“If he wants a thing,” said Francis, “he’ll stop at nothing to get it. There’s only one man who has ever got the better of him, and that’s my brother Des. He’s a crazy devil, that brother of mine. He simply can’t live without taking risks. Ever since he left the Secret Service he’s been perfectly miserable. The reappearance of Clubfoot has made another man of him. But I’m haunted by the fear that Clubfoot will get him one day. That’s what makes me so anxious when he goes off suddenly like this.”
Patricia smiled rather incredulously.
“To hear you boys talk,” she remarked, glancing down at her pinky polished nails, “you’d think we were living in Ruritania or one of those exciting places in Booth Tarkington Land. I admit I was a bit taken aback to find that some one had rifled my boudoir; it may have been your clubfoot man, or it may just have been a common sneak-thief. But, for land’s sakes, what can happen to your brother in a city like London?”
The telephone pealed suddenly. The bell jangled noisily through the silent flat. The man and the girl exchanged a glance. There are moments when the sudden clamour of a telephone bell has an oddly frightening effect. Francis went to the instrument.
“Hullo! No, he’s not here. Who wants him? Oh . . .”
His manner became slightly more empressé.
“This is Francis Okewood speaking. Very good. Tell the Chief I’ll come right along.”
He rang off and turned to Patricia.
“It’s an urgent call from the office,” he said. “I believe I’ll have to go along at once. It’s a quarter to eight. Des. must be back any minute now. Do you mind being left alone for a little?”
“Of course not! You run right along and don’t mind about me.”
“You’re not frightened . . . or anything?”
“Frightened . . . nothing!” retorted Miss Maxwell with considerable emphasis. “Say, if that old dot-and-carry-one shows up, I’ll vamp him so hard he’ll just beat it back to Deutschland!”
Francis laughed. “Good for you. If you want anything, just ring for Batts, will you? I’ll be back as soon as I can. Bye-bye.”
The front door slammed.
As if struck by a sudden idea, Patricia went to the window and peered beneath the blind. The watcher still lounged on the opposite pavement. She observed him for a full two minutes. Then she saw him turn suddenly and walk swiftly down the street.
“That’s for Francis!” she said to herself.
She took up the cards and began to play Canfield. But she could not keep her mind on the game; her thoughts were busy with the strange and sinister figure who, that very morning, had loomed so large in her dainty drawing-room. She threw down the cards and went to the telephone. She would ring up the house and tell Barton she was dining out.
But now she could get no answer from the exchange. The line remained completely dead. She depressed the hook repeatedly without any result. At last she hung up the receiver, and going to the fire-place, pressed the bell-push in the wall beside it. Then she went back to the telephone.
No sound of life came to her over the wires. The line must be out of order, she thought. But then she remembered that Francis Okewood had used the instrument only a few minutes before. And no one came in response to her ring. A little feeling of fear crept over her like a trickle of ice-water running down her back. Why were both telephone and bell out of order?
Suddenly she heard the sitting-room door behind her open. Ah! the valet at last.
“I rang,” she said, speaking over her shoulder, at the same time depressing the hook of the telephone instrument, “to ask you what is the matter with the telephone. I can’t get a reply from the . . .”
The silence in the room made her turn.
At the table Dr. Madjaroff, her visitor of the morning, stood looking at her.
She must have dropped the telephone receiver, for a clatter sounded dully in her ears. The strange and baleful glare of the man at the table held her gaze. The blood seemed to drain away from her heart as she met the cruel menace of those blackly bitter eyes. The bushy dark beard had vanished and the fleshy scarlet lips pressed together in a hard line were clearly visible above the squarely massive chin. But she knew her visitor again immediately. It was as though she recognized the extraordinary air of authority that his presence exhaled without requiring the additional aid to identification that the heavy misshapen boot presented.
She felt as though she must scream. The mute telephone, the unanswered bell, the sudden appearance of this frightening, apelike creature in the room, above all, his forbidding, ominous silence, produced a culminating effect of terror upon her. And, though she wilted before the fixed stare of those burning eyes beneath the bristling black eyebrows, she could not look away.
