The Ten Teacups

(The Peacock Feathers Murder)

By

John Dickson Carr

1937

Writing as Carter Dickson

CHAPTER ONE

Peacocks' Feathers

THERE WILL BE TEN TEACUPS AT NUMBER 4, BERWICK TERRACE, w8 ON WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, AT 5 P.M. PRECISELY. THE PRESENCE OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE IS RESPECTFULLY REQUESTED.

ON THE surface there would appear nothing in this note, addressed to Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters at New Scotland Yard, capable of giving Masters any uneasiness. It arrived in the first post on Wednesday, that day when the diabolical heat-wave - you may remember it - had reached its height. The note bore no signature. It was typed in the center of a stiff sheet of notepaper. To young Sergeant Pollard, Master's aide-de-camp, it was an additional pin-prick in this day of heat.

"You don't say so," commented Pollard, not without sarcasm. "If they're inviting everybody, it must be rather a large tea-party. What is it, sir? A joke or some kind of advertisement?"

He was certainly not prepared for the effect of the note on Masters. Masters, who always wore heavy blue serge and a waistcoat no matter what the weather, was stewing and sweating at a desk of papers. His big face, bland as a cardsharper's, with the grizzled hair brushed to hide the bald spot, now shone with increasing redness as he looked up. He swore.

"What's wrong?" asked Pollard. "You don't mean to say-?"

"Now, now," growled Masters. When harassed, he had a habit of assuming the air of a parent rebuking an idiot child. "Don't you go making remarks, Bob, before you know what it's all about. When you've been in this game as long as I have. . . . Here. Nip out and get me the file marked Dartley. Look sharp about it, now."

The file bore a date two years back. Pollard did not have time for a look at it before he returned; but he saw by its heading that it was a murder case, and his boredom was stirred by curiosity. So far Pollard, who had crept into the Force by way of Cambridge, had found nothing but the dullness of secretarial duties. Even his term of service as a uniformed policeman had consisted chiefly of making mesmeric passes at the traffic and arresting just 1,322 motorists. But he was interested by Masters's ominous throat-clearings as the chief inspector glowered at the report.

"Anything-exciting?" he prompted.

"Exciting!" said Masters, with rich scorn. Nevertheless, cautious as Masters was, he could not help going on. "It's murder, my lad: that's what it is. We never caught the bloke who did it, and it's unlikely we ever shall. And I'll tell you something else: I've been twenty-five years at this job, and it's the only murder I ever heard of that didn't mean anything at all. Exciting!"

Pollard was puzzled. "Didn't mean anything at all?"

"That's what I said," agreed Masters, and came to a decision. "Get your hat, Bob. I want a minute with the Assistant Commissioner on the phone. Then we're going to pay a little visit to a man you know-"

"Not Sir Henry Merrivale?

"Why not?"

"For God's sake, sir, don't do it!" urged Pollard. "Not on a day like this. He'll be wild. He'll tear us limb from limb and dance on the pieces. He-"

Despite the heat, a faint grin began to creep over Masters's face.

"Lummy, yes; the old man'll have his back up right enough," he admitted. "He's really been working, too, for a change. But you leave him to me. The thing to do is hook him, Bob; hook him. Hurrum. Then, once you've got his interest "

Masters was his usual affable self when, ten minutes later, he pushed open the door of H.M.'s office up five flights of stairs in the old rabbit-warren of a building at the back of Whitehall. Here the heat was thick with a smell of old wood and paper. From beyond the door a querulous voice was upraised; H.M. seemed to be dictating letters. Masters pushed open the door without bothering to knock, and found H.M. sitting at his desk, his feet on the desk and his collar off, staring vindictively at the telephone.

"Takeumletter," rumbled H.M., with something of the intonation of an Indian Chief. In fact, despite the glasses pulled down on his broad nose, the woodenness of his face gave him much the air of an Indian Chief: an effect heightened by his grimly-folded arms. His bald head showed against the light of the windows, and his big bulk seemed compressed by the heat.

"To the Editor of the Times, Dear Stinker," pursued H.M. "I got a complaint to make, I have, about the leprous and hyena-souled b.b.'s who have the dishonor to compose our present Government. How long, I ask you, sir . . . (that's got a good Ciceronian flourish, ain't it? Yes; I like that; you keep it in). . . How long, I ask you, sir, are free-born Englishmen goin' to stand the spectacle of public money being wasted on trifles, when there's such a blistering lot of things worth spending money on? Take me, for instance. Five flights of stairs I got to walk up every day of my life, and why? Because the dirty, low-down misers refuse to install-"

"Ah, sir," said Masters affably.

H.M., though checked in violent mid-flight, was too weary even to roar. "All right,"- he said, blinking evilly. "All right. I might have known it'd be you, Masters. My cup of trouble is now full. You might as well come in and slop it over. Bah."

"Morning, Miss Ffolliot, said Masters gallantly.

Lollypop, H.M.'s secretary, is a dazzling blonde with paper cuffs. At their entrance she got up, closing a notebook which Pollard observed to be serenely blank, and whisked out of the room. Wheezing laboriously, H.M. removed his feet from the desk. In front of him lay a palm-leaf fan.

"To tell you the truth," volunteered H.M., suddenly lowering his defenses, "I been looking for something interesting. These diplomatic matters give me the hump. Somebody's been shootin' at our battleships again. Ain't that Bob Pollard with you? Ah, I thought so. Sit down, Masters. What's on your mind?"

This easy capitulation staggered even the genial Masters. But, Pollard suspected, H.M. had actually been compelled to work for the past few days, and he was looking for any way out. Masters pushed across the table the note about the ten teacups. H.M. studied it sourly, twiddling his thumbs.

"Oh, ah," he said. "Well, what about it? Are you goin'?"

"I am," said Masters grimly. "What's more, Sir Henry, I mean to put a cordon round number 4 Berwick Terrace that a snake couldn't get through. Just so. Now look at this."

From his brief-case he took the Dartley file; and, from among the pages of the file, another sheet of notepaper. This sheet was about the same size as the first, and it was also typed. When he put the two side by side on H.M'.s desk, Pollard read:

THERE WILL BE TEN TEACUPS AT NUMBER 18, PENDRAGON GARDENS, W8, ON MONDAY, APRIL 30, AT 9:30 P.M. THE POLICE ARE WARNED TO KEEP AN EYE OUT.

"Not quite so gen-teel as the other one, is it?" said H.M.' He eyed the two notes, and frowned. "Both houses in the Kensington district, though. Well?"

"This note about Pendragon Gardens we'll call Exhibit A," Masters went on, tapping it. "It came to the Yard, addressed to me, the afternoon of April 30 two years ago. Now, I ask you, sir," growled Masters, overflowing with bitterness, "what could I do? Eh? Beyond what I did, that is. But that was the beginning of the Dartley murder case, if you remember it?"

H.M. did not speak, although his fish eyes opened a little. But he picked up the palm-leaf fan, and pushed a box of cigars across the desk.

"I've been too long at this job," Masters went on, squaring his elbows, "not to know there're good tips to be had from things like that. Eh? But, beyond passing on word to the district police-station, there wasn't much I could do. I looked up number 18 Pendragon Gardens. Pendragon Gardens is a quiet, rather posh street in West Kensington. Number 18 was an empty house-only vacated within a week or so, though, because the light and water hadn't been cut off. The only thing I could find out about it was that, for some reason, people seemed to be afraid of the place and didn't live long there. Have you got it straight, sir?"

"You're a model o' clearness, son," replied H.M:, looking at him curiously. "Ho ho! I'm just wondering whether your old bogy is goin' to sneak up and bite you ..."

"Now don't mix me up!" said Masters. "I was telling you. Hurrum. The constable who had the night-beat past there didn't notice anything odd about the place. But next morning, about six o'clock, a sergeant on his way past to the police-station saw that the vestibule door of number 18 was partly open. He went up the steps and through the vestibule, and found that the house-door was unlocked. And that wasn't all.

Though it was an empty house, there was a strip of carpet laid down in the hall; and a hat-stand, and a couple of chairs. The sergeant started looking into the rooms. There wasn't a stick of furniture in any of 'em - except one. This was the room to the left of the door on the ground floor, sort of drawing-room. The shutters were up on the windows, but the sergeant could see it was furnished.

"Just so. It was furnished right enough: carpet, curtains, and all. Even a new bowl of a chandelier. It was all ordinary stuff, except for one thing. In the middle of the room there was a big round table. On it somebody had arranged in a circle ten porcelain teacups and saucers. There weren't any tea-things; just the cups, and all the cups were empty. The cups ... well, sir, they were a bit odd. But I'll explain about that in a minute, because they weren't the only odd thing in the room. There was a dead man as well."

Masters drew a long breath through his nose. His ruddy face had a smile of skepticism, though he seemed to pride himself on his conscientiousness as well as his dramatic effect.

"A dead man," he repeated, spreading out more papers. "I've got a picture of him here. He was a little oldish man in evening clothes, with a light topcoat over 'em. (His top-hat and gloves were on a chair at the other side of the room.) He was lying on his face beside the table, between the table and the door. He'd been shot twice from behind with a .32 caliber automatic-once through the neck and once through the back of the head. Both shots had been fired at such close range that the murderer must have held the pistol directly against him: the hair and neck were burnt by it. It looked as though the old chap had been walking up to the table, maybe to look at the teacups, and the murderer had jammed the gun against him and let go. According to the medical evidence, he had been killed between ten and eleven o'clock the previous night.

"Clues? Yes. But there weren't any. There were plenty of fingerprints in the room, including some of the dead man's; but there were no prints at all on the cups and saucers, not even a glove-smudge or the mark of a cloth to wipe 'em. Nobody had smoked or taken a drink; no chairs were pulled up; there was no hint of how many people might have been in the room or what they might have been doing. There was only one other indication. A wood fire had burnt out in the fireplace; in the ashes were found the remnants of a very large cardboard box, and fragments of a piece of burnt wrapping-paper. However, they were not the box and paper in which the teacups had been packed. The container of the teacups, as I'll explain, was much more elaborate, a wooden box. But that wooden box had disappeared."

From the dossier Masters produced a photograph of a thin, mild face, with a hooked nose, a cropped gray beard and mustache.

"It was easy to identify the old boy," Masters went on. "And then-bang! A blank wall if I ever saw one. Lummy, sir, he was the very last person in the world anyone would have murdered! His name was William Morris Dartley. He was a bachelor, very well off, and he had no relatives except an unmarried sister (formidable old party) who kept house for him. It wasn't only that he hadn't any enemies; but he hadn't even any friends. It was true that in his early years he had been suspected of a business deal or two involving something like blackmail; but that was all over decades gone. His sister said (and, by George, I believed her!) that she could tell me what he had been doing every minute for the past fifteen years. Motive? Half his money went to the sister, and the other half to the South Kensington Museum. As the sister was playing bridge, with a cast-iron alibi-we never seriously considered her, anyway - there was nobody to suspect. The last tenants of the house were a Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Derwent: Derwent being a solicitor of such painfully straight life, and the couple having no more to do with Dartley than the man in the moon, it was a dead wall again. Dartley's only interest in life, then, was collecting all sorts of art objects, with a strong preference for pottery and china. And so we come to those ten teacups."

Masters leaned forward and tapped the desk with an impressive air.

"Well, now, sir, I'm not what you'd call a connoisseur. Objay dart are a little out of my line. But one look at those cups, and even I could tell they were something special. The cups had a design on them like peacocks' feathers, all twisted up; it was in orange and yellow and blue; soft and shinylike, and it seemed to move. Also, they were very old. You could almost see 'em shine in the room. And I was right about their being good. Here's a report from the South Kensington Museum:

The cups and saucers are some of the finest examples I have ever seen of early Majolica work from Italy.

They are from the workshop of Maestro Giorgio Andreoli of Gubbio; they bear his signature and the date, 1525. But these cups, so far as I am aware, are unique. They are not, of course, teacups since tea was not introduced into Europe until the middle of the seventeenth century. I confess that their use puzzles me. At the moment my conjecture is that they were meant for some ceremonial rite, such as in the secret councils once known at Venice. They are very valuable, and at auction would probably bring two or three thousand pounds.

"Uh-huh," said H.M. "It's a lot of money. But it sounds promisin'."

"Yes, sir; I thought so, too. And we traced the cups first shot; they belonged to Dartley himself. It seems he'd bought them only that afternoon, the thirtieth of April, at Soar's, the art dealers, in Bond Street. He bought them from old man Soar himself, making a great secret of the transaction, and paid twenty-five hundred in cash. Now, then, you'd say there was a sign of a motive, even if it was a crazy motive. Suppose some crackpot of a collector wanted those cups, and went through a lot of elaborate flummery to get 'em? It don't seem reasonable, I admit; but what else was there to think?

"It was elaborate, right enough. There were the furnishings, to begin with. We found out that two days before, April the twenty-eighth, an anonymous note had been delivered to the Holborn office of the Domestic Furnishing Company-that's one of those big places where you can

equip your whole house, from lightning-rods to curtains, at one go-and the letter enclosed twenty five-pound notes. It said that the writer wanted their very best furniture for one drawing-room and a hallway. It said to get the furniture together in one lump, and it would be called for. Well, it was called for. The Cartwright Hauling Company received another anonymous letter, inclosing one fiver. This letter instructed them to send a furniture-van to the Domestic Stores, pick up a load for 18 Pendragon Gardens (a front-door key was inclosed, too), carry the load there, and shove it inside the door. It was all done without anybody getting a look at the man who'd ordered the stuff. The furniture men simply piled it all in the hall; there was nobody at the house. The chap behind it all must have arranged the furniture afterwards. Some of the neighbors noticed it being put in, of course. But, since the house was empty, they just supposed a new tenant was moving in, and thought no more of it."

H.M. seemed bothered by an invisible fly.

"Hold on," he said. "The anonymous letters - were they hand-written or typewritten?"

"Typewritten."

"Uh-huh. Same machine, was it, that wrote the letter to you tellin' you there'd be ten teacups at the place?"

"No, sir. It was a different machine. Also-what's the word I want?-a different style of typing. The ten-teacup note, as you can see, is bumpy and clumsy. The other two were clear, smooth copy. You can always tell a practiced hand at the typewriter."

"Uh-huh. Carry on."

Masters was dogged. "Now, the-hurrum-the inference," he said, "the inference we were supposed to draw is this: the murderer has baited a kind of trap. Eh? He's got an empty house and pretends it's his own; he furnishes the only parts of it a visitor will see. Dartley walks into it with the ten teacups under his arm, and for some reason is murdered. Maybe to steal the teacups.

"So far, it strings right along with Dartley's behavior. On the night he was murdered, he left his house in South Audley Street at half-past nine. His sister bad already gone out to play bridge, being driven in their car; but the butler let him out and spoke to him. He was carrying some sort of biggish box or parcel wrapped up in paper, such as might have contained the teacups. But he didn't say where he was going. He picked up a taxi outside his house: we found the taxidriver later. He was driven straight to 18 Pendragon Gardens." Masters grinned heavily. "The taxi-driver remembered him all right. Bit of luck, that. The fare to Pendragon Gardens was three and six, and Dartley handed the driver twopence as a tip. He seems to have been a bit of a tight-fisted old beggar, for all his money. But here's what isn't luck. The driver was so disgusted that he slammed in his gears and tore off without even noticing where Dartley went. Lummy, if he'd only caught a glimpse of someone opening that door! Bah. All the driver remembers is that there didn't seem to be any lights in the house."

Masters made a broad gesture.

"And that's every bit of evidence we've got. Everything else ended in a damnation full stop. No irregularities, no enemies, no anything. If you say he was, um, lured," said Masters, uncomfortable at the melodramatic word, "if you say he was lured into that house and murdered for the teacups ... well, sir, I dare say that's easiest. But it isn't sense. Like this! Now, the murderer can't be penniless. He certainly went to a lot of trouble and expense to bait his trap: anyhow, he sent a hundred quid to a furnishing company, when my daughter's furnished her 'ole blooming house for that much. If he can afford to chuck it about like that, why didn't he simply go and buy the cups from the art-dealer? 'Tisn't as though they were museum-pieces. Finally, since he'd gone to all the trouble of setting a stage and murdering Dartley, why didn't he pinch the cups? There they were, large as life, on the table. Plainly and literally, sir, they hadn't even been touched: there wasn't a fingerprint on 'em.

"I told you we'd got a fine crop of fingerprints, including Dartley's, but that led nowhere. They all belonged to the furniture-movers. The murderer must have worn gloves all the time. But he didn't take the cups? Why? He wasn't scared off, because there wasn't a sign of disturbance there all night. And there you are. It won't work however you look at it; it won't make sense; and, if there's anything that puts the wind up me, it's cases that don't make sense. For what does this murderer do on top of it all? He don't touch the cups - but he does walk off with the box that contained the cups, and the paper that was wrapped round it! I ask you, now! And this morning, two years later, I get another note about ten teacups. Does it mean more murder? Or what do you make of it?"

CHAPTER TWO

Policeman's Lot

FOR A TIME H.M. remained blinking at the desk, twiddling his thumbs over his paunch. The corners of his mouth were drawn down as though he were smelling a bad breakfast egg. It was very quiet in the room; the dusky light quivered in heat-waves past the windows. Again H.M. reached after the cigar-box. This time he took out a cigar, bit off the end, and expectorated it in a long, violent parabola of a shot which almost reached the hearth across the room.

"If you ask me whether I think it's bad," he said, sniffing; "yes, I do. I smell the blood of an Englishman again. Burn me, Masters, you manage to get tangled up in some of the goddamnedest cases I ever heard of. All we need to do is get another murder with an impossible situation that couldn't have happened, and you'll be right in your element. Yes, I can feel it comin'."

Masters, still suave, knew how to prod his man.

"Of course, sir, I can't expect too much," he said. "It isn't to be expected that you would see any light when our whole organization has been stumped for two years. Excuse me: after all, you're only an amateur. But, even if it is beyond you"

"You want to bet, hey?" demanded H.M., galvanized: He howled about ingratitude to such an extent that Pollard feared Masters had gone too far; but when H.M. was somewhat smoothed down Masters remained as bland as ever. "It seems to me," said H.M. malevolently, "that people are never happy unless they're tellin' me what an outworn, cloth-headed, maunderin' old fossil I am. It's persecution, that's what it is. All right. You watch. Just to show you this business ain't nearly as opaque as you footlers seem to think, I got a couple of questions to ask you. But there's somethin' else to decide first."

He pointed towards the note that had arrived this morning.

"Look here, son. 'Number 4 Berwick Terrace, at 5 P.M. precisely.' Why in the afternoon, anyway? There's somethin' fishy about the sound of it. I don't mean it's a hoax or a have: only that there's a queer and fishy element about it. That ending, 'The police are warned to keep an eye out,' on the note you got two years ago-that's straight and square. But, 'The presence of the Metropolitan Police is respectfully requested,' -that's unnatural, and I don't like it; it sounds like somebody laughing. I say, I hope you've had the sense to make sure it's not a hoax? I mean, you've found out whether 4 Berwick Terrace really is an empty house, suitable for polite murder?"

Masters snorted. "You can bet I have, sir. I've phoned a request to the divisional inspector for the Kensington district to get me a report on the place, and anything that's known about it. But it reminds me. He ought to have some news by this time. If you'll excuse me-?"

He leaned forward and picked up H.M.'s telephone. Within a minute he was put through to Inspector Cotteril, and Pollard heard the telephone talking sharply. Masters put his hand over the mouthpiece and turned back to them. His face was less ruddy and his eye looked wicked.

"Right," he said to H.M. "It's an empty house. It's been empty for a year or so. There's a board up in the window; Houston & Klein, St. James's Square, are the agents. Cotteril says Berwick Terrace is a little cul-de-sac: very quiet, sedate, hardly a dozen houses in it. Mid-Victorian solidness and respectability: you know. But number 4 isn't the only unoccupied house. Only a few houses in the street are occupied."

"So? What's the matter? Plague?"

Masters consulted the telephone again. "Very nearly as bad, it seems," he reported. "They're extending the Underground, and they mean to run a branch with an Underground station that'll be almost at the entrance to Berwick Terrace. It isn't finished yet, but it's on the way. The inhabitants of Berwick Terrace were so outraged at the idea of their privacy being invaded with a tube station that they moved out almost in a body. Real-estate values have dropped to blazes.

“What's that, Cotteril? Eh? Yes; that's done it." When Masters turned round again he was very quiet. "A constable on the beat there reports that yesterday some furniture was delivered to number 4 in a van, and put inside."

H.M. whistled.

"It means business, son," he said. "This murderer's got his nerve right with him."

"He'll have to be an invisible man," said Masters, "if he thinks he can get away with the same sort of funny business twice, and twist our tails as well. I'll give him ten teacups! Hullo!-Cotteril? This may be the Dartley case all over again; we can't tell yet. Send your two best men, plain clothes, and cover that house front and back. Get a man inside if you can, but keep it watched. I'll get the keys of the place from the house-agents. We'll have men inside and out. Yes: straightaway. But tell the outside men to keep out of sight as much as they can. Right. See you soon. 'Bye."

"Now, now," urged H.M. soothingly, as Masters put back the receiver with some violence. H.M. had managed to get his cigar lighted, and the smoke hung round his head in an oily cloud. "Keep your shirt on, son. It's only noon now. Grantin' that the murderer sticks to his schedule, you got five hours yet: though I admit you'd be pretty simple-minded if you accepted his word without question. Humph."

"Doesn't it bother you at all" inquired Masters.

"Oh, sure. Sure; I'm bothered as hell. And it's this fellow's method that bothers me, Masters, and why he happens to be so cocky about it. But I'm not very grief-stricken as yet; because, the trouble is, we haven't got the foggiest notion who has been chosen as a victim."

"Excuse me, sir," interposed Pollard, "but how do you know murder is intended at all?"

