The Hand-Print Mystery

Readers Library, undated The Hand-Print Mystery
George Newnes, undated Crime & Co.

Please wait large data file loading.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER ONE

THE caretaker at Bodmin House was also the lift-attendant. He received Major Cattell-Pratt with affability, for it was to his financial advantage that all the offices should be let, the cleaning of them, which was under his wife's charge, being their principal source of income. He had a keen eye for a good tenant, and he was prompt to call his daughter from the basement to take his place, when they had ascended to the third floor, and he led the way along the corridor to the vacant room.

        This room was on the left, at the far end, and two doors before reaching it they must pass the one in which the Major was the more actively interested.

        He noticed, as he loitered a few paces behind, while the caretaker paused to select the right key from his bunch, that the signwriters had done their work on door.

BULFWIN'S SYNDICATE, LTD.

Registered Office.

        He was somewhat puzzled on reading this, and turned it over in a slow mind, while he absently surveyed the interior of the vacant office which the caretaker had now opened to his inspection.

        He saw that, if a company were already registered, the business which Mr. Trentham had in hand must have been maturing for some time, but he was more puzzled by the name, which did not give the impression of solid respectability and deep-rooted opulence which was usual to that gentleman's selected titles.

        Well, if it were registered, there would still be time to visit Somerset House and gain some interesting information before he went home to tea.

        "I don't think I like this back view. The other wall comes too close," he said, as he gazed out of an unwashed window to a restricted view of white washed bricks. "Can't you find me a front one of about the same size?"

        "Not just now, sir. Most gentlemen prefer the back rooms. They say they're so much quieter."

        That was what he always said when he offered a back room. It is less certain that any gentleman had said it before him. When he let a front one, he dwelt on the advertising value of the windows, which could be clearly seen by those who rode Fenchurch Street on the bus-tops, for this side of the building overlooked that thoroughfare.

        The Major was unimpressed.

        "I should much prefer a front room, if you have one to offer. It ought to be more cheerful than this. Have you one you could show me?"

        The man did not rise to the bait. "No, sir. I'm afraid they're all let. . . . There's Mr. Crockford's as may come vacant at March. But he's a rather particular gentleman. I shouldn't like to be showing it you, if he came in."

        "Haven't you got one I could see? I might take this for the time, if I liked the front ones, and move across at the first vacancy."

        "There's one here, sir, that's just let, but they haven't moved in. There's no harm in you seeing it."

        Neither, thought the Major, was there much good, if it were as empty as the words implied, but he had to keep smelling round at this game, never knowing when he might discover something that would be useful at last.

        He was not keenly alert to so unpromising an opportunity, and his glance wandered along the corridor to where a man was just emerging from the lift at the farther end, so that he did not look into the room as the key turned, and the caretaker pushed open the door.

        "Oh, my God." It was a cry of utter horror, as the man drew back, pulling the door shut again as he did The Major's glance came sharply upon him. He s visibly trembling. He spoke with a shaking jaw.

        "Oh, sir, there's a man - - It's all blood . . ."

        Major Cattell-Pratt pushed him aside. He opened the door and looked in. He gazed for a moment in I silence, and then closed it again.

        "You'd better leave it as it is and telephone for the once at once."

        He turned to find that Mr. Mortimer Trentham was at elbow.

        Mr. Trentham was a tall man, rather heavily-built, but not flabby. He had an air of commanding geniality.

        He had evidently come to enter that office, and he stood as though expecting the Major to give way before him.

        But Cattell-Pratt stood his ground.

        "If you please," said Mr. Trentham, somewhat imperiously, "I have an appointment with Mr. Bulfwin."

        "I don't think I would go in there. There is a man dead."

        Mr. Trentham looked surprised and startled, but he did not withdraw from his purpose. He said:

        "Are you from the police?"

        "Oh, no," the Major answered innocently. "But I think the caretaker's gone to call them." For that individual had made a hurried dash into an adjoining office, and his quavering voice was already audible at the telephone.

        "Then perhaps you'll stand aside." The Major hesitated. Having met Mr. Trentham thus, it was not his policy to quarrel, but he knew the importance of such an investigation being commenced in a systematic way.

        "I don't think we ought to interfere," he said, "till they come. But, of course, you can look in if you like. You may know who it is. It's a beastly sight, anyhow."

        He stepped aside, and Mr. Trentham opened the door.

        The floor of the room, which was otherwise

spread from wall to wall with pools and splashes of blood, and in the midst a man lay as he had fallen forward, his face turned sideways from the floor, and distorted as by agony or rage. His hands were closed convulsively. On either side, from the lower part of his body, spread a wide pool of curdled blood. There could be no doubt of his death.

        Mr. Trentham did not enter, nor draw back.

        The Major, watching closely, thought that he was paler than before, but he did not lose his composure.

        "That's Bulfwin," he said. "It's a case for the police, right enough. . . . Poor fellow. . . . It's a bad day for me. I had my secretary drowned at Brighton this morning, or I should have been here hours ago. . . . and now this."

        He fell silent, perhaps regretting that he had said so much to a stranger.

        The Major uttered a conventional expression of sympathy, and became aware that he was being scrutinized closely.

        "Did you know him?" Mr. Trentham asked, with an abruptness which may have been intentional.

        "No. I happened to be here when the caretaker made the discovery, so I suppose I ought to wait, and tell the police how it occurred. . . . Did you?"

        "Yes," Trentham answered shortly. Conversation ceased.

CHAPTER TWO

IT seemed a surprisingly short time, even to those who waited in the passage, before the caretaker appeared again, leading a police-sergeant, with two attendant constables, to the scene of the murder.

        The sergeant opened the door, and took a step or two within the room, giving it a swiftly comprehensive professional glance, and then drew back, closing it again.

        He spoke to the constables. "Inspector Cleveland will be here in a few minutes. You must let no one enter in the meantime."

