stick from beneath an
overturned table. After looking at it narrowly he brought it across
to me, and held it out, putting some question to me. But the moment
I had it in my hands I recognized the stick. It was Kinloch's stick.
It was the stick the policeman had handed back to him on my doorstep
a few hours earlier. And of course I remembered it the better because
Kinloch had not put his walking-stick into the hall-stand when I led
him in. A blind man and his stick are inseparable, and I had seen him
with it lying across his knees all the time he had been in my study. So
I inferred that Kinloch had gone to call on Ponsonby Paget after I had
failed him.

What I said and did while the stick was in my hands with Green and the
journalist looking on, I do not know; but I got away somehow. And the
next I remember is finding myself sitting in my study in the dark.
My whole thought kept revolving round one fact and its consequence:
I had practically turned Sandy Kinloch out of my house; he had found
his way into another, and now a man lay dead in that house. And I who
had, as it were, pushed him into that room had been called into it to
witness the consequence of my act. That was the awful thought that
obsessed me. Kinloch had been a man of kindly nature, with something of
more than average capacity for human sympathy, I argued. Yet hardship
hardens, and I had seen traces of bitterness in him that night. Not
that I thought his was the hand that had given that expert thrust to
the heart. No; such a blow could only by a miracle come from a blind
man's hand. Still, he had been involved in the affair; there was the
stick to prove as much. However innocently he might have got into that
room he was in danger, and--this was the thought that kept recurring--I
had pushed him into it as really as if my hand had gone to his back.

The inquest on Ponsonby Paget still further disturbed my peace of mind.
It is true that, when after giving my own medical evidence I stayed on
to hear the verdict, nothing came out against Kinloch. What did come
out from the butler's evidence was that the dead man appeared to be
constantly in touch with a considerable number of very dubious people.
And there might have been comfort for me in that but for one fact. All
along I had cherished the hope that Kinloch's stick might have got by
accident into that room. He might have lost it, or had it taken from
him, I argued. The criminal might have brought it into the room, or
even the dead man himself, for it was certainly proved by the police
that he had been, unknown to the butler, out of the house after he had
dined that night. But this possibility was dispelled by what I saw
in the ante-room to the court. For among the exhibits, and preserved
between two botanical glasses, there was shown something found in the
fatal room--a wisp of black hair which I was able to certify had been
violently torn from some one's head. Still, nothing came out then to
connect Kinloch directly with the murder.

Of course I was aware that the police do not disclose all they know at
an inquest. So when I met Inspector Green a few days afterwards I made
a cautious reference to the case, trying to get him to talk. He did
not prove to be communicative. The chief, he explained, had called in
Scotland Yard, and he himself was no longer working on it. I knew that
even so he would know a good deal of what was going on; but I dared
not risk appearing too curious about this particular case. Green's
reticence I put down to his irritation or disappointment at being
elbowed out of a big case by the Yard. Yet, though polite enough, he
was certainly rather short with me.

Thus denied any inside knowledge of what was going on, I had to rely
on the newspapers. They certainly were full enough of the case. I took
them all and read everything. It was a case that excited more than
the masses. People hardly talked on anything else. At every turn,
in train, bus, street or restaurant the wildest rumours circulated,
the most far-fetched theories as to the cause of the murder, and its
perpetrators, were advanced. My own patients, I found, wanted to
discuss the Ponsonby Paget murder with me--even the old maiden ladies
whom I had never before known to show the least interest in anything
in heaven or earth beyond the symptoms of their own, mostly imaginary,
diseases. My nerves suffered badly.

"Doctor," one of them sighed, "we may all be murdered in our beds."

"Well," I said, exasperated, "it's quite a good place to get murdered
in."

That was a patient I lost.

Then in the outside world beyond Ealing interest in the case began to
slacken. This could be detected from the newspapers. Progressively
the space allotted to the Ealing murder grew less. Presently one of
my papers one day had no reference to it. A little later and the case
had dropped out of several--it seemed for good. After that I told my
newsagent to stop my extra supply. Soon I found myself--no, not ceasing
to think of the Ealing tragedy, but able to think of other things as
well.

One morning, on leaving the hospital, I ran into Inspector Green. He
had been in about some road accident, he told me.

"Nothing doing on the Ponsonby Paget affair?" I said, so much at ease
now that I could refer in an off-hand way to the case.

"No, not much to tell," he said. "Of course you know the Yard took it
over."

When I saw he was now willing to talk of the affair, I inferred that he
had got over his sense of injustice at being pushed aside when the Yard
was called in.

"It has dropped out of the newspapers," I remarked.

"Except the _Record_."

"And you fellows have dropped it too, without exception," I said
banteringly.

He looked back at me humorously.

"I wouldn't say that, doctor. The police never give up a case, you
know." He sighed softly. "Queer case, wasn't it? It wasn't as if we
had nothing to go on; the room was scattered with traces--even to
first-class finger-prints. Hardly ever seen a case with so many good
exhibits--seven, no less."

"Eight," I corrected him promptly.

Green shook his head.

"Wrong, doctor. I remember the number well, for I remember saying to
myself there was one for every day in the week."

"Eight," I persisted.

"Oh, but no. Listen, here they are: overcoat with fur collar, pair
of dress shoes, broken whisky glass, the decanter, the paper of
finger-prints, the envelope with the wisp of black hair, and the
wedge-shaped splinter of a mirror. Seven, I think."

"Yes, seven," I admitted, "but--"

"But what, doctor?" Green turned in surprise.

I felt vaguely uneasy. I'd rather he had forgotten any other item than
that walking-stick.

"You've forgotten the stick," I blurted out.

Green, after a moment of discomfiture in which he stared at me in a
comically intent way, laughed most heartily.

"Fancy me forgetting the stick--me, who found it," he said.

And I laughed too. It was a relief that the stick could be forgotten.
Evidently Green, at least, attached little importance to it.

"But what was I saying?" he resumed thoughtfully. "Oh, yes, I was
saying I'd never known a case with so many apparently promising clues;
and yet"--with a shrug he threw out his hands in a gesture eloquent
of helplessness--"there were so many people to whom these same clues
pointed. You heard the butler's evidence, didn't you? About Ponsonby
Paget's numerous nightly visitors, I mean. Well, with all sorts coming
in secret to see him Snargrove's job needs time."

"Snargrove still on the case, then?"

"Why, yes, of course he is. And I don't envy him. Trying to trace a
score of those visitors who for reasons quite unconnected with the
murder don't want to be found."

We had reached my house by this time; but the inspector had opened up a
new vista for thought, so I paused with my hand on the gate.

"Mostly women, Brown said his visitors were."

"Yes, doctor, women--from the lady's maid to the lady herself. But they
all came on the same errand--to sell him society scandal for his paper."

"I see. Snargrove is after them all, then?"

"Got to. And they're not coming to meet him half-way, as you might
say," Green nodded, sweeping his hand in a parting salute.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was the feeling of security I had received from my talk with
Inspector Green that led me to reply to Selwyn & Smith's advertisement.
But for now knowing that the authorities were busy tracing those women
I should have been too cautious without knowing much more about Selwyn
& Smith than I did when I went to see them. This is the notice I found
in a chance newspaper, picked up while waiting in a house:

    ALEXANDER DAVID KINLOCH will hear something to his advantage by
    communicating with Messrs. Selwyn & Smith, Devon Chambers, Chancery
    Lane.

One peculiarity of the thing caught my attention. For it was mighty
queer, I thought, that they should, as the wording implied, be unaware
that he was blind, and yet know his full name. Was it a bait set to
catch him? For several days I did nothing--nothing except read the
successive reappearances of that advertisement each morning. I did
not know what I could safely do. On the sixth day the notice had
disappeared. That troubled me. Had something happened? Two more days
and, finding ignorance unbearable, I went up to see Selwyn & Smith,
determined to find out if anything had happened, but resolved to be
very cautious.

"You are advertising for one Alexander David Kinloch," I said, on being
shown into the manager's private room.

Mr. Spencer, a little, round-faced man, looked up, eyeing me narrowly,
over the top of his eyeglasses at the end of his nose.

"Are you Mr. Kinloch?"

"What if I am?" I replied defensively.

Mr. Spencer's eyebrows lifted.

"We shall certainly require proof of your identity," he said dryly.

"For what purpose?"

He got nettled by my wariness.

"Come, come, sir," he said, "let us have no more of this fencing. Your
question is not reasonable. For all I know you may have wandered in
off the street, after seeing our advertisement, to impersonate Mr.
Kinloch."

Well, when I heard that I knew at least that it would be some advantage
to be Kinloch. But when he saw me hesitate his hand went to the bell,
and it was clear he no longer took me for Kinloch. Hastily I placed my
card on the desk and said:

"Will you give me your word that it really is for something to his
advantage you want him? You see," I added lamely, "I want to find him
myself."

He had been scanning my card while I was speaking, and now stared hard
at me.

"And will you give me your word to the same effect, doctor?"

"That I will. Indeed, sir, if I could be certain you meant him equally
well, I'd leave you happier than I've been for many a day."

The fervour with which his question had made me speak seemed to
surprise him. His manner changed.

"I am a busy man," he said, "and since it is clear we both mean well by
the young gentleman, I do not understand why you beat about the bush.
You say you want to find him. So do we. What do you know about him? We
had almost concluded he must be dead."

"No, he is not dead, at least he was alive on the 15th of January when
he called at my house in Ealing."

"Dear me, if only I had known! Strange he didn't once see our
advertisement."

"It would be stranger if he did. Kinloch is blind, Mr. Spencer."

"Blind--oh, how sad! Dear me, not totally and permanently, I trust?"

"Totally, but not, I hope, permanently. That is one reason why I am so
anxious to find him. He suffers from _corneitis_, a form of blindness
once regarded as incurable, but not so since the war."

Mr. Spencer was deeply interested, and while he sat polishing his
eyeglasses I explained that Kinloch had not come to me about his sight
but because I was an old friend, that I was not an oculist, and had
enquired into the new treatment for _corneitis_ only since learning of
my friend's affliction. I wound up by saying that I was ready myself to
bear all the expense of taking him to Edinburgh for treatment by the
famous surgeon whose war experiences had taught him how to perform this
new miracle of ophthalmic surgery.

"Well," he said, "that's very good of you, very good. Still, as to
expenses, Mr. Kinloch ought to be able to meet them himself."

I almost laughed.

"It's very evident you know little about Kinloch," I said. "He's
quite destitute. He hasn't a penny, and so even if he had his sight
I doubt if he'd have seen your advertisement. You see," I felt bound
to add, "he came to my house that night in rags almost, a broken man,
and--well, we quarrelled. It was all my doing. I don't want you to take
me for what I am not; and it is the base truth that I let him go away
unhelped. That is why I want to do something for him now--something
beyond price, beyond all his hopes."

Mr. Spencer bent forward and touched my knee.

"Dr. Dunn," he said, "I understand your feelings, your mental distress,
and I am sure if you can do this for him it will more than make amends,
without meeting the expenses, which he does not now need you to do."

"Not need me--" I said.

"Did Mr. Kinloch ever mention the purchase of any shares to you?"

"Yes, some worthless shares which another of his friends swindled him
into buying," I said bitterly.

The little man smiled.

"I'd like to be swindled in the same way," he said. And he went on
to tell me the story; a complicated story it was, but the gist of
it seemed to be that Kinloch, a babe in financial affairs, had been
induced by some one to put his every penny into the worthless shares
of some tea company. Then the unexpected had happened. Some financial
genius had evolved a scheme to get the output of tea restricted, with
the result that an artificial scarcity was created and prices had
soared. But Kinloch, who had left his holding in the hands of Selwyn
& Smith when he discovered he had been swindled, knew nothing of the
sudden rise in their value.

"And you mean he is rich now?" I asked.

"Rich is a relative term," he replied, "but at least I'll venture to
assert he is comfortably off."

Well, I left that office keener than ever to find Sandy Kinloch. And
I fancy what Mr. Spencer had heard about him from me made him keener
too. But there were difficulties in the way of which Mr. Spencer knew
nothing. It would have been better if I had told him something of the
Ealing murder. But I had kept silence on that subject; it was not my
secret, for one thing; and, for another, I was too wary to blurt out
such a confidence to any man at a first meeting. Yet, as things turned
out, it would have been wiser to have risked a little in the way of
frankness with Spencer. For in his new keenness he began advertising
again for Kinloch, recasting the words in consequence of the facts I
had supplied, and now inserting the thing in the papers read by the
masses. The only paper of that type I had kept on taking in was the
_Record_. It I still saw because it never ceased hammering away at the
Ealing murder. And the moment I read Mr. Spencer's latest advertisement
I felt we were in for trouble. It ran thus:

    ALEXANDER DAVID KINLOCH, last seen at Ealing on the night of
    Monday, 15th January. Will any person in a position to supply
    information as to his present whereabouts kindly communicate with
    Messrs. Selwyn & Smith, Devon Chambers, Chancery Lane. Liberal
    reward.

Then the mistake I had made became clear. I should either have taken
Spencer into my confidence or at least have supervised the terms in
which the new advertisement was to be recast. All the way up to town
I kept hoping against hope. But my first words with Spencer seemed to
make disaster certain.

"No replies yet?" I asked, inwardly praying for his assent.

"But, yes--three," he said almost cheerfully.

"Three!"

I was aghast. It was almost as if the earth had begun to tremble under
my feet.

"Oh, don't be too hopeful. None of them were very promising, I fear."
Mr. Spencer polished his glasses meditatively. "You see," he continued,
"all three came to make enquiries about our young friend."

"You didn't tell them anything?" I interjected.

"Dear me, no! But they were rather troublesome. I had to point out to
them that they had misread our notice: we desired to _receive_, not to
_give_ information."

"Do you know who they were?"

"No, and I didn't trouble to enquire. An offer of a reward brings all
sorts buzzing in, as we know from experience. Still," he continued,
"these three didn't exactly conform to type, so to speak. That's why
I saw them, and wasted my time." He paused. "You don't know if Mr.
Kinloch had a judgment summons out against him?"

"No. Why?"

"Well, one of them, a burly, fresh-complexioned and muscular fellow
with a heavy moustache, looked as if he might be connected with the
law."

"Connected with the law?" I said in sudden apprehension.

"Oh, well, I don't necessarily mean the criminal side of the law. Debt,
you know. And this fellow did look as if he might be a bailiff's man."

Swift as light there had come back to me the memory of a man who
tallied with the description Mr. Spencer had so off-handedly given--the
Scotland Yard man at the inquest, Inspector Snargrove. But who could
the others be?

"And the two others?" I said.

Mr. Spencer stroked his chin reflectively.

"Well, one was a tallish, rather hawk-eyed fellow with a very close
clipped black moustache, who held himself--well, rather like a soldier
out of uniform. Thought he might be an old comrade of Kinloch's. And
the third man--he hasn't been gone more than half an hour--was wiry
too, but clean-shaven. Unlike the others he did not look as if a
uniform would fit him. Looked rather like a medical man; and he was
certainly a fellow-countryman of yours."

The last two men I could not "place" at all. And I think it was the
uneasiness that inability roused in me that made me there and then
resolve to take Mr. Spencer into my confidence. So, after a hurried
moment or two of thought, I said:

"Since they didn't tell you why they want Kinloch I'd better tell you--"

Mr. Spencer with a hasty ejaculation shot out his hand, cutting me
short.

"They didn't need to," he said. "I guessed it from what you told me of
Mr. Kinloch's financial circumstances--they were all after money; the
bailiff's man, the old comrade of the war, he was either after a loan
from Kinloch or seeking repayment of one; and the Scotch doctor--nosing
after an unpaid bill, eh?"

He laughed. But I shook my head.

"Much more serious. Kinloch is innocent but--"

"Oh," he cut in again, "of all the witless--" He broke off to search
for his eyeglasses which had fallen to the floor. Utterly taken aback,
I stared in silence. After fumbling about a little he sat up rather
red from stooping, and went on as if he had not heard me. "Of course
the bailiff's man said he would find the means to open my lips at the
proper time. But it was easy for me to show him that if I had the least
notion where Mr. Kinloch was I would hardly be offering a reward for
the information."

So that was it! At last I understood. Spencer did not want to know lest
he should have to tell. My respect for him went up. He was as honest as
I had been stupid.

"They will come back, though--these men," I said.

"Oh, no doubt," he replied, cheerful again, "but not till we
discontinue that advertisement." Then, as if to make sure I understood,
he added knowingly, "I have paid in advance for quite a series of
insertions. Foolish, perhaps, for the notice will possibly be appearing
for some time after we have found Kinloch."

       *       *       *       *       *

But as the days slipped past and nothing was heard of him I began to
think we had heard the last of Kinloch. The frequent visits I paid to
the office in Chancery Lane were always blank. Spencer, however, was
invariably confident. When pressed for his reasons all he said was:

"Doctor, money never goes long a-begging. Never has this firm
advertised like that in vain. Sooner or later it draws a response."

One day later he surprised me by a question:

"Doctor, do you ever look behind?"

Not comprehending, I merely re-echoed his query, and he beckoned me to
the window.

"Look there--that man in the grey overcoat and black bowler on the
opposite pavement, sauntering." And as I peeped out he put the
question: "Ever seen him before?"

I could not recall the burly figure.

"Ah--there--you see!" Spencer cried.

For the man opposite had just taken a swift glance up at our window,
and catching sight of us moved on again, affecting interest in the
traffic.

"He blundered that time," Spencer murmured.

"Who is he?" I asked, not liking this at all.

"Oh, I thought you'd better have a hint you are being shadowed, doctor.
He's been seen out there waiting for you on your last three calls. If
you've been up to anything--well, look out."

After that I ceased my calls at the office, and we arranged that
Spencer would telephone or wire if he wanted me. For, if I was being
shadowed on Kinloch's account, it would be well to let it be supposed
from ceasing my visits to Selwyn & Smith's that we now had no hope of
any reply to the advertisement.

And, indeed, hope on my part had sunk into despair by this time. Yet in
the end Spencer's confidence was proved right. One morning my telephone
rang, and as soon as I picked up the receiver Spencer's voice sounded
in my ear:

"That you, doctor?"

There was elation in his voice. I knew something had turned up.

"Yes, what is it?"

"News."

"Not--"

In my surprise I was almost betrayed into an indiscretion.

"Hush. Come and see me. It may be a hoax."

When I reached the office he laid this scrap of writing before me:

    If Messrs. Selwyn & Smith will send some one to Mr. Keiller, now
    staying at the Aberlundy Arms, Gart, Argyllshire, they can obtain
    full information about Alexander Kinloch.

"Well?" Spencer queried as soon as I had finished reading.

"This is no hoax," I asserted.

"You think this Mr. Keiller knows something?"

"I think this Mr. Keiller may turn out to be Kinloch himself. Anyhow,
this was written by a blind man. You can see how he used the parallel
rulers to guide his pen. See, each line is straight in itself but rises
towards the right because the ruler was not set straight across the
paper."

"Are you sure?" Spencer asked. "I wouldn't care to go so far on a
wild-goose chase."

A closer scrutiny of the handwriting increased my conviction. I had
never seen Sandy's handwriting since his blindness; and I was aware
what a difference is made by blindness. But even now, although all
individuality is taken out of writing so slowly and painfully achieved,
I could detect in the formation of certain letters a resemblance to his
former hand. These I indicated to Spencer.

"I'll tell you what," I said finally, "I'll send you an old letter of
his and you can judge for yourself."

"Right," he said. "In any case I can't go before to-morrow night."

Neither could I, since I had to arrange for a man to look after my
practice. But that I did arrange before returning to Ealing. And
apparently Spencer convinced himself from the letter I sent when I got
home, for next morning a wire reached me:

    Euston midnight to-night.

The rest of the day went in making preparations for getting away.
Unusual preparations they were to me. If the truth must be admitted,
I was keenly ashamed that Spencer had to prove to me I was being
shadowed. And yet, though a medical man is a trained observer, his line
of observation lies in another world than that of a man in Spencer's
position. I loathed the notion of peeping round corners, turning round
to watch who might be behind me, or pausing at shop windows to see who
passed. And in fact, even after he warned me, I never did one of these
things. But that day I took precautions. And with the result that never
have I approached any railway station by a route more circuitous than I
reached Euston that night. In fact I began by undressing, turning out
the light and getting into bed at 10.15. There I lay for three quarters
of an hour, when I rang up the hospital and so alarmed a night nurse
with enquiries about one of her patients that I got myself summoned to
an urgent case. At the hospital door I left the taxi standing for ten
minutes while I soothed the nurse, and then returned to tell the driver
to come back in an hour when the operation would be over. After that I
passed through the building, and getting away by a back exit, took the
11.25 to Paddington. From there a taxi down Marylebone Road landed me
on the Euston departure platform at three minutes to midnight. Spencer
was there, standing near the ticket collector at the gate. He had
booked to Glasgow.

"For a novice, a first-rate performance," he said approvingly.

He saw I did not comprehend.

"Look," he said, "if there is any one on your heels they're not close
enough this time."

