I
HE covered the distance to the village in a time creditable for so hot a day. As he passed the Bear and Key, a knot of men stopped their conversation to eye him with thirsty interest. He smelt reporter and passed by, giving silent thanks to the efficiency of Boyd. Now that the case seemed, to the public at least, as good as over, there was no real danger; but had the news-hungry hordes been let loose at first to overrun Abbotshall, Heaven alone knew how impossible things would have been.
For the case of the murdered minister had seized violently on public imagination. It was so like, so very like, the books the public had read yesterday, were reading today, and would read tomorrow and tomorrow. Great Britain (and Ireland) was divided now into two camps—pro and anti-Deacon. The antis had a vast majority. Many of them held that to waste time on a trial which would be purely formal was disgraceful. The wretch, they said, should be hanged at once. Not a few were convinced that hanging was too merciful. It was all very funny, really, thought Anthony, and wished he could laugh. But whenever he tried to realise how funny it was, he thought of Deacon, and then found that it wasn’t funny at all, but rather terrible.
On this morning, though, he was at least on the road to high spirits, and walked on down the twisting, cobbled street towards the police-station, whistling beneath his breath. The whistle bewailed the cruel death of Cock Robin.
Still whistling, he ran up the steps of the police-station. As he passed through the doorway the whistling stopped, cut off in the middle of a bar. He stepped to one side, away from the door. Coming towards it were Lucia Lemesurier and her sister.
Neither at once saw Anthony. Then, with a gracious smile to officialdom, Lucia turned and looked full at him. He raised his hat and looked grim. He didn’t mean to look grim; he was merely trying to behave well in a police-station to a lady he loved and had offended. Lucia flushed and bowed coldly and walked down the steps. She hadn’t meant to do any of these things; but the man did look so forbidding. ‘Conceited idiot!’ she said to herself, referring to Anthony and not meaning it in the least.
‘Hell!’ said Anthony under his breath, and went rather white.
Dora Masterson held out her hand. ‘Good-morning,’ she said, and looked curiously at him.
From somewhere he dragged out a smile.
‘’Morning. Feeling better?’
She beamed at him, ‘Oh, ever so much! Archie seems so—so exactly as if everything was the same as usual. He’s wonderful! And I haven’t forgotten what you said about miracles. You will do one, won’t you?’ With another smile she ran down the steps and after her sister. She had scented an intriguing mystery in the behaviour of these two.
Anthony emerged from thought to find the inspector looking at him with barely veiled curiosity. He essayed a cheerful manner. Perhaps the inspector would be so good as to let him see Mr Deacon. If the inspector remembered, Superintendent Boyd—
In less than two minutes he was alone with the prisoner.
Deacon put down the book he was reading. ‘Hallo-allo! More visitors for the condemned man. Good job you’re early. I believe they’re moving me to the county clink about eleven.’
Anthony sat down upon the bed. ‘How are you?’ he said. He said it to gain time. His thoughts, once so carefully ordered, had been thrown into much confusion. That bow had been so extremely distant.
‘To tell you the truth,’ Deacon said slowly and heavily, ‘I feel absolutely rotten! It’s beginning to get on my nerves—all this!’ He made a sweeping gesture. ‘It—I feel—’ He broke off and laughed. ‘Fan-tods won’t do any good, will they? And it’s only what I might have expected. Nurse always told me my middle name was Crippen.’
Admiration and sympathy cleared Anthony’s head. ‘When’s the magistrate’s court?’ he asked abruptly.
‘The balloon, I believe, goes up at ten a.m. the day after tomorrow.’
Anthony muttered: ‘Day after tomorrow, eh? Well, it may,’ and relapsed into silence.
Deacon half rose, then sat down again. ‘After you left me last night,’ he said, after a pause, ‘I had a visit from Crabbe—the solicitor Digby-Coates got. We had a long talk, and he’s going to prime Marshall, who’s going to come and see me tomorrow himself. So all the legal business is fixed up.’
‘Good,’ said Anthony. ‘What I came for this morning was to ask you two questions. Are you ready?’
‘Aye, ready!’
‘Have you any money? Besides the salary you got from Hoode, I mean.’
‘About two hundred and fifty a year,’ said Deacon. ‘When Cousin James dies of port it’ll be about three thousand.’