        He turned his attention to the two men who waited in the passage.

        "I don't know how much you know about this, gentlemen; but I must ask you kindly to wait here till the Inspector arrives."

        The Major was quite content to remain, but he was sufficiently aware of the limitations of a police-sergeant's powers to know that he was asking more than he could demand. He was willing that Trentham should see him in conflict with the police, rather than suspect him of complicity with them.

        He had the wit to say brusquely,

        "I'm not going to wait here, Sergeant; I've got something better to do."

        The man looked at him doubtfully. Probably, he might have no information to give which would be of value. He did not suspect him of any responsibility for the crime. But he thought that the Inspector would expect him to detain these men, if possible, till his own arrival.

        Trentham interposed "I don't think this gentleman knows anything about the matter, Sergeant. He just happened to be in the passage when the caretaker looked in. But I know the dead man, and may be able to give you some information. I will wait, if it isn't too long."

        "Thank you, sir," said the Sergeant; and then to the Major, "I'm sure it would be, better to wait; but if you can't, I must have your name and address."

        The Major pulled out his card-case, beginning to move along the passage as he did so.

        Mr. Trentham, watching, saw a card pass, but could not hear what was said. He saw the two men stand talking for a moment at the lift-head, and then the Major returned.

        "He says I shall get him into trouble if I go, and fit won't be more than ten minutes, so I've promised to stay that long."

        What he had said to the Sergeant had ended with the words, "Tell him particularly not to know me and not to be too polite."

        The man went down, and waited to intercept Inspector Cleveland as he entered the building.

        Having sufficiently explained his return, the Major relapsed into a silence about which his sister would have said that there was nothing unusual.

        The two constables stood stolidly by the door. They would probably report any conversation which they might overhear, but there would be no opening gambit from them.

        Mr. Trentham did not speak. Whether or not he had had reason to expect the tragedy which lay behind the guarded door, he may have had sufficient to occupy his mind in the interval before he must give the information which he had offered.

        As to the Major, his mental-processes were naturally slow, and he was glad of the quiet interval to speculate upon the possibilities of this unexpected development.

        It will be seen that it was not a chatty group which was joined, after about five minutes, by another would-be caller at Mr. Bulfwin's office.

        This was a small, slim, active man, with a quick, light walk, who appeared from the stair-head, having ignored the lift, and stopped with an expression of surprise at the silent group before the door.

        "Gee! What's up?" he inquired, with a very slight American accent.

The voice was soft, almost girlish in quality. The face was youthful, and brought the same word to the Major's mind. Boyish. No, girlish. Not effeminate, certainly. Girlish was the word.

        And yet - there was at that moment a hardness of alert grey eyes, and of a rather close-lipped mouth, which challenged the first impression with more formidable, if not more sinister possibilities.

        "All struck dumb?" he went on. "What's the game? I want to see Mr. Bulfwin."

        The quick eyes moved from one to another in impatient query, and Mr. Trentham answered:

        "I'm sorry to say, Mr. Kingsley, that Bulfwin has been murdered, or committed suicide. We are waiting for a police officer who will take charge of the case."

        Mr. Kingsley looked more surprised at the use of his own name than at the news of Mr. Bulfwin's decease.

        He said, "I don't reckon we've met before . . . I suppose you're Trentham?"

        Mr. Trentham looked somewhat annoyed at this familiar designation.

        He answered, with a more distant formality, "I don't think we have, but I recognized Mr. Kingsley from the description that I had received." His hand indicated the door which divided them from the dead man.

        "Oh, he did, did he?" was Mr. Kingsley's response. "I wonder what's cracked him up. He was all head-in-air when I saw him yesterday. Didn't seem worried a bean.

        Mr. Kingsley coming had certainly livened the conversational atmosphere, and Mr. Trentham appeared to be about to reply, when the lift-door was heard once more at the passage-end, and Inspector Cleveland advanced briskly, with the caretaker, and a gentleman with a bag, whose profession was sufficiently indicated.

        The Major was not unacquainted with Inspector Cleveland. He had, indeed, been thinking how fortunate it was that he had returned from Brighton that morning. A stroke of good fortune for both, as it would enable them to follow the case together without any gap, or the interference of other officers.

        But the Inspector had received his message. He glanced over little group with an equal indifference.

        "Now, gentlemen," he said, with a tone of official curtness which discounted. the courtesy of the actual

words, "if you've got any information to give me, I shall be pleased to have it as soon as I've made an

inspection. But we mustn't ask you to stand like this. Caretaker, can't you find a room where you can give these gentlemen seats?"

        The caretaker led the way at once to the office from which he had telephoned.

        "This way, gentlemen, if you please. I don't suppose Mr. Crockford'll be coming in, and I'm sure he won't mind if he does.

        The Major observed that his fear of that individual had been signally reduced by the stronger emotions excited by the catastrophe. They filed into the room, and took Mr. Crockford's chairs - Trentham, Kingsley and himself.

        Here they sat for about ten minutes, observing that one of the constables had been stationed at the door, and in some doubt as to the degree of the detention which they were experiencing.

        The conversational impulse which Inspector Cleveland had interrupted appeared to have died. They sat in silence till he entered the room, and dismissed the constable, closing the door behind him.

        Inspector Cleveland had his limitations. He would have been incapable of reconstructing a crime, and the life history of everyone connected with it, from the concentrated study of a half-burnt match. But he had been engaged in the investigation of crime for over twenty years without any serious error being recorded against him, unless it were in regard to the hanging of Constance Hillier, and in that case the evidence had been of such a nature that his conduct had been approved by his superiors, and only criticized before the harder tribunal of his own thoughts. His detractors had been heard to say that he had been fortunate in being occupied upon cases which had not required any exceptional ability for their elucidation. His admirers (if any) might have retorted that his efficiency tended to make the difficult easy, and that many of his cases would have appeared more abstruse had they been handled by one of showier but more superficial attributes.