The ticket collector had just shut the gates with a rolling clash. And
I had been the last man to enter.

       *       *       *       *       *

Night was closing in as our train drew up at Gart. All the afternoon,
ever since we had left Callander behind, and while the engine patiently
nosed its way round the flanks of mighty mountains, and over hissing
torrents, we had talked of Kinloch. For Spencer was now as eager to
hear about him as formerly he had been unwilling. This surprised me at
first. Then I came to see the reason: in his profession, unlike my own,
one must know either nothing or everything about a case. And now that
he could no longer honourably say he knew nothing it was safer to know
all. And that is what I told him then, as the train laboriously climbed
among the hills. But, nearing Gart, we had fallen silent as I watched
the lights twinkling brightly from cottage windows down in the valley.
My thoughts had turned on our approaching meeting with Sandy Kinloch.

Stiff with our long journey, and cold in that sharp northern air, we
took our directions from Gart's solitary porter, and made our way to
the "Aberlundy Arms." A long, whitewashed, two-story house, as soon
as I discerned it in the dusk I knew the sort of hotel it was--busy
perhaps in the fishing season and in summer, but likely to be quiet
enough now. So it proved. The landlord, a big tub of a man, rosy of
face but obviously lazy and soft, gaped with surprise when we entered
with our bags.

"Come to see Mr. Keiller," Spencer greeted him briskly.

The big man, recovering, shut his mouth to open it again for speech.

"Ay, I was thinkin' somebody ought to turn up afore long. Losh,
gentlemen, I'm right glad to see ye."

"Anything wrong?" I asked sharply.

He turned to examine me before replying.

"Och, no. No catastrophe, if that's what you mean. Not a bit of
it, sirs. He's just been"--dropping his voice to a confidential
whisper--"drinking a bit. A blind man, ye ken--it's no quite safe for a
blind man to get verra drunk."

My heart sank. I heard Spencer's voice as in a dream.

"Ah, and is--is this Mr. Keiller frequently the worse for drink?"

"Hoots, no, not him. Not once have I seen him fou. That's just what
bothers me. He seems to have something upsettin' on his mind that robs
my whisky of its natural effect."

"Take us to him," Spencer said brusquely.

"Say nothing at first of my presence," I whispered to him as we were
led down the passage.

The landlord threw open a door at the far end.

"Gentleman enquiring for you, Mr. Keiller," he called out as if to a
deaf person.

At first I thought the man had shown us into an empty room; but as I
peered about in the gloom I saw a face lifted from the table at which a
man sat with outstretched arms. It was Sandy Kinloch. I knew him as he
turned his sightless eyes in our direction. Thus it was I saw him next,
sitting alone in the dark like a hunted animal.

"Good evening, Mr. Keiller. We--we have come to see you on business,"
Spencer said.

"Business?" Sandy echoed hoarsely.

"Yes; if the landlord will switch on the light for us."

"I'll bring ye a lamp," the big man said, reluctantly going out.

I slid into a chair close to the door as Spencer took a seat opposite
Sandy.

"We are searching for a Mr. Kinloch really," he said.

"So I thought! And it's not difficult to guess your business with him,"
Sandy interjected.

"You surprise me. I thought Mr. Kinloch alone would know about the tea
shares."

"Tea shares?" came blankly.

"Yes; about tea shares."

There was a moment's silence, and then Sandy burst into wild
laughter--laughter that was, however, quite mirthless and which stopped
as abruptly as it started.

"Excuse me," he said, "but your pretence of being here about tea shares
was more humorous than you could know. As it happens, Kinloch did put
a lot of money into tea shares; and he let them lie with the agents,
because they were worthless."

"Worthless!" said Spencer. "My dear sir, do you suppose I'd come all
this way about worthless shares?"

"No, I don't," Sandy rejoined. "That's why it's easy for me to tell why
you have come. Let's have done with pretences: I am Kinloch, and you
are a policeman. And it's not for tea shares you want me but for the
Ealing mur--"

I smothered the last word by kicking over a small crockery-laden table
by the door. But I was just in time, for I saw the advance light of the
lamp which the landlord was carrying along the passage. He entered,
much perturbed by the crash, to find all three of us on our feet. He
surveyed the damage with dismay.

"Och, sirs," he cried, "hae ye been quarrelin' already? If ye'd waited
for the lamp it maybe widna' hae been so expensive."

"Macfarlane," Kinloch almost shouted, "who are these men--what do they
look like?"

In the light of the lamp now set on the table I saw Sandy's face
glisten with beads of sweat. The landlord, trying to soothe him,
examined us with a critical eye.

"They're no that ill-lookin', Mr. Keiller," he pronounced, "nothing out
of the ordinary. I've seen better, and I've seen waur."

"But do they look like policemen?"

"Polismen?" Macfarlane laughed the suggestion to scorn. "Them polismen?
Losh, no; they're no' near big enough--for this district onyway,
unless they were to go about in threes or fours."

He winked across to me as if to convey his apology for this libel on my
physique. At last I mastered my feelings sufficiently to speak.

"Sandy," I said, going over to him, "Sandy, lad."

He started violently, and his feverish hand came out to seek my own.

"Peter!" he whispered. "My God, Peter--you here? What have you come
here for?"

"Just to find you, Sandy."

And while he gripped my hand I turned to get rid of Macfarlane, who was
lingering on.

"Is this a private sitting-room?" I asked.

"No, sir, though it's just as good as one at this time o' the year, for
there's naebody but mysel' to come into it."

"Let's have a quite private one, then," I said to him meaningly.

He replied, stiffening at my tone of voice, as he turned to go:

"Certainly sir; but, mind you," he said, lifting a forefinger
warningly, "it's an extra, with use of the piano."

Of all the incongruous things I have ever heard, this mention of a
piano at such a moment remains unexcelled, even by a patient under
an anæsthetic. Spencer even smiled. But Sandy seemed stimulated to
the pitch of light-headedness by the word. At least that was what I
supposed when he began to hum the refrain of a Scotch ballad:

    "Roy's wife of Aldevalloch,
    Roy's wife of Aldevalloch,
    Wot ye how she cheated me
    As I cam' ower the braes o' Balloch....

"Did she? Or did I cheat myself?"

He shook his head wearily, like one who repeats a question he had
already found unanswerable. I could have answered it for him! And that
without knowing the story. For, as I said to Spencer later, if there
was one of these women in it there was not much doubt as to who had
done the cheating.

Kinloch was in a much healthier mental condition next morning. When I
went into his room, the daylight streaming in by an east window as he
sat up, it was possible for me, while we talked, to see his eyes fairly
well without letting him know what I was up to. The scarification
certainly was severe. Before the war his case would have been called
hopeless. But now I wasn't sure. So I resolved to avoid all talk on the
Ealing affair till he had been seen by Fyffe, the Edinburgh specialist.
The first thing was to get him into a healthier, happier condition. And
for that I had set great store on the news Spencer had to give him. But
that morning he seemed to have forgotten Spencer.

"You haven't yet told me how you found out where I was," he said.

"Spencer let me know."

His face showed wonder.

"Spencer--I thought he was a mental case you were in charge of."

"Why?"

"Well, from his nonsensical babble about those shares. He'd heard you
mention them, no doubt."

"He was right about your being here."

"That's true, though how he knew--"

"He was right about the shares also. You can sell for forty-one
shillings to-day."

"Hmp--for the lot, I suppose."

"No, each. Mr. Spencer, as a partner of Selwyn & Smith, knows what he
is talking about."

"Selwyn & Smith!" he cried. "Oh, I didn't know."

I could see he believed me. A faint flush swept over the pale worn
face. He was silent for a long time, and I wondered into what queer
world his thoughts were speeding.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was on a Sunday morning that I first talked openly to him of his
eyesight. Spencer having finished his business had gone. Kinloch was
not so elated over his news as we had expected. To me it was clear
that Sandy, as the landlord said, had something on his mind. But I put
no questions. I was there not to gratify my curiosity but to help a
friend. So on that Sunday morning while the hills behind re-echoed the
church bell, I suddenly took the plunge, as tactfully as I could.

"You mind that man at Bethsaida, Sandy--him that was blind and had his
eyes opened?"

"Yes," he said after a slight pause. He was very quick with his ear,
and maybe my voice was not under perfect control.

"You mind how they asked him if he saw anything and how in his delight
he cried out, 'Yes, I see. I see men as trees walking'? He was so
content with only that--to see men dimly like walking trees."

"Content? He--he went on his knees, if I remember."

"So he did. Most of us would not, I suppose, be content with so little."

His hands clenched as I watched him.

"God--how little you know," he burst out. "To see men as trees, even to
distinguish the light from darkness--promise a blind man that, and he
will go down on his knees to you too."

Well, I could not promise him even as much as that, but I talked to him
of Fyffe's operation.

He shook his head hurriedly.

"No, no. Things like that don't happen, Peter. The world isn't made
like that. Think of my luck with those shares. Luck isn't showered on a
fellow like that."

"Sandy," I said, "I wouldn't call you a lucky man. Precious little
you've had up to now. But sooner or later there's such a thing as
compensation--a levelling up of things--long overdue in your case, I
think."

He said no more.

And all I need say here of what followed is this: the operation for
_corneitis_ was performed by Sir Donald Fyffe in Edinburgh, and one
week later Kinloch got his first glimpse of the light again, that light
which he had not seen since he was buried by a high explosive during
the advance on Remy in the last six weeks of the war. It was in the
sitting-room, the quite private sitting-room which I had insisted on
having, that the first experiment was made. I removed the bandages,
in semi-darkness, with only a glimmer of weak lamplight in the room.
But when I saw Sir Donald had made another success--well, I felt like
making use of that piano after all.

Yet the first use, the very first use, to which Sandy put his eyes made
me think he had gone crazy. He whipped off his jacket and looked at the
lining, staring at a spot just below the collar. The queer thing was
that there was absolutely nothing to stare at, so far as I could see in
that light. Yet he shook with excitement. After a little he said as if
to himself:

"Now when was that done?"

"When was what done?" I asked.

He held out the jacket.

"See, some one has clipped out the centre of the tab with the tailor's
name and address on it. That was clever--damn clever.... 'Wot ye how
she cheated me ... Roy's wife of Aldevalloch....' Really _smart_, you
know."

Hearing this, I trembled for his sanity, thinking that in the shock of
his recovery his mind had become unhinged. For the coat had been in no
way damaged.

In the next few days, however, his physical improvement grew so
steadily that I began to think of my practice. Indeed, had he become
equally well mentally I should have returned to Ealing much earlier.
But he did certainly show symptoms of mental unrest not at all to my
liking. And into this I knew I must probe before I went. That the
trouble had a connection with the murder I did not doubt, and to
diagnose a woman behind the trouble was still easier. But it was the
latter belief more than the former that made me broach the matter with
the utmost circumspection.

We had climbed up the hills and were sitting among the bracken and
gorse, with a wide prospect down the valley.

"You'll get better every day here," I said. "The air is like wine. A
month or two--"

"I go next week, Peter," he interjected.

"Go next week--where to?" I asked, amazed.

"Town."

"To London?"

He nodded assent without looking at me. Following his long condition of
sightlessness he hadn't yet recovered the habit of looking at those he
was speaking to, I noticed. But I was horrified by his intention.

"London isn't safe for you--yet," I said meaningly.

"Oh, surely a little smoke won't hurt," he replied, thinking I had
referred to his eyes.

When I said nothing he did turn his face my way. Then I said:

"I meant--the Ealing affair."

He in his turn was thunderstruck. For a moment he could say nothing.

"So you know about that," he said at last. He began to breathe quickly.
"Well," he added, "if you know much about it you know I had no hand in
it."

"No, Sandy, you hadn't; but you had--well, a stick in it, so to speak."

"Dunn," he cried, "do you mean to say you have known this all along,
and have never once spoken of it?"

"You said nothing to me, Sandy; and I force no man's confidences."

He didn't like that. Pulling up a strand of the dried bracken he began
to twist it round his finger mechanically, his thoughts elsewhere.

"Peter," he said after a while, "I owe you more than can ever be
repaid. Few men can ever have done so much for another as you have done
for me; but there's things about this affair I cannot tell you, for
there's--there's some one else to whom I owe more even than I owe to
you."

"Roy's wife, I suppose."

"You can if you like," he said, taking the gibe in the same quiet tone.

This put me on the high horse instantly.

"And what kindness might ye owe to her?" I enquired, adding in
pretended haste, "But perhaps the question is indiscreet."

I rejoiced to see his colour rise.

"My debt there is like what I owe you, Peter," he replied patiently,
"in this, at least, that it is more than I'm likely to be able to pay
her."

"If ye'd said pay her _out_, it would be understandable."

In the old days this would have been the point where we would have
quarrelled. And even then, seething with indignation over his
foolishness, I myself would have been ready enough for a quarrel. But
Kinloch still held himself in check. Instead of firing up he said
nothing. And for a little, as I saw his eyes fixed on the outstretched
valley at our feet, I thought he meant to say nothing at all to my
outburst. Then he turned towards me, and I knew he had been considering
not the landscape but what he might reply to me.

"Peter," he began almost wistfully, "there was a time when I could have
agreed with you about that. About paying her out, I mean. There was a
time when I hated her. Really hated her, you understand, exactly as I
now hate the man whose murderous attack on me she stopped. I would have
scoffed at the notion of being grateful, for even when she carried me
away I knew it was all done to save not me but him. At no time did I
have any illusion about that. But there was a time when I behaved like
a cad in that house. You remember that night I came to your house?
What did you think of me--that I had become coarser, less scrupulous,
harder? Yes, you did, and it was true too. Insensibly I had taken on
the colour of my surroundings. For two years I hadn't, as you might
say, touched a clean hand till you took mine that night. Yet it was
not you who lifted me out of that pit, much as you've since done. It's
only as I look back that I see what life with her in that lonely house
really did for me."

"And how," I asked pointedly, "did this happy home come to be broken
up?"

"The old woman who came to do the housework found out I was there.
One night to get rid of me she came back with a cock and bull story
about having seen some man wandering about the common as if watching
the house, affecting to believe him to be Stella's husband. The trick
would have failed but for the fact that it coincided with a newspaper
item about an impending arrest in connection with the Ealing murder.
We thought we had been traced and had to fly, and fly far. But even
then, Peter, that girl was fine, you understand. Broken as she was
by the old woman's imputation on her honour she first got me out of
the house and then herself returned to prepare for our long journey
and if necessary face the unknown man we suspected to be really a
policeman--face him while I sheltered in that haystack."

"And all this she did for you out of a pure disinterested kindness?
You never came to doubt that, did you?" And to rub the question home I
began to whistle the tune, "Roy's Wife."

He flushed at once.

"What if she did cheat me?" he cried. "Hadn't I been trying to outwit
her myself?"

"And you lost."

"As I deserved," he rejoined. Then, after a minute of silence he turned
to me, bending forward. "Peter, I told you I behaved like a cad in that
house. That was true. But the most caddish thing came at the end. We
had travelled here by night in her little car, sleeping in it all day
in some out-of-the-way corner of a field or in a wood. It took us five
nights to reach this place. Then, before I let her go away, I made her
kiss me."

"Ah, here enters the love interest," I said sarcastically. "Is it
possible the hussy spoils this very romantic story by refusing?"

"No," he said quite seriously, "she didn't refuse. At first I thought
she was going to. But when she did--"

"You knew she wasn't--" I helped him out.

"But when she did," he went on, "I found her cheek was wet with tears."

It wasn't what I had expected to hear. And, though I felt it would
have been saner to scoff, I somehow couldn't find the right words in
which to do it. His childlike notion that the woman had cried over
his brutality in making her kiss him simply turned me dumb. There was
nothing left that I could usefully say. But this extravagant notion of
Sandy's prepared me for what was to follow. And for what followed at
once I certainly needed preparation.

"What made you communicate with Selwyn & Smith?" I asked. "You didn't
remember they held the shares?"

"No," he said. "I thought the police were behind that advertisement and
I wanted to give myself up."

"To give yourself up! What for--the murder?"

"Yes."

I could scarcely believe my ears. Of all the silly, quixotic acts ever
recorded this seemed the maddest. Give himself up indeed! Yes, but the
very foolishness of it gave me the measure of this unknown woman's hold
on Kinloch. Cleverly indeed she had done her work, abandoning him at
Gart just when he was sufficiently bewitched to make him keep his mouth
shut, or even, if it came to that, to play the part of willing victim.
And as I perceived this, it was not only anger I felt, but something
like awe, that a woman could so dominate such a man as Kinloch.

"You see," he went on, "to give myself up seemed a way out, an escape
from life. I had got rather tired of life before, you know. My hold on
it was purely parasitic--just an existence, a crawling about in the
dark." He looked over at me with something in his eyes that glowed.
"But you have made all the difference, Peter. You have given me back my
interest in life, and now I can see how mad it was to think of giving
myself up like that."

This was so far satisfactory. But it was still far short of what I
wanted.

"But," I said, "to go to London with the police on the look out is just
to give yourself up in a different way. They'll be on you like hawks,
from what I've seen."

"I'm not afraid. And I've got to find her, now that I can do
something," he said stubbornly.

"But are you sure she wants to be found?"

I had him there, for he looked more sure she did not from the way his
face fell. To push home this discovery I went on:

"Was it her name you took when you came here?"

"I don't know her name," he admitted.

"Then it was to hide your own name from her you called yourself
Keiller?"

"No, she knows my name."

"No doubt! And all about you; while you only know as much about her as
she chose to tell, which seems to have been nothing."

Then a thought burst in on me.

"Why, you don't even know what she looks like, for of course _you've
never seen her_."

"No," he admitted, "if you were to place her photograph in front of me
I wouldn't recognize her."

"And you don't even know so much as her name, or where she lives, or
what she looks like. Why, man, the search is hopeless--a needle in a
haystack is nothing to it."

After that I let the matter drop, for I saw he was weary. We descended
the slope and passed through the pine wood almost without speech, even
when we came out on the highway at the bottom of the valley, where talk
would have been easy.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is unlikely that I would ever again have reverted to Kinloch's
project had he himself not done so a few nights later. We were sitting
by the fire, smoking an after-dinner pipe. I was to leave Gart next
morning. He began by desiring my advice, showing great deference to
my opinion. Of course I knew he was merely trying to smooth down my
ruffled feelings. But when he went a step farther, and proposed to tell
me his plans, I cut him short. What he meant to do, where he intended
to go, were, I told him, things it was safer to keep to himself. That
he had some plan of action, some wild-cat scheme for finding the lady
I already divined. But it did not interest me; and, in view of his
confessed ignorance of the most essential facts about her, I knew he
must fail. Had he been willing to help the police to lay the man by
the heels the situation would have been simplified. For I did not
doubt now, that, provided he came forward voluntarily, he could, with
the help of Spencer and myself, clear himself from complicity in the
murder. But this he would not do. He would not lift a finger to help
the authorities till he knew how the man's arrest would affect the
woman, a position which put him on the wrong side of the law, and
which might well jeopardize his own safety if the police got their
hands on him. It was this that filled me with an exasperated despair.
For he knew his danger by this time. He had been poring through his
tinted glasses, longer than was good for his eyes, over a file of old
newspapers in which the fullest details of the murder, and the various
theories as to its perpetrator and his motives, were given. So I firmly
refused to listen to his plans for finding out where that woman had
gone. But it was only at Gart Station, while waiting for my train to
start, that I told him why I refused.

"You see, Sandy," I said, "if anybody should ask me where you are, or
what you are doing, I can truthfully say I know nothing."

What I had in mind now that I was about to return to London was the
difficulty experienced in getting away from it. And I had not forgotten
the man who had watched me in Chancery Lane, nor the three who called
at the office there.

"Oh," he said hastily, "of course I can't expect a friend to lie for
me."

"Certainly not," I said. "He has no right to undertake the duty unless
he can do it really well."

It was good to see him smile back as he gripped my hand. I think he
understood.

But it saddened me to part with him, not knowing what his plan was
for finding the lady. Yet it was some satisfaction that we had parted
friends, in spite of great provocation, given and received.




                                BOOK IV

                THE SECOND NARRATIVE OF GODFREY CHANCE




                              CHAPTER XIV


That a man should remember his successes in the hour of failure and his
failures in the hour of success--this I have heard Francis McNab say
was the one sure way to keep a level head. He regarded both success and
failure as very severe mental temptations, the one inclining us to take
too rosy, the other too black a view of our abilities. But he himself,
I always thought, emerged better from success than from failure. A mere
check he could surmount. Indeed a check stimulated him, whetted his
appetite and all that. But in his investigations into the Ealing murder
it was not one check he met with, but a succession of them with, at the
end, a rank and final failure staring him in the face.

That journey to Stone, near Rye, proved to be but the first of a series
of false scents. We had set off on the hasty journey confident that we
were on the right track. And we reached Stone in time to see the body
of the young man found by the estate worker identified by relatives
who, indeed, had travelled down by the same train as ourselves. That
the deceased had not been blind, and could have no possible connection
with the Ealing affair, these facts were placed beyond doubt inside
half an hour.

