Читать книгу The Terrible Hobby of Sir Joseph Londe, Bart - E. Phillips Oppenheim - Страница 4

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Colonel Sir Francis Worton, K.C.B., D.S.O., officially known amongst professional intimates, since the formal inauguration of his new Department, as Q 20, stood before the open window of Daniel Rocke’s office, looking out across the incongruous medley of roof tops, chimneys and sky signs. A sudden burst of spring had deluged the city with sunshine. Daffodils and mimosa were being sold at the street corners, the sky was of summer blue, across which drifted lazily fleecy little fragments of white cloud.

“If I were anybody in the world but my unlucky self,” he sighed, “I should take a long week-end and play golf at Rye. Upsetting weather, this!”

Daniel glanced out of the window without enthusiasm.

“Beastly treacherous,” he muttered. “The east wind may come back to-morrow.”

“Pessimist!” his Chief scoffed. “By the by, Dan, that’s a ripping good-looking typist of yours.”

“Is she?” Daniel answered coldly. “I can’t say I ever noticed her particularly.”

Q 20 swung round and looked at his friend.

“Liver or the blues?” he enquired.

“Both,” was the prompt acknowledgment. “I want some work.”

“There’s plenty doing,” Worton replied, “only I don’t want to set you fishing for minnows. I like to keep you comfortably in the background for the big fish. There’s plenty doing, of course. Anarchy and love-making both flourish in the spring.”

“All the same, you didn’t walk across the park to come and see me at this time of the morning for nothing, did you?” Daniel persisted.

“I did not,” his visitor admitted.

“Get along with it, then. I’ve done nothing but cipher and decoding work for ages. I can’t stand any more of it.”

“The affair to which I am about to allude,” Q 20 remarked cautiously, “does not come within the sphere of our professional activities. You, however, are a free lance. It might interest you.”

“Proceed,” Daniel begged.

“This remarkably good-looking secretary of yours—let me see, what did you say her name was?”

“I’m not aware that I mentioned it,” Daniel answered stiffly. “It is, as a matter of fact, Lancaster—Miss Ann Lancaster.”

“Know anything of her antecedents?”

“I know of a very tragic incident in her life. She is the daughter of the man who was murdered by that lunatic Londe.”

Q 20 whistled softly.

“The fellow who nearly did you in! The girl got you out of a tight place, didn’t she?”

“I have always considered myself indebted to Miss Lancaster for her services on that occasion,” Daniel acknowledged with some reserve.

“Then you’d better ask her what she means by dining in the Ronico Grill Room with a well-known criminal,” his friend suggested—“a man who is badly wanted by Scotland Yard.”

Daniel was amazingly perturbed.

“Dining alone with him?” he demanded.

Q 20 nodded.

“We don’t make mistakes,” he said, a little coldly. “I suppose I ought to give Scotland Yard the tip, but I’m not going to, just at present. I have an idea that the young man is in touch, or getting into touch, with my little lot.”

“Has this been going on for long?” Daniel asked.

“About a fortnight. I can tell you all about it, for I was having the young man closely shadowed at the time. They met at a tea shop. He sent a card over to her. She was on the point of tearing it up when she seemed to change her mind. She examined the card more closely, put it in her bag, looked across at the man and smiled.—These women are the devil,” Worton went on, with a sigh. “Scarcely lifts her eyes when I wish her the most respectful ‘Good morning’.”

“And since then?”

“She’s dined with him at least three times, always in the Ronico Grill. Once she went to the cinema afterwards. They were there on Tuesday. When they came out, they stood talking in the street for nearly ten minutes. He seemed to be trying to persuade her to go somewhere.”

“The devil!” Daniel exclaimed, with cold fury.

“She went off home by herself, all right,” Q 20 reassured him—“Girls’ Hostel in Sydney Street, Westminster. All right up to now, I should say, but she’s flirting with danger. Look into it, Dan, and find out what that young man is at. He’s a bad lot and I want him.”

Colonel Sir Francis Worton picked up his grey Homburg hat, his stick and his gloves.