        He was a man of a somewhat unobtrusive efficiency, which is a first requirement for success in his profession. He was of medium height, of medium build. His slightly grizzled hair was neither dark nor light; his eyes were neither brown nor blue. He could have written a moderately accurate description of most men that he met for the first time, after an interval of several days, had he been required to do so. A man might travel with him in the same railway compartment for a month, and find a difficulty in remembering any definite feature or characteristic which he could describe with certainty.

        Even the somewhat brusque official tone which he very commonly used was less than an established mannerism, and would change with circumstance into a more courteous, deferential or even convivial mode of address. He had never been known to utter a rash forecast, or an extreme opinion. He had not received the great benefit (as the Major would have judged it) of a University education, but he fulfilled many of the requirements of that gentleman's social code. No one would ever call him a crank.

        "I'm afraid," he said, with a manner which was faintly apologetic, but in a tone of official decision, "that I shall have to trouble you all for statements of what you know of this matter. I'm not suggesting that any of you has any responsibility for it, but there's been murder done here not many hours ago. . . . I understand that two of you knew the man, and had come to see him. Mr. - - " - he glanced at the Major's card - "Mr. Cattle-Pratt does not appear to have more than a very casual connection with the case, but I should like his account of how the office came to be opened when it did. If you would all come back to the Yard with me now, I might not detain you very long this afternoon."

        The Major answered with an annoyance which was not entirely simulated. If he had asked that he should not be recognized, it was no reason for Cleveland pretending that he couldn't pronounce his name properly. He said that he had something else to do.

        But his protest was ignored. The Inspector was talking to Mr. Trentham. who was expressing his willingness to give the police the benefit of such knowledge as he possessed.

        The Inspector said little to Mr. Kingsley, or he to him. Perhaps a larger acquaintance with American than English police methods led that gentleman to suppose that he had no option but to obey their requirements. He said nothing, but appeared quite at ease, as the Inspector led the way to the descent of the lift, and to pack them in his waiting car.

CHAPTER III

M, KINGSLEY, being politely invited into a separate room on his arrival at Scotland Yard, found that he had a considerable period of leisure, during which he might have prepared his mind for the examination that was before him, but he did not appear to be greatly concerned upon that or any other preoccupation, endeavouring rather to engage a plain-clothes officer, who was writing at a desk at the farther side of the room, in a desultory conversation which received little encouragement.

        The Inspector entered the room with the Major behind him.

        He indicated a cane chair against the farther wall.

        "You can sit there, Mr. Pratt; I'll attend to you later," he said shortly. "Now, Mr. Kingsley, pull your chair up here."

        He seated himself at a central table, indicating a position for Mr. Kingsley on the opposite side, and the other occupant of the room came over and sat at his left hand. He brought foolscap paper, prepared to take down the answers to the examination.

        "What is your full name, Mr. Kingsley?"

        "I'm not Kingsley rightly. My name's Lytton Kingsley Starr. Bulfwin called me Kingsley, not mister, and Trentham thinks I'm Mr. Kingsley, and so you go on guessing, and you guess wrong. That's for a start. Now Officer, listen here."

        Mr. Starr put his elbows on the table, and leant forward with bright alert eyes staring straightly into those of the Inspector. "I saw this man yesterday afternoon, and you tell me he's murdered now. There's no loss in that.

        "Well, I could tell you a good bit about him, though I can't say whether you'll find it much help. That's for you.

        "But when I've told you all I know, there's two things you'll know sure. He's no loss, as I've said, and it's good to me that he's cracked up.

        "I'm not a Britisher, and I don't know much of your London ways, but if you're trying a frame-up on me, I won't give you a word more I wouldn't risk the chair for a man like that. Get me?"

        "We don't try frame-ups here, Mr. Starr. You're in a civilized country. . . . I'll be quite frank with you. You are under suspicion, to the extent that everyone must be who has been in recent contact with the dead man, until we can put our hands on the murderer. But we do not wish to suspect anyone unjustly, and we therefore ask you to give us a statement of your connection with him, and of your movements during the time at which the murder must have occurred. If you're guilty, some of the questions I shall ask may not be easy to answer. I can't make you speak, but if you're innocent, it can only help you for us to know the truth."

        "That mayn't be quite as sure as it sounds," Mr. Starr replied, with some scepticism. "But I don't think you could fix it on me if you tried. I don't even carry a gun in this country." He lifted a jacket to display a hip-pocket which was certainly empty.

        "I didn't say he was shot," the Inspector replied very quietly.

        "No; and you didn't say he was drowned. But you said he was killed, and killing mostly means gunning in our parts," was the ready answer, unperturbed by the slip, if such it were.

        "Well, I'll tell you this," he went on. "Bulfwin came East to float a mine that was half his and half mine, and to sell a process that wasn't his at all, but that he'd been promised a corner in, if he pulled it off - - "

        "Wait a moment," said the Inspector, "we'd better have this down properly."

        His assistant, who had been entering busily in a shorthand notebook, laid it down, and took pen and foolscap in anticipation of the statement which he was to write out.

        "Easy there," said Starr, "what's the game? Your man's a stenographer, isn't he? If he's going to longhand all I say, we shall be here for a week."

        "You must leave me to decide the form in which your statement is to be taken," said the Inspector, in his official voice. "You couldn't be expected to read Sergeant Grover's shorthand, and we can't ask you to sign anything you haven't read over first."

        "If you think I'm going to sign anything here, Officer, you can guess again. . . . There's a bit I can tell, if you want to know, and you can check it up how you like, but there's no signing for me."

        "I shall certainly ask you to sign your statement, Mr. Starr. If you are proposing to tell me the truth, about which I don't wish to suggest any doubt, it's difficult to see why you should object. An unsigned statement has no value at all."