Suddenly there came an interruption. Two men emerged from the bedroom door and took up their position behind the stranger. One was a narrow-chested youth whose pointed nose and snarling mouth had something of the rodent about them, his sallow cheek slashed by a long white scar. The other was a gross and burly fellow with a bullet neck, close-cropped hair, and small pig eyes.
“Niemand da?” asked the clubfooted stranger.
“Kein Mensch, Herr Doktor!” replied the youth with the scarred face.
The voices broke the spell that had seemed to bind her. Her eager American vitality came to her aid. She began to study with interest this man of whom Francis Okewood had told her. “Strong as an ox, brave as a lion, cunning as a rogue elephant,” he had called him. And cautious as a cat, she told herself as she watched him peering about the room with quick, suspicious glances, his gaze always returning to the door as though he feared interruption.
He gave a curt order in German to the men behind him, then removed his black wide-awake hat, displaying a glistening mass of iron-grey stubble.
“Miss Maxwell,” he said with a fawning civility that struck chill upon her, “I have come to fetch the ikon!”
This time he spoke in English, harshly, with a thick guttural accent.
She clasped her hands tightly together. They were as cold as ice.
“I—I have not got it,” she faltered.
A deep furrow appeared between the cripple’s bushy eyebrows.
“I advise you not to play with me,” he said. He took a step forward. The thud of his heavy boot shook the floor. “Where is it?” he cried hoarsely.
“I . . . I left it . . . at home!” stammered the girl.
His great arm shot out. A huge hairy paw, hot and soft, clamped itself with a vice-like grip about her wrist. Of a sudden his face was distorted with fury, so that his heavy sallow cheeks trembled beneath their thatch of loose black hairs. He might have been a huge man-ape chattering with passion as he shook her in that iron grasp.
“You lie! You lie!” he spat at her. “You brought it here to the spy, Okewood. That ikon is here, you understand me? Donnerwetter, are you going to give it up?” With a supreme effort he regained his self-control. But he did not relax his grasp on her hand. “If you refuse, I have the means to make you!”
“Herr Doktor,” said a suave voice from the other side of the room, “won’t you let go Miss Maxwell’s wrist? I’m afraid you’re hurting her!”
With a roar Clubfoot swung round. A large automatic was in his hand. His two companions had likewise drawn and covered Desmond Okewood, who, dapper and unruffled as ever, his hat on the back of his head, stood in the bedroom door, a brown paper parcel under his arm. Clubfoot laughed, a harsh and grating laugh. “Put your hands up, my friend!” he said menacingly.
Desmond wavered. “But I shall drop my little parcel . . .” he began.
“Put ’em up, zum Teufel nochmal!” roared the cripple, his tufted nostrils twitching with rage.
Desmond hesitated for an instant. He shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Miss Maxwell,” he said. “If only Francis had been here . . .”
And, pitching his parcel on the table, he slowly raised his hands above his head.
“Keep him covered, Jungens!” cried Clubfoot and flung himself upon the parcel. “Francis, indeed!” he exclaimed. “He had an important telephone summons just now, didn’t he, Miss Maxwell?” And he chuckled noisily.
But the American did not heed him. With a pink flush on her cheeks she was staring fixedly at Desmond.
The young man sought to avoid her gaze. “It’s three to one,” he muttered, abashed. “I’d no idea they’d be able to get in here! I should never have brought it back if I’d dreamed of . . . this!”
But now, with a shout of joy, Clubfoot had drawn from its paper wrapping the ikon with its blackened silver sheath. With a rapid motion he thrust the little picture into the capacious pocket of his overcoat. Then he turned to Desmond.
“Lieber junger Herr”—he spoke in German now—“if on this occasion I should neglect to settle the debt which has for so long been outstanding between us, believe me it is because other considerations take precedence. Do not delude yourself, however! When I want you, I have only to stretch out my hand”—he raised his long prehensile arm with clutching fingers—“and crush you like an egg! Heinrich, Max, vorwärts! Miss Maxwell! Ich habe die Ehre!” He broke into English. “It would have been wiser to have accepted my offer of this morning, or, better still, from this poor Süsslein’s point of view, to have listened to reason last night!”
