Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 28, No. 3, November 12, 1927

Mr. Fortune looked up at the men. “He won’t speak,” he said. “He’s going to die to-night.”

“God help him,” replied Superintendent Bell.

I

In the hospital corridor two men stood waiting. A door opened and the round face of Mr. Reginald Fortune looked out at them. “Come on. Quite quiet,” he said.

They followed him into a little room where a man lay in bed. The nurse was holding a spouted cup to his lips. His head was bandaged. What little could be seen of his face was gray.

Mr. Fortune sat down and felt for his pulse. “Well, well. Another little drink didn’t do you any harm, George,” he smiled. “Now you tell us all about it and we’ll know what to do next.”

The other two men found chairs dose by the bed and one had a notebook open.

The bandaged head moved on its pillows to look round Mr. Fortune and saw them and turned away. “I’m in for it, doctor,” a thick voice said. “You can’t do me no good.”

“Don’t you believe it I’ll do my bit. But you must give us a hand, George. I’ve got to know how this little mess happened.”

“Ain’t you never been in a scrap? Just a bit of a scrap it was. I ain’t got nuffink to grouse about.”

“Some of your own pals did you down?”

“Wasn’t no pals of mine. Dunno who they was.”

“George! George!” said Mr. Fortune gently. “Have you got anybody you care about? I mean, the fellows that served you like this want looking after, or they’ll be making things nasty for her.”

The body stirred, the bandaged head moved and groaned. Mr. Fortune looked at the nurse and the cup was put to the pale lips again. “Wotsh yer bovverin’ me for?” the thick voice said. “I can’t do nuffink. I dunno nuffink.”

“Well, how did they start scrapping with you?”

“I dunno. We was drinkin’ in some public. Went and ’ad a few more. And some’ow it got started.”

“Who were they?”

“Tell yer I dunno. Chaps I got in wiv comin’ ’ome from the races. I dunno none of ’em. Take my dyin’ oaf I don’t. But it was all fair. I ain’t got nuffink against any of ’em, s’elp me, I ain’t.”

“My poor chap,” Mr. Fortune said gently. “But I say—”

“Oh, my, leave me be,” the man groaned. “I never done you no ’arm, doctor. Can’t cher leave me die quiet?”

“You’re a good fellow, George,” said Mr. Fortune.

The man tried to laugh. “Not ’arf,” he muttered. The bloodshot, bruised eyes stared up at Mr. Fortune; the lids flickered and closed.

Mr. Fortune’s hand stayed some moments on the pulse. Then with one quiet movement he withdrew it, rose and turned. He shook his head at the two men, he waved them out. The nurse and he spoke together softly.

Half an hour later one of those two men, Superintendent Bell, was making his report to the chief of the criminal investigation department.

Mr. Fortune joined them, to be received by a cock of a quizzical eyebrow familiar ‘to the friends of the Hon. Sidney Lomas. “Well, Reginald, so there was nothing doing after all.”

“No.” Mr. Fortune’s round face had a childlike gravity. “He won’t speak. He’s going to die to-night.”

“God help him,” said Superintendent Bell.

“Yes. Yes,” Mr. Fortune murmured, sank down into a chair and sighed.

“Oh, quite,” Lomas agreed. “But Bell says he did speak; he told you he was damaged in a fair fight; no foul play; no complaints.”

“Yes. That’s what he told us. Poor chap. He’s a good fellow in his fashion.”

The superintendent shook a solemn head. “Been in with a nasty crowd, sir. Done some dirty work in his time. But he is a good plucky one, I don’t mind owning I didn’t think he’d die so game.”

“Knows he’s dying, does he?” said Lomas.

“Oh, Lord, yes!” said Mr. Fortune wearily. “He made up his mind he was going to die as soon as he was conscious.”

“No reason why he should be afraid to tell the truth then. If he says he was smashed in a fair fight and nobody’s to blame, we might as well believe him.”

“It would save trouble, wouldn’t it?” said Mr. Fortune. “Sorry, Lomas. I shall have to give evidence at the inquest. And I’m going to say he was sandbagged and kicked to death.”

“Though he said there was no foul play,” Lomas frowned. Lomas lit a cigarette. “That makes rather a nasty business of it, Reginald.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“He was afraid of the fellows that killed him even when he was dying!”

“Well… afraid of something if he told the truth, or hoping something if he didn’t.”

“Hoping while he was dying, sir?” Bell cried.

“He has a wife, you know. She came to see him this afternoon. You’d better look after Mrs. George Akers, Bell.”

“It was a gang set on him, I suppose?” said Lomas.

“Several in it, yes.”

“You believe he knows who they were?”

“He knows, all right. I thought he would have told me. He came near it this morning. But he’s hardened since his wife saw him.”

“And what’s the theory, Reginald?”

“He knows who smashed him. He knows why he was smashed. He won’t tell us, because his wife said he mustn’t. Well, the inference is somebody’s been getting at her.”

Lomas inhaled smoke. “That is to say we’ve hit up against somebody in a large way of business?”

“Yes. Yes. It could be. What do you know about George Akers?”

Lomas shrugged and looked at Bell. “Loafer about the west end, sir. Only been through our hands for hustling with pickpockets. But we have had a notion he was working for some of the dope merchants. Giving them the office; standing by as bully when they wanted one, and so forth. Nothing to lay hold of, you know, but that’s our idea.”

“Hasn’t been working for you, by any chance?” said Mr. Fortune.

Bell shook his head. “No, sir. One of our men did try to make something of him. This dope business has been getting out of hand. I don’t know where the supplies are coming from.”

“Somebody in a large way of business,” Mr. Fortune murmured.

“Oh, it’s a big business all right,” said Bell. “But that don’t account for George Akers being murdered. He didn’t give anything away. Never came near it. It’s months ago since we stopped trying for him. Whatever George Akers was smashed for, it wasn’t for standing in with the police.”

“They may have thought he was. They may have thought he would.”

“The fellows who are managing the dope trade? Don’t you believe it, Mr. Fortune. They know their men all right. You don’t catch them running amuck.”

“We haven’t caught them, have we?” said Mr. Fortune mildly. “Do you remember that case in Paris, Bell? Gentleman in the dope industry who used to say to his employees ‘The police won’t kill you for refusing to inform, but if you do, I shall!’ and it was so.”

“But Akers didn’t inform, sir,” Bell objected.

“No. But he may have threatened. He may have run rusty. He may have got to know too much. He may have declined some unusually dirty job. Or he may not have been in the dope trade at all.”

Lomas laughed. Bell breathed hard. “You do skip about, Mr. Fortune,” he complained. “All you’ve been arguing is that he was.”