There was a pause. Both the others looked at him. Masters turned round a lowering eyebrow, and seemed about to say, "Now, now," in that heavy fashion he reserved for juniors: especially any juniors with what he called "your education." Though Masters was easy to work for, he was a terror to speech. But Pollard had been too interested by that queer picture-the ten teacups, painted with a design like peacocks' feathers, ranged in a circle and shining among commonplace furniture.

"Go on, son," said H.M. woodenly. "What's on your mind?"

Pollard reached out and tapped the notes. "It's these. Neither of the notes actually makes a threat or suggests trouble of any kind. What they do say is that there will be ten teacups at such-and-such a place. Suppose the murder of Dartley was only a slip in the plan? .. Like this, sir. We've got only one indication as to what the cups might mean. That indication is in the report from the man at the South Kensington Museum. Here it is. `My conjecture is that they were meant for some ceremonial rite, such as in the secret councils once known at Venice.' I don't know anything about secret councils at Venice. But at least it's a lead. I mean - suppose it's a meeting of some secret society?"

"H'm," said H.M. "Sort of Suicide Club, you mean? Only this seems more like a murder club."

"Won't do, snapped Masters. "Now, Bob, we've been over all that before. All of it. The idea of a secret society was suggested at the time of Dartley's death. It was some newspaper idea; they printed a lot of high-colored feature articles about secret societies old and new. And it's bosh. To begin with, if it's a secret society, it's so ruddy secret that nobody else ever heard of it."

"I dunno," said H.M. "You got a simple straightforward mind, Masters. Your idea of a secret society is one of the big benevolent orders, which really aren't secret societies at all in the sense I mean it. There are deeper places than that, son. Seems like you can't believe in a secret society that really is secret, and that's run without fuss. Mind you, I don't say it's so in this case. I doubt it myself. But have you got any reasons for swearin' it couldn't be so?"

Masters was dogged. "Yes," he declared. "III give you one good practical reason: Dartley's sister Emma. That woman could have made her fortune at private detective work. I never saw such a nose for snooping before or since. She swears there wasn't, and couldn't have been, anything like that; and - well, I'd back her judgment. If you met her you'd understand. What's more, we had the whole organization after that lead. And there wasn't a scrap of evidence anywhere to support it. All the signs showed that only two people had been at Pendragon Gardens that night: Dartley. and his murderer. Now, sir, I don't know whether you can run a secret society without any fuss. But I'm smacking well certain you can't run one without any members."

H.M. surveyed him.

"You're gettin' out of hand," he said. "But let's stick to facts, if you like it better. You brought up Dartley again, and it's Dartley I want to ask about. He had a pretty big collection, had he?"

"A big collection, and a valuable one. Close on a hundred thousand pounds' worth of stuff, the man from the museum said."

"Uh-huh. What was it, mostly? Pottery?"

"Pottery, yes, but a lot of other stuff as well. I've got a list here somewhere. It was a pretty mixed bag: some pictures, and snuff-boxes, and books, and even a sword or two."

"Did he deal much with Soar's in Bond Street?"

Masters was puzzled. "Quite a good deal, I understand. He was friendly with old Benjamin Soar-you remember, the head of the firm who died about six months ago? Soar's son runs the business now. I remember, the man from the museum said Dartley must have been an uncommonly shrewd businessman, for all his mild looks. There was a packet of receipted bills in his desk, and he'd beaten down Soar to a very good price on a lot of the stuff." Masters looked at H.M. shrewdly. "Not, of course," he prodded, "that it's important..."

"Oh, no. Now, when Dartley bought the teacups, how were they packed?"

"Ordinary big teakwood box about two feet long by one foot deep; nothing out of the way. They were packed inside in tissue paper and excelsior. The box was never found, as I told you."

"Just one more question, son; and be awful careful about the answer. Now, I suppose they took an inventory of the collection after his death, if he gave it to the museum. When they went over his collection, was there anything missing?"

Masters sat up, rather slowly. His big face was half-grinning, with surprise.

"I might have known," he replied after a pause, "that you'd pull a rabbit out of the hat like that. How did you know there was something missing?"

"Oh, I was just sittin' and thinkin'. And I thought maybe there might be. What was it, son?"

"That's the odd part of it. If I remember it right, it was one of the few things in the old chap's collection that wasn't valuable. He kept it as a curiosity, like a toy. It was what they call a 'puzzle-jug.' You've probably seen 'em. It's a big jug, porcelain or what-not, with three spouts and sometimes a hollow handle with a hole in it. The spouts are on all sides. The idea is to fill it up with water and challenge somebody to pour it out one of the spouts without spilling a drop from any of the others." Masters paused, and stared. "But what in the name of sense has a missing puzzle-jug got to do with Dartley's murder, and how does it fit in with ten teacups in a circle?"

"I haven't got the foggiest idea, son," admitted H.M. He looked disconsolately at his hands, and twiddled his thumbs again. "At the moment, anyhow. But I sorta thought, from somethin' you said, that there might have been a missing item in Dartley's collection. No, no, don't ask me why! Burn me, Masters, you got work to do. You're a man of action, and it strikes me you'd better get busy."

Masters rose, drawing a deep breath.

"I mean to," he said, "straightaway. But we've got a conference at the Yard on that Birmingham business, and I've got to arrange to get away." He looked at Pollard. "You're the man to handle the first part of this, Bob. Think you can manage it?"

"Yes," said Pollard briefly.

"Right. Hop round to Houston & Klein, the house agents, in St. James's Square. Get the keys of 4 Berwick Terrace, and an order-to-view. Don't let on you're a copper: they may make trouble. Put on your most high-falutin manner and say you're thinking of buying the place. Got that? Find out if anybody else has asked for the keys. Then get into the house, find the room where the furniture is, and don't leave that room no matter what happens. I'll join you as soon as I can. Hop to it."

The last thing Pollard beard before he left the room was the sound of H.M.'s ghoulish mirth, and a noise from Masters like, "Ur!" Pollard admitted to himself that he was excited about this case; he also knew that, if he fell down on it, Masters would have his hide. Over Whitehall a sickly, darkening sky pressed down, as though there would be rain before

evening. Pollard walked so fast after a bus that he found himself in a bath of sweat, and had to re-adjust himself. But within ten minutes he was in the offices of Houston & Klein,

outstaring an imposing gentleman who bent forward confidentially across a desk.

"Number 4 Berwick Terrace," said the agent slowly, as though the name were only half-familiar to him. "Ah, yes. Yes, of course. We shall be very pleased to let you have a look at it." He regarded Pollard without apparent curiosity. "May I say sir, that that house seems to have become very popular?"

"Popular?"

"Yes. We gave a set of keys and an order-to-view to another applicant only this morning." He smiled. "Of course, the prior order entails no advantage if anyone cares to purchase-"

Pollard allowed annoyance to show in his face. "That's unfortunate. That's very unfortunate, if it was the person I think it was. Who was it by the way? There's a sort of wager...: '

"Oh, a wager," said the agent, puzzled but relieved. His hesitation vanished. "Well, sir, I don't suppose there's any particular secret about it. It was Mr. Vance Keating."

The name unfolded a whole list of possibilities. Pollard vaguely remembered having met Keating at a party, and having disliked him: but the name had a certain notoriety to any newspaper-reader. Vance Keating was a young man with a great deal of money, who too often and too publicly announced his boredom with life. "We belong," he had once said, in a speech which caused some mirth, "to the cult of the Venturers who are as old as chivalry. We ring strange doorbells. We get off at the wrong stations. We penetrate into harems, and go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Always we are disappointed; but still we believe that adventure, like prosperity, is just round the corner." On the other hand, Keating certainly had performed several very dangerous exploits; though it was rumored that his stamina was not always equal to his ideals, and that, the time he went after the twelve-foot tiger, he collapsed and had to be carried most of the way in a litter. Pollard remembered having read not long ago of his engagement to Miss Frances Gale, the golfer.

Pollard said: "Oh, Keating. Yes, I'd expected that. Well, you may expect a struggle, but one of us will get the place.... I wonder if you could tell me whether anyone else has been looking at the house recently?"

The agent considered. "I don't think there's been anybody within the last six months. I can't tell you offhand, but I can find out for you. Just one moment. Mr. Grant!" He went off majestically, and returned with records. "I find I was wrong, sir. A young lady viewed the house about three months ago: on May 10, to be exact. A Miss Frances Gale. I believe the young lady is-er-?"

"Thanks," said Pollard, and got out quickly.

If Vance Keating were mixed up in this business, then something spectacular was on the way. Keating concerned himself in no placid affairs. Sergeant Pollard went down into a sweltering Underground, rode as far as Notting Hill Gate, and then walked westward through the steep, quiet streets.

It was only a quarter past one, but the whole neighborhood looked dead. A muddy yellow sky pressed down on the heights; sometimes an air would stir like a puff out of an oven, and rattle the dry leaves of plane trees. He found Berwick Terrace easily enough. It was a cul-de-sac leading out of a larger square, a backwater as cut off as though it had gates. Berwick Terrace was about sixty yards deep by twenty yards broad. In it were ten houses, four on each side and two narrow-chested ones facing out at the end. They were solid, uniform houses in graystone and white facings; with bow-windows, areaways, and stone steps leading up to deep vestibules. Each had three stories and an attic. They had darkened to a uniform hue with soot; they were built together, and looked like one house except where railings went up to the front doors from the lone line of area-rails. But stiff lace curtains showed at the windows of only four houses-possibly that was what gave the street its desolate, gutted look, and to Pollard a feeling of disquiet. Nothing stirred there. The only sign of life was a child's perambulator in the vestibule of number 9 at the end of the street. The only sign of color was a garish red telephone-box at the beginning of the street. Otherwise the chimneys stood up dark against an uneasy sky. Once the greater part of its tenants left, Berwick Terrace had begun to decay with amazing swiftness.

Number 4 was on the left-hand side. Pollard walked down the right-hand pavement, and heard his own footsteps echo. He stopped across the road from number 4, leisurely took out a cigarette, and examined the house. There was nothing to distinguish it from the others, except that it was possibly a trifle more shabby. Some of the windows were shuttered, some were dusty, and one or two of them were now open. Just as he glanced across, Pollard thought he saw the attic window move, as someone pushed it up to look out. There was someone in the house now, and that person was watching him.

A very low voice behind him whispered: "Sergeant!"

The house before which he was standing, number 2, was also vacant. Out of the corner of his eye Pollard had seen that a window on the ground floor, beyond the areaway, was up about half an inch. The voice was coming from there, although he could see nothing because of the dust.

"Hollis, L Division," it said. "I've been here about an hour. Porter is watching the back. We've got it taped; there's no way in or out except by the front or back door.- I don't know whether it's the man you're after, but there's somebody in the house now."

Pollard, lighting his cigarette, spoke ventriloquially.

"Be careful; he's up at the window. Don't let him see you. Who is it?"

"I don't know. Young fellow in a light suit. He got here about ten minutes ago-walking."

"What's he been doing?"

"Can't tell, except that he opened a couple of windows; he'd have choked to death if he hadn't. It's hot as hell in here."

"Did you manage to get inside the house and have a look?"

"No; we couldn't. The place is locked up like a strongroom. We couldn't get in without attracting attention, and the inspector said-"

"Right. Stand by."

With a luxurious puff, Pollard strolled across the street, examining the house with open interest. He drew out the keys, to which a cardboard label bearing the agent's name was attached, and juggled them. The bow-windows to the left of the door, he noticed, were heavily shuttered; that would probably be the room where the furniture was arranged. He started up the steps to the front door. Then he glanced towards the mouth of the street, and stopped.

Berwick Terrace lay off a large square called Coburg Place. The trees of the square stood up twinkling in hot, hard light; and it was very quiet except for the sudden beating of a car-engine. A blue Talbot two-seater cruised past the mouth of the street. The driver, a woman, was leaning out of the car and peering down Berwick Terrace: intently, for the car wabbled. It was too far away for Pollard to distinguish her features, yet there was something intent and startled even about the sound of the engine. Then the car whisked away.

Pollard felt that somewhere a wheel had begun to spin, a conductor had lifted his baton, a beginning had been made in the movement of rapid and evil things. But he had no time to consider that. The inner door of the house was dragged open. There was a step on the marble tiling of the vestibule, and the vestibule door opened as well. A man stood just inside, looking at him.

"Well?" said the man.

CHAPTER THREE Murderer's Promise

THE VESTIBULE was paved with red-and-white marble flags, and it was very dark, so that Pollard had only an indistinct view of the man inside. But he recognized him as Vance Keating. Keating wore a suit of very light gray flannel, somewhat begrimed, and his thumbs were hooked in the coat pockets. He was a thin, wiry, middle-sized young man, with a long nose and a discontented mouth. Ordinarily his expression might have been spoiled or supercilious, but now it was that of excitement; he carried his own atmosphere with him. Excitement, or suspicion. Pollard saw his eyelids move to the gloom. But there was one thing about him which added an almost grotesque touch: in his excitement he had got hold of somebody else's hat. The hat was a soft gray Homburg a size or more too large for him; it was squashed along one side, and came down nearly far enough to flatten out his ears.

"Where's the woman?" he demanded.

"Woman?"

"Yes. The woman who-" Keating stopped, and in that instant Pollard was certain some secret meeting or conclave was to have been held, so that Keating had taken him for a member of it. But Keating's mind worked too; he weighed possibilities suddenly, and the opportunity for pretense on Pollard's part had gone.

"La tasse est vide; la femme attend," said Keating.

Well, there were the old melodramatics again: evidently the password to which he must supply the answer. And he hadn't got the answer. Pollard had determined on his course.

"The chickens of my aunt are in the garden," he replied.

"What about it?"

"Who the hell," said Keating in a very low voice, "are you? What do you want here?"

"I want to see the house, if it's all the same to you."

"See the house?"

"Look here," said Pollard mildly, "let's get this thing straight. I want to see the house with the idea of buying it, if the price is right. Didn't Houston & Klein tell you? I'm in the market for something like this. So I got an order-to-view, as I suppose you did."

"But they can't do that," cried the other, in a stupid-sounding voice which had a note of incredulity amounting almost to horror. It was evidently the one thing he had not foreseen. "They can't do that. They gave me the keys"

"There's no reason why we both shouldn't look at it, is there?" asked Pollard, and moved past him into the hall.

It was a good-sized hall, but very dark in the heavy-woodwork fashion of sixty years ago: a dust-trap and a shadowtrap. On the landing of the staircase a round window of very thick multi-colored glass, twisted into dingy reds and blues, gave a crooked light which barely tinted the darkness. It seemed to draw the hall together oppressively. Footsteps on the bare boards went up and were lost in echoes. As though casually, Pollard strolled across to the room on the left and opened the door.

The furniture had not been put in this room.

Though the shutters were up on the windows, he could make out that much. It surprised him, unpleasantly, for he was now looking for traps. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Keating. Granting that something ugly was on the way, the question became this: was Vance Keating the instigator or the victim?

"Sorry, old boy," said Keating suddenly. His expression had altered and shifted like an actor's, as he debated courses; and now he came forward with an air of very genuine charm. "I'm a bit on edge, that's all; late party last night. There's no reason at all why we both shouldn't look at it. I can even show you over the place, if it comes to that. Er-shall you be long?"

Pollard looked at his watch, which said one-forty. It would be three hours and twenty minutes before the threatened coming of the ten teacups.

"I'm afraid I'm early," he replied. "There'll be a lot of time to kill. You see, I arranged to meet my sister here - she keeps house for me, and naturally wants to see the place - at half-past four. But she'll probably be late at that; she usually is. I'd better not be in any hurry. Or, if you like, I can go now and come back about four-thirty or five."

Keating half turned away. When he turned back again, his face wore a look of calm superciliousness.

"I wonder," he suggested politely, "whether you'd just come along with me for a minute?"

"Come along where?"

"This way," said Keating, and marched out of the house.

Undoubtedly he had to go. Whether Keating were instigator or victim, an eye must be kept on him. But, if Pollard had any notion that Keating was attempting to lead him a dance, it was soon dispelled. Keating went no farther than the telephone-box at the corner of Berwick Terrace. Holding open the door so that the other could listen, he dialed a number.

"I want to speak," he said, in a new and supercilious voice, "to Mr. Klein. . . . Hullo: Klein? Vance Keating speaking. I've made up my mind about that place in Berwick Terrace. What was your price? ... Yes. And freehold. . . . Yes, that's quite satisfactory. I'll buy it, if-just one moment. There's another customer of yours here. Would you care, my friend, to go higher than three thousand five hundred? Ah, I thought not.... Klein? Yes, I'll buy. The deal's made now, isn't it, as soon as I make my decision? The house is mine from this minute, even before I get the deed? ... It is? You're sure of that? ... Right. Good-by."

He hung up the phone with a certain care, and stepped out of the box.

"Now, my friend," he announced with satisfaction, "I scarcely think the house will interest you any longer. I am accustomed to having what I want, and I have it now. Any further visits to 4 Berwick Terrace, social or otherwise, will be discouraged. You will therefore oblige me by getting to blazes out of here."

The gray Homburg, flattening out his ears, nevertheless sat jauntily on the back of his head. He moved away with a long, free stride, evidently having the business settled to satisfaction. His air seemed to indicate that he could now forget it. Sergeant Pollard, with an un-Robert-like wrath mounting up to his own ears, took a step after him-when he heard a familiar, long clearing of the throat from the other side of the telephone-box. Turning back, Pollard saw the boiled blue eye of Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters looking at him from the direction of Coburg Place. Masters shook his head, and beckoned.

The sergeant waited only long enough to make sure that Keating went back into the house. Then he joined Masters, whose bowler hat was looking sinister.

"We've got to teach you," said Masters, "when in doubt, never fly off the handle. I don't." His eye wandered down in the direction of the house. "Lummy, but he can afford to chuck it about! Thirty-five hundred for - what? That's what beats me. Never mind. Report."

Pollard gave a brief summary, and Masters chewed it over.

Was there anybody in the house besides Keating?"

"I couldn't tell. But I shouldn't think so, judging by the way he rushed out to meet-whoever he thought I might be, when I went to the door. He's expecting a woman, and he wants to meet her very badly."

"It's still a lot of money," Masters pointed out, somewhat obscurely. "Hurrum. And no furniture in the front room. Still, that doesn't mean anything. House is covered front and back. I tell you, Bob, nobody can get in there! 'Tisn't possible! Look here: you've got to get in, though. Sneak in, of course. You've got the keys, and you can try the back this time. If he catches you, you're for it, but you've got to see he doesn't catch you. I'll join Hollis in the house across the street."

The chief inspector reflected, rubbing his chin.

"The trouble is, as you say, that we don't know whether he's a victim or a wrong 'un. In either case we can't show our hand. If we went charging in there, and explained who we were-well, he'd simply order us out. As he's got the right to do. This is the only way. Maybe it happened for the best: there's still three clear hours before five o'clock. You get into that house, you find out which room he's in, and you stick outside that door like glue."

From Coburg Place a narrow mews ran up behind Berwick Terrace. Each house had a spacious back-garden, fenced in by a six-foot board wall. Pollard was relieved to see that all the back windows of number 4 were shuttered. As he slid through the rear gate he was challenged by Porter, the plain-clothes constable stationed in a decrepit summerhouse there.

"Not a peep out of the place," Porter told him. "I know them kind of shutters; you can't see through 'em even when you're inside. Duck up to the back porch quick, and he won't be able to spot you even if he's at the window."

The back door had an overhanging roof with iron scrollwork. Once under it, Pollard's great fear was that the door would be bolted on the inside, and that his key would be of no use. But the key opened it; and, to his surprise, the door moved almost soundlessly.

He stood in the gloom of a kitchen. The heat of dry timber came down on him like a bag over the head. Though these old floors were solid, the utter absence of life, of furniture, of .anything human and moving inside a shell, made every footstep faintly audible. He found himself walking on shaking ankles to keep quiet, and wished too late that he had had a final smoke before he entered. The plan of the ground-floor was simple: at the rear were the kitchen and the butler's pantry; then the central hall with two spacious rooms opening off it on either side. There was no stick of furniture in any of the four rooms, except a potted plant left behind in one. And Pollard, though far from psychic, did not like the look of any of them. He remembered Masters having said that number 18 Pendragon Gardens, where Dartley was murdered, had such an unpleasant reputation that nobody would live in it; and he wondered whether number 4 Berwick Terrace had a similar reputation. The house, so to speak, breathed wrong. Whoever had lived here last, the occupant had a passion for crowding the rooms with very small pictures; the walls were spotted, like a rash, with lines of tiny hooks attached to nails.

He had penetrated as far as the front room on the right, when he heard footsteps coming down the main stairs.

They were rattling, brisk, jaunty footsteps. He knew that they belonged to Keating even before he saw the man. Looking out through a crack of the door, Pollard saw Keating cross the hall, go out the front door-whistling softly to himself - and lock it behind him. Then silence came again.

Pollard put his head out cautiously. It might be a trap: after all the trouble Keating had taken to remain alone in the house, he would not presumably saunter off like this. On the other hand, he might now have devised his trappings and baited his teacups. He might have finished whatever preparations were necessary.

The sergeant risked it, and hurried up the staircase. After a few minutes' waiting, without a click from the front door or a rustle in the vestibule, he was emboldened to make a search

of the two upstairs stories. Each floor had five rooms, bed and sitting rooms, and a somewhat primitive bath. The same desolation curtained off each from the world. There had been children here, for the walls of one were papered in nursery designs; but he did not imagine they had been very happy children. And still there was no trace of the one furnished room.

It must be in the attic, unless Keating had led them all neatly astray by the nose. Pollard suddenly had a vivid remembrance of the first thing he had seen when he arrived at the house an hour ago: a figure, supposedly Keating's, peering out of an attic window. At the rear of the topmost hallway he found a door giving on a narrow flight of stairs almost as steep as a ladder....