“I am always to be found at the club, after hours,” he concluded. “Keep in touch with me, there’s a good fellow.”

Daniel, distinctly disturbed and ill at ease, bade his friend a somewhat incoherent farewell. The door of the outer office had scarcely closed before he rang the bell. Ann appeared at once. He swung round in his chair and looked at her. For the first time he seemed to realise how little he actually knew of his new secretary. Her quietness of demeanour, her habit of reserved speech, all made for secrecy. She stood just where a little flood of the sunshine, which had so disturbed his previous visitor, sought out the beauty of her dark brown hair, with its threads and splashes of gold. She waited attentively, a notebook and pencil in her hand.

“You rang, sir,” she reminded him.

Daniel pulled himself together.

“Won’t you sit down for a moment, Miss Lancaster,” he invited.

She hesitated and then obeyed him.

“I am aware,” he went on, a little stiffly, “that it is not customary to interfere with the private life of one’s assistants; but I have this morning received information of a somewhat distressing character.”

“About me?” Ann enquired.

“About you. I am told that you are in the habit of dining with a well-known criminal, a man whom you met by chance in a tea room.”

Ann’s attitude towards the accusation was distinctly unexpected. A light of positive pleasure flashed in her soft brown eyes, her lips parted in an eager smile.

“Is he really a criminal?” she demanded.

“I have it on the best authority,” was the curt reply.

“Then I have not been wasting time,” she declared, with a sigh of satisfaction.

Daniel looked at her for a moment in blank surprise.

“Perhaps you would care to explain?” he suggested.

“Willingly,” she answered. “You have become immersed in other interests and you have forgotten the man who came within five seconds of taking your life. I have never forgotten my father’s murderer.”

“You mean to say that you are on his track?” Daniel demanded, incredulously.

“That is my hope,” she assented. “It is quite true that I made this man’s acquaintance in a tea room. He sent me over a card on which was scribbled an impertinent message. I was on the point of tearing it up when I saw that the name printed upon it had been crossed out. Even then I fancied that I could read it. Now, in the clear light, it is quite legible.”

She drew a crumpled card from a letter case in her pocket, and handed it to him. He held it up to the light. A little exclamation broke from his lips.

“Sir Joseph Londe!” he cried.

She nodded.

“When I found,” she went on, “that the young man who sought to make my acquaintance was in possession of cards bearing that name—well, I encouraged him. I have dined with him two or three times, and been to the cinema with him.”

“Have you ever referred to Londe?” Daniel enquired.

“Certainly not,” she answered. “He is very clever. I am not in the least surprised to hear that he is a criminal. The very fact that he is a bad character makes it all the more likely that he may be connected in some way with that man.”

“Has he disclosed any design with regard to you, other than flirtation?” Daniel asked.

“He is working up to it,” Ann answered eagerly. “He is always admiring my hair. At first I took no notice of it, but he has been so persistent that I became suspicious. Only the other night, he asked me if anything would induce me to have it cut off and sell it.”

“For what purpose?”

“He said something about a wealthy woman who seems to be connected with his uncle, somehow or other,” she replied. “Anyway, his uncle appears to be the intermediary. I laughed at him, but I am quite sure that there is something at the back of his mind.”

“Nothing that he has ever said has suggested the existence of Londe, I suppose?”

“I am not sure,” she reflected. “He has spoken once or twice of a very wealthy uncle—a professional man.”

“When do you see him again?”

“I am dining with him to-night.”

“At Ronico’s again?”

She shook her head.

“No! To-night we are going to Imano’s. I think his idea is that it will be more intimate.”

Daniel frowned. He was utterly unable to account for a certain irritation which betrayed itself at once in his tone.

“You seem to find his society amusing, anyhow.”

“I try to,” she confessed simply. “I am hoping every time that he may give me the clue.”

“And do you propose, may I ask,” he went on, “to proceed with these investigations yourself?”

“Not necessarily. If you can suggest any form of intervention, I should be only too glad to share the responsibility,” she assured him.