“Oh, no. No. You said he was in the dope trade, not me. I was only workin’ out the idea, suggestive and provisional.”

“It’s all guessing,” Lomas pronounced.

“No, I wouldn’t say that. Quite solid facts. Murder by a gang. Dying man not surprised that he’d been killed. Thinks his murderers so powerful that he’d better die without getting ’em punished for it; so powerful they can make it worth his wife’s while to keep in with them. And George isn’t a timid spirit. But I don’t want to believe he’s right, Lomas.”

Lomas lit another cigarette. “Poor devil,” he said.

“But what’s it all come to, sir?” Bell protested. “He’s quarreled with his gang and they’ve smashed him and got at his wife to hush it up. We do have these cases.”

“I wonder,” Mr. Fortune murmured. Bell looked at him, dubious, resigned, patient. “I was only hintin’ there’s some brains in this one, Bell.”

Bell made a mournful noise. “Some clever chap behind it all, sir?” he said wearily. He turned to Lomas. “Somebody in a large way of business, like you said, sir?” He shook his head at the two theorists. “It don’t happen much, does it? My way of thinking, all we can do is to work over Akers’s gang and see what we can make of his wife.”

Lomas nodded and the superintendent went his heavy way. Lomas looked at Mr. Fortune. “He’s right, you know, Reginald. It don’t happen. When did you meet an organizer of crime?”

“Well, it’s not much in my way,” said Mr. Fortune. “I suppose this dope business has a managing director or so. If Akers was in it.

“But I never studied crime as an industry. What I get is generally a work of art: individual enterprise and fancy. I don’t think I ever met a cooperative murder before. I don’t like it.” He looked plaintive, he wandered out.

II

Superintendent Bell’s labors discovered nothing more. George Akers’s gang was unanimously dumb. The widow came to the inquest, a waif of the streets in decent black, and, with tears, related that her man had gone to the races as usual — he got his living racing — and never came home again.

When she saw him in hospital he said he had been drinking and got into a scrap with some fellows; he didn’t know who they were; she didn’t know. George didn’t have no enemies she ever heard of; not George. She wept herself out of the box. She went unchallenged.

The police could offer no other evidence but Mr. Fortune’s, and on that the jury gave a verdict of willful murder against persons unknown. And George Akers was buried with his widow a lonely mourner, and before the week was out she had gone from the one room in Soho, which was her home, and was seen no more.

Superintendent Bell shook a sage head. “You can’t make anything of it, sir. I dare say she knew something. I dare say she didn’t. She’s the sort to pick up with another man before her husband was cold.

“Maybe we’ll come on the truth in a year or two, when we’re looking for something else. Maybe we won’t. We do get these cases.”

“I wonder what George thinks about it,” said Mr. Fortune.

But his attention was then distracted. Superintendent Bell’s telephone rang. Superintendent Bell listened to a long narrative. “Landomere?” said the superintendent. “Spell it. Landomere. Right. I’ll come round” He turned the pages of one book of reference and another “Do you know anything of Gerard Landomere, Mr. Fortune?”

“No. He doesn’t sound real. What’s he done?”

“Cut his throat.”

“That gives him a certain interest.”

“Would you like to have a look, sir?” said Bell eagerly.

“Oh, Bell, did I ever?” Mr. Fortune sighed and went with him.

Mr. Gerard Landomere lived in a block of flats behind Piccadilly, which provided service for those who wanted it. Mr. Landomere did, his valet having been dismissed the week before.

The man who came up to valet him that morning had found him in bed with blood about his throat and a razor in his hand. He was already dead. The steward of the flats telephoned for the police and a doctor. The doctor said it was suicide.

“That’s what we’ve got, sir,” said the inspector in Landomere’s rooms. “I was just going through his things.”

“Mr. Fortune would like to see the body,” Bell said.

But Mr. Fortune was in no hurry. He looked about the room, which was hung with colored prints of the eighteenth century, sporting and erotic. It had chairs of comfort and some good pieces of old furniture and silver. “Who was Gerard Landomere, inspector?” he murmured.

“What you’d call a man about town, sir. No occupation. He’s lived here years. They say he was a very quiet gentleman. Best of tenants. Bit behind with his payments just now, but nothing to signify.”

“Not known to the police?”

“Oh, Lord, no, sir. I never heard of him.”

“Landomere,” Mr. Fortune murmured. “No, he doesn’t sound real, does he?” He turned away into the bedroom, and Bell followed.

Gerard Landomere lay in a smoothly ordered bed. The clothes covered him to his chest. Above that was blood. His pyjamas were undone at the neck, his head lay back on the pillow, and on the left of his neck the flesh gaped. His right arm was bent across him and the hand still grasped a razor.

Bell drew in his breath. “Ah, he died quiet, sir,” he said softly.

Reggie Fortune bent over the body.

His fingers went into the breast pocket of the pyjamas. He drew out a folded paper. It was stained and wet with blood, but the writing on it could be read. Reggie beckoned Bell.

It was written in a flowing clerk’s hand. The paper was a sheet torn from a pad and bore no address.

“That’s blackmail plain enough,” said Bell.

“Yes. Yes. Quite plain.”

“He got that and he daren’t fight it. There was no way out for him but the razor.”

“Yes. That is the obvious inference.”

“Devilish things, these blackmail cases. Poor chap, I wonder what he’d done.”

“Yes. I should like to meet A.,” Mr. Fortune murmured. He went back to the body and stood looking down at it. His pink, round, boyish face displayed a plaintive surprise. “Anything strike you, Bell?”

“There’s this valet, sir.”

“The valet who was conveniently dismissed last week. Yes. I should look him up. But I meant here.” He waved a hand at the dead man on the bed.

“It looks a straight case to me, sir.”

“Well, where’s the envelope?”

Bell considered that. Bell looked about the room. “Not here anyway, but it needn’t be. Might be in the sitting room. I’ll ask Logan.”

“One moment. What about the light?”

“The light?” Bell’s brain struggled. “I don’t follow, sir.”

“Well, you know, this blood was shed before dawn. Were the lights on when the body was found? Ask Logan that too.”

Inspector Logan had been told the lights were all off. As for the envelope, it was certainly not in the sitting room. The gentleman didn’t seem to have kept any papers at all.

Bell came back to the bedroom. Bell looked at Mr. Fortune. “That’s queer, anyway.”

“Yes. Curiouser and curiouser. He abolishes all his papers — but he cherishes a blackmailing letter — though he abolishes the envelope. His throat was cut in the night. And the lights were all off this morning.”

