Dinner in New York

by Sydney Fowler

Eyre & Spottiswoode
1943

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PART I

CONCERNING FIVE MILLION DOLLARS, AND

SOME MURDERS APPERTAINING THERETO

I.	MURDER AS A GOOD DEED
II.	REDHEAD CALLS TO COLLECT
III.	A DEAD MAN ON THE MAT
IV.	SIR REGINALD S OWN ACCOUNT
V.	FRIENDLINESS OF INSPECTOR INGRAM
VI.	THE CORONER MAY PROCEED
VII.	WHERE THE CARCASE IS - -
VIII.	ACCUSATION OF MURDER
IX.	CONSULTATION AT LUNCH
X.	DAMAGING EVIDENCE OF SIR HENRY BRACKEN
XI.	SIR REGINALD DOES NOT DENY
XII.	REDHEAD HAS SOMETHING TO SAY
XIII.	EVELYN DOES NOT GO HOME
XIV.	MISS O'LEARY WATCHES THE DOOR
XV.	MISS O'LEARY EXPLAINS AMERICA
XVI.	WE KNOW FOUR THINGS
XVII.	THE WORST QUESTION OF ALL
XVIII.	THE JURY THAT DID NOT KNOW
XIX.	A MOST OPPORTUNE MURDER

PART II

BETWEEN TWO WORLDS

I.	BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
II.	SIR REGINALD MAKES A RASH BET
III.	INGRAM DECIDES TO DEAL
IV.	PROPOSALS OF SLICK MALOON
V.	COUNCIL OF WAR
VI.	MISS O'LEARY DECIDES
VII.	MISS O'LEARY EXPLAINS
VII.	A QUESTION OF CATCHING THE BOAT
VIII.	CONVERSATION AT DINNER
IX.	THE FRANKNESS OF AL CAPONE
X.	SOME FENCING WITH SLICK MALOON
Xl.	MRS. McCLINTOCK SUGGESTS A DOUBT
Xll.	MALOON OFFERS A FRIENDLY DEAL
Xlll.	IN SIR REGINALD'S CABIN
XIV.	FRIENDS?
XV.	MR. JELLIPOT IS TO TALK TONIGHT
XVI.	LAST NIGHT ON THE BALTIC
XVII.	LAST NIGHT ON THE BALTIC (continued)

PART III

DINNER IN NEW YORK

I.	A BARGAIN WITH TIM CLANCY
II.	WHO KILLED RINGAN
III.	HE ONLY WANTS TWENTY GRAND
IV.	CLANCY TALKS WITH A GUN
V.	CLANCY CALLS IT SUCCESS
VI.	AGREEMENT WITH TIM CLANCY
VII.	MR. JELLIPOT LEARNS MUCH
VIII.	TERRANOVA CAN ALSO PLOT
IX.	WHAT CAN BE WRONG ABOUT THAT?
X.	A BARGAIN WITH AL CAPONE
Xl.	THE UNEXPECTED FROM LONDON
XII.	CAPITULATION OF SIR REGINALD CROWE
XIII.	REDHEAD IN PURSUIT
XIV.	CLANCY GIVES THE NAME
XV.	REDHEAD MAKES A GOOD GUESS
XVI.	AN IDEA TOO LOW FOR CAPONE
XVII.	A BARGAIN WITH MALOON
XVIII.	DINNER IN NEW YORK

PART I

CONCERNING FIVE MILLION DOLLARS, AND

SOME MURDERS APPERTAINING THERETO

CHAPTER I

MURDER AS A GOOD DEED

HENRY BRACKEN, Assistant Commissioner of Police for the Metropolitan area, a fussy man, looked at his host in some astonishment, having heard a sentiment from his lips which offended the ethics of his legal training, and seemed particularly outrageous from the chairman of the London and Northern Bank. But Sir Reginald Crowe had a reputation for saying things that no sensible man could take seriously Paradoxical things, irritating to the settled mind: subversive things, which you were obliged to tell yourself that he could not mean. But this did not alter the fact that in spite, or perhaps because, of his unorthodox audacities, the London and Northern Bank, under his control, had advanced in the last six years from provincial obscurity to be a serious rival of the Big Five. Such men cannot be treated with disrespect, even when they say things that we are surprised to hear.

        Henry controlled his lips to a deprecatory smile as he replied "Of course, I know that you don't mean that seriously."

        As he spoke, he glanced across the table to Mr. Jellipot, but that circumspect lawyer, who had just cracked a walnut, and was now peeling its sections with particularity, showed no more than a mildly enquiring expression which a shrewder man than Sir Henry would not have found it easy to read.

        "Mean it?" Sir Reginald replied. "Of course I mean it! There are cases where murder isn't a crime at all. The only criminal business is the fuss that's made when it's found out, and all the misery that the police and the lawyers make. Ask Jellipot if I'm

not right about that."

        Mr. Jellipot, now delicately inserting a section of walnot, completely skinned, into the little heap of salt at the rim of his plate, was deliberate in his reply: "I can't say that I entirely dissent from the generalisation which our host has propounded for our consideration, but I suppose - as must be the case with all, or almost all, generalisations - that there are few of such - shall I say incidents? - to which it would be exactly applicable."

        The reply reduced the Assistant Commissioner to silence, he being no means clear as to what it meant, or whether Sir Reginald's subversive theory had been supported. But the banker laughed his appreciation. "Good for you, Jellipot! I never knew a man who could say less with more words than you. . . . But I don't mean that we all ought to go about knocking each other on the head whenever we've had a bad night, or don't like anyone eating asparagus with a knife. But just think of those American racketeers. When someone put a few ounces of lead into Jack Diamond - and he's said to be about the meanest rat that ever made the Creator wonder at His own works - the U.S.A. police began bustling about as though he were the President, or almost as though he were one of their own force. When those gangsters want to shoot each other they ought to have free ammunition served out, and a bonus on every corpse they bring in."

        As the banker said this the expression of troubled wonder on Sir Henry's face lessened, though it did not disappear He would not have said that American lives and law are of less account than those of his own country, but he felt subconsciously relieved that the conversation had not been directed to really serious things."

        Mr. Jellipot looked somewhat more alert than before. Sir Reginald, whose mental processes he knew well, had shown no previous interest in American gangsters, whose doings, even at the height of their 1929 activities, occupied no very great space in the London press. He was not surprised when Sir Reginald went on: "I had one of the dirty brutes in my own office this afternoon, and couldn't throw him out because of the credentials with which he came. . . He'll be in again in the morning, and if I twist his neck you'll be making more trouble and spending more public money than if I'd killed a good dog."

        "I am sure," Sir Henry replied uneasily, "that the position could not arise."

        "No. I expect not. But that's not because I'm too good. It's because I prefer to come home at night."

        Sir Reginald Crowe looked across the table as he spoke at a wife whose eyes gave a laughing response. The style of Sir Reginald's conversation held no difficulty, and his character was no secret, to her.

CHAPTER II

REDHEAD CALLS TO COLLECT

IT was the boast of Sir Reginald Crowe that he refused to see no one who had the temerity to ask for an interview with the chairman of the London and Northern Bank. If, he said, they had to wait, it could only be because someone had got in before them. It didn't work out quite like that, because he had an efficient secretary, and though he knew more of what went on around him than most men in such positions of authority do, there was still much of which he was not aware.

        But however ready he might be to see those who should solicit an interview, he expected them to be preceded by their own names and his own consent, and when a young woman walked unannounced into his private room on the morning after the conversation related in the previous chapter, he looked up in a natural irritation from a letter he was in the act of sealing.

        The young woman, who had a curly head of flaming red hair and blue eyes that were hard and bright, which contradicted the evidence of rather full lips, and a dented chin, got in the first word: "Say, you're Sir Reginald Crowe?"

        The banker did not satisfy her curiosity or invite her to the comfort of the deep chair at his side. He said: "Perhaps you'll introduce yourself first and tell me how you got in here?"

        "Me? I'm Moll Clancy. Redhead Clancy the boys call me more times than not. I just came in. I don't need anyone to take care of me."

        This was plain enough, though he was not familiar with its concluding idiom. He was still puzzled how she should have penetrated so far without being challenged, especially as she appeared to be a lover of primary colours, from the green scarf that was round her throat to the slacks that were cobalt blue. But he remembered that his name was on the outside of the door; and, anyway, what did it matter?

        "Well," he said, "my name's Crowe, as you suppose. You'd better sit down and tell me what your business is."

        "I've come over about Clancy's share. It's two hundred grand, and I won't take a cent less, so it's no use thinking they'll make a sucker out of Clancy or me."

        "Over from where?"

        "Chicago, of course."

        "Well, Miss - Mrs. Clancy - - "

        "Mrs to you."

        "Well, Mrs. Clancy, if you or your husband has any money deposited with us, you should apply at the counter on the floor below, and you'll have attention at once."

        "You think your tellers would pay out? I should say not. You can't put that over me. I've come to collect here."

        "You know best what you've come to do, but if this is what you call a hold-up in your delightful country, I can assure you you've gone about it in the wrong way. There isn't any cash in this room, and I haven't even got a gun to prevent you going out by the way you came in, which I think you might find it wise to do."

        "Oh, come off it! You know this is a share-out you've got to handle. I only want to know there's going to be a square deal, and you'll have no trouble from me."

        "Whatever instructions we may have had in reference to any funds deposited here, you may be sure that they will be scrupulously carried out."

        "You may be a peach for that, but I'd like to know a bit more about what those instructions are."

        Sir Reginald did not profess to misunderstand her. What was puzzling him was that he could not remember the name Clancy occurring in the singular instructions which had come in by the last U.S.A. mail. Still, his memory was not infallible. There had certainly been Irish ones.

        "Whatever instructions we may receive," he answered, "are of a strictly confidential character, excepting to those whom they immediately concern. . . . You have no doubt brought credentials with you?"

        "I've brought this."

        She handed over a letter. It had an ornately printed heading:

HOTEL ATLANTIS,
BROADWAY, U.S.A.

        The bearer of this letter, Miss Mary O'Leary, represents me as well as herself. You can pay her anything due to me.

TIM CLANCY
THE LONDON AND NORTHERN BANK LTD.
LONDON.

        Sir Reginald looked at it with puzzled eyes. "Miss O'Leary?" he asked.

        "Yes. That's my passport name "

        "Your legal name? Well, that's good enough. You have the passport with you?"

        "I have that."

        She passed it over. Sir Reginald looked at it with care. The photograph, which often has no more than a vague resemblance to its original, was unmistakably hers.

        "Well, Mrs. Clancy," he said, "that seems plain enough. I'm not sure how far it gets us. Tell me - you're asking for a large sum - about forty thousand pounds - what exactly did you expect the procedure to be?"

        "I don't know it in pounds. It's a thick wad. Two hundred thousand bucks. I want it paid over to me.

        "Did you think it would be paid to you by the bank, or that you d get it here from someone else who would draw it from us?"

        "I don't care if I pick it up."

        "That wasn't quite what I asked."

        "I thought, of course, I'd have it from you."

        "You are staying in London?"

        "Yes."

        "You could let me have your address?"

        "I'm staying at an hotel in Oxford Street. I forget the name. It's a class joint. Near the top of Park Lane."

        "Perhaps the Westmorland?"

        "Yes. That's the name."

        "Perhaps you could call again tomorrow morning? Or I could ring you there?"