“Before this evening,” Daniel promised, “I will collect a little more information about this young man. What does he call himself?”

“Mr. Leopold Greatson.”

“Good-looking?” Daniel asked querulously.

“Of his type,” she admitted—“tall with small, military, black moustache and very black eyes.”

“Good manners?”

“On the surface,” she answered, after a moment’s hesitation.

“Voice?”

“Also a little artificial.”

Daniel showed signs of cheering up.

“Don’t leave without seeing me this evening,” he enjoined. “I’ll have his dossier by then.”

She shivered a little.

“Don’t show it to me,” she begged, “or I shall be afraid to go near him.”

Daniel smiled in peculiar fashion.

“You will not be alone,” he promised.

Miss Ann Lancaster, seated at one of the small balcony tables upstairs at Imano’s, looking quite at her best, and with a great bunch of violets by the side of her plate, tried to persuade herself that she was enjoying her dinner. Her companion was, in his way, sufficiently good-looking and was certainly attentive. The dinner was the best the place could afford, a gold-topped bottle reposed in ice by their side, and an excellent little orchestra was discoursing soft and pleasant music. Most of the concomitants of a pleasant evening were there, yet a queer feeling had come to Ann. For the first time in her life, she knew fear. Every now and then, her companion leaned across the table towards her to whisper words of admiration. Each time she smiled back at him, but each time it became more difficult. Whenever he dropped his voice she felt inclined to shriek, and he dropped it more and more often as the dinner drew to a close. Whilst they were waiting for their coffee, he leaned across the table until their heads nearly touched.

“Ann,” he began——

“I have not given you permission to call me Ann,” she interrupted.

“You soon will,” he continued—“very soon, indeed, I hope, after you have heard what I have to say. First of all, I will make a confession. I have spoken to you three or four times of my uncle. He is not my uncle at all.”

“You mean the rich old misanthrope who wants my hair?” Ann demanded.

He nodded.

“I think that he is a little mad,” he confided. “I will tell you the truth about the matter. He has a wife whom no one ever sees, whose hair he believes to be perfectly white, although as a matter of fact it is exactly the same colour as your own. She had a shock some time ago. All the while he is looking for some one with exactly your coloured hair. He is a clever man—a scientist, they say—but he is mad. He thinks that he will be able to graft the hair on to his wife’s head, and that, when she sees her hair the right colour again, she will recover her health and spirits.”

“What an extraordinary story!” Ann murmured.

“It is true—I give you my word that it is true,” the young man assured her earnestly. “Now I will tell you something else. I told you that he would give a hundred pounds for your hair. He will give more—he will give a great deal more. When I first talked to you about it, I thought of nothing except to make something for myself. Now I know you better, I have another idea. Let us take all that he will give and go abroad together. We can be married—you can trust me, I promise that—and we can go to a little place in the southwest of France that I know of. I could practise there as a doctor. I took my degree all right, but I never had the money to set up. Your hair will grow there quite quickly, and you will be away from everybody. What do you think of my plan?”

“I don’t know,” Ann confessed. “You never told me that you were a doctor.”

“I am a doctor; but there was some trouble when I was an assistant to a man in the East End,” he explained. “You see, I am quite honest with you. I should find it difficult to practise in this country. Abroad it would be all right, and with the thousand pounds——”

“You mean to say that this man is going to give a thousand pounds for my hair?” she interrupted.

The young man looked annoyed. His mouth moved sideways—an ugly trick he had at times.

“I was coming to that,” he said. “Yes, he will give a thousand pounds.”

“What is his name?” Ann asked.

“Warking—Doctor Joseph Warking.”

“What is he like?”

“A quaint-looking cove, of medium height, dark, and with massive shoulders. Looks very clever. Honestly, I know very little about him, but I know that he means business about that thousand pounds. I’ve taken two girls there before you, but their hair was much lighter than yours and he turned them down directly. The money was in his desk waiting, though.”

“How are you sure that mine is the right colour?” she persisted.

“I’ve seen his wife,” he explained. “The colour of her hair, although he believes it to be white, is precisely the same as yours.”