“It is odd about the papers,” Bell said slowly. “You’re thinking somebody has been in the flat, sir. But this is no proof, to my mind. The papers — well, we’ve got to suppose the poor chap didn’t hardly know what he was about last night.

“And the lights — I don’t see anything in that. He wouldn’t want light to cut his throat. I suppose he got his razor and switched off the light.”

“Referrin’ to the razor,” said Reggie. “He used a safety on his lawful occasions. It’s on the dressing table. An old friend. But he also had a case of razors handy. That’s very unusual. And the case is new, Bell.”

Bell took it up. “Looks pretty new. But it would be. If he used a safety, he’d have to buy another to kill himself.”

“Yes, that would have to be considered,” said Reggie in a dry, hard voice which startled Superintendent Bell.

“I don’t get what you mean about the razors being new, sir.” Bell came to the body and looked at the razor clasped in the dead hand. “Nothing unusual in a suicide buying a weapon. This is one of that set on the table.” He touched the dead fingers gingerly. “The hand’s stiff and hard grasping it.”

“I noticed that,” said Reggie meekly. “Anything else strike you, Bell?”

“No, sir. Clear case of suicide to my mind. I don’t know what else there is.”

“Blood’s rather dark, isn’t it?”

Bell stared at him. Bell looked down at the bed and drew back with something of horror on his solemn face. “Good Lord, Mr. Fortune, I couldn’t tell. It’s just blood to me. What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know,” Reggie said contemplating the body. He turned away. “Found an answer to everything, haven’t we, Bell? But there’s several curious things. Let’s see if Logan’s got any more.”

III

Inspector Logan had got nothing at all. The old walnut bureau contained no papers, not so much as a check book. Inspector Logan considered that Mr. Landomere had taken good care not to leave anything behind.

“Looks as if he had something pretty nasty to hide,” said Bell.

Reggie, wandering about the room, had come to a halt before a glass and a spirit decanter. Both were empty. Inspector Logan grinned. “He had a good drink before he went out, sir, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes. That is indicated,” Reggie murmured. He was smelling decanter and glass.

“It was whisky he used, sir,” Logan helped him.

“Thanks. I did recognize it.” He put down decanter and glass and still wandered about the room, looking closely at the prints, the furniture, stopped before an oak chest.

“Some rare old things he had. That’s sixteenth century.” He bent over it and rose with a sigh of respectful admiration. “Well, well. I shall have to do some work with the body. Have it removed, will you? I want the bed clothes, too. And that glass and decanter, Bell.”

“Very good, sir. Any points you want us to work on?”

“Oh, the obvious. Did anybody come to the flat last night? Who are Mr. Landomere’s friends, who’s his banker, who’s he been talking to on the telephone? You know all that. Better get hold of the discharged valet. He ought to be interesting.”

“There’s nothing else, sir?”

Reggie was looking at the few pieces of old silver on the bureau. “Oh, my aunt,” he said softly. He turned in his hands a small cubical box. “Look at that,” he held it out on his palm to Bell.

Bell poked at it, peered at it. “What is it, Mr. Fortune?”

“It’s a pouncet box.”

“That don’t help me. What’s it for?”

“It was made to hold Elizabethan smelling salts. That isn’t wholly relevant. But it’s engraved with a lion who has the body of a fish. See?”

“Yes, I see. But what about it?”

“Mr. Landomere was real after all,” said Reggie. “I’ll take this. Good-by.”

Inspector Logan gazed at his superintendent. “I don’t get what he means about Landomere being real,” he grumbled. “And a fish lion! What’s the sense of that? Sounds like he was being funny.”

“This case isn’t going to be funny, my lad,” said Bell. “Give me that phone.”

IV

It was late in the next day when Reggie came into the room of the chief of the criminal investigation department, who was being brisk with papers and a secretary. “Hullo, Lomas. Pressin’ on to closin’ time? Something attempted, something done has earned a night’s repose.”

“You’re aggressively cheerful, Reginald,” said Lomas. “I expect you to justify it,” and he got rid of the secretary. “Well?”

“Have you found Mrs. Akers?”

Lomas sighed and gave him a cigar. “No, Reginald, we have not found Mrs. Akers. We are rather busy with the Landomere case. Be relevant as soon as possible.”

“I always am. Have you found Landomere’s valet?”

“Not that I know of.” He took up his telephone and talked to Superintendent Bell. “No, not yet. Logan thinks he is on the track of the fellow.” He paused. “Why do you revert to the Akers case, Reginald?”

“Certain similarity. Hadn’t you noticed at? Two men die violent deaths. Care in each case to obliterate the reason, and in each case the person who might know something fades away.”

“And certain differences. A tout is kicked to death in a street row. A man of means cuts his throat in his flat.”

Bell came into the room. “But the police know nothing about either of them,” said Reggie cheerfully. “Or do you, Bell?”

Bell smiled. “I had to check Logan for saying you were being funny, sir. But were you pulling my leg about the lion fish?”

“Oh, my, Bell! Did I ever?” Reggie felt in his pockets and produced the pouncet box. “There you are. Beautiful piece, isn’t it, Lomas? Lion’s head on a fish’s body. Lion of the sea. Lion de mer. Landomere.”

“Landomere’s arms, eh?” Lomas said. “Well, what about it?”

“First inference: Mr. Landomere’s name is genuine and old. Lookin’ into the matter, we find that the Landomeres were an ancient family in Downshire, founded by an eminent pirate of the middle ages. Hence the name, Lion of the Sea.

“They did a little in the profession later and eked it out by smuggling. As times got quieter, they decayed. They’re supposed to have died out last century. I can’t trace this fellow, but he’d stuck to a few of the old family things.”

“All very interesting, Reginald,” Lomas yawned. “I’m not compiling a history of the family of Landomeres. If you’ll tell me how he died, we might get on.”

“Oh, he died in his sleep.”

“Good gad!” said Lomas.

“What, sir?” Bell cried. “Cut his throat in his sleep?”

“Yes. Yes. In a way. He didn’t really cut his own throat. It happened like this. Some time in his absence his flat was entered and a sleeping draft put into his whisky. He came back, had his drink and went to bed. While he lay in a drugged sleep, his flat was entered again by somebody, probably two men or more. They brought that case of razors, they brought the blackmailing letter.

“They put a razor in his hand and so cut his throat. They put the letter in his pocket. Then they took all his papers, switched off the light and quit Thus wiping out Mr. Landomere and all traces in the flat of how he’d been living and leaving quite good evidence that he destroyed his papers and committed suicide in fear of blackmail. Very thoughtful bit of crime. Like the extinction of George Akers.”