        "Value for what?"

        "Value as evidence."

        "I'm not giving evidence, and if I do, it'll be in my own words. I'm giving information, if you want that; and if you don't, I'll go."

        "Very well," said the Inspector, conceding the point, without allowing his annoyance to appear, "you can have it your own way, but it's better for you to see what we've got, and to have an opportunity of correcting any mistake."

        "Then we'll leave it there," Mr. Starr answered easily. "I guess he's a clever guy at the job, and he might put my words down, or he might put his, but anyway I don't want to sit here for a week. If you get it wrong, and it won't check up straight, you can ask again.

        "Now listen here, Officer. I'm not going to tell you who shot Bulfwin - you can call it drowned, if you like - for that's more than I know; but he's been near it before this, and you'll find a mark behind his left ear where a bullet cracked his skull three years ago. That came from a sage-bush, and no one ever knew who pulled the gun, but about two hundred people could have made a good guess, and they'd have all guessed the same. They've not stopped offering to teach Joe Prescott to shoot straight yet. . . . But I don't know who - - "

        "Where's Joe Prescott now?"

        "Likely he's asleep in his own shack, it not being daylight yet in his parts. He's not in England, if you mean that. Not as far as I know. Leastways, he was on Chickadee main street when I entrained for the boat. He wouldn't be that soft that he'd come here to shoot him up, when it might have been done a lot safer there, and less questions asked."

        "What boat did you come on?"

        Mr. Starr paused for one almost imperceptible instant before he answered.

        "Baltic, from N'York. I landed Liverpool, a fortnight back, come Monday."

        "Where are you staying?"

        "I'll tell you that when you tell me that you'll leave me alone. I don't mean to find all my things turned inside out when I get back, and a bullet maybe put through my gun."

        The Inspector looked puzzled.

        "Don't get me?" Mr. Starr inquired, with a smile that broke through the hard brightness of his eyes for the first time. "Well, it mightn't be your way. But if some of our guys wanted to make a frame-up on me, and they got their hands on my gun, they'd soon fire a bullet through it that'd be the one that was cut out of the dead man, and there'd be the barrel-marks to prove whose gun had been busy in that room. . . . They did it once too much last year, when it came out that the gun hadn't been bought or made at the shooting-date, and that's where they came apart."

        "You seem to know about these things," the Inspector remarked, dryly enough. "But the real point is that you won't give your address. That's bound to be a black mark against you, and you might be surprised to know how soon we shall find that out in our own way - and I'll tell you straight that I should like to see that pistol, and if you know nothing of this murder, you might be a wiser man if you met us in a different way."

        "Maybe so, and maybe not," Mr. Starr answered, confidently. "But what you want to know is why I was calling at Bulfwin's office yesterday, and again today, and that's a plain tale, and soon told.

        "Well, my dad ran the hotel at Chickadee, when the first gold rush was on. He died there, twenty-two years back, two months before I was born. My mother'd gone East; it doesn't matter why. . . . Chickadee went down after that, but she sold out when Dad died, and it didn't matter to her. Now it's up again, and she'd have done better to hold on, but she needed the money then, and it's maybe best as it was."

        "Do you mean that you are only twenty-two, Mr. Starr?"

        "That's so. Do I look a bit worn at the seams? Well, I'm not feeling any decay yet. Maybe I'd look younger if I'd lived easy, and lain soft. But that's out of this tale. . . . When my mother died last fall, I went over a lot of old papers of Dad's that she'd most like never read, or understood if she did, and I found that he'd owned a half-share in a mining claim with a man named Peters. My mother had read that, for there were letters after that date, showing that they'd stopped working the claim - it was platinum, not gold - because it never paid. Always just a bit on the wrong side, at the price platinum was then. And then came a notice that Peters had sold out for three hundred dollars to this Bulfwin, who said he'd just hold on in case prices went up, and the mine wouldn't cost anything to keep. . . . That didn't sound much for our share - - "

        "Our?"

        "Mother's and mine."

        "But your mother was dead."

        "Well, it's just a manner of speaking. . . . But I thought I'd go and have a look for myself, and I found that Bulfwin had started working that claim about four years before, and it was a busy place when I called in to see.

        "Well, he allowed who I was easy enough, and showed me what he'd spent, which was a bit more than he'd got back, but the prospect looked fairly good. It's not what you'd call a rich claim, but it's a big one. There's no end to the dirt, if you can make it pay to wash.

        "But I'd got something else in mind, and it turned out that he'd got the same thing.

        "We had a talk the next day, and he said, ' I've heard tell that Peters had found a way of washing this dirt that'd cut the cost to half what it takes to get the ore now. There's a letter somewhere that he sold it to your dad. If you could find that, it might turn this mine to a good thing.'

        "I said, 'That's about true. I found the papers, which I don't think my mother had ever read. But it's not for washing out the ore. It's a new method of separating the metals, and it's likely others have found it out since that day, if it's any good. But it means machines, and a lot of power, and other things. They reckoned then that it needed fifty thousand dollars to make a start, and that's why nothing was ever done."

        "'Then,' he said, 'it's a bigger thing than I thought, or it's just nothing at all,' and I said 'Yep' to that.

        ". . . Well, to make it short, we got a man I know from a mining college, and he went into those papers, and he said there was a fortune if it all worked out, as he thought it would, and he could tell us sure that it was a new thing.

        "Now up to then I'd found Bulfwin square enough, and when he said he could get ten times the money for the mine and those papers and a straighter deal in London than anywhere else, I let him come - that was about six months ago - and gave him power to sell the mine for a good price, of which half was to be paid direct to my name in a Denver bank - that was what he proposed - and he was to get ten per cent on whatever the process fetched, and the rest come to me in the same way.