“Why doesn’t he advertise, or come out and look for some one himself?” Ann demanded.

“I told you he was a quaint sort of cove with his silly delusions,” her companion replied; “but he’s quainter than you’d believe. He’s hired a gloomy house the other side of Putney Common—took it furnished from the executors of a doctor who died there. I arranged the whole matter for him, and, if you believe me, he hasn’t been out of that house since the first day he arrived in it—out of the grounds, I should say,” he corrected himself. “He does play about at a little gardening at times—talks about making a rock garden.”

Ann clutched at the tablecloth. For a moment the atmosphere of the place, her companion, the busy forms of the waiters, seemed all fantastic and unreal. She heard the sobbing of the night wind in the pine trees and saw Daniel Rocke coming along the shadowy path, side by side with the woman with the strange eyes. She no longer had any doubt.

“Well, what do you think of my scheme?” the young man asked, after a little pause.

“It sounds all right,” Ann admitted, “only I am not sure that I know you well enough.”

“Since I saw you that day in the tea shop,” he declared impressively, “I have never looked at any other girl—that’s straight. You can trust me. I haven’t many friends, but the few I can introduce you to will tell you that Leopold Greatson can be trusted. Honour bright, I never saw a girl come anywhere near you! What I’d like to do,” he went on confidentially, “is to touch the money this very night and clear right away. Are you game for that, Ann?”

“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she answered. “I shall look a horrid sight without any hair.”

“Don’t you believe it,” the young man rejoined emphatically. “You can wear a hat most of the time, and one of those fussy little boudoir caps in the house. You’ll look all right for me, Ann—I promise you that. It will be fine to get out of this country too,” he went on. “I don’t seem to be able to do any good here at anything. When you’ve once been in trouble, it’s so jolly difficult to get going again.”

“Do you want me to visit this strange friend of yours to-night, then?” she asked.

“I should like to start off to see him in ten minutes,” was the prompt reply. “I’m all the time afraid that he’ll change his mind, or that some one else will come along with your coloured hair.”

“How far away is it?”

“Three or four miles.”

“Tell me exactly where it is,” Ann persisted.

“It’s a house called Elton Lodge—an old-fashioned place near the Portsmouth Road,” he confided. “It would take us about twenty-five minutes in a taxi. He’s got the money waiting there in notes! We might have a little supper afterwards, to celebrate, and make our plans.”

“Idiot!” she exclaimed. “I should have to arrange something for my head before I could wear a hat, even.”

“All the more reason for getting right away at once,” he argued eagerly.

“Well, we’ll talk about that afterwards,” Ann promised. “Anyhow, I am willing to go and see your eccentric friend.”

“You’ll come there now with me, then?”

Ann nodded.

“I suppose so,” she sighed. “I’m tired of typing. And a thousand pounds! I shan’t believe it until I feel the notes in my hand.”

He called for the bill and, while the waiter was bringing it, dropped his voice almost to a whisper.

“Ann,” he pleaded, “you’ll play the game? You won’t pinch the thousand and then have nothing more to do with yours truly? You’ll act on the square?”

“Yes,” Ann assured him, “I’ll act on the square.”

The young man received and paid his bill. Ann rose to her feet with a little grimace.

“I’ll fetch my coat and have one last look at my hair,” she murmured, as she disappeared from view.

In the dreary library of a large, dilapidated house, a man sat at a writing table, motionless, apparently idle. There were patches of damp upon the walls, half of the shelves with which the room had been lined had been torn down, the few books that remained were mouldy and damp to the touch. The carpet had been taken up and replaced with a temporary drugget. Even the fire which burned in the grate seemed made of green logs, which sizzled and spluttered and gave out little heat. Most of the electric fittings in the room had been dismantled. One lamp alone stood upon the desk, unshaded and glaring. The face of the man seemed relentlessly framed in its circle of white light—a strange, powerful face, sallow and sombre, clean-shaven, with black hair in which was no streak of grey. He had the air of a man waiting there for a purpose, idle yet attentive. Suddenly his whole expression changed. From outside came the sound of the swinging of a gate, the noise of a taxicab, the flash of its lamps passing the window. A strange, almost a beautiful smile parted his lips for a moment. He half rose to his feet, eagerly. Then he resumed his place and waited.