He bowed to the American and, with head erect, stumped out into the hall.
Hardly had the door closed upon him than Patricia Maxwell turned on Desmond.
“You . . . you quitter!” she exclaimed with withering contempt in her voice. “Are you going to let him beat you to it all along the line? Are there no men in this town?”
But Desmond held up his hand. He had altogether discarded his rather abashed air. Now his eyes sparkled and a little smile played about his lips.
“Give me five minutes’ grace,” he said, “and I’ll explain everything!”
“There’s nothing to explain!” cried Patricia hotly. “He’s got my ikon, hasn’t he? What’s there to explain about that, I’d like to know!”
But Desmond Okewood had dashed out into the hall. She heard him rattling loudly at the front door. In a moment he was back in the sitting-room.
“They’ve wedged up the front door!” he cried and snatched the telephone receiver.
“The wire’s cut!” said Patricia coldly. “And your man doesn’t answer the bell!”
“Damnation!” exclaimed the young man. “I might have known he’d come here after you! And there’s no time to get out by the roof! To think that he’s walking calmly down Saint James’s Street . . .!”
Again he tore out into the hall. The little flat rang to the din of his frantic assault on the front door. Presently the noise ceased. She heard the voice of Francis outside.
“. . . Decoyed me away with a bogus message from the Chief,” he was saying, “and Batts is imprisoned in the lift with the cable cut. What’s happened to Patricia?”
He came into the room.
“Thank God, you’re all right!” he exclaimed. “Desmond rushed downstairs like a madman. What’s happened, Patricia?”
She surveyed him coldly. “Nothing, only your clubfooted friend came here to fetch the ikon . . . my ikon. And your brother had the . . . the presence of mind to give it to him!”
“Desmond gave it to him?” Francis Okewood seemed dazed.
She nodded.
Desmond Okewood reappeared, panting. Without speaking he crossed the sitting-room and went into the bedroom.
“Are you sure?” asked Francis.
“Didn’t I see it with my own eyes?” said the girl impatiently. “Without the least show of fight!” she added contemptuously. She gathered her furs around her. “Do you think I could get a taxi?” she asked.
But Francis was staring past her. “Des.!”
There was such unbounded amazement in his exclamation that, involuntarily, the girl turned round. Desmond Okewood stood behind them. And on the table before him lay the ikon. In the doorway of the bedroom appeared a little yellow-faced man muffled up to the eyes in an ulster and scarf.
Desmond’s eyes twinkled. “Let me introduce Professor Krilenko, the celebrated Russian art connoisseur,” he said. “Although he is crippled with lumbago he came roof-climbing with me to-night to help me get the better of old Clubfoot. There’s friendship for you!”
The Professor bowed and groaned piteously, snatching at his back. “What a man!” he said.
Patricia Maxwell stared in silence at the pair. But her eyes were softer.
Desmond turned to the Professor. “Tell them about it!” he said.
Krilenko picked up the ikon. “Fate has placed in your hands, Madame,” he said in fluent English, “one of the most revered treasures of the Russian Church, none other than the miraculous ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk, smuggled out of Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution to save it from desecration at the hands of the Reds. It is probably a thousand years old, but the tradition is that it was painted by the evangelist Luke himself.
“Major Okewood, who knows this man Grundt, doubted whether religious or artistic fervour had anything to do with his determination to acquire the ikon. With a perspicacity which I can only ascribe as astounding, he insisted that there was something about the picture which enhanced its artistic or intrinsic value . . .”
So saying he turned the ikon over on its face. Four screws loosely set held the stout wooden backing of the frame. He removed the screws and lifted out the back. In four slots sunk in the wood four little grey metal tubes were visible. Round one of them a slip of paper was wrapped.
“He suggested that we should remove the back,” the Professor resumed, “if we could do so without damaging the ikon. We scraped the back and at length laid bare the screws. Their presence had been very skilfully concealed first beneath a layer of . . .”