        "Well, there were those who called me a fool, but he'd been straight with me up to then, and I couldn't see how he could go wrong if he tried. There could be no sale without that money being paid to my name. But about three months ago, someone came on what was left of a dead man, who'd been shot in the back, and there was enough lying around to tell that it had been my pal from the mining college, and I remembered something that Bulfwin had begun to say, and then shut up, and I knew as sure as I sit here that he'd done him in when he left us, because he knew the process, and he wouldn't trust his word that he wouldn't split.

        "When I'd worked that out, I came sure by the next boat. I'd have no dealings through him, if I could get here in time.

        "Well, I was about ten days too late. He'd sold the mine for a fair price enough, and it seems that my share of the money'll be waiting for me at Denver when I get back; but he'd sold the process, if it proved a success, for just ten thousand dollars, to be paid in a year's time, when it'll be worth more like five millions if anything."

        The Inspector had listened so far with little interruption, while his assistant's pencil moved swiftly to transcribe the crisp rapidity of Mr. Starr's narrative. But he interposed now to ask:

        "If he were to get ten per cent, I don't see how he scored by a bad sale."

        "Well, he did. He was to be manager of this syndicate that Trentham started, at five thousand pounds a year for life, and be insured for fifty thousand pounds."

        "Payable at his death?" The Inspector's manner had a new alertness. He felt that he was coming upon the kind of information that is so often to be found in such cases, and usually constitutes a reliable pointer to those who are responsible for the crime.

        "Yes, I reckon it was."

        "To whom?"

        "That's what I'd something to say on. . . . I got him scared when he saw me walk in, and I got the truth out before he'd made up his mind what line of lie to take. . . . I got the benefit of ninety per cent of that policy transferred to me three days ago, and the balance goes to the woman that keeps house for him at Chickadee."

        "Then if the insurance company pays up, you benefit by his death to an amount of forty-five thousand pounds?"

        "Yes. I reckon I do. But he was to sign over to me three thousand pounds a year out of that salary; which was letting him off light, and I lose that - so I don't do as well as if he'd lived a bit longer."

        "Had he undertaken to do this?"

        "We'd had it drawn up by a lawyer I'd got working for me, and he was to have come with me to sign it yesterday. When I called then, he put it off till this afternoon, and that's what I came for today."

        "The document was actually drawn?"

        "Yes. It had been sent to him to read over before he came with me to sign. I suppose he's got it now."

        "He didn't refuse to sign when you called yesterday?"

        "No. He argued a bit, but he gave way. Morrison made him see that he'd get a knock-out in law if he didn't come to terms, now that I'd come over and found him out."

        "Morrison?"

        "Yes. That's the lawyer I found."

        "Bletchworth & Co.?"

        "Yes. That's he."

        "What time did you see Mr. Bulfwin yesterday?"

        "About six in the evening."

        "How long did you stay?"

        "About half an hour. Maybe more."

        "Quarrelling about whether he'd sign this document?"

        "Not enough to scare a jack-rabbit. He wanted to make it fifty-fifty, but gave up when he saw it was no go."

        "But you must have had a long argument?"

        "No. Not more than three minutes. Then he said he'd sign it this afternoon."

        "Then why were you in that empty room for more than half an hour?"

        "Mr. Starr smiled again.

        "Just because we weren't quarrelling, Officer. You can do a lot of that in ten minutes, if you know how. . . . We got talking on how the process would work, and how much the Syndicate might make."

        "Talking like that with the man who had murdered your friend, and tried to swindle you?"

        "Yes. It meant a lot to us. It was a sure thing that that five thousand wouldn't go on many years, if the process panned out thin."

        "He was alone when you left him?"

        "Yes."

        "In an empty office?"

        "There wasn't much there beside himself."

        "What did you do when you left him?"

        "Dropped in at a show."

        "Where?"

        "Along Holborn, on the left, going west."

        "That was a good way from Fenchurch Street."

        "It was the way I wanted to go."

        "You say you had no pistol with you at all?"

        "Yes. I've said that."

        "Where did you spend the night?"

        "You've said you don't need to ask me that."

        "But I'd rather it came from you."

        "Well, it was the Trevor, off Bury Street."

        "Thank you, Mr. Starr. I'm much obliged for the information you've given. I shall want to keep in touch with you, and to know where you can be found till the inquest's over."

        "Bletchworth's the best address. I shall be there every day, till we've got this thing combed out."

        "Could you drop in here tomorrow morning, in case there's anything else you could tell us?"

        "Yes. I'll put you wise if I can."

        "About eleven?"

        "Yes." Mr. Starr went out.

CHAPTER IV

THE: Inspector turned to Sergeant Grover as the door closed, with a brief instruction, causing that intelligent officer to move briskly to the telephone which communicated with the entrance offices. Mr. Starr would be able to observe, if he were sufficiently alert and concerned to do so, that he was not followed. He could not be aware that a very capable plain-clothes officer would be in Fetter Lane somewhat earlier than he would be likely to arrive at his lawyers' offices.

        "I don't want him to think he's followed, and I reckon he'll make straight for his lawyer when he leaves here. Most men would, and an American first of all - and with all he's got at stake too."

        The Inspector said this to the Major, who had now drawn his chair sufficiently near to the table to settle his legs comfortably upon it, and was prepared to exchange theories or observations with his colleague over this unexpected development.

        "I think it's he, as like as not, though it's too early to do more than a guess, but I reckon he won't try to bolt, unless he's a good deal more scared than he is now. He's got too much to lose; besides, bolting, with all that's left on the table, would be like pleading guilty at once."

        "You think it's he?" said the Major, with an evident doubt.