There followed the sound of footsteps in the stone hall outside. The door of the room was opened, and the visitors entered. The man who had been waiting rose to his feet.

“I have brought the young lady, sir,” Leopold Greatson announced. “She is a little frightened. I think she’d like you to explain the matter to her.”

Ann raised her eyes and gave a start. The man whom she had come to see was not even looking at her. His eyes were fixed greedily upon her hair.

“Take off your hat, please,” he begged.

She obeyed. He gave a little sigh of relief as the garish light shone upon the misty film of gold with its darker background.

“My dear young lady,” he said, “your hair is wonderful. It is precisely the shade for which I have been seeking. This young man has, I trust, informed you of my offer?”

“He has,” she answered.

Leopold Greatson came up to the table, almost pushing his way past Ann.

“In a sense, although it’s not my hair, we are partners in this,” he declared. “We want the money before the hair is touched.”

The prospective purchaser produced his pocketbook.

“It is your wish?” he asked Ann.

“No!” she answered.

Leopold Greatson struck the table with his fist.

“It was a bargain,” he declared thickly.

“It was no bargain,” Ann retorted. “I wanted to be brought here. I listened to what you had to say, but I promised nothing.”

There was a curious light in the older man’s eyes—almost a twinkle.

“I shall pay the money when the hair is mine,” he pronounced. “There is the commission I promised,” he added, drawing a note from his pocketbook. “You had better go and leave the young lady alone with me. We can finish our business together.”

Greatson pocketed the note ungraciously.

“You’re backing out, then?” he complained, turning to Ann. “Mind, it wasn’t the money only. I’d taken a fancy to you.”

She waved him away. Her gesture was insignificant, but he understood that he was a thing of no account. The girl’s eyes seldom left the face of the man whom she had come to visit.

“Don’t you want me to take you home?” Leopold Greatson persisted.

“I never want to see you again,” she replied.

He went out, grumbling, and slammed the door behind him. The sound of the echoes seemed to awaken a sense of loneliness for the first time in Ann’s mind. She had the courage of a lioness, and her trust in Daniel was immense; but she suddenly realised that she was alone with a lunatic and a murderer.

“I am glad to get rid of that young man,” her companion remarked cheerfully. “I do not know why, but he displeases me.—Ah! Now you are going to see why I am parting with all this money—for your hair.”

A door on the further side of the room had opened. Fear crept into Ann’s heart as she saw the newcomer—a tall, slim woman, pale-faced, with strange, large eyes and hair as beautiful as her own. She was wearing the uniform of a nurse. She seemed, somehow or other, a handmaiden of Death.

“Is everything prepared?” the man asked.

“Everything is ready,” was the quiet reply.

A momentary passion drove the fear from Ann’s heart. The sight of the woman in her nurse’s garb was illuminative. She knew now, beyond the shadow of doubt, that she had found her father’s murderer.—She rose to her feet.

“Listen, both of you!” she exclaimed. “Do you know who I am?”

“I am more interested,” he assured her gently, “in the colour of your hair.”

“I am Ann Lancaster,” she proclaimed, her eyes blazing. “I am the daughter of the man you murdered! I am here not to sell my hair, but because, through it, I have tracked you down! Do you hear that?”

He smiled at her benignly.

“Well, well, that really doesn’t matter, does it?” he answered soothingly. “I remember your father now perfectly—a most amiable man, but, alas! I am afraid, a coward. The fuss he made about parting with a little of his brain was quite pitiable.—You remember, Esther?” he added, turning to the woman who was standing by his side like a wraith.

“Quite well,” she admitted. “He gave us a great deal of trouble.”

“And, after all,” Londe sighed, “he was useless. His brain was a very poor affair. Now the young man who behaved so badly to us—Daniel Rocke, I think his name was—he, I feel sure, would have been a most satisfactory subject.”