        "I'd rather clear this up now."

        "I can't say more than this. There may be instructions already here which will lead to you being paid such a sum as you mention. I don't see any reason you shouldn't know that we have a sum in American currency in our hands which we are expecting to pay out. And I may add that, as soon as the necessary formalities are observed, I shall be very pleased to close a transaction into which we should never have entered if we'd known as much about it as we do now. But I'm sure those instructions don't authorise us to pay any sum out to you alone now. If you'll leave the matter till tomorrow morning I expect I shall know more."

        The young woman heard this without rising. She sat in frowning hesitation.

        "I'd say," she remarked at last, "you're a straight guy. I'll tell you there's those we don't trust, and if Ringan's here on the twist I'd like to be close handy when the pay-out's being done, if it's not meant to come to me first, as it ought to be."

        "You think, so long as you're present, you'll be able to do your own collecting?"

        "I reckon I'd have a try."

        Sir Reginald looked at the speaker and did not doubt the truth of this confident assertion. Neither did he doubt that he was confronted by an associate of criminals, if not one who was herself an adept at crime. But he was disposed to think that, so far as right could be in such matters, she had come to assert a claim which was fairly hers and that of the man she represented. He was aware also that in anything he did, or declined to do, there might be legal difficulties of the gravest kind. Yet he was not over-much troubled by those aspects of the matter. He had some confidence in his own capacity to deal with an unusual circumstance, and he did not think that those for whom he was unwillingly acting would be quick to invoke the law. He suspected that it was from the menacing shadow of the law of another land that the huge sum which was now deposited with him had been removed.

        It was a time at which the American racketeer was at the height of a power which was soon to fall, but he was less known to the English public than he afterwards became through the medium of the most realistic, and in some respects the most artistically satisfying, pictures that Hollywood was to make during the next ten years. Yet he had read enough to know that honour among thieves had no certain place in the code of these vultures in human form. That there would be attempts at double-crossing in the withdrawal of the money was a most probable thing, and the fear of it was actually indicated by the method he had been instructed to observe in its disbursement.

        He looked speculatively at his visitor, who was regarding him with resolved but not hostile eyes. His own settled upon a narrow dead-white scar above her right temple, which the close-cut hair made no effort to hide. It was such as a bullet might have made, and most probably had. He considered that there was nothing furtive about her approach. She was one, in appearance and dress, whom no crowd would hide. It was also clear that she might become a dangerous nuisance if she were thwarted in what she considered her rights to be. He spoke with more frankness than a more orthodox banker might have been disposed to do.

        "Mrs. Clancy, you're quite right when you call me a straight guy. If I weren't, it's not in the least likely that I should be sitting here. And I'm quite willing to do anything for you that I properly can. But we're talking about large sums. If I were to pay you two hundred thousand dollars, and then had a court order to pay it to someone else in a few weeks' time, my shareholders would have something nasty to say. But I don't think I shall be doing wrong in telling you how the matter stands. I don't suppose I shall be telling you much that you don't know.

        "A few months ago we had a large sum transferred to our custody from a bank in your country. I can't be more particular than that, but - - "

        "It was the Dallas Sixth National Bank."

        "Yes. It was the Sixth National Bank, Dallas, Texas. You evidently know. Coming to us in that way, there was no reason to decline the business nor to make any difficulty - - "

        "The boys bought it up. Al Capone had the idea. There's Detroit and the New York crowd in it, as well as us. Except Diamond. They wouldn't let Legs in."

        "Well, we saw no reason to make any difficulty when further sums reached us in the same way, though we didn't like it because there were reasons, which I needn't go into, which made it little benefit to us.

        "But by last Tuesday's mail we had instructions regarding the disposal of this money which I disliked, and yesterday one of your friends called whom I disliked - and what he told me - very much more."

        "Who was he?"

        "I don't think I can tell you that. But there's one thing I can do now.

        "I can find out whether we have a specimen of Mr. Clancy's signature, and whether he's one of those to whom the money is to be paid. I suppose he hasn't got more than one name for such occasions as these?"

        "No. Tim Clancy's the only name."

        "I'm rather surprised that he didn't run over himself. The sum you ask for is worth some trouble in picking up."

        "There might have been a bit of bother. You see, he was born in Liverpool."

        "About landing? That should have made it easier."

        "About landing here? Yep. But how about getting back?"

        "I see. I have no doubt there were good reasons enough."

        "You bet there were. For one thing, I know Ringan, and he doesn't. And, for another, this money's not to go back. It's to be salted here. And that's my job to do. He couldn't leave where he is, not for such a time as this needs."

        "Well, we'll see what we can find out."

        Sir Reginald took up his private telephone. He rang through to his secretary's office, and was surprised to get no reply. Miss Markham might be out. There was a reason why he should not be surprised at that. But, if so, Miss Glen should have been at the other end of the wire. At a second effort, and after a moment's delay, so she was.

        "I'm so sorry," she said. "I was called away for a moment."

        "Never mind that. Where's Miss Markham?"

        "She's gone over to Mr. Jellipot's office. She ought to be back in ten minutes."

        "Has she left her safe open? Or do you have the key when she's away?"

        "No. It's always locked when she's out. She keeps the key on her own bunch."

        "Yes. So she does."

        He remembered having noticed previously Miss Markham's care regarding a safe of which there were only two keys, one being in his own pocket. He approved of that. He knew he need not ask whether the documents he required were on her table or would have been locked away as soon as she had made the copies which she was now taking to the lawyer's office. It seemed he must go himself.

        He opened a drawer in the desk at which he sat, put into it the letter on which he had been engaged when Miss O'Leary entered, locked it with his usual precision, glanced over an otherwise vacant desk, and said: "I shall have to leave you a minute or two, but I shan't keep you long."

        Sir Reginald's office was on the first floor. The passage outside it ran right and left - to the right to a private stairway only. This consisted of shallow, softly carpeted stairs, and to one of his active habits they were more attractive than the comparatively distant lift.

        To the left, and on the left hand, was the boardroom door. The boardroom was spacious and lay lengthwise to the passage. At its further end the passage turned left, and anyone following its course would come first to the door of Miss Markham's room, then to that of one shared by Miss Glen and a junior typist, and then to an automatic lift which ran down to the ground floor and the vaults, and to the floor above, and was in general use by the staff. Further on, and still to the left, were the offices of Mr. Charles Adams, the head accountant of the bank, and other officials with whom we have no concern.

        On the further side there were no doors, but windows only, the passage overlooking Lombard Street and a narrow adjoining thoroughfare.

        Sir Reginald went straight to Miss Markham's room, where he unlocked the secretary's safe with his private key and found without difficulty the papers to which he wished to refer.

        They consisted of instructions from the Sixth National Bank of Dallas to pay out five million dollars, deposited to their order, to three representatives of the bank (as they were described) who would present separate credentials, and of whose signatures specimens were enclosed. The money was only to be paid to the three men after they had separately presented their credentials and were all present together. It appeared to be assumed that it would be available at any moment in dollar currency.

        Sir Reginald had already cabled concerning this and other points which he considered to require further elucidation, but which he understood better now that he had learned that Chicago gangsters had gained control of the bank. This morning he had instructed Miss Markham to take copies of the documents to Mr. Jellipot's office, and ask that astute lawyer to give his own, and to obtain counsel's, opinion thereon.

        Now he inspected the originals, and it took little time to confirm his previous memory that Tim Clancy was not mentioned therein.

        Sir Reginald subsequently professed that it was impossible for him to say, within ten or fifteen minutes, the time at which he left Miss O'Leary alone in his room, but it could be very nearly settled by other evidences, and was of the less importance, as the departure of that lady, who apparently became tired of waiting for his return, was observed by several, including a bank messenger, who was able to fix it exactly at 11.43 a.m.

        It was also settled beyond dispute that it was after twelve - though how long after was less certain - when Sir Reginald telephoned Mr. Jellipot, having returned to his own room.

CHAPTER III

A DEAD MAN ON THE MAT

MR. JELLIPOT, whose mind had been pleasantly occupied upon the interpretation of a loosely worded codicil which a client, recently deceased, had added to a lucid will of his own careful drafting, readily laid it aside for the consideration of the more urgent problem which Miss Markham had put before him.

        He saw that it contained questions of fact and of banking practice on which he was less competent to advise than Sir Reginald would be to instruct him, but there were other issues such as are fascinating to the legal mind.

        He was in doubt on the basic question of whether it would be a physical possibility to produce five million dollars in American currency in London in a shorter time than it would take to bring the bills from New York. He considered the operations of the Exchange Equalisation Fund, and admitted a degree of ignorance concerning the methods of its operations which it was annoying to recognise. But doubtless the Treasury or the Bank of England would know the answer to that, even if, as was improbable, Sir Reginald would need to enquire. But he supposed that the sudden demand for so large a sum in such a form would raise its value to a degree which might involve the bank in a serious margin of loss if the terms of the deposits should throw this obligation upon them. That was his and counsel's problem - to advise what the extent of the bank's obligation was. And, beyond that, as to any safeguards which could be used for their protection in regard to the highly peculiar manner in which the money was to be withdrawn.

        "Doubtless," he thought, "it was one of these men who called in Lombard Street yesterday, of whom Sir Reginald said it would be justifiable homicide to make an end. It would certainly save a great deal of trouble, and probably some future crime, not to speak of a million pounds!"

        He saw one or two points on which he would like some further information before drafting the case on which counsel's opinion was to be asked, and was just about to get through to the London and Northern Bank when he was informed that Sir Reginald was on the wire, wishing to speak to him.

        "Jellipot," he heard, "you'd better come over here if you've got nothing more urgent to do. There's a dead man on the mat."

        Mr. Jellipot, perhaps for the first time in his life, was startled out of his usual logical precision of speech. He echoed foolishly: "There's - there's a what?"

        "You know you heard what I said. A dead man. I suppose you know what that is. There've been plenty before."

        Mr. Jeilipot recovered himself to ask: "You mean on the mat of your own office?"

        "Yes. Outside the door."

        "And you don't know who he is?"

        "I didn't say that. It's the man I mentioned last night at dinner."

        Mr. Jellipot was startled again. "I hope," he began, "you're not going to tell me - - "

        "Of course I'm not. If I had killed him I shouldn't be quite such a fool as that."

        Mr. Jellipot, always liable to be led away by abstract considerations, felt bound to dissent. "It is usually best," he said, "to let your lawyer know what the facts are."

        "That's what you lawyers say. But I'll give you a few, all the same. You can think them over while you're coming along. I left my own room for about half an hour, or perhaps a bit less, and when I came back I found this man outside the door."

        "Was the door shut?"

        "No, open."

        "Was that how you left it?"

        "Ye-s. I think it was. Yes, I'm quite sure. Well, he was lying face upwards. I said he was a dead man, but in fact he was twitching a bit then, though he was as plain a goner as you're ever likely to see. He was lying with a pool of blood spreading from under his back. I turned him over to see what the matter was, and found a knife stuck in it. I pulled it out, but that didn't do any good."

        "Of course, you've called the police?"

        "No. Not yet. I thought I'd let you know first."

        "You can't be too quick in letting them know. They are sure to resent any delay."

        "Oh, I expect you'll be able to deal with them."

        "I hope you won't rely too much upon that. I'll come over at once. But there's the question of a doctor as well as the police. Doesn't anyone know at all except you?"