That was a failure out of which McNab emerged shaken. What he was
thinking of as we returned to town I cannot say, but if it was some
former success one would never have guessed it from his face. It was
both grievous to me and astonishing to see the settled gloom with which
he gazed through the window while our train flew across the Weald of
Kent. Only now and then I stole a look at him, and as for speaking to
him--well, I hope I know when to keep silence. But what a relief it was
when the train left the fresh, green fields and orchards behind, and
climbed up into the cavernous darkness of the Sevenoaks tunnel! Here,
at least, in that murky gloom, was the right environment for us. There
was just this difference, though: the train every second was moving on
to daylight, but I doubted if Francis McNab saw any daylight ahead of
him.

Yet for all that, after our return, I did not doubt that he began
at once to cast about for another scent. Occasionally in the days
following, I took him an advertisement for some person missing;
sometimes, in fact, quite a crop of such notices. But of course every
day that passed lessened the likelihood that any of these had a
connection with our case, and soon almost every one of them could be
eliminated, as the person advertised for had disappeared at a date much
later than that on which the murder took place. How often he must have
found himself barking up the wrong tree in those days!

McNab's darkest hour while on the case came, it seemed to me, on a
day I well remember. For ten days I had been away on some work at
Manchester. And for several days before that I had not been round to
the Adelphi, for it did really pain me to see McNab at a loss. And so
even after my return I might not have gone round so soon but for the
message I received that he expected me. Of course I hurried off at
once, hopefully. I found him pacing up and down his room overlooking
the river. This restlessness revealed to me, without the need for
words, the exact state of his mind. Obviously he was not then engaged
in recalling his former successes. On the contrary every symptom showed
that he was chafing and fretting over his present failure in a very
human way. And as I remembered his saying that the world was crowded
with men just not good enough for the jobs their ambition had made them
take on, I suspected that he was just then including himself in the
ranks of that ignoble army. Francis McNab was no all-over superman. But
some qualities he had in super-excellence, and one was his tenacity.
He never acquiesced in defeat. The new way under defeat and failure
is to "cut one's losses," to console oneself by saying it is no use
crying over spilt milk, and so on. But none of these modern phrases,
masquerading as wisdom, and meant to comfort the ineffective and the
unsuccessful, did I ever hear on his lips. Defeat stung, rankled and
reproached him.

Much of this passed through my mind as I stood with my back to him,
looking out on the river, waiting for him to speak. And at last I heard
the restless steps behind me cease.

"Chance," he said, "what do you consider the greatest enemy of Justice?"

"Justice?" I repeated, turning round.

"Yes, Justice, the blindfolded goddess with the sword in her hand who
does not know where to strike."

"Oh, some say the lawyers," I replied flippantly.

"And others the police. They're both wrong. It's Time, the old fellow
with the scythe in his hand, who strikes at everybody and all things."
He came over and stood beside me at the window, looking down upon the
traffic on the Embankment. At least his eyes rested there. "Time fights
hard for the criminal. Clues are destroyed by time, traces vanish,
evidence is blotted out, things alter, and people's relations to each
other. Why, the mere lapse of time is held to lessen guilt: 'It is so
long ago,' people say."

"Is that what you think they'll say about the Ealing murder?"

"No, it hasn't come to that yet, thanks to the _Record_, for keeping
the public agog with expectation, but--" He broke off, sighed and shook
his head helplessly.

"The _Eye Opener_ isn't letting the murder drop out of sight, either,"
I said. "This week's number gives the winning design in the competition
for the memorial to be erected over the grave in Kensal Green. Have you
seen it?"

"Over Ponsonby Paget's grave?" McNab enquired as if he had not been
listening.

"Of course. It's a fine thing, a life size reproduction in white
marble of the female figure on the cover of the paper; but with one
significant difference--the two pennies no longer cover the eyes, which
are now wide open and uplifted as if in an appeal to heaven. A fine
touch, don't you think, to remove the two pennies, the only _earthly_
details on that figure?"

"Well, he was a man, they say, who saw all things in terms of money.
And of course he won't be doing that now," McNab said in a way that
reminded me of Matheson. That irritated me. Besides, I felt a trifle
huffy over my off-hand reception after so long an absence.

"The trouble is," I said petulantly, "you didn't like Ponsonby Paget.
If you had you might have had more to show for your ten weeks' work on
the case."

It was a stupid speech, and McNab eyed me reproachfully for it. Then he
said:

"You don't care much for Matheson, do you? Oh, I know you never say a
word against him. But don't you find your prejudice affects your work?"

"Certainly not," I declared. "If it did I couldn't stay on. A
journalist does his best irrespective of likes and dislikes."

McNab nodded.

"So do some others, my lad, who are not journalists. And I don't need
to admire Ponsonby Paget to sharpen my wish to see his murderer hang.
So let's have tea." He rang the bell.

When Janet, the old housekeeper, had departed, I tried to explain the
anxiety which had possessed me, an anxiety which I shared with Matheson
himself.

"The paper has backed you to win," I said, "and after what it has said
about the police it would be a bad knock if they should prove to be
right and get home first."

This I said with a sigh, intending both to sting and stimulate him, for
I could not forget it was now over a month since we went to Stone.

"Well," he replied calmly, "the police have great advantages."

"You mean their finger-print register?"

"That and a lot of other things--their organization and well-knit
system, and their numbers, their familiarity with the methods and
haunts of the habitual criminals and so on. But they're at a loss in
this case for all that. Why? Because the man we are looking for hadn't
got his finger-prints on the Scotland Yard register. He does not belong
to the criminal classes. This deed of his was an exceptional incident
in his life."

McNab became more animated as the tea progressed.

"That is not a rare thing, Chance. There are many who are what you
might call one-act criminals. Any policeman will tell you what a
troublesome problem they make. And they would be a more trying problem
for the law than they are but for one fact--the fact that in their
inexperience they are apt to make mistakes. Take this case. That room
in Ealing was scattered with evidence. We had a table, you remember,
almost loaded with exhibits. Snargrove at once pronounced the murder
to be the work of an amateur. He was quite right. But--mark this--the
man did not follow up the 'mistakes' left in the room by making others
afterwards, as Snargrove expected he would. Once he got away from that
house he left no traces and gave no sign. There was no bungling. And
when we know that he had to carry a blind man with him, and dispose of
him somewhere, surely it is obvious to you that we are dealing with a
man of remarkable talent and resources."

"Yes," I agreed, "that seems clear. Still there were clues left in that
room."

"Not by the criminal. Those marks on the wall were made by the blind
man; the stick was his too. And for all we yet know the finger-prints
on the glass may be his also, and that shred of hair as well. The one
thing, in fact, which could _not_ have been the blind man's is that
splinter of looking-glass. That man was a genius in organization. Just
think. He had the deed all carefully planned, and it would have gone
off pat but for the unexpected entrance of the blind man. And you can
read both his alarm and the blind man's innocence from the fact that
the murderer left no trace of his own but many of the other's presence.
He could not foresee and provide for the presence of that blind
intruder, yet even in that terrible moment he made no blunder that gave
_himself_ away." McNab prodded me with a stiff forefinger. "Now, Mr.
Godfrey Chance, do you begin to see the niceties of this particular
case?"

"One thing I can't see--why you concentrated on finding this blind man
instead of going straight for the actual murderer, as Snargrove is
doing," I replied.

McNab waved towards the window.

"Look out there and tell me what you see," he commanded.

A good deal was visible from that lofty window as I went over, cup in
hand.

"There's the river," I said, "and four barges sliding down it on the
ebb tide, and there's two trains crossing the bridge, and numberless
motors whirling along the Embankment, besides a stationary tram with
a bunch of people struggling to get in, and a stream of pedestrians
flowing into the Underground from the foot of Villiers Street."

"Good! Now, look here! One among all these people has just stolen a
banana from a dealer in the Strand. He has it concealed about his
person, he is hurrying away in the train now out of sight, I suppose,
or on the barges or in the trams or taxis or on foot, and he will
certainly vanish utterly unless we find him in time."

I stared at McNab. He seemed quite serious. But he was like that, even
when, as now, he tried to be humorous.

"What else do you know about the man?" I asked.

"Nothing. The dealer didn't see the banana lifted--only missed it off
the bunch."

"Has the dealer issued a description of the banana?" I asked, not to be
outdone in affecting seriousness.

"No. It would be useless, for the man will eat it at the first quiet
moment and so destroy the evidence against him."

"Looks hopeless."

"Ah, but there's a postman, among these people, who _knows_ who took
the banana. That both narrows the field of search and speeds things up."

It was easy to follow his argument.

"So you went for the postman--in other words, the blind man. But
after all, though it is as easy to pick out a blind man in a crowd as
a postman, you haven't got him yet. And you are sitting here doing
nothing."

"Not doing nothing."

"Well, only talking to me about the case."

"That would be doing nothing."

In certain moods McNab, as will have been observed, could be extremely
irritating.

"What else do you think you're doing?" I demanded.

"Besides lighting this cigarette I'm listening for a ring at my door
bell."

"Oh, you expect some one." Then, gathering from his tone that it was no
ordinary caller, I cried, "Some one connected with the case?"

"Yes. Some one who can tell us a lot about the case."

That was a big enough surprise for me. But more was to follow. As I
stood still in astonishment McNab crossed to his desk and opening a
file extracted something from it which he laid on the table before
me. It was a photographic print about six inches square, evidently an
enlargement from a group of soldiers, for the shoulders of two other
men showed on each side of the print. The face of the man thus picked
out of the group yielded what seemed a good likeness. Under an open,
unlined forehead the eyes showed clear, dark and well apart, with a
hint of the cheek-bones showing, after the Slavonic type, and though
the nose was straight and well proportioned there was something of
delicacy, if not weakness, in the smiling mouth.

"Who is it?"

"The postman," said McNab.

"What--the blind man?" I cried.

"In other words, the blind man."

That sent my eyes to the print once more, and I crossed to the window
to get a fuller light on the face of the man we had hunted for so long.
Things had evidently been moving during my absence. If this thing in my
hand was a photograph of the blind man, McNab had certainly succeeded
in picking his postman out of the crowd that moved on and changed so
swiftly, I thought, looking down for a moment on the Embankment.

"That's right, my lad," McNab's voice came, sarcastically humorous,
"take another look at the ugly old bridge. A lot of water has run under
it since you were last here."

"How did you get it?" I asked, holding out the portrait.

"I'd have got it sooner except for your blundering. But there's no time
to tell you the story now," he replied, as he looked again at his watch.

Things had not only been happening; things, I saw, were about to
happen. The restlessness which I had taken as a symptom of failure,
the talk which had seemed idle trifling, and this slow pacing about
the room which I had assumed to come from a sense of depression and
defeat--all this took on a new meaning now. Every moment he was
expecting something was about to happen. Some one was about to ring
that bell. How often I had rung it myself. How familiar its sound was
to me--an old-fashioned handle you pulled. You could hear something
like a chain grate against wood as you pulled it, and then the subdued
tinkle in the distance. Like McNab himself I began to listen. There
were, of course, a dozen questions I wanted to put. One was, under this
strain, irresistible.

"Who is it--is it really the blind man--is it him you expect?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"I don't know. Wait and we'll see. He has only a few minutes left."

That characteristic reply sticks in my memory. It roused the maximum of
curiosity and gave the minimum of satisfaction. And that was what McNab
liked to do when he was "out" with me.

Ten more minutes passed. They passed in silence. For I did not risk
expulsion by probing him with any more questions. The memory of how he
had got rid of me after the inquest at Ealing when he made his great
inference from the walking-stick was too vividly reawakened now that I
held in my hands the portrait of that stick's owner.

Then just as McNab was glancing again at his watch, the shadow of a
frown on his face, he looked up sharply, lifting a hand.

The next moment there came a quick, decided ring at the bell.




                              CHAPTER XV


The bell had not ceased before McNab, slipping across, shoved me down
on the low window seat, and then seating himself at the other end said
quickly:

"Not a word from you, Chance. Remember, not a word, however great the
temptation. If you want to say anything, put your thumb into your
waistcoat pocket."

Taking the photograph out of my fingers he laid it face downwards on
the small table standing close to the window seat on which we now were
seated.

I nodded understanding, my eyes glued on the door. At last it opened,
and the old housekeeper's voice came wheezily:

"Dr. Dunn to see you, sir."

McNab rose when his visitor had advanced to the centre of the room. But
his welcome was hearty enough.

"Glad to see you, doctor."

The doctor did not seem equally glad to see McNab, and his eye
travelled doubtfully to me. He clearly was trying to remember where he
had seen me before. As McNab drew a chair forward he explained me.

"Mr. Chance, doctor. I think you've met already--at Ealing on Monday
the 15th of January," he said casually.

While he spoke the doctor was looking me straight in the face, and I,
naturally, was looking at him. Recognition of me sprang into his eyes,
and then something else--something like fear.

"Sit down, doctor," McNab said pleasantly. "I'm glad you have come."

"You expected me?"

"You or another. As I said in my note to you I needed some one who
could answer certain questions bearing on the night of Monday, 15th of
January."

"Well, I was called in by the police on that occasion," Dr. Dunn
conceded.

As he spoke McNab took up his former position beside me on the window
seat. Between him and the doctor stood the little table, on the dark
polished surface of which the white back of the photographic print
seemed like a sheet of paper placed there for taking notes. As for our
visitor it was easy to see his discomfort. Indeed, as he sat in that
high backed chair fronting the window, he seemed all on edge, rather
like a patient in a dentist's chair. Indeed, he made the very picture
of a man visibly bracing himself up before the dentist began to pull
out his teeth. A battle of wits it was going to be. I sat up at the
thought.

"I am a very busy man," he said defensively.

"Of course you are," McNab replied, "after your recent--holiday was
it?--your practice will have its arrears. Patients, I'm told, never
take kindly to a locum, however good he may be. Still, you were wise to
come; it may save you not only time but trouble later on."

"So you said in your note, which, I own, roused my curiosity," the
doctor nodded, making an attempt to be at his ease.

But, quite in the dark as I was as to what McNab wanted with his
visitor, it was clear enough that he had roused in this same visitor
an emotion which would more correctly be called apprehension than
curiosity. I found the situation tremendously exciting now. Ten minutes
earlier I had misread things so badly that I had been sure the case
was at a standstill. Now I had in a moment been made to realize that
in my absence things had been happening; that events were moving with
swiftness and momentum. For quite abruptly as I sat looking at those
two men facing each other across the little table, I perceived that
this meeting was a decisive moment, probably the turning point in the
whole case. And the fascination of watching the two men in this moment
of crisis can be imagined. Neither seemed over keen at first to come to
grips, the doctor being obviously on the defensive, with McNab like a
keen-eyed boxer circling round an over-cautious opponent, weighing him
up and looking for an opening.

Then with unexpected suddenness McNab struck.

"And when," he asked, "did you last see Kinloch?"

The doctor's brow furrowed.

"Kinloch?" he repeated thoughtfully. "Kinloch? I seem to recall the
name, but I cannot exactly--"

Like a flash McNab picked up the photograph lying on the table between
them and held it out before the other man's eyes. And into those eyes
there came, in swift succession, surprise, recognition, horror, dismay.

"My God!" he faltered.

McNab smiled with satisfaction.

"Thank you very much, Dr. Dunn. This, then, is quite a good likeness of
the man. That was exactly what I wanted to be sure of."

Dunn looked up sharply.

"What for? Why do you want to be sure of that?" he asked.

McNab tapped the photograph in his hand.

"This man is being looked for in connection with the Ealing murder. It
would be useless to furnish the press with an unrecognizable portrait."

Dead silence followed. The doctor seemed to be slowly considering the
consequences which would follow the publication of the photograph.
Indeed, I was myself engaged in thinking how I could induce McNab to
give the picture to the _Record_ as a first day's exclusive. Then Dunn
in his turn picked up the print after fumbling over the attempt once or
twice.

"He's--he's altered considerably since this was taken," he said. "I
doubt if he could be identified by this."

"You recognized him quickly enough," McNab reminded him.

"Quite; but I remembered him like this, you see."

A frown darkened McNab's face.

"Blindness can't make all that difference," he said aggressively.

"Ah--so you know that too--that he was blind? Well, blindness alters a
man's face very much. That perhaps you did not know. A sighted person's
face is continually altering, reflecting, as it were, the varied
emotional impressions of what the eye sees from one moment to another.
But when the eyes see nothing, the face muscles cease to be flexible,
and the face becomes still, rigid, the man's whole expression in fact
is altered, even the shape of his face becomes different."

The doctor appeared to gain confidence now that he was speaking on a
matter in his own line of business. When McNab remained silent, and
seemed to be pondering over what he had just heard, Dunn bent forward
and in his turn tapped the photographic print on the table.

"You can do what you like about publishing this of course, but I can
assure you that if you set a photo of the blind Kinloch beside this one
you would yourself refuse to believe that both were pictures of the
same man."

Thus were the tables turned on McNab. He sat looking at Kinloch's
photograph with grave eyes. His features could not have been more set
and wooden if he himself had been blind. At last he looked up.

"In that case," he said, "I'm compelled to a course I wished to avoid.
I must force you to tell us where this man is now hiding."

The other shook his head with decision.

"I can't do that."

"You mean you will not."

"No; I mean just what I say. You see I had the foresight to anticipate
that such a moment as this might come. So I refused to hear his plans."

"His plans?"

The doctor crossed his legs and sat back at his ease.

"Yes. It must be clear to you I can't be forced to tell what I don't
know."

"Quite. But I have a notion, doctor, that it would be useful if you
would tell what you do know."

The rueful sigh which accompanied this brought a smile to Dr. Dunn's
face. He certainly looked top dog now, and his attitude and manner
showed he was quite conscious of the fact. He leant easily, almost
condescendingly, forward towards McNab.

"I'll tell you this much at once," he said confidentially. "Don't waste
your time on Kinloch. In the first place I have a conviction you will
not find him--he seemed absolutely sure about that. And in the next
place he'd be no use to you if you did find him, for he is innocent of
all complicity in the murder; and though present when the murder was
committed, he was blind and saw nothing--nothing that would help you."

McNab's eyebrows lifted in incredulity.

"Yet he doesn't want to be found?"

"He does not--more's the pity. But that makes no difference in the
fact. Do you think I'd be taking a hand in this if he were guilty?"

Dunn spoke sharply with some heat. To the question so earnestly put
McNab did not reply.

"Yet he does not want to be found," he repeated.

"Looks black, I admit." The doctor hesitated.

"Unaccountable, if he's innocent," McNab commented, incredulity in
every syllable.

"You think so? But what if there is a woman in the affair?"

McNab looked up quickly, as if the suggestion had startled him.

"Ah--a woman? Well, that might make a difference in the way one has to
interpret Kinloch's present action." He paused before adding: "But we
have no evidence, not a shred of evidence of any woman being connected
with the affair."

Here I ostentatiously thrust my thumb into the pocket; for I wanted to
remind McNab of the wedge-shaped splinter of glass found in the room.
But he took no notice of me. Indeed, as I told him afterwards, I might
as well have put it in my mouth. And as the doctor sat silent McNab
resumed consideringly, "Yes, if I knew there was a woman in it I could
understand Kinloch's action. I might, indeed, be ready to agree with
you as to his innocence, for I've observed that when a man does a thing
of exceptional silliness there's usually a woman behind him--if you can
see her."

Dr. Dunn tapped the table emphatically.

"There _is_ a woman here, a very clever one. You can take my word for
that. Indeed, you'll have to take my word for it, for I doubt if you or
any one else will ever get a glimpse at her."

"Go on, please," McNab said, rising to his feet in his restlessness.

But Dunn seemed alarmed by the other's eagerness. He shook his head.

"Perhaps I've said too much already. I've a duty to Kinloch, you know."

"Oh, so that's the way of it?" McNab cried, stopping short. "And isn't
it odd that so many of you should find it their duty to stand between a
criminal and justice! Here are you, doctor, sheltering Kinloch, while
Kinloch is sheltering this woman, and the woman is sheltering the
actual murderer." He looked Dunn quizzically up and down. "I trust,
doctor, you don't encounter so many barriers between yourself and a
necessary surgical operation--so many barriers erected by friends of
the patient--as you are now helping to erect between the hangman and
_his_ operation on this man's neck."

Dunn, flushing up to the eyes, rose with a sharp indrawn breath. At
first my thought was that he was going to resent McNab's gibe about the
hangman. But regaining self-control he said, referring to McNab's burst
of anger:

"At least, sir, you make it easy for me to perceive I have not said too
much."

The stiffly uttered words restored McNab's good humour.

"Oh," he replied as the doctor picked up his hat, "you have said
quite enough to be going on with. You have cleared up the situation
wonderfully. You do not think so? Well, let me assure you that within a
week I expect to lay my hands first on Kinloch, then on the lady, and
finally on the man behind her."

"In consequence of what _I_ have said?" the other asked, staring.

"Almost entirely."

After a moment's cogitation Dunn shook his head with evident relief.

"No," he said. "That's impossible."