        "I don't go that far. We've a lot to learn yet. I've got Trentham coming back here in half an hour. He'd got a city call he wanted to make, or so he said. Of course, he's followed. But he'll come back, sure enough. We ought to have something rather interesting from him. And Dr. Crowther's report will be here in a few hours. He won't lose any time. And I want to go over the room by ourselves, and we must have a talk with that caretaker, and cook something for the press. - You'd better 'phone that you won't be home till you don't know when."

        "Why didn't he want us to know that he'd come over on the Baltic?"

        "You noticed that? I thought it might only be that he had to think for a second to get the name of the ship. . . . But it was a bit odd. . . . We must find out whether he really did."

CHAPTER V

THE "voluntary" statement must always remain under the stigma of being radically inequitable. Documents which are the result of questions asked by those who are potentially, if not actually, hostile in judgment, which are reworded by them to their own minds, and which are closed without the explanatory re-examination which a defending solicitor would be entitled to make, must always be under the taint of the process from which they spring.

        It is to the lasting dishonour of the judicial bench of our own time that it has accepted these documents with ready hands, until the stifled protests of a thousand prisoners aggregated to an articulate volume which could no longer be condemned or ignored.

        But it is probable that this method of collecting evidence has never been less abused than in the hands of Inspector Cleveland, who, being both unimaginative and conscientious, would have admitted a hundred errors of judgment with less mental disturbance than would have been occasioned by the knowledge that he had acted with a deliberate unfairness, or suppressed a fact, for any theory which he had formed, or lest he should be personally discredited by its admission.

        Mr. Trentham was an astute man. If a belief which was current at Scotland Yard, and which had caused the Assistant Commissioner to detail Major Cattell-Pratt to investigate his activities, were well-founded, he was a bold and deliberate criminal. But he made no objection to the form in which his narrative was written down, nor to the contribution of his final signature. He was not of the kind who invite direct conflict, though he might be cool and courageous enough if it were forced upon him. His method of warfare was to observe the way which his opponents went, and to dig pitfalls across the path, rather than to meet them with opposition to their advance.

        The reader, having the instinctive preference for the straightforward course which distinguishes certain people, will not admire this feature of Mr. Trentham's character. Yet if he were to walk down Oxford Street in a straightforward way, he would receive no compliments from the pedestrians with whom he would certainly collide. Neither will he readily apprehend the symbolism of this illustration, nor will he understand why the Englishman is therefore considered (quite unjustly), by the other nations of Europe, to be of an exceptional hypocrisy.

        Mr. Trentham had reason to be satisfied with the careful accuracy with which his answers were recorded, and if he were impatient to return to his Brighton hotel, he allowed no sign of irritation to appear as the slow process continued and sheet after sheet of foolscap was filled up, and laid aside, to be read over and initialled when the examination was ended.

        With less formality of detail than the Inspector sought, wc may observe that the substance of his evidence was that Mr. Bulfwin had becn introduced to him, on his arrival in London, by a City friend, and he had been so impressed with the possibilities of the process which he had for disposal that he had himself put up the capital which had been required in the first instance to purchase the mine, to register the "Syndicate," and to pay the first premium on the insurance policy of which we have heard already.

        Having secured these facts, with the dates and details which the Inspector considered essential to his orderly investigations, he went on to ask a few questions which they provoked.

        "Even for a financier like yourself," he suggested, with a toneless formality, "was it not rather a large amount to provide single-handed? - Rather an unusual procedure to deal with it so entirely yourself, without inviting others to join the risk?"

        "Not very unusual in its opening stages, especially when one gets hold of something that looks exceptionally good. But it may not have been wise under all the circumstances at the time."

        "Why not?"

        "Because I could probably have prevented the failure of the Collman Trust, in which I was heavily interested, had I had the money loose which I had tied up in this way."

        This was not a reply which the Inspector had sought and he had a passing wonder as to whether it had been adroitly led up to by Mr. Trentham. He changed his ground of approach.

        "Were you aware of any enemies that Mr. Bulfwin had in this country?"

        "None whatever."

        "Did he ever express fear of anyone, or speak as though his life might be in danger?"

        "Never at all."

        "Had he mentioned Mr. Starr in any way?"

        "Starr? - Oh, Kingsley Starr. He always spoke of him as Kingsley. Of course, I knew the name. It was in the deeds of the mine, and the power of attorney which Bulfwin brought. We had to pay half the price of the mine to his order at Denver. He always mentioned him as a pal. He told me that he had come over to England a week or two ago, and that he might want him to meet me. I didn't think he was very pleased about that, but Bulfwin wasn't one to let his feelings show more than he wished."

        "I don't suggest that it inculpates you in any way, but it is the fact, is it not, Mr. Trentham, that you gain very much by his death?"

        "In a way, yes. I haven't had much time to think it out yet."

        "In every way, is it not? - You won't have that big salary to provide, nor any more insurance premiums to pay. You've got the process you wanted for a mere song, at the cost of Bulfwin's life and the Insurance Company's pocket. I don't suggest that you are responsible for his death, as I've said before, but that is how it works out, is it not?"

        "I would rather not answer that question."

        "You are entitled to refuse to answer anything which would incriminate you."

        "I don't follow that. I wasn't thinking of incriminating myself. I thought that if I could see any possible legal complication or disadvantage from Bulfwin's death - and I don't say I do - I should be a fool to have it put down there. But I don't say you're wrong if you say it's a great advantage to me. I can do with a bit of luck of that sort. I've had losses enough."

        "Well, I think that's all, Mr. Trcntham. Of course, I can get you on the 'phone, if we should want to ask anything further; and you'll be advised of when the inquest's to be held. You'll be wanted for that . . . I shall have to get on now. Mr. Pratt's waiting for me in the next room. I'm taking him back to get the evidence right as to how the office came to be opened when it did. Sergeant Grover will read over the sheets with you before they're signed. You must alter anything that's not down just as it should be."

        The Inspector, having finished the interview in his more genial manner, went out to join the Major, and the two returned to Bodmin House as rapidly as a police car could make its way through the London traffic.