The attic was "finished." That is to say, you emerged through a sort of trap into a hall which had been formed by wooden partitions built up to the roof on either side. These partitions appeared to form four separate rooms, for there were four doors. But it was gloomy here, and the heat had become strangling: he felt his pores stir to it. This must be the place of the teacups: though why, in sanity, should furniture be carried up to the remote top of the house when every room was vacant? Yet this front attic room-on the left as you stood facing the front-would contain the window out of which someone had been peering an hour ago.

He went to the door and turned the knob. It was locked. And it was the only locked door inside the house.

Probing into the other three rooms on this floor, he found them all open. This one garret chamber, some fifteen feet square, was the one he wanted. The key was not in the lock, and he tried to peer through the keyhole. He got an impression that the walls were of grimy white plaster; and that in the middle of the fifteen foot room there was a table covered with some cloth that looked like very dingy gold; but the rest was a blur. He investigated a faint line of light under the door, with no result except to discover that the carpet was very black and thick. There was, he felt convinced, nobody in the room now. But it stopped him. To pick the lock he found impossible, and he could not break it open without giving the show away when Keating returned....

It was two hours before Keating. returned, a time of dreary waiting during which Pollard's stolidity began to wear thin. He spent it in exploring the house, including every nook of the cellar, and making certain there was nobody hidden.

It was fifteen minutes past four when he heard Keating's distinctive step come into the house, and the slam of the front door. And Keating was alone.

Pollard went softly up to the attic, hiding himself in the rear room to the right. Through the crack of the door he had a clear view of the locked sanctuary. Keating's footfalls ascended the attic stairs, Keating's head appeared through the trap, and Keating seemed greedy with expectancy. Taking a key out of his coat pocket, he opened the sanctuary door. He was so quick about going in and closing the door after him that Pollard had only a brief, narrow glimpse of anything inside. Yet he saw the table-cover dull-gleaming, and he saw teacups ranged in a circle-black teacups. Keating did not lock the door behind him; the key remained in the lock outside. The young Venturer made only one other movement when he slipped through into this uncouth shrine; he removed his hat.

Four-fifteen. Four-thirty. Pollard felt his scalp crawl and his wits thicken under the pressure of heat. Still no sound issued from the room, nor was there a sign of any other visitor, while the watcher stood neck-cramped with his eyes on the door. The hand of his wrist-watch crept upwards: a quarter to five. And now good theories began to dissolve when he remembered Masters's words: "I don't know whether you can run a secret society without any fuss, but I'm smacking well certain you can't run one without any members." He was right. Vance Keating sat alone in the shrine, guarded if ever a man was guarded, with police at both the back and the front. Five minutes to five.

Keating screamed, and Pollard heard the first shot, just as the minute-hand of the wrist-watch stood vertical.

Scream and shot were so unexpected, the explosion so muffled as of a weapon pressed into flesh, that Pollard hardly knew what he was hearing. Then there was the slither and crash of breaking china, and a thump. Then there was the second shot, less muffled, and blasting so close at hand that it shook the key in the door. A heavy revolver had been fired twice behind that door; and, while the echoes of the shots were settling, Pollard heard his wrist-watch loudly.

He smelt powder-smoke from an old-fashioned type of cartridge even before he ran across the hall. When he opened the door of the shrine, he saw a low room with white-plaster walls. In the wall to the right was the room's one window.

Outside the sky was darkening with storm, and heavy curtains of dark velvet were partly drawn across the window, but there was light enough for him to see the round table on which were ranged the ten teacups. Two of the cups were smashed.

Vance Keating lay at full length, on the floor between the table and the door, his head towards the door. He was lying on his left side, his face pressed into the floor and his right leg a little drawn up. He had been shot twice (these were later known to be undeniable facts) with a .45 caliber revolver which lay on the floor at his left side. In the back of his skull there was a ragged black burn where a bullet had been fired into his brain. In the back of his gray coat there was another burned hole, still smoking and showing an ember against the black, where a second bullet had entered. Above the odor of powder-smoke was that of burnt cloth and hair. The weapon had been held against him, Pollard saw; blood began to come sluggishly from the wounds, but very little, for he died under the watcher's eyes.

Standing so as to bar the doorway, Pollard saw these things not as tabulated items, but of a piece. However a murderer had got in here, the murderer must still be in the room. He knew that nobody had gone out by the door. And the one window was forty feet above the street.

He thought: Steady! Take it easy! Take it easy, now....

Wiping his gummy eyelids, he reached outside, got the key, and locked the door on the inside. Then he went round the room, slowly and with senses strung alert; but he found nobody because there was nobody there. In the thick pile of the black carpet were only two sets of dusty footprints - his own, and those that led to the upturned toes of Vance Keating's shoes. Then he went to the window.

Storm was coming on; a puff of cooler air blew in his face. Serene in its doze, Berwick Terrace lay spread out forty feet below. He realized how little time had elapsed between the firing of the shots and his going to the window, when he saw the bowler-hatted figure of Masters pelting across the street towards the door of number 4. Leaning across the sill, he stared left and right along the blank facade of the house, along a large and empty street which would have shielded no fugitive.

"He got out of the window!" shouted ' Detective-Sergeant Pollard.

Across the street the ground-floor window in the house directly opposite, where Sergeant Hollis was watching, flew up with an unseemly screech. Hollis poked out an angry head.

"No, he didn't," came Hollis's voice in a faint yell. "Nobody got out that window."

CHAPTER FOUR

Lawyers' Houses

AT EXACTLY half-past five, Doctor Blaine, the brisk police surgeon, rose from beside the body of Vance Keating and dusted his knees. Photographers were at work in the room, and flash-bulbs glared. McAllister (fingerprints) stood close to the window to catch the light, with the .45 revolver on his knee, and used the miniature bellows. Doctor Blaine looked at Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters.

"Just," he asked, "what do you want to know?"

Masters removed his bowler in order to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief. Masters appeared to be suffering from claustrophobia. But he tried to achieve lightness, possibly in self-defense.

"Well, I can see he's been shot," he admitted. "But the gun, now? With that gun?"

"That's hardly my job. You'll know before long; but, all the same, I shouldn't think there was much doubt about it." Blaine pointed. "Those two wounds were made with a .45. Also, it was a very old-style gun with old-style ammunition. A modern high caliber, with steel-jacket ammunition, would have sent both bullets smack through him. And you've got the gun that fits right there, with two exploded cartridge-cases in the magazine."

He nodded towards McAllister, evidently puzzled at the black look on Masters's face. Masters went over to where the fingerprint-man was blowing the last dust off the butt, and

Pollard followed him.

In its own way the revolver was a fine piece of gun-making. Though large, it was not cumbersome, and it was much lighter than you might have expected. The silvered steel of the barrel and magazine had been worn almost black, but the handle was inlaid in curious 'designs with mother of pearl. Into the foot of the grip had been set a small silver plate engraved with the words Tom Shannon.

"That name, now," Masters considered, pointing to it. "You don't suppose-?"

"If I were you, Chief Inspector," said McAllister, with a last puff, "I wouldn't send out a bulletin after Tom Shannon. It'd be like trying to arrest Charlie Peace. Shannon has been pushing up the daisies for forty years. This gun was his. And what a gun!" He held it up. "Know what it is? It's the original Remington six-shooter, made in 1894. If you've ever read anything about the Wild West, you'll know what that means. And Shannon was one of the original bad men. I only wonder there aren't any notches in the thing; but maybe Shannon didn't like to chop up his shooting-irons. Where do you suppose anybody got ammunition for the thing, in this day and age? It's loaded except for two shots gone. Also, how did it happen to turn up in England? Probably the answer to both questions is that it belongs to somebody who makes a collection of guns

"Collectors!" said Masters. He seemed to meditate on a string of collections which included teacups, puzzle-jugs, and now six-shooters. "Never mind about that. What about fingerprints?"

"Not a print on the whole thing. The bloke wore gloves."

When Masters turned back to Blaine, he made an effort to recover some of his usual blandness.

"Point's this, Doctor. You've been asking just exactly what we want to know. And there's only one question. Is it absolutely certain, could you swear to it, that both those shots were fired with the gun held close to the body?"

"It's absolutely certain."

"Now, now, take it easy," the chief inspector urged. He became confidential. "I'll explain what I mean. This isn't the first time I've come across a situation like this, and each time I learn a new wrinkle in the way of getting out of sealed rooms. It's a kind of nightmare of mine, if you see what I mean. But it is the first time when (if your diagnosis is straight; excuse me) it's proved as certain-sure that the murderer must actually have been in the room. It's also the first time the facts could be sworn to by the police, beyond any possibility of hanky-panky. Like this!"

He tapped a finger in his palm.

"Sergeant Hollis, of L Division - and myself as well-we were in the house across the street, watching. Especially, we watched the window of 'this room. We never left off watching it. You see, this chap who's dead, Mr. Vance Keating, returned to the house at a quarter past four. A little later we saw him peep out of this window. It was the only window in the house that'd got curtains up; and we knew we'd spotted the `furnished room.' Eh? So we watched. At the same time Sergeant Pollard here-" he jerked his head-"was watching the door. And nobody went out either way. Now, then: if you tell me there's the remotest possibility the fellow might have been shot from a distance-well, everything's all right, because the window was open, and a couple of shots might have come through the window. But, if you tell me the murderer must have been in the room (and I admit I think so myself), then we're up against it."

Blaine said, "The rest of the house is dusty-we're leaving tracks all over the carpet--"

"Yes," said Masters. "I asked Pollard about that. He swears that there were only two sets of prints when he broke in - his own and Keating's."

"Then it was Keating who furnished the room?" asked McAllister.

"M'm-no-not necessarily. Broom standing in a dark corner out there. The furnisher could have swept the carpet after him. That doesn't prove anything."

"Except," said Blaine dryly, "that there was no one in the room except Keating when he was shot-unless Pollard shot him."

Masters made a strangling noise in his throat, and Blaine went on.

"What about trap-doors or thungummyjigs?" he inquired.

"Trap-doors!" said Masters. "Take a look around."

It was certainly a sort of tank. Two walls of the room, the one facing the door and the one which contained the window, were the solid stone walls of the house itself. Two wooden walls had been built up to the roof in order to form the four sides of the room. All the walls and the ceiling were covered with grimy white plaster, which showed no crevice except a few wandering microscopic cracks. From the middle of the low ceiling descended the short pipe of a dismantled gas-bracket, with a lead plug over the mouth.

On the floor, which was of solid timbers, lay a black carpet of very rich and deep pile. Against the wall opposite the door stood a mahogany chair. Against the wall to the left was a rather dingy divan. But what took the eye was the object in the middle of the room: a circular mahogany table of the folding variety, some five feet in diameter. It was covered by a square cloth of what resembled peacocks' feathers worked, in dull gold, and very slightly pulled out of line on the side towards the door. The circle of very thin black teacups and saucers had been ranged on it like numbers on a clock. Two teacups, on the side towards the door, had been smashed; but smashed in a somewhat curious way. The cups remained in the cracked saucers; the pieces had not been knocked wide, and lay in or close on the saucers; it was as though some heavy object had been dropped flat on them.

"The last place you'll find trap doors," said Masters, "is bare plaster. Look here, doctor: we're going to catch ruddy hell for this. Here we are, smack on the scene of the crime like a lot of mugs, and still! That's why, if you could show the shots weren't fired in this room-?"

"Well, they were," retorted Blaine. "Your own ears ought to have been able to tell you that. Hang it all, didn't anybody hear them?"

"I did," volunteered Pollard. "I wasn't a dozen feet away from the door, and I'm willing to swear the shots came from here."

Blaine nodded. "Now take a look at the head-wound first. The pistol was held about three inches away from the head; it was a soft-nosed bullet, and it split the skull up badly. You can see the ragged singeing of powder-marks from an old-style cartridge. That other bullet, in the back-it broke the fellow's spine, poor bastard. The gun must have been jammed directly against him. You must have been in here pretty quick, sergeant. Didn't you notice any signs?"

"Plenty of them," replied Pollard, facing vivid memory. "The cloth was still burning; I saw sparks. And there were smells. Also smoke."

"I'm sorry, Masters," said Blaine. "There's no doubt whatever."

There was a silence. The photographers had gathered up their apparatus and had gone out. From the street ascended the murmur of a crowd, and the voice of a policeman ordering them on; the halls of number 4 Berwick Terrace were alive with trampling feet, where inspector Cotteril had charge; and in the center of the web Masters prowled round the room pounding at the walls with his fist. He addressed McAllister, who was also prowling.

"Finished?"

"Just about, sir," said the fingerprint man. "And it's the barest den of iniquity I ever got into. There's not a print in the place, bar a few blurred ones on the arms of that chair and a few clear ones on the window-frame-but I'm pretty sure they were all made by the dead man."

"Nobody touched the table or the teacups?"

"Not unless they wore gloves."

"Oh, ah. Gloves. It's the Dartley case all over again, with fancy trimmings. Lummy, how I hate cases that aren't sense. Right, McAllister; that's all. You might ask Inspector Cotteril if he'll come .up here a moment. And thanks, Doctor; that's all for you. I'd be glad if you'd do the PM as soon as possible; we want to be sure about that revolver. But I don't want the body removed for just a minute yet. First I want to go through the pockets. And then there's a gentleman coming here presently ... hum . . . name of Sir Henry Merrivale; and I want Sir Henry to see him."

When Blaine had gone, Masters prowled once more round the table, peering.

"Flummery," he said, pointing to the teacups. "Flummery, all got up for the express purpose of hoaxing us, somehow. What price secret society now? I know; you thought Keating gave a password. But you can't tell me there was a meeting here, and that ten members vanished out of here instead of one murderer. Ah, well. Cheer up; don't look so glum. We were had for a prize parcel of mugs, right enough, but I don't see what else we could have done or had a right to do. Besides, the old man should be here before long. He'll arrive mad as fifty hornets, but I don't mind telling you I'll be pleased to show him the one closed circle he won't be able to get out of." Masters studied the body. "This chap Keating, Bob. Know anything about him?"

"Nothing beyond what I told you this afternoon, after he'd bought the house and tossed us out---'

"Yes. He was fair set on dying, wasn't he?" asked Masters quietly.

Pollard looked at the limp body in gray flannel, its spine broken and its straw-colored hair blackened into the brain.

"He's got a lot of money," the sergeant said. "And he likes to call himself `the last of the Venturers.' That's why I thought he'd be interested in any secret society, if it were sufficiently mysterious or sufficiently lurid. What he wanted, he said, was thrill. I believe he lives in a flat in Westminster; Great George Street, I think."

Masters looked up sharply. "Great George Street, eh? So that's where he went!"

"Where he went?"

"Yes. Today. You haven't forgotten he left here this afternoon at ten minutes past two o'clock, and didn't return until a quarter past four? Just so. I know where he went," Masters announced, with satisfaction, "because I tailed him myself. But that's neither here nor there, at the moment. What about his relatives, or friends? Know anything about them?"

"No-no, I'm afraid not. I know he's got a cousin named Philip Keating. And he's engaged to be married to Frances Gale. You've probably heard of her; she's the one who seems to have been winning all the golf tournaments."

"Ah? I've seen her picture in the papers," said Masters, with interest. He ruminated, evidently turning the picture over in his mind. "She wouldn't be mixed up in games like this, I'll bet you a tanner," he decided. "Never mind. Here: lend a hand, and let's turn the poor chap over on his back. Easy now. . ."

"God!" said Pollard involuntarily.

"So he wanted thrill," observed Masters after a pause, during which there was no sound but Masters's asthmatic breathing. "Not pretty, is it?"

They had both risen. No damage had been done to the face which was now exposed, except a spiritual damage. But mind, as well as life, had gone out of it; and the reason for its witless look was fear. Pollard had read much of faces supposed to be distorted with the fear of something seen. During his term as a uniformed constable he had seen a man fall to death out of a high window, and a man get the charge of a shotgun full in the face. The feelings such sights inspired were of physical things like pulp and angles; yet they were of the same cold quality as those inspired by this undamaged face, whose pale blue eyes were wide open and whose straw-colored hair was neatly plastered down. Quite plainly, he did not care to look at it. Keating, who wanted thrill, had evidently seen something more horrible than that which comes into the homes of harmless men.

"I say, my lad," put in Masters gruffly. "How would you like to spend a night in this room?"

"No, thanks."

"Just so. And yet what's wrong with the place? It's ordinary enough, you'd say. I'd rather like to know who was the last tenant." After a somewhat sharp glance round the room, Masters squatted down by the body and began to turn out the pockets. "Stop a bit! Here's something. What do you make of this, for instance?"

"This" was a thin and polished silver cigarette-case. It was not in Keating's pocket; it had evidently been lying under the body, partly inside the fold of the coat. Masters snapped it open, finding that it was filled to capacity with Craven A cigarettes; but Masters handled it very gingerly, by each end only, for on the polished surface there were several clear fingerprints.

"It's got a monogram in the corner," said Pollard. "Do you make out the letters? J.D. That's it: J.D. It isn't Keating's. It may be what you're looking for."

"If the old man were here," said Masters, with a heavily ruminative air, "he'd say you'd got a simple straightforward mind, my lad. This murderer is much too canny a bloke to smear up the best fingerprint-surface in this room. We'll see; but I'll make you a little bet that these prints are Keating's, and that he's been carrying somebody else's cigarette-case." He folded up the case carefully in a handkerchief. "Point is, what's the thing doing under his body? He didn't smoke at any time-nobody did; just like the Dartley case. At least, there aren't any cigarette-ends in the place, and the case is full. If he was carrying somebody else's case ... here, that reminds me! Whose hat was he wearing? I shouldn't think it was his own. And where's the hat now, by the way?"

Pollard crossed the room to the divan, which was pushed out a little way from the wall, and felt down behind it. He fished up a gray Homburg somewhat crumpled. It had been lying on the divan, he remembered, when he had made his first search of the shrine. He turned it over, handing it to Masters and pointing to the band inside; on the band was printed in gilt letters the name Philip Keating.

"'Philip Keating,"' repeated Masters. "Oh, ah? That's the cousin you mentioned, is it? Yes. It's a good thing for Mr. Philip Keating we all know his cousin was wearing the hat, or he might find himself with a lot of questions to answer. This is a very casual sort of young gentleman, Bob. He wears somebody else's hat, and he carries somebody else's cigarette-case we think. Ur! I know that type. Can you tell me anything about this Mr. Philip Keating?"

"Well, sir, he'd probably sail up to the ceiling and bust if he were ever involved in a murder case. He's a stockbroker, I think; very pleasant, but respectable as the devil."

Masters looked suspicious. "All right. We'll go into that.

But is there anybody connected with either of 'em whose initials are J.D.?'

"I can't tell you that."

"Let's see what's on him, then. Put all that stuff out in a line. Now, then: wallet. Eight pound ten in notes, and a couple of his own visiting-cards. (Yes, that's the address: number 7 Great George Street.) Nothing else in the wallet. Fountain-pen. Watch. Bunch of keys. Box of matches. Handkerchief. Six and four-pence in coppers. That's the lot, and not much to go on. Except that he was a heavy smoker: every pocket's got tobacco in the lining."

"Unless he's wearing somebody else's suit," said Pollard. "He was a heavy smoker, but he didn't light up during a three-quarters-of-an-hour wait. Look here, sir, do you think it was to be some sort of-religious service?"

Masters grunted noncommittally. "No, the tailor's label's all right. It's his own suit. You think you're making jokes, my lad, which aren't funny. But I don't. I go at it. I've seen queerer things ... ah, Inspector! Come in."

Divisional Detective-Inspector Cotteril was a long lean man with a long melancholy countenance, which he balanced by an affable manner. But he saw the upturned face of Vance Keating, and whistled.

"Cor! There's a sight for you," he said. "The house has been searched, every inch of it. I can tell you now that there isn't, there wasn't, there hasn't been anybody else in it; but you knew that already. We're at a dead end. But here's what I wanted to ask you, Chief Inspector. Do you want our division to go on with this, or will the Yard take over? The Yard, I suppose?"

"I suppose so. But that'll be decided this afternoon. You can carry on with finding out what hauling company brought this furniture here two days ago, where they got the furniture, and trace it back as far as it'll go. I think we'd better take charge of this revolver: it's a curio, and there's no registration number. But I'd like to get some information. Do you know anything about the last tenants of this house?"

Cotteril reflected. "Yes, I can tell you myself. I remember, because the people came round to the station once to report a golden cocker spaniel being stolen; and I own one myself. Now, what in blazes was that name?" demanded Cotteril, and knocked at his temple. "Mr. and Mrs… . But I don't think you'll find much there. As I remember him, the old man was a solid solicitor; you know, old and crusted; elderly.

Had a very pretty wife. Damn it, what was that name? I can remember everything except that. They moved out of here about a year ago. The name was something fancy; I think it began. with a D. Mr. and Mrs.- I know: got it! Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Derwent!"

Masters stared at him, his color changing a little. "You're sure of that, now?"

"Pretty sure, yes. Certain. The dog's name was Pete." "Man, listen! Don't it mean anything to you? Don't you remember the Dartley case?"

Cotteril opened one eye, and spoke drily. "Not personally, thank the Lord. I was shifted here from C Division just after all the rumpus. I know about it, of course. I know how it's repeated here."

"Dartley got it through the back of the head at 18 Pendragon Gardens. The last tenants of 18 Pendragon Gardens moved out less than a week before the murder. They were Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Derwent. They were so plain downright respectable, it was so clear they'd got nothing to do with Dartley, that we never bothered much with them. But now they turn up as the last tenants of 4 Berwick Terrace. And under Keating's body is that cigarette-case marked with the initials J.D." Masters pulled himself together. "Just so. I'm a bit curious to know what Sir Henry Merrivale will make of that, my lad."