“Damme, Reginald, you surpass yourself,” Lomas smiled. “This is very ingenuous, but more than a little conjectural. Guessing isn’t evidence.”

“Thank you for those kind words.”

“My dear fellow, I’ve the greatest respect for your opinion. But after all, an opinion isn’t facts. You can’t possibly know all this. It’s a work of imagination constructed with very scanty and unreliable material.”

“You think so? I bet you the jury won’t.”

“Great heavens, you’re not going to tell this tale at the inquest?”

“I’m going to tell the jury that Superintendent Bell pointed out to me the man had died very quiet, that his blood was dark and his lungs congested as if he had been poisoned with chloral hydrate; that I found chloral hydrate in the empty glass and the empty decanter.

“There’s the facts, Lomas. And the opinion to be formed upon them, the only possible opinion, is that a sleeping draft of chloral was put in his whisky so that he should be insensible while his throat was cut.”

“Oh, my dear fellow!” Lomas protested. “How can you say so? It’s not uncommon for a suicide to take a drug before he kills himself some other way. Landomere may have hoped to kill himself with chloral and found it didn’t act quick enough. He may have taken it so that he should die quiet. He may have had the chloral habit. Your murder theory is superfluously improbable.”

“Think again, Lomas,” said Reggie. “There was chloral in the decanter. Put your mind to it.” He smiled and took another cigar. “By the way, Bell, did you find any chloral in the flat? No, I thought not.

“Another little point. The hypothetical suicide gets some chloral without a bottle and mixes it with the whisky in the decanter. That’s a very unusual way to take your drugs.”

“Your point,” Lomas agreed. “Sorry, Reginald. You are very neat. But I don’t see my way. If a murderer could drug his whisky, why bother with this dangerous business of cutting his throat?”

“Well, I don’t know why Landomere had to die. But I take it there were urgent reasons. The murderer had to make sure. Any poison Landomere wouldn’t notice wouldn’t kill him quick. A little sleeping draft — then his throat would be cut and everything arranged to look like suicide — and it was all over in one night.”

“And if you hadn’t happened to see him, sir, the other doctor would have passed it for suicide and we shouldn’t have bothered about it,” said Bell.

“And they’d have lived happily ever after,” said Mr. Fortune. “Perhaps they will now. Are we going to have another verdict against a person or persons unknown, Lomas?”

“Another, sir?” Bell stared. “Oh, you mean that Akers case. I don’t see any likeness.”

“Both wiping out a man. Both very cleverly managed. Both givin’ evidence of organization behind — and some chap with a will.”

“It is damnably clever,” said Lomas. “Some fellow with a head, yes. Possibly some fellow in a large way of business. He must have had a staff. But why the devil should the same man have to kill both Akers and Landomere?”

“You’re coming back to that organizer of crime idea, sir,” Bell shook his head. “I don’t think it. Except for receivers of stolen goods and selling drugs and the sort of business side, they don’t happen. I mean to say, not in murders. There’s no money in murders.”

“No. No. Murder would be a side line,” Reggie murmured.

“What have we got?” Lomas lay back in his chair, “The Akers case has petered out. Landomere was murdered by somebody who knew his ways and could get into his flat. The valet is indicated. Logan’s after him. Got his description. Got some of his pals.

“What about Landomere’s life? He belonged to several decent clubs. We can’t hear of any intimate friends. His bank account’s very small. He had no capital to speak of. No visible means of support. His pass book shows money paid in irregularly, nothing suggestive in the checks he drew. They haven’t noticed any particular visitors in the flats.

“The only thing worth looking into we get from the telephone exchange is that he rang up a solicitor last week. The girl remembered that because the call lasted so long. A Mr. Howard Fyle. Not known to the police. We’ll have a talk with Mr. Howard Fyle. Anything else, Reginald?”

“Well, I was thinking of a quiet day or two in Downshire. I’d like to have Bell. Not necessarily for publication but as a guarantee of good faith. I shouldn’t publish anything, Lomas. Get the inquest quietly adjourned. Don’t tell Mr. Fyle we’re worryin’. And go hard after the valet.”

“Logan’s a thruster,” Lomas smiled. “You can have Bell, but I don’t know what you’ll do in Downshire.”

“Nor do I,” Reggie murmured. “Tryin’ everything, Lomas. Like the late Mr. Darwin playin’ the trombone to his vegetables.”

V

The next morning he arrived in a car at the suburban home of Superintendent Bell, who looked at it critically while the chauffeur stowed his suitcase. “Got a new one, Mr. Fortune?”

“A hireling. You never know, you know. Somebody might recognize mine. And I thought we’d better be incognito. Two gentlemen from Canada having a look round the old country: Mr. French and Mr. Brown.”

Bell laughed. “All right, sir. Have you brought any false whiskers?” He looked at Mr. Fortune’s pink round face affectionately. “I’d like to see you in whiskers.”

“You have a nasty mind, Bell.”

“Sorry, sir,” Bell chuckled. “I just thought of it. It is a bit odd, you know, taking all this pains to be incog. Any one who knows us well, they’ll know us just the same”

“Lots of people who never saw me know my name. I don’t want to alarm anybody. We’re going into a nice quiet country where strangers will be showy. Somebody might get interested in the car.”

“All right, sir.” Bell spread himself. “It’s like a holiday to me. I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“We’re going to see the chief constable first. I always like to keep in with the police — if possible.”

The car ran through long miles of suburban country, climbed to the wind on the hills and raced down to orchards and mellowing corn. The sprawling county town of Downshire slumbered between market days.

They put up the car and ordered lunch and walked through yawning streets to the chief constable. But he was brisk enough, a little man with a knowing eye. “I’m not going to say I’m glad to see you, Mr. Fortune. What’s the trouble?”

“You know, don’t you? But do you know any one called Landomere?”

The chief constable put his head on one side. “That suicide case, eh? I was wondering about it myself. I didn’t know there was a Landomere alive.”

“Ah, the family’s faded right out?”

“Absolutely. Generations ago. Never heard of one in my time. They owned half the seaboard once, but all their land has been sold to other families times out of mind.”

“No poor relations about?”

“I never met any one who knew a Landomere. We always think of them as one of the dead medieval names.” He turned to a map on the wall. “That was their great place, Castle Counter, on a hill in the marsh by Lythe. They had a big manor here at Ashurst. All around was Landomere country. That’s all I know about them.

“If you ask me, I wonder where this chap picked up the name.” The chief constable looked more knowing than ever. “Bill Smith calling himself Keith Howard, what?”

“Yes, that is one of the possibilities,” said Mr. Fortune.