        "Not yet. It didn't happen last year or the year before. And what good could a doctor do.? The man's as dead as ditch-water now, if he wasn't when I came on the scene. Pulling out the knife seemed to fetch the curtain down with a run."

        "Well, I'm coming. But don't lose any more time in reporting the crime. It might be misunderstood in more ways than one."

        The perturbation of Mr. Jellipot's mind, which had been shown in the unusual brevity of his conversational style, was further demonstrated by his attempt to insert his right arm into the left sleeve of his top-coat, and even more emphatically by the fact that he was already in the outer office before he became aware that the umbrella which it was his invariable custom to carry was still in its rack in his own room.

        As he turned back to get it he pulled himself together with a visible effort, and it was with a return to his accustomed manner that he said mildly to a junior clerk: "Benson, get me a taxi quickly. I have a particular reason for avoiding delay."

        Benson, being too familiar with his employer's manner to miss the significance of these quietly spoken words, was down the stairs with such speed that he not only beat the lift, but had the needed vehicle at the curb at the time of Mr. Jellipot's more sedate arrival.

        For the four minutes of his short journey from Basinghall Street Mr. Jellipot sat back in a cogitation which was oblivious of outward things, but as he was roused by the stopping of the vehicle and the opening door, he muttered half aloud, in the tone of one who pronounces a final verdict: "It was a most foolish thing."

        We may conclude that this remark was not unrelated to the event with which he had come to deal, but whether it were in reference to Sir Reginald's conversation of the previous evening, or his delay in informing the police of the homicide which had occurred, or of the unwisdom of stabbing a man in the back outside the private office of an important banker, is more than we are ever likely to know.

CHAPTER IV

SIR REGINALD'S OWN ACCOUNT

MR. JELLIPOT arrived five or six minutes before the police, at which he was not entirely pleased.

        He thought that Sir Reginald's action in summoning him first looked too much like the act of a guilty man, which it would, of course, be absurd to think him to be.

        But, being on the scene, he was no less diligent to use those few minutes to learn as much as he could of the circumstances of the affair.

        He was surprised on entering the bank to observe no evidence of excitement, or disturbance of its routine. Passing through the wide doors, which are at the street corner, he turned to the right and passed along the counter which is occupied by the disbursing cashiers, those who receive deposits being ranged along that which runs at right angles to it, left hand from the outer door. He passed behind the backs of customers who were fully occupying the attention of cashiers whose duties require that their minds and eyes be concentrated on what they do; and he considered how probably anyone walking quietly and confidently might pass unobserved to the swing door beyond the end of the counter, which gave access to a passage by which the automatic lift could be reached.

        Though he was well known at the bank, he doubted whether anyone there, if questioned five minutes later, would be able to say that he had come in.

        He encountered no one as he went up until he came to the angle of the passage on the first floor, where it turned towards Sir Reginald's private room, and here he found the bank porter standing on guard.

        "I'm to let you through, sir, and the police, but no one else. That's Sir Reginald's orders."

        "You mean no one except you knows what's happened?"

        "Yes, sir. Sir Reginald doesn't want it to get about more than we can help."

        "More than you can't help, Spooner," Mr. Jellipot smilingly corrected, his dislike of slovenly speech asserting itself in evidence that any perturbation he had felt on first hearing of this improbable murder had given place to his normal detachment and self-control.

        Spooner did not show any interest in the correction he had received. He went on: "It isn't what you'd wish the young ladies to see. You'll find it's a nasty mess."

        "Yes; you're quite right to keep them away."

        Leaving the sentinel at his post, Mr. Jellipot went on toward a corpse which was already visible as it lay in an awkward sprawl outside Sir Reginald's door, which stood open. That which had been Tony Ringan an hour before lay in a pool of its own blood which the thick carpet had been inadequate to absorb. The knife which had been drawn from his back lay beside him. Stepping past it, Mr. Jellipot entered an empty room.

        But as he did so Sir Reginald's voice sounded cheerfully from a bathroom to which there was no access from the passage, but which could be entered either from his or from the boardroom on its other side. "That you, Jellipot? Come in. I'm just trying to get cleaned up a bit before the cops come on the scene. I suppose it's too much a habit with these wops for them to give it up when they come over here; but I wish they'd choose somewhere else than my own mat."

        Mr. Jellipot entered the bathroom. Sir Reginald was at the hand-basin, in which the water was a dull red. Reddened towels had been thrown into the bath. So had coat, collar and tie.

        "Lucky for me," the banker went on, "that I keep a few clothes here, or I might have spent the next hour in a sticky mess."

        Mr. Jellipot was deliberate in diction, but he came straight to his point: "I must conclude from what you have told me, and the observations I made as I came in, that there has been no attempt to arrest the criminal?"

        "Right in one. He doesn't seem to have waited, as a good criminal should."

        "I understand that you were away from the office when it occurred?"

        "Right again. I was with Adams discussing some trouble that's come up at our Wigan branch."

        "You had been away for a considerable time?"

        "Oh, not so long! Couldn't say exactly. You see, I'd sent Miss Markham to office, and I went into her room for some papers I wanted, and when I was there the Wigan call came through - our manager at that branch has been trying to shoot himself, an didn't even do a simple little job like that thoroughly, and it's fifty-fifty whether it's domestic trouble or something short in our cash, and, anyway, it meant getting an inspector there at a run, and some other details that took a few minutes, more or less, so I may have been away any time between fifteen minutes and twice that long."

        "Did you hear anyone come from the lift while you were in Miss Markham's room?"

        "No. I can't say I did. I had my mind on what seemed to me to be more important matters."

        "Naturally. But you and others would be passing from room to room. Someone would have been almost certain to see or hear anyone going up or down?"

        "I don't know that they would. I was in Miss Markham's room telephoning most of the time. Then I just went along to speak to Adams, and came back here."

        "Well, we must hope someone did. . . . You know who the dead man is?"

        "I know what he told me about himself yesterday. I don't say how much I believe. Ringan he called himself, but I believe these beauties usually have more names than one.

        "I'll tell you one proposal he made, and you'll understand that It wasn't a case where any doctor ought to have been hurried on to the scene, even if he hadn't been past help when I saw him first. He offered me what he called five grand - that's a bit over a thousand pounds - to help him to pick up his fellow-gangsters' money as well as his own."

        "I don't see how you could do that without having to hand it out to them over again."

        "Well, he thought he did. Our instructions are to pay it to the three together. He proposed that I should get them all to sign the receipt before I'd loose what he called the wad, and then lay it down so that he could pick it up, and he'd be near the door, and I was to have one or two porters placed so that they'd get in the way of the other men. He said half a minute would be enough for him, and they could seize the other men to stop them shooting, as they'd be sure to try, and if they did that, and stopped them altogether, he wouldn't mind paying another grand to them. Well, he's got just what he deserved, if you ask me. Though I dare say that the one who knifed him's a rat of the same breed."

        Mr. Jellipot agreed that probabilities pointed in that direction, and would have asked further questions, for there were still many things which he would have liked to learn before the arrival of the police, but there was the sound of a brisk voice in the passage - "Yes, my man. I can see that" - which he recognised as belonging to Dr. Corbett, a police surgeon whom he had met before, and next moment he appeared, with Chief Detective-Inspector Ingram, strolling, with longer legs, in a more leisurely manner, behind him.

CHAPTER V

FRIENDLINESS OF INSPECTOR INGRAM

INSPECTOR INGRAM was a tall thin man with a pleasant voice and a deceptively winning smile. His colleagues spoke of the "fatherly manner" in which he would deal with confused, frightened, or illiterate suspects while drawing from them the admissions or contradictions which would secure their convictions.

        It was said of him also that he had never been seen to hurry or discompose himself under any circumstance. Yet he was of a lithe activity, and his leisurely movements might be as deceptive as the smile that came so easily to his questioning eyes.

        It was Dr. Corbett who spoke first. "Who turned this man over?" he asked sharply.

        Sir Reginald, coming out of the bathroom in Mr. Jellipot's rear, and pulling on his coat as he did so, answered readily: "I did. It was the only way to get the knife out of his back."

        "You pulled the knife out?"

        "Yes. It seemed the natural thing to do. But if I'd known what a mess I should get into - - The fact is I've been cleaning up ever since, and I hardly feel decent now."

        "It's always better to leave things as they are in a case like this."

        "Well, it would have been better for me, and made precious little difference to him. But considering that he was lying on the knife so that his own weight must have been driving it further in - well, there was something to be said for a change of position, if nothing more."

        Dr. Corbett made no reply. He turned to the inspector to say: "There's no hurry about anything I can do here. I'd better stand t back till you've got the pictures you'll want."

        "So I was about to suggest. But Grey will be here any minute now," Ingram answered. He took a long stride over the corpse and the sodden carpet and glanced round the room. He saw that there were drops of blood scattered about, and his eyes paused for a second upon Sir Reginald's desk, where the white blotting-pad was discoloured, and there were other stains of an obvious kind. But he gave no sign of anything he may have thought, turning to Sir Reginald to enquire in his friendliest manner: "I take it you were not present when this happened?"

        "No. I was probably in Mr. Adams' room at the further end of the passage."

        "And you found him like this when you came back?"

        "Yes. Lying on his back. Otherwise just about as he is now."

        "Yes. That's how I understood. I expect you know who he is?"

        "Yes. Ringan's the name. He was here yesterday afternoon."

        "On private business with you?"

        "No. Banking business. He wasn't the sort with whom I should have any personal business relations."

        "He doesn't look a very choice specimen. But knowing what his business was, you may be able to make a good guess at who'd be likely to be here with him, or have a motive for doing this?"

        "I expected him to come alone. But there were two others whom I was to arrange for him to meet. I haven't heard of them calling yet. I ought not to suggest that it was one of them. I know nothing about them at all, though I might guess. But I suppose it would be one of his fellow-gangsters. There's certainly motive enough, judging by what I heard from him yesterday."

        "Gangsters? . . . Do you mean that literally? Do you mean he's an American?"

        "Yes. What I believe they call a wop in New York."

        "Well, there's evidently a lot more you can tell me, but it sounds as though it may be a simple job. . . . You'll excuse me a moment?"

        Saying this, he turned to the camera-men, who had now arrived. "Get me some good pictures from all the usual angles. Be careful not to touch or disturb the knife. Get the room interior. It may be important that there's no sign of a struggle there. . . . Perhaps we'd better go into another room where we can talk quietly?"

        "You can come into the boardroom. There's a way through here."

        Sir Reginald led the way through the bathroom, and the detective followed. His eyes missed little, but he made no remark. Mr. Jellipot, who had remained silent and had not appeared to take much notice of the conversation, followed also.

        The inspector, who knew him by sight and was well aware of his reputation, was not misled by this casual attitude, nor was he blind to the significance of his being there.

        It was equally true that Mr. Jellipot was able to assess the exact value of the friendly warmth in his voice. They both knew each other, and each other's methods, for what they were.

        More of habit than deliberation, the banker sat himself in the heavily carved armchair which he was accustomed to occupy when he presided at meetings of directors who did little beyond endorsing with their approval the forceful methods by which the bank had been advanced since it had come under his energetic control.

        Inspector Ingram took a chair at his left hand, and Mr. Jellipot seated himself unobtrusively further down the table.

        Inspector Ingram drew out his notebook. "Now," he said genially, "we'll get a few details straight. First, you might let me have the man's name and where he's been putting up."

