Читать книгу The Corpse in the Crimson Slippers - R. A. J. Walling - Страница 3

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1

The night train glided into Paddington Station punctually at seven on Monday morning, July 8.

In the string of taxis drawn up between the arrival platforms was one large private car. Its chauffeur watched the passengers drift to the underground stations or hurry away in cabs. In ten minutes the platform was almost clear. Then he made for the entrance of the first sleeping coach, searched along the corridor for Berth No. 10 and knocked at the door—a distinctive knock with two rapid taps delayed at the end. The door opened an inch.

"Me, sir," said the chauffeur.

The door opened wide to admit him and immediately closed. He touched his sandy forelock to the occupant of the berth, who stood fully dressed in a suit of country clothes. A large suit-case lay on the bunk, ready-strapped, with a rain coat resting on it. The owner, a big-built man of dark complexion, black eyes of a piercing brightness, and a commanding air, who looked anything from thirty-five to forty, said:

"Well, Morris?"

"Nothing, sir. Nobody."

"Sure?"

"Been here since half past six. Watched all the time. I'd bet on it—nobody at all."

"It's important, Morris."

"I know, sir."

"But it's become more important than you know. I can't take a single chance."

"I'd guarantee it, sir—nobody here."

The dark man turned to the window opposite the corridor and peered past the edge of the blind. An empty train stood on the next track.

"Take the bag and the coat, drive round to the departure side. I'll slip out this way and meet you there. Keep your eye lifting, Morris."

The chauffeur picked up suit-case and coat and vanished. The dark man waited a moment or two, walked down the corridor to the end of the coach, opened the door on the blind side, stepped across to the running board of the adjoining train, opened a compartment door and vanished, too.

The chauffeur drove the big car slowly under the canopy outside the departure platform, leaned back and turned the door handle without stopping. The dark man, waiting on the curb, boarded the car still in motion and it passed on toward Bishops Road.

"Not a thing, sir," the chauffeur threw over his shoulder.

"Good. But don't go direct. Get along to Lancaster Gate and through the Park, and then down the Mall. I'll keep a watch through the back window, Morris."

Half way along the Mall, he said:

"All right. Nothing following. You can drive straight home."

Under the Admiralty Arch, into Trafalgar Square, round the whirligig, across the Strand, into the Adelphi. The car pulled up outside a tall, dark and grimy house in John Street. The chauffeur opened the door with a latch-key, the dark man dashed inside, mounted four flights of stairs, entered a room on the fourth landing and dropped into a chair with a gesture of relief. It was an old family house converted into apartments which its owner dignified with the name of flats. The stairs were dark, the floors uneven. The room in which the dark man threw off his hat and sat in a lounge chair had probably been a servant's bedroom in older days. It was small, low-ceiled, and its only window looked upon the chimney pots of Adelphi Terrace. But the woodwork had been painted white, the furniture was good, the carpet thick. An opening had been practiced in the one wall, and curtains concealed another room.

The chauffeur arriving with the bag took it into that room, returned and stood at attention.

The dark man looked at his watch.

"Breakfast, Morris?"

"Ready, sir."

"Had your own?"

"Before I left, sir."

"Right. Well, Morris—a narrow squeak this time!"

"So I judged by your message, sir. You ought to have taken me."

"Impossible, man! I told you it was impossible. And I've scraped through—at least, I suppose so. But it was astonishing to find nothing doing at Paddington. Didn't you think so?"

"You didn't give 'em much time, sir—"

"Time enough. I can't quite understand what's put the spanner in the works, Morris. Still, we won't look our good luck in the teeth, eh? And now I disappear."

The sandy-haired man who stood so straight and looked so like an old soldier gazed down at the figure lounging in the chair with a touch of anxious affection in his gray eyes.

"It's too dangerous, Mr. Arthur—playing this lone hand."

"Not half so dangerous as if I had you on my hands, old blunderhead." The hard, vivid features softened into a smile. "You stick to your chauffing and valeting. Now, I'm catching the boat train at Victoria at ten, and I'll be out of their reach before you can say knife. So don't worry. I'll serve my own breakfast. You go in and get everything ready."