VI

But after lunch the hireling car ran on from the woodland to the marsh, to the knoll of sandstone above the winding, muddy river where Castle Counter stood.

“Nice bit of ruin,” said Bell and smiled upon his Mr. Fortune, like a father indulging a spoiled child’s fancy. “What were you thinking of doing with it now we are here, sir?”

There was not much of it. The shell of the keep stood stark against the sea wind, the rest was tumbled stones glowing red with valerian. Fortune delivered a short lecture on medieval castles and Bell went on smiling.

Mr. Fortune wandered among the ruins. Bell came up with him where he stood contemplating the door of the keep. “There you are,” he said. A coat of arms was carved in the crumbling stone and the lion fish could still be made out. “The home of the Landomeres.”

“They don’t use it much now,” Bell chuckled.

Mr. Fortune glanced at him. “No. No. Well placed, wasn’t it? Just over the harbor.”

“Harbor?” Bell stared round. Under the hill the narrow river twisted between mud banks. “That’s the harbor, isn’t it, where the masts are? Must be a mile away.”

“Yes. The sea’s gone back since the Landomeres built their castle.” He made a devious way down the hillside back to the car.

“It’s all very jolly, sir,” said Bell. “But I don’t know what we’re doing.”

“We’re trying everything. Now we’re going to try if there’s an inn at Lythe that has a conscience. And I don’t mind tellin’ you it’s a desperate adventure.”

But they found one, an inn of shocking Victorian structure which defiled the moldering beauty of that ancient port, yet understood comfort and by its teacakes, as Mr. Fortune pointed out, justified faith in human nature.

Thus comforted, he went forth to study the town of Lythe and in its great church discovered a tomb upon which lay Ranulf Landomere and Alys his wife in alabaster with a row of kneeling children beneath.

“Seem to have been plenty of ’em then,” Bell said. “When was that, 1470? Our man won’t be one these lads.” He talked to the verger and was told that the Landomeres were all killed in the wars of the Roses. “Seems to me we’re not getting anywhere in particular, Mr. Fortune.”

“Let’s get on to the telephone,” Reggie muttered, and then with emphasis: “Don’t forget things, Brown.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, French,” Bell grinned.

At the post office Mr. French made a trunk call and Mr. Brown stood with his back to the door of the telephone box. But no one took any interest in them.

Reggie came out and took Bell’s arm and turned away out of the town on the lonely road to the harbor. “I got Lomas,” he said softly. “He’s seen the solicitor. He thinks Mr. Fyle is the safety first, family business kind of lawyer, quite respectable.

“Mr. Fyle says he did some trifling job for Landomere, about a bill, years ago and hadn’t heard of him since till last week when Landomere rang him up. Landomere was very confused, but as far as he could make out wanted advice about an attempt at blackmail. He arranged an appointment and Landomere didn’t keep it. That’s all he knows.”

“Sounds straight enough.”

“Yes. Yes. They’re looking into Mr. Fyle, of course. They haven’t got the valet yet, but Logan’s close on him.”

“Then he’s doing more good than we are,” said Bell grimly. “We don’t get very close to anything, do we?”

“I wonder,” Reggie murmured. He stopped and gazed at a topsail schooner, the only ship by the grass grown quay of Lythe. She was unloading deals. “A Swede, is she?”

“I’m no good at flags,” Bell shrugged, but he saw Mr. Fortune considering the schooner with a curious attention. “One of these chaps with the timber will know of her.”

“Don’t worry,” Reggie drew him away and they strolled back to the town. After a few hundred yards Bell glanced at him. “Yes, I think so,” Reggie murmured. Bell stopped and began to light a pipe. He had trouble with matches.

A man passed them at a swinging pace, a big fellow in plus fours. He vanished among some boat building sheds.

“Looks like it,” Bell frowned. “But if we are being followed, somebody’s got on to us mighty quick.”

“Yes, Brown. That is so,” Reggie smiled. “In the home town of the Landomeres, Mr. Brown.”

“Do you mind leaving this to me?” said Bell with ferocity. “You go on quick. Back to the pub. And stay there.”

So Reggie strode out like a man who had business and left Superintendent Bell smoking his pipe on the harbor road.

VII

It was two hours later and Reggie was turning over an old gazeteer of Downshire in the smoking room of the White Hart when Bell’s heed looked in. “Hello, French, what about dinner?” it said loudly, and Bell came in and shut the door. “Well, he was on to us all right. He followed you.”

“Yes. I know. He had a drink in the bar and asked who we were, Brown,” Reggie smiled.

“That’s right. Got some cheek, hasn’t he? Then he hustled away to a garage and went off on a motor bike. I’ve got him ticketed, though. He’s been in and out of the town a good deal the last few days. He and another chap, small fellow with one arm.

“They took a bungalow out Ashurst way a week ago. Give out they’re artists. Name of Vereker they use. Oh, that ship, by the way. She is a Swede. Been in about a week. They often get timber boats here. Almost the only ones they do get. There it is.

“These chaps came here about the same time as a Swedish schooner. And as soon as we’re in the place, they’re trailing us. It beats me.”

“Yes. Yes. Several unknown factors. Quite a lot of factors. But I don’t think we’re wasting our time, Bell. As soon as we’re in the Landomore country people take an interest in us. That’s very stimulating. Come on. There’s red mullet for dinner and a little saddle of lamb. They brag about their Madeira.”

After dinner Mr. Fortune, who loves not walking at any hour, but then, least of all, was tempted by the curiosity of duty to stroll with his cigar.

But in the silent streets of Lythe no footfall followed theirs. They climbed to the little green by the watch tower that once guarded the harbor. In the faint light of the rising moon the marsh lay dim and misty, but they could make out the winding of the river.

“Look. She’s eliminated,” said Reggie. A light high in air was moving seaward slowly and they heard the faint heavy beat of a motor engine. The schooner was standing out to sea on the ebb.

“Well, I don’t know what she had to do with it anyway,” said Bell.

“No. No. I wonder if Mr. Vereker does,” Mr. Fortune murmured.

Over the marsh, mist gathered in strange shapes, like giant spirits walking on the wind, silvery in the moonlight, dark in the cloud shadows, and changing form as they moved. “Weird place, isn’t it?” Bell muttered.

The sound of another motor was borne up to them, but a sharper sound, a motorcycle driven fast. It drew nearer, it rushed along the harbor road, vanished, stopped. Then they heard the engine started again and at the same high speed it came back.

“I’m afraid somebody’s missed the boat,” said Mr. Fortune.

“And if you know what that means!” said Bell with emotion.

“I don’t. Very complex problem. I’m going to my bed.”