        "He gave his name as Antonio Ringan. I should call that an Italian name, and he looked Italian, and spoke English in the way that underbred Italians do, but that's the name on his passport. By the same evidence he was a citizen of the United States. I can't tell you more than that."

        "Oh, but I expect you can! You'll have his London address if he's doing business with the bank."

        "No. I haven't that. He introduced himself yesterday after. noon and said he would look in again this morning."

        "But - - "

        "I think under the - somewhat unusual - circumstances I may tell you that his name had been sent to me, together with two others, by an American bank, with specimens of their signatures, and instructions to pay out a sum of money to them as soon as they should present themselves together to receive it."

        "Have the others turned up?"

        "Not to my knowledge. He was the first to arrive."

        "Then why was he coming again this morning?"

        "To enquire whether they had come."

        "Wouldn't it have been more natural for him to have given you the address of his hotel so that you could advise him by telephone of their arrival?"

        "Would it? Either course seems natural enough to me."

        "It sounds extraordinary that they had not arranged to get in touch with one another on their arrival. That would surely have been the natural course to take."

        "I'm not sure that they were in the habit of taking natural courses. If the other two are like this one, they have an extreme distrust of one another."

        "It's a very interesting affair. I suppose you won't mind telling me what the amount of this money is?"

        "I don't think I should mention that."

        "You'll find it will have to come out."

        "Possibly. What do you think, Mr. Jellipot?"

        "I think that Inspector Ingram will agree that unless it is evident that such a disclosure will be of direct value in elucidating what has occurred, your duty of secrecy to your clients - who are not the men you have been discussing, but the bank which transferred the money to your control - must prevail. Of course, the position would be different if a court order should be obtained."

        "Which it would be easy for us to get."

        "Then there would be no objection whatever. It is solely a question of banking law."

        "I suppose it is a large sum?"

        "You may reasonably presume that. You will no doubt have observed that large sums of money, like diamonds of exceptional size, are often inciters of violent crime."

        "But," the inspector objected, "if three men could only draw the money together, it is difficult to see any advantage one would gain by killing another. It looks too much like cooking his own goose."

        "I confess," Mr. Jellipot replied, "that the same idea has occurred to my own mind. As an abstract proposition it would appear to be more probable that it would be the act of a fourth, who claims a share from which he had been excluded."

        "Unless," Inspector Ingram added, "the money can be drawn by the remaining two."

        Mr. Jellipot looked interrogation to the banker, who looked the same question at him. "That," Sir Reginald said, "is a question on which it may be necessary to take legal advice. But my own opinion is that we certainly could not pay it out to the remaining two. We must have the three signatures as our discharge."

        "So," Inspector Ingram remarked, with his friendly smile, "the position actually is that this man's death removes the occasion for paying it out at all?"

        "It may oblige us to hold it," Sir Reginald corrected, with some sharpness in his voice, "until we receive revised instructions from our American clients."

        Inspector Ingram accepted the correction without appearing to notice the tone in which it was spoken. He changed the subject to ask: "Of course, you won't object to my questioning your staff as to who may have been seen coming up here or going out?"

        "No. There can be no objection to that. Though I should have been glad if press publicity - I suppose some is inevitable - could be minimised. It would be possible to publish it in a way which would do no good to the bank, which I am naturally anxious to avoid.

        "I'm afraid that you'll have a lot of that. As far as we are concerned, the slower the reporters are to get on the scent, the better pleased we shall be. But you'll find that it can't be done. . . . All the same, I don't mind questioning the staff in such a way that they don't know why I'm anxious to know. I may learn more that way than I otherwise should. . . . So if you'll let me have the names of those two other men, Sir Reginald, I won't trouble you further for the moment."

        "I can tell you those. Joseph Ruscatti and Slick Maloon."

        "Slick Maloon? That's a queer name."

        "Well, we're dealing with a queer crowd."

        Inspector Ingram went out to his job of questioning the bank staff, and Mr. Jellipot and Sir Reginald Crowe were left together.

        "I wish, Jellipot, the banker commenced at once, "you hadn't said that about it not being likely that it was one of the other two."

        Mr. Jellipot looked mildly surprised. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I believe that it was Inspector Ingram who remarked upon it in the first instance. Neither do I quite see - - "

        "But I do. . . . But it doesn't really matter. And I didn't mean to be rude. . . . I'll tell you what I wish you'd do. I wish you'd see that the press get hold of this in the right way. They're bound to have it, one way or other. The inspector was right about that. I suppose the next thing will be that Ingram's men will want to haul that example of Heaven's mistakes out through the street door. . . . But if you'll see to that I'll get home and into something that'll make me feel a bit cleaner than I do now, and let Evelyn know about this beastly affair before she reads of it in the evening papers."

CHAPTER VI

THE CORONER MAY PROCEED

IT was during the following morning that Sir Henry Bracken sent for Chief Inspector Ingram. He saw him in his private room, and said that he wished to know what progress had been made with the Ringan case.

        "It's a queer business," the inspector replied. "We've traced the other two men who were to pick up the money. They came over together, and landed at Southampton the night before last. They both stayed the night there. It couldn't have been either of them. We've learned that they expected to pick up over a million pounds, and to get it in American notes. Not an easy order, even for a bank like the London and Northern

        "Beyond that, they're not much help. If they've any idea of who did it, they wouldn't tell us. They're the prosperous racketeer type, and even if they're taking each other for a ride they'll hold together against the law.

        "They seem mad over the killing, which leaves them in doubt of how the money can be picked up. They've been sending cables to some of the big shots on the other side. Al Capone for one. They seem to take for granted that Crowe did it himself."

        "What do you think, Ingram?"

        "I don't know. It's a queer affair altogether, and not a very nice transaction for an English bank to be handling. Ringan was seen to by Crow private stairs. It seems that he'd come down that way the previous afternoon, so that was natural enough, and he was the sort of man who would be likely to announce himself. But no one else was seen to go up or down after him till we got on the scene. If it wasn't Crowe, we've got no clue at all. It seems a mad thing for anyone to have done in such a place, and marvellous that they got away - if they did. What happened isn't easy to reconstruct. Crowe's finger-prints are the only ones on the

        "He gave an explanation of that."

        "Yes. Which may be true. But it's capable of another. . . . Suppose Crowe wouldn't agree to the kind of shell-out they'd come to get, and that led to a row? The puzzle is how he got hold of the knife."

        "You've traced where that came from?"

        "It was Ringan's. It has his initials on it, and there are the same ones, carved in the same way, on the sheath, which he was still wearing. It was on a belt under his jacket. The puzzle is how it could have got into Crowe's hands."

        "Have you any theory as to that?"

        "Well, suppose Ringan drew it and threatened Crowe. Crowe closed with him - he's a vigorous, athletic man - and wrenched it away. Ringan might turn to run - it was the only weapon he had - and then Crowe catches him up at the door and drives it into his back."

        "You are inclined to think that's what happened?"

        "I don't go quite that far. It's the best theory I've got. It's not strong enough to justify an arrest, without more evidence than we've got yet. . . . But there's one thing I've found out. Crowe's way of running the London and Northern isn't quite approved by the other banks. They think he takes too many risks, and they're never sure what he'll do next."

        "He's very popular in social circles."

        "Yes. And with the public. We should come a cropper if we were to act on what we've got on him now. Though, of course, if we arrest him, and he's really guilty, it would soon be a lot more. We know how it piles up when they're once under lock and key. Sir Henry hesitated. Chief Inspector Ingram, who knew him, well, wondered whether he were about to propose something foolish, from which it might take half an hour's diplomatic per. suasion to turn him aside. But what came at last was of an unexpected kind.

        "There's one thing I think I ought to tell you, Ingram, though I don't want it to influence you too much. I was at dinner with Sir Reginald on the evening before last, and he began talking about murdering people - he brought up the question himself - and saying that it was often more or less justifiable, and the pity was that the law is so active to interfere. Utter rot it was, but he was the host, and we had to listen with as much politeness as we could manage.

        "Jellipot was there, and he tried to get his support, without much success. But it went beyond general talk. He actually mentioned Ringan having called upon him, and said it would be no loss if he were done in, or something that amounted to that. I got the impression that it was a subject on which he was a bit mad."

        Chief Inspector Ingram looked thoughtful. "I wouldn't say, as an academic question, that there isn't something to be said for that point of view. But that's not our matter now. We're dealing with who killed Ringan, and I should say we could arrest him on that, and what we've got already, and feel pretty sure we're putting the bracelets on the right man."

        "I don't know. I don't like it, Ingram," Sir Henry replied uncertainly. "We can't afford a mistake. He's a popular man, as we said before. . . . I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll leave Bryant to take it on. And you can give him the hint that you think Sir Reginald's his man and that he should try to get all the evidence he can in that direction. Tell him he can call me and I shan't mind."

        Bryant - Dr. Rathbone Bryant - was the coroner. In earlier years he would have had an authority outside the interference of the police. So, in some respects, he had still. But as the powers of the police have increased and their activities extended during the past generation, there has been an overlapping of the old powers and the new which has led to compromise, a legalised custom by which the police notify the coroner of whether they wish him to act or to stand aside. In the latter case he may still summon his court to sit, but there will be an indefinite adjournment to give the police a clear field for their own methods. It is a matter of symbolic rather than primary importance, illustrating the shrinkage of English safeguards and liberties under the regimentation of bureaucracy.

        Now the coroner was being told that the police preferred that he should proceed in his ancient way.

CHAPTER VII

WHERE THE CARCASE IS - -

THE dingy courtroom was uncomfortably crowded even before the coroner took his seat. Duckworth Holmes, who had reported such enquiries for the last thirty years, and who knew everyone and everything that such a reporter should, was pointing out those whom he recognised to a younger colleague.

        "That's Whatley-Cummings on the right. The man with the big fleshy face and the fringe of straw-coloured hair. You don't often see him without his gown. No, they're never worn in this court He'll be here for the police. I don't suppose anyone's representing the murdered man. . . . You don't suppose I know that red-head girl at the back? Well, it happens I do know something. Something we can't print, and we don't think the police are on the track of it yet. She's got a nerve to come here if I'm right And she must have had some push to get in. There aren't many of the public who have. . . . But there's something queerer than that. There's the Assistant Commissioner here. That man on Whatley-Cummings' left who keeps on whispering to him. He's a fussy old fool. They say he gives them jitters at the Yard wondering what he'll try to do next. But it's funny him being here. They must be looking for something important to break . . . That's Sir Reginald Crowe in the seat behind, further along with Lady Crowe on his right. Used to be Evelyn Merivale, and got kidnapped by a drug-smuggling gang, and shut up in a phoney jail while they blackmailed her brother. Of course, you remember that. She married Crowe after he helped get her out of the mess Looks as though the boot's on the other leg now, and she's here backing him up. Not that he seems to need any help from her . . . And that's Jellipot on his other side. You know, the lawyer that made his name in the same case, and what happened after You wouldn't think he could say boo to a goose, but he's give one or two leading counsel a jolt before now, besides making the Yard look a bit silly. And the quiet way he does it always makes them a bit wild. Solicitor for the defence? No, you mustn't say that. There isn't any defence here. That would imply that there's some charge against Crowe, and your paper'd be scraping up money for damages that'd keep it poor for the next three years. This isn't a trial, it's an enquiry. But Crowe's a witness, and he can have a solicitor to watch his interests. Everything's a bit looser here than it is in a court of law. For one thing, the laws of evidence don't apply. And the jury always brings in a verdict, because a majority's all that's needed.