"And to prove to you that I believe you when you say you do not know
where Kinloch is I'm going to tell you how I'll do it," McNab resumed.
"You recognize it would be a dangerous thing to tell you if I thought
you were in touch with Kinloch, don't you?" And when Dunn nodded assent
McNab continued: "Very well, here's the proof I believed you when you
assured me you did not now know where he was. This is how I will find
him. I have only to co-ordinate the facts within our knowledge, group
them in sequence and make the necessary deductions." From the manner
of his speech and the protracted way in which he approached his point
McNab must have been aiming at Dunn's nerve. He had stepped close
up to the doctor too, so that now the men stood face to face. The
doctor's eyes narrowed as McNab's forefinger touched him on the chest
masterfully.

"Your practice at Ealing was in the hands of a locum for three weeks.
You left hurriedly on the 3rd of April. Your patients did not know
you were going. Will you tell us where you went and let me verify?
No? Then I say you went to see him. Up to shortly before you left you
had been paying frequent visits to a firm in Chancery Lane who were
advertising for Kinloch. It was a good notion to keep on advertising
for him after you knew where he was. The ruse served for a time. But
your sudden departure and prolonged absence let me comprehend the
trick." McNab nodded. "You tell me you have never seen the woman, and
I suppose I may take it you are still less likely to have seen the
man? Good. It was on or about the 3rd of April you found him. But the
murder at Ealing had taken place on the 15th of January. Where had
Kinloch been in the interval between that date and the day on which you
reached him? In hiding somewhere alone? In hiding, yes; but not alone.
In such circumstances a blind man must have had some one to look after
him--some one who was in the secret. That would be either the man or
the woman, if not both. I conclude it was the woman; and I will tell
you why presently. But you found Kinloch alone when you arrived on the
scene, therefore the place, wherever it was, where you found your
friend, was _not_ the place where he had been so long concealed. Am I
not right? You won't admit it?" McNab laughed.

"But I will go further. I will hazard the guess, doctor, that whoever
brought Kinloch to the place you found him--and some one must have
taken him--dumped him down there and vanished in a mighty big hurry.
Ah, I see from your face I'm right. Of course they did! It was hardly
safe to risk being seen by people with eyes who could supply a
description. Not so would they waste the mighty stroke of luck that had
come when the only witness to the crime turned out to be a blind man.
Everything done subsequent to the murder proves that they knew how to
take full advantage of his blindness."

McNab touched the motionless Dunn again.

"Doctor, did Kinloch tell you where he had lived before you met?"

"He did not."

"Because he did not himself know. It would be some remote place, to
lessen the chance of accident, or of his finding out where he was,
until he had been worked upon sufficiently, and won over, to keep his
mouth shut. That part of the business would be left to the woman, eh?
And she didn't need to be even personally attractive in this case. She
might be even hideous, for a siren tongue would be enough here! Anyhow,
her blandishments did succeed."

Dunn seemed surprised by McNab's conclusion.

"I do not follow you there," he demurred.

"But you have so far agreed?"

"I say nothing about that."

"Quite. Your lips are sealed, are they not, by a promise to your
friend? Still, you did say something about his having plans."

"I told you I had refused to hear them."

"Ah, but think how significant it is that he should have plans at all.
Plans are simply means to some end. And, though you may be ignorant of
the means he meant to adopt, you may yet be quite cognizant of the end
at which he aimed. Indeed, it is not unlikely that you refused to hear
the plans simply because you disliked the end towards which they were
directed."

Whether this was meant for a shot in the dark or no I could not tell,
but I saw Dunn shift uneasily and look away.

"I thought," he said evasively, "you were going to tell me how you
proposed to lay your hands on Kinloch."

"Patience! That is the point we have almost reached."

McNab seemed in no hurry. He kept us waiting while he took out his
cigarette-case and selected a cigarette carefully, as if it had been a
cigar. For myself, though I was free from the doctor's very manifest
disquiet, I at least shared in his impatience.

After a whiff or two McNab picked up Kinloch's photograph and looked at
it narrowly.

"Here, then," he said, "we have a young gentleman with plans in his
head. Plans to what end? I ask myself. Not for the arrest of the
murderer certainly. For in that case the quickest way would be to put
himself in touch with the police and tell what he knows. This he had
not done--a neglect which, by the way, will count heavily against him
if the police get their hands on him. So directly, at least, his plans
do not centre on the man. Yet they ought to, for you, doctor, assured
me he was innocent of all complicity in the crime. You were even
indignant about it. And as I look at this photograph I appreciate your
heat. It is a good face, frank, open, honest, the face of one whose
every instinct and impulse should put him on the side of justice. What,
then, has occurred to pervert his natural instincts and inhibit the
reaction such a man must show to such a crime as the Ealing murder? I
can think of two causes. Either this man afterwards became demoralized
by his war experiences so that this photograph, taken before he left
for France, no longer truly represents him, either that, or he has
become infatuated and morally blinded by some woman. Both war and women
are forces which can and do demoralize men."

I think McNab at this point laid down the photograph of Kinloch at
which he had been again looking, for he ceased speaking; but my eyes
were all the time on Dunn. I could see his emotion fire under McNab's
words. His hands became clenched.

"The question is," McNab resumed, "which was it in this case--war or a
woman?"

"A woman," Dunn burst out. "Yes, a woman, by God, infatuated by
her--yes."

"Then his plans undoubtedly centred on finding her again. Take that
as settled. The question now arises: how is he to find her? Mark his
handicaps. He never saw her, and we may safely assume she did not
supply him with her name and address when she left him. And she left
him at a place which was not that where she had lived with him and
where there must necessarily be some one who could supply information
about her."

"Far, far from there," Dunn whispered uncontrollably.

"That you cannot know," McNab asserted provocatively.

"Can't I? You forget Kinloch could judge distance from the time spent
on the journey."

"But they might have been travelling in a circle, covering the same
ground again and again for the express purpose of deceiving him."

Dunn hesitated, obviously tempted to refute McNab's confident
assertion, yet afraid to risk more words.

"Well," he said at length, "there was one point Kinloch knew they did
not pass twice."

McNab shook his head.

"A blind man couldn't possibly tell that," he said with decision.

"Couldn't he indeed?" Dunn broke out in impatient derision. "You think
so? But if blind he is not deaf, all his other senses are unimpaired.
Could he not, for example, tell that he once, and once only, went down
a long hill with a sharp right-hand turn before passing through a
village at the end of which he heard the sea close on the left side,
so close that the spray came into the car, the noise of the surf on a
shingle beach mingling with the notes of a bugle high up on his right?
And couldn't he tell from feeling the sun on his left cheek that the
sea was to the south?"

"He heard the sea?"

"Certainly, but only for about five minutes, and it was the only time
he heard it. So they weren't doing circles there anyhow."

McNab sighed gently.

"A sharp fellow, Kinloch. Wish I'd got my hands on him."

Dunn shook his head.

"That wouldn't help you. They were sharp too and took care his
knowledge was confined to things that did not matter. Why, he was
ignorant even of the name of the village where they lived."

"Village? Nonsense. A lonely house, if you like, in its own grounds,
but not a village," McNab contradicted.

"A village it was, though apparently lonely enough, shut in by
gates--he knew that much--at each end, and up among hills."

McNab in his turn shook his head.

"They'd never try to conceal him in a village. Couldn't be done as
you would know if you had ever lived in one. Villagers are mighty
inquisitive about strangers. A blind man too, he'd be seen daily from
the house opposite."

"A village it was," Dunn reiterated impatiently. "But there wasn't
any house opposite. At least there was, it seems, a good half-mile of
common between the houses on each side."

McNab pondered for a moment and then looked up slyly.

"You won't send me hunting for an imaginary village, doctor. It's
Kinloch I'm after, as keenly as he himself is after the lady. I'm going
to find him too, and with my assistance he in his turn will find her."

Dunn looked disconcerted.

"Without me," McNab went on, "he is unlikely to find her. The odds are
too heavily weighed against him. He doesn't even know her name. That in
itself would be enough to deter most of us from beginning the search.
But when we add to this the fact that the seeker is blind--"

From Dunn there came a sharp, inarticulate little cry. The interruption
appeared to take McNab by surprise. He ceased speaking and gazed
thoughtfully at the doctor.

"Go on," Dunn said.

"Add to this the fact that the seeker is blind," McNab repeated, "still
this other fact remains, the fact that in spite of all these handicaps
he had formulated some precise plan. He had when you spoke with him
some notion of how she might be found. Therefore, I conclude he knew
something about the woman. Indeed, when one thinks it out, he could
scarcely avoid learning something, closely associated as he was with
her for a considerable time. I myself, for instance, formed the opinion
that the people concerned in the murder of Mr. Ponsonby Paget belong
to what is called the higher social classes. Kinloch's ear would at
once enable him to tell me if I am right. Her voice, its inflection and
tone, her vocabulary would proclaim her class. And, however much the
woman was on her guard, she was bound to let slip many other things
from which a man of even mediocre intelligence would infer much. I am
not suggesting that he might learn anything so definite as her name and
address; but it is exceedingly unlikely that Kinloch would not hear
something about her tastes, habits, the places she liked, the cities
she knew, the streets with which she was familiar, and even, being
a woman, the shops she favoured. That sort of thing. Very well, now
I put myself into Kinloch's shoes, and ask myself how, if similarly
handicapped, I should set about the business of finding her."

McNab took what seemed to me, at least, a long time before he found an
answer to this last question. He stood quite still, fronting Dr. Dunn,
but, I am sure, without any consciousness now of either the doctor's
presence or my own. How Dunn felt I cannot say, though he stood there
almost as rigid as McNab himself. As for me I dared scarce let my
breath go. For I saw that McNab meant to catch the elusive Kinloch
while the latter was out in the open searching for the lady. And then,
just when I was beginning to fear that McNab's imaginative insight had
been set too stiff a problem, his eyes unclosed.

"There's just one way open to him," he said.

"Well?" Dunn almost whispered, his eyes dilating apprehension.

"Obviously he can't go about looking for her."

"Well?" Dunn repeated, a tremor in his voice.

"He will wait in some road or street he has heard her mention more than
once, wait for her to come along. He's sitting there now, a blind man
with a Braille book on his knees, reading aloud to draw attention to
himself."

It was amazing to see how Dunn received this announcement. His face
suddenly cleared. He laughed in an explosive way that left one in no
doubt of the genuineness of his mirth. And the laugh was one of those
good natured but contemptuous guffaws that hurt like a blow. I felt my
face flame with anger. But McNab did not seem in the least put out.

"You don't agree with me, doctor?" he said quite calmly but with a
tincture of surprise that invited a reply.

"I do not," Dunn declared bluntly. "A more forlorn hope I never heard
of."

McNab wandered over to the table, and picking up the Kinloch photograph
again looked at it thoughtfully.

"You know your man, of course. He never risked his skin in a forlorn
hope, did he?"

"Oh, Lord, he did heaps of silly things," the doctor cried impatiently.
"He's got enough shrapnel that went deeper than the cuticle to prove
it, but that was in the war, in action. This is quite different. Why,
he might sit waiting for her till the crack of doom. And even if she
did happen to come that way why, do you suppose, should she take the
least notice of him, even if she saw him, if she doesn't want to?"

"I don't suppose she will dare to speak with him, however much she may
want to, but, after all, Kinloch will have decided his course not by
what I think but by what he himself thinks. And if the woman has worked
off her wiles on him, put a spell on him, as I gather is the case,
sufficiently well to keep his mouth shut--if this is so then Kinloch
will act under the belief that she has a tenderness for him; he will be
convinced she would not pass him by without a word when she sees him
sitting there."

Dr. Dunn picked up his hat as if to hide what was almost a grin of
incredulity.

"It's plausible," he said, "but preposterous. No need to fear you will
find my friend and drag him into this ugly business."

"No? Man, doctor, if you saw enough you might well go down on your
knees now to pray that I might find him first."

McNab spoke earnestly as Dunn was moving towards the door.

"First?" he asked, turning round. "What do you mean by first?"

"Before the other man finds him," McNab nodded. "You don't seem to
see that Kinloch has himself gone back into this ugly business--gone
back into it after being got out of it. Why? Ah, you know I'm not so
sure that Kinloch _is_ mistaken if he thinks the lady has developed a
tenderness for him. That sort of thing does happen. You will know the
story we in Scotland tell about the woman who went out for wool and
came home shorn."

Dunn at the door shook his head.

"You're too fanciful for me. She needn't have left him if that were
true," he said, offering McNab his hand.

"There were probably a dozen good reasons why she had to leave him.
And mark this"--McNab held on to the other's hand--"perhaps to her the
strongest reason of all was that she saw herself beginning to care
for him."... McNab hesitated for a breath or two. "You seem to care
something for him yourself, doctor, if one may judge by all you have
done and said. Very well, that ought to help you to believe in the
possibility that another may do the like."

Dr. Dunn left, forgetful of my presence in the room. At any rate he
didn't trouble to say good-bye to me. When McNab returned after letting
him out he threw himself as if exhausted into the big, low Minty chair.

"You didn't get much change out of him," I said.

"Did I give him anything to change?"

"No. On the contrary you seemed to succeed in taking something from
him."

"What was that?"

"A load off his mind."

McNab, not at all stung by my sarcasm, crossed his outstretched legs
and lay back with a prodigious yawn.

"That was one of the things I wanted to remove," he said. "But it
wasn't the only thing I got."

This took me aback. I had to consider for a moment.

"Then you were just bluffing as to how you meant to get your hands on
this fellow Kinloch?"

He sat up with a jerk.

"You don't think he thought that?"

"Heavens, no! He's quite a simple soul. He took it for gospel truth."

He sank back in relief.

"So it was, Chance, gospel truth. I intend to work the West End for
Kinloch to-morrow, and I expect to find him exactly as I described.
But what puzzles me most is why Dunn laughed as he did when he heard
my scheme. A little amusement I could understand. But he was almost
mirthful. Why? I want to think it all out alone. All he said, Chance,
and all he didn't say. But above all I want to apprehend why Dr. Peter
Dunn thought my scheme so very amusing. But come round here to-morrow
about noon; I shall have the machinery in motion by then. And tell
Matheson I shall be keeping you busy all day."

So, though there were many questions I wanted to put, I left him alone
with the question he had put to himself, about Dunn's laugh, which he
found strange. Even clever men, I'm told, have their stupid moments.
Anyhow I was sure this was one of Francis McNab's moments of dulness;
for a more wild-cat scheme by which to discover a missing man I had
never heard.




                              CHAPTER XVI


On going round to the Adelphi next day I found McNab busy with the
telephone. When I entered he turned with the receiver at his ear and
motioned me to take a seat. He did a lot of listening after that; but
occasionally his voice responded to some one.

"Yes, sergeant. That's exactly what I mean--any peculiarity about the
man. Eh?... No, anything that would make him seem in any way different
from the usual blind man, anything exceptional about him that would
catch the eye of an attentive constable."

A long pause followed.

"Oh.... He noticed that. Howley is the constable's name. Sharp fellow,
yes. All right. Is he on duty now?... Comes off for dinner at one? Ring
me up when he comes in."

He hung up the receiver and turned to me.

"That means we have a whole hour to wait. More time lost. And it took
longer than I thought," he remarked, offering me a cigarette.

"What did?"

"Getting round all the stations."

I was astounded.

"Mean to say you're going to look up all the blind men in London?"

"No; only those who have a pitch for reading, and even among them
only those who have appeared inside the last month." He took so deep
a pull at his cigarette that I saw the little red ring run along the
paper. "Seen three already. None of them the man we're looking for. But
several possibles remain."

That reminded me and gave me an opening.

"McNab, how did you come to know about Kinloch? Remember, so far I've
heard nothing of that."

He regarded me almost with reproach in silence.

"Do you know what Matheson calls you, Chance?" he asked.

"No."

"Matheson calls you my jackal."

"Like his rotten cheek!"

"It is, my son, for as a jackal you're a rotten failure."

The unexpected sledge-hammer blow knocked me speechless. As I sat there
tingling McNab, producing his pocket-book, extracted a press cutting.

"Didn't I trust you to bring me all advertisements for men missing
since the 15th of January?" he demanded. "How did you come to overlook
this?" As he spoke the telephone rang, and laying the slip on my knee
he jumped to his feet and crossed the room.

At first as I read the slip I was quite sure I had passed it on to him.
It was headed Alexander David Kinloch, which explained why the name had
seemed vaguely familiar to me when McNab had startled the doctor with
it the previous day. But as I read my heart fell again, for in it were
the words, "last seen at Ealing on the night of Monday, 15th January."
And these were words I could never have forgotten. Yet I felt certain I
had given McNab a cutting headed with Kinloch's name. Then I saw just
what had caused me to miss this advertisement for Kinloch. I had read
no further than the man's name and, knowing that I had already passed
the thing on, assumed that its terms remained unchanged.

When I had finished my fervent excuses McNab emitted a grunt of
indignation.

"Fortunately I didn't entirely trust to you, and had a look at the
papers myself. But possibly you can now see something I did get out of
Dunn yesterday. Of course after seeing that advertisement you missed,
I had the office of that firm kept under observation. And we were soon
able to establish the identity of the professional looking man who
called there more often than any one else. The discovery that he was
an Ealing doctor formed a coincidence. But it might well be no more
than a coincidence, just as it might be a mere coincidence that this
man Kinloch was last seen in Ealing on the night of the Ealing murder.
For, after all, a man who intended to disappear on some particular
date would not be likely to postpone his purpose just because a murder
chanced to happen on the day he had chosen. And of course I had no
means of compelling this firm, Selwyn & Smith, to disclose the nature
of their business with either Kinloch or Dr. Dunn. Therefore what I had
to ascertain was, first, whether Dunn's repeated visits to that office
had any relation to Kinloch, and, secondly, whether this Kinloch had
any connection with the murder. As it happened the second point got
settled first, in my own mind anyway."

McNab produced from his pocket-book the two advertisements for Kinloch,
the one I had seen and the one I had missed. Passing them to me he said:

"Look at them and observe the difference. Read together they are
significant."

Alexander David Kinloch will hear something to his advantage by
communicating with....

Alexander David Kinloch, last seen at Ealing on the night of Monday,
15th January. Will any person in a position to supply information....

       *       *       *       *       *

The difference was obvious, the second being much fuller. But when I
indicated this McNab showed impatience.

"The significant difference is that the first is addressed directly
to Kinloch and the second is not," he said. "The second also offers a
reward!"

"Well, they would hardly offer him a reward for reporting himself so
that he might hear of something to his own advantage," I objected.

McNab glanced imploringly up at the ceiling.

"In the first the advertisers address Kinloch himself. They hope he
will see and read the notice. In the second they no longer expect him
to read it. Isn't it quite clear that after the publication of the
first advertisement some information has reached them about Kinloch?
There's the 'last seen in Ealing' to prove that. But what else reached
them? Have they now learned either that Kinloch was never taught to
read or that he cannot read _for some other reason_?"

"Because he was blind!" I cried.

"Ah, that possibility is what seemed to bring this Kinloch into closer
contact with the murder. If so, all the chances were that I had got the
name of the blind man for whom we had been seeking. Then I turned to
the first point, which was to ascertain if Dunn's visits to Selwyn &
Smith had any connection with Kinloch. This was less easy, for I had
absolutely nothing to go on. So I took a shot in the dark, by assuming
that what is true of nine-tenths of the blind _men_ in England at this
moment would be also true of Kinloch, namely, that his blindness was
contracted during war service. Furnished with his full name I went to
the War Record Office. Inside half an hour we had traced Kinloch to the
seventh battalion of a Scottish regiment in whose ranks he had been
thrice wounded. I also got a note of Dr. Dunn's war record which showed
that his time had been spent in the General Hospital at Boulogne. Here
was a possible point of contact between the two men--the thrice-wounded
soldier and the hospital doctor. Slender as this was, I pushed on with
it, ultimately securing the group photograph taken at Hamilton before
the battalion left for the Front. And yesterday you saw what happened
to Dunn when his eyes fell on Kinloch's face----"

A sharp ring of the telephone interrupted McNab, and in a moment he had
the receiver at his ear.

"Yes, it's me, sergeant.... All right. Yes, Howley had better speak
with me himself.... Enderby Gardens you say? Where's that? Kensington?
Off Campden Hill Road? Yes ... against the garden railings on the north
side under an overhanging tree--that right? Good! Now when did you
first notice him?... Not more than three weeks ago--you are sure?...
Right! Now how does he differ from the usual type?... Ah! ... only sits
there from eleven to one and from three to five.... Yes, that's odd.
Eh?... No, thank you, constable. No questions to him till I turn up,
please."

Ringing off, McNab turned, rubbing his hands.

"I've a notion," he said softly, "that you and I will be looking at
this Kinloch inside the next thirty minutes."