CHAPTER FIVE

Dead Man's Eyes

"YOU WANT to know what I think?" said H.M. "I think you got a goddam nerve, that's what I think. You insult me into comin' here, after it's you that bungled the business. Three flights of stairs you drag me up-as though there wasn't enough stairs in my life - to a goddam Turkish bath that'll probably give me pneumonia after a walk out of it. And now you got the incredible, staggerin', stratospheric cheek to suggest that, since we're goin' out to pay calls on polite and refined people, I'd better be dignified and put on my collar. Oh, my eye. That's the end. I'm through."

"Now, now," urged Masters soothingly. "I only suggested-"

H.M.'s arrival, at a little past six o'clock, had been attended by some difficulty. This, it was learned, was due to his secretary's persistent attempts to make him put on his collar, which he refused. He had been in such a fettle of triumph after winning this argument that he resorted to the dubious and almost unheard-of course of driving his own car; with the result that, sweeping majestically out of Horse Guards Avenue the wrong way, he had very nearly contrived to knock Mr. Geoffrey Madden-Byrne, the Minister of Transportation, clean over the fence of the Royal United Service Museum. H.M. is very proud of his skill as a driver, if only he cared to drive: and it is true that he reached Kensington in safety. He sat now collarless on the couch in the attic, and groused.

Masters did not mind. On the contrary, it was as though all the grousing Masters wished to do, and could not do, was transmitted through H.M. so that Masters's mind was eased of a great weight, and he could become his affable self again. The body of Keating had now been removed, which was also the easing of a weight.

"-I only suggested," pursued Masters, "that you 'might find it more comfortable to wear a lower collar than the kind you usually do. I didn't think about it. I only threw it off, casually. But you picked it up and made it the whole point of what I was driving at. Now the thing I do want to know, sir, is what you think of this case?"

"You mean your notion about the Derwents? Ghoulish idea, ain't it? Elderly solicitor and his pretty wife move from sedate house to sedate house; and wherever they go, just after they've left the house, murder comes in and camps. Shivery, that. Just you think it over. It's artistic, Masters; I like it."

"Thank you," said the chief inspector gravely. "I'm not usually accused of being artistic; far from it. But I didn't necessarily mean about the Derwents. I mean about the murder."

"Murderer disappearin' in thin air?"

"Yes. Do you believe somebody could have stood here in the room beside Keating; could have shot him twice at close range; and then could have disappeared?"

"I got to believe it, son," replied H.M. quite seriously, "by what you tell me, I warned you this murderer was awful cocky about bein' able to slide through any nets you set for him. That was what worried me. You talk about master criminals but honestly, now, nobody outside Bedlam is deliberately goin' to make an appointment with the police - unless he's quite certain there's not a rag of a chance he'll be caught."

"Or unless he's a real lunatic, of course."

H.M. scowled malevolently. "Not even then. No loony except a political assassin is ever loony enough to want to be caught. Jack the Ripper was a crackpot if you like, and he wrote to the police; but he never warned 'em beforehand where he meant to use his razor. Besides, there ain't a tinge of flavor of lunacy about this case, as I hope to be able to explain to you. No, Masters. This feller knew he was safe, safe and cozy to do his murder, no matter how you tried to stop him."

"That's all very well, sir; but look at facts! Do you know of any safe method of committing a murder?"

"No, son," said H.M. "And I only hope to God we haven't found one here."

Again Sergeant Pollard was conscious of uneasiness. Outside, the early evening was still thick with promise of a storm that never came. H.M.'s small eye moved round the room, measuring.

"Well, now, we'll just go over the evidence, as far as I've been able to follow it from the gibberish you've been tellin' me. There are a couple of questions I'd like to ask you, and then we're goin' to reconstruct the crime. But let's take it from the beginning. You, son." The small eye fixed rather disconcertingly on Pollard. H.M. moved his glasses up and down his nose, rumbled to himself, and went on. "Ah,. I got it. You went to Houston & Klein. They told you that Vance Keating got the keys of the house this morning. They also said that the last time anybody viewed the house was three months ago-and the person who got the keys then was Frances Gale, the gal who's engaged to Keating. That right?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Meaning what?" asked Masters softly.

"Oh, not necessarily anything. Only we've heard that a haulin' van came here yesterday, and the men delivered some furniture. Well, they had to have a key to get in. I was only wonderin' where they got the key, if Keating didn't get his until today.... Don't interrupt me, dammit! Now, son. As you were walkin' up the front steps of the house, a Talbot two-seater went past up at the head of the street; there was a woman in it, and she seemed to be lookin' in a marked sort of way at this house. Right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Uh-huh. Would you know the gal, if you saw her again?"

"I think so. She was young, and she certainly wasn't bad-looking; but it was some distance away, and the car shot past. I got the number-plate, though. It was MX792."

"It's being traced," said Masters.

"Now we'll take your story," pursued H.M., turning to the chief inspector. "After Keating went to all the trouble to buy the house and shut everybody out of it, he went out himself at ten minutes past two. Where'd he go?"

Masters took out his notebook, cleared his throat, and began to recite. "Person in question went looking for a taxi. Walked down as far as Kensington High Street before he got one. Found a cab-rank there. Taking next taxi, I followed-"

"I know. You leaped into the cab hissing, `Scotland Yardl Follow that car!' Ho ho. I can see you doin' it, son.

"Excuse me, I didn't do anything of the kind," said Masters equably. "You must never tell 'em beforehand you're a copper; otherwise they start to argue about whether or not they'll get their fare, and you lose your man. Hurrum!" He resumed his official manner. "Person in question was driven by way of Piccadilly, Haymarket, Cockspur Street, and Trafalgar Square to the Galleon Tavern in Whitehall. Had two drinks there, speaking to no one. Left when bar closed, at three o'clock. Did not seem to be in any hurry. Walked down Whitehall, crossed to Great George Street, and entered block of flats called Lincoln Mansions. (He lived there.) Went upstairs in lift. I approached, and was about to speak to hall-porter when person in question came down in lift again. He said to hall-porter, `Don't let Mr. Gardner leave,' and went out-"

"Stop a bit. What'd you take that to mean?"

"I've got no idea," acknowledged Masters, becoming human again. He smiled wryly. "Except it's another name for our list. Frances Gale. Philip Keating. Mr. and Mrs. Jeremy Derwent. And somebody called Gardner. I hope it's the lot. But about Keating. He wasn't in the flats more than three or four minutes. After that he walked out and fooled about on the street for a minute, looking round. At 3:20 he called a cab, and was driven to Coburg Place here. There was a traffic block, and we didn't get back for nearly an hour. He walked across Coburg Place, down Berwick Terrace, and back to the house. Not much in it, is there?"

"No. Nothin' very spectacular, anyhow. You thought he was just out to kill time, hey? Yes. Well, now, let's see what we can do about reconstructing' the crime. We may not be able to tell how the murderer hopped it. But let's imagine Keating is lyin' there now, with the gun by his left hand and the cigarette-case under him. Let's see where he might have been standin' or sittin' when he was hit; and which of the shots was fired first, and why; and what he might have seen, to give him that look. I say, Masters-have you found out yet whether the fingerprints on that cigarette-case were Keating's or somebody else's?"

"Not yet. McAllister had gone when we found it. But it's been sent to the Yard, and we should get a report any time now. Also a post-mortem report, I hope."

With great effort H.M. heaved himself off the couch, muttering, and blundered to the middle of the room. The peacocks'-feather design on the gold table-cover gleamed in evening light; the black teacups had a somber richness; and these, with the mahogany chair, made a sort of core and lure for the heart of a commonplace attic-room. H.M. stopped by the table. For a time he remained staring owlishly at it.

"'And all King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold,"' said H.M. suddenly, "'and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold; none were of silver; it was nothing accounted of in the days of Solomon.

"'For the king had at sea a navy of Tarshish with the navy of Hiram; once in three years came the navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks."'

It was one of those abrupt changes of mood which could still make Masters jump. Then H.M. opened his eyes wide and grinned.

"Ho ho! You surprised to hear the old man quotin' First Kings? My eye, Masters, what literature! I was just thinkin' of the recurring design of peacocks' feathers in this case. Dartley's shot by the side of ten teacups painted with peacocks' feathers. Keating also goes down by a table, in just about the same way. . What's it suggest? Burn me, I dunno. You got classical mythology: the peacock was the favorite bird of Juno. Also, in the Middle Ages, one of the solemnest oaths of the code of chivalry was taken on the Peacock. Chivalry! Chivalry! Now I wonder?"

Masters regarded him curiously. "Where do you pick up all this stuff?" he asked.

"Oh, I dunno. I just browse round, and it comes flowin' in somehow. Besides, I hate modem novels like hell, except detective stories, so my readin' time ain't unduly cluttered up. But I'll tell you something that's not out of books, Masters."

He reached out and fingered the table-cover.

"That's real gold. I remember tellin' you, at the time of that Red Widow case, how I'd been to Rome over that business of Briocci, the collector who got himself poisoned in his private museum. Uh-huh. I also remember, somebody showed me one of these cloths: not peacocks' feathers, but some religious pattern. This thing's worth a lot of money. It's medieval Italian work in gold leaf woven into cloth. Point number one: there wouldn't be many people in England who'd own one of them, and only a very few dealers who might handle 'em - like Soar in Bond Street, for instance; point number two: somebody can afford to chuck it about as much as Keating did. Then there's the furniture. It don't look like museum pieces, of course; but still it's good stuff and must have been pretty expensive. Finally, there's the teacups-"

"Ah. The teacups. And what might they be worth?"

"Well ... now," said H.M. He picked up one of the thin black cups and turned it over. "At sixpence apiece, that's five bob for the lot."

"Sixpence apiece?" shouted Masters.

"Yes. For the cup and saucer together," explained H.M., after a curious pause while Masters got to his feet. "They come from Woolworth's. You can see stamped on the bottom, `Elephant; Made in England,' and a Woolworth's stock number. Whoever arranged this has carefully set out expensive furniture and an almost priceless table-cover-on the top of which he also carefully places cups costing three pennies. And there you are. I tell you, Masters, somebody is laughin' at us, and I don't like it."

"I'm beginning to be certain," said Masters, "that we're chasing a real lunatic after all."

"No, we're not, son. Everything here means something: which is the trouble. But we started out to reconstruct the murder, and let's do it. As a startin' point, we might begin with the cups - I mean the two smashed ones. Take a look at the cups, and tell me what you make of 'em."

Masters pulled himself together. Assuming the round table to be a clock facing the door, with the cups roughly as numbers on a dial, the two broken cups were in the position of the figures 6 and 7. Masters studied them.

"Yes, I'd thought of that," he said grudgingly. "The cups are broken in a very rum way. They're not knocked about, as they'd have been in a struggle; they're not even moved off the saucers, though the saucers are cracked. There aren't any pieces all over the place, as though they'd been hit with a bullet. Just so. It looks as though a dead, heavy weight had dropped flat on them. Like a loaded valise, or something."

He looked up at the ceiling, and hesitated.

"What about the dead man?" inquired H.M. "That's what happened, son. A .45, especially at such close range, has a power like a horse's kick. Now looky here. Keating was walkin' up towards the table-like Dartley. He was walkin' from somewhere in the direction of the door, or at least from the side of the room where the door is, towards the table. Otherwise, d'ye see, he'd have smashed or dislodged more cups when he fell; and they're still in a neat circle. So. The first bullet hits him. He goes over flap, either with a broken skull or a broken spine, in a dead weight on his face across the table."

H.M. brought the palms of his hands together sharply, and Masters nodded.

"I daresay," muttered the chief inspector. "Oh, ah. It's got to be, because there's nothing else that could've broken the cups. But in that case how did he come to be facing the other way when we found him-lying at full length with his head towards the door?"

"Because the first shot was through his back, d'ye see. If the first bullet had been the one that hit him in the head, he'd never have moved off that table; he'd have been dead. He'd never have moved unless he slid off, and the cloth's not rumpled enough for that. The cloth's rumpled just enough to show that he ... aha! Got it, have you?"

"That he tried to pull himself up on his feet and look round behind him," suggested Pollard.

"Exactly, son. But carry it further; watch the genie form out of the bottle." Again the little eye fixed him disconcertingly. "I see you got an inspiration. Quick, what were you thinkin' of?"

Pollard stared at the table.

"It wasn't an inspiration, sir. Just the opposite. There's another big contradiction here. Keating saw something terrible enough to give him that look on his face-yet at the same time he was shot twice from behind! If he first saw the sight, how did the murderer get round close behind him to fire without Keating making an uproar or a run or a fight? The whole thing seems to have been over too quickly. Hold on, though:

I believe I've got it! The murderer comes up behind Keating unseen, and also unheard on this thick carpet. He jabs the gun into Keating's back, possibly intending to shoot him through the heart. But Keating jerks, and starts to look round...."

"And screams, I think you said," supplied H.M.

There was a pause.

"Oh, it's ugly enough, my lads," he continued blankly. "For I'll just ask you what Keating saw when he looked over his shoulder, that gave him the look on his face. Then our `somebody,' our Old Man of the Mountain, pulls the trigger; and Keating is knocked forward on the teacups. But he won't stay there. He'll try to get up, and turn round, and get away: maybe even attack what's behind him. He's got the use of his arms, but his spine's gone and his legs won't hold him. So, when he gets on his feet and turns round to the left, he loses his balance again and simply tumbles forward the other way. And the murderer leans down and gives him another one through the back of the skull, while he's still lyin' helpless on his left side."

"Ugh," grunted Masters, after another silence.

"Oh, no; it ain't pretty; I admit that."

Masters nursed his chin. "It's all very well for you, Sir Henry, to go as fast as that. But I'm a bit more cautious. And, while I admit it all sounds reasonable ... By the way, in your reconstruction what about the cigarette-case that was found under the body?"

"I don't go quite as fast as that, son. Depends on what fingerprints are on it. Depends on whether they're Keating's own, or somebody else's. I'm not goin' hurtling away to explain something before I know what it is I got to explain." He sniffed, and considered. "That thing seems to be hag-ridin' you, but I also admit it may be a bit of a puzzler before we get through with this business. What's the good of a cigarette-case if nobody's smoked? What's the point of it?-Hey?

Yes; what is it?"

Rapid footsteps had tumbled up the attic stairs and along the hall. Sergeant Hollis, who had been left on guard downstairs along with two constables, came in with a slip of paper in his hand.

"And this, if I mistake not, is our client now," said H.M. with relish. "Speak "up, son. Got some information from headquarters?"

"Yes, sir. But that wasn't what I wanted to see you about. We-"

Masters took the slip of paper from him, and the chief inspector spoke grimly.

"Ah! There we are. Settles two points, anyhow. First, about the fingerprints on the case. There are two sets: Keating's own, and a woman's. I suppose you'd call that suggestive. Next, about the blue Talbot two-seater number MX792. It belongs to Miss Frances Gale."

"That's what I wanted to see you about, sir," Hollis put in hastily. "About Miss Gale. She's downstairs. She's been here ever since we took out Mr. Keating's body; she saw us put it in the van. She isn't making a row, but she's pretty cut up in a quiet way; and all she's doing is asking us questions we can't answer. Could you see her? I know you said you weren't to be disturbed no matter what happened, but all the same I thought maybe--?"

CHAPTER SIX

In Which Six Persons Are Found Near a Revolver

WHEN FRANCES GALE was brought into the attic room, Pollard expected to see a girl somewhat on the large and muscular side. He was surprised. Miss Gale was not more than twenty years old, rather under the medium height for a woman; and, though she was clearly radiant with health, her appearance of very soft slenderness gave no hint of, any athletic capacity. She was the same girl Pollard had seen in the car earlier that afternoon. She had brown bobbed hair, somewhat light and fluffy; darker brown eyes with black lashes; but, in contrast, a very determined chin. Though she was not pretty in any conventional sense, health and vigor made her seem so. She wore a close-fitting hat of white straw, and a white silk dress with a vivid scarlet buckle at the belt; also, she appeared to be trying to twist her white handbag in two. But her emotion now seemed less grief, or fear, or nervousness, than a miserable perplexity as at too many things on her mind at once.

"I-I-" she said, and stopped.

Masters was in his element. The chief inspector rose with that suavity, that humble persuasiveness as of one seeking information from wiser heads, which he had always found so useful.

"Please don't upset yourself, miss," he urged. "We must apologize for bringing you upstairs here, but there's nowhere else to sit down; and if you would care to help us out-eh? Just so. Will you sit down on the couch here? Ah, that's better. Now-"

"But what on earth is all this?" she said, nodding towards the furniture. Some new emotion was so strong that it rushed up among those she was already feeling: a conflict so strong that for the first time tears came into her eyes. "And who are you? And what's happened? And everything? I know I've seen you before." She stared, winking, at H.M. "I've seen you, and my father said something about you. He said you wore funny hats, or something; but I don't know what you're doing here-"

"Now, now," rumbled H.M. with surprising gentleness. "Sure you know me, and I know your old man. You're Bokey Gale's daughter; he was the great rugger captain in '06. So you see you're among friends. But if you're Bokey Gale's daughter there'll be no use in tryin' to smother you with rose-leaves and glue: you can face it, my gal."

"I've been trying to," she answered, after a pause. "But it's pretty awful just the same. For what was he doing, and why? I saw them carry him out, but I didn't even know how he died. And then I asked questions, and all they'd tell me was that there had been an accident."

She clenched her hands, and looked from one to the other of them, while Masters shook his head.

"I'm afraid it was no accident, miss. It was deliberate murder."

"Yes. I thought so."

"Oh, ah? Why did you think so, miss?"

"Oh, do be sensible! What else could I possibly think, the way things were? How was he-hurt?"

"He was shot: shot in the back." At the last few words, Pollard saw an even worse shadow of perplexity come into her face; she hesitated, and moved her shoulders a little, as Masters went on: "Did you have any reason to think anyone might kill him?"

"No. No, not really. That is-"

"'Not really.' Hurrum!" said Masters, smiling paternally.

"That's a bit difficult to understand, Miss Gale. I know it's probably not important, but you mean somebody threatened him?"

"Not really. I said that before I thought what I was saying. Apparently Ron threatened him, or said he'd shoot him, when he was in a temper; I don't know quite what it was, because I wasn't there." She raised candid brown eyes. "I tell you that because you'll probably find out all about it anyway. And you'd better hear it from me, because I know it was nothing serious. In the first place Ron would never kill anybody; not really. In the second place I do know jolly well he'd never shoot anybody in the back."

"Who is Ron?"

Frances Gale looked surprised. "Why, Ronald Gardner. He's a great friend of Vance's. I know it doesn't sound much like it, but he is. I thought you might have heard the name. He does a lot of things Vance does, only with not so muchso much splash about it." Suddenly she flushed, and went on in a rapid tone as though she were talking against time: "I mean, I thought you'd have read a book Ron wrote, a grand book, about a voyage up the Orinoco. Also, Ron's got a ranch in one of the western states of America; Arizona, I think; only I can never keep the states straight because there are so many of them. Ron-"

Masters had already made a gesture to Pollard, who was sitting at the table taking this down in shorthand. Now the chief inspector interposed.

"Just one moment, miss. You say Mr. Keating and Mr. Gardner had a row? Now, when was this?"

She looked doubtful. "The night before last, I think. Let's see: this is Wednesday, isn't it? Yes, it must have been Monday night. At least, that's what Philip said. Philip is Vance's cousin, and he was the one who told me about the trouble."

"And what was the trouble about, miss?"

"I haven't the least idea! Truly."

"But didn't you inquire, or try to find out? After all, when someone threatens to shoot your fiance ... eh?"

Again she was on the edge of tears. "If you'd only let me explain! It was like this. I didn't know there was supposed to be any trouble until yesterday. Last night, you see, there was to be a big party. Vance and I were going; we arranged that a week ago. Well, yesterday afternoon I rang up his flat to find out what time he'd be round to call for me in the evening. Out of a clear sky he said he was sorry, but some business had come up unexpectedly which made it impossible for him to go to the party; and that the business might occupy him for a couple of days; and that he'd let me know when it was finished."

Masters was staring at her a little crookedly, and stroking his chin. The chief inspector concealed his eagerness.

"Did he state the nature of the business, miss? Hum! That is, did he mention a quarrel, now?"

"No. But I suppose he wouldn't. He spoke in that cold, stiff, kindly-polish-my-boots way he uses sometimes. First I wondered whether I'd done anything to offend him. And then I was furious. I don't know whether you care for a direct snub, but I don't. So I thought: Very well, then; I'll go to the party by myself. Of course they all asked me where he was. Even Ron Gardner had the colossal cheek to inquire after Vance, and ask why he wasn't there. Finally I got Philip Keating aside, and asked him straight out whether he knew what this `business' was that kept Vance away. Philip hemm'd and haw'd ... he prides himself on his tact . but at last he admitted there had been a row between Vance and Ron, and that it was probably the reason why Vance hadn't cared to come. He couldn't or wouldn't say anything more."

"Just so. Did you speak to Mr. Gardner about it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, yes, naturally; and it's so silly! Ron pretended to be surprised. He swore to me, he gave me his word of honor, that there hadn't been any row of any sort between him and Vance. He even pretended to wonder where I'd got such an idea. But I suppose he felt he had to lie like a gentleman, too, especially since-"

H.M., who had been sitting back in a corner of the couch hunched up like a Buddha, at this point opened one eye. He had got out his black pipe.

"Well . . . now," he murmured in a dubious sort of tone. "That might stand amplifyin', you know. Especially since what?"

"I-I don't know."

"Masters will tell you," pursued H.M., "that I got a nasty suspicious mind. But if you're old Bokey Gale's daughter, I wouldn't like to see you tangled up in any more of a mess than I'd have to explain to him. Looky here, now: did you have any reason to believe that this quarrel might have been about you?"

She turned slowly round to face him, and put her hands flat on the divan.

"Certainly not!" cried Frances Gale. After a pause she said: "What makes you think that?"