        "Think they'll say Crowe did it? Haven't the foggiest. Coroners' juries mostly do what they're told. Now and then they get their teeth on the bit and give the court a surprise. . . . But I'll tell you one thing. If they say Crowe pushed in the knife there'll be a run on his bank. I know a fellow who's got an account at the London and Northern - the New Oxford Street branch. He drew out yesterday. Says he's left about three and fourpence in. Didn't like to close it, but thought there was no harm in being on the safe side."

        "Then the run's started already?"

        "No. He said not. Everything seemed quiet. It's tomorrow the fun would start if Crowe found himself on the wrong side of the bars."

        "He doesn't look as though anything's worrying him overmuch."

        "No. He wouldn't. I should say he's not often had anything in his hands that he hasn't been equal to pulling off. . . . That man on Bracken's other side? You mean - - Hush! Here's the coroner coming in."

        The murmur of voices ceased, and the crowded court rose respectfully to its feet as the coroner entered briskly.

CHAPTER VIII

ACCUSATION OF MURDER

THE dull, inevitable preliminaries were over. The jury sworn. The explanatory statements made. The routine evidence given. The crowded court stirred to more animated expectation as Sir Reginald Crowe was called.

        He gave his evidence confidently and clearly, and, till Whatley-Cummings, K.C., rose to cross-examine on behalf of the police, it is improbable that many of those who heard had any doubt that it was the simple truth of what he had seen and done. But it became evident, from the first question that the learned counsel asked, that that evidence was to be challenged from a surprising angle.

        "You take, I believe, a rather unusual view of the conditions that would justify you in taking the life of a fellow-man?"

        If the question startled Sir Reginald, his self-control was sufficient to conceal it. He answered readily: "I hope I hold reasonable views, and I hope, therefore, that they are not unusual."

        "Perhaps you will be good enough to tell the court what they are."

        "If you really ask for a considered reply to a hypothetical - - " But Mr. Jellipot, who had been considering the possibility of this line of attack since he had noticed the presence of Sir Henry Bracken, was on his feet.

        "I submit," he said, "that the question is highly irregular and that the witness should not reply. He is not called as an expert, but as a witness of fact. His opinion on an abstract question of that kind can have no value at all."

        Dr. Rathbone Bryant would not have admitted that he could be awed by Whatley-Cummings or any other eminent counsel in his own court, or influenced by the fact that that gentleman held an official brief; but now he temporised, where a stronger man would have allowed or denied the question. He said: "Unless the witness object to answer - - "

        "As his solicitor, I wish to make the strongest possible protest against a line of examination which is an abuse of the process of the court."

        Whatley-Cummings did not wait for the coroner's decision. He said blandly: "I will withdraw a question to which such strong objection is taken. But I will ask this: Did you, or did you not, on the evening before this murder, which took place on the threshold of your own room, when no one else is known to have been present - did you or did you not say that to murder him would be a justifiable or venial act?"

        Mr. Jellipot, hearing the question put thus, and recognising that it was now in a form to which he could not hope to object successfully, was in some doubt as to whether his interposition might not have done more harm than good, but he had gained some time for his client to adjust his mind to the attack which he had to meet, which it had been his first object to do, and he was satisfied with the result when he heard the quiet laconic denial: "No, I did not."

        "Then will you repeat what you did say?"

        "So far as I can recollect a casual after-dinner conversation, to which no importance could be attached at the time, what I argued was that murder varied very much in its gravity, and that there are actual instances where more harm and misery is caused by the investigation and punishment which follow than by the crime itself. It does not seem to me to be a proposition which reasonable men would dispute."

        "No? . . . Well, the court will hear what you did say from those - one or more - whose memories may be more exact than yours. But I suggest that you were far more specific than that - that you mentioned this man, who was to be found dead next morning at the door of your own office, as one whom it would be justifiable to destroy."

        "Then you are suggesting something which is untrue. I am sure that I mentioned no one by name, and equally so that the expression 'justifiable to destroy' was not used by me. I will add freely that the man, whom I had first seen a few hours before, came to my mind, and was used by me as an illustration, as one of a criminal kind whose existence is of no benefit to the community."

        "Why should you think that?"

        "Because in the conversation I have mentioned he admitted, or rather boasted, to me that he was an American racketeer of what I suppose to be the worst kind."

        "And your bank has business with such as he?"

        "That is an imputation unwarranted by the facts. There is, of course, a sense in which a bank must have business relations with every class, and potentially with every member. of the community. We cannot enquire into the character of everyone to whom a customer may draw a cheque before we consent to pay it."

        "But you do not receive them all in your private room?"

        "I probably should if any one of them should ask to see me. You don't turn a man down or refuse his business before you know something about it."

        The coroner, looking up from the notes he was making of this conversation, suggested doubtfully: "Aren't we getting somewhat wide of the actual subject of this enquiry, Mr. Whatley-Cummings?"

        "I think not, sir. It may be important to ascertain the nature of the business which the witness had with this man on successive days in his private office."

        "Very well; go on."

        Sir Reginald did not wait for the question which would have followed. He said: "I can tell you that at once. He came with conditional authority to draw money from funds which had been placed with us by a United States bank. I had no business with him except to see that the conditions should be observed, and then to pay out the money. Had he proposed to open an account with my bank, I should have refused with emphasis."

        "Perhaps he did?"

        "He did not."

        "Are you sure that on this his second visit, which was concluded - for he appears to have been going out when he was stabbed - are you sure that money had not already been paid to him?"

        Sir Reginald laughed in what appeared to be genuine amusement at this question.

        "You're trying to suggest that I paid him the money and then murdered him and got it back? You'll have to think of something better than that. It would be easy to prove that the money was never found. I don't keep the bank's cash in my private room, nor could I get access to it without others knowing and records being made."

        "It is no occasion for levity. I was not suggesting - - "

        "No? It was an outrageous suggestion. But it was the absurdity of it that struck me first."

        "I am suggesting nothing. I am merely - - "

        Mr. Jellipot rose. "The suggestion was made in the most pointed manner. It is one which cannot be supported by any evidence or probability, and which the witness should naturally resent - - "

        It was Mr. Whatley-Cummings' turn to interrupt with some effect: "But the witness did not resent it! He regards anything to do with homicide in too light a manner. If I may say so - - "

        At this point the coroner intruded into the legal skirmish: "Perhaps, Mr. Whatley-Cummings, it will be best to continue your examination "

        "I must repeat that I am suggesting nothing. I am endeavouring only to elucidate what occurred during the last hour of the earthly life of this unfortunate man. The witness affects to ridicule the possibility of the money having been paid, on the ground that the bank's money is not kept in his own room. But are there not such things as documentary payments? Might not such a form of draft as would satisfy an alien wop (I think that was the word that the witness used to describe the man he - the murdered man) be readily available to one of his position?" He turned to Sir Reginald again. "I will ask you - - " But Mr. Jellipot was on his feet.

        "I am aware, Mr. Coroner, that in enquiries of this character there is a very wide latitude within your discretion, but I submit that this line of examination cannot be justified either in tone or substance, unless supported by other evidence, as I am sure that it cannot be."

        The coroner temporised. "What do you say to that, Mr. Whatley-Cummings?"

        "I submit that, in view of evidence which you will hear respecting the language used by the witness concerning the dead man on the previous evening, and the fact that he lay next morning at the door of Sir Reginald's vacant room, it becomes necessary to make the most searching enquiry into the transaction which was going on between these men - - "

        Sir Reginald interrupted in a sharper tone than he had yet used: "There was no transaction between us. It was as a customer of our banking correspondents that he came to me, and as representing the bank that I saw him."

        "We may allow that. Now, as representing the bank, did no document pass on the morning of his death between him and you?"

        "I have told you that I did not see him at all that morning until I found him lying with a knife in his back. . . . I may add that the sum which would, under certain circumstances, have become due to him was to have been paid in cash."

        "It was a large sum?"

        "Yes."

        "Will you tell the court what it was?"

        "I don't think I should do that."

        "Why not? It may be no more than we know already. You see, we have the papers which were in Ringan's pockets."

        "I have no objection to your knowing. It is a different matter to make a public statement."

        "But Ringan is dead."

        "I am not concerned about him. Our clients are the bank from whom we received the funds, and our duty of secrecy is to them."

        The coroner asked: "Is it necessary to press the question?"

        "I think it should be on the records of the court."

        "Very well. I must direct you, Sir Reginald, to answer."

        "The amount which would have become payable under certain circumstances to Ringan was approximately £337,000 at the normal rate of exchange."

        "And that was part of a larger sum?"

        "Yes. Of five million dollars."

        "And the result of this man's death is that that huge sum will not need to be paid out?"

        Sir Reginald was roused at last to a heated reply: "The suggestion is infamous and groundless. We hold the money at the disposal of our correspondents, whoever may be living or dead."

        "But the immediate result of Ringan's death is that the conditions under which this huge sum would become payable do not arise?"

        "The immediate result - yes."

        "So that my infamous suggestion was exactly true?"

        "I emphatically disagree. It contained an innuendo which was as poisonous as it was false."

        "Well, it is for the jury to judge! I will ask you - - "

        The coroner, who had glanced at the clock more than once during the last ten minutes, interposed with: "If your examination is not very near its conclusion, I think it may be convenient to adjourn at this stage, Mr. Whatley-Cummings."

        "I have a number of further questions to ask."

        "Very well. We will adjourn for forty minutes. Gentlemen of the jury, you will be back in your places at one-fifty."

        The coroner was out of his seat and through the door which opened behind his chair almost as the words died on his lips, and the crowded court waked to the murmur of many voices and the bustle of those who pushed their way out through its narrow doors.

CHAPTER IX

CONSULTATION AT LUNCH

MR. JELLIPOT said: "There is a restaurant almost opposite where we may get a private room and lunch will be quickly served." He stood with Sir Reginald and Lady Crowe in the crowded vestibule of the court."

        "Any 'phone there?"

        "There's one in the room that I have in mind."

        "Then we'd better hurry over, so that no one gets there before us."

        "I have already reserved it."

        "Good old Jellipot! Then we'll say no more till we're there and I the lunch is served."

        This was a programme to which Mr. Jellipot was well content to adhere, and it was not until the soup plates had been removed and a more substantial course was before them that he began to discuss his client's position, with the words: "I had gathered earlier this morning that Whatley-Cummings would be inclined to be troublesome, but I didn't anticipate such a direct attack. It was unfortunate that we had that conversation the night before."

        "It's unfortunate that Bracken's an ass."

        "Yes. In combination with his holding the position he does. Anyway, we've got to face the fact that they mean to persuade the jury that you killed him, either to avoid paying out the money or for some reason unknown."

        "Or just on general principles?"

        "Yes. They may even try that."

        "Funny, isn't it? And all because I said something that's obvious sense, and most men think, or would if they thought about the subject at all."

        "It isn't merely that," Mr. Jellipot said, with his usual scrupulous equity. "The dead man is a fact. And it's another that he was on your mat, and that no one else was there."

        "It's so absurd," Lady Crowe said, "that it's not easy to take it seriously."

        "It will be serious if it causes a run on the London and Northern," her husband replied, in a more sober tone than his own peril had caused him to use.