The Russian was evidently, like most experts, a prosy person, but imperiously Patricia stopped him before he could launch out into technicalities.
“What are those little bits of lead?” she asked.
“Radium!” Desmond replied. “Translate the letter, Krilenko!”
He detached the slip of paper that was rolled about one of the cases and handed it to the Professor.
I, Vladimir Lemuroff [Krilenko read out], Professor of Chemistry in the University of Moscow, being in imminent danger of arrest by the Tcheka [“the Extraordinary Commission of the Soviet Government,” Krilenko explained], have in the presence of Bishop Tchergeroff, whose signature is here appended, concealed for safe custody in the blessed ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk the four grammes of radium, the property of the Moscow Chemical Institute, which I took with me in my flight to save them for science from the ruthless vandalism of the wild beasts who are destroying Holy Russia.
(Signed) Lemuroff (Witness) Tchergeroff
Smolensk, 13/26, July, 1919
“By Jove!” ejaculated Francis. “Four grammes of radium! Let’s see!—the market price stands somewhere about £12,000 a gramme, I think. That makes these four little tubes worth something like £50,000. No wonder old Clubfoot wanted that picture, Des.!”
“But,” remarked Patricia, perplexed, “I saw you give the ikon to the man Grundt!”
Desmond laughed. “I had to finesse him,” he said. “Old Clubfoot never lets the grass grow under his feet, and I wanted to gain time to get your ikon into a safe place before he could seize it by force. Directly I found out from Krilenko here that this was one of the famous miraculous ikons, I knew, from my experience of Russia, that thousands of copies must be in existence, for most of the ikons you find in Russian churches and homes are copies of these wonder-working pictures. Krilenko, who has been a perfect trump all through, routed up a Russian pope he knows who remembered that there was a copy of the Madonna of Smolensk in one of the Russian churches in London. It was nice and grimy, as it had hung there for years.
“Krilenko and the priest did the rest. My intention was to hang up the copy in your boudoir for Clubfoot to steal, for I was virtually certain that your house would be broken into to-night. But, when we were scrambling over the roofs just now, I heard old Grundt’s voice coming up through the skylight and I just couldn’t resist the chance of bluffing him. My word, I could hardly keep my face straight!”
He glanced humorously at Patricia. She held out her hand.
“I feel just terribly!” she said. “I’m sorry I was so rude! But, oh! what an actor!”
Desmond grinned. “It wasn’t bad, was it? Especially the pathetic bit about their being three to one . . .”
They all laughed.
“In the mean time Grundt is off again!” observed Francis ruefully.
“He’s a clever devil!” said Desmond with real admiration in his voice. “He simply bunged up the front door and walked out, knowing that one minute’s grace would be enough to allow him, lame as he is, to get away in the London crowd. Directly you opened the door I bolted down to the street. But I knew it was too late. We’ve just got to wait for him to come back . . .”
“He might have shot you!” remarked Francis.
“Not he! Clubfoot knows that you can commit almost any crime in London as long as you act normally. But a shot would have aroused the whole block. Besides, he’s a single-minded person. To-day he was after the ikon. Next time it may be you or me. I don’t worry about losing his trail, Francis. He’s coming back after us . . .”
He chuckled with infinite relish.
“Des.,” said his brother, “tell us the joke!”
“Well,” Desmond replied slowly, “when we were weighting that duplicate ikon, I couldn’t resist slipping in a note for Clubfoot. I was just thinking of his face when he reads it!”
And he chuckled again.
By Patricia Maxwell’s direction the radium, duly tested and found to be genuine, was handed over to the Russian Refugees’ Fund. The ikon of Our Lady of Smolensk went to take the place of the copy in the Russian church, where, night and day, a great candle burns before it in memory of the donor.
As for Clubfoot, the evening traffic of Saint James’s swallowed up him and his companions, and the unremitting vigilance of the Secret Service, assisted by Scotland Yard, threw no light on their whereabouts. But, two days after the encounter in his flat, Desmond Okewood found in his mail a postcard, unsigned, with this epigrammatic message:
A sense of humour is a dangerous thing!