He raised his bulk out of the chair, handed the man a bunch of keys, crossed the landing to another room where a small table was laid and breakfast dishes were ready on a hot plate.

Morris parted the curtains and entered a bedroom. In the wardrobe he found a small steel box, and placed it on the table. Three of the keys in the bunch, applied one after the other, opened it. He took out a number of curious things—a black beard mounted on a foundation so absolutely transparent that it seemed not to exist, tubes of greasepaint, bottles of stain—and arranged them on the table. He selected clothes from the wardrobe and laid them on the bed. He cleared the suit-case and refilled it. He turned as the dark man came in.

"Any letters, Morris?"

The chauffeur took a small bundle from a drawer of the dressing table. They were opened, glanced at, thrown aside.

"No message from Mr. Penrose yesterday?"

"Nothing, sir."

"Any post this morning?"

The chauffeur looked at his watch.

"Not before I left. But it's eight now. I'll go down and see."

"A moment, Morris." The dark man stood looking down at the collection of curious things on the table. "I want to tell you something. Don't be alarmed. You may hear about it, so you'd better be prepared. A man—er—died last night."

"My God!" Morris murmured.

"Yes—I thought so. But let that be the last ejaculation, Morris. He died. If he hadn't died, I probably should have. That make any difference?"

"Mr. Arthur!"

"Well, all right. Go down and see if there's any post."

Morris returned holding out one envelope. "Monday morning—only one letter, sir. I suppose it's meant for you?"

He took it and frowned over it. "I suppose so—but it's the first time I've been turned into a limited liability company. Let's see."

The envelope, carefully slit open, revealed a single sheet of quarto paper ruled with faint lines, obviously torn off a cheap pad. He read what was scrawled on it, frowned, read again, picked up the envelope and examined superscription and post-mark.

"Something queer about this, Morris. Give me the code book."

From the bottom of the steel box the chauffeur produced a slim notebook. The dark man ran through its pages, referring at intervals to the letter. He shook his head, handed back the book, sat on the foot of the bed and frowned at his shoes for some minutes. Suddenly he looked up.

"Get through on the telephone, Morris."

The chauffeur went back to the next room. "Nobody there, sir, they say," said he when he returned. "Will you speak to Anderson?"

The dark man, looking at his watch, tapped an impatient foot on the floor. Then he strode between the curtains. The chauffeur heard the rumble of his voice—then words, spoken sharply: "Not till ten? Far too late! Never mind. Ring off."

"Morris," said he, coming back, "what was the name of that fellow Mr. Ted Fielding told me about?—you know, over the affair in Elford Mansions?"

"Something like Tell—was it Tellford?" Morris knit his eyebrows.

"No—I've got it, Morris! Tolefree—that was the name. Look him up in the telephone book."

Morris came back with the second volume of the London Telephone Directory, a finger between the pages. He pointed out two entries:

"Tolefree, Philip, Insurance Broker, Watling Street

"Tolefree, Philip, 6, Bridge House, Cannon Street."

"Ring him up at Bridge House, Morris."

The dark man read and re-read the communication on the sheet of flimsy quarto till the call was through. Morris, waiting in the bedroom, heard the rumble of his voice in the next room.

"Now, get to it, Morris," he said when he returned, sat himself in a chair, submitted to a great apron such as the barbers use, and presently was undergoing facial transformation at the hands of Morris.

2

"You're early this morning, sir!"

Tolefree's clerk, young Allen, was tidying his office and sorting his correspondence when Tolefree walked in at a quarter to nine.

"An early visitor this morning, Allen. Due now. Be 'ready for him: he's in a hurry."

Allen placed the client's chair. Tolefree sat down and pulled Who's Who out of his book rest. He was studying it when Allen brought in a card inscribed only with a name: "Mr. Ronald Hudson." And immediately that person of world-wide celebrity occupied the client's chair. Tolefree had never looked with more curious interest at anyone.