"Well, now, there's only one subject concernin' which a man lies like a gentleman," said H.M. rather apologetically. "On any other subject he just lies like a plain, human, everyday cuss. And there seems to have been rather an agonizin' attempt to hide matters from you. It sort of occurred to me that to judge by what you've been saying you must be rather more struck by this feller Gardner's qualities and abilities than you were by Keating's. Are you fond of Gardner, or is he fond of you?"

"I like Ron, yes. Naturally. But I happen to be engaged to Vance. And I can't stick much more of this. You bring me right up to the very room where Vance was killed, and I don't know how or who by and you won't tell me anything, and then you begin to b-bully and badger-"

Masters's suspicious gaze moved from H.M. to the girl. Then Masters cleared his throat, and struck in with soothing effect.

"You mustn't mind the old man, miss. That's only his way. Why, miss, we're quite ready to tell you anything you'd like to know! Like this. For instance, you tell us Mr. Gardner has a ranch in America?"

"Yes, he has."

"Ah. Then you might be interested in knowing the kind of gun Mr. Keating was shot with. I can't show it you, because it's been sent to the Yard. But it's a Remington .45, with a pearl-inlaid handle, an old style of gun with the name Tom

Shannon engraved on the handle; and they tell me Tom Shannon was a bad man of the old days out there. Eh?"

"Oh, God," said the girl unexpectedly. She looked at him with a steady, shining regard. "You're not lying to me, are you? I mean, this isn't one of those things you read about, where they get you to admit something and then they say, 'Ha ha, we didn't know that before but we know it now?"'

"No, miss, it is not."

"You needn't be so stuffy about it; I only asked. And I hope it isn't, because I know that gun prefectly well. Unless there are several of old Tom Shannon's guns knocking about over here, and I shouldn't think that was likely. It belongs to Ron. He's got a collection of pistols, and he's very proud of it. Why, I've seen that .45 a hundred times! And that's not all. You remember that party I was telling you about, last night? I saw the gun then. We were using it to play Murder with."

"Murder?" exploded Masters. Then he rubbed his chin, and stopped. "Play Murder? Oh, ah! I see. Do you mean that game where you draw cards, and the ace of spades is the murderer, and then you put out the lights-look here, miss: you didn't use a real gun in the game, did you?"

"Yes. Loaded with blanks, of course. It was got up terribly elaborately. There was a piece of thin rope done into a strangler's noose. And a tin dagger with a blade that would go up into the handle, and a little bottle labeled with skull and crossbones for poison. And the gun. They were a part of the hazard, you see. They were all ranged out in a line on the mantel-piece in the living-room, and the murderer had to pinch one of them without being seen.... It was a Murder Party, really, with a lot of improvements on the ordinary game. It was Mr. Derwent's idea. He gave the party. He said he'd always wanted to give a Murder Party."

Masters spoke with great care, lowering his head a little. He said: "Ah? That would be Mr. Jeremy Derwent, the solicitor?"

"Yes. Do you know him? He's Vance's solicitor."

"I've heard of him, miss. He was-ah-socially friendly with Mr. Keating, was he? And you?"

For some reason her rather too expressive brown eyes slid round towards H.M. She spoke in a colorless voice.

"1 didn't know them particularly well. Only for about six months or so, anyhow. But Vance did. Mr. Derwent has always handled his family's affairs, and he's a charming old boy really. They live not very far away from here, by the way: in Vernon Street. I went to the party because ... well, you know. And then it wasn't just an ordinary binge; it was a farewell party. They're leaving Vernon Street next month, and moving into a house in the country."

Sergeant Pollard looked up from his shorthand. Chief Inspector Masters walked to the window, his hands clasped behind him, and stood looking down into the darkening street. So intense had been the heat of the attic that now, as it gradually lessened, the place felt almost chilly.

"Miss," said Masters, turning back abruptly and seeming to stare at her fluffy brown hair rather than at her face, "I've got to thank you for the way you've kept your nerve today, and the way you've answered our questions fair and straightforward - it 'ud seem. But I don't want you to conceal anything about that party. There was where somebody stole the gun that killed Mr. Keating: unless Mr. Gardner took it away with him, as may be. First, what people were at that party?"

"With Vance, there were to have been seven," she told him promptly. "We were using the whole house for the game, of course; but if you have too many people they get in each other's way. There was Mr. Derwent. There was myself, to get me out of the way. There was Philip Keating. There was Ron Gardner. There was Mr. Soar-"

"Soar? That's an unusual name. Do you mean by any chance Benjamin Soar, the art-dealer?"

"Y-yes, I suppose so." She frowned. "But I'm not sure. I met him for the first time last night. He was nice; I liked him."

"Miss Gale, can you tell me that even now the words `ten teacups' still don't mean anything to you?"

For the first time she really looked at the table, at the teacups, and at the chair. Then her glance flew back to the divan again, as though she were fascinated by it.

"You don't mean," she said slowly, and Pollard was willing to swear it was the first time the idea had entered her head, "that man - I don't know his name-he was killed - and there were ten teacups on the tab-I mean, the case I've heard them talk about?"

"Come, now! Honestly, Miss Gale: you don't think rooms in empty houses are usually fitted up like this, do you? Do you expect me to believe you didn't notice, or didn't connect it with the Dartley case?"

Her white handbag spilled out of her lap. She bent to retrieve it; and, when she faced him again, her face was pinker and more puzzled.

"I don't know what you believe, I'm sure. I saw it, yes. But this makes it all the worse, because I don't see. . . . No, Inspector; nothing important. You're straying off the fairway. I had just given you a list of the people at the Murder party, and quite suddenly you jumped all over me. `Come, now' yourself!"

Masters hesitated. "Just so," he agreed, going back to business. "However, I don't think I've got a complete list. I have Mr. Derwent, Mr. Philip Keating, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Soar, and yourself. Even excluding Mr. Vance Keating, that's only six. Where's the seventh? Um-what about young Mrs. Derwent?"

"I don't quite know what you mean by `young Mrs. Derwent.' The age of the present Mrs. Derwent is forty-five. I believe they have a son, aged eighteen or so, away at school somewhere."

"But I understood-"

"Oh, quite righty-ho, Inspector," agreed Miss Gale, with sudden heartiness. "Most people do understand that she is rather younger, from her looks. But I was going to tell you. Yes, she was a member of the Murder party. But not for very long. About half-past nine she told us she had a splitting sick headache, and begged to be excused. After she had gone the Murder party became a most awful frost. In the first place there were too few of us for a good game. In the second place-there it was. All of a sudden it seemed rather silly to be wandering about in the dark."

"So you didn't play the game after all?"

"Yes, we had one very short game before Mrs. Derwent went upstairs. She was the corpse, come to think of it. The strangler's noose was used-I think I told you all the weapons were laid out on a line on the mantel in the living-room - and she was strangled on a sofa in Mr. Derwent's den. Mr. Derwent was the detective. (And did it jolly well, too!) Philip was the murderer. He got caught in about fifteen minutes. For a member of the Stock Exchange, poor Philip is a dreadfully bad liar."

"Always a recommendation, miss, from the view-point of the police," Masters observed affably. "Now I don't care about play-murders, but I want to know about that gun. Everything about it! When you last noticed it; who might have taken it; what you saw; everything."

She regarded him steadily.

"I can't tell you anything about it. That's the absolute truth. I've been racking my brains, and I simply don't know. The only thing I can say positively is that it was on the mantel at the beginning of the game: Ron put it there. He had been showing it round very proudly. As for who went near it, I don't remember anybody picking it up afterwards. But I can't swear nobody did, because I didn't notice it at all."

Masters's eye grew almost hypnotic. "Now think, miss, think! You must have! - At least you noticed it at the end of the game. Didn't you? If it was Mr. Gardner's property, he'd pick it up and take it home with him, wouldn't he? Or he'd say something if he found it was missing?"

"I don't know that, either." She was thinking hard now. "I went out to my car a little ahead of the rest of them, because by that time I was feeling a bit low and headachy myself, and I wanted to run. But one thing I'm absolutely positive of. Ron Gardner didn't take the gun home, with him."

"How can you be certain of that?"

"He drove home with me in my car. Ron doesn't run a car now. He - lost a lot of money, or most of it. So I gave him a lift home."

"Well, miss?"

"You needn't snap my head off, you know. Well, he was wearing a light summer suit. You know, no lining and no waistcoat. And on the way back in the car he took off his coat. If you've seen that gun, you know nobody could possibly conceal it if it was being carried."

Masters studied her with heavy doubt. "That's that, then," he said, like one making a snap-decision. "You might think it over, miss. But in the meantime I should like to clear up a little point or two on which you're better informed. Let me see. When you drove past here in your car (MX792) early this afternoon, why were you so interested in this house?"

"I didn't drive past here this afternoon."

Her questioner glanced round at Pollard who, though he disliked doing it, nodded definitely. "Come, miss, we can never get anywhere if you go on like that," Masters urged with great cheerfulness. "You were seen by a police-officer, you know. So let's just have it out. I repeat: when you drove-"

"I didn't!" cried Frances Gale, and went into a tantrum so exactly like a schoolgirl that Masters blinked. Yet there was genuine violence behind it. "I wasn't anywhere near here this afternoon. I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't! And you can't make me say I did."

"Right you are, then, if you say so. You never had any interest in this house? You never saw it before, to your knowledge?"

"No, I never did."

"We can't have that, you know. Three months ago and less (on May 10, to be exact) you got the keys of this house from Houston & Klein in St. James's Square. Now that's an absolute fact."

Though this statement did not appear to rouse such unexpected and apparently unreasonable fury as the first, it had its own effect. She did not so much rise as slide to her feet, deftly, so that you thought of someone preparing for fight. But her eyes were miserable.

"I didn't," she said. "I didn't do that, either; and you can't say I did. And I'm going home, and you can't stop me. All you've done is ask me questions that don't mean anything. You've never once told me anything about poor Vance, or who would have killed him or-except that it must have been Ron, and I know it wasn't. I wish my father were here. I wish I had a piece of brick or something, and I'd-I'd-" She lifted her hand.

She paused once in the doorway of the room, whipping round with a whirl of white silk skirt.

"And as for your Mrs. Derwent, you can tell her from me that she's a great big b-blowsy old-"

The close-fitting white hat had become slightly askew; she pressed it down hard on her head, as though to give some outlet for emotion in her hands. Then she disappeared, but they heard her sobbing as she went scampering and tripping away down the stairs.

Masters expelled his breath in a slight whoosh.

"Gawd lummy," he said, like one making a philosophical observation.

"What brought her on like that, all of a sudden?" he went on, staring. "She's a child, I admit. Worse'n my own kids, though she seemed sensible enough up to that last minute. And yet, all the time she was flaring out like that, she somehow managed to make me feel I was in the wrong. H'm.

. And I must say, Sir Henry, you haven't been much help. All you've done is to sit there like a mummy and make noises with that pipe."

H.M. murmured: "I was just sittin' and thinkin'. And it struck me you didn't need any help; you needed a brake. You don't want to get your pores clogged with too much information at the start, son." Hoisting himself up, he let one hand fall on the dingy brown cloth of the divan. A puff of dust rose from it, and H.M. blew the dust away. "As for the girl ... h'm. I got an idea she'll be round to my office tomorrow morning and tell us All. My eye, but don't she hate Mrs. Derwent, though! `The incense that is mine by right, They burn before her shrine; and that's because I'm seventeen, While she is forty-nine.' I think we'll find Mrs. D. something buxom and languorous-eyed and mysterious. Poor old Keating would have liked that."

"You think there may have been something between Keating and Mrs. Derwent? And the Gale girl knew it? Yes. I thought of that."

"Oh, anything's possible, though Mrs. D. sounds very canny to me. In any case, after we've had a bit of grub, I think we'd better pay a little visit to the sinister solicitor in Vernon Street: the solicitor who's movin' house again, next month."

While H.M. blundered down the gloomy stairs, swearing, Masters remained for a moment behind in the room. He stared at the ceiling. He looked down at the place . where the body had lain, and then he bent over to scrape at the carpet. When he followed H.M., who was bellowing from below, Masters's face wore the smile of one who has scored.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lady's Limousine

THE HOUSE of Mr. Jeremy Derwent, where they found Mr. Derwent in his garden, was called The Gardens. It was a square, solid place behind a gate in a high wall. But they did not reach it until some time afterwards: not until the lamplighter was hurrying with his pole in the high streets, and little yellow flames were springing up against blue dusk.

H.M. stood the dinners to his two companions; he handsomely (ghoulishly, an outsider might have thought) offered to drive them in his own car to the tavern. The experience was not as bad as might have been expected. Despite H.M.'s taste for speed, their pace was moderate, even partaking of a mysterious jerkiness which startled traffic-policemen; but in justice to their own necks Pollard refrained from pointing out that the car would function better with the hand-brake off. They jumped along the streets like a mechanical toy, H.M. with a sort of wooden sneer in his own pride, and a good dinner restored them all. On the way back to Vernon Street, when the car was smoothly jerking, Masters got down to business.

"You say," he began, producing the silver cigarette-case that had been sent for, "that the girl will be at your office tomorrow and-um-get it off her chest. Perhaps. But in any case what did you make of her, exactly? Parts of it are pretty plain...."

"What, for instance?" demanded H.M., eying a pedestrian-crossing.

"I read it like this. We assume Miss Gale and Keating were fond of each other: they were engaged, anyhow, if that means anything in this day and age-"

"You gettin' cynical?"

"I've never been anything else, since I was a little baby," admitted Masters. "At the same time, she seems a bit fond of this Ronald Gardner. When she hears of a quarrel between Keating and Gardner, she assumes it's about her. But is that all she assumes? Follow me, sir? Suppose Gardner has said to Keating, `Look here, you're engaged to Frances Gale, so stop hanging about Mrs. Derwent.' It doesn't intimidate Keating, for this `business' he speaks of on the telephone - the business that will take him several days - is really some kind of appointment with Mrs. Derwent. And Miss Gale suspects it. She suspects it still more when, at the Murder party that same night, Mrs. Derwent leaves the party at half-past nine. What do you say to that?"

"I say it's eyewash."

"Well, now, sir "

"Eyewash," repeated H.M. firmly. He rolled round a moon-face of fantastic jollity. "It strikes me in passin' that you - you, of all the prophets o' caution-are now flying at theories without ever having met any of these people. Never mind. You want reasons. Right.

"You suggest that Vance Keating and Mrs. Derwent might have been plannin' an assignation for last night. But, in all your wide and cynical experience, did you ever hear of anybody who planned an assignation in quite such a fatheaded way? Look what they've done. They've chosen the night of the Murder party, the one night when their absence together is bound to be noticed, the one night when attention will be focused on 'em, without makin' a ghost of an excuse to anybody. To the contrary, Keating makes a point of insultin' his fiancee. And on top of that Mrs. Derwent walks out of the house while a party is goin' on. Even if she isn't seen on the way out, she'll have a tolerable lot of explaining to do to her husband when she gets home."

Masters shook his head.

"I don't see that, sir. Suppose they didn't care, because they meant to go away together? Suppose they planned it as - hurrum - a kind of dramatic gesture, like? Keating said he would be occupied several days. It sounds to me like an elopement, or a deliberate challenge about an elopement. What about that?"

"Uh-huh. The only trouble bein' that they didn't elope;

they didn't do anything last night. Just think of Vance Keating's behavior today, and tell me whether you believe he was already embarked on the venture. Hey? It won't fit in. At one o'clock this afternoon, serene and unaccompanied, he's foolin' about an empty house over his teacups. He kills time, goes for a cab ride, has a drink, stays in a fever of excitement all afternoon-because he's expecting something to happen. He's expectin' what? A woman."

There was a pause.

"Do you begin to see what I'm drivin' at, my fatheads?" inquired H.M. "If you had said to me somethin' like this: Keating intended to meet Mrs. Derwent this afternoon at 4 Berwick Terrace. Their meeting was with or without the intention of funny business, but at least concerned ten teacups. Frances Gale properly believed there was somethin' up between those two; and therefore she followed Keating in her car when he went to Berwick Terrace. That's why the Gale wench went into screamin' hysteria when you brought up the subject: because she wouldn't admit she was jealous enough to be snoopin' and spyin' after him." H.M. punched the horn. "There's my case. If you had said that to me, I'd have believed you. I think it's pretty much what happened. H'mf. All I want to point out with most awful sincerity is that (so far as we know) there was nothin' like a meeting between Keating and Mrs. Derwent last night."

Masters was puzzled. "The next turning is Vernon Street," he pointed out, "and Derwent's number is 33; I got it out of the telephone directory. But this other thing? Lummy, I don't see what you're getting at! What difference does it make?"

"What difference does it make?" roared H.M.

"Exactly. It's a quibble. If there was an affair, let's say, between Mrs. Derwent and Keating, the whole point is that there was an affair, and that they arranged to meet at Berwick Terrace this afternoon. I don't see that it matters a curse whether they did or did not meet last night."

"Oh, Masters, my son," said H.M. with some despondency. "After all the trouble I've taken-look here. I've been tryin' to lead you slowly and delicately along the path, so that you'll see what to me is the real contradiction, the essential contradiction, the great blazin' query of the whole case! And it's this. Why did Keating refuse to attend the Murder party last night?"

The chief inspector stared at him.

"Contradiction?" he repeated slowly. "Where's the contradiction? I'm not what you'd call imaginative, but I could think of half a dozen good reasons off-hand. Out of all the flummeries and queer sides of this case, I don't for the life of me see why you pick on that one. Why, for instance-" Masters never got any further.

Number 33 Vernon Street was on the right-hand side. A mottled dusk, swept blue and black as though with a brush, made a background for the warm sparkle of gas-lamps. One street-lamp was just outside the house. A high garden wall of smooth stone, with arched double-doors painted dull green, showed tree-tops above it. To the right of the doors a name, The Gardens, was painted in small black letters beside a bellpull. And at the curb before the house was drawn up a Daimler limousine, with only its sidelights burning, and a chauffeur standing beside it.

The green doors opened, and a woman came out. The chauffeur stepped up to her, touching his cap.

"Mrs. Derwent, ma'am?" he inquired.

"Out you go, Masters," said H.M. softly.

She was standing under the street-lamp, her head a little turned towards them, and there could be no denying her extreme if somewhat overblown beauty. Though she was not overly tall, she appeared so. Masters later swore that she must have weighed over eleven stone, but this is libel. Equally libelous, Pollard thought, was Frances Gale's statement as to her age. She wore an evening-wrap of black velvet, with a high collar. It was the expression of the eye which caught you. You thought of graciousness and mournfulness; but the Old Adam intervened with thoughts of hansom-cabs and frilled rooms and Mademoiselle de Maupin. She had, like that which has been vulgarly attributed to a certain danseuse, a glance that could open an oyster at sixty paces.

Yet, even while this overpowering bundle was turned loose in a suburban street, Sergeant Pollard felt certain doubts. It is all very well to be mysterious, and yearning, and even soulful; but, carried too far, a male observer sees in this the deceptive coyness of those ladies who talk about their souls on sofas. The far-away heat of that eye must have been shrewdly controlled, or she would have bumped smack into the lamp-post. But these were vague doubts, which sheer feminine appeal drowned out or even flooded out.

Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters approached her, taking off his hat, and got it like a pail of water in the face.

"Hurr-um!" said Masters. "I beg your pardon, ma'am."

"Yes?" she said. Her voice was a low contralto. Pollard observed her very heavy and very rich blonde hair, which gleaned as she turned her head; it was arranged at the nape of the neck in a heavy and old-fashioned style of dressing, and it was probably this that brought notions of hansomcabs or New Arabian Nights. "Yes?"

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," pursued Masters, like a clockwork talker, "but am I addressing Mrs. Jeremy Derwent?

"Yes, that is I," replied the large blonde melodiously. She looked at Masters, and her eye seemed subtly to warn to him. "You-er-wished to speak to me? Or to my husband, perhaps? You will find him in the garden."

"I should like to see Mr Derwent all in good time, ma'am. But for the present I must inform you that I am a policeofficer from Scotland Yard, and I should like to have a few words with you, if quite convenient.

The announcement did not seem to startle her greatly, although the pale blue eyes, with very heavy lids, opened a little. There was also a pucker on her classic brow.

"I'm terribly afraid it isn't convenient, you know," she said gently. "I have a most urgent appointment. Oh, dear. I suppose it's about that tiresome Dartley business again. I did so hope that we had finished with it. Er - it is about Dartley, isn't it?"

"Partly, ma'am."

"Yes, of course: Dartley."

"No, ma'am. I said-" Masters pulled himself up, and cleared his throat. "I am bound to tell you that I have no authority to detain you, but it would be greatly to your advantage. Greatly, ma'am."

She hesitated. "But I don't see how I can. Unless" she bent forward sweepingly, her half-lowered eyes fixed on his face, and smiled-"unless, of course, you would care to ride along in the car with me?"

It is a sober fact that the back of Masters's neck went brick-red.

"Just so, ma'am," he agreed gruffly. "If you please."

"I am afraid that I cannot take more than one of you. But if you will follow me-"

It is probable that, as with a swishing of black lace she made a stately and graceful bend into the car, some part of her joggled Masters's arm. Something flew out of his hand, flashing brightly in the lamp-light, and the silver cigarette-case clattered round on the pavement. Mrs. Derwent gave a little ladylike scream as she turned her head; she saw it before Masters scooped it up; and for about a tenth of a second there was a certain quality in her expression which gave Pollard a cold shiver. Yet she smiled.

"Why, wherever did you get my cigarette-case?" she asked.

"You identify this as your cigarette-case, ma'am?"

"I believe so. May I see it? But of course. That is my monogram there in the corner, as you see in the J.D. figure. My Christian name is Janet. But please, if you will cone in after me-?"

The chauffeur slammed the door of the limousine. As the car swept past them, the watchers had a view of a richly cushioned tonneau, and Mrs. Derwent bending forward towards Masters with great smooth marbly coyness, and Masters with his bowler hat slightly tilted over his eyes.