       *       *       *       *       *

On our way out to Enderby Gardens McNab explained the part he had
assigned to me. While I listened I saw he had chosen the one part
most easy for me to play. As a journalist I was to interview the man
suspected of being Kinloch, getting him to tell his story for my
newspaper--the sort of thing I could naturally do to the life. By the
time we had settled the details our taxi was turning into Campden Hill
Road. Dismissing it at the corner we walked along into Enderby Gardens.
And at once we saw our man. He was sitting against the railings on a
short three-legged camp-stool, the usual large volume on his knees.
He was visible at quite a distance because the garden side of the
square seemed less used than the other which carried the main stream of
pedestrians. With a blind man there was less need to take precautions
about examining him. So we passed slowly and had as good a look as his
bent head permitted. On reaching the far corner McNab stopped.

"That man," he said, "is not impossible at least, as the others I saw
certainly were."

"Seems older, more worn than the photograph."

"He would be. It's eight years since that was taken, and pretty bad
years for him. There's his shabby clothes to be discounted too. Go
and talk to him. I'll observe from here, for the blind have abnormal
hearing and we must raise no suspicion."

So I sauntered back to him.

"Afternoon. Doing well to-day?" I asked affably.

His head jerked round. The face was not unlike Kinloch's--harder and
thinner certainly. The eyes I could not see, for he never raised them
towards me, though I saw they were shut.

"Not particular," he replied, beginning to rub his fingers as if they
were stiff.

"Been at this long?"

"Goodish bit. Five years since I got myself blinded over there in
France."

"What were you before the war?"

He stopped his rubbing.

"Here, is this a game? What you gettin' at?"

It didn't seem worth while pushing things further, for Kinloch
certainly did not belong to this poor fellow's class. And it was more
from pity that I explained the questions were put on behalf of a
newspaper interested in disabled soldiers.

"If you could read my card," I said gently, "you would see I am on the
staff of the _Record_ and that my name is Chance."

A sudden, queer, startled cry came from him. The book on his knees fell
to the ground.

Stooping forward I picked it up.

"No harm done," I reassured him.

"You'll--you'll excuse me a-hollerin' out so," he stammered
breathlessly. "We--we--have to be very careful with them raised
letters. They've only to get a little damp for the fingers to push 'em
flat, and then there's no readin' of 'em."

The explanation seemed natural. And yet I was puzzled. For I could
have sworn the cry came before, not after, the book fell. Of course he
may have cried out because he felt the book slipping from his knees.
Besides, why should the mention of my name startle him: he never could
have heard of me before.

"What were you before the war?" I repeated.

"What was I before the war? Why, a bricklayer is what I was. And a good
un, mister, sure as me name is Dick 'Ollins."

"You seem to be quite good at the Braille too."

"That ain't no catch. Good or bad, nobody listens, really. And you just
think, mister, on the wages what bricklayers is getting these days, now
I'm out of it. But, there, I never 'ad much in the way of luck--not
what you'd call luck."

His tone had turned lachrymose, almost a whine. I could tell what was
coming. Hastily I planked down half a crown on his book and with a
mumbled wish for better luck soon went off to rejoin McNab. I felt
sorry for McNab. Once more his hopes were doomed. And great was his
disappointment as he listened to my report of the interview. For he
stood regarding Dick 'Ollins, whose monotonous reading was again
audible, regarding him with an expression of misery mingled with
despair.

       *       *       *       *       *

That night to cheer him up and divert his mind I took him round to the
Little Theatre. It was the Grand Guignol season, but for all that my
effort failed. When we got back to his flat, his spirits still clouded,
he sat staring in silence at the large woodcut of one John Knox by
name, which hung over the fireplace. McNab's walls were hung with old
prints of criminal trials and criminals, but the place of honour went
to this one, which depicted a long-bearded man with terrible eyes and a
Scotch cap on his head.

But it was a thinking cap McNab had on his own head that night. At last
he broke the long silence:

"Chance, I'm not at all satisfied about that man."

"John Knox?" I said, for lying back in his chair he still stared up at
the portrait.

"No, Dick Hollins. I'm not satisfied that is his name, and still less
that he ever was a bricklayer. Why does he sit there from eleven to
one and from three to five only? That's a peculiarity that even the
constable on the beat noticed; and it hasn't yet been explained. It
may be he moves to another pitch, but that is not the custom. And a
bricklayer! Did you observe his hands? Oh, yes, I know; it must be
years since he laid a brick, no doubt. But I'm not thinking of the
whiteness of his hands, but of the slenderness of his fingers. A
pickpocket, perhaps. A bricklayer--no!"

"He doesn't seem to be the man we're looking for, anyhow."

"No, he does not seem to be," McNab agreed. "But then if he were
Kinloch he would hardly want to seem that. Anyway," he nodded, "we'll
try to make quite certain about him to-morrow."

And the next morning McNab assuredly did his best. When I called for
him about ten I was told by the housekeeper he had left word that I was
to wait his return.

"He's had to go round to the Yard," Janet confided, in admitting me.

"Scotland Yard?" I said in surprise, wondering if something fresh had
suddenly developed.

"Ay, Scotland Yard," Janet assented, flicking imaginary dust off a
chair before I occupied it. "It's a verra queer name to give to a place
in the heart o' London."

"Your master told me once it's because there's more brains to the yard
there than in any other English mile."

"Did he so, Mr. Chance? Well, that's no what he tell't me when I asked
him."

"What did he tell you?"

"He said it was called Scotland Yard because it was so full of
inquisitive old women."

"That would be when he was annoyed with the Yard."

"Or with me," she grinned, shutting the door.

Left alone I began to wonder what had taken McNab to the Yard that
morning, and whether he would return satisfied or annoyed with them.
But I had not long to wait before hearing the metallic click of his
latch-key in the outer door. And a glance at his face revealed his
satisfaction. He only thrust his head inside the room, but I saw he was
pleased with the Yard that morning.

"Ah!" he greeted me. "You've come. Good! Taxi at the door. Come on; I
can explain on the way."

And before we reached the corner where Enderby Gardens joins Campden
Hill Road he had made me familiar with my part.

"We have a trick to play on him. But if he turns out to be Kinloch he
must suspect nothing or the game is up."

"And what if he turns out to be Dick Hollins?"

"Then it won't matter what he thinks. If you are convinced he is Dick
Hollins that is all the better, for you are to talk to him as if you
had no doubts. You talk to him as you did yesterday, like a press man.
The only difference this time is that I am coming close up to inspect
him. That's all, I think."

We left the taxi at the corner and walked along the short bottle-neck
entrance that brought us opposite the gardens. From the pavement on the
south side, much the more frequented, we could see the suspected Dick
Hollins crouching on his three-legged stool, his book on his knees.
He was, indeed, visible for a considerable distance, for the other
pavement had but few pedestrians, mostly nursemaids and their charges
strolling towards the entrance to the gardens to which our man had his
back.

For perhaps twenty minutes McNab studied the man from every angle, as
we passed up and down, and if he detected anything strange or unusual
in him it was more than I did. When we paused finally exactly opposite
him, his voice came quite audibly across the road, and McNab stood with
his ear turned to the voice, closing his eyes, as I noted, like some
one striving to hear a distant melody. Whether he detected any falsity
in the man's voice, or a pronunciation of a word that was too refined
to belong to a genuine bricklayer I could not tell. It all sounded just
right to my ear.

Hollins was reading from the book of Psalms, awkward pauses in his
voice, as he fingered away at his raised letters. Here is a passage
exactly reproduced as he read it:

Wy ... 'op ... ye so ... ye 'igh 'ills?

This ... is ... th' Lord's ... 'ill ... in wich ... it ... pleas ...
eth ... 'im ... ter ... dwell.

To me it seemed all plain, straightforward Cockney. And yet as I
watched McNab listening I saw something like the ghost of a smile
appear on his face. And since I could not suppose him likely to be
pleased to discover that Hollins was as genuine as he looked, I felt
certain McNab's ear had taken in something suspicious to which I had
been deaf. My eye went again to Hollins. A queer figure he made,
sitting hunched up on his stool, his chin elevated so grotesquely while
he read that I might have thought him impudently regarding us through
half-closed eyes, had I not known he was sightless.

Quietly McNab took my arm.

"Now for the 'close up.' Talk as yesterday. But mark this: when I go
behind him you are to get his hat off somehow. Knock it off if you
can't think of some pretence. You can be clumsy enough. Then till I am
finished with his head, retain the hat, pretending to brush off the
dust. When I am done, get him to read aloud. But above all he must have
no suspicion of my presence. Got that?"

McNab finished by a gentle push, and I stepped across the road to where
the blind man sat.

"'Morning, Mr. Hollins. You don't remember me perhaps," I added as he
hesitated over my greeting.

"Yes, I do. You're the newspaper gentleman again."

"You don't forget voices then?"

Mr. Hollins chuckled.

"Not when they comes into me ears along o' 'arf a crown as yours done
yesterday."

McNab stepped behind him like a cat.

"And your fingers are as good as eyes, aren't they? I'd like to try
what my fingers make of those letters. May I?" Giving him no time to
reply I bent forward and with the hand I did not lay on his book,
lightly swept off his hat. With an apology for my clumsiness I stooped
to pick it up. And then while pretending to flick the dust off I
watched McNab. He was holding something close to the man's head. I saw
what it was--a small wisp of dark hair. Then I understood why he had
been to Scotland Yard. This was part, at least, of the hair found in
the room at Ealing. The comparison lasted but a second. Almost as soon
as I realized McNab's purpose he had the wisp back into its glass tube
and out of sight. I replaced the hat. McNab gave me a curt nod.

"Better let me see your own fingers at work," I said. "Do you mind?"

"Mind? Of course not. I'm often asked to do it," Hollins replied,
putting up his hands to readjust the position of his hat. The act made
me smile, for every man has to do that when another puts a hat on his
head, even when that other is his wife. This act McNab had apparently
counted on, for in a flash he had placed a sheet of paper, taken from
where I never saw, upon the volume on Hollins' knees. But the moment
the blind man's fingers went back to his book he instantly detected
the interposed paper, drew his hands away as if he had been stung, and
his sightless eyelids lifted.

"What's that?" he whispered, lowering his hands, gingerly, to feel.
McNab, however, had already flicked away his sheet of paper.

"Felt queer it did--all spongy like. Ain't been no water dropping on
the book, 'as there?" Hollins queried, bewildered.

"Must have been something on your fingers," I said. "There's nothing on
your book."

"It certainly feels all right now," he admitted.

What Hollins read to me I do not know. My eyes followed McNab, who was
walking lightly away. But I had to wait till the reader stopped, for he
must have no suspicions. Somehow or other I took leave of Hollins, his
blessings following me after I slipped another half-crown into his hand.

McNab was waiting round the corner. He seemed pleased with himself.

"That, I should think," he said, "is the first time a man's
finger-prints have been _taken_ from him without his knowledge."

But adroitly as the trick had been worked I knew McNab's quiet elation
must spring from something other than a sense of his own cleverness. To
have taken the finger-prints of Dick Hollins without Dick Hollins being
aware of what had happened would never have brought that gleam into
McNab's eyes. Only a very decided advance achieved in a troublesome
case could have done that, I reflected as we hurried away. At the
corner of Bayswater Road McNab hailed a passing taxi. While we stood
waiting I found my voice.

"So the blind man isn't Dick Hollins?"

"No, no more Hollins than you are Holofernes," McNab said.

"But if he is--"

"Hush!" He cut me short as the taxi swung in to the kerb.




                             CHAPTER XVII


There was no mistaking the certainty in McNab's voice. And the
suddenness with which I perceived he felt assured that the disguised
man was Kinloch left me breathless. All the way along Bayswater Road I
kept trying to get a grasp of this fact and what it would mean in the
development of the case. For, if McNab were right, we were on the eve
of many discoveries.

How he had penetrated the man's disguise I could not imagine. The
man's voice sounded, as I have said, genuine Cockney to my ear. And
the comparison of his hair with the wisp found in the room at Ealing,
exactly alike in shade as McNab may have found it, was far from
conclusive evidence. Dark hair is not so uncommon as all that. And
the finger-prints could not be the basis of his certainty, for he had
not had time to examine them, much less to compare them with those
left on the broken glass found in the room after the murder. To make
the comparison McNab would have to visit the finger-print bureau at
Scotland Yard.

It will be recalled that McNab considered the finger-prints on the
broken glass might possibly be those of Kinloch and not--as Inspector
Snargrove held--those of the murderer. On this question I found myself,
to my regret, again forced to agree with Snargrove's view, though for
other reasons than those which had weighed with him. My argument was
that Kinloch being blind would be ever so much less likely to find the
tumbler on Ponsonby Paget's table than the murderer, who had eyes to
see it. But this quite rational view McNab brushed aside by saying
that though he could not see the whisky or the glass I must remember
Kinloch was a Scotchman and still had a nose. This, of course, was mere
jesting, the sort of thing he said when he for some reason wished to
conceal from me the real grounds which had forced him to a specific
conclusion. All the same I saw that, if McNab now went to Scotland
Yard with a set of finger-prints the duplicates of those already on
their books in connection with this case, he was likely to be met by
questions which could not be turned aside by a jest. Where had he got
those prints which were those of a man wanted for the Ealing murder?
Why, it would set Scotland Yard buzzing like a wasp's nest. But if
the two sets did not coincide, what had McNab to gain from those
finger-prints? Nothing that I could see. For, if no separate set of
Kinloch's impressions existed, those taken from the ostensible Dick
Hollins that day were useless: they could not prove that Dick Hollins
and Alexander David Kinloch were one and the same person. And it
mystified me more than ever to remember that McNab was sure the two
were one even before he took the finger-prints.

But I was not yet convinced Hollins was a fraud. So, as the taxi pulled
up in a traffic block at Marble Arch I said as much to McNab, bluntly
too, to draw him out of his contented silence. He turned to me, laying
a hand on my knee.

"You must learn to be a better observer, my son. It's almost as
essential in your own profession as in mine. An observer is what few
are. The most of folk have sight but few have insight." He paused
before adding, as if quoting from some one: "'They look on what I look
on but they see not what I see.' That is why they need such aids to
apprehension as journalists and detectives."

He spoke with seriousness, but his adroit double use of the word
apprehension made me smile.

"You've been a first-rate jackal to me this day," he resumed. "I
was anxious the man should not hear my voice just yet, nor even
know another person was there. But you kept all his wits riveted on
yourself. And you showed him you believed he was what he affected to
be."

"Because I did believe it. His Cockney accent appeared perfect."

"Oh, but the Cockney accent is easy--a mere matter of changing 'a'
into 'y' and saying fyce for face--that sort of thing. But behind the
Cockney accent is the Cockney idiom, a very different matter. And this
man's idioms were all wrong."

"Give me an example," I said as the policeman's extended arm was
lowered and we began to move again.

"Take this one, then. You remember his saying to you that he never
forgets voices when they come into his ears along o' 'arf a crown? That
'along o'' was wrong. He used it in the sense of 'together with.' But
in the East End you will find 'along o'' means 'because of.' A wife
beater will tell the magistrate it was 'all along of her tongue' as an
excuse. So this fellow I was certain was no true Cockney.

"And this matter of the idiom did not stand alone. There was, again,
his rendering of that passage from his book. Yes, it was well done.
As Cockney English you might think it perfect unless you were, like
myself, very suspicious. But for all that he blundered badly."

"Will you tell me where? I, too, was on the watch and detected nothing."

"It was very obvious. He put in the r in reading the word 'Lord.'"

"But," I objected, "there _is_ an r in the word 'Lord.'"

"True. But no Cockney sounds it." McNab laughed. "All you English now
treat that letter r as if it were an intruder from Scotland. You try
to cold-shoulder it out. You deny it? Very well, take this same word
'Lord.' You attend the Law Courts, don't you? Tell me, did you ever
hear Counsel address the judge otherwise than 'm'lud'? And you go to
church too."

"Not so often."

"Often enough to know that the parson, like the generality of you, says
'Laud' for 'Lo-r-rd,'" McNab snapped. And as I turned to protest he
added with a laugh: "Oh, I dare say you _think_ you sound the r, but
it is an illusion on your par-rt. But there was no illusion about the
blind man's r, which you heard yourself, no doubt."

"Yes, he put in about three in the one word," I said mischievously.

"So you would think. But he did nothing of the sort. He put in one with
just the right distinctness and precision to prove to me that he was
not only no Cockney but also that he was no Englishman."

"And the colour of the hair convinced you he was Kinloch?"

"The texture more than the colour; there's more variation in texture
than in colour. I put that wisp found in the room at Ealing close to
his head and found a perfect match both in colour and texture. But that
wasn't all. While you had his hat in your hands it was possible for me
to examine the man's head. You remember the photograph of Kinloch in
uniform? It showed him wearing the glengarry bonnet which, more than
any other headgear, allows one to see the wearer's forehead. This was
very fortunate, for the forehead is the most changeless feature in
the human face, more so even than the eyes, which of course I could
not see. Then as I looked at his forehead I regarded the identity as
established. In configuration, shape, in the way in which the hair
followed the contour of the temples and arched up to the broad straight
forehead I knew the truth--this was my man at last!"

There was a glow in his eyes as he finished, and a hint of colour in
his usually pale face. His feeling of triumph was stronger than he
usually permitted it to be; and I did not wonder, for he had met with
many checks in this most baffling case.

As we neared the _Record_ office where he was to drop me I asked about
his next move.

"What are you going to do about him?"

"Kinloch?"

"Yes. He may refuse to tell you anything, or he may tell you a faked up
story."

"I'm not going to ask him anything. I'll leave him unquestioned where
he is, roosting on that stool. He knows his chances of making contact
with those he wishes to meet better than we do. He isn't sitting there
for the fun of the thing. So we'll let him sit, and see what comes
of it. He will serve admirably as bait, the unconscious bait, for the
bigger fish we have yet to land."

"But you intend to have him watched?"

"Of course. That will be fixed up inside the next hour. Two gardeners
will be hoeing and weeding the beds behind him, a painter will be at
work on the gate close up on his right, and if you happen to pass that
way before five to-night you will find a match-seller has stationed
himself under the overhanging tree five yards to the left. Come, here
you are," he said, throwing open the door as the taxi drew up at the
office.

Reluctantly I got out. There was so much more I wanted to learn.

But Matheson saw to it that I did not learn more that night. Matheson
had lately become rather soured over the case. It had been of little
value to the paper so far. "The blind looking for the blind," he
muttered one day after questioning me about our progress. I could
have told him enough to whet his keenness, but my lips were sealed,
since the secrets were not mine but McNab's, at whose service Matheson
himself had placed me. Indeed, towards the end of the case, I felt that
to be between Matheson and McNab was like being between the devil and
the deep sea. Matheson naturally was all for publicity while McNab's
instincts inclined him to closeness. So it was pull devil, pull baker,
with myself between the pair. And that night Matheson had the pull, for
as soon as my news job was complete he gave me, before he himself left,
enough other work to tie me up till after midnight. And all the time
McNab, I knew, was out there, putting the last touches to the trap by
which he meant to make his big capture.

But about nine o'clock, a few minutes after I had resigned myself to go
on with work our most inexpert junior could have done equally well, I
was called to the telephone. It _was_ McNab. And the moment I heard his
voice it was apparent that something fresh was in the wind.

"That you, Chance? Come round at once. Something has happened."

"What?" I asked involuntarily, forgetting that he would not tell me
over the telephone. But to my surprise he breathed the words:

"_She has seen him._"

For the moment I did not realize what this meant.

"Do you mean Kin--"

"Yes. Come now. I'm expecting Howley every minute."

Promptly I handed over my work to the inexpert junior. As I hurried
round to the Adelphi I remembered that Howley was the name of the smart
constable who had spoken to McNab over the telephone about the blind
reader he had noticed in Enderby Gardens.

He had not come when I arrived, but McNab soon told me as much as he
himself knew. He had, it appeared, just come in when Howley rang him up
from the police station. Almost apologetically the officer said that as
we had questioned him about the blind man in Enderby Gardens we might
perhaps care to know that some others seemed also interested in him.
At first McNab thought Inspector Snargrove had got on the right clue
at last, or that his own watchers had been clumsy; but, when Howley
informed him a lady seemed to be in it, the startling truth came out.
There had been an incident, a very curious incident close to the blind
man's pitch, which had called for the constable's intervention. Howley
said he was approaching the Gardens from the west about 12.30 when
he heard a cry, a woman's cry, and coming nearer, saw a lady leaning
against the garden railings half supported by a man who appeared to
have been accompanying her. A few people had gathered round the couple.
Howley assisted the man to get her into a passing taxi, in which they
drove off, the lady in a state of collapse.

"But where does the blind man come in?" I asked.

"I couldn't quite follow Howley there. That's chiefly why I asked him
to come along. But notice the time the incident happened--12.30, about
two hours _before_ we ourselves saw him and took his finger-prints.
That's the curious feature. Of course it's possible it was merely a
coincidence that the lady took a faint turn just there. And I gathered
from Howley that no sort of communication passed between the blind
man and the pair. Kinloch certainly would not see what was happening.
Still, that is all the more reason why we must ascertain what led
Howley to associate the lady's faint with the blind man. There's this
other circumstance. At 8.35 Jenkins--he's the match-seller--rang me up
to say he'd just returned from shadowing the blind man to his lodgings
in Hollis Street. Jenkins was inclined to be sore about it. I had led
him to believe his job would be finished by five, whereas the man had
stayed on his pitch till almost eight. That is another fact that makes
it necessary for us to see Howley. For, if this extension of time from
five to eight is exceptional, it is highly significant when taken in
conjunction with the incident earlier in the day."