What he saw was a mask familiar to every reader of a newspaper. There was the unfashionably hirsute face under a mass of black hair worn rather too long. There were the brilliant dark eyes and the thin, well-shaped nose and the luxuriant black beard which made this extremely English Englishman look like an extremely French Frenchman. There were the powerful torso and the mighty arms which belonged to the dare-devil free-lance soldier and adventurer whose exploits were known to all the world. There was the quizzical, semi-cynical smile of the Don Quixote who could be guaranteed to turn up wherever on the globe a windmill offered itself for attack. There was the broad, calm brow that walled the brain of the genius respected in half a score of learned societies. There was the hairy right hand that had penned half a score of books for which publishers and public clamored, and above it a little watch in platinum looking strangely delicate and feminine on such a wrist. There, radiating to Tolefree, was the smile they said few women could resist. There was the meteor which had flashed out of nowhere nine or ten years ago.

There, in a word, was Ronald Hudson.

The last person in the world Tolefree had ever expected to see in that chair talking preliminary generalities to him. Few people ever sat there who had not encountered trouble of a sort from which Hudson was certainly immune—petty, sordid trouble, dishonesty with money, sneak-thievery, small defalcations. It was certainly not money that brought Hudson to Wading Street. Nobody was likely to have stolen money from Hudson, and anyhow he would have taken a trouble of that sort straight to the police.

Tolefree was a patient man. He did not mind waiting to learn what had brought Hudson to Watling Street. He submitted to the measuring glance in the midst of a sentence. But he knew why Hudson did not blurt out his mission in the first minute. Hudson was piercing him with those brilliant eyes, boring into him, exploring him. Tolefree returned the compliment with a steady gaze on the leonine face and racked his memory to relate the reputed Hudson of the newspapers with this Hudson who confronted him. He came to the conclusion that the newspapers knew of Hudson just what Hudson wished them to know and no more. That was not very much. Most people who figured in Who's Who were only too anxious to reveal themselves—age, condition, descent, place of birth, marriage, family, residence, honors and offices, literary performances, recreations and the rest of it. But of Hudson Who's Who said no more than this:

HUDSON, RONALD, writer. Publications: Various books of travel. Address: Coutts's Bank.

Tolefree, being a somewhat bookish man, knew those works of travel, from the very first of them, the one on the great journey through the Kali Desert. He put his age at forty, but that was sheer guessing—the raven beard might disguise an age above or below. On the whole, however, Tolefree thought not less than forty. There were thirty years of Hudson concealed somewhere in the backward abyss of time...

"...and so, when I heard that most moving episode in the bright career of Bill Chance and the film star, I thought I'd like to come and see the man who got him out of the mess."

Tolefree smiled. "A fascinating youth, Mr. Chance," said he. "D'you know him well?"

"Not at all; 'I echo the gossip of the Wayfarers' Club." Hudson fell silent, with his eyes staring steadily into Tolefree's. Then he suddenly made up his mind to come to the point.

"I've been told you'd be a hard man to deceive, and I believe it."

"You flatter me," Tolefree murmured. "But—you don't want to deceive me, do you?"

"Whatever I want, I haven't done it, have I? Admit it—"

"Well, it's extremely clever," said Tolefree. "But, as you challenge me—no, you haven't. I saw through it at once. Still, you know—that's my business, seeing through it."

"Quite so. The point is this—that if our talk came to nothing, and you were afterwards to tell other people you'd seen through it, they wouldn't believe you."

"Naturally they wouldn't. I said it was extremely clever. I can quite understand that if I made the suggestion to anyone outside this room I should be in danger of a visit from two doctors and a magistrate bent on certifying me. But then, of course, there's no reason why I should suggest it."

Hudson relaxed his gaze.

"Very well. We've cleared the preliminaries. Now, Mr. Tolefree, I told you I was in a desperate hurry. But for that, and the fact that it's Monday morning, and I've no time for other consultations, I'd not be here worrying you. Fact is, I'm bound for the boat train at Victoria. I shall be away at least a week. I have to be in Lisbon tomorrow night—"

"Hadn't heard of another revolution looming up in that quarter," said Tolefree.

"Touché!—you have my reputation at your finger-ends. But though, as the proverb says, common fame is seldom to blame, don't believe everything you hear about me. Portugal's perfectly quiet at present. However, this journey's the real reason why I've come to you—or rather my compulsory absence from England is. But for that I should be trying myself to solve the conundrum I'm going to ask you to tackle."

Tolefree waited.