        "You're not really afraid of that?" There was more concern in r her own voice than it had held previously.

        "Yes, I am. But, I say, Evelyn! Don't let that worry you. I didn't say we shan't be able to deal with it."

        "I never knew of anything yet that you couldn't."

        "Well, that's something to live up to! Jellipot, how should you like to have a wife who made you feel you daren't make a mess, even now and then?"

        "I should think myself," Mr. Jellipot replied, "an exceptionally fortunate man."

        "Well, I don't say you'd be wrong. But the question is what's the jury going to be persuaded to say?"

        "I have never," Mr. Jellipot answered, "adopted the attitude of cynicism toward the British jury which is frequent in our profession. The average jury contains one cantankerous and two intelligent members, from whom much may be hoped. It is unfortunate that the one with which we have to deal - or perhaps I should say which will deal with us - shows no sign of including one of these. . . . I suppose what they say will depend entirely upon what Dr. Rathbone Bryant may say to them."

        "And what will that be likely to be?"

        "That, especially at this stage of proceedings, is difficult to forecast. He is what you may call a typically moderate man. Moderate in his ambitions, his sympathies and his intelligence Moderate in his conclusions also. I should say it would be "person unknown" unless he's influenced too much by the fact that the police are trying to fix it on to you. It is only fair to warn you of that."

        "Sounds cheerful for me! I'll tell you what, Jellipot. Three months from now you and Evelyn will be searching for the real murderer, with a torch battery that's just going out, at the lower end of a London sewer, knowing that I'll be hanged in about three hours if you don't bring in the exhibit rather quicker than that. . . . And won't Evelyn lead you a life after if you re ten minutes late!"

        Lady Crowe looked at her husband as he said this with more anxiety than she had shown previously. Knowing him as she did, she saw that his mind entertained the possibility of troubles more seriously than his buoyant manner would indicate to a less intimate observation. Her eyes went to the lawyer in troubled query. Was it possible that Reggie, in whose fertility of resource she had learnt to have such absolute confidence, was really in peril from this preposterous charge?

        Mr. Jellipot, who understood them both, through the ordeal of past experience, as few others would have been able to do, answered the look in her eyes rather than the jesting words to which they had listened.

        "I should be sorry for any murderer whom Lady Crowe were hunting under such circumstances, but there are several reasons why I have some confidence that the position will not arise."

        There was more ground for assurance to those who heard in the quiet gravity of his voice than if he had spoken in the confident contempt of such charges being made or believed, which Lady Crowe, if not her husband, needed to have. He went on: "I don't know that we shall have so much difficulty in getting on the track of the man we want. I got some information from Cross & Wardlaw this morning which I haven't had time to tell you till now - - "

        "Cross & Wardlaw being?"

        "The lawyers from whom Whatley-Cummings has had his brief. They let out that they've traced the two men who were to meet Ringan. They arrived at Southampton too late to make it possible that they killed him, as it has never been sense to suppose they would. But it's more than likely that they can put us on to whoever did, and that they'll be glad to have their revenge on one who has upset their own expectations of collecting their shares of the money."

        "They won't give him away to us, however they feel," Sir Reginald said. "They're more likely to run him down themselves."

        "Which might be handled so that it would be equally good for us."

        "So it might. But I'd prefer to get out of this in another way. As to who did it, I might make a good guess now, if I'd nothing more decent to do."

        Mr. Jellipot looked more interested than surprised. He said: "If you can do that you have the position in your own hands."

        "That's how it looks to you. Suppose the more I knew who it was - which you mustn't think that I do - the more I should say nothing at all?"

        Mr. Jellipot made no effort to discuss this supposition. He looked at his watch. He said: "We ought to be back in court in less than six minutes. I remember that you made a point of having a telephone available here. I hope it was nothing important."

        "Oh, I hadn't forgotten that! But I've left it as late as possible because I want to know what's happening at the bank after the midday papers were on the streets. If Bryant has to wait two or three minutes he'll get over that before he dies of old age or gets run down in the streets, as we mostly do. But we'll get back before he's in his chair, more likely than not. . . . Jellipot, you just finish lunch" (for Mr. Jellipot had given more attention to the conversation than to the excellent courses which the waiter had laid before him), "and if I'm not delayed getting through - - "

        Fortunately, there was no delay. In half a minute he was saying: "That you, Adams? Well, never mind anything else. What I want to know is how they're getting on at the counter since the papers got on the street. A bit busy? Well, so I expected to hear. Paying out, of course. We can stand that for today. But you've got to be ready for the morning, particularly with the country branches. . . . Any enquiries from - - "

        "Mr. Reed rang up half an hour ago."

        "You mean the Capital & Counties? What did he say?"

        "He said we could look to them to the limit of any cover we could put up."

        "Good for him. Tell him we're all right yet. Five million dollars goes a long way, on the top of all we've got to throw on the counter besides that."

        "I told him I'd go over to fix it up as soon as I'd taken this call from you."

        "Well, perhaps you're right! We can't be too well prepared. . . . Anyone else?"

        "There was an enquiry from the Bank of England a few minutes back."

        "Any offer of help from them?"

        "No. Just that they were anxious to know."

        "Then if they have the cheek to come through again, tell them to go to hell."

        "I'll make it clear that their assistance is not required."

        "No, you won't. Don't make anything clear. I mean just what I say. Tell them to go to hell. If you add anything to that, just say that it's a message from me. . . . Anything else?"

        "Lord Britleigh is anxious to be kept informed. I'm not sure whether he wants to help or to draw out."

        "I don't suppose that he knows that himself If you hear anything more, tell him to get in touch with Jellipot in the morning. He'll trust him for the right advice, if he's not sure of me. But I can't go on talking now. You and Crofton will know how to carry on."

        He cut off abruptly, turning to Lady Crowe to say: "There's that precious brother of yours getting a headache as to whether he'd be wiser to scuttle off or talk about offering his last crust. I've told Adams that Jellipot will make up his mind for him in the right way."

        Evelyn laughed, perhaps for the first time that day. She said: "Poor Cyril! He will be in a stew. But if he were to - - "

        "He won't do that. But he'll lie awake all night wondering if he will."

        "I think," Mr. Jellipot said gravely, "that Lord Britleigh's support is certain, though it is not one which we can suppose will be lightly given."

        "Very well put, Jellipot. Well, there's the best part of a million there."

        "I think we should be wise not to delay further."

        "Well, who wants to? Come along, Evelyn. Let's hear what they've cooked up for us while we've been enjoying ourselves here."

        They were two minutes (and twenty seconds, Mr. Jellipot would have added) late when they re-entered the court, but there was no trouble for that, the coroner being a full minute later than they.

        It was a minute which Sir Reginald did not waste. He paused before the reporters' table to say: "Boys, I shouldn't wonder if you hear when you get back to Fleet Street that there's been a run on my bank. Well, if so, you can publish a message from me. There'll be an extra cashier tomorrow morning on every branch we've got where there's a counter long enough for him to stand, and an extra drawer for the cash. We'll pay out everyone who comes just as quickly as we can count the notes. But by this time next week I'll have a list on my desk of every customer who's been paid out, and everyone who's paid in, and they can be sure I shan't fail to turn it up when things change a bit, as they're always likely to do, and they're asking favours from me.

        "They ought to know by now that I keep my word, and I'm not one to forget. And after I've said that, I don't know whether London will go on trying to knock us out, but I don't think Lancashire will."

        With these confident words, upon which the reporters' pencils had not been idle, Sir Reginald passed on to his seat, as Dr. Rathbone Bryant settled himself in his loftier place and Whatley-Cummings rose.

CHAPTER X

DAMAGING EVIDENCE OF SIR HENRY BRACKEN

IN legal actions or other processes, whether of civil or criminal character, the luncheon interval is no more than a deceptive pause, often filled with many hurried activities, and during which each side will take counsel upon the phases of battle already fought, and devise new tactics for those which are next to come Often it will be occasion for a flag of truce to pass the opposing barriers, and terms of settlement will be reached which would have been impracticable during the process of legal war.

        For these and cognate reasons the interval may be welcomed by both contestants. The harried witness is glad of a respite which will give him time to consider the implications of the replies which have already been abstracted from him, and to decide how best he may avoid the pitfalls to which they lead. The counsel who has been conducting the examination may be glad of an interval to consider the same replies from an opposite angle. The watchful solicitors may have their own suggestions to make for his consideration. Their consultations may result in the adoption of different tactics from those which were interrupted by the rising of the court.

        So it was now. Sir Reginald Crowe, expecting to be called back to the witness-box, heard Mr. Whatley-Cummings say: "Before recalling the previous witness, I suggest that, if you approve, it may be well to take the evidence of Sir Henry Bracken, who has attended today at great inconvenience, and whose presence is now urgently required in connection with his public duties elsewhere"

        The coroner said that this appeared to be a convenient course to adopt, and Sir Henry Bracken entered the box.

        After the usual preliminaries, his examination proceeded in a court which had sunk to a silence of concentrated attention greater even than that which had been directed upon the previous witness.

        "On the evening of Monday, the seventh instant - the evening before the murder - you had a conversation with Sir Reginald Crowe?"

        "Yes. At dinner."

        "Actually you were his guest?"

        "Yes.

        "Who else was present?"

        "Lady Crowe and Mr. Jellipot."

        "They must also have heard the conversation, in which, more or less, they took part?"

        "Yes."

        "No one else was there?"

        "No one else. Mr. Jellipot and myself were the guests of Sir Reginald and Lady Crowe."

        "Mr. Jellipot being Sir Reginald's lawyer, who is now representing him here? '

        "Yes."

        "What was the subject of the conversation?"

        "Whether murder was a serious crime."

        "Who started the subject?"

        "Sir Reginald Crowe."

        "What view did he take?"

        "He said that many murders were justifiable. He seemed to think that they were a good thing rather than - - "

        Mr. Jellipot interposed. "Mr. Coroner, I object. If the witness will tell us what Sir Reginald Crowe said - or what he believes he remembers that he said in the course of an after-dinner conversation to which no importance could have been attached at the time - the court will be able to judge what he seemed to think, which is opinion only."

        "I am sure, Mr. Jellipot," the coroner answered, "you may rely upon Sir Henry Bracken to give his evidence with scrupulous impartiality."

        "I have no doubt of that. But my objection was on other grounds."

        The coroner turned to the witness. "Perhaps, Sir Henry, you will tell us, as exactly as possible, what Sir Reginald said."

        "He said too much for me to remember it all. Its general effect was that many murders would be good rather than bad if the murderer were not afterwards interfered with by the police."

        The examination continued:

        "Was this argument entirely of an abstract kind, or did he mention any example of those who, shall we say, required murdering for their own or the public good?"

        "He mentioned no names that I recollect, but he said a man had called upon him that afternoon who would be no loss to the community."

        "Did he describe him?"

        "Yes."

        "You have heard the descriptions of the murdered man which were given in court this morning?"

        "Yes."

        "Have you any doubt that it was to this man that Sir Reginald Crowe referred?"

        "None whatever."

        Mr. Jellipot, who had been engaged in a whispered conference with his client, rose again.

        "I might easily show that the reference in question was of far too vague a character to admit of such identification, but my client wishes to treat the court with the utmost candour concerning a conversation the significance of which may be absurdly exaggerated in the light of events which subsequently occurred, and I will say at once that the reference was to Antonio Ringan."