"Looks as if he expected her to come back."

"Certainly, if this extra long stay of his turns out to be exceptional.
And it looks as if we had got at Kinloch in the nick of time. Another
day and it might have been too late. We have got him all right
though. He cannot escape. Day and night he will be under perpetual
surveillance; and his blindness makes that an easy job."

"You have set an all-night watch on his lodgings?"

"Better than that--something less conspicuous. My match-seller in the
same lodging house, probably in the next bed to his."

Just when I was thinking how easy it all was and how impossible for
a blind man to escape in such circumstances, or even to be aware he
was under observation, there came a knock at the door, and Howley was
ushered in.

The constable was a fresh-complexioned, clear eyed fellow, of the usual
well set up build and, though now in his off duty clothes, there was no
mistaking what his duty was. Sitting bolt upright on the extreme edge
of a chair he retailed the facts already given, and it was not till
McNab began to question him that anything fresh was elicited.

"What made you suppose the lady had any interest in the blind man?"
McNab asked.

"Well, chiefly it was the way she kept looking at him over the
gentleman's shoulder while I was helping to get her into the taxi."

"She seemed unwilling to go?"

"Yes. And yet she kept staring at the man as if he had been a ghost,
as you might say. So I asked the gentleman if he had any complaint to
lodge against the man."

"What did he reply?"

"He did not reply--he just smiled."

"Did you form any idea as to the relationship of the lady and
gentleman? Did you think they were, for instance, husband and wife?"

Howley fidgeted momentarily.

"Well, sir, at the time questions like that didn't enter my mind; but I
can say they were on intimate terms, for she used his Christian name."

"Oh! What was it?" McNab enquired.

"She addressed him as Sandy. Several times she said quite low, 'Oh,
Sandy,' like that; almost into his ear, as she looked along at the
blind man as if she was frightened."

Swiftly McNab exchanged a glance with me.

"Ah, I see." There was disappointment in his tone. Then he added: "And
the blind man, do you think he overheard her?"

Howley was surprised.

"Oh, no, the name wasn't more than whispered. And, although my
attention was given to the lady, I had my eye on the blind man just
then, thinking he might have annoyed them as they passed him. The man
had stopped reading and had turned his face our way. Though of course
he could not see he was no doubt aware from the noise of feet on the
pavement that something was happening close to him, for he seemed to be
listening hard too."

"A dramatic moment that, eh, Chance?" McNab nodded meaningly to me.

And if, as now seemed proved, he was right about the blind man being
Kinloch in search of the lady, it certainly was a thrilling situation.

"Tell me, constable," McNab said after a long pause, "are you certain
no communication passed between the blind man and the lady?"

The question obviously amazed Howley.

"Not after I arrived. What happened before I cannot say. The incident
lasted no more than a couple of minutes or so before they went off in
the taxi."

"Did you hear what address the gentleman gave to the driver?"

"I did, sir. It was 3 Brook Street, Belgravia."

McNab drew the writing-pad towards him as he sat down at the table.
Howley seemed to be developing increasing surprise and some uneasiness
at the minuteness with which he was being questioned. But, from the
almost nonchalant way in which McNab pulled the writing-pad across, not
even I could have guessed that he was writing down the first definite
address obtained in connection with the Ealing murder.

"And the taxi's number?" he enquired.

But this Howley had not observed. In response to McNab's lifted
eyebrows he explained that he had been too busy in getting the lady
into the taxi and in keeping back the inquisitive onlookers to notice
the number. This looked like one of our old checks till Howley, looking
up from the contemplation of his boots, hesitated the suggestion that
he could obtain the number since he knew from a recent case in which
he had been concerned the driver belonged to a rank at the top of
Campden Hill Road. McNab picked up his pencil again, and down went the
particulars the officer supplied. While these were being taken I got
hold of the London Directory and turned up Brook Street, Belgravia. It
was, I discovered, a short residential street behind Grosvenor Place,
and the occupier of number three was given as Christopher Agate, M.D.
Accepting the hint I next opened McNab's copy of the Medical Directory
and learnt that Agate, after studying in London, had graduated M. B.
at Cambridge in 1903, joined the R.A.M.C., served in India, in 1909
contributing to the _B.M.F._ a series of articles on military hygiene.

But I pulled up in the act of transcribing all this information on
hearing McNab say:

"And now, constable, I am sure you can supply a pretty accurate
description of the gentleman and the lady?"

Howley could. There had been nothing to distract his attention from
them. And he had got the particulars entered in his notebook. As his
big hand went to his pocket, and fishing out the book he began to turn
the pages, my pulse suddenly quickened. Now, at last, we were to have a
glimpse of the hidden man, the actual criminal. Howley found the page
and cleared his throat.

"Height about 5 feet 11 inches. Age between 35 and 40; pale complexion,
dark, quick-moving eyes, and dark hair with close clipped moustache;
features regular, small tight-lipped mouth; figure upright, looks like
soldier in mufti; wearing smartly cut brown suit and soft hat to match."

As Howley looked up from his book to see, I suppose, if this conveyed
anything to us, I was sure McNab was silently visualizing the man. On
that there came back to my memory a thing McNab had said to Matheson
in the office--that he had no doubt the murderer was a man in a high
social position and that probably his portrait had more than once
appeared in our columns. But if McNab made any identification from the
officer's description it was more than I could do. The description
failed to be sufficiently individual. It would have fitted hundreds,
and if helpful at all it was so more from those it excluded than from
any one at whom it definitely pointed. McNab himself did not appear
to find much help from the description to judge from the way he sat,
hunched up in thought, frowning, elbows on knees, and with his long,
thin fingers thrust into his much ruffled hair.

"And the woman?" he said at length.

Howley hesitated, rubbing his square chin as he eyed his notebook
doubtfully.

"I had a good look at her of course," he said, "but I've made no entry.
In her excited state it's difficult to say what she is usually like.
Even her height, for example, sir--it's hard to judge a female's height
when she is half-leaning against another person."

McNab nodded.

"Just shut your eyes, and describe her as you see her."

Howley at least contemplated the toes of his boots through lowered
lids.

"Young," he pronounced, "tallish but of slender build, wearing a navy
blue costume and small hat with light stockings."

"And her looks?"

"She looked ill--like what I've already said, as if she had seen a
ghost."

"Yes, but normally would she be considered, well, fine looking?"

"Oh, she was certainly of prepossessing appearance."

McNab smiled at this.

"That tells us little--prepossessing appearance. I've often wondered
whether the police got that phrase from the reporters or the reporters
got it from the police. Just tell me what her points were: eyes, nose,
mouth, hair, voice, anything distinctive or peculiar."

Howley did not take long over that.

"She had fine eyes. Yes, I remember that, as she stared--brown eyes,
very big at that moment, anyhow; and the eyebrows dark. That is why I
was surprised at the colour of her hair."

"What surprised you?"

"Well, sir, in that close-fitting hat you couldn't see her hair. But in
getting her into the taxi the hat was displaced, her hair showed, and
it was fair hair which she wore long, in coils about her ears, with a
square-cut fringe that came almost to her eyebrows."

"Would you say then that these were her most distinctive
characteristics?"

"The colour of her hair and her eyes, yes," Howley replied with
conviction.

"Good. That is all we need, I think."

McNab rose and Howley heaved himself up, pocketing his notebook.

"I can take it, I suppose, that something lies behind this?" he asked
doubtfully.

McNab preceded him to the door.

"Something very serious may lie behind it," he replied, taking him
by the arm. "If it does, you can take it that your work will not go
unmentioned nor unrewarded."

When the door closed on P.C. Howley McNab flung himself into the big
wicker chair. He seemed tired. I passed him the note I had made on Dr.
Agate.

"Ah, that will keep," he said with a yawn of weariness. "It may be
useful, but I doubt if that taxi ever reached this address. The man who
carried out the murder with such foresight was not likely to give away
such a clue at such an awkward moment in the hearing of a policeman and
almost in the presence of Kinloch. That, you'll allow, was hardly the
moment for such a man to make a slip. Still"--he glided the paper into
his pocket--"I'll see the taxi man in the morning and verify that."

"And those finger-prints--have you verified them yet?"

"I have. Those I took from Kinloch do not coincide with those found on
the glass." Lying back he put his hands lazily behind his head. "Queer
how the value of a thing changes with a change in a situation. Once I
hoped the two sets of impressions would coincide. But when I had no
need to be certain Hollins is Kinloch, my hope was that the two sets
would _not_ coincide. For if those at the Yard were not Kinloch's
finger-prints they must be those of the murderer, and in themselves
they will be enough to hang him. Yes, our work is nearly over. Anyway,
there's nothing more you can do to-night, laddie."

Seeing what he meant I got to my feet, picking up my hat.

"And--to-morrow?" I asked.

"To-morrow," he said, "the teeth of the trap will close on him."

The grim certainty in the quietly uttered word arrested me. That McNab
regarded to-morrow as the end of his work on the Ealing murder was
clear. And my thoughts flew back to the beginning. For the man on whom
the trap would close to-morrow would go to his doom merely because
this other man now lying with legs crossed in that chair had happened
to observe the unusual manner in which the end of a walking-stick had
been worn away. It staggered me to think of it. Everything that had
followed, and that which was to follow to-morrow, would have, as it
were, _emerged_ from the end of a blind man's stick!

So seeing this miracle in the art of observation, I had not the
least shadow of doubt as to what would happen to-morrow. The woman,
as McNab counted on, would undoubtedly come back to rescue Kinloch
from the wretched plight in which she had unexpectedly found him. For
obviously Howley's account supported McNab's inference that the woman
had at least pity if not a warmer feeling for the blind man with whom
she had lived. She would come back--alone, next time. All Howley had
reported was the warrant for that. She would come. Kinloch had all
along counted on her coming; and he had been right. And she would walk
straight into the open trap. But another thought came as I turned to
go, and I addressed the back of McNab's head.

"At what hour will the arrest be made?"

"That is not in my hands," he replied. "The lady will doubtless choose
her own time for visiting Enderby Gardens." He broke off with a laugh.
"Oh, I see what you mean. You want another 'exclusive' for the Friday
_Record_, and so you would prefer the arrest to be rather late at
night."

"If possible. Matheson has spent a lot on the case."

"Well, I'm not likely to be in a position to swear an information
before to-morrow evening, if that's any comfort to you. So at least the
evening papers will get nothing. But after that the control will be in
Snargrove's hands."

"Snargrove?" I cried.

"Of course. I have no power to arrest the man. When I have sworn my
information and led the inspector and his men to the door with the
warrant in his pocket my work is finished."

"And Snargrove steps into the limelight!"

"Yes. He takes that notoriety off me. A sore handicap for a detective
it is to be well known. To be able to remain unknown is almost the
one asset the private agent has over the official. But keep your mind
easy about the other newspapers. No other paper will contain more than
a mention of the arrest, if as much." He waved me away. "So go home
and get to work on those columns for your Friday's issue. That will
provide England with another sensation."

And that is what I set about doing the moment I got home. It was
somewhere about three in the morning when I dropped into bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

But I had no mind to miss getting the full story of the actual arrest.
Therefore I was on McNab's doorstep by 10.30 that morning. We went out
to Enderby Gardens together. Alighting at the Campden Hill Road corner
we walked along towards the square, the centre of which was occupied by
the Gardens. McNab was quietly elated, but I fancy my own excitement
was not equally well controlled. He pointed out how admirably the place
adapted itself to our purpose--a quiet, smallish square with just one
rather narrow road leading into it and another leading out into the
road beyond.

"We may have to wait for hours, you know," he said. "But there's a seat
inside the garden gate where we can sit and smoke at our ease without
attracting attention. And," he added with a chuckle, "if we run out
of matches there will be a match-seller at our elbow just outside the
gate."

"You seem very sure she will come."

"Very sure. So, it would appear, was Kinloch when he chose his pitch.
And who could doubt it after hearing Howley's account of the incident
yesterday? Evidently she wanted to speak to Kinloch then when she saw
him sitting there as a blind beggar. As evidently the man bustled her
into the taxi to prevent that. Howley described him as pale. I bet
the gentleman was--at that moment. Think of it! He found himself
unexpectedly within ten feet of the man who could denounce him as the
murderer, an excited woman on his hands, and a policeman at his elbow.
Nerve? Yes, the fellow must have nerves of steel. Lucky for him that
Kinloch, though a fraud as Dick Hollins, was no fraud as a blind man."

"So he could not know either of them by sight," I interjected.

"Quite true, but Kinloch counted on her speaking to him when she was
startled to see him sitting there as a beggar. He had, no doubt, his
own reasons for that belief, and what happened yesterday proves that
his belief was well founded." He looked at me quizzically as we walked
on. "You don't know much about the ways of women yet. When a woman has
made up what she would call her mind to do a thing, do it she will.
You might stop her once, you might stop her twice, but sooner or later
when you have to think of something else, or are only looking the other
way--"

The words ended in a sudden, queer gasp, and he pulled up short,
catching at my arm. As I looked round he pointed with the other hand.
We had by this time advanced sufficiently far along the road to open
out a view of the gardens in the square. As usual the south pavement
showed a fair number of pedestrians coming and going, but the north,
next the gardens, was empty enough to let us see even at that distance
that Kinloch was not there.

"I don't see Jenkins, either," McNab said, "nor Peters," he added as he
began running towards the gardens.

McNab reached the spot ahead of me. I had no idea he could sprint so
fast. But a closer inspection of the spot yielded some information.
Of Jenkins and his matches there was indeed no trace, nor of Roberts
and Pilcher, the two who should have been weeding and hoeing inside
the railings. And of Peters' presence there was just the evidence
given by the green paint on a length of these same railings. We could
see where he had left off--half-way down one of the bars, the upper
being a brilliant fresh green, the lower colourless and rusty, with
the half-filled paint pot at its foot. But all that we saw afterwards.
What took the eye first was the blind man's three-legged stool standing
there unoccupied, with the blind man's big book lying face downward
on the pavement. McNab's four men had vanished, and the man they were
watching.

After surveying the scene for a moment with narrowed eyes McNab stepped
up to the railings and, touching the paint, regarded his finger-tips.

"Still quite fluid," he murmured. "It can only just have happened."
Then, indicating how close the stool was to the point at which the
painting had stopped, he said: "Peters got his chance, anyhow."

But I could see McNab was gravely perturbed.




                             CHAPTER XVIII


McNab said nothing for a long time. He stood gazing, hands clasped
loosely behind his back, at the various articles and implements
which had been abruptly abandoned by the blind man and the men set
to watch him. One or two pedestrians, seeing him thus absorbed, cast
half curious eyes on him as they passed, glancing about to see what
attracted his attention. McNab did not seem to like what he saw. When
at length he turned to me with a question there was a quiver, a nervous
sort of quiver about the corners of his mouth.

"Well, Godfrey," he said, "what do you make of it?"

"Your bait's been taken," I hazarded.

He nodded gravely.

"No nibbling at it this time. Swallowed, and carried away."

"And presently your men will come back and tell us where it was taken
to. All according to plan, isn't it?" I asked.

"I hope so," he rejoined slowly. "I hope so. Still, something my men
didn't expect to happen has happened here. They were certainly taken
by surprise." His eye travelled over the place again. "Look at Peters'
brush. It dropped handle downwards out of his hand into the pot. And
he was wearing an apron. Did he follow them in that? It isn't anywhere
about. The hoe, too, looks as if it had been dropped in the midst of a
stroke; and Pilcher appears to have gone off still wearing his weeding
gloves, though he has left his cap behind." McNab indicated the cap,
which I now perceived lying under a shrub on the dark mould inside the
railings.

"Something took them unawares," he said.

He gazed up and down the road. As usual, our side had little on it
except nurses with perambulators and a few toddling children. And
on the busier side, if any in that stream had witnessed anything
startling, they had already passed on elsewhere.

For some fifteen minutes, which must have seemed as many hours to
McNab, we paced up and down, waiting.

"Peters is a reliable young fellow," he said once. "Never has failed
me. Jenkins is up to a thing or two as well," he went on, stooping to
lift the Braille book from the ground.

"Then," I said, "Peters and Jenkins between them will have followed
Kinloch. It's only a matter of the distance from here to the house
they've taken him to. Sooner or later one of your men will come back
with the information."

"That was the plan," he replied as mechanically he smoothed out the
crumpled leaves of the book. "But the best laid schemes o' mice and men
sometimes miscarry. And I begin to suspect this one has. It all looks
as if the bait had been lifted clean out of the trap. And that means we
have lost contact with Ponsonby Paget's assassin--lost contact just at
the one point where contact could have been established."

He shut the Braille book and laid it on the camp-stool.

And within the next few minutes the proof came which justified McNab's
foreboding. It was the little man, Peters, who first turned up, looking
both hot and sheepish. His crest-fallen look was eloquent of failure,
and the shake of the head which he gave as soon as he met McNab's eyes
was not really necessary.

"So he's got clean away?" McNab said.

Peters nodded breathlessly.

"A blind man, from four of you? It should be interesting to hear how."

Peters found his voice at last.

"He gave us the slip, sir, all right, but he isn't a blind man; no more
a blind man than I am."

"What!" McNab cried. "What's that you say? 'Not blind?' Are you gone
crazy, Peters?"

"No more blind than myself, he wasn't," the man repeated stubbornly.

I well remember how McNab stared. Stared at first in almost angry
incredulity. And then a change shot over his face. The look of blank
unbelief vanished from his eyes to be replaced by a swift light that
revealed understanding.

"I see," he said slowly and as if to himself. "Yes, I see now. So that
was why Dunn laughed." He turned and nodded to Peters. "But come and
tell your story. There's a seat near the gate inside the gardens."

And there presently we were sitting with Peters between us.

"It's not yet an hour," the little man began with a sigh, "since the
thing happened. We had all settled down to our work, Jenkins with his
matches, the others at their weeding and me with the brush. Between
Jenkins and me the man on his little stool. Safe as houses it all
seemed. Jenkins, of course, had the best chance of seeing what was up,
for he had nothing to do, and his face turned on the road all the time,
whereas I naturally had my back to the road. It was a cry from Jenkins
that came first. I looked round and saw him being grabbed tight by a
gentleman, and him shouting out something which I didn't catch. But
what I saw next was that blind man bolting out into the road, and him
neatly dodging a cyclist too." Peters paused momentarily. "I own up to
it, I was so taken aback at that sight that I didn't act near quick
enough. In fact, sir, I was in a manner of speaking so struck all of a
heap by discovering the man wasn't blind at all that I stood all agape
and paralyzed. He was so mighty spry too--quick as lightning. You'd
never have guessed he was the same sort of down and out looking chap
sitting so quiet on his stool. The result was he got pretty well into
the car before any of us got a move on."

"The lady had stopped her car on the other side?" McNab asked.

Peters looked up quickly.

"That's right, sir, on her near side coming from Campden Hill Road,
that is. But she hadn't stopped her engine, though she had the door
open and was in the act of rising to get out, I thought, when the man
seemed to say something to her and jump in by the offside door. The
lady seemed taken by surprise. She did nothing for a second or two.
Then I dropped my brush and ran. I'd have got there, too, but for a
taxi that nearly ran into me. It blocked me out just long enough for
the car to get moving."

"What was the car's number?" McNab asked.

Peters fairly wrung his hands in despair.

"Oh, sir, all that sort of thing had been taken thought of. The number
was hidden by a rug hanging over the back; the front wasn't in sight,
and all I saw as I made a grab and missed was the letter 'K' when the
rug swung up a little as the car accelerated."

A groan came from McNab.

"No need to ask what happened next," he said.

"Well, sir, by this time our other two men had scrambled somehow over
the railings and Jenkins had got free from his gentleman."

"So you all four ran down the road after the car, didn't you, with a
crowd at your heels, eh? What good did you think that would do?"

Peters looked rather aggrieved and perplexed.

"Well, sir, we divided at the end of the road, Jenkins and I getting a
taxi there. We went up towards Bayswater, leaving the other two to go
down Kensington way, whenever they found another taxi. And, sir, there
wasn't a crowd following us, not what you'd call a crowd; it's--it's
too genteel a neighbourhood for that, sir," Peters protested.

McNab replied with an impatient snort.

"Peters, you might just as well have gone on at your painting. Better,
indeed, for then you might have helped Jenkins to collar his gentleman."

"Collar the gentleman!" Peters exclaimed. "But, sir, it was the
gentleman that collared Jenkins. He had stopped for a box of his
matches just as the car came along, giving him half a crown, and he
held on to Jenkins till he got his change. Jenkins told me in the
taxi, said the man thought he was doing a bolt with the half-crown."