"A matter of cerebration that won't interfere much with anything else you've got to do. When I used the word conundrum, it was deliberate. This is a written conundrum, and I should think one after your very heart."

"But," Tolefree protested, "I'm no good at conundrums. The simplest cross-word puzzle has me beaten. There's something so inhuman about a conundrum—"

"Well, listen to what I have to say. If then you refuse, no harm is done. I shall have spoken to you in confidence and you'll forget it forthwith."

Tolefree pushed a cigarette box towards him and took out his own pipe.

"Two friends of mine are concerned in this, Mr. Tolefree," Hudson said, taking a paper from his pocket. "I can tell you the name of one but not of the other. They're in a jam. I greatly want to get them out of it, but I shall be away. The friend who must be anonymous found this letter in his post-box this morning. He can't make head or tail of it, nor can I. Have a look at it."

Hudson passed across the table a thin sheet of paper torn from a common writing pad, inscribed in a round, unformed and almost illiterate handwriting thus:

July 7.

DEAR SIRS,—Mr—. Headmoor will be obliged if you will cancel the orders sent on the 1st, 4th and 5th and substitute the following:

Send him only one sink, Una type: surplus E.P.E

He hopes this will be in time for despatch by the end of the week as the matter is urgent.

Yours faithfully,

JANE JOBLING

P.S. Two rose pattern. J.J.

Tolefree looked up from his reading of the document.

"That seems straightforward enough," said he. "Your anonymous friend is a builder's merchant and Mr. Headmoor is one of his customers, from whom he's been in the habit of receiving orders. Your friend knows his address and therefore Mr. Headmoor, who's no hand at writing letters, has not thought it necessary to supply one."

Hudson shook his head.

"My friend is not a builder's merchant," said he. "He doesn't know the first thing about building, and he never sold anything in his life."

"Then the letter has reached him by mistake."

"Not so, for it was addressed to him in the same handwriting as that."

"Does he know a Mr. Headmoor?"

"Never heard the name."

"Or a Jobling woman, married or single?"

"Not the least in the world."

"He has no doubt the letter was intended for him?"

"Otherwise I shouldn't be sitting in your office."

Tolefree picked up the paper and scrutinized it.

"In that case," said he, "a most peculiar missive. And remarkably inconsistent in itself."

"I thought it consistently obscure," said Hudson.

"Yes—in the circumstances. But intrinsically, as an example of letter-writing, quite inconsistent. The handwriting isn't feigned—it's the work of a person who writes with pain and tribulation. But the composition is not the work of such a person. It's terse and businesslike, grammatical, not a single word misspelt. It is therefore a dictated letter. Mr. Headmoor has not merely instructed—Miss or Mrs. Jobling to write; he has superintended her performance. As your friend doesn't deal in sinks of the Una type—whatever they may be—Mr. Headmoor, whoever he may be, has chosen this way of communicating to him information on some other matter."

Hudson pondered this for a moment.

"You're right, without question. I ought to tell you, Tolefree, that my friend does occasionally receive remarkable communications. With most of them he has no difficulty at all. But this one beats him and he's no time now to worry it out. I promised to see whether I could get it done for him—"

"Ah, then you can possibly suggest the key of the enigma—unless Miss Jobling is a Twentieth Century Sphinx proposing insoluble problems—"

"I thought you might find the key," said Hudson. Tolefree looked at the paper again.

"It don't seem very likely. I don't even know where to look for the keyhole, do I? Now, if you could tell me whether your friend was expecting a communication about this time—"

"I was going to tell you that."

"And from whom he expected it—"

"Of course. He did rather expect some news round about now, and it hasn't arrived. I shall tell you the name of the person who was to send it, but it mustn't pass your lips either by design or by accident," said Hudson with slow emphasis.

"Very well."

"Then he was expecting to hear of or from a Mr. Thomas Penrose."

Once more Tolefree took up the paper and examined it line by line. "Well!" said he, "that's quite plain. The letter was dictated by Mr. Penrose to Miss Jobling."

"Eh?" Hudson exclaimed. "You leap at that, don't you?"

"No—it leaps at me. It's the first thing he says—`Mr. Penrose will be obliged,' et cetera. You know a bit about Celtic languages, I guess?"

"Not a thing."