        Mr. Whatley-Cummings' glance swept the length of the jury-box, as though to share with the gentlemen it contained the deadly implications of this admission. He turned back to the witness as he exclaimed: "That, if I may say so without unfairness, might have been difficult to deny. . . . Can you recall the nature of Sir Reginald Crowe's allusion to this unfortunate man, who was doomed to meet a violent and treacherous death at his door on the next day?"

        "He said if he were to kill him he supposed there'd be more fuss than if he had killed a good dog."

        This statement moved the court to an audible murmur, and caused the coroner to glance at Sir Reginald's solicitor as though to enquire whether that astonishing allegation were to pass unchallenged. But Mr. Jellipot gave no sign.

        Mr. Whatley-Cummings, who had intended to put two or three further questions, was too good a tactician to do so. "I think," he said, as though he had demonstrated Sir Reginald's guilt to the satisfaction of every sensible mind, "that is all that I need ask," and sat down accordingly.

        As he did so Mr. Jellipot rose. "With your permission, sir, there are one or two questions I should like to ask. . . . You have. told us, Sir Henry, your recollection of what Sir Reginald Crowe may have said. Do you recollect your own remarks on the subject in equal detail?"

        "I don t think I said much. I was too astonished at what I heard."

        "May I assist your recollection? Did you not say that you were sure that Sir Reginald's remarks were not seriously made?"

        "I may have said something of that kind."

        "Could you not be rather more explicit?"

        "Yes, I think I did."

        "You remember saying it?"

        "Yes. Something to that effect."

        "You are familiar with Sir Reginald Crowe's conversational style on such occasions? . . . When his object will be to amuse and entertain his guests. It may often be of startling or paradoxical character?"

        "Yes. I dare say it is."

        "You know it is?"

        "I am sure that I have no wish to misrepresent Sir Reginald in any way."

        "I am equally sure of that; and I therefore press you for an explicit answer."

        "I have heard Sir Reginald say things on other occasions which it is difficult to take seriously."

        "I will accept that. . . . On this occasion it never entered your mind that the man to whom allusion had been made was in any danger at Sir Reginald's hands? It did not occur to you to warn him? Or to use the powers of the police whom you control for his protection?"

        "No."

        "And, because that power is in your hands, and the policing of the metropolitan area is a task in which you have so large a share of responsibility, you would be particularly likely - indeed, certain - to take such steps if any reasonable cause. should arise?"

        "Yes. If I should see reasonable occasion to do so."

        "And the fact that you hold that position would make it particularly unlikely that anyone of Sir Reginald's intelligence, having a homicidal intention, would mention it in your presence?"

        "I was extremely surprised when I heard it said."

        "That is not what I asked. But I think your inaction was the sufficient answer. You have said that you did not take the conversation seriously. I suppose, beyond that, you recognised the gulf which lies between academic theory and physical act?"

        "I certainly didn't think it was a thing which Sir Reginald would be likely to do."

        "I think that is all that I need ask you."

        Mr. Jellipot sat down, and a moment later, with the coroner's permission, Sir Henry Bracken left the court, while Sir Reginald Crowe was recalled to the witness-box.

CHAPTER XI

SIR REGINALD DOES NOT DENY

"WHAT I said I meant, and I'm not going to soft-pedal now."

        These words, spoken by Sir Reginald as he left his solicitor's side to submit himself once more to the examination of Mr, Whatley-Cummings, were not heard by Mr. Jellipot alone, but by a dozen of those who were closely round them. One, at least, of the reporters heard them and gave them a world-wide publicity. Faintly they reached the coroner's ears.

        Mr. Jellipot looked his doubt, but did not repeat a protest already made "I was bound," he thought, "to advise an attitude of greater caution, which he was bound to reject. Were he less audacious or self-assured, he would not hold the position he now does. He must fight this in his own way, to which I must conform. . . . But for such a line it's about the worst jury I ever saw." He put his own thoughts aside to listen to a resumed examination on which he felt that Sir Reginald's immediate freedom, if not his ultimate fate, might depend.

        "You have just heard, Sir Reginald, Sir Henry Bracken's account of some things you are alleged to have said regarding Antonio Ringan on the evening before his murder. Do you agree that they were substantially accurate?"

        "It isn't likely, is it?"

        "You mustn't ask me. Why isn't it likely?"

        "Such after-dinner conversations are not likely to be remembered with accuracy."

        "Well, do you happen to have a better memory?"

        "Substantially, yes. I know what I meant, and I know I said it."

        "Then perhaps you'll tell the court what your views are on the subject of private homicide, which were so startling that those who heard thought you couldn't possibly mean them seriously?"

        "I'm quite willing to do that, though they have not the i slightest relevance to this inquest."

        "That is for the jury to judge."

        "Naturally. . . . What I think, and may have said, is that there may be no crime that varies so greatly as murder, both in its criminality and in the evil of its results.

        "Even when we put aside consideration of crimes of extreme provocation, or which arise from abnormal emotional disturbances, there are evident differences between the motives and impulses that lead to homicide, as there are also in the loss to the community or even to the individual most concerned. Life itself is of very varying value to those who possess it. An old man suffering from an incurable disease loses less than a young one in vigorous health, and if the young one be hanged for his murder he suffers a heavier penalty than would an old man if their rôles had been reversed.

        "But it seems futile to occupy the time of the court in an abstract thesis with which, if it be carefully considered, I suppose few reasonable people would disagree."

        "You may be wrong there. Most men may think Thou shalt not kill to be a commandment to which no specious qualifications should be applied. . . . But I must suggest that what you said went beyond such abstractions. Did you not actually mention the murdered man as one whom it would be a venial offence to kill?"

        "No. I mentioned him as one whose death would be little loss to the community, which is a widely different matter."

        " . . . And next day he was dead. Will you tell the jury why you thought his life to be of so little value?"

        "He was a criminal - a man who lived by violence and fraud - according to his own statement to me. He had actually proposed to me that afternoon that I should be a party to enabling him to defraud those who were to draw the money jointly with him."

        "And after that you arranged to see him again next morning?"

        "I had no option. When we are instructed to pay out, in any specified direction, funds which we hold, we cannot refuse to do so because we dislike the characters of the payees."

        "Not if they are criminals?"

        "Not even then, unless we have evidence of criminality relating to the funds in question, or the use to which they would be applied."

        "And when you saw him you refused to be a party to this proposed fraud?"

        "I certainly did."

        "And this quarrel followed, with the fatal result which should not be taken too seriously?"

        "That is an utterly false and groundless suggestion. I have told you that this proposal was made on the previous afternoon, and that on the following morning I did not see him at all until I found him dying at my office door."

        "That is for the jury to say."

        "That is surely for me to say, as I am the only one, except the murderer, who can possibly know."

        The reply was given with more heat than Sir Reginald had previously shown, and drew a murmur of approval from some, though perhaps no more than a small minority, of those who heard. The sound ceased at a word of sharp rebuke from the coroner, and Whatley-Cummings, sensitive to the atmosphere of the court, as a good advocate always is, changed the tone, though not the direction, of his attack.

        Sympathy for the witness was about the last emotion he would wish to arouse in those who listened to this rapid duel of words and wits. His tone became that of one who strives with patient kindness to draw reasonable admissions from a refractory and untruthful child.

        "You ask us to believe that you came along the passage, your mind naturally occupied, and perhaps agitated, with the trouble at your Wigan branch, and you suddenly saw a dying man in a pool of his own blood, and - - "

        "I did not say that. There was comparatively little blood till I turned him over and pulled out the knife."

        "Never mind that. Let us concentrate upon the essential fact that - - "

        "But it is essential that you should not put words into my mouth that I have not said."

        The sharp interruption had disconcerted counsel in the smooth period which he had intended to reach. It was with a perceptible effort that he resumed his tone of persuasive reasoning, and went on: "I have no desire to put any words into your mouth, Sir Reginald, or to treat you with anything less than the most scrupulous fairness. But do you not see that your account is not one which any sensible person can be expected to believe? Would not any man, suddenly coming on such a sight, rouse an alarm, both to chase the assassin and to give help to a dying man?"

        "I tried to give help myself."

        "And that is all the explanation you propose to offer of the considerable interval which must have occurred between your finding the body and ringing up the police?"

        "I telephoned my solicitor after I had ascertained that the man was beyond help."

        "Was that the natural course to be taken by an innocent man?"

        "It seemed natural to me."

        "After the man was dead - by whatever hand - you turned him over, as you say, to draw out the knife. Was there any other more personal motive?"

        "None whatever. What could there be?"

        "You must not ask questions of me. Did you take nothing from him?"

        "I did not. You appear to be suggesting that I am not only a murderer, but a common thief."

        "I am not suggesting, but asking you a direct question. I do not I suppose that you robbed him of money. Indeed, from the large sum that was found upon him, it is highly unlikely that such a motive incited the crime or interested the criminal subsequently. But was there no document which, to your own knowledge, was in his possession, and which you would prefer to remove rather than it should be found upon him by the police?"

        "No. I am aware of nothing which I could have the slightest interest in keeping from the observation of the police."

        "Or taking from him in your own interests or that of your bank?"

        "None whatever."

        "You have told the court that when he called upon you on the previous afternoon he produced a document of great value - in fact, his authority to receive about £337,000."

        "He did."

        "He doubtless produced evidences of identification?"

        "He did."

        "His passport?"

        "Yes."

        "From which pocket did he abstract it?"

        "I am not sure that I can recall that. It was not a thing which was likely to notice particularly. But I think - I may say I am sure - that it was from a hip-pocket. Yes. It was from his right hip-pocket. I remember that he moved his position on the chair as he drew the passport out."

        "Do you think it likely that when he came to see you again in the morning he did not bring his passport with him, and also the document by which he hoped to draw £337,000?

        "No. I think it improbable."

        "Most improbable?"

        "Yes. You may say that."

        "And do you know that, though his passport and other documents, and a considerable sum of money, were found on him, the authority to collect that money was not among them?"

        "I will accept your word for it. I did not know until now."

        "And to reach that document, which you knew to be in his hip-pocket, it was necessary to turn him over?"

        "No. You are wrong. As he lay, it would have been easy to reach his hip-pocket without moving him at all."

        "You recall that precisely?"

        "I remember how he lay."

        "With special reference to his hip-pocket?"

        "No. But I know where a hip-pocket is."

        "It is a very awkward position for being got at when a man is lying on his back?"

        "It is a point which I have never had occasion to consider. But I think you may be exaggerating the difficulty. A hip-pocket is at the side rather than the back."

        "Anyway, you raised no alarm, you turned over the dying man, you then telephoned for your solicitor, and a document which could be of no value except to the man or your own bank has disappeared from his pocket. That is your own account of what occurred?"

        "That is substantially correct, except that the disappearance of any document is outside my knowledge, and, if I accept your assurance, I must dissent from the statement that it could only be valuable to Ringan or the bank. Actually it could be of no value to us whatever, while I should suppose that it might be of much to the heirs or executors of the dead man."

        "Well, I will not press you further on that. As I have said before, it is for the jury to judge. Let me ask you - - "

        But it would be wearisome to follow this examination in further detail. Whatley-Cummings pursued his favourite device of repeating questions in different forms and from various angles of approach, it being a method by which he would often lead a lying or bewildered witness into contradictions, real or apparent, from which he could draw deadly inferences when he subsequently addressed the jury. But from Sir Reginald Crowe he had no such profit. He had met an opponent here who could parry his swiftest thrusts. Sir Reginald Crowe's danger lay in the facts themselves as he asserted or admitted them to have been.