A fierce curiosity conquered for a moment Ann’s terror.

“What did you expect to get from these people?” she demanded.

“A very intelligent question,” Londe answered approvingly. “You see, my wife here and I—she wasn’t my wife then—were right up to the line in France and Belgium for many, many months. I lived with a knife in my hand, and she with bandages. Night and day we were there. If I sought a moment’s sleep, I was awakened by the screaming—and they came and fetched me. We were short of anæsthetics. We were short of everything. Blood—you never saw anything like it! We lived in it, and, somehow or other, a drop of it got into my brain. I went to a physician. I knew it was there because I could see it with the X-rays. He told me that nothing would cure me but to find another brain of the same formation as mine, but a natural colour, and remove a small portion of it to take the place of the discoloured part of my own. I dare say it was good advice, but I couldn’t find another brain that hadn’t got a similar smudge of red in it. I tried several subjects, as you know. The third was too selfish. People misunderstood us, so we had to go away. Then there came the question of this exchange of hair. My wife was afraid that you would be like these cowardly men and make difficulties about it. Directly I saw you, though, I knew there was no fear of that.”

Ann’s hand went instinctively to her head.

“What do you mean?” she demanded.

He smiled.

“I am a very clever man,” he confided, “a great scientist. I know better than to try and cut your hair off and have a hairdresser deal with it. What I shall do—it will be a very interesting operation—I shall take the scalp with it and graft it on to my wife’s head. Then your hair will grow just as it is growing now.”

“It is exactly the colour mine was,” the woman murmured, looking fixedly at Ann—“exactly the colour mine seems even now to me. It will be wonderful.”

The hideous sense of unreality which had enveloped Ann, began to pass away. The consciousness of her imminent danger, however, was no more consoling. She was alone and in the power of two lunatics.

“What about me—after you have taken my—my hair?” she faltered.

The man smiled.

“That is all arranged for,” he answered consolingly. “You remember my little rock garden at Dredley? I have started something similar here. It is really a very retired spot, although we are so near the highway.”

She sat perfectly silent, incredulous, stupefied. The calm explanation, the entire air of reasonableness, baffled all comment. She sat like a numbed being, but more than anything else in the world she prayed for Daniel Rocke.

“Everything is ready in the operating room,” the woman announced calmly.

Her husband rose to his feet and glanced expectantly towards Ann. Suddenly they heard the sound of hasty footsteps in the hall. The door was opened and closed. Leopold Greatson, a little out of breath, stood facing them. His patron frowned.

“Why have you come back?” he demanded.

“There’s something up outside!” the young man cried. “As I passed the corner of Roehampton Lane, I met a police van coming up. I stopped and came back. There are seven of them. They’ve got the house surrounded. A man saw me and spoke to me—might have been a gentleman. ‘Where’s the girl you brought up here?’ he asked. I told him I’d left her here. ‘Fetch her back and take her away,’ he ordered, ‘and you’ll do yourself a bit of good.’ That isn’t exactly what he said, but it’s near to the sense of it.—Come on, young lady. I don’t understand this hair-dealing business. We’ll vamoose.”

Ann rose eagerly to her feet. The man who had called himself “Doctor Warking” appeared curiously unperturbed.

“I wonder, Greatson, whether I dare entrust you with a considerable sum of money,” he said, drawing a great bundle of notes from his pocket. “I have no doubt that this is merely a friendly call, but——”

Some instinct prompted Ann to call out, but she was too late. Greatson had taken an impetuous step forward, his right hand outstretched. The other seized it in a grip cruel as the bite of a vice, swung him round with amazing strength and brought him crashing to the floor. Breathlessly, Ann looked upon a feat which she would never have believed possible—she saw Greatson lifted on to the other man’s back and carried from the room. Then, before she had realised her danger, her own time came. The woman, who had moved to her side, suddenly held her with a strangling clasp.

“Keep quiet,” she ordered, in the tone of a nurse soothing her patient. “Just sniff this—that’s right. Now keep still.”