CHAPTER VI

"I MADE a point of telling Trentham that you'd be coming back with me," Cleveland said, as soon as they were able to talk in the isolation of the moving vehicle. "So he won't suspect you're connected with us, should he hear it from the caretaker, or anyone else, as he probably may.

        "If we're not busy hanging him during the next few months, you might be able to use this murder to get to know him, which ought to help us in lots of ways."

        "I don't think I should care to do that," said the Major, rather stiffly. He was often exercised in mind as to the good form of the occupation into which he had drifted. He recognized that it may be the duty of a gentleman to his own caste to weed out bounders among whom certain types of criminals may be classed without undue severity of judgment; but there must be limits to the methods by which this may be done. He was quite willing that his connection with the police should be conceded, so that he might stalk an unsuspecting quarry. He was not prepared to enter into relations of confidence or amity that he might betray the trust he won, even though it might be a dangerous and unscrupulous criminal who would be the victim of his duplicity.

        Inspector Cleveland observed the distinction without comment, and accepted the decision without argument.

        He said: "I don't suppose we shall find anything of importance. I had a good look round while you were in the next room, but there wasn't much except blood to be seen.

        "The man had been shot in the lower part of the body - more than once or twice I should think, and must have walked or crawled about the room afterwards till he died from loss of blood. There were papers in his pockets, and other things that hadn't been disturbed, but they were a sticky mess, and I asked Dr. Crowther to have the clothes cut off as best he could without disturbing them. The only thing I could see that's likely to be any help is a mark that looks like a shoe, and there's not much of that. . . . I told the Sergeant to lay down boards over the floor before the body was moved, and he commandeered some from the basement. We can trust Crowther not to blur any clues. The trouble is that there mayn't be many to blur."

        "I don't know that I shall be of much help to you in this," the Major answered. He was seldom disposed to overrate his powers, and he had not been engaged as an expert in the investigation of violent crime. "But it seems to me," he went on, "that it's less than a hundred to one chance that it's the work of anyone from this side. I know I'm set to watch Trentham, and I don't doubt he's a crook. I know that all I've done yet is to think out certificates of character for him, and I'm at the same game again. But I can't help thinking that, if we try to bring him in, we shall be running on a cold scent. The man comes here from the West, and he's been killed in their style. It may be Starr - it's most likely it is - but I think anyway that it's someone who's followed him here, or else someone who came from the same parts, and ran against him, with an old grudge to square."

        This was loquacity from the Major, such as could only follow from a period of silence, which recent circumstances had thrust upon him.

        Inspector Cleveland recognized sense when he heard it, but he had learnt to meet everything in these cases - even the obvious - with an investigating and doubtful mind. Almost always, the obvious explanation was the true one - almost, but not quite.

        "You know more of Trentham than I do," he said; "is he British or States?"

        "English," answered the Major, "born in Ipswich."

        He gave details of ancestry and collaterals, showing the patient thoroughness with which he had familiarized himself with his subject. A great-uncle on his mother's side had been transported for forgery: a Quaker ancestor of his paternal grandmother had lost his ears for a religious "libel": a distant cousin was now suffering imprisonment for the theft of a motor-cycle, an occupation in which he specialized.

        Covering, as it did, the lives of several hundred people, it was negatively a good record, as the Inspector saw.

        "What line was his father?"

        "He kept the Sandringham Hotel. The son went into a stockbroker's office till he was twenty-three, and left that to take on the hotel management when his father died. It was while he was doing that that he met young Ratspate, who used to put up at the hotel when he was too drunk to go home. He used the knowledge he'd got in the stockbroker's office to swindle him out of about five thousand pounds in such a way that nothing could be done without a scandal that Lord Roughton wouldn't have faced for ten times the amount.

        "After that he sold the hotel, and came to London. He set up as a stock jobber, and then started one thing after another that took in a good deal of other people's money, and didn't pay much out, but we haven't found anything definite enough to act on yet, as you know."

        "Well," said Cleveland, "it isn't a family record with much bloodshed about it. You may be right. . . . Here we are."

CHAPTER VII

THERE was not much to be gained from the room, as Inspector Cleveland had feared. There were a pen and a full threepenny bottle of black ink on the window-sill. The room had no furniture, except the blood-stained linoleum, on which some planks had been laid crossways, so that it was possible to make an examination without treading upon the floor.

        "There was nothing to help us just round the body. I made sure of that before I agreed with Crowther to have it moved to the mortuary. It's this side I didn't want trodden over. . . . What do you make of this?"

        The Inspector pointed to a blood-mark which was about a yard from the left-hand wall - the farthest stain on that side. At the edge which was nearest to the wall, it was slightly broken by three short parallel lines.

        "Not much," said the Major, truthfully. "What do you?"

        "Rubber-soled shoes are not very commonly worn, but such a mark might be caused by one: Kingsley Starr wears that kind of shoe."

        The Major looked sceptical. The marks were short, and not very distinct.

        "It's a bit thin, isn't it?" he said doubtfully. "Honestly, Cleveland, would you have thought of it, if you hadn't noticed the kind of shoes that Starr wears?"

        He thought that the Inspector, having observed Mr. Starr's peculiar footgear, had searched the floor with a determination to find something to correspond. Well, if this were all the result, it wasn't much.

        "I hadn't noticed Starr's feet when I spotted these marks. I looked at his feet and Trentham's afterwards to see who could have made them. Trentham couldn't."

        The Major was impressed. It was true that this information did not increase the size or significance of the marks, but he recognized that it did increase the probability that the Inspector had read them accurately.

        "You don't miss much," he said, with an increased respect for the patient thoroughness of his companion's methods, which were so like his own, though he did not use them to equal ends.