        Mr. Jellipot, weighing them in a cautious mind, doubted the advantage that further questions would bring. He may have surprised the coroner, when at last the K.C. sat down and his opportunity came, by declining to take advantage of it. "I think," he said, "Sir Reginald Crowe has given the court all the assistance that is within his power. His evidence is quite clear, and there is nothing that requires further elucidation."

        But if Dr. Bryant were surprised that Sir Reginald's solicitor should appear unperturbed by the peril in which his client appeared to stand, he was much more so when a rather strident voice from the back of the court enquired, "May I take the stand?" and he saw that a young woman whose bright red curls had little concealment under what may be described as a perfunctory hat had risen and was pushing her way resolutely forward.

CHAPTER XII

REDHEAD HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

"DO you mean," the coroner asked, "that you know something about this murder?"

        "I should say that. I was in the room."

        "You mean you were in Sir Reginald Crowe's room when the murder occurred?"

        "Nope. But I was there just before."

        "You had better enter the box. . . . No, not this way. The steps to the right. . . . Wrightman, swear this lady."

        The witness took the oath in the American manner, but with an ease suggestive of past experiences. She gave her name as Mary O'Leary, and her address as the Atlantis Hotel, Broadway, New York. The coroner asked: "That is your permanent address in your own country?"

        "It's where I shall go back."

        "You mean you have no other address in the United States?"

        "You can say that."

        "And your address here?"

        "Hotel Westmorland."

        "Westmorland Hotel. Very well. Tell the court, in your own way, what you know of this matter."

        "I know Sir Crowe had gone out of the room."

        "You mean you were there."

        "I should say I was. He said he'd leave me a minute to get some dope, and he didn't come back, and I wasn't what you'd call sure what the racket was, and I got rattled and left But he wouldn't know I was gone till he got back into the room You might as well say it was me."

        The coroner noticed that Mr. Whatley-cummings, who had been observing the unexpected witness with intently speculative eyes, smiled broadly at this femininely illogical argument. But he let it pass without comment. He went on: "How long were you in the room after Sir Reginald Crowe left?"

        "Quite a time. I didn't check up on it. I didn't know any need. It was about half of eleven when I went out, or some time later than that."

        "Did you see anything of Antonio Ringan or anyone else entering or approaching Sir Reginald's room?"

        "I did not."

        "How did you leave?"

        "Down the stairs that I came up."

        "It was stated in evidence this morning that Sir Reginald's visitors were usually taken up by a lift at the other end of the corridor."

        "I wouldn't know."

        "Was your business with Sir Reginald anything to do with that on which Ringan called?"

        "I'd say it was."

        "Then you probably knew him?"

        "I did that. Not that I'd shout about it. He was just dirt."

        "Is there anything further you can tell the court which would throw light on what happened?"

        "He'd got it coming to him. I can say that."

        "You mean you know of someone who intended to kill him?"

        "I didn't say that."

        "But you do?"

        "That's a sort of talk I don't hear."

        "You mean you know, but won't say?"

        "I don't mean anything."

        "I must direct you to answer the question."

        "I've said all I can. I don't know who did it, and you wouldn't. think I'd say if I did."

        "I should certainly expect it. In the interests of justice it would be your duty to do so."

        "Justice won't worry me. . . . You don't know what Tony was."

        "I'm afraid, Miss O'Leary, you may hardly understand how serious your position is. Do you realise that if I direct you to answer a question, and you refuse, I have power to commit you to prison for contempt of court for an indefinite period?"

        "Say, that's bully for you! But I'm not scared. I've been put wise that you've got no third degree here."

        "But I suppose you would prefer to avoid imprisonment. I must ask you again, do you know of anyone who had threatened Ringan, or whom you have other reason to think may have committed the crime?"

        "I'll say no to that."

        The coroner gave it up. Perhaps the methods of Whatley-Cummings would be more successful! He glanced at the K.C., who rose at once.

        "Now, Miss O'Leary," he began, "you say you know nothing about the murder of Antonio Ringan because you left Sir Reginald's room before he returned to it or Ringan arrived. Is that right?"

        "Yep."

        "Then what motive have you in offering to give evidence on a matter on which you know nothing?"

        "Because, you poor boob, you were trying to make out that Sir Crowe stuck him, and I know that wasn't true."

        "How do you know that?"

        "I've told you he left me there. If you like making silly guesses, it might just as well have been me."

        "No one is suggesting that. I have no doubt that, had you been present, you would have done everything possible to prevent the crime."

        "You're telling me."

        "I hope, by that cryptic remark, you don't mean - - "

        "I tried to stop one of the boys being bumped off once, and I got this."

        Her hand went to the white scar on her temple.

        "I see that you speak with some experience in these matters, which may be regarded more lightly in your own country than they are here."

        "I wouldn't know."

        "Perhaps not. But I can assure you that such crimes are not allowed to occur without such searching investigations as almost invariably end in the conviction and punishment of the criminal and of any others who may give him aid or concealment You may think us slow - we may be poor boobs to you - but you will find that we usually get there in our own way."

        "Well, I only tipped you to lay off the wrong man."

        "It is not for you or me to decide who is the wrong man. That is a matter for the jury alone."

        Miss O'Leary showed no disposition to comment upon this obvious statement. Her eyes, hard, bright and alert, swept the double line of the jury-box, but she gave no sign of her opinion of what she saw. Realising that she had allowed him the last word, Mr. Whatley-Cummings went on.

        "You say you left the room before Sir Reginald returned or Ringan arrived. Why do you invite us to conclude from that fact - which I am quite prepared to believe - that Sir Reginald had no part in what followed?"

        "He'd have been a fast worker for that."

        "I fail to see that he need have worked faster than whoever else it might be - and someone it certainly was - who struck the fatal blow."

        "Well, if you can't see that I "

        "I must ask you. Miss O'Leary." the coroner interposed with some severity, "to confine yourself to answering questions and to treat the court and the learned counsel with greater respect."

        "Well, if he can't help being a stupe!" Miss O'Leary replied, in what she evidently meant to be a tone of conciliation. "What I meant was that Tony wouldn't have been coming out of the room till they'd had their talk, and that would have taken more time than there was likely to be if you reckon up.

        "I reckon whoever put that knife into Tony's back had gone in, with him, and they came out when they found Sir Crowe wasn't in, or else Tony didn't know he was there."

        Mr. Jellipot, hearing this, was disposed to revise an opinion he had been forming that this confident witness, though she appeared to have come forward with contrary intentions, might be doing his client more harm than good. The point might be illogical in its assumptions, if not in itself, but to anyone who accepted Sir Reginald's account, and sought with an open mind to reconstruct what had occurred, there would be reason in what she said.

        And next moment he saw further cause to reverse the doubt which had vexed his mind, for Whatley-Cummings, perhaps more deeply irritated by being called boob and stupe than his practised self-control allowed to appear, gave an opening which invited the devastating reply that it promptly had.

        "It is an interesting speculation," he said, "which would be worthy of greater consideration if there were any evidence of a third party having been in the room at all."

        There was amused contempt in the hard blue eyes that looked straight into his own as the reply came: "That's as good as saying if it wasn't Sir Crowe it was me. But I can tell you that it's quite easy to go up those stairs without anyone giving you half a look if you just do it without loitering round, though I dare say it's what most people don't try. And Ringan did go up, whether or not; and if one, why not two?"

        That, at least, was good logic. With Ringan, or behind him - if one, why not two? Whatley-Cummings, K.C., might ask himself, possibly for the first time in a life in which ambition had been largely fulfilled, had he been called by the right names?

        Not that he had been blind to the possibility of Ringan having had a companion or a following foe. It was an obvious alternative to the theory that Sir Reginald had struck the blow, which he regarded as the greater probability. But that, by the most elementary laws of advocacy, was no excuse for having invited such a reply.

        The coroner averted what might have been an awkward moment by saying briskly: "I think, Mr. Whatley-Cummings, this may be a convenient time to adjourn. . . . You will understand, Miss O'Leary, as will the jury, and the witnesses who have been summoned, that they must be here at ten tomorrow morning. . . . No, Mr. Whatley-Cummings, Sir Henry Bracken's attendance will be excused.

CHAPTER XIII

EVELYN DOES NOT GO HOME

SIR REGINALD paused in the crowded corridor of the court. He had pushed his way out with a minimum of consideration for others in a determined effort to reach Miss O'Leary's (or should we say Mrs. Clancy's?) side, followed as best they might by his wife and lawyer. Mr. Jellipot had surmised his purpose, which he did not approve, but, as he guessed correctly that it would fail, he had not been careful to intervene. If matters would go the right way of themselves, they would have no rash interference from him.

        Mrs. Clancy had been much nearer the door. She had a muscular shoulder for such occasions, and her normal consideration for others was much less than that of Sir Reginald at particular need. He saw the flame of red hair beaconing him forward through its dark surrounding current of heads and hats, but he had been able to do little to shorten the separating distance when it disappeared into one of the waiting taxis which had drawn up at the pavement in anticipation of fares on the exodus of the court.

        Recognising defeat, he now awaited his friends, and spoke when they reached his side with his usual decisive energy.

        "Jellipot, I've got to have a few words with that young woman. I meant to catch her now, but she's slipped off. I must get to Lombard Street first, but after that I expect I can get her at her hotel. It makes it a bit uncertain what time I shall get home, and I should have liked a talk with you before we get here tomorrow. Would it be possible for you to take Evelyn home and put up for the night with us?"

        "Yes," Mr. Jellipot agreed, after a moment of thoughtful hesitation. "I can telephone my housekeeper, and I must have a few words with Newman if I don't go back to the office; but I can do that. . . . What I don't like is you following Miss O'Leary. You're not the one to do that, for more reasons than one, especially as you'll be almost sure to meet Ingram there."

        "I don't say I am. But someone must see the girl. What do you propose?"

        "I had thought of looking her up myself."

        Sir Reginald hesitated. What did Jellipot know - or rather what did he think he knew? What would his approach to Mrs. Clancy be?

        Lady Crowe said: "If there's anything I can do - you know how glad I shall be."

        "Yes, of course, Evelyn. I know that. But you've just got to stop worrying and leave this to Jellipot and to me."

        Mr. Jellipot added, with more haste of speech than he was accustomed to use: "I think I can see how this can be handled best."

        Evelyn, feeling that her vague offer of help had been doubly rejected, said: "Well, then, I think I'll go home now and expect you later. I'll send both cars to wait at the station. You're almost sure to come by different trains."

        By this time Sir Reginald had resolved the doubt which disturbed his mind. He said: "Very well, I'll leave it to you, Jellipot, to deal with the girl. I can trust you not to do anything silly. . . . Good-bye, Evelyn, and don't worry. They haven't got me in Brixton yet."

        With this cheerful observation he hurried away, and Mr. Jellipot's eyes turned to one of the benches that lined the sides of the now almost empty corridor. "If you wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes while I make two necessary calls - - " he began, and was interrupted by: "Need I wait? I thought of catching the six-seven.

        "When you said you would be glad to help if you could, were I you thinking of seeing Mrs. O'Leary yourself?"

        "Yes. I did think of that. A woman will sometimes tell another what she