It was about the time of the adventure of the top flat which I am going to narrate that I became aware of a remarkable change in my friend, Desmond Okewood. We were in the habit of meeting once or twice a week either for lunch or for a game of squash at the Bath Club. Now, Desmond Okewood, as his Christian name suggests, is, on the distaff side, Irish, and from his mother’s race he has inherited not only the intuition and reckless courage which have carried him so far in his career, but also that sublime indifference to anything like “nerves” that is one of the outstanding characteristics of the Irish.
It was, therefore, with considerable surprise that, about this time, I became aware that my old friend was looking decidedly under par. His face had a drawn look that I did not like, and his eyes were haggard. I should probably have set it down to a succession of late nights had not old Erasmus Wilkes, the psychoanalyst, who was lunching at our table at the Club one morning, drawn me aside in the smoke-room afterwards and put the matter in an entirely different light.
“You’re a friend of Desmond Okewood’s, aren’t you?” he asked me, and went on: “Then get him to tell you what’s on his mind. I’m not pryin’, young fellow, but I have some experience of these cases. If your pal doesn’t confide in some one . . .”
He shrugged his shoulders and was about to turn away when I caught him by the sleeve.
“We’re old friends, Desmond and I,” I said; “but there are some confidences one has to wait for. And Okewood’s a reserved beggar. It might help things, Doctor, if you’d give me a hint as to what is the matter, with him. He’ll never say a word unless I give him a lead.”
Old Wilkes looked at me thoughtfully. “It’s fear,” he said.
I burst out laughing. “Rot!” I exclaimed. “You’ve made a bloomer there, Doctor. Fear! Why, Desmond Okewood doesn’t know the meaning of the word!”
Wilkes shook his head dubiously. “He looks like a man who goes in fear of his life,” he answered gravely. “He’s got the wind up about something. You ask him and you’ll see that I’m right!”
“I’ll ask him like a shot,” I retorted, “but I bet you’re wrong!”
And, in due course, I did ask Desmond Okewood. But he, as I expected, laughed my question off and protested that he had never felt better in his life. But old Wilkes was right, and it was Francis Okewood, as he afterwards told me, in whom Desmond ultimately confided.
It happened in this way. Francis had had to make a quick trip to America on business connected with some property of his American wife, and Desmond had gone down in his car to meet his brother at Southampton. Storms in the Atlantic had delayed the arrival of the liner, and after they had cleared the baggage through the customs, it was close on midnight before they took the road to drive to Desmond’s bungalow in Surrey. Yet, belated as they were, Francis was quite unable to prevail upon his brother to exceed a modest twenty miles an hour, which, as they dropped down a deep slope into the sunken road that led past the front gate of Desmond’s bungalow, fell to somewhere about ten.
Before them the road, like a profound black trench, wound its way down into the dark night. The bright headlights of the car showed the high hedges on either side and, above them, the tall trees that bordered the road swaying and tossing with the violence of the storm. The driving-glass was a blur of wet; the side curtains flapped and banged and strained to the fury of the gale, and again and again a smother of icy rain beat on the face of Desmond at the wheel and of his brother at his side.
“Push her along, Des., for the love o’ Mike!” urged Francis for about the sixth time that night. “This is worse than the Atlantic. And I want to go to bed.”
“Awkward bit of road, this,” was Desmond’s answer as, heedless of his brother’s remarks, he changed down to second.
“But, good Lord, what are you going to meet at three o’clock in the morning? Open her up and let’s get home!”
“We haven’t far to go now,” Desmond replied shortly, and so, without further speech, they came at length to their destination.
At the front door Desmond handed his brother the latchkey and took the car round to the back of the house. Francis crossed the wide hall and went into the dining-room, where a pleasant fire glowed redly on the silver and crockery that decked the table.
Without waiting to remove his heavy ulster, Francis Okewood switched on the lights and, going to the sideboard, mixed two stiff whiskey-and-sodas. He still had his hand on the siphon when there came an exclamation from the door, and the room was plunged into darkness.