"Oh? Well, Pen = Head; ros = moor. Mr. Penrose is therefore writing under two compulsions—-first to conceal his name from a casual glance; and next to avoid writing in his own hand. That is, naturally, unless he's playing a joke on your friend?"

"Joke!" cried Hudson, snatching back the paper. "Anything but a joke."

"Then, could you say whether your friend received any communications from Mr. Penrose on the first, fourth and fifth which Mr. Penrose might now wish to cancel?"

Hudson looked over the letter again. "No—I'm quite sure he's had nothing from Penrose for at least a fortnight."

"I suppose you can't be a bit more confidential about it, can you?" Tolefree asked. "You're anxious to discover under what compulsion Mr. Penrose may be—and perhaps where?"

Hudson said he could not be more confidential. "I've gone far enough in mentioning Penrose's name. But yes—my friend's most anxious to discover where and how Penrose is under compulsion as you call it. If I know anything about him the information is there."

He put down the letter.

"Well—you know best," said Tolefree. "But it's a tall order to get anything out of that without some sort of pointer. Where did your friend think Mr. Penrose might be when he wrote the communication he expected?"

"That's the deuce of it, Tolefree. He wasn't quite sure. Penrose was traveling: he thought he was on the continent."

"You spoke of an envelope, addressed in the same insult hand—"

"Yes, but it tells nothing. It was a cheap envelope with a three-halfpenny stamp in the right-hand corner and a halfpenny one in the left. They were Jubilee stamps and stretched almost across the top. They were postmarked `T.P.O.' The letter had been posted somewhere in a mail train with the extra halfpenny fee."

"Then Mr. Penrose was not on the continent but in England. A little inquiry at the Post Office should do the trick. You could probably discover whereabouts the letter was put on the train."

"No, Tolefree! That won't do. I don't want any such inquiry. It would mean handing over the envelope and disclosing my anonymous friend. If I were prepared to do that the police would be my mark. But I don't want the police in this, and that's why I've come to you."

"Oh!" Tolefree and Hudson looked deeply into each other's eyes again. "If you could indicate even remotely where he might possibly have been in England, or if you could say whether he commonly used a code, or even what the nature of the communication was likely to be—"

Hudson made vigorous gesture of dissent.

"If he were in England, I should have expected him—or rather my friend would have expected him—to be in London. He would be familiar with certain codes, but he hasn't used either of them here. I can't tell you anything about the nature of the communication."

"But you think it's important?"

"My friend does."

Tolefree pulled up his sleeve to look at his watch.

"You're giving me a raw deal, Mr. Hudson," he said.

"I can't help it. Those are the conditions."

"If this isn't in a formal code, it's a cryptogram, of course. It may take a long time to decipher. I have many jobs in hand—"

"I question whether any one of them's nearly so important as this. Anyhow, it needn't interfere with your jobs. Find out what that letter means, and if you can get it before the end of the week act accordingly. Never mind expense. Dig up Penrose whatever it costs. If nothing has happened by Sunday, I shall be at the Wayfarers' and you can get me on the telephone."

"In the meantime," said Tolefree, "what if Mr. Penrose's compulsion means danger for him?"

"He'll take his chance. I calculate it's not danger to Penrose we have to reckon with, but danger to his job. Now, that's all I can say. Is it a bet?"

Tolefree picked up the letter and read it through once more.

"All right, Mr. Hudson—it's a bet."

3

Allen saw the visitor off the premises and into the big car, driven by a sandy-haired man, which crawled out of the narrow street behind a wagon and then sped westward to Victoria Station.

Tolefree stayed in his office with his eyes bent upon the missive of Miss Jobling—not, it must be confessed, with any particular concentration or penetration. A cryptogram?—what was it?—any expert could probably have deciphered it with half a suggestion of a key, or perhaps without. Had this problem been submitted to him by any casual client, he would not have accepted it: he would have turned up the address of someone who specialized in this kind of mystery, or possibly got an address from Pierce at Scotland Yard.

It was the mystery behind the mystery that had caused Tolefree to make his bet with Hudson—partly that, and partly the personality of Hudson himself.