From H.M.'s car Pollard now heard a low, unmelodious, strangled noise which he soon identified as mirth. Though H.M.'s expression hardly changed, he was rocking back and forth in a kind of wooden ecstasy. On and on went the mirth. There did not actually occur to Pollard the younger Weller's comment, "Well, I never see sitch an old ghost in all my born days. What are you laughin' at, corpilence?" But he was thinking something of the sort, and what he said was:

"Great suffering snakes! Do you think he can take care of himself?"

"Oh, he'll be all right, son," grunted H.M. soothingly. "He'll do his duty; and, when he does, that woman's goin' to be in for a very uncomfortable quarter of an hour. But, burn me, that I should ever 'a' lived to see this! She had him scooped into that car before you could say hocus-pocus allagazam "

"I suppose solicitors do own Daimler limousines," the sergeant considered. "But where was she going, do you think?"

With some difficulty H.M. crawled out from under the wheel. "That car? It was hired. There's a company that rents 'em out for the evening when you want to impress your friends. Humph. Come along, son., You and I are goin' in and have a little causerie with Derwent. Orders? Never you mind whether you got any orders; I'm the one who's got the authority, curse you, and don't you forget it. I'm glad to hear old Jem Derwent is at home. I rather like the feller."

"You mean you know him?"

"I know everybody, song' replied H.M. wearily. "Sure I know him, but that's why I was pretty careful to keep my head shut about it in front of Masters. Jem Derwent is a good man, and a thunderin' clever man. Now I wonder-?"

He pushed open one of the green doors. Inside .the high wall, a neglected-looking front garden was shadowed by green leaves. The house was square and unadorned, showing no lights. Instead of going to the front door, H.M. lumbered round to a side path which took them to the back. London seemed shut out altogether. Through a deep garden at the rear, a straight path ran down to a summer-house. And from the summer-house a faint light was shining. On moist air they could smell the smoke of a cigar.

A shaded lamp burned on a table in the summer-house. Beside it, leaning back in a basket-chair, sat a long lean man in a dinner-jacket. His long black legs were crossed; he seemed to be looking at something far away. Moths fluttered round his lamp, and a large brown one beat in zig-zags about the summer-house; but he did not stir an eyelid. Even when he lifted the cigar to his lips, the movement was so slow that the long ash did not flutter. In this complete immobility there was something disquieting and a little (the word occurred again) sinister.

But the first close sight of him dispelled it, when he rose. Jeremy Derwent might have been a few years past sixty. His manner was reserved to the point of dryness, but there was humor in it. It expressed him: even his white hair what little he had left of it - was of a wiry dryness. His temples were hollowed, his close-shaven chin pointed, and his look betrayed no secrets.

"That can't be Merrivale?" he said, in the same sort of dry voice. "I believe it is, though. My good sir, this is an unexpected pleasure. Please come in."

H.M. lumbered into the summer-house, wheezing.

"Hello, Jem," he said. "Jem, I got an awful lot to get off my chest, and I hope there'll be time for it. This is DetectiveSergeant Pollard, from a place you know of; and the Assistant Commissioner has roped me into it. Jem, I'm afraid we're here on business."

Nothing in Derwent's countenance seemed to change. He greeted Pollard with great courtesy, pushed two chairs towards the table, and remained standing until the others were seated.

"Now, I'm not goin' to lay any traps for you, or hide behind hanky-panky so I can jump out and say, 'Boo,"' H.M. went on. "You're a lawyer, and you know exactly how far you can go. If you wanted to start evadin' we could sit here all night. But I'm goin' to lay the facts out in front of you, and ask you questions to which Bob here will write down the answers. You know a feller named Vance Keating, don't you?"

Derwent's eyes narrowed slightly. "Yes."

"Jem, he was murdered this afternoon in a, room with the police guardin' door and window. Somebody shot him twice through the back at close range, and somehow flew away without bein' caught or seen. Point is: the house where Keating was killed is number 4 Berwick Terrace-where you used to live. And there were ten teacups on the table again."

Derwent trimmed the ash off his cigar, laid the cigar carefully on the edge of an ash-tray, and for a time he remained staring at the floor with his hands clasped together.

"That is shocking news, Merrivale," he said. "That is really ghastly news." He looked up. "But what do you want me to say?"

"Yes, it's shockin'. But does it surprise you?"

"It does, most decidedly. That is a mild way of putting it. Keating, of all people! Why, I was to have seen the poor fellow only last night. And then, frankly, this coming on top of that business at Pendragon Gardens-"

. "Uh-huh. Let's begin with that," suggested H.M. soothingly. "I won't ask what seems to be dogging you, so that as soon as you move out of a house somebody dies there. I'll be more practical. I'll ask what in the unholy blazes you mean by movin' house all over the shop as though the bailiffs were after you. You're a solid citizen. In your position you got to be. But in a little over two years you've lived at 18 Pendragon Gardens, 4 Berwick Terrace, and 33 Vernon Street; and now they tell me you're movin' again next week. Why?"

It would not be true to say that Derwent smiled: the effect was more that of a slight sardonic loop at the corner of his mouth, though his manner remained formal.

"My wife," he said, "my wife, I fear, is very sensitive to atmosphere."

"Oh, now, son! You can't mean that. Do you mean that, every time she got fed up with a house, she insisted on movin'? And you agreed?"

"Yes. My wife has great powers of persuasion. I fear you misunderstand me," he added dryly. "I referred to the power of speech. The power of speech can be a formidable weapon to any man who desires a quiet life, although I believe I am not the first man to make that discovery." "And that was the only reason?"

"That was the only reason."

"In that case," said H.M., sleepily regarding the moths that fluttered round the lamp, "you better hear the rest of the story." He told Derwent fully, and almost succeeded in rattling his host's composure. Towards the end of it the solicitor rose and began to pace gravely round the summerhouse; at times Derwent would rub the scanty, wiry white hair at the back of his skull, but it was his only nervous gesture. "You see what a narrow circle we have," H.M. concluded. "Excludin' the possibility that an outsider wandered in (as I suppose you can), we can be pretty sure that the gun was pinched, and Keating was shot, by one of the six people who were playin' Murder here last night. Add to this the fact that your wife's cigarette-case was found under the body-"

"It does not follow as a logical proposition," said Derwent dubiously, "though I admit there is strong contributory evidence. As for Mrs. Derwent, I can assure you that such a notion is fantastic. Or so I believe. The cigarette-case means nothing, even if it should be found to be covered with her fingerprints. Vance Keating was a young man addicted to the practice of casually picking up things. You yourself tell me that he was wearing his cousin's hat. If I found his pockets full of my cigars, or half a dozen bottles of my port in his wine-cellar, it would not surprise me. What I cannot understand, what seems to me the real deviltry in this affair, is the repetition of the-the teacups! It would amost seem, as you suggest, that something is dogging me."

"H'm. It would, wouldn't it? But let's talk about Keating. I hear you were his solicitor; so you knew him pretty well?"

Derwent considered. "Put it, if you like, that I was well acquainted with his legal and financial interests."

"That'll do to start with. Wealthy feller, wasn't he?"

"Most of the world knows that."

"Tell me, Jem: I don't suppose he ever made a will, did he?"

The other came back to his chair, picked up the cigar, and settled his lean body as though luxuriously.

"Yes, it is to his credit that he did. You may recall that the poor fellow was forever going off on some hazardous expedition, with no object, so far as I could see, but to gain some notoriety and a great deal of discomfort. Mr. Philip Keating and I prevailed on him to make a will. You will ask me about its provisions." He was silent, while the big brown moth battered in circles round the room. "Since Keating is dead, I have no objection to telling you. Aside from some minor bequests, his estate was equally divided between his cousin, Mr. Philip Keating, and his fiancee, Miss Frances Gale."

"You don't usually give-humph-gratuitous information, son," said H.M., opening one eye. "Have you got any purpose in tellin' me that?

Derwent frowned thoughtfully. "Your purpose in asking, I take it, was to find a possible motive. Well, I cannot see one there. It is true that Miss Gale's parents are not wealthy. It is also true that Mr. Philip Keating, like all of us, has at times encountered business reverses. But, honestly, Merrivale, the idea of either of them as a murderer is-most unlikely. Besides . . ."

"Besides? I think we're comin' to it."

"The will is no longer valid," replied Derwent gravely. "And here I confess I am in difficulties. I cannot tell you how I came to learn of the existence of a new will; it occurred over a debate on a matter of legal ethics, and I received the news through underground channels. I need scarcely say that I did not draw tip the new will. But I am informed on reliable authority that poor Keating did make a new one less than a week ago. Its provisions are simple. His entire estate is left to my wife."

CHAPTER EIGHT

An Absence of Moths

FOR A TIME H.M. remained staring at him with an expression as wooden as Derwent's own, staring up at him over glasses pulled down on his nose. Presently something like animation, or even a grunt of admiration verging on a chuckle, crept into H.M.'s look.

"Gor," he said. "Burn me, son, I always regarded you as rather a tough walnut to crack. The crackin' isn't so difficult; the trouble is to 'pick the pieces out of the shell. Here! Was the existence of this will pretty well known?'

"It was not. Aside from Keating and the friend of mine who drew it up, I believe I am the only one-" “What about Mrs. Derwent?"

Ah! That I cannot tell you, since I never asked her. But," said the other dryly, "I should think it likely that Keating mentioned the matter to her."

"I'll bet he did. You can see what this brings up, son. It gives her a whackin' motive, but you can see it gives you a motive too?"

"Of course. That was why I told you about it," explained Derwent. "It will be common knowledge in a day or two. And I prefer to thrash the matter over with you, and hear what you think of it, rather than risk your possible interpretation behind my back. Kindly attend me, now." Again he put down his cigar and bent forward, his pale, shrewd gray eyes fixed on H.M. "I am not a rich man. Certain wishes and caprices of my wife have at times cost me a great deal of money. I should not care to tell you, for example, what it cost me to send her, this evening, to visit two maiden aunts in Streatham in a hired limousine, so that she might impress them suitably-"

"Two maiden aunts," said H.M. "Poor old Masters. Well?" "-but Merrivale, I assure you I did not kill Keating, if that is what has entered your head. I do not think I would kill any person ... for money. And I had no grudge against the boy. Quite to the contrary, I wished him luck."

"You wished him luck," repeated H.M. in a somewhat hollow voice. "This case is openin' up all sorts of possibilities.

Right, then: was Keating makin' advances to your wife?" "To the best of my knowledge, he was." "And was there anything between them?" "Unfortunately, no."

Sergeant Pollard looked up from his shorthand. "I didn't quite catch that last, sir. Did you say `unfortunately' or 'fortunately?"

Derwent turned on him with dry indulgence. "Did I say `unfortunately?' Tut! A regrettable slip of the tongue, sir, I meant, of course, `fortunately.' After all, we are informed that virtue is the fairest jewel that can adorn the fair. The poets unanimously agree on this point, and some of Shakespeare's heroines carry it to an almost. gruesome extent. No, Mrs. Derwent is virtuous. For one who is beyond any doubt fond of men, she is the most virtuous woman I have ever known. Fortunately I am able to recall a passage or two early in our married life. Otherwise I might even now wonder to what obscure biological process - more suitable, perhaps, to a limerick than to real life-our son Jeremy owes his own existence."

He faced them with a smile of sober charm.

"You find me, gentlemen, in a mood to speak frankly. I am not often in this mood. It has been brought about during the past few minutes by the clear realization that this affair, when it-becomes public, means professional ruin for me. I am too old a man to feel any undue bitterness, but I had hoped for a quiet life. Even apart from the revelations that must come out concerning my wife, the fact remains that I have been the late tenant of two houses where two odd and brutal murders have been committed. Therefore I feel inclined to tell you curtly what the situation was between Keating and Mrs. Derwent.

"There has never been any infidelity, I regret to say, or I should have had grounds for divorce. My wife was aware that I would give her a divorce if Keating would consent to marry her. But when it came to the actuality I knew-and she knew-that Keating would never marry her under any circumstances. For the other side, Mrs. Derwent's native prudence has prevented her' from accepting him on any other grounds. She is the last woman in the world who would throw her bonnet over the windmill; of that I can assure you. And there the matter has rested."

"I see. Did you ever speak to Keating about it?"

"Never," said Derwent with some distaste. "And, if it is convenient, I should prefer not to discuss the matter further."

H.M. leaned forward. "Take it easy, Jem. I'm goin' to ask you just one last question. Don't you honestly believe that your wife was goin' to 4 Berwick Terrace this afternoon to meet Keating?-Wait, now, dammit! Stop a bit before you answer. I'm not suggestin' an assignation of the kind you mean. I don't think there was any such thing. People makin' an assignation don't usually choose tea-time in a dusty attic hole where the temperature is 105. It looks to me like a rite of some kind, though I dunno what. But if there were some mysterious crystal-gazin' or secret-society hocus-pocus concerned with the teacups, would she have been intrigued by it and apt to go? If she isn't interested in love-makin', is she at least interested in tomfoolery?"

Derwent reflected. "Yes, I concede that. Janet loves mystery as lesser women love sweets: though I should not deprecate her own love for sweets, since she consumes a five-pound box of chocolates in a week. But she is more interested in her soul. Therefore-"

"Well?"

"Therefore I am certain she was not invited to Berwick Terrace, or she would probably have gone. You see, Merrivale, I know what she was really doing this afternoon. A moment ago I mentioned her two maiden aunts, and the expense of sending her to visit them in a private limousine. For an evening's entertainment it might not have been so expensive. But this has been a gala day. She wished to give the aunts what she called a treat: a matinee, a tea-"

"You're not goin' to tell me," H.M. interrupted sharply, "that the car was hired for all day?"

Derwent inclined his head. "Since early this afternoon, yes. She was in the company of her aunts all afternoon. The sergeant will want their names and addresses: they are the Misses Alice and Lavinia Burkehart, `The Dovecot,' Park Road, S.W. 18. They went to the Shakespearean revival at the Shaftesbury Theater. They had tea at Frascati's, and I am instructed to say that they had tea at five o'clock." He raised his eyes. After a pause he went on: "This evening she changed into evening splendor and visited them to meet some of their friends. Since this outing has been planned for a week or two, I hardly think her arrangements for this afternoon can have concerned ten teacups."

"It's awful neat, son," said H.M. He regarded Derwent with a strange, fishy, malevolent look. "I don't want to carp about terms. But is this what you actually know to have happened? Or is this what she told you?"

"That, my dear Merrivale, I must leave up to your own decision."

"Oh," said H.M.

He lumbered up from his chair. He wandered in his nearsighted way to the door of the summer-house, and stood sniffing like an ogre at the warm night. Though the moths banged past him, none of them touched the upright, rather elegant old solicitor. The man, plainly, was indecipherable. Yet Pollard, as their host's eyes stole sideways towards H.M., thought that he had detected Mr. Jeremy Derwent in at least one lie. When they had arrived at 33 Vernon Street a while ago, Pollard remembered how the chauffeur of the limousine had approached the woman who came out of the door and inquired, "Mrs. Derwent?" But if the car had been hired all day the chauffeur must have known who she was already. Well?

"Jem" - H.M. spoke offhandedly, to the night "we've managed to obscure a lot in this little conversation; but, whatever else is obscured, I suppose you don't deny that somebody killed Keating. Got any ideas about it?"

"Yes. I should suggest that you look for the link."

"Link?"

"Exactly. The only factor that is common to the cases of both Dartley and Keating." Derwent spoke with a touch of impatience. "I suggest, my boy, that in the sensationalism of Keating's death you are in danger of forgetting Dartley altogether. What is the obvious common factor? In Dartley's case, there occurs the name of old Benjamin Soar, who has since died. In Keating's case, in the list of the six people who were here at my home last night for the entertaining if rather stupid game of Murder-"

"Yes. I was comin' to that."'

"-there occurs the name of young Benjamin Soar, who was closely associated with his father in their business for some years before the old man's death."

"I dunno that it's the only common factor. There's your wife and yourself too. It just depends on which end you start at. H'm. What are you conjurin' up, son? Visions of the murderous art-and-curio dealer prowlin' among his bric-a-brac? I say, has it ever struck you that there's somethin' a bit spooky about those places? It's fascinated everybody who's written about it. Think of Markheim standin' with his dagger among the clocks, and the little shop where Gautier bought the mummy's foot, and-"

"Nonsense," interrupted Derwent, eying him sharply. "Mr. Soar junior is an able and competent business man, who is putting what I believe they call `ginger' into his trade. I am far from even intimating that he would kill either Dartley or poor Keating. And his presence at my house for the Murder party last night is not a coincidence. I know him well. I have known him ever since we were thrown together at the time of the Dartley affair, as – ah - common factors in the sum."

"Where's the coincidence, then?"

"It is this," answered Derwent with a new intensity. It seemed to Pollard that he was trying to conceal this intensity; but his finger-nails scratched slightly on the table. "You may remember that Dartley, on the afternoon before he died, was alleged to have bought from old Benjamin Soar a set of Majolica cups painted with a design of peacocks' feathers?"

"Yes."

"And that he bought these cups under circumstances of secrecy: I may say of great secrecy?" "Yes."

"Then it may interest you to know that yesterday, on the afternoon before he died, Keating bought a certain article from the firm of Soar. He bought it under terms of some secrecy. He did not actually visit the shop, as we are informed that Dartley did not visit the shop either. The article Keating purchased was a Milanese cloth or shawl, of great beauty and evident antiquity, worked in gold leaf with a design of peacocks' feathers.- I should not be surprised if it were the table-cover you found in the room of the teacups."

He sat back, smiling humanly, and luxuriously for the first time. But if he expected to produce a sensation, or gall H.M.'s wits with a new puzzle, he was disappointed. H.M. only shook his head.

"To tell you the truth, I was expectin' something of, the kind. It may be important; but, all the same, I'm much more interested in that Murder party of yours. Did you get any details about Keating buyin' the shawl?"

"Unfortunately, no. The fact alone."

"How'd you come to hear about it at all?"

"Mr. Soar happened to mention it to me, in passing, at the unfortunate Murder party you speak of." Derwent's reserve drew over him again, and his voice became smoothly dry. He put his finger-tips together. "I should not have permitted that-that damned piece of childishness, Merrivale, though I confess the idea attracted me. You've heard that Mr. Keating did not appear. We wondered why, and Mr. Soar-"

"Aha, now we're gettin' down to it!" rumbled H.M., with his first sign of life. He turned round fully. "So it surprised you when Keating didn't turn up for the party, did it?"

"It surprised us very much. Keating had been particularly enthusiastic about the game; I believe he suggested the idea himself. He was anxious to try his hand at being the detective. But may I ask why you take so much interest in it?"

"Steady, son. Didn't you try to find out why he wasn't there?"

Derwent frowned. "Oh, here, Merrivale! I had expected him to escort Miss Gale. She arrived alone, somewhat flustered, and evidently reluctant to speak of it. I supposed there had been a tiff between them. Under the circumstances I hardly wished to press her."

"Sure. But did you hear anything about a row between Keating and a feller named Gardner, possibly over the Gale girl herself?"

"No, I did not."

"You seem surprised. Certain, now? Let's omit the old school stiffness and chivalry. The trouble was supposed to have taken place the night before your party: Monday night. Gardner threatened to kill him."

Their host studied the past. "It is news to me. I can only tell you that I think it highly unlikely. Good Lord, man! Ron Gardner! Besides, I saw Keating himself on Tuesday morning. I had business in Westminster; and, since there were-certain business matters to discuss with Keating himself, I called on him at his flat. He certainly said nothing of any trouble. On the contrary, he seemed in excellent spirits, and was looking forward to the game at my house that night."

"On Tuesday morning," said H.M. with laboring care, "he still expected to come to your party, Hey? And so something between Tuesday morning and Tuesday afternoon, when he told Frances Gale he couldn't go, made him change his mind. Oh, my eye. I told Masters it might be the blazin' query of the case." He brooded for a moment. "Let's get back to what Masters thinks is the blazin' query of the case. Jeremy Derwent. Janet Derwent. Philip Keating. Ronald Gardner. Frances Gale. Benjamin Soar. - Jem, which one of 'em pinched that revolver from your house?"

"Henry, I don't know," said Derwent.

There was a silence.

"I was afraid you were goin' to say that," admitted H.M. "The little joker in this case is much too subtle to be seen whiskin' a big .45 from under your noses. Still and all, you were the host. You ought to have been more observant than Frances Gale."

Closing his eyes as though in concentration, Derwent tapped his fingertips together very slowly.

"I agree. Let me see if I can recall it. At about half-past nine my wife retired from the party, having a headache. At this time I remember distinctly that the revolver was lying on the mantelpiece in the drawing-room at the front of the house. We played no more games of Murder after my wife left us. We sat in the drawing-room, chatting. At about half-past eleven Philip Keating suggested that it was time for him to be going. The others also wished to excuse themselves. I asked the men whether they would not drink a nightcap with me in my study at the rear of the house. They agreed, and Miss Gale accompanied us. I was the last to leave the drawing-room. I then noticed that the pistol was still lying on the mantelpiece, and I reminded myself to call Ronald Gardner's attention to it so that he should not forget it when he left. Am I clear so far?"

He opened his eyes sharply at this point, and closed them again.

"We went to my study. Four of us took a whisky-and-soda, and Miss Gale a light sherry. None of us left the room during this time. Miss Gale, as I told you, had been under some strain that night. After barely tasting her sherry, she suddenly showed signs of discomposure if not actual tears; she excused herself, and almost ran out of the room. We were surprised. Ronald Gardner finished his drink and followed her somewhat hurriedly after she had gone, explaining that she had offered him a lift home in her car. I walked with Gardner to the front door. He did not go near the door of the drawing-room: which was, I think, closed. I reminded him of the pistol. He answered me something to this effect - I quote from memory -'Oh, that's all right; it'll be in good hands.' At this time I took the words to mean that he was leaving the pistol behind, since he wished to catch up with Miss Gale and did not care to be bothered with it at the moment. Miss Gale was then in her car. I walked with him to the gate and saw them drive away.

