Mr. Pinkerton was waiting up for his host. He had spent the day thinking very hard, and he was ready with some rather startling conclusions. He was not prepared, however, for a haggard and very tired Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department who barged in at half past eleven with no interest in anything except a hot bath and a soft bed. Mr. Pinkerton, disappointed, was by very nature mild, inoffensive and patient; he tucked his surmises away in his neat grey little mind, prepared to wait until Inspector Bull was in a receptive mood—probably at breakfast. But by the time Mr. Pinkerton heard the maid’s tap at the door and her “Hot water, sir,” Inspector Bull was well on his way to Windsor.
For a moment, it is true, the Inspector, stirring his steaming tea and expanding pleasantly with the consumption of juicy sausages and well-cooked eggs at the White Horse Hotel, felt a qualm at the idea of his guest’s eating still another lonely meal of Crissie’s manufacture. But by the time he had finished his toast and marmalade, and drained his last cup of heady tea, he had forgot Mr. Pinkerton entirely. He was thinking about Mrs. Colton, and about the story Albert Steiner had told him the night before.
Bull left his car in front of the White Horse and walked up the High-street under the towering grey walls of the Castle, past the statue of Queen Victoria, past the building that Wren had built for Anna Regina. He knocked on Mrs. Royce’s front door. It was just half past nine.
Mrs. Royce was down. Her tall hat stood on the marble-topped table in the hall. Beside it, somewhat belligerently, lay her black kid gloves, her fur, her beaded bag and her walking stick. It occurred to Inspector Bull at once that Mrs. Royce was going out.
“Good morning, Inspector.”
Bull had listened to Mrs. Royce before, but he was unprepared at the moment for her deep vigorous voice. Well fortified, however, with tea and sausage, he felt himself a match for the strongest.
“Good morning, Mrs. Royce.” He also greeted her son, who seemed to be steadily, Bull thought, in the position of rear guard. In spite of his mother’s command, “Step out, Michael—don’t always stand behind me!” he seemed, Bull noticed, to manage always to retain such a position. Michael Royce returned the Inspector’s greeting politely, but Bull noticed he still had a flicker of amusement somewhere about his face. Bull could not tell whether it was in the eyes or the lips. Personally, Bull could see nothing even remotely amusing in the situation, and he had that vague uncomfortable feeling that serious-minded people have when they meet someone not serious-minded. He thought Michael Royce was making fun of him—not of Humphrey Bull personally, of course, because his own identity was submerged when he was on duty—but of Inspector Bull as investigator of the Royce diamond robbery and the incidental killing of George Colton.
Mrs. Royce fixed an accusing eye on him.
“I’ve been summonsed, Inspector, to give evidence at the coroner’s inquiry this morning.”
“That was necessary, ma’am. I hope it doesn’t inconvenience you too much.”
“Inconvenience indeed. It’s not the slightest inconvenience. I always do my duty; and I consider this my duty—to my friend Colton, as well as to Society.”
“Oh,” said Bull. He glanced at once at young Royce. From the slight elevation of that young man’s right eyebrow he gathered that his mother’s patriotic and moral sentiment left him unmoved.
“If the inquest is at ten-thirty, Mother, don’t you think we ought to be getting on with it?”
“It’s at Slough, Michael—don’t be asinine.”
“I know it’s at Slough, Mother. But inasmuch as you don’t care to do more than twenty an hour . . .”
Michael Royce received so truly savage a glance from th*. wicked old eyes, so ferocious a shake of the grizzled old head, that Inspector Bull, seeing him stand his ground, realised that after all he was a man of some parts.
“None of your lip, young man. If you mean that I don’t care to fly around the country-side as if a legion of demons were after me, the way you do, then you’re quite right. I travel at twenty-five miles an hour; and that’s fast enough for anybody.”
“Quite so, Mother.” Royce’s agreement was entirely equable. “All I say is that that being the case, it’s just as well to count on it. Give yourself plenty of time—that sort of thing.”
From Mrs. Royce’s glance at her son Bull gathered that he was not the only one who was not sure that his attitude was entirely serious.
“Very well, then. I’m ready. Tell that girl to bring my hat. And you, Inspector, are you going along now? Will you come with us?”
“I shan’t go just yet, ma’am. I have a number of things to do first. And I wanted to find out from you this morning the exact reason Mr. Colton was taking your jewels to town that night.”
“The exact reason, Inspector? Has anybody given you an inexact reason?”
“Well, there are two theories, ma’am,” Bull said politely. “One that you wished to sell them, and that Mr. Colton had found a purchaser. The other, that at the suggestion of your insurance people you were sending them to town for reappraisal.”
At first Inspector Bull thought Mrs. Royce was going to have a stroke of apoplexy. He watched the effect of his simple words in dismay. When she spoke, however, she was surprisingly calm.
“I’m sure, Inspector, I don’t know what you mean. I had no intention whatever of selling those diamonds. My husband left them to me. I’d be stark raving crazy to think of it. They wouldn’t have brought £ 10,000 on the open market. Anyway, my income is quite adequate—thank you—for my needs. I can’t imagine where such a ridiculous rumour started. Can you, Michael?”
“Can’t imagine, unless it was Colton,” said her son laconically. “Remember he tried to get you to sell.”
“As you did too, young man. Both you and Colton thought I was a stubborn old idiot. If I remember correctly that was your attitude.”
“Now, Mother . . .”
“Don’t ‘Mother’ me, Michael. I’m quite old enough to know my own mind and what’s more I’m just as sane as I ever was.”
The question of just how much that meant came into Bull’s mind. But Mrs. Royce continued.
“As to that other business, I’m sure I don’t know where you got that idea. It’s true the insurance people thought the jewels were over-valued. Which I’m quite well aware of. The manager suggested I have them reappraised, to lower my rates. George Colton thought it was absurd for me to be paying insurance on £ 35,000 worth of jewelry when I had £ 15,000 at the most. And so did I.”
“Then you were quite willing to change the insured value?”
“Willing, young man? I was delighted. You don’t get insurance for nothing, I can tell you. For twenty-three years I’ve paid that wretched company £125 a year. In all that time those diamonds have been out twice. I have no use for them as ornaments, and until my son marries, and marries a woman that won’t look like a music hall actress decked out in them, no one will wear them. Now George Colton wanted them appraised by that man Steiner. Why, I don’t know. I was perfectly willing to take £ 15,000 as their value. He was as stubborn as a mule. Now if you want my opinion. Inspector—and I’m sure I don’t know why you haven’t asked me for it—I believe there was another reason for George Colton’s taking those stones.”
Bull looked at her in the greatest surprise, which he tried hard to conceal. He was pleased to observe that her son made no attempt to conceal his feelings.
“What do you mean, Mother?”
“You needn’t look at me, either of you, as if I’d taken leave of my senses. If you can find out, Inspector Bull, why George Colton took my diamonds to London—with my permission, of course, even if I didn’t see the least point in his doing so—then you’ll know why he was killed and who did it. We’d better be going, Michael. I’m not driving as if the devil was after me—not if we never get there.”
Young Royce pressed out his cigarette in the silver ash tray and helped his mother with her sealskin coat. Bull noticed with the greatest satisfaction that there was no amusement in his dark handsome face.