Hudson was an obscurer puzzle than Miss Jobling's letter. Had Hudson meant him to perceive what in fact he had perceived—that the Hudson of newspaper fame was an invention, a triumphant piece of camouflage? Whether he had meant it or not, as soon as he saw that the camouflage was pierced, he displayed his intelligence by making no bones about it.

But why, if he gave Tolefree credit for "seeing through it," did he maintain the fiction of the friend who had received this letter—insist on his anonymity?

And why, above all, had he come to Tolefree? Tolefree was right outside the Hudson world and had never expected to enter it. However, there was no doubt that connection with the eminence of Mr. Hudson might have an interesting sequel.

Tolefree spread the letter and placed a sheet of foolscap beside it.

He set down at the head of his sheet what he knew about it. The letter was sent on behalf of a Mr. Penrose. That was beyond question. Hudson had been expecting a letter from Penrose and Penrose had expected him to grasp the translation of his name from its native syllables into English. Evidently Hudson had not done so. But his attitude showed that this was a disguised message from Penrose on some business unfit for the eyes of Post Office or police.

Penrose was believed by Hudson to be on the continent, and Hudson was now on the way to the continent himself. The business was therefore almost certainly done or to be done abroad.

But Penrose was not on the continent. He was in England. The letter had been posted on a train on Sunday—a very natural thing if Penrose was in a place where the Post Office did not collect letters on Sunday, or collected them early in the morning. But where in England it was impossible to say within three or four hundred miles without referring the postmark to the Post Office. Hudson had deliberately refrained from handing over the envelope. It therefore contained some indication which he did not want revealed—probably the name of the fictitious friend to whom it had been addressed.

Penrose had not used any code with which Hudson was familiar, though he had used such codes before. Why? It could only be that he feared the communication might fall into the hands of some person who knew the code. In an apparently stupid and meaningless letter he had conveyed information which was urgent, and Hudson was expected to do something about it before the end of the week.

As he had said to Hudson, Penrose must be under some sort of compulsion—in a position where it would be unsafe or perhaps impossible to communicate with Hudson en plein and dangerous to use an established code. He had therefore invented a code. He had enlisted the services of an illiterate person to write a letter which would pass for a business communication, and had posted it to some address which would convey nothing to the inquisitive. He had trusted to Hudson's resources to get the message unraveled, and Hudson would certainly have been able to do so but for his departure on the journey to Lisbon.

What sort of jam could a friend of Hudson's be in, assuming that he was in England?—under some restraint, but not in personal danger? Clearly engaged in some enterprise which other people wanted to prevent, which would fail if it were not completed this week. What sort of enterprise? Something that would not stand examination by the public authorities. Therefore something illegal. What sort of illegal enterprise might a man like Hudson be cherishing? To judge by what he called his reputation, it might be any one of a dozen adventures in any part of the world, all of which the public authorities would strongly censure. True, there was no sign of trouble in Portugal at the moment—but one never knew what might be brewing in Lisbon. The enterprise might therefore be opposed by the authorities, or it might be by some private interests that Hudson's action challenged. This latter in all probability, because Penrose would not be kept under compulsion by the authorities in the way the letter suggested. If he had been detected in wrong-doing, he would have been arrested and charged before some magistrate within twenty-four hours...

Arrived at this point, Tolefree turned again to the letter. But nothing he had noted contained a key. No short cut: the cryptogram, if cryptogram it was, must be puzzled out of the contents of the letter itself.

He had no doubt it could be done. For the present he found himself brooding again over the personality and the motives of Hudson.

Strange how little things of apparent insignificance determine action. Tolefree afterwards said that, had he guessed at the consequences of that morning's work, he would have bundled Hudson and his letter out of Watling Street with a blank refusal. At this moment, however, thinking of Hudson's aura of mystery and the immense publicity achieved by a man who seemed to shun personal advertisement, he saw on his desk the visiting card Allen had brought to him with its simple inscription, "Mr. Ronald Hudson." He picked it up, and, idly turning it over in his fingers, perceived that the back was covered with fine, faint writing in pencil.

From that moment dated Tolefree's plunge into the desperate business of the Old Hallerdon tragedy.

The writing was not only fine and faint, but minute. He took from his drawer a large reading glass which magnified the card by three diameters and brought up a list of initials. He copied them on to his foolscap sheet:

T.G Th.