"When I returned to the house Mr. Soar was standing outside the front door. Philip Keating was getting his hat from a coat-closet in the hall. I do not know whether either of them had gone into the drawing-room. Philip Keating had his car, and Mr. Soar chose to walk to the Notting Hill Gate Underground station. It was only when I began to lock up the house and turn out the lights that I noticed the revolver was missing. Then I did not know what to make of Gardner's words. I still do not. That's all."

Though his cigar had long ago gone out, he chose to emphasize the end of his story by a turn of his bony wrist in stabbing out the cigar on the ash-tray. Again his eyes moved sideways towards H.M., showing a twinkle of agile intelligence. Pollard always remembered him at that moment:

the scanty white hair that was a trifle ruffled, the faint smile, the wrist poised above the ash-tray as for a move at chess. Outside the summer-house a breeze stirred, and the garden frothed with white blossom.

"No questions, Henry?"

"No questions. You've said all you mean to say," H.M. informed him. H.M. pulled himself together. "Well, now, I expect we'd better be gettin' along. I got a whole lot to sit and think about tonight."

"Is your curiosity satisfied?"

"My curiosity? You know it ain't," H.M. returned rather sharply. "I sort of think that's on your mind right now. I appreciate your courteous and old-school attitude. I appreciate how you won't whisper evil of anyone by speculatin' as to who might 'a' pinched that gun, or who might 'a' committed an impossible crime at 4 Berwick Terrace-"

"That is not courtesy. That is caution."

"I know. They often amount to the same thing. But what I can't quite understand, d'ye see, is why you should be courteous about speakin' of a piece of furniture."

"I beg your pardon?"

H.M. squinted down his nose. "I got a friend named Masters. His particular bugbear is things that couldn't have happened but did happen: like this murder today. To the outward eye, that attic-room miracle of a murderer who vanished is the most bewildering thing in the whole case. Yet it don't bother you; it don't even interest you a flicker; you never even mention it casually. I'd like to know why. Even the room don't interest you. I tell you all about a load of furniture that the movin' men have brought there - a mahogany chair, a mahogany table, a nice carpet, a divan. And you don't speak up and say: `I don't know about the rest of the stuff, but the movin' men never brought that divan.'

"Because the movin' men never did bring it, Jem. That ain't subtle deduction; everybody noticed it. It was an old and dingy-lookin' piece of furniture. When I hit it with my hand, the dust came up in a cloud. So it'd been left behind in the house, probably by the last tenants when they moved out. And I was just wonderin

"Why I never mentioned it? But, man!" protested Derwent humorously. "Of course I never mentioned it. I fail to see its importance. Yes, it belonged to us, and we left it behind. It was always a favorite of Janet's. I daresay it gave her a feeling of Oriental luxury. Even when it became somewhat decrepit, it was relegated to the attic instead of being thrown out or given away."

"Yes; it does seem to have a special fascination. Frances Gale was mighty interested in it too. She was so interested in it that she didn't have eyes for anything else and didn't even notice the teacups. So I was just wonderin', that's all. Well, we won't keep you any longer. Sleep well."

Derwent rose and went with them to the door of the summer-house.

"Thanks. I will say only a bientot, gentlemen, for I feel sure the police will see me again. I feel sure they will want to know what I myself was doing this afternoon." He spoke with sudden seriousness. "Believe me, I am honestly grateful for this visit. I can't say more. I am sorry we could not have met to discuss the art of murder more amicably, over a cigar and a glass of port, rather than in a moth-ridden summer-house. However, one thing at least it will have taught you to observe."

H.M. turned round.

"You will have observed," said Derwent, smiling gravely, "that no moths have settled on me. Good night, gentlemen. Goo-ood night."

CHAPTER NINE

Stockbroker's Conscience

AT A LITTLE PAST nine o'clock on the following morning, Sergeant Pollard was mounting the dingy flights of stairs to H.M.'s office overlooking the Embankment. He had been told to go there when he had taken leave of H.M. on Wednesday night, and this morning he had been at the Yard since eight o'clock. Acting in a sergeant's capacity as a sort of secretary to his chief inspector during a murder-investigation, it was his duty to collect any information which might have come in over-night and prepare it in the form of a report for Masters. His report, containing a few more ugly facts, was ready now. But still there was no sign of Masters.

Nor of H.M., as he discovered when he reached H.M.'s office. The big, dingy room was as quiet as though there were no typewriters downstairs, and seemed shut away from Whitehall. Everywhere there were traces of H.M.'s untidy presence, from scattered papers to cigar-ends. The day was hot, and Pollard raised both windows. He prowled round the room. He inspected the Mephistophelian portrait of Fouche over the mantelpiece. Finally he sat down at H.M.'s desk, lit a cigarette, and began to read over what he had written.

Post-Mortem Report: Deceased was killed by two bullets fired from a .45 caliber revolver. One bullet pierced the supra-occipital bone and lodged against the frontal bone over the left eye. The other bullet entered the back between the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae, severing the nerves of the spinal cord, took an oblique upward direction, and lodged near the right lung. Both shots were fired within an inch of the body.

Firearms Report: Both bullets taken from the body were, beyond any doubt, fired by the Remington. 45 revolver presented for inspection (no registration number).

"And that is that," Pollard said aloud. He turned over the other sheet, which was the gist of the report from the divisional-inspector.

Furniture: On Tuesday morning, July 30th, the manager of the Atlas Furnishing Co., Oxford St., received a typewritten letter asking for one folding mahogany table, two light chairs of same, one plain black carpet size 10x12, one set black velvet curtains, with curtain rods, for window 4x5. (This is not the same company which supplied furniture in Dartley case.) Ten £10 notes were enclosed. The furniture was to be called for in the name of "Grant." On same date, Cartwright Hauling Co., Kensington High Street, was instructed by letter to pick up furniture and deliver to 4 Berwick Terrace. No key was enclosed, but door was to be open. The furniture was placed in front lower hall. Due to error at the Atlas Stores, only one of the chairs requested was delivered. (Cartwright Ltd. was the company which delivered furniture in Dartley case.)

At this point Pollard, who had been subconsciously listening to slow footsteps on the stairs outside the open door, glanced up from his notes.

"Excuse me," said a voice rather coldly; it may have been from nervousness.

In the doorway stood a plump, bustling-looking man with a bowler hat cradled over his arm. His round face, in spite of a somewhat hard gray eye, had an expression of good-living and good-nature. His thin brown hair was brushed and polished, like his well-cut black suit. But he was plainly disturbed. He entered in some suspicion, as though he expected to find a bucket of water poised over the door; then he pulled himself together. Pollard knew him at once.

"You can't be Merrivale?" he suggested, with tentative friendliness. "They-er-told me to come up here. I thought anything in the world could be wangled, but I never had to pull so many strings in my life as to get any information from the police. And I'm the man's relative, mind you. Bloody awful, I call it. My name is Keating, Philip Keating."

"Yes, sir. Come in. Sir Henry Merrivale will be here soon."

"Here, don't I know you?" asked Philip abruptly. "Of course I do; I've met you somewhere. No, don't tell me - I never forget a face. I'd have had your name like a shot if this infernal business hadn't put me off."

He seemed a trifle dashed at the news that Pollard was a police-officer; but he dug after details of their acquaintance, expertly; he established friendliness on a sound footing, and he seemed to feel that there were compensations. Then he hitched a chair close to the desk, lowering his voice. If Pollard had been going to talk business with him, the sergeant would have been very wary.

"This business," he said; "it's pretty rotten, isn't it?" Pollard agreed that it was.

"And in a way," Keating went on slowly, "it makes me feel such a swine."

"What does?"

"Oh, having a little argument with Vance just before he went out yesterday. Say what you like, Vance has always played the game with me; and I've tried to play the game with him. It's not important, but you know how these things affect you. It leaves a nasty taste, and you blame yourself, to think that the last time you saw a man alive' you said-"

Philip Keating's confidential air was interrupted by the gusty entrance of H.M.

He was an apparition. With a peculiar perverseness whose reason Pollard could imagine, H.M. did not today refuse to wear his collar. On the contrary, in addition to his ancient top-hat, he was tightened into full resplendent morning costume: morning-coat, striped trousers, wing collar, and gray cravat, over which he glared and perspired. He came sweeping round the corner of the door like a hansom-cab, a truly impressive figure. He looked like What The Government Wants. The effect was somewhat marred by his getting out a corn-cob pipe, lighting it with manifest relish, and putting his feet up on the desk.

Philip Keating greeted him with subdued heartiness. "Any other time, Sir Henry, I'd have been pleased to have made your acquaintance," he confided. "But this thing-well, it's jolly rotten, as I was telling Sergeant Pollard. Vance and I were more like brothers than cousins."

"Thanke'e, son. Yes, it must have been a bit of a shock," said H.M., looking sideways. "Old Boko gave you all the facts, didn't he? I asked him if he would."

"The Commissioner? Yes. But it isn't only Vance's death. You see, this thing will have repercussions," Philip confided, looking over his shoulder to make sure the door was shut. "I've often told Vance, it was all very well for him to be unconventional. He hadn't got his living to make. Call me respectable and psalm-singing. It's not that. Play the game, and no damn nonsense; that's my code. See what I mean? Besides, I don't violate a confidence when I tell you that I'm engaged to be married to Lady Prunella Aberystwyth-the Earl of Glambake's daughter, you know," he added, somewhat selfconsciously. "And old Glambake-"

"Not to interrupt you, son," said H.M., taking the pipe out of his mouth, "but would you mind tellin' me just exactly what you're talking about?"

"Don't you know who killed Vance?"

"Not just yet. Do you?"

"I can't tell you who it was, exactly. But I can tell you what it was. It was a secret society called the Ten Teacups."

There was a pause. H.M. laid down his pipe. Philip Keating regarded him with such heavy sincerity, and such worry on his round good-natured face, that H.M. appeared to hesitate.

"That's very interestin', son. What do you know about this society?"

"Not very much, I'm afraid. Only a hint or two Vance has dropped, and something I saw-well, never mind. I believe it's a sort of religious society."

"Religious society?"

"Not in any good sense. They worship something: I'm not certain what. Magic, or perpetual life, or transporting themselves into another age, or some such ruddy rot. Anyway, one of the subsidiary laws is that any man who is allowed to be come a member can take as his Bride, by an oath or something, any woman in the group he wants. Now, we're men of the world; and I don't say I object to stepping out with something nice myself; if it's done discreetly. But this flummery!

.. And here's the point., I'm pretty sure that Derwent woman is a member."

"Yes, that'd be understandable," H.M. conceded. He examined his shoes. "But a lot of questions come along with it. How big a society is it? How old is it? Where does it come from? What do the teacups mean? And does it bring about perpetual life by whackin' its members through the head with a bullet?"

Philip shook his head.

"I can't tell you that, I'm afraid. What I've told you has been pieced together, if you know what I mean. I think Vance was to have been initiated into it, and I think that Derwent woman is a leading spirit."

The curious part of it, Pollard was reflecting, was that this story of the Ten Teacups, which should have been so fantastic, did not sound fantastic in the least. It confirmed his original idea. And it was also right. The characters of Vance Keating and Janet Derwent suddenly fitted into that peacock pattern. He himself could testify how Keating, going into the place of the teacups, had removed his hat. He himself could testify that there was an atmosphere even in hot afternoon. And whatever you might think of charlatanism, one practical and obdurate fact stood out: that Keating had bequeathed to Mrs. Derwent a fortune of several hundred thousand pounds.

Pollard had time to consider several possibilities, since H.M. said nothing for quite some time. Then H.M. picked up his pipe as though dismissing the subject.

"You've brought us a load of dynamite, my lad," he said, "and I want time to think about it. D'ye see, that ain't the only surprise. I had your story prophesied all wrong. When you said, `Don't you know who killed Vance?' I thought you were goin' to give us an entirely different explanation. I thought you were goin' to say it was a feller named Gardner."

Philip opened his mouth, and shut it again. For some reason he seemed uncomfortable.

"No. No. Hang it all! There wasn't much in that. At least, I don't see-"

'Look here, we seem to have got the wires crossed. At that Murder party on Monday night, didn't you tell Frances Gale that there'd been a row between Gardner and Keating, and that Gardner had threatened to shoot him? I been a long time gettin' to the bottom of this, and I want to know the truth."

"Good Lord, no!" exclaimed the other, in plainly genuine astonishment. "Here, I say! It's you who've got the wires crossed. It wasn't Ron who threatened to kill Vance. It was Vance who threatened to kill Ron, and blooming well nearly did, at that. I know, because I was there. Vance was raging on about killing him, and how he'd got Ron into a corner and was going to make him confess. Then he shot at Ron but I don't suppose he meant to hit him, really, because the bullet went wild and smashed some glasses that Bartlett, Vance's valet, was carrying in on a tray.

"Well, I'm glad to hear there was no trouble," said H.M. "Just a nice little social evening, hey? When did this happen?"

"At Vance's flat, on Monday night." Philip frowned, but he did not seem nervous. "Still, I shouldn't take too much stock in it, if I were you. Vance had a devil of a temper when he got started; he called it artistic temperament, or some such rubbish. And I'll tell you a little secret. Vance was a good man, and in most things he'd got twice as much guts as anyone else; but secretly-right down in his heart-he was afraid of firearms. I don't know why. He'd have died rather than admit it, and ever since we were kids he's been trying to conquer it. He may have lost his head in the excitement, having the gun.... "

"It don't look like a small thing to me, son. Let's hear exactly what happened."

"If I've got to-?" Philip hesitated, and examined a well-polished shoe. "It happens that I've got a flat in the same building as Vance, two floors higher up. We were constantly walking in and out of each other's flats. On Monday evening, about eight o'clock, I went up to see Vance. I didn't bother to knock; the door is always on the latch. Inside there's a long hall that runs through the flat." He stopped. "Unfortunately, I'm not one of those fellows who can overhear a quick-fire conversation and then repeat it word for word. I've often wondered how they do it in the trials. It was all over too dashed quickly. Anyhow, I was in the hall, and I heard Vance in the living-room going hammer-and-tongs, ending with, `Now I've got you cornered, so just admit it!' or something of the sort. Then Ron said something, and Bartlett - Vance's valet - shouted, `For God's sake, sir, look ''out!' Then, bang! the gun, and a sound of glass smashing all over the show. For a secand I didn't know what to do. Then I . . . er . . . went pretty quietly to the living-room door, and looked round it. There was Vance, with a revolver in his hand, facing me; and Ron looking grim; and Bartlett at a side-table with a tray and a bottle, and some glasses smashed to blazes. Over at the other side of the room, Hawkins - that's the waiter who serves the meals-was poking his head through the door. All like a ruddy wax-works."

"I see. What'd you do then?"

"The fact is," Philip began impressively, and stopped. "You can see my position," he went on, altering his tone to a sort of cherubic growl. "It's all very well for Vance to be unconventional. But for me to be mixed up in any rows-fights -lawsuits-what Prunella's father would say-"

"You mean you turned round and tiptoed out of there as fast as you could cut?"

"To put it briefly, I did. You can see my position. I decided not to inquire into the business. None of my affair. Least said, soonest mended. At least, that's how I look at it. So I decided," he spoke with complacency or shrewdness, "to be a jolly good fellow with everybody concerned, and not to mention it unless anybody mentioned it to me. And nobody did. Of course, I felt bound to drop a hint to Frances Gale. That's a wonderful girl, Sir Henry. On the night of Derwent's party I felt bound to give her a hint, to explain why Vance wasn't there-"

H.M. regarded him with fishy eyes.

"And scared the blazin' daylights out of her," he commented. "I got an idea her romantic soul saw pistols at twenty paces in Hyde Park. You're a model o' tact, son; I heard her remark on, it. Then this row was over Frances Gale, was it?"

"That's what I gathered," said Philip stiffly. "I certainly heard her name mentioned when Vance was talking."

"Cousin Vance was jealous, then? He wanted Gardner to `confess' somethin' about Frances Gale?"

"I didn't say that," returned Philip calmly. "I don't know what it was. I only mention her name at all to show you it was another example of Vance's `temperament.' Frances is a jolly decent girl, and nobody will tell you any different." He sat back, tapping his fingers together. "No. You don't want to confuse the issue with quarrels like that. You go after the Ten Teacups. If you can find 'em. This Disappearing Murderer trick: that's the worst of it. I couldn't believe my two ears when I heard about it. I was at a cocktail party this afternoon, at the Dorchester, when it must have been happening. That disappearing murderer is some flummery, tied up with this teacup. business. If you ask me, it's some mechanical device hidden in there. It-"

"Again not to interrupt you," said H.M., "but I don't think we can duck out of the quarrel as easy as that, son. Humph, no. By your statement, Gardner is beginnin' to take on highly sinister colors-"

"Don't get the wrong impression," Philip urged, as though eager not to speak ill. "Ron's a decent sort. He'd have been a great cricketer if he'd been willing to keep in condition. But I've told him like a Dutch uncle, you can't drink whisky and expect to have a good eye. Stands to reason. He's even written a good travel-book, or at least they tell me it's good though -" Philip smiled jovially-"I've often asked him who wrote it for him. And I'm afraid he's an utter ass about money. That's why he's lost most of what he had. But there it is. I can't honestly see him concerned in this. There's just one thing that bothers me...."

"The gun, hey?"

"So you noticed that," said the other, in a slightly altered tone. "Well, yes - the gun. Sir Henry, the revolver that Vance used to take a shot at Ron, on Monday night, was the same one that was used to kill Vance himself."

"You're sure of that, now?"

"Positive. I've seen that revolver too often at Ron's, and it's too distinctive. When I looked in the living-room at Vance's flat, I knew it immediately. There wasn't a great deal of light, a lamp or two on the tables; but Vance was standing near one and the light was on it. Good gad, you can imagine the start I got when I saw the same gun turn up again on Wednesday night at Derwent's party! Ron bringing it, mind you. In fact, he seemed more concerned about a tin dagger that he brought than about the gun. Of course, I didn't say anything. And I can't say I'm much impressed by it. Even Ron wouldn't be such a chump as to kill Vance with his own gun. But, after all, I should think it calls for questioning. It was Ron's gun. He did bring it to Derwent's house. He did take it away with him, and he's the last person known to have had it in his possession...."

"Hold on!" roared H.M., straightening in his chair with such abruptness that Philip started. "Think what you're sayin', son. Take a deep mental reflect, and don't get this tangled up no matter what else you tell us. Are you certain Gardner took that gun away from Derwent's house on the night of the party?"

"Yes, of course. -Ask young Ben Soar, if you don't believe me."

On H.M.'s desk the telephone-bell rang sharply.

H.M. wasted only a moment in blank staring before he picked up the telephone and groused at it. His expression became wooden again; he put back the receiver, and got up.

"Son," he said to Philip in a colorless voice, "I got a little favor I'd like to ask you. I wonder if you'd mind waitin' in a room downstairs for about ten minutes before I fetch you up again? It's a nice room. All the top-hats from the diplomatic bunch wait there; I got La Vie Parisienne there, and Snappy Sketches, and all the readin' matter they like. Thanks. Lollypopl"

A genial but somewhat suspicious Keating was edged out of the room, after which H.M. turned to Pollard.

"It's Masters," he explained," not without a certain expression, "back from his evil joy-ride to Streatham. And that ain't all. He's got Frances Gale with him; and it seems she wants to tell us something about a divan, d'ye see."

CHAPTER TEN The Burn on the Carpet

IT WAS an almost majestic chief inspector who entered alone: brisk, freshly shaven, and bland. In one hand he had a briefcase and in the other a small valise.

"Ah, sir," he boomed, either not at all abashed or pretending not to be. He put his hat on the desk with great nicety. "Bit cooler this morning, don't you think? Morning, Bob."

"Ho, ho," said H.M. "Come off it, Masters. You don't fool me. Burn me, I been lookin' forward all night to the story of your interview with the Kurse of Kensington; and you're not goin' to deprive me of a syllable of it now. Come on: let's hear it."

For a moment Masters glowered.

"Well, sir, just between ourselves, I don't mind admitting-" "So that's how it is. Masters, confess! You were scared

of her."

"No, sir, I was not," replied the chief inspector with dignity. "It's not that, exactly. But I don't mind admitting, just between ourselves, I kept thinking: Lummy, suppose Mrs. M. should poke her head into the car now! And it hurrum! It's that woman's manner, like." He got out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. "But that's not all. If anybody'd told me, Sir Henry, that after twenty-five years in the Force, a-a blooming plaster Venus could make a fool of me ... ur! I beg your pardon, Bob. Do you happen to see anything funny in this?"

"Yes, sir," said Pollard.

"You just attend to your notes, my lad," said Masters darkly, "and you leave other things to them that know better. As I was saying, Sir Henry. I don't mean make a fool of me in the way you mean. I'm a copper, and I know my duty. But -suppose we get down to business. Whatever I did or I didn't find out--' he tapped the desk impressively-"two things I did establish.

"First, the fingerprints on that cigarette-case-the woman's fingerprints-aren't Mrs. Derwent's.

"Second, for the whole afternoon of the murder Mrs. Derwent has a cast-iron alibi. Eh?"

H. M. nodded. "Yes, we got an inkling of that," he grumbled, looking at a corner of the ceiling. "We been gatherin' some information too. Now, now, Masters, nobody's trying to pull your leg. What happened?"