The minutes which passed seemed for ever afterwards to be one of Ann’s most hideous memories. She found herself in those first moments of realisation, lying back in an easy-chair, conscious, yet with a strange sense of powerlessness. She tried to move, and fell down. Her arms, her legs, even the muscles of her neck when she tried to turn her head, seemed atrophied. She heard stealthy footsteps around the house. She even heard the front door open and close. She tried to remember the brief space of time immediately following the moment when that long, thin arm had clasped her neck—and tried in vain. She was all the time conscious of some unfamiliarity with regard to herself, something she failed to realise but which gave her a strange feeling of imperfect identity. The seconds ticked on. Then at last came a steady hammering at the front door, a sound which went echoing through the house. There was no reply. The hammering was repeated. Then there was the sound of the door being burst open, footsteps in the bare, stone-flagged hall, the eager entrance of some one into the room. Daniel Rocke stood there, a revolver in his hand.

“Here’s the woman!” he called out. “Keep your line across the hall.”

Ann tried to speak. Her lips were feeble, the sound almost inarticulate. She moved her head slightly, however, and Daniel gave a great cry.

“They’ve done us!” he shouted, springing backwards. “After the taxi, Thomas! Never mind the house. After the taxi!”

Ann was still bewildered. Then, looking down at herself, she suddenly realised what that sense of imperfect identity meant. Vague, half-stifled recollections, lingering in the back of her mind as though they belonged to some former life, suddenly became insistent. She was wearing a nurse’s uniform. She remembered the slipping of her own gown on to the floor.

Colonel Sir Francis Worton was a little depressed about the whole affair—also a little bored. He had enjoyed the three days’ holiday in which he had afterwards indulged, immensely, and on his return he would have preferred to have talked golf.

“The affair, my dear Daniel,” he said, “can only be termed unfortunate. I admit that you were perhaps bound to call in Scotland Yard, but you might at least have insisted upon a more skilful organiser for your little venture. There you were, a dozen presumably intelligent men, entirely fooled by a couple of lunatics.”

“On paper I know it sounds ridiculous,” Daniel admitted. “On the other hand, you must remember that a lunatic of the Londe type, who suffers from one obsession at a time and is sane on every other point, is the most difficult person in the world to get hold of. He’s as strong as a lion too. He carried that young man upstairs before he changed clothes with him.”

“Personally,” Q 20 remarked, “I think that Miss Lancaster is one of the luckiest persons I know. With all due deference to you, Daniel, she should never have been allowed to run such a risk.”

“You can’t use the word ‘allow’ when you talk about Miss Lancaster,” Daniel replied irritably. “She does what she wants to, and that’s all there is about it. That part of the affair was entirely her own planning. I could not have kept her from going to Elton Lodge unless I had held her back by force.”

“The whole affair is very unfortunate,” his companion repeated. “The young man, Leopold Greatson, was most interesting to us. Through him, I am quite sure that in a week or two we should have found out where these three lost Russians were hiding. Scotland Yard has really got nothing against him worth bringing him into court for. He’ll get six or eight months at the worst, and when he comes out he will have lost touch with the present situation. Upon my word, though she’s a good-looking girl, I’m almost sorry I put you on your guard.”

“Don’t talk rubbish!” Daniel rejoined, testily. “She might have met with a horrible death.”

“You think that Londe was really in earnest, then?”

“He was in earnest about the two men he murdered to get at their brains,” Daniel reminded his chief. “There was the operating table all ready in the bathroom, too, the proper knives laid out, and two or three surgical books dealing with the scalp.”

Q 20 shivered a little and threw away his cigarette.

“You may have lost Greatson,” Daniel continued, “but your tip to me probably prevented another hideous murder.”

“Right, Daniel, as usual,” his friend admitted. “I regret nothing. Only—next time you get on the track of that man Londe, let me take a hand.”

There was a glitter in Daniel’s eye which was almost bloodthirsty. This was in the days when he was full of self-confidence.

“The next time,” he declared, “will be the last!”