“Sleep on it, eh? Good Lord, I shall dream of it.”

In the morning Mr. Fortune — this is most unusual — was up early. He found Bell morosely shaving. “Oh, Bell, oh, my Bell,” he protested. “This gloom! Hence loathed melancholy! Let us then be up and doing, for the grave is not the goal.”

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Bell wiped his face with a certain violence. “The more I think of it, the more it beats me.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that!” Reggie sat on the bed and swung his legs. “But it’s highly complex. I was going to look for Landomeres in their ancestral haunts.”

“Still at that, eh?” Bell said through his shirt.

“And you could look after me. On a push bike. Nice healthy exercise. In case the firm of Vereker might be interested.”

So alone in the car Reggie drove to the manor house of Ashurst. A large board in its park informed him that it was for sale by order of executors. He conferred with an old lodge keeper.

The place had been owned by the Fenley family for a century. She didn’t know who had it before. Of course, it was the Landomeres’ once, like everything round about: lands, churches, everything.

Why, Ashurst churchyard was fair full of Landomeres. But they’d been gone this long time. Old Mrs. Fenley she did love to talk of ’em. Her folks had been something to the Landomeres in the old days. They’d come up when the Landomeres went down. Now they were gone, too.

Old Mrs. Fenley, she’d been dead forty years. The place came to her daughter then. Never married, Miss Fenley didn’t, no. Just bided about. There was some talk about her and parson once, but never came to nought. She was a queer one.

Reggie drove on to the house and was led over it by a dragon caretaker and wasted his time. The place was a shapeless patchwork of three centuries furnished in the worst Victorian manner. The awful portraits were all Fenley’s. Of departed Landomeres he found no trace.

The hireling car came back to the road and looked for Bell and his push bike, but in vain. Reggie laid a course for Ashurst church which proved hard to find.

Ashurst village consisted of a post office where lanes diverged to farms and scattered cottages. The church was reported a mile and a bit away by road, but there was a path through the woods. Reggie trudged on the footpath way.

Up and down among hornbeam and hazel he came out to the bare slope by which the woodland falls to the marsh and saw a little shingled spire.

Ashurst church stands on the edge of the high ground alone but for a vicarage of brownstone. Reggie climbed a steep path and by a cuckoo gate between ancient yews came into the churchyard. He looked across the marsh to the dim blue distance that was the sea.

In the wide sunlit prospect peewits were flashing and calling. It seemed to him no bad thing to be vicar of Ashurst. He sighed and applied his mind to business.

The churchyard was large and stretched to the very verge of its hill which fell away in a little sandstone cliff to the marsh. But in spite of the old lady at the lodge it was by no means full.

A big eighteenth century grave took his eye; a cubical structure of stone inside a railing, plainly a family vault. He came to it and on the crumbling top made out the Landomere lion fish and the vestiges of a Latin inscription: something about Gerardus eques et domina.

“Yes. Our Gerard’s in the mortuary,” he murmured. “And Sir Gerard and his lady are down there.”

He stood contemplating that ancient stone and the railing and the steps within it which led to an iron door into the earth. He turned away and wandered back over the close shorn turf to the neath path. Somebody was coming.

“Good day.” A little white-haired, — rosy-cheeked parson smiled and made him an old world bow. “Did you wish to see the church?”

“I should like to.”

“I shall be delighted to show it you. I am always so glad when visitors come to see my little church. We are so out of the world, I’m afraid many good people miss it. Quite a humble place, of course, but I do venture to think ra-ther beautiful, ra-ther beautiful.” He unlocked the door.

The church was an austere piece of early English. But the little parson had much more to say about it; of squint and rood loft, aumbry, east window, tower arch he chirruped.

Mr. Fortune said the right things and he beamed. So gratifying to talk to some one who understood; so rarely found them coming to Ashurst. Of course they were quite out of the world.

Mr. Fortune explained that he was just taking a run round the old country. An American, sir? No, no. From Canada. Been having a look at the old house that was on the market. They told him the church was worth seeing.

“Really! Really!” the vicar beamed. “Shall I be having you as one of my parishioners, sir?”

Reggie shook his head. “I didn’t take to the place myself. Not what I call old. I heard it was some real old family castle. What was the name? Land-us-here — something like that?”

The little parson looked bewildered. “Miss Fenley was the owner, sir. Quite an old family. The last of her line, poor lady. A sad pity. I expect the name you heard was Landomere. They have been dead and gone for centuries. Dear me, yes. The glory of this world passes away.”

He shepherded Reggie to the door. While he was locking it, Reggie strolled across the turf to some of the older graves. “Our little God’s acre, sir. A sweet quiet place.”

“Yes. Yes,” Reggie turned and surveyed it. “Thanks very much. It’s been most interesting.”

“Oh, not at all, not at all,” the little parson beamed. “I should thank you.”

“I was wonderin’,” Reggie murmured, “which is my best way. I left my car up on the road.” He looked at the pebbly track which curved past the vicarage and down under the cliff to run across the marsh. “Where does that go?”

“Oh, you were quite right, sir. That’s only a farm track. There is a charming footpath through the woods. I do hope you found it!”

“Yes. Charming. Yes. Many thanks. I’ll take that again.”

The little parson said good day and left him in the churchyard. He wandered among the graves, but he did not go back to the family vault of the Landomeres. Once, twice, and again he found the name of Akers.

He took the woodland path at speed. But the post office of Ashurst knew nobody called Akers.

VIII

Bell and the bicycle had not appeared to his chauffeur. The hireling car was driven hard back to Lythe and Mr. Fortune, pale and dreamy, filled the void of a lunchless day with a great many tea cakes.

But they brought no peace to his troubled mind. He watched the clock, he watched the street. “Damn Bell,” he murmured and sought the post office and the telephone.

“Fortune speaking. Have you got that valet yet? No? Don’t tell me Logan’s still close on him. I’m tired. I want some Lord High Muckamuck of the telephones to be at the Lythe to-morrow bright and early and do what I tell him. Anything else?

“Yes, thanks. I want three or four good men to report to Mr. French at the White Hart here to-morrow. Better come in a fast car. Who’s Mr. French? Me. What’s doin? I don’t know. But we’re close on it. No, Lomas, dear, not like Logan. Good-by. Pleasant dreams.”

He hurried back to the inn and there was relieved by the sight of Superintendent Bell swallowing tea in large gulps.

“Well, well, well,” said Reggie, and sank into a chair. “Arid are we still alive and see each other’s face? What have you been doing, Mr. Brown? I was afraid further complications had set in.”

Bell looked round the lounge. Bell edged his chair nearer. “You were all right, sir. I’ve had a line on you all day. Saw you in the churchyard. You didn’t see me. Found any more graves?”