“Here . . .” he began in expostulation. There was a click at the window, followed by a grinding noise. Then the lights went up again.
Desmond, a curiously tense expression on his face, stood in the doorway.
“Sorry, old man,” he said awkwardly. “I noticed that the shutter wasn’t closed. We . . . we don’t turn the lights up here as a rule unless the shutter is down . . .”
Francis Okewood turned his eyes to the French window, which, as he knew, opened on the croquet lawn at the back. It was now concealed by a close-fitting steel shutter that reached to the floor. He raised his eyebrows and looked at his brother as though about to speak. But there was close communion between these two. In all the years they had spent together in the Secret Service their one invariable rule was that if no explanation were vouchsafed, none was asked for. So Francis held his peace.
“You must be starved,” said Desmond. “Sit down and have some supper. You’ve got a drink? Good. There’s a hot-pot here . . .” and he struck an electric plug in the wall, connected with a chafing-dish on the table.
They ate in silence. The sympathy between the two brothers was not of the kind that requires expression in words. When they had done, Desmond pushed a box of cigars over to Francis and made up the fire. Then only Francis spoke.
“And Clubfoot?” he said.
Desmond, his feet stretched out on the fender, appeared to study the end of his cigar. Scrutinizing his features between his half-closed eyes, Francis noticed for the first time how worn his brother looked. The lines on his face and an air of restlessness, most unusual in him, were unfailing symptoms of prolonged strain.
“Vanished into the Ewigkeit. Since the affair of the Russian ikon he has not been seen. The Chief thinks he has left the country. In fact, two days ago the old man went off to Holland on a clue . . .”
“Went in person, eh? It must be a good one . . .”
Desmond shook his head wearily. “Clubfoot’s still here, I think,” he said. “He’s lying low, that’s all. Waiting . . .”
“For what?”
“To get you, me, the Chief . . .” He shrugged his shoulders, drew on his cigar. “He’ll never quit while breath is in him, Francis. We beat him in Germany, brought him to the ground, the man of might and mystery, as they used to call him. When he reappeared so mysteriously in the Pacific, I spoilt his little game, and since he started this campaign of vengeance against us, we have pretty well held our own. But though we have the honours he means to win the rubber. Let him try . . .” He sprang to his feet. “It’s this cursed uncertainty that . . . that wears one down.”
“Sit down, Des.,” said Francis gently. “I’m going to break the rules and ask you a question. Why did you bring us up from Southampton to-night like an old woman driving a governess cart? That six-cylinder of yours used to do better than twenty . . .!”
Desmond frowned moodily. “I’m . . . I’m ashamed of myself,” he replied. “I’m windy, Francis—have been ever since they put a steel cable across the sunken road outside the gate here.”
“Ah!” said Francis.
“That bus of mine will touch sixty when I open her out. By the mercy of God on this particular evening, a black night like this with no moon, I had slowed down to tighten up the wind-screen. The glass suddenly shattered, but I had time to duck. There was a steel rope spanned at the height of my head from hedge to hedge . . .”
“I see. Any clue as to who put it there?”
“Not a trace. The Chief was wild when I told him. But it gave me the jumps. I stopped Marjorie driving her two-seater and sent her off with the boy to her father’s. She didn’t want to go, poor girl, but, by George, I couldn’t stand the strain of looking after her as well as myself. And I know that if this doesn’t finish quickly, she’ll come back. You know what a loyal pal she is!”
Francis nodded. “And that contraption of yours at the window?”
Desmond heaved himself out of his chair. “Come here. I want to show you something.”
He led the way across to the sideboard which stood against the wall opposite the shuttered window.
“Six nights ago,” he said, “I was mixing myself a drink here just as you did to-night. Suddenly there was a shiver of glass from the window behind me, and something struck the woodwork not an inch from my head. After that I had steel shutters fitted to all the windows. Look! You can see the slug!”
Projecting from the polished oak of the Jacobean buffet was a grey, irregular mass of metal.