L.G. P.L.

G.L. J.Q.F.

Canon A.L.B.

F. M.

R.B.

That memorandum, made by Hudson on one of his visiting cards and unnoticed by him when he handed it to Allen, was the factor that determined Tolefree's action and led him to his solution not only of Miss Jobling's cryptogram but of a conundrum infinitely graver.

He gazed at it long. The division of the initials into groups of six and four with a mark between meant nothing to him then, and the list would have had no meaning whatever but that one little-used letter of the alphabet appeared in it—the letter Q. The odds were a million pounds to a postage stamp that the sign "J.Q.F." referred to one man only. Tolefree knew that man. It could be no other than Felderman, the patent lawyer in Bishopsgate Street.

Tolefree rang for Allen and told him to get Mr. Felderman's office on the telephone. The clerk who answered regretted that Mr. Felderman was out of town and not expected back for a few days.

"Put me on to Mr. Wilkinson," said Tolefree...

"Hello—that Tolefree?" came a voice. "You're up betimes this morning, Tolefree. I've only just stepped into the place."

"Shan't keep you a minute. The boy tells me Felderman's away. I want to speak to him. Can I get hold of him?"

"I dunno. Yes, perhaps. He's been away over the week-end at Sir Thomas Grymer's place, Old Hallerdon, in Devon. Bit of a house party. Don't expect him back till Thursday or Friday. Anything big?"

"No—just one small question," said Tolefree. "Thanks, I'll ring and try my luck. Old Hallerdon, you said?" He scribbled the name on his sheet.

"Yes—half a tick and I'll give you the number...It's Newton Abbot 5684."

"Large party there, Wilkinson?"

"Don't know. Felderman mentioned that he'd be meeting the great Mr. George Lyneham—"

"Ah, yes—I saw in the paper that Lyneham was going down for a short visit to Grymer. Well—thanks."

"All right, Tolefree—cheerio!" said Wilkinson.

Tolefree turned to his sheet. Not a doubt that Hudson's card bore the initials of a house party at Old Hallerdon. He converted the "T.G." into Sir Thomas Grymer and the "G.L." into George Lyneham, and the "J.Q.F." into James Quilter Felderman. He had no personal knowledge of Lyneham, but everybody in the City was aware of him—the quiet, powerful man who had come from small beginnings in so short a time to such financial celebrity that money seemed to flow to him like steel filings to a magnet. If Hudson was engaged in some high-colored and costly adventure, and if Lyneham was financing him, things might be expected to happen. It was perhaps significant that Lyneham was with Grymer, the engineer who made so many things in which adventurers might be interested.

Tolefree rang for Allen again...

The trunk call Allen put through to Devon was the second step in Tolefree's progress towards tragedy. It took three-quarters of an hour to mature.

"Sir Thomas Grymer's, Old Hallerdon," said the voice at the other end.

"If Mr. Felderman is in, I wish to speak to him," said Tolefree.

"What name shall I say, sir?"

"Wilkinson," said Tolefree, and waited...

"Hello, Wilkinson? London burning down?"

"Felderman, this is Tolefree speaking. I took your partner's name in vain because—you understand?"

"Oh, well, yes! And what's biting Tolefree this morning?"

"Desperate hunger for a talk with you, Felderman."

"That's flattering. Carry on."

"But not on the telephone," said Tolefree.

"I see! By Jove, I see! But you're on it dam' quick, Tolefree, aren't you?"

"Haven't the ghost of a notion what you mean, but I'm certainly not wasting time. I've looked up the trains. I can catch the 10.30 at Paddington and be at Newton Abbot at half past two. Are you far away? Could we meet somewhere?"

"We certainly could! We certainly will, Tolefree. But hang on to the line a moment. I've got an idea..."

Tolefree felt a little excitement at the prospect of success for his first shot. Felderman was away several minutes, and the operator had twice reminded him of the passage of time before the wire came alive again.

"Still there, Tolefree? Well, I have an invitation for you. Sir Thomas Grymer will be honored if you'll join his party at Old Hallerdon for a day or two."

"The deuce he will!" exclaimed Tolefree.