“Yes. Yes. I found some Akers graves.”

“Akers! He was from down here, too? Good Lord! The more you get, the more it beats you. What is there about that church, Mr. Fortune?”

“I didn’t see anything myself,” said Mr. Fortune.

“All day long, one of the Verekers has been hanging round. When I followed you past the Vereker’s bungalow one of ’em was coming out, but he didn’t so much as look after your car.

“He went into the woods. When I got near him, he was away to one side of the church, sitting down. After awhile he moves on a bit, but always keeping close to the church and that house there. Farm, is it?”

“Vicarage.”

“Well, that’s how I’ve spent my day. The other one, a little chap with one arm, came along and relieved him just awhile ago. They’re up to something there.”

“Yes. Yes. That is indicated,” Reggie murmured. “I’m tired, Bell. Quite tired.” He lay back in his chair gazing with large melancholy eyes at the wall. “One large, long bath,” he murmured. “A light but nourishing dinner. And so to bed.”

He rose wearily. He vanished, he appeared again only to dine, he was between the sheets before nine.

But Superintendent Bell drawing up his blind in the morning saw the hireling car at the door and came down to find him already in the marmalade stage of breakfast.

“Had a good night, sir?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Going off somewhere?”

“Only round to the post office,” said Reggie and went.

A man stood yawning behind the clerks at the counter, surveyed him for a moment and came round to him. Did he want to see anybody?

Reggie was expecting a gentleman from London about the telephone service. He was taken upstairs to a meager room. “I thought I knew you, Mr. Fortune. My name’s Brock. Remember the Sinclair case? Now my instructions are to do anything I can for you. What’s the business?”

“Well, I shouldn’t wonder if you have one or two people coming in to complain their telephones are out of order. Useful things, wire nippers. Of course, you don’t know anything about that.” Mr. Brock winked. “Tell your people to be very civil and don’t do anything just yet.”

“I say, you didn’t bring me down from London for that,” Mr. Brock grinned. “That’s the routine.”

“No. I expect some of these people will want to make trunk calls. Take the numbers they ask for and then have ’em told the trunk wires are out of action. See? I want the numbers, but they mustn’t get through to-day.”

“That’s all right. It means nobody will be able to get a trunk call through Lythe till you say the word. But that don’t matter much. I dare say they don’t get three a day.”

Reggie gave him a cigar and they settled down to talk motor cars.

It was some time before a telephone bell disturbed them. Mr. Brock answered it and turned to Reggie. “Here we are. Man complaining his phone’s out of order. Name of Vereker.”

He sent down a soothing official answer. “They say he seems quite satisfied. Didn’t ask for any other number. You haven’t got much out of that, Mr. Fortune.”

Reggie Fortune smiled a slow benign smile. “You never know, you know,” he murmured. “We have to try everything.” And he began to talk cricket.

The telephone rang again. Mr. Brock listened to a long story. He purred out his official reply and turned to Reggie with lifted eyebrows.

“No. 2’s rather agitated. Vicar of Ashurst. Cannot understand why his phone should suddenly fail. Wants it put right at once.” Again the bell rang. Mr. Brock, whistled. “He’s asked for trunks. Embankment 1502. Want to know who that is? I can ask Embankment.”

“One moment.” Reggie turned the pages of the London telephone directory. “Fyle — Mr. Howard Fyle; yes, Embankment 1502. Thanks very much. Tell the vicar the trunk lines are out of order. Looking into it now. Everything will be all right by to-night.”

Mr. Brock winked and sent down those comfortable words. “Now get me Embankment 1502.” Mr. Brock did so and passed him the telephone. He spoke in a high, chirruping voice. “Is that Mr. Fyle’s office? Give me Mr. Fyle, please. Vicar of Ashurst speaking. Yes, Mr. Frant. Mr. David Frant, yes. Hallo! Yes, Frant speaking. I want you down here at once. Come at once.

“What? What? I can’t hear you. At once, man. Oh, I han’t hear.” He rang off. “I say, Brock, tell your people in London no other trunk call must get through to Embankment 1502 to-day. Good-by.”

IX

He came back to the inn and found Superintendent Bell surrounded by four large men. “Good. You fellows got a car? That’s all right.”

He looked into the office and required that lunch for six should be put in his tar. They were going to have a picnic. He returned to Bell and his party and took them upstairs to his room. With a map of large scale upon the bed he demonstrated—

The haze of evening stole over the marsh. Below Ashurst church Reggie and Bell lay in the shade of a clump of alder watching the track which curved round the hill past the vicarage gate.

The long shadows fell faintly, the western sky was lavender and gold. The last edge of the sun passed into a gray bank of darkening cloud and the horizon closed upon them, the world was smaller and dim.

They heard a car and Bell rose and walked away. A dosed car came into sight, swung round to the vicarage and stopped.

One man got out quickly and found the door open to receive him. There was a murmur of voices and the door slammed behind him. In the silence Reggie stood up and came to the cliff below the church. He thrust into the bushes at its base, waited a moment listening and strolled on.

Bell was knocking at the vicarage door. After awhile a manservant opened it. “I’m a police officer, Superintendent Bell,” he put in his foot. “I want to see Mr. Howard Fyle.”

“I don’t know the gentleman, sir.”

“The gentleman that’s just come.”

“I couldn’t say, I’m sure. I’ll ask the vicar. Will you come in, sir?”

Bell was shut into a little room which looked out upon the woods. He heard faint movements, he waited awhile, opened the door again and found the manservant just outside. “The vicar will be with you in a moment, sir.”

Bell flung open the hall door. Mr. Fyle’s car was still there. He saw two men vanish out of the gate into the dusk. He chuckled and blew his whistle and shouted: “Two. Two on foot,” and ran after them and bumped into Mr. Fortune. “Hello, sir. Both of them bolted. Left the car, too. That’s a queer start. Lost their heads, eh? Did you see ’em?”

“Yes. They went into the churchyard.”

Bell hurried on. He met a small man, gripped at him and gasped, for his hand closed on an armless side. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“And the same to you,” he was answered crisply.

“I’ve had this man under observation all the time, sir,” one of the detectives loomed up. “He’s been watching the house.”

“Now, my man, what’s your little game? We’re police officers. Out with it.”

“You’re after the vicar? Praise God. I’m with you. My name’s Vereker. Major Vereker. Come on. He cut off into the churchyard.”

“Run away, Bell,” said Reggie. “I want to talk to Major Vereker. My name’s Fortune, sir.”

X

Bell ran on with his satellite. Reggie took Major Vereker’s one arm and followed slowly.