“Air-gun, eh?” commented Francis. “And a devilish heavy one, too, Des.!” He clapped his brother affectionately on the shoulder. “Well,” he remarked, “there are two of us now. I shall have to try what trailing my coat-tails in front of old Clubfoot will do . . .”
“The only consoling thing about it,” said his brother, “is that it shows that old Clubfoot is afraid to come out in the open.”
Francis rubbed the bridge of his nose meditatively. “I wonder! He may be planning something fresh and wants to get you out of the way. Has any attempt been made on the Chief?”
“No!”
Francis Okewood shook his head. “Bad, bad! Clubfoot has got him out of the country, Des., and he’ll strike at once!”
They had not long to wait.
At eight o’clock, not many hours after they had gone to bed, Desmond appeared in his brother’s room.
“You’ve got to get dressed at once,” he announced. “We’re off to London!”
“Oh, I say!” protested Francis, rubbing sleepy eyes.
“One of the confidential typists at the Air Ministry has been murdered . . .”
“But what . . . why . . .?”
“I know nothing about it except that Alec Bannington, the Chief of the Air Staff, has been on to me on the telephone in the most fearful state. I promised to go up and see him at once. You’re coming, too. Don’t stop to bathe or shave, but come!”
There was no twenty miles an hour about Desmond Okewood’s driving that morning. The rain had stopped, the wind had dried the sandy Surrey roads, and well within the hour they had reached Onslow Square, where the private house of Air-Marshal Sir Alexander Bannington was situated.
He received them in a small book-lined room on the ground floor, a florid, well-fed dapper man, whose shining, good-natured face was ill-suited to the look of care it now wore.
“Ah, Okewood!” he cried. “Thank God, you’re here. This your brother? How de do, how de do?” Then he clasped his red hands together in a gesture of anguish, which at another time would have been grotesque. “The most shockin’ affair! Miss Bardale, my confidential typist, was found dead—murdered—in her flat this morning. It’s a ghastly business, ghastly, and, what is more, unless you can do something it means ruin for me!”
“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us the whole story from the beginning, sir,” said Desmond. “It would help,” he added, “if you would omit nothing!”
Francis cocked a shrewdly admiring eye at his brother.
The large man sighed heavily. “I see you have already grasped that it is a confidential matter,” he remarked. “A State secret of the utmost importance is, in fact, at stake. As Chief of the Air Staff it has recently been my duty to draw up for submission to the Cabinet a comprehensive scheme for the aerial defence of the Empire. For this purpose I have attended many meetings with the First Sea Lord and the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, as well as more than one sitting of the Cabinet. Upon the notes I made on these discussions I based my report. I finished it in the rough yesterday afternoon . . .”
“And gave it to your typist to make a fair copy? Is that it?” Desmond interposed.
“Exactly.”
“At the office?”
“I gave it to her at the Ministry at six o’clock yesterday evening. She was to take it home, type it out after dinner, and let me have it back this morning. You will say, gentlemen, that I was criminally careless in thus letting a vitally important document out of the office. But I thought . . . I never imagined . . .”
“It might be better, sir,” Desmond remarked soothingly, “if we got at the facts first . . .”
“Quite so, quite so,” agreed Bannington. “Well, first thing this morning the resident clerk at the Ministry rang me up to say he had heard from the police that Miss Bardale had been murdered and her flat ransacked . . .”
“And your report?”
“Gone!”
Desmond nodded. Then he asked: “How was the murder discovered?”
“By Miss Bardale’s daily servant when she arrived at the apartment about half-past six this morning. Miss Bardale occupies a small flat consisting of a sitting-room, bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen on the top floor of a house in Crewdwell Street, off Baker Street. It appears that last night she went out to dinner with a young man, a certain Captain Reginald Hollingway, who brought her back to the flat shortly after eight o’clock. When Miss Bardale’s servant, a certain Mrs. Crump, entered the flat this morning, she found Miss Bardale lying dead in the sitting-room and all the rooms in the wildest confusion . . .”
“How had she been killed?”
“Strangled. There are deep finger-marks on her throat. There had obviously been a desperate struggle, for the carpet is disarranged, the remains of a vase lie scattered about the floor, and a clock had been knocked off the table. This clock, by the way, furnishes an important clue, for it had stopped at sixteen minutes past eight, showing at what time the murder was committed.”