Masters hesitated. "I suppose I'd better get it over with. But mind!" He mopped his face again. "We got into the car, as described. First I tackled her about that cigarette-case: where did she last see it, and so on. First she only laughed and sort of - hurrum. Then all of a sudden she remembered. She said, of course, she had given it to a friend of hers on Monday afternoon. The friend was Mr. Vance Keating. It seems that she and Keating and her husband (got that, sir?) had been having tea together on Monday afternoon. Keating had borrowed the case and forgot to return it. That gave me a handle. I went on the, assumption that, if Keating intended to meet her yesterday, he might have taken the case along to give it back. Then I let her have the news about Keating's death."

"Well?" prompted H.M.

"I don't mind admitting I wasn't quite prepared for what happened. For a second she just looked at me-queer; I don't know how to tell you. Then she leaned back and screamed. Yes, screamed. Gawd lummy, said Masters in an awed voice, "that lady's a one. I never heard such a screech in all my born days. The car swerved over and nearly hit the curb. The chauffeur turned round, looking like thunder. Then he stopped the car and got out and opened the back door. By this time that woman was leaning back in a corner, breathing soft-like, with the tears coming out of her eyes, and her hand up sort of shading her eyes

"Well, sir, blowed if that chauffeur didn't grab my arm. He said I know what games you're up to, my bucko; out you get. I said I was a police officer. He said horseradish; and then blowed if he didn't haul off and try to paste me one. I tell you, it's a kind of atmosphere that woman's got. It makes everybody act like that---'

"Lord love a duck," breathed H.M., his eyes opening. "And what did you do?"

"There was nothing for it but to paste him back. Then I nipped behind him and got his arm locked so he wouldn't move; but he was yelling by that time. And the crowd started. And - now, we needn't go into that. The point is," growled Masters, "that all the time the commotion was going on, either out of devilment or to give her time to think what she was going to say, that woman was lying back pretending to cry, and laughing at me through her fingers.

"I knew it. She knew I knew it. But she was the one who quietened the row. Ah. By leaning out, all handsome and overcome, and saying please, it was all right. But she did it in such a way that everybody in the crowd (the copper included) thought she was only trying to avoid scandal. Cor, the things they said about me made my ears-!

"We got started again. But she wasn't through with me yet, and she kept patting my knee. She started off about how terrible it was, and how everybody knew how fond Mr. Vance Keating was of her, though it was all innocent. She said they might even suspect her, eh? I said yes, they ruddy well might. Then she said the only thing to do was to take me straight to the people who could prove her as pure as whatnot. You mightn't believe it, but she took me straight to-"

"I know," said H.M. drowsily. "To The Dovecot,' Park Road, S.W. 18."

Masters peered at him. "Here, now! You didn't put up this thing on me, did you? So help me, if I thought you had-" "No, no. Carry on."

"To, as you say," agreed the chief inspector grimly, "'The Dovecot,' Park Road, S.W. 18. Home of two maiden aunts. And there was a sort of bridge-party-swaray going on. Before

I knew what she was up to, or I could grab her alone, she walked me straight into the middle of it, proclaiming the news. Blowed if the 'ole shoot didn't gather round her like a tragedy queen, or the like; and then they all set about my ears. Oh, Mrs. Derwent had it all her own way, she had. She's the cleverest lady I ever met. Instead of me asking her questions, it was me that couldn't fight through the mob. They said how exciting it was-ur! - to have a real Scotland Yard man there. They asked me was it true or not that we went about in disguise, and what about the Bournemouth trunk-murder, and the rest of it. Oh, I fought through 'em, all right. But all I got for my pains was a corporate alibi as big as a house, and the proof that her fingerprints weren't on the case."

Masters's account of Janet Derwent's movements on Wednesday afternoon tallied exactly with Derwent's own account of the night before.

"For a second," he explained, "I thought I might have caught her out. I mean, that business of having hired the car all day. The chauffer who was waiting for her in Vernon Street (you noticed it?) didn't know her when she came out of her house to get into the car. But that wouldn't wash. In hired cars of that kind, they've got afternoon and evening drivers. It was a different one who drove her in the afternoon. Well, this morning I nipped round to the Mercury Motor Services, and saw the man who drove her in the afternoon. At five o'clock, when Mr. Keating was shot, she was just walking out of a restaurant in Oxford Street with two aunts and three other people who'd been to the theater with 'em. Alibi. Solid." Masters drew a long breath of tigerish resonance. "And now you know as much as I do."

"Yes, you had quite a night," H.M. acknowledged. "You need a drink, and you're goin' to have one. Maybe you'll be a bit cheered by what we've got to tell you. But give me an impression first. What did you make of Mrs.. D.? Aside from the fact that she's clever?"

"A wrong 'un," said Masters promptly. "Cold as ice, and something more. I know the sort. Nesta Payne, that we hanged eight or ten years ago, was like it; only she hadn't got the abilities or advantages of this lady. That sort don't commit murders, as a rule. But they stand by and watch murders being done - ah, and they never break down afterwards, like the more human kind. I admit this alibi is sound, but I don't like it. Sounds too arranged and well-prepared beforehand. If Mrs. Derwent stood to gain anything out of Keatsag's death, I'd begin to look for the man behind her. . . ."

"She does stand to gain by it," said H.M. "I dunno how much Keating left, but it must be a couple of hundred thousand at least. And she bags the lot." Briefly, and with surprising conciseness, he told of the interview with Derwent. "Now draw whatever deductions suit your whiskers. But for the love of Mike, Masters, don't go jumpin' to conclusions before you've even met Jem Derwent. Hey?"

"You ought to know, sir, that I never jump to conclusions," declared Masters. H.M. looked at him, but Masters was dogged. "Though that gives me several ideas, which I'll keep to myself-like you. But Derwent! Derwent! Why, I heard something about that gentleman only this morning."

Masters was now clumping up and down the room with a curiously pigeon-toed walk. He shook his head as he glanced at H.M.

"No, nothing , to Mr. Derwent's discredit. Quite the contrary, it makes him look more like an honest man. I heard it from the Assistant Commissioner this morning; when I was being officially put in charge of this case. The fact is, Mr. Derwent has been trying to reopen the Dartley case. Just so. He's got a theory, it seems. He's been at the Yard three or four times in the past month trying to get our file on Dartley. Something to do with an idea that a few times in the past the very respectable firm of Benjamin Soar & Son have been suspected of selling fake antiques."

From the way in which Masters looked at H.M., Pollard suspected that this was bait. But H.M. made no response, except to say:

"And they also told you, doubtless, that they were shovin' Philip Keating down here to me. Interestin' study, Philip. I say, Bob, you might read out to Masters a transcript of the more salient points in Philip's story." While Pollard read, H.M. watched the chief inspector with sour amusement. "I don't think you're going to jeer so much at the idea of the Ten Teacups as a secret society now; eh, Masters?"

"That's as may be, sir."

"Meanin' nothin'. Oh, well. You see the intriguin' part?"

"Too many of them, and all questions," Masters decided. "Either there is a secret society called the Ten Teacups, or there isn't. Either Mrs. Derwent is a member, or she isn't. Either Gardner had a row with Keating, or he didn't. Either Gardner took the gun away from Derwent's house on Tuesday night, or he didn't.... "

H.M. was disturbed. "Either it'll rain tomorrow, or it won't. No, no, son. You can make a problem out of anything on earth if all you do is make a statement and then give the converse of it. This business surely ain't as complex as all that. No, I meant the interesting part: the character of Philip Keating. Don't you agree, Bob?"

"Keating?" said Pollard, surprised. "You mean Derwent, don't you?"

"So you don't agree? Well ... now," said H.M., muttering. "For the sake of argument, suppose you give me your impressions of him in a thumbnail character-sketch."

The sergeant considered. "I'd call him more of a type than anything else. Pleasant, at least on the surface. Cautious. Likes to be thought of as a Friend of the Family. Prides himself on brusque manners, but probably a little indecisive. He might swindle you, but I doubt if he'd murder you. Loyal to the people he likes. He's clearly fond of Frances Gale, and just as clearly he hates Mrs. Derwent "

"Yes. Then why," said H.M. obstinately, "did he murder her?"

There was a silence. The other two stared at him, while H.M. stirred with ghoulish mirth.

"Why did he murder Mrs. Derwent? No, my lads. I don't mean in real life: I mean in the one Murder game they did play at Derwent's house on Tuesday night. You remember, the Gale gal told us they did play one short game at the party, before Mrs. D. complained of a headache and went upstairs? Uh-huh. Philip Keating was the murderer, and the corpse was Mrs. Derwent. He caught her on a couch in Jem's den, and strangled herewith the noose. I say, Masters, did you ever play that parlor pastime called Murder?"

The chief inspector intimated that he had better things to do than to fool about like that. He plainly thought H.M. was off on another digression. "And speaking of Miss Gale," he pointed out, "hadn't we better have her up here? She's downstairs, and she won't talk to anybody but you, for some reason-"

"Y'see, I got a childish mind," explained H.M., ignoring this and staring into space. "I do like playin' it. And there's one thing about it I've always observed. If you're the murderer in that game, you never murder anybody except someone you like or that you're pretty intimate with. Why it is I dunno; I'm just statin' the fact. There don't` seem to be the same homely, happy feeling about murdering somebody that you dislike or that you don't know. People shy away from it; I never knew anybody in a game who bumped off a person he didn't get on with in ordinary life; and they'll shuff!e round half the evening before they do it. Say I'm wool-gatherin' again, if you like. You probably will. But if Philip Keating honestly dislikes Mrs. D., then why, burn me, why did he murder her?"

Masters grinned.

"Bit too subtle for me, I'm afraid. Maybe it's one of these repressed desires you read about in the papers. Come, sir! If you've got anything more practical-?"

"No. Just one more kink, son. Why is our friend Philip so certain his cousin Vance was murdered with some kind o' mechanical device?"

This struck Masters, in the phrase, where he lived.

"Mechanical device?" he demanded. "What about a mechanical device? What mechanical device?"

"Ho ho. Your old hobgoblin with the thirty-nine tails, ain't it, Masters? I don't know. It only struck me as very, very rummy that right in the middle of Philip's talk he should come out with the statement about a mechanical device. It didn't seem to fit into the smooth run of his character. It didn't seem like him. But, of course, I may be wool-gatherin' again. Hey?"

"But, blast it-! Look here, Bob, have you got that postmortem report?" Masters hesitated. He took the report, studied it, and returned it to H.M. Something in the report appeared to interest H.M., so that Masters eyed him dubiously. "Any leads? So far as I'm concerned, it looks as though the thing's settled. He was shot with that .45. Mechanical device! You mean some sort of gun-trap that might have been rigged up, so that he pulled a string or something, and shot himself? But would it shoot him twice? Would it shoot him in different places? And where in lum's name is it?"

Again the chief inspector looked at H.M. suspiciously.

"Odd, sir. Very odd that you should mention mechanical devices. I don't mind admitting it'd occurred to me. Now, I don't go in for fiction much; but I once saw a trick in a play -practical as paint. It was a gun-mechanism concealed in a telephone receiver. The bell rang; victim picked up the receiver; receiver opposite the side of his head; bang! Shot over the ear, and not a sign of a murderer. Just so. Consequently, I admit I've been thinking a bit about that gas-bracket...."

"Gas-bracket?" roared H.M., sitting up. "What gas-bracket?"

A very faint grin began to creep over Masters's face, though he tried to keep an air of bland innocence.

"Hadn't you noticed it? Hum! I should have thought you'd have noticed it-"

"Masters," said H.M., "you been holdin' out on me, just the same as you always do. So you're up to your old tricks again, hey? Burn me, I'm not goin' to stand for this! Nothin' delights your soul more than to do me in the eye-"

"Well, it's what you always do to me," Masters replied philosophically. "Now, sir, no call to go off the deep end like that! I'll just call your attention to that attic room, if you please. You remember it's got a low ceiling; eight or nine feet at the most?"

"I suppose I got to listen to this. Well?"

"And you saw," pursued Masters, "that there sticks down from the ceiling a straight length of gas-pipe, without a fixture or anything, but ending in a lead plug? Just so. Now, this pipe isn't in the center of the room. It's more towards the door, like. Fact is, it's very close over the exact spot where the body was lying." Again the chief inspector eyed him keenly. "I like to keep these little things to myself, until I've got some sort of case. But there it is. Rum fact, sir, but the size-round of an average gas-pipe is about the same as the barrel of a .45 revolver. Eh?"

H.M. looked at him with real curiosity. "I say, son. Were you so burnin' eager to do me in the eye that you didn't pull the thing out of the ceiling and have a good look? `The Gun in the Gas-Pipe,' by H. Masters. You got a romantic soul. Also, if there was any trap like that, who obligingly shoved the lead cap back on the pipe after it was used?"

"Oh, Cotteril's attending to that today," Masters grinned, and then became serious. "Mind you, I don't say it is true. Especially as it's upset by the report that the .45 really was used. But I'll give you another. tip that you mayn't have noticed. Smack under that gas-pipe there was a powder-bum on the carpet. Eh?"

There was a sharp and rather angry knock at the door. The door opened, and Frances Gale came in.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nobody's Hat

THE SUBJECT was closed as quickly as though someone had shut down a lid, and Masters became his bland self again. Frances Gale stood looking from one to the other of them, her chin up. Though she seemed willing to meet apologies half way, still there was about her a certain defiance which might have been embarrassment. Today she looked older, and paler, and curiously more swashbuckling: possibly because of a tilted blue hat.

"If this is another kind of third-degree," she said coolly, "I don't like it. I won't wait any longer. You promised to play fair, Mr. Masters. My father told me that you-" she looked at H.M. accusingly-"would play fair. He - he was going to bring me here with a whole crowd of solicitors, or something. But I couldn't stand that. I ducked out of the house while they were still arguing."

"I sorta thought Bokey would send you round here, admitted H.M., who for some mysterious reason seemed uncomfortable under her eye. "But if you'd like to get a few things off your mind-"

"I think you're beasts, all of you," said Miss Gale. "But I'm ready to tell you what you want to know, if you must know it."

"Now, miss, if you don't mind my saying so, that's the real spirit!" applauded Masters, with broad and deceptive heartiness. Masters bustled round to get her a chair. At the same time he casually took Janet Derwent's cigarette-case from his pocket. "Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but you understand how these things are." He extended the cigarettecase. "Will you have a cigarette, miss?"

She regarded it coolly, but with a heightened color.

"Oh. That's the case you found under poor Vance's body, isn't it?"

"Straight in the eye, son," observed H.M. drowsily. "The women are unlucky for you today."

"Now might I ask, miss," pursued Masters, pulling himself up, "how you know that? I didn't say anything about the case to you yesterday. The report isn't in the papers this morning." "My dear friend Mrs. Derwent phoned all her friends about it this morning. Even including me." For the first time since they had known her, a twinkle of life and amusement, almost an impish look, appeared in her brown eyes. "What's more, Mr. Chief Inspector, you don't scare me any longer. That's one I've got on you. I know all about how you tried to make violent love to her in the car last night---'

"Honest to God, Masters, did you?" inquired H.M., turning his head with interest. All Masters's iron self-control was required now.

"No, sir, I did not," said Masters, with bursting calmness.

"I don't suppose you did, really," the girl conceded. "Poor Mrs. Derwent says that about everybody, whether they do or whether they don't. Even about poor Philip. But all I've got to do is just to think of you in that car, and what you were supposed to have done and all, and - well, you don't scare me any longer. I know what you want to know. You want to know whether my fingerprints might be on that cigarette-case. Yes, I should think maybe they are."

"Ha ha," said Masters. "You intend to confess to the murder, miss?"

"Don't talk like that, even as a joke." She looked at him sharply. "One part of dear Mrs. Derwent's story is true, anyway. Vance certainly had the case on Monday afternoon, after he'd had tea with her. I know, because I saw him afterwards, and I handled the cigarette-case."

"That's a bit odd, miss. I seem to remember reading in one of the papers my wife takes -The Christian Family Guardsman, or the like-that you were one of our finest young lady athletes because you didn't either drink or smoke."

Again she looked at him.

"I don't, usually. Though I have wine sometimes. But it wasn't to smoke. I found the mirror in my compact was broken. (And it did bring bad luck, as I told my father.) I was fussing about it, and Vance handed me that polished cigarette-case that's as bright as a mirror, and said, `Here, use this.' When I saw whose case it was, I thought he'd done it deliberately, and I was going to throw it in his face. Oo, I was furious! But he didn't mean anything by it. Vance was just - like that."

At the mention of the cigarette-case in this capacity, a curious expression changed the wrinkles in H.M.'s forehead. He reached over and took the case from Masters. He studied it. But he did not speak.

"Now, miss, let's get down to it," the chief inspector went on. "I asked you two questions yesterday, and you chose to fly off the handle. Kindly answer them now. First, you denied that you were driving past Berwick Terrace yesterday afternoon in a blue Talbot, and looking at the house where-"

"Of course I denied it. You know why, don't you? Since you've talked to dear Mrs. Derwent, I suppose you know it all. I was spying, that's what I was doing."

"You followed Mr. Keating to Berwick Terrace?"

"Yes. That is - I hadn't intended to, at first." She looked miserable: less, Pollard thought, from grief than from humiliation. Her finger-nail dug at the arm of the chair. "I drove round to Lincoln Mansions, where Vance lives, to see him, and find out what was wrong. He was just going away in a taxi. When I saw him go to that house in Berwick Terrace, I didn't know what to think. So I drove round a few more streets, and came back. Some other man-" she glanced briefly at Pollard" was just going up the steps, and I couldn't make it out."

"Did it surprise you to see Mr. Keating going to an empty house?"

"No."

"Why not, miss?"

She made her fingers walk along the arm of the chair with some concentration. "You had another question, Mr. Masters. You asked me yesterday why I got the keys and viewed that house three months ago. I didn't want to view the beastly place. I never even wanted to go near it. But saying that was the only way I could get the keys from the agents, so I could get in. Because of course I couldn't explain the real reason-"

"What was what?"

"Mrs. Derwent sent me," replied Frances Gale, her jaw growing mutinous.

"I told you I'd only known her six months," she went on, after a pause. "And I didn't know her quite so well then. But I knew why she'd sent me directly after I went there, the old cat! You see, about every three months or so she gets a spell when her-her soul grows sick, or something-" Frances made a face - and she lies up in bed, very queenly, and tries to hypnotize herself, and talks about her lovers. Well, once when I was there she suddenly sat up, as though she'd fallen into a trance, and began talking about letters. She said she'd just remembered. She said that in the house where they'd moved from (Berwick Terrace, you know) she remembered that she had left behind some letters in a secret hiding place. She said she couldn't bear the thought of someone moving into that house and finding the letters. She said-oh, she went on awful!

"I was a bit frightened. Yes, I was. She made me promise to go and get the letters for her immediately. At first she thought she had the keys to the house, which she'd never given back; but she found they weren't there. So she asked me to go to the house-agents....

"And do you know why she did it? I got the letters, all right. It was because several of them were from Vance. Of course she knew I would read all of them, the old cat."

She brooded on this; but, all the same, she seemed relieved to tell it at last. H.M. laid down the cigarette-case.

"Uh-huh. Quite a wench. But that's not the part of it we're most curious about. You say these letters were tucked away in a secret hidin' place of some kind. Have I got any reason for a belief that this hidin' place was somewhere in or around an old brown divan in the attic?"

"Yes, you have. It was rather a favorite of hers. She told me she used to lie on it and have all kinds of dreams. There was something about it, she said." The girl floundered. "Anyhow, the letters were in the divan. You see, it's hollow."

"Hollow?" repeated Masters, getting very slowly to his feet.

"Not exactly hollow. But half of it opens on a hinge. I don't mean it opens out like a bed, because it's big enough for a bed anyway. But it opens just that way, and there's a space inside where you can store pillows or blankets or anything like that. You'd never know the hinges were there, either.... I say, what's wrong?"

"Now just one minute, miss!" urged Masters, waving his hand at her like a mesmerist. "Do you mean there's a space big enough for somebody to hide inside that divan?"

"No, I don't think so." She looked startled. "That is, not unless the person was very tiny and as thin as - as a pillow. No, it wouldn't do. Besides, the person would smother."

Nevertheless Masters, with a muttered oath, had already reached after the telephone to ring up Inspector Cotteril. H.M., undisturbed, continued to pull at his corncob pipe.

"I don't think it's as easy as that, son," he said. "I'm like the gal; I don't think any murderer could have slid away inside there. But there might be somethin' interesting in it. . . . I say." He contemplated Frances Gale. "You've been answerin' a lot of questions you refused to answer yesterday. Now that we're all gettin' along well and smoothly, would you like to take anything back?"

"Take anything back? I don't understand."

"For instance," said H.M., making a drowsy gesture, "you told us that, from your certain knowledge, your friend Gardner didn't and couldn't have pinched that Remington revolver out of Derwent's house on the night of the Murder party."

"Well?"

"Does it stand?"

"It does, absolutely!" cried the girl, clenching her hands. "I wish you'd stop! You're making Ron a kind of-of dummy, or scapegoat, or something. He didn't, I tell you. He didn't, he didn't! Why don't you go and ask him? He's at Lincoln Mansions this morning. He ... who says he did take it?"

"Philip Keating. By the way, Masters, I think we'd better have Friend Philip back up here."

Masters had finished his telephoning, and H.M. gave the necessary instructions. The girl remained quiet and defiant. Studying her, Masters opened the valise he had brought in. On H.M.'s desk he put down the soft gray hat inscribed inside with Philip's name, and the .45 revolver. Though she flinched a little at the sight of the pistol, she made no comment. Keating, entering a moment later, was plainly surprised to find her here, and showed some traces of apprehension.

"Frances, old girl," he said with subdued heartiness, "I haven't had a chance to see you and tell you how sorry I am for you in your great-"

"Oh, bah," she said, and turned on him, flaming. "Philip Keating, I want to know what's got into you recently. You don't seem like yourself. You seem queer. You seem funny.

Did you tell these people that Ron Gardner took that gun-" she pointed at it "home with him on Tuesday night? Philip Keating, you know perfectly well he didn't. I should think you at