"Rubbish. That man was there to delay Jenkins, to divert the attention
of the one man who had his eyes on the road, and to draw the eyes of
you others towards Jenkins and himself. Jenkins was a fool. But _not_,"
McNab declared, with flashing eyes and an outward lift of his clenched
fist from which Peters quailed, "a greater fool than I have been."

His wrath and disgust, however, quickly simmered down. And when, after
a few more questions, Peters was sent away, in his dour, tenacious
fashion he set about making the best of what seemed a very bad job.
That the upset to his plan had stunned McNab I did not need to be
told. For a little he seemed like a man dazed by a blow, incapable of
connected thought. He needed a minute or two to recollect himself. And
without fuss or flurry he took those few moments' rest on that seat
in the gardens, sitting there stolidly, unmindful of the children's
shouts, and the subdued expostulations of the genteel nurses as they
strolled past us.

At what point of time McNab again got a grip on the situation I
could not tell. An unforgettable impression he made on my mind as he
sat there. Every sense, every nerve and muscle, even his breathing,
appeared to be stilled, so that thought might function unimpeded.
In the end I saw him, as it were, come back to an awareness of a
world outside his own mind, and I wondered what, if anything, he had
salved from the wreck of his plans. Yet his first words to me seemed
unconnected with his defeat that day.

"This," he said gravely, "now becomes a race to prevent a second
murder."

The words startled me. Then I saw what he meant.

"You mean he will murder Kinloch?"

"Yes, he will eliminate Kinloch."

This was so far away from the directions in which I had supposed his
thoughts to be running while he sat there that I was taken aback.
That Kinloch might be in danger had not occurred to me. He had been
our quarry so long that it was somehow hardly possible all at once to
apprehend he might be also another's quarry.

McNab took me by the arm.

"Hurry up. There's no time to lose."

We turned our backs finally on Enderby Gardens. Where we were hurrying
to I had no notion. He had called it a race to stop a second murder.
But whether he knew what direction the chase was to lead us, north,
south, east or west, was more than I could tell; and certainly it was
more than Peters, or any of his men, had been able to tell him. The
pace which McNab set as we hurried along the road, however, revealed a
definite purpose. It proved to me he had a definite objective before
him; but I spared him questions, saving my breath for the pace he set
me.

A few minutes later and he doubled into Notting Hill Tube Station.
We got clear of the lift as a train came hissing and rumbling out of
the tunnel. It was not a "rush" hour--with any except ourselves at
least--and the carriage into which we tumbled proved to be nearly
empty. The sprint through the corridor and down the steps had been
hot. I flung myself into one of the cross seats facing McNab.

"In an ideal world," I complained, as breath returned, "Peters would
have got that car's number, and except for the hanging the case would
be over."

"Maybe. But in an ideal world nobody would need hanging."

This wasn't quite what I meant. What I meant was that if we had merely
been two figures in a work of fiction we should have had an easier job.
This I explained in repeating my remark.

"But Peters did get us something," he objected. "Peters saw the letter
K on the registration plate. And that information, though not all I
schemed and hoped to obtain, is good enough to go on with."

"Sure it isn't false?"

"No, I'm not. For though the registration was draped by a rug over the
back of the car, it may have been false all the same. Still, half an
hour or so will decide whether the K is genuine."

On that I learned where we were going. An odd place, it struck me, to
go for the purpose of deciding whether the K on the car was genuine or
not. For I learned we were heading towards the docks, to Trinity House
in fact, the headquarters of the Channel pilots. How the Channel pilots
could be connected with a motor's registration I could not imagine. But
McNab, though ready enough to talk after that long meditation of his in
the gardens, would not enlighten me on this particular point. I dare
say my wide-open stare was responsible.

"It's just a hint picked up," he said. "I'm acting on the off chance
there's something in it. If we draw a blank it's all up with Kinloch."

Now it seemed to me that if he did not overrate Kinloch's danger at
least he underrated Kinloch's ability to take care of himself.

"He's a wily bird, Kinloch," I said. "Look how he took you in about
being blind."

McNab smiled ruefully.

"He did. But it was a part he could play to the life, for he had been
blind for years."

The carriage was now filling up at every stop, and it became safe to
talk only when the train was roaring through the tunnels. McNab bent
towards me.

"If the hint I'm working on turns up trumps," he said, "a lot will
depend on you. But don't be deceived about this man's danger. This
Kinloch is nearer death now than he ever was in Flanders." He tapped my
knee and almost roared at me. "Be clear on that point or you'll make a
mess of the job I'm now forced to place in your hands."

Then the train shot out into daylight and we were soon crossing Tower
Hill towards Trinity House.

To the official in the hall McNab explained his visit. He wanted to
see some one familiar with the Kent coast. The official scratched his
chin, however, in doubt, when McNab said it was not shoals, tideways or
lighthouses, but roads, bays and headlands, on which information was
needed.

"Looks as if you'd come to the wrong shop, sir," he remarked. Then he
brightened. "There's old George; he was in the coast-guards, in Kent I
fancy 'twas. He'd be the very man if he's anywheres about."

Something passed from McNab's hand to the other's palm, with the result
that old George was quickly produced from somewhere in the basement.
He was a ruddy-faced, blue-eyed old fellow, still with a wind-blown
appearance for all his service in the serene quietness of Trinity House.

"You know the Kentish coast?" McNab began at once.

"Reckon I do, sir, every inch of it from Rochester to Rye."

McNab beamed satisfaction.

"You think you could identify any part of it from a description?"

"For sure, sir, provided you gave me enough to go on."

"Ah, that's where I'm doubtful. This is rather difficult. Listen."
McNab spoke slowly--softly and very slowly. "There's a road down a
steep, long hill, a road with a sharp, right-hand turn. At the foot of
the hill there's a village. In a car you'd be through the place in a
couple of minutes. Then you'd find yourself suddenly running close to
the sea, so close that on a stormy day you might feel the spray on your
face. After about a mile you turn away from the sea and don't hear it
again."

Old George, who had listened intently, rubbed his ear thoughtfully.

"That is hard and no mistake. There's a score of places from Whitstable
to Margate, and nigh Broadstairs too, like that. And besides them--"

McNab put up a hand.

"You would feel both the spray and the sun on your left cheek," he said.

The old coast-guardman's face brightened.

"Ah, that's better. Wipes out all the north coast, that do." He
pondered for a moment and then looked up. "Sounds like a bit o' Pegwell
Bay after you leave Ramsgate, except that the hill ain't right. And it
would be Walmer to a T if you were going east instead of west. Dover
'ud do for that steep hill, and the right-hand turn all right, only
Dover's 'ardly a village, and they wouldn't thank you in Dover to hear
it called such."

"The sea is very noisy on the beach--a shingle beach," McNab said half
despairingly.

Old George shook his head.

"All the beach's shingle thereabouts, leastways till you get to
Dymchurch, but in Dover it ain't what you'd call noisy on account of
the breakwater."

"Mingling with the noise of the surf," McNab interjected, "you might
hear the notes of a bugle on your right, on higher ground."

I fancy this was McNab's last desperate throw. But at the mention of
the bugle the old coast-guardsman suddenly looked up, slapping his
thigh.

"Dang me if I ain't a proper fool," he cried excitedly. "Why, for
twenty years I lived on the very spot! Lies between Folkestone and
Hythe, it do. There's the long hill down afore you enter Sandgate.
Then soon as you pass the coast-guard cottages you open out the sea
till you lose it again when you reach Seabrook police station. And all
along you've Shorncliffe Camp on your right. Suits it to a T if you've
joined the main road by coming down the steep lane from the Downs nigh
to the top of Sandgate Hill. That's your spot, sir, though if there's
any prize going for this here guessing competition I 'ardly deserve it."

"The sea comes over sometimes there?" McNab asked.

"On a spring tide following a strong south wind it do. More than once
the road's been washed away then."

McNab seemed contented by the information, and George got a prize
before we left which appeared to make him equally content.

Recrossing Tower Hill McNab's satisfaction increased as he took out his
watch. It was then twenty to four.

"We're beating the clock, as your cricketers say. Looks as if we might
be in time to save him yet," he said. Then he added, "You can catch the
five o'clock from Cannon Street, after we've had something to eat."

"Catch the five o'clock from Cannon Street!" I echoed in surprise.
"Where to? What for?"

But nothing would he tell me then. He was hungry, he said, even if I
was not, and we must go straight to the Adelphi. He had things to say
before I left which could not be said except in private, and at his
place he could give me my instructions while we ate. I was certainly
hungry enough, having had nothing since my unusually early breakfast,
but at the moment the hunger of my curiosity was even sharper.

Of what food passed my lips once we were again in McNab's flat I have
no memory. But for the quick, almost fierce way in which he spoke to me
I have an unfading memory, for this was McNab in a moment of crisis,
when success or failure hung balanced on a hair. Even while he was
poring in silence over the large-scale road map of Kent I recognized
that his whole capacity for action, mental and physical, was at its
fullest stretch. Yet he began his instructions quietly enough.

"I have decided not to call in Snargrove and the Yard," he said.
"Partly because there isn't time--this is a matter now of hours at
the most--and partly because Howley's description of the guilty man
is too indeterminate to act on quickly. Heaven knows how many men in
brown suits with tooth-brush moustaches would be detained all over the
country within the next twenty-four hours. The man is like too many
other men."

"Yes," I cut in, "that's what I meant before. If this were fiction that
man would have had a drooping eyelid, an acid mark on his forehead, a
finger missing from his left hand, ears pierced for earrings or--"

But he stopped me.

"We have no time, either, for that sort of talk," he said sharply.
"There isn't even time to write out your instructions. Listen
attentively or you may not remember them."

"If I can carry a political speech practically verbatim I'm not likely
to forget this," I declared.

"Right. Listen, then! As I've said, I am taking the risk of not calling
in Scotland Yard for the reasons given and also--mark this--because we
are acting at the moment less with a view to the murderer's arrest than
to prevent a second murder. That, after all, is what the law intends,
even when it hangs a man. Hanging the murderer does not restore his
victim to life, but it doubtless has kept many others alive."

"You are sure Kinloch really is in danger? He himself doesn't--"

He almost stamped his foot at me.

"Listen! What motive do you suppose led to the murder of Ponsonby
Paget? You know Paget and his paper. What was the motive for the
murder but the fear of exposure and disgrace? Paget knew something and
threatened him. Paget misjudged his man and paid the penalty. Well,
at this moment with arrest threatening him he has a much stronger
motive for murder, for it is not his name only that is in danger, but
his neck. Further, don't forget that Kinloch _can now see_. That fact
was not known to the pair when they carried him off to-day. It was,
indeed, only known to the doctor who laughed at me. They didn't know
it, though. You remember Peters telling how the woman was in the act of
getting out of the car, obviously with the intention of leading him to
it? Well, once it is known he can now see he becomes for the first time
really dangerous. Got that?"

I nodded understandingly.

"You are convinced?"

Again I assented in the same fashion.

"Good. Now you know what we are up against we can get to business."

He rose and began to pace about, hands deep in his pockets.

"Follow this carefully, Chance," he said. "It will take some time, but
you can go on eating. I now want to show you that you are not being
sent off on a wild-goose chase." He paused a moment. "You recall,
perhaps, Dr. Dunn's assertion that Kinloch heard the surf once, and
once only, after leaving the house where they had sheltered since the
murder? The bugle call came from the military barracks at Shorncliffe.
But at no barracks is a bugle blown after 10.15 p.m., at which hour the
'Lights out' is sounded. Therefore it was not the 'Lights out' Kinloch
heard while the Spring tide sprayed their car. It is also certain it
was not on a date before the 22nd, for though the tide would have come
up earlier than 10.57 its high-water mark then would have been too low
to bring it over the road in any wind. The conclusion is therefore that
it was the morning Spring tide that was coming over as they passed, and
that the bugle heard was the 10 a.m. 'Orders' call. And the inference
I draw from the fact that this point was passed so early in the day
is that they had not come very far. That inference, however, hardened
into a conviction the moment I looked at this map." McNab here spread
the road map of Kent on the table before me. "You have but to look at
the mere _shape_ of the county. See, it is like a spear head, with the
place they passed at 10 a.m. well inside where it begins to taper to a
point. Very well." McNab slapped me on the back as I bent over the map.
"Unless they came into this eastern extremity merely to go out of it
again, that unknown house in which they sheltered securely from about
the 15th of January to the 22nd of March lies somewhere within this
small spear point of country." As I stared at the map he added, "That's
where we shall run them to earth. But there's no time to tell you about
that now."

"And what am I to do?" I enquired.

"Go to Folkestone, hire a car--a four-seater open tourer--and try to
locate that village alleged to be shut in by gates at each end. Don't
believe in it myself. But we can't afford to miss the chance of its
being a real place, so cover all the ground possible before dark.
Explore, examine, question. In a crisis don't hesitate to call in the
police. You know all the facts better than any one, and you could
identify Kinloch at sight. As soon as it is dark be at the Westenhanger
cross-roads to wait for me with anything you have gleaned." He
indicated Westenhanger on the map. "See, there on the London road,
where the road to the right leads to the Lympne Aerodrome, and that on
the left is the old Roman road over the Downs to Canterbury. That is
your job while I do mine here--see Snargrove perhaps, but at all events
get hold of Dr. Dunn at Ealing." Then he added, "Look, you have just
fifteen minutes to catch your train."

When I rose, pocketing the road map, McNab spoke in another tone as he
opened a drawer in his bureau.

"One thing more I'd better warn you about. After the way affairs
were mishandled this morning this case is not likely to end with the
quiet arrest I like. More probably it will be a nasty, messy, violent
business. So you'd better carry this." He stood up with an ugly-looking
automatic pistol in his hand.

"As bad as that?" I whispered.

"Desperate," he nodded, handing over the weapon.

Then I bolted down the stairs for the five o'clock Folkestone express.




                              CHAPTER XIX


Long before dusk came on that glorious day, long before I was due to
meet McNab at the Westenhanger cross-roads, I had done the job on which
he sent me. Dunn had not been drawing on his imagination about that
village. McNab was wrong there. It was a real place. It had an actual
existence. Unlike any other village it might be, but it is there to-day
for any one to go and see; and by eight o'clock that night I not only
knew its name but was lying among the gorse of the wide common watching
the house for which we searched.

What had happened was this. On arriving at Folkestone I went to a
garage close to the Central Station and explained to the proprietor,
a Mr. Large, that I wanted a good car and a driver who knew the
country-side. Whether or no Mr. Large from the further particulars
I gave him thought me mad, I cannot say. But as if to keep a close
eye on his property he declared that as none of his drivers knew the
country better than he did he would drive me himself. His doubts about
my mental condition must have been strengthened by what followed in
the next hour. For all the time I kept him running up and down over
and across and along that ridge of Downs lying behind Folkestone and
extending towards Canterbury. It must have seemed aimless to him.

"But isn't there anywhere you wish to go?" he asked at last, after I
had put many questions about this or that lonely house as we whizzed
past.

Well, by this time it seemed aimless even to me--just a filling in
of hours till McNab came. Then I remembered the village. Not that I
believed in it any more than McNab did. And I mentioned it to Mr. Large
more to give a rational look to our excursion than in any hope that
he would know of such a place. But the moment its peculiarities were
mentioned I saw him cock up his ear.

"Common about half a mile wide ... gates at each end," he muttered
reflectively. Then on went the brakes and he laughed. "Why, we're going
right away from it," he said.

I was utterly astonished.

"You don't mean it's a real place you _know_?" I cried.

"Sounds like Stelling Minnis," he said, beginning to jockey the cab
round. "Anyway, you'll see for yourself in half an hour."

And just on eight o'clock, after sliding down into the Elham Valley and
climbing the far ridge of Downs, we ultimately reached the lonely and
lovely place by way of a narrow, tortuous lane from the long, straight
Roman road called the Stone Street. As soon as we cleared the gate I
_knew_ this must be the place. A queer thrill sent my pulses leaping.
Before us the wide common stretched, sprinkled with gorse and young
green bracken, on either side the old houses widely separated, but all
standing on the two extreme edges like soldiers toeing a line. Straight
down the middle ran the road, and evidently to reach any of the houses
one had to leave the road and run over the turf among the gorse for
quite a quarter of a mile. But I hadn't come there to appreciate
Nature's beauty. So after the first catch of the breath when that
common opened before my eyes I stopped the car. On our left near the
gate there was an inn, a white house with the neat red signboard
bearing the words "The Rose and Crown."

"Wait here," I said to Mr. Large, "I've some enquiries to make."

Towards the inn I advanced very slowly. I had to get a grip of myself.
For it staggered me to perceive that here at last was the end of our
search, the end to all concealment. Here the people concerned must be
known.

Two men stood at the bar as I entered. Beyond the usual country salute
no word passed till I had tried what the "Rose and Crown's" ale could
do for a dry, a very dry, throat.

"Nice place this," I said to the elder man, an old fellow with a fringe
of grey beard round his neck.

"'Tain't that bad in summer," he replied grudgingly.

"You seldom see a stranger except in summer?" I went on.

"That's so, and not a many then, neither."

Here the landlord, leaning his folded arms on the counter, joined in
with:

"It's a God-forsaken spot, sir. Many's the day I don't draw three
quarts."

"But some people like lonely places. Even in winter I've known a man
seek for a spot like this, even when he'd got money and the whole world
to choose from," I added.

"That be like what her ladyship does," the young man said, rolling some
tobacco in his palms.

"That's right, Bob Ames," the old fellow nodded. "It don't surprise us
to see her little car a-rolling through the gorse at no season of th'
year. But she ain't been at the Minnis not lately."

"She were heere last January, Jacob Wytch."

"Ay, so she were, all alone too, a matter o' six weeks. But then a
Hardress ain't no stranger like what the gentleman was a-speaking of."

I set down my glass on hearing that, and if I spilt none of its
contents it was because the glass was half-empty. After that a few deft
questions yielded all I sought. The lady, it appeared, belonged to a
family called Hardress, formerly resident in the neighbourhood. She
had married during the war Sir Stephen Wye, a soldier. But he wasn't a
soldier now, I gathered. He was going into Parliament. It all came out
bit by bit. Yes, they lived in London, but Lady Wye had a little house
on the Common, for she liked to live there better than in London, she
did. No, she wasn't there now, but I could see the little house for
myself if I didn't believe them.

Fifteen minutes later I was lying among the gorse and bracken with the
house under observation. At first I watched the little white house with
the dull red tiles and the wooden garage at one end to see if I could
detect any sign of life within. McNab seemed confident, not only that
they would again seek refuge there, but would only approach the house
in darkness. And after watching for some time I concluded he was right.
No sign of life could I discern. No smoke rose from its chimneys.
I should, of course, have liked to go right up and make a close
inspection. That, however, I could not do without seeming over-curious
if I happened to be seen. And anyway I soon became convinced that
no one had yet arrived at the house. So I stayed where I was, well
concealed among the bracken and gorse bushes.

And then as I lay on that spring turf waiting, to put it plainly,
for a murderer to come, a trifling incident happened that touched my
imagination queerly at the moment. For presently there came slowly
along the grassy pathway between the bushes a sheep and her lamb. Both
seemed tired and neither saw me. I think they were making at the end of
a long day for the nook in which they passed the night. Then stepping
between me and the sun, now dipping into the far side of the common,
their fleeces became outlined in silver, like a halo, surrounding their
darkened bodies. An incongruous picture that was to establish itself in
my mind as it did among the terrible memories of the night then closing
in!

Soon after that, as the dusk of that golden evening deepened, I
began to think of my appointment to meet McNab at the Westenhanger
cross-roads. There was now just enough light to let me see the various
positions on the map, and as far as I could make it out, I was not less
than eight miles from the cross-roads. Mr. Large I had sent to the
"Rose and Crown" to await my return, letting him suppose I was looking
up a friend somewhere on the common. But with darkness coming on I had
to make a quick decision between keeping my appointment with McNab
and staying on to watch that house. Wisely or not I decided for the
latter. What weighed with me was the conviction that, if McNab were
right, the four walls of that house now empty would presently surround
the murderer. It would be good to know he was there! And whether he
came alone or accompanied by his wife or the misguided man, Kinloch,
no entry could be made without my knowledge. Then I saw what to do. I
must send Large to meet McNab and bring him back to Stelling Minnis.
Creeping away on hands and knees for a hundred yards or so I rose and
made for the inn. Large soon understood what I wanted, and as I saw his
red tail-light vanishing into the gloom my thought was that it was just
as well not to have the lights of a big car glaring over the common.

By the time I got back to my nook among the bushes night had set in. I
had forgotten how dark it can be in the country, how dark and still.
A hush seemed over everything. Once, far away, a dog barked, and the
sound came thin yet clear in the distance. Later I began to feel cold,
for the turf was now damp with the dew that had followed the day of
bright sunshine. Yet I had to be wary, for on that turf at that hour
any one might pass unheard and unseen.

Half an hour passed and nothing happened. Then came the thought
that I could now safely take a closer look at the cottage and its
surroundings. Indeed I felt compelled to move up nearer since the house
was no longer visible. What I wanted above all was to see if there
was any approach to the house from behind, through the fields beyond
the trees. This was my first intention, and after that to get myself
established at some point from which, since so little could be seen, I
would be able to hear the slightest sound even to the cautious opening
of a door or a footfall on the step.