“And your report, you say, is not to be found?”
Bannington shook his head dismally.
“From what the police tell me, Miss Bardale was actually engaged in typing it out when she was attacked. The body was discovered lying beside her typewriter in the sitting-room. She had apparently reached the third page, for a sheet of paper bearing that number—just that and nothing else—was still in the typewriter. But the rest was gone.”
“You mean”—Francis Okewood spoke for the first time—“that the assassin simply snatched your manuscript and as much of it as Miss Bardale had copied out from where it lay beside the typewriter?”
“I suppose so, yes!” sighed the large man.
“Then why was the flat ransacked?”
It was Desmond’s turn to glance his appreciation at his brother.
“By George!” the Air Marshal exclaimed, “I never thought of that. Then Hollingway must have made hay in the rooms just to mislead us . . .”
“Hollingway?” ejaculated the two brothers simultaneously.
“I was coming to him. Captain Hollingway, gentlemen, is undoubtedly the murderer. He is a young man of good family with an excellent war record, but since demobilization has done no work. He is an exhibition dancer at night-clubs, and is in grave money difficulties, so the police inform me.”
“Is he under arrest?” asked Desmond.
Bannington nodded. “The porter at Crewdwell Street saw him leave the building in a state of profound agitation about twenty-five minutes past eight or shortly after the murder was committed. The police arrested him at his rooms this morning. The report, of course, had disappeared. With a clear start of twelve hours he had naturally passed it on. Ah!”
With a despairing exclamation the fat man dashed his fist into the palm of his hand and began to pace the room.
“There was some party, then, who had an interest in obtaining possession of this report?” asked Desmond.
Sir Alexander Bannington stopped in his stride and turned round. “Yes,” he said. “But in the present state of international politics it is hardly safe even to mention the name of the Power in question.” He leant forward and whispered something in Desmond’s ear.
“Ah! . . . yes!” was that young man’s brief comment.
The large man extended two shaking hands towards his visitors. “You must get this report back for me. If it’s a question of money you can draw on me up to any reasonable amount. Hollingway must be made to talk. The police will give you every facility: I have arranged that. I shall be here all day. I am not going to the Ministry. I can’t face them. Let me know to-day . . . soon . . . how you get on . . .”
Desmond and his brother had risen to their feet.
“One question before we leave you, sir,” said Desmond. “Are you quite satisfied that Miss Bardale was trustworthy?”
“Enid Bardale,” the Air Marshal replied in a voice that shook with emotion, “gave her life for her trust. She was a splendid girl and absolutely invaluable to me in my work. I trusted her as I would trust my own daughter. As a matter of fact, she was a relative of my dead wife. She may have been indiscreet in the matter of her friendship with this scoundrel Hollingway; but there was no question of collusion between them in this affair.”
They left him bowed over his desk, his face sunk in his plump, red hands.
The girl’s body lay on its side on the black carpet of the little sitting-room, the face an agonized mask in a frame of clustering brown hair. The sight was not pleasant, and they did not let their glance dwell on it, for, after all, their immediate business was not with the murdered woman. They looked long enough, however, to notice the deep bluish-black marks on the throat, indicative of a ferocious grip.
The flat, skyed at the top of a big mansion which had been converted into apartments, was tiny. The hall led into the small sitting-room, very gay with its primrose-yellow distempered walls and orange lamp-shades, with bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen beyond. Detective-Inspector Farandol, of Scotland Yard, who opened the door in answer to their ring, showed them the rooms. One of the most reliable and experienced officers of the older school of detectives, both Desmond and Francis had come across him more than once in the course of their work in the Secret Service. He was a self-opinionated person with a profound contempt for amateurs.
“Fourth floor,” remarked the Inspector. “Nothing above and nothing below, for this is the only flat in the building. The other floors are let off as offices, and after 6 P.M. the rest of the house is empty except for the porter who lives in the basement. No wonder no sounds of the struggle were heard.”