“I say, Mr. Fortune, this parson is pretty hot stuff. We’d better be after him, too.”

“Don’t worry. There’s men all round us, major.”

“He’s for it, is he? I mean to say, you’ve got a line on him?”

“Yes. I think so. There’s only one thing that’s always beat me; and that’s where Major Vereker comes in.”

“Well, you see, I knew Landomere.”

“Yes. Yes. I thought you might.” Reggie sat down on the railing of the Landomere grave. “But how much did you know?”

“I’d known him off and on since he was a kid. My people knew his father in Jersey. Gerry wasn’t much of a chap, poor devil. Weak, you know. This damned parson was his tutor. Gerry’s father got the people who had the old Landomere estate to give the parson this living. Had to stop his mouth about some scandal with poor old Gerry.

“Well, Gerry had a good streak in him. He did have some decent pals once. A few weeks ago he wrote to me there was dirty work doing about a woman. It was the daughter of a pal of his who was killed in the war. She had a little bit of a past, she’s just got married and he said he heard some fellows were going to blackmail her. Well, I only knew one fellow besides Gerry who was wise to her affair and that was an old servant of his, George Akers.

“It looked to me like a plant of Gerry’s to draw a little safe blackmail himself. I warned her and nothing happened. Then I read about the inquest on George Akers and on top of that came Gerry cutting his throat. Well, that made me think.

“I had nothing to go on, but I always used to fancy Gerry might have been a decent chap without Parson Frant. Frant was the only chap likely to have a pull on Gerry. I thought it was up to me to see if I could place Parson Frant in it.

“So I came down here with my brother to have a look at him. And I’ve got this, Mr. Fortune: Frant’s doing some queer business. We trailed him to an inn in the marshes and the chaps he met there were off a foreign timber ship in Lythe harbor. We watched her—”

“You watched me, didn’t you?” Reggie smiled. “I’m afraid I rather confused you, major. You confused me.”

“Sorry, sir. Yes, my brother followed you. Thought you might be in the game. But what is the game? What’s a country parson—”

Bell lumbered up. “They’re hiding somewhere, sir. How about trying the church?”

Mr. Fortune rose. “No, I don’t think they’re in the church,” he said. “Come on.” He stepped over the railing and went down the steps to the door of the vault. “Got your torches?”

“In there?” Bell flashed a light on the iron door.

“That’s where they went.”

“Good Lord, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, I thought they’d better have time to think things over.”

“But there may be a way out, sir.”

“Oh, yes. Yes. There is. But they won’t use it. I wedged the other door.”

“My God!” Bell muttered and breathed hard. “This one,” he felt it, “this one’s locked, eh? Come on, Porter.” He turned his light on the door, he took out an automatic pistol.

Porter began to force the lock; it yielded and the door slid back and the torch light revealed wide spaces of gloom; turned this way and that, it fell upon rough hewn stone, coffins thrust into a corner, set one upon another and in the midst metal chests which bore some bottles and scraps of food.

But no one was to be seen. “Come on out of it,” Bell shouted, and no one answered.

He stooped and strode in. “You stand by the door, Porter.” The beam of his torch searched the vault again and found a passage leading out of it on the far side. Into that he marched, throwing the light before him.

“What the devil!” The light came upon a fallen motorcycle. Beyond it were men: a man sitting on the ground bowed together, a man standing smoking a cigarette, a man lying between them, his white hair dabbled with blood.

“Three of you, eh?” said Bell.

“All here, officer,” the unshaven face of the smoker grinned. “That’s nice, isn’t it?”

“Mr. Landomere’s valet, I presume,” said Reggie.

“You know a lot, don’t you? And Mr. Howard Fyle. And the Rev. blooming Frant. All present and correct.”

“You put up your hands,” said Bell. “Mr. Fortune, will you have a look at the parson? Porter! Call the other men and come along.”

Reggie bent over the little parson. “Yes, you look at him,” the valet growled. “I’ve done him proud.”

Reggie stood up. “He’s almost gone,” he said quietly. “He can’t live very much longer, Bell.”

“Take my oath he can’t,” the valet laughed, and kicked at the body.

“You’ve done enough!” Bell dragged him away. “This is murder.”

“I don’t think. Not half. And what about those Mr. blooming Frant put away, George Akers and Landomere? What about me, keeping me down here in the grave to have me trapped like a blooming rat at last? Well, I smashed him like a rat. I’ve got back on him anyway.”

“Come on with you,” Bell hustled him off. “Take that man, Porter,” he pointed to the wretched Mr. Fyle. “Send the others along for the parson.”

XI

Into the room of the chief of the criminal investigation department Mr. Fortune came to find Lomas with Superintendent Bell. “Well, well! How doth the little busy bee! This industry is very gratifying. Any little thing you haven’t got that you want?”

“It was cocaine in those boxes in the vault, Mr. Fortune,” said Bell.

“Oh, yes, yes, of course. From the timber ships. Not a nice man, the late Mr. Frant. Recreations, drug-running and blackmail. Do you find anything of interest in the papers of Mr. Frant and Mr. Fyle?”

“They didn’t put much on paper,” Lomas shrugged. “But it was big business. I always said that, you know.”

“Yes, Lomas,” said Mr. Fortune quite meekly.

“And a little country parson at the head of it!” said Bell.

“One of the world’s great brains,” Mr. Fortune smiled.

“I thought there was a good brain behind all this business,” Lomas announced. “Well, we’re going to clear up a lot of mess, Reginald. Fyle’s been talking. That business in the vault seems to have broken him right open.”

“Fancy!”

“Akers was an old servant of Landomere’s; faithful retainer. Frant had been using them both for years. They shied at blackmailing this girl. Frant thought they meant to give him away. He had Akers murdered to stop his mouth and frightened Landomere.

“Landomere was badly rattled, but the way it took him was to swear he’d have no more to do with Frant. So Frant and the valet put him away. When Logan got going, the valet bolted down to the vicarage. Frant tried to ship him off—”

“Yes. Yes. We saw that. They just missed the boat. A bit of luck. The only bit of luck. The rest was simply research work.”

“Mr. Fortune,” said Bell, “when did you feel sure Frant used that vault?”

“The first time I saw it. There was a smell of tobacco coming up. And Mr. Frant was so interested in me.”

Bell gazed at him. “Would you mind telling me — after you wedged that other door — when you kept talking — did you fancy they’d quarrel down there in the grave?”

“Yes. Yes.” Reggie looked at him with large, solemn eyes. “I thought they might have trouble. I hoped they would. Yes. One of my neater cases, Bell.”