‘That’s good. You made that point with the solicitor, I hope. It tends to destroy that insane theft theory.’
‘I told the bloke all right. But it won’t count much, I’m afraid. You see, I’ve been awfully broke for quite a time now. One thing and another, you know. However!’ He shrugged.
Anthony said: ‘Now the second question. And it’s really important! Think carefully before you answer. When recently—say within the last week—have you had in your hands any implement of any kind with a wooden handle four inches long and about three and a half round? Think, man, think!’
II
Ten minutes later, Anthony was running up the High Street towards his inn. Arrived there, he found a telegram. It read: ‘Authentic astounding revelations by Pellett what next Hastings.’
Anthony wrote on a telegraph form: ‘Wait with you afternoon office keep Pellett Gethryn.’ The form he gave to the barman with a ten-shilling note and instructions for immediate despatch, and then set off for Abbotshall at a fast walk.
As he entered the gates, a car—an unfamiliar green Daimler, a woman seated primly beside the chauffeur—left them. In spite of the heat it was closed. Peering, Anthony saw the only occupant of the tonneau to be a woman. She was veiled. He deduced the flirtatious Mrs Mainwaring and her Gallic maid. The sight appeared to amuse him. He walked on to the house humming beneath his breath.
Sir Arthur, he was told by a rejuvenated Belford, was believed to be in his own sitting-room.
Anthony mounted the stairs. He found Sir Arthur’s door ajar; on it was pinned a notice in red ink: ‘Please do not disturb’. From where he stood, all Anthony could see was the big arm-chair drawn up to the window, the top of an immaculate head above its back, some six inches of trouser and a boot-sole by each of its front legs.
Anthony chuckled, knocked, and entered. Sir Arthur rose, turning a frowning face towards the intruder. As he saw who it was, a smile replaced the frown.
‘You looked,’ said Anthony, ‘like some weird animal, sitting like that. Hope I haven’t disturbed you.’
‘Not a bit, my boy, not a bit. Very glad to see you.’ He picked up some sheets of paper from the chair. ‘As a matter of fact, I was just jotting down a few notes. I’d like you to read them—not now, but when they’re finished.’ He hesitated; then added rather shyly: ‘They’re just some ideas I’ve had about this awful business. Somehow, I can put them more clearly in writing. I want to give them to Marshall before the boy’s tried, but I’d like you to see them first. There might possibly be some points which have escaped you, though I expect not.’
‘I’d like to look at ’em very much,’ Anthony said. ‘Get them done as quick as you can, won’t you? Now, what I interrupted you for: is there in the house a good collection of reference books?’
‘There is. Right-hand book-case in the study. You’ll find anything you want from sawdust to Seringapatam. John got together the most comprehensive reference library I’ve ever seen.’
‘Good!’ Anthony turned to the door. ‘No, don’t trouble to come, I’ll find ’em!’
It was, as Sir Arthur had said, a most comprehensive collection. Anthony locked the study door and sat at the big writing-table, now back in its old place, surrounded by the volumes of his choice. They were many and varied.
He worked for an hour, occasionally scribbling notes on a slip of paper. At last he rose, stretched himself, and returned the books to their shelves. Again sitting at the table, he studied his notes. They appeared to afford him satisfaction. He folded the paper and took out his note-case. As he opened it, the bunch of newspaper-cuttings fluttered down to rest upon the table.
He picked them up and slid them, with the notes he had scribbled, back into the case. As he did so a line of the topmost cutting caught his eye. It was the quotation from the Aeneid which Masterson had referred to and which then had titillated some elusive memory. Now where, recently, had he seen this unusual and meticulous dative case?
His mind wrestled with forgetfulness; then suddenly tired, refused to work longer on so arduous a task. As minds will, it switched abruptly off to the matter with which it most wished to be occupied. Before Anthony’s eyes came a picture of a dark, proud face whose beauty was enhanced by its pallor. He thought of her as he had seen her that morning; as he had seen her that first time; as she had sat in her drawing-room that night—the night he had made her tell him all about it.
His mind, remorseful, perhaps, made a half-hearted attempt to get back to that tiresome business of the correct quotation from Virgil. Suddenly, it connected the work and the woman. The great light of recaptured memory burst upon him.