"He will. I've explained to him that you're an accomplished antiquarian. He had a pet antiquarian here for a day or two but lost him this morning, and he'll be rejoiced to have someone to talk to about the architecture of the Tudor period—"

"Hold on, Felderman! What's all this?"

"Cost too much to explain it on the phone. Come along down. I'll meet you at the station and tell you. A walking encyclopaedia like you oughtn't to have any difficulty in filling the bill. And if you want me, Tolefree, I want you a devil of a lot more! Mug it up in the train, can't you?"

"Is this serious, Felderman?"

"Not only serious—very grave," said Felderman. "Gosh, if it isn't a miracle you've rung up this morning!"

Tolefree frowned at the telephone, considering. "All right, then. But I can't catch the 10.30 in that case. I shall have to make some preparation."

"Get the 1.30. It reaches Newton Abbot at five. I'll be there with a car."

Not long after, Tolefree was back at Cannon Street packing his bag. What Felderman had said aroused a deep curiosity. It caused him to select with care the clothes he might need. The sober tweed he now wore would be suitable for the rôle Felderman suggested. A suit of country clothes of less restrained hue and cut might sustain another rôle if he had to change it. There must be tails because he would meet ladies at dinner. And there was the question of books. The big bag would be full, but he must mug up the Tudor Renaissance if he was to carry off the part of an antiquarian. He would have three hours in the train for that. So into the bag went Banister-Fletcher though he weighed about three pounds. And with the possible situation of Mr. Penrose in his mind, in went also the revolver for which he never carried ammunition—exemplifying his oft-expressed theory that an empty automatic was just as coercive as a loaded one and far less dangerous. And in went refills for his torch.

But while his train slid at sixty miles an hour from Paddington into the West Country, Tolefree never gave a thought to Tudor architecture, and Banister-Fletcher remained undisturbed in his bag. Hudson got between him and his studies. He found himself speculating about builders' merchants in the twentieth century rather than about builders in the sixteenth. All his reading was confined to the letter of Miss Jane Jobling. As he passed to the restaurant car for lunch, he thought of stopping to ask the cook in the kitchen what was an E.P.E., but refrained. It must be an electroplated something-or-other. As he came back from lunch he glanced into the kitchen on the offchance of seeing a sink. When he had lit his pipe and sat in his corner, he gazed at the flying landscape with unseeing eyes, looking past it to the unknown bourne of Old Hallerdon, where, he guessed, he was to meet the people enumerated on Hudson's card, and wondering what acquaintance with them might tell him about Hudson.

On the platform at Newton Abbot, Felderman was waiting for him.

"Hello, Tolefree! Glad you could make it."

"Very good of you to be glad. We seem to be a mutual godsend, don't we?"

Felderman signaled to a porter to take the bag, and led the way outside. A big Daimler stood there. The chauffeur got out when he saw Felderman and held the door open.

"Put the bag in and wait," said Felderman. "We'll come back here to join you."

He walked across the road to the gate of a little public garden, found a seat in the shade, produced a cigar case, and offered Tolefree his cutter.

"Now then, Tolefree—your business urgent?"

"In a sense—but how about yours?"

"You shall judge. I thought I'd like to put you wise before we go to Grymer's, and we can't talk in the car."

Felderman lit his cigar and got it well started. This shrewd gray man, whom Tolefree knew as a City lawyer of rather jovial temperament, was preternaturally solemn this afternoon.

"Get ready for a jolt, Tolefree," he said. "There's a dead man at Old Hallerdon. They say he committed suicide. But I'm not so sure."

If Tolefree was jolted he did not show it.

"I want to tell you about it," said Felderman.

"Oh? But first tell me whether I'm right in supposing the house party at Old Hallerdon to number nine people, yourself and Lyneham and a Mr. Canon among them."

Felderman stared.

"What do you know? You can't have heard—not yeti Was it about Grymer's party you wanted to talk to me?"

"It was," said Tolefree. "But I've heard nothing about your dead man till this minute. Am I right?"

"Up to a point. There were eight in addition to Grymer and his wife. But one of 'em's gone away—the tame antiquarian. And one of, 'em's dead—"

"Which one?"

"He was called Peter Lewisson," said..Yelderman.

"Ah, well—now, I'll listen," said Tolefree.