But as I crept round the gable of that cottage it gave me a queer
feeling to recall how, much in the same way, I had stolen round behind
the house in Ealing on that fateful night. Then I had come on the
murdered man. Could it be, I asked myself, that I was now to find
myself face to face with the murderer? Well, I went round the house
as carefully as if that was about to happen, for I crept on step by
step with my hand on the butt of the automatic McNab had given me. Of
course I met no one, and an inspection of the enclosure behind the
house convinced me that no car could approach from that direction. To
surmount the loose stone wall under the trees would be easy, but on
that still night I knew no car could come within a mile without giving
ample warning of its approach. So I moved over with a freer mind to
have a look at the back of the house.

What I discovered there did not at first startle me at all. It was
apparently such a little thing: a pane of glass broken in one of the
windows. Some mischievous boy? So I said to myself till I observed
that it happened to be the pane next the catch. That made me stand and
listen, holding my breath. But the house seemed all dark and dead. The
mischievous boy, I told myself again. Such things do happen to the
windows of empty houses. Then I remembered the garage on the far side.
There I might be able to get a hint as to whether the house was really
as tenantless as it looked. Thither I went next, feeling along the
rough cast walls till I rounded the corner and arrived at the doors.
A little manipulation showed me that, though shut, the garage door
was unlocked. For a moment I stood speculating on the amount of noise
likely to be made if I tried to open that door. Little used as it must
have been, the hinges were sure to be very dry. Still, after finding
the door unlocked like that, I simply had to find out whether there was
a car inside. I risked the noise. It sounded almost like thunder to my
apprehensive ears, and I opened it only just enough to let me squeeze
inside. Then I stretched out my hands as I took a couple of steps
forward.

It was there all right. And when I had felt my way along the side of
the car and found the radiator still warm I did not doubt that the
house was less empty than it looked.

But after that garage discovery I made my first blunder. If only I
had been content with what I had achieved! For after that discovery
all I need have done was to go back to my old position in the bushes
and wait there till I saw the flashing of McNab's head-lights when he
drove along the road over the open common. But no! I must needs try to
better my best. Not content to leave well alone, I must needs try to
paint the lily. And so I ran into trouble at once. For on going round
to the back of the house once more to have another look at the window
I saw something that looked no more than a deep shadow moving towards
me from the direction of the loose stone wall. Had the man's eyes been
turned my way he must have seen me, for I must have been more visible
against the white background of the house than he himself was against
the gloom of those trees. I dropped to the ground and lay still. He
passed within a few feet of me. Then there came a double knock on the
kitchen door. I began cursing my foolishness, knowing that if a light
showed from the door I must be seen where I lay against the wall of the
house. Eventually the door creaked open. Unluckily I had fallen with my
head towards the door and had no chance of seeing anything. But I heard
probably all the better.

"Well?"

This came from the man who opened the door, and it was almost a snarl.

"It's all fixed up. The boat leaves on the ebb about eleven."

"Where is she?"

"She will meet you on the quay and go on board with you."

This time I recognized the voice. The accent was different, but in tone
and pitch it was Kinloch's voice. The other sniggered.

"I meant the boat this time," he said. "Eleven o'clock?"

"Yes; it gives me just time for what I'm going to say to you," Kinloch
snapped.

"Step in then. Sorry I'm in the dark. But of course you are familiar
with every corner of the house." The sneering voice was cut off by the
closing of the door.

Lying still I thought over what I had heard. The hostility existing
between the two men I didn't bother about. What troubled me was that
Kinloch and the woman had obviously made arrangements for the man's
escape. And she was to meet him somewhere--the place had only just
escaped mention--and go away with him. How? Not in a mail boat, since
they are independent of the tide. Nor in a small boat neither, for the
same reason. Some tramp it must be, now berthed in some inner harbour
in any of the south-eastern ports. Which? There were half a dozen
within thirty miles. For a moment I wondered how much Kinloch had to
say to the other man. If there was just time to say it that man might
be away almost at once, before McNab turned up. The possibility got me
to my feet at once. At all hazards I had either to find out more about
the port of departure or somehow to prevent him from getting there.

The door stood ever so slightly ajar. It appeared to open into a
passage, for I heard voices some way off as I pushed it carefully open.
Those raised voices made things easier, for they both guided me on
and covered any slight sound I might make in feeling my way along the
passage. By this time, however, the two men seemed to have thrown all
caution to the winds, so far as sound went, anyhow. More like a couple
of angry dogs they were, and the thought came to me that this probably
was their first meeting, their first, anyhow, at which the woman was
not present. I was glad, though, the woman was absent. Beyond question
she would have heard me. As soon as I got within earshot of their words
the first I heard was my old friend's name. Kinloch's voice had ceased.
He had had his say.

"By God, this is just too much," the other cried. "Too much from an
associate of Ponsonby Paget's. I tell you I had no more scruple about
removing him than in killing a rat. It made England a sweeter and safer
place."

"For your sort."

"Look here, you'd have gone the same way if she hadn't come into that
room and heard you whining."

"Whining! Did you say whining?"

"I did. The old blackmailer dead and his accomplice whining for his
life. That, I think, was the situation."

An odd sound came in the silence that followed--a kind of choking
sound. Then Kinloch said quietly:

"You are a fool to presume at this moment on what I was that night.
Your wife has told you I was in that room only by accident."

"My wife has told me many things. What she has not told me is how you
contrived to--alienate her affections."

"You blackguard! You'd better go now if you want to go at all."

Both men had jumped to their feet. It sounded as if they were about
to fly at each other's throats. But there was no certainty that our
man was not about to clear out. There was that in Kinloch's tone which
might well have made him decide to take the hissed out advice. So I
backed away down the passage. Somehow or other I had to prevent his
escape. Somehow or other I had to hold him up till McNab arrived. And
the safest way I could think of was to put the car out of action.
Throwing caution to the winds the instant I got outside I ran for the
garage. Knife in hand I squeezed through the door, my notion being to
slit the tyres. But as soon as I got my hands on the tyre I knew this
was impossible, for I found it to be of solid rubber. I ought to have
remembered what McNab had told me about this peculiar type of car.

What else could be done? Little enough I knew about motoring, but there
must be a dozen other ways of putting the mechanism out of action. And
the necessity for being quick about it hindered coherent thinking. Then
as I stood trying to think I heard from the direction of the house a
door bang, like a shot, and I began to feel feverishly about in the
dark for something heavy with which to strike the car, to damage the
mechanism, smash the switchboard or the steering wheel. Before my hands
found anything, however, and almost at once, there came the patter of
feet outside. In a second some one was tugging the garage doors wide
open. Despair swept over me like a flood. Was the man once more to
escape? I seized hold of the car as if to stop it leaving the garage.
Then a swift inspiration came. Putting a foot on the running board I
vaulted on to the back seat and slid down to the floor of the car, off
a fur rug lying on the seat. There I stayed, crouching low.

Of course the moment the engine started I saw what I could have done.
Though ignorant about motors, I had some electrical knowledge and knew
how quickly and silently I could have put the battery on the foot-board
out of action. But it was too late to retrieve that stupidity, and I
tried to comfort myself with the thought that run where he liked he
could not run away from me.

There was but one moment when I feared discovery, and that came when he
got down to shut the garage doors after we had moved out. Fortunately,
though, he had not switched on the head-lights, and so there was no
back radiance from the wall of the house by which he might well have
seen me lurking in the gloom. When I heard him busy with the doors
I drew the fur rug over me. Then I felt fairly safe, for the space
between the seats on that type of car is narrow, and the floor behind
being much lower than in the front I found myself well down below the
seat level.

We went across the common without lights, running on the turf with
surprising silence and smoothness. But once through the winding lane
and out on the long, straight Roman road he switched on the lights
and increased the pace. That the lights were on I was made aware by a
narrow beam which came through a small spy-hole in the back just above
the seat, a contrivance peculiar to the car, to let the driver see that
the rear-light was showing.

Thrusting a hand from beneath my rug I used this spot of light to look
at my wrist watch. On seeing the time was 10.33 I made two inferences:
first that something must have happened to McNab, and secondly that the
unknown port for which we were bound could not be very distant. What
was I to do? The responsibility of McNab's absence threw upon me was
grave, and I didn't like it. Meanwhile we were travelling fast along
the straight, empty road, and before long I felt the descent from the
ridge begin. Down and down we went at a headlong pace. I took a peep
over the side when the numerous twists and corners of the road must
have kept the man's whole attention.

Out in the open country again, past solitary, darkened houses, I judged
him to be making for Folkestone. By and by I saw from the regular,
recurrent flashes that we were passing lamp-posts, and the pace
steadied down. The problem I struggled with was how to get the man into
the hands of the Folkestone police before he knew what was happening to
him. And I was desperately anxious to see the job done as neatly and
nicely as McNab could desire, without mess or fuss.

He was heading for the harbour. But could I depend on a policeman being
there? I did not know. Then a trick occurred to me. Taking out a long
lead pencil I thrust it through the spy-hole already described, and
smashed the tiny bulb which illuminated the transparent registration
plate: the car had now no rear-light. Hopefully I crouched down
again, hidden by my fur rug, and wondering whether I could rely on
the vigilance of the Folkestone police. We had not gone far among the
streets before I had my answer. There came a peremptory shout to stop,
followed by the sound of running feet. A half-smothered oath sounded
above my head, but the speed increased. Farther on there came another
shout, and then a shrill police whistle. If this was meant as a signal
to some comrade farther on it failed to effect its purpose, for the car
was swung violently down a side street. Then indeed I saw the mistake
I had made. The man was frantic with fear. Not knowing why the police
tried to stop him he had jumped to the conclusion they were after him
for the murder. My opinion is that under the shock of this the man's
mind became unhinged. We flew through the streets at a pace which
brought shouts and calls from right and left, and from people other
than the police.

After we rounded the right angle bend, before the steepest section of
the ascent begins, and he could see no lights of a pursuing car down
below on his right, it is possible he thought the outcries were raised
solely on account of excessive speed. Indeed most, almost certainly,
were so caused. And I have a notion that he had persuaded himself into
the belief that all were so caused before we reached the summit of that
mighty ascent. McNab once said in my hearing that no pessimist is ever
a murderer. But we had not gone more than a mile or so along the top,
past the Valiant Sailor Inn, before coming to the thing that broke him
finally.

I knew something was up ahead of us. He swore and slowed down suddenly.
Yet it was something he was not sure about. I inferred that from the
fact that the car still travelled forward, though at a crawl. Obviously
he was creeping up for a closer look. So knowing his attention to be
thus fixed I rose on my knees to have a look myself. Right ahead a long
stretch of the near side of the road seemed to be "up" for repairs.
In front of the night watchman's booth an open brazier burned freely,
and I could see the red lamp in the centre of the road and a string
of others extending behind, marking the space on the off side left
available for traffic. It bothered me to guess what there was to rouse
suspicion there. It all seemed open and above-board. I could see the
lonely old watchman quite distinctly, poking the brazier into a blaze.
Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps it was his recently rattled nerves,
perhaps he didn't like being guided into that long narrow strip of road
on the off side, but at last he made up his mind and set his foot down
on the accelerator. We jumped forward for the opening.

And the next moment I saw that the instinct that had made my man
hesitate had been, however blind, a sure one. For from the watchman's
booth a helmeted figure stepped into the road with uplifted hand while
others not in uniform seemed to spring from nowhere in front of us, and
as if to clinch the thing I saw at the far end of the string of lamps
the brilliant head-lights of a car which moved into and completely
blocked the narrowed road. He must have seen the game was up. But
perhaps he still thought he had a chance by swerving on to the turf and
rounding the car at the far end. We have been unable to agree on the
point. But swerve he did, and that violently to the right. It was the
cry from the men in the road that warned me--that and the gathering
speed of the car on the grassy slope. I was aware that the sea lay on
the right, but how far below I did not guess till I recalled the long
ascent we had made. But that remembrance, flashing into my mind, sent
me first to the seat and then with one mad leap over the side. Over and
over I rolled and then slid head first after the car, gripping at tufts
of bent grass and trying to dig in my toes. It seemed an eternity, but
it could have been but a mere fraction of time, for as I came to rest
I could see the lights of the downward plunging car. At once it seemed
to leave the earth and drop into space. Then something white loomed up
below and the car struck a projecting spur of the cliff and, passing on
with one head-light out, left behind it a cloud of white dust.

The final plunge into the abyss followed, and this was traceable only
by the single remaining head-light, which went down like a falling
star. Far below the one little disc of light shone for a second on the
tops of a clump of pine trees. A far away faint crashing and rending
of branches came up to me and the light went out. A moment's strange
silence followed. Then the startled sea-gulls on the ledges below,
launching themselves into the air, rose past me, with noisy flapping
wings and wild raucous outcries that seemed to rend the night. Then the
tussock of bent grass to which I had been clinging gave way in my hand
and after a frantic clutch or two I slid forward and fell into space.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I opened my eyes again I was in a room flooded with sunlight.
A nurse moved softly about the room. I watched her drowsily for a
moment or two. Something told her I was awake, for she turned towards
me watchfully. Then she smiled, and her smile seemed to increase the
sunlight in the room.

"What hospital is this?" I asked.

She moved noiselessly over.

"Hush," she said. "You must not talk."

"What happened?" I demanded.

"You fell over the cliff while bird-nesting." She held up a forefinger.
"But no more questions till Dr. Cadbury has seen you."

She slipped from the room, and I must have fallen asleep again, for the
next I remember is hearing two men's voices talking in subdued tones.

"... and you got hurt yourself they told me when I went to view the
body," the deep voice that had probably awakened me was saying.

"A sprained ankle only," the other voice murmured. "We did not know he
was in the car or how he got into it. But when we were hunting among
the wreckage after the body had been removed, some one noticed him
lying half-way down the cliff. He'd been there all night. I slipped in
getting to him. A mere nothing, but I rest my foot in sitting beside
him till he comes round."

"What do the doctors say about him?"

"Concussion, dislocation of the right shoulder and exposure. But he was
conscious yesterday for a few moments Nurse Jones tells me."

"Well, the inquest ought to have been adjourned till he came round, and
Kinloch too, if he does."

"But, Snargrove, there was no evidence he was in the car. And I
wasn't there myself when it went over. Look here, this is what
happened," McNab went on after a pause. "I was to have met Chance
at the Westenhanger cross-roads at dusk. But I was late through a
breakdown beyond Ashford. When I got to the place I found the driver
of Chance's car waiting with a message. I was to come on to where
Chance had been left. I did not go, because a few questions to the man
convinced me that Chance had scored a success and had not himself kept
the appointment because he had located our man. So I went on to the
police station at Seabrook, where I laid an information while the car
was filling up at a garage opposite. The station soon had the wires
humming, the smart detective constable there taking the precaution of
telephoning to the harbours to cut off every possible avenue of escape.
That is how he learned of the Dutch tramp 'Van Helder,' due to leave
Dover on the ebb at 11 p.m. And it was he who fixed up the roads,
including the one on the Dover-Folkestone road where repairs were going
on.

"Then I got Large to take me to Stelling Minnis. So far I knew only the
name of the place Chance had lighted on, but not the name of the man,
though I had given the police the description of him we had got from
Howley. At Stelling Minnis there was, however, no sign of Chance. But
a few questions to Large sent me to the inn, and from the landlord,
whom I pumped as to the questions Chance had put there earlier that
evening, I got all that was necessary for me to know. The landlord, I
believe, thought we were police searching for Chance, whom we suspected
of planning to burgle Sir Stephen Wye's cottage. So it was from the
landlord's lips I first heard the name of the Ealing murderer. We found
his house in a few minutes, and, as you know, we found, too, that he
had gone, this time leaving Kinloch behind."

"Wye was our man right enough," Snargrove agreed. "I took his
finger-prints this morning. But the name did not come as a surprise
when you telephoned it to the Yard."

"What?" McNab cried. "You suspected him?"

"Had him on my list of possibles. You will understand that, in addition
to the private letters and papers, I went through the _Eye Opener_
pretty thoroughly. Well, among other items that took my eye there was
this item: 'The rumour that Sir Stephen Wye will be nominated for the
Byewich division in Suffolk is without foundation. We have the best
authority for asserting that Sir Stephen will not stand.' That appeared
in the issue dated Saturday, January 13th."

"And Ponsonby Paget was murdered on the 15th. Wye, of course, went to
see Paget about it, and there learned that Paget had acquired certain
information about him which if published would wreck his political
ambitions."

"Beyond doubt," Snargrove agreed. "But you will understand that Wye's
name was only one among a number of other possibles--some far more
promising. So when we enquired into his doings that night we found he
had an alibi that seemed beyond doubt. You are interested in alibis?
This is a good one. Notice, Wye's house, Whitelands, is five miles,
roughly, from Ealing. We began with an investigation of his movements
on the Monday, the day of the murder. Lady Wye had been away in the
country for a week, but was to have returned that night. Wye had a
chill, and went to bed about eight. Somewhere about ten he rang, with
a request for some hot whisky, at the same time asking if Lady Wye had
arrived. The butler answered in the negative, saying that the fog would
account for the delay. To this Sir Stephen agreed, and, with the order
that he should not be disturbed, bade the man good night and switched
off the light."

McNab laughed softly.

"And then he got out of bed again, eh? And left the house by the
window. After that he loitered in the road to stop Lady Wye before she
reached the house. He would know her car by the very distinctive note
of the two stroke engine in time to stop her before she passed him. He
then got her to drive him to Ealing for the interview with Ponsonby
Paget. Next morning the butler enters to pull up the blinds, and finds
his master asleep, eh? Then the master is informed that Lady Wye has
not, after all, returned."

"Exactly the butler's testimony; the thing was an absolute success,"
Snargrove agreed.

"Oh, a relative success, please," McNab pleaded. "Have you forgotten an
inquest has just been held on the man?"

"That's more of your logic, I suppose. Still, I'll admit it's served
you well in this case. But for your inferences from that walking-stick
there would have been no inquest on the body of Stephen Wye this
morning. But the verdict--think of it: accidental death, with an
expression of sympathy for Lady Wye, and a censure of the road
surveyor. I'm going to have a word or two with Lady Wye presently, but
not of sympathy."

"You can't proceed against a wife for not turning informer against her
husband. And, after all, she did not necessarily know why he wanted her
to drive him over to Ponsonby Paget's--not anyhow till after the crime
had been done."

"True; but I did not mean that. As accessory we lay our hands on this
man Kinloch if, and when, he recovers."

"My dear Snargrove," McNab's voice protested, "how can you prove him
an accessory? You might as well try to prove myself, or poor Godfrey
there, accessories. All the evidence we have goes to prove that Kinloch
was as keen as you or me to discover who the murderer was. And so far
from assisting him to escape it looks beyond doubt as if he had been
shot by Wye just before he bolted for Dover. A greater crime that than
the removal of a blackmailer! And I'll warrant Lady Wye, at least,
would agree with me. I'd like to have seen the man hanged. Still, a
six-foot drop on the gallows would hardly be as terrifying as that
two-hundred-foot drop over the cliff, and hanging, after all, would not
make the man any more dead than he is."

McNab's unconsciously raised voice brought Nurse Jones into the room.

"I'm sorry," she said, "but if you have more to say would you mind
coming into the next room. Talking may disturb the patient."

"Sorry. I am just going," Snargrove said, rising like a lamb.

McNab also got up.

"I'll try my ankle along the corridor. Doesn't do to let it get stiff,"
he said, taking Snargrove's arm.

When they were out the nurse turned to me.

"Oh," she said, "so you have come round."

"I may relapse if you run away again," I warned her.

But this time she rang the bell instead.

"You look better, much better," she said, looking at me fixedly from
the foot of the bed. "So what they say can't be true."

"What do they say?"

"That those two men are detectives."

"But they are."

The pretty, fair-haired nurse opened her eyes wide.

"What have you been up to? Not bird-nesting; they wouldn't be watching
you for that, surely."

She was so astonished that she did not see McNab in the doorway.

"One of them," I said, "is my best friend."

"Oh, you mean the smaller one--the lame detective?"

A laugh that made her wheel round came from McNab.

"No, no, nurse," he said, "a lame _man_, if you like, but not, _not_ a
lame detective."

And when Nurse Jones had fled from this logic to summon the matron and
the doctor or both, I got in the question I had burned to put.

"Kinloch--is he dying, then?"

McNab looked at me solemnly.

"Kinloch is in Paradise, my son."

He sat down on the chair beside my bed and took hold of my hand.

"You've just had the news?" I gasped.

"Saw him in it this morning. He, too, you understand, has what is
called a ministering angel at his bedside. I took her there from Dover
yesterday."

Then as I stared he affected to have misunderstood me.

"Oh, I see what you meant--the bullet wound. Well, a week or two will
see him cured of _that_. He's in no more danger of going to the real
Paradise than you are yourself."


                                THE END

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79160 ***