He jumped for the telephone; asked for Greyne 23; was put through at once; thought: ‘Wonder who’ll answer?’ then heard the ‘Hallo’ of a servant.
‘Miss Masterson in?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. What name shall I say?’
He told her. Waiting, he grew excited. If by any chance he was right, here was yet more confirmation of his theory.
Dora Masterson’s voice came to his ears. ‘Hallo! Is that Mr Gethryn? I—’
Anthony interrupted. ‘Yes. I wonder whether you can help me. The second time I was in your house I picked up a book. Little green book. Soft leather binding. Essays. Pleasantly written. One was called “Love at First Sight”. Author’s name on title-page was a woman’s. D’you know the book I mean?’
‘Is it one called Here and There?’
‘Yes, now who wrote it? Was it really a woman? And is that her real name? I meant to ask at the time, but forgot.’
III
At twenty minutes to two that afternoon, Anthony stopped his car outside The Owl’s office. He had broken no record this time; his mind had been much occupied on the journey. The interviews he had held with Belford, Mabel Smith, and Elsie Syme before leaving Abbotshall had given him food for thought.
He found Hastings in his room, with him a little, dapper, sly-eyed Jew. ‘Discreet Inquiries. Divorces, Watching, etc.’, thought Anthony.
‘This,’ murmured Hastings, ‘is Mr Pellett.’
‘Ah, yes.’ Anthony sat down heavily. He was tired and very hungry. He had not eaten since breakfast. Mr Pellett displeased him.
‘Mr Pellett,’ said Hasting, ‘has some information which should interest you. I have paid him fifty pounds. He wants another two hundred.’
‘He would,’ Anthony said. ‘And if he’s got what I want he shall have it.’
‘Thath right,’ said Mr Pellett with a golden smile.
‘It may be.’ Anthony fixed him with a glittering eye. ‘Let us hear you, Mr—er—Pellett.’
Mr Pellett cleared his throat, produced a packet of papers, wiped his hands on a pink silk handkerchief and began.
‘About theeth three newthpaperth,’ he said—and went on for one hour and fifty-seven minutes by the clock on Hastings’s table.
He got his two hundred pounds.
IV
There was a matinée at the Regency. At half-past four, Anthony was at the stage-door.
The stage-door keeper remembered that five-pound note and the foreign gent. He was civil. Yes, Madarm Vander was in the theatre. She had, indeed, just finished her performance. He would see if the—the prince could be admitted. The prince scribbled on a card, placed the card in an envelope, and sealed the envelope. As balm for tender feelings, he gave the doorkeeper a flashing foreign smile and a pound note.
He was kept waiting not more than three minutes. After four, he was ushered into the most sacred dressing-room in Europe.
From a silken couch in a silken corner a silken scented vision rose to meet him.
Anthony saw that they were alone. He bowed, kissing the imperious hand. He was regarded with approval by tawny, Slavonic eyes.
She peered at the card in her hand. ‘Who air you,’ she said, ‘that write to me of—of John?’
Anthony proceeded to make himself clear.
It was nearly six o’clock when he left the theatre.
V
By half past six Anthony was in his flat. At seven he bathed; at eight dined. From eight-thirty to nine he smoked—and thought. From nine until midnight he wrote, continuing his work of the night before. Save for occasional reference to notes, he wrote for those three hours without a pause. From midnight until one he considered what he had written. Then, after a long and powerful drink, he unearthed from its lair his typewriter.
It was lucky, he reflected, that two years ago he had wearied at last of professional typists and taken a machine unto himself.
From one-thirty in the morning until five—three whole hours and a half—he typed. There were two reasons why the work took him so long; the first, that he had not used the machine for six months; the second, that in copying what he had written he was constantly polishing, correcting, altering, improving.
At five he discarded the typewriter, took pen and paper and wrote a letter. This, together with the typewritten document, he placed in a large envelope. He stamped the envelope; was about to leave the flat and post it; then changed his mind. It should be sent by special messenger as early as one could be found awake.
He did not go to bed, feeling that if he did, nothing could wake him for at least twelve hours. He had another drink, another bath, and, when he had roused his man, a breakfast.