        "There's not much to miss here, worse luck." He was cutting out a large patch of the linoleum as he spoke. "They can clean up here tomorrow. There's no more for us. I'll have Mr. Lytton Kingsley Starr's shoe measured with this mark, and if it fits, we'll have him arrested before he gets out of bed. . . . You'd better go out before me, Major, if you don't mind. It's no use trying to dodge the Press. If you tell them how you came to look into the office, and keep Trentham and Starr out of it as much as possible, you can't do any harm. It may do good. You can tell them that the case is in the hands of Inspector Cleveland, and that the police have got a clue. It often makes the criminal act the goat when he reads that. . . . And give them plenty of blood. The public likes blood."

        The Major walked down the silent passage, and looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. He rang the lift-bell for the caretaker to let him out. Doubtless, Cleveland would be here for another hour questioning that flustered individual. A whimsical idea that he might be the unsuspected criminal entered his mind, and bolted quickly when it realized the common-sense contempt which received it.

        The Major did not want to interview reporters. He wanted a good meal in his own flat. But for the hint he had received, he would have stubbornly declined to discuss the subject. But he would do what he had been asked, though not to the detriment of a waiting meal.

        At a time of leisure, and with sufficient deliberation, the Major liked a joke. That is, he liked one of his own, which he knew to be of a finer substance than was commonly recognized by others.

        When the lift stopped at the street level, he gave one of his cards to the caretaker, asking him to 'phone Miss Cattell-Pratt that he would be home in half an hour, and be ready for a good dinner. He gave him a shilling.

        He got out half a dozen other cards, on the backs of which he wrote, "Doors open at 10 p.m."

        So armed, and smiling at the rich humour of this endorsement, he allowed the caretaker to let him out and distributed them to the eager press-men that were round the door.

CHAPTER VIII

As Major Cattell-Pratt inserted his latch-key in the Yale lock of his quiet and comfortable flat, with a pleasant anticipation of the waiting meal, he heard his sister's voice at the telephone.

        "Well, of course, if it's an appointment," she was saying, "but you can't come at ten. Mr. Barrington's coming then. . . . Very well, if you really - - Yes, but you mustn't come at once. Nine-fifteen."

        "Hold on, Cora - I say - - " began her indignant brother. But the receiver was already back on its hook.

        "I don't know whether you've gone quite mad," she remarked, as she led the way to the dining-room. "But that's the sixth ring I've had in the last twenty minutes, and every man says that you've made an appointment at ten o'clock, and wants to see you alone, and before anyone else does. I've done the best I could to spread them out."

        "I won't see anyone till I've had dinner, and a good rest after that. I've done enough for today. I didn't promise to see anyone alone."

        "You've got forty minutes before Mr. Atkins comes - that's the one I've spoken to last. There'll be one every ten minutes then, and two at ten. No one would agree to be later. It's Mary's night out; so you can talk to them while I wash up."

        The Major said nothing to that. He sat down to a leg of lamb with green peas and mint-sauce, of which he was fond, and his temper steadied itself under the pleasant influences of the hour.

        He was soon being questioned skilfully upon the events of the afternoon, and, under the stimulating influence of the mint-sauce, and having a well-founded confidence in his sister's discretion, he narrated his somewhat startling experiences with a fullness which cannot be commended to other officers of the Criminal Investigation Department when they are interrogated by their lady relatives, as they too often are.

        "I'm rather surprised at Mr. Cleveland," Cora remarked, as she considered the final episode of the afternoon. "I rather liked him when you brought him here last Christmas."

        "Yes," said the Major, with brotherly candour. "Everyone saw that."

        "I expect they did. It wasn't the three children; it was the red-haired wife that was the real obstacle."

        "What's her hair got to - - ? I wish you wouldn't talk rot. . . . Anyway, what's he done now?"

        "I don't see why he'd got to nose about for those shoe-marks. It might make no end of trouble if they fit Mr. Starr's shoes, as I suppose they will."

        "Then you think he did it?"

        "It sounds that way, doesn't it?"

        "Yes. I think it does. Trentham had as much motive. Rather more to gain, though not so much to resent. But I don't see how we can connect it with him. Not so far, anyway. There may be more to come out. . . . But you can see it's a good thing you've kept clear of Trentham."

        "Yes?" said Cora. She looked puzzled. "Perhaps it is. . . . What are you going to say to Mr Atkins? . . . He's due in about ten minutes . . . I expect that's his ring. . . . It ought to mean a new dress for the summer."

        The Major looked puzzled in his turn, and his sister was quick to pass him the fruit-dish.

        "Have an orange," she said sweetly. "There's no reason why they should interfere with you till you've finished dinner. He's come too soon. I'll tell him he's got to wait."

        She went very cheerfully to the door.

        The Major heard a murmur of voices for a few minutes, and then the door closed, and she came back.

        "I think I'll have one myself," she remarked, as she resumed her place. "There ought to be time before the next one's due."

        "How did you get rid of him?"

        "I didn't. He's coming back. Mr. Atkins represents the United Press. I told him that you couldn't honourably give an exclusive interview before ten, as you'd said that the doors opened at that hour. He's gone away to 'phone his office, so that he'll know what to quote."

        "What to quote?"

        "Yes. You didn't mean to do it for nothing, did you?"

        "Look here, Cora, you're going a bit too fast. You mustn't forget I'm on the staff. . . . And I can't tell them all I've told you. . . . You'll get me into trouble over this, if you don't take care. . . . Anyway, I can't make it exclusive to one paper - - "

        "It wouldn't be that. You know the United Press would give it out to about fifty. I don't know whether it goes to all the papers that will buy it, or if they have their own ring. You ought to know about that."

        It didn't happen quite as Cora had meant it should, and some information had to be given to reporters who had no connection with the United Press, but she had a cheque for thirty guineas from that wealthy organization a few days later, and, as she remarked to herself, it might have been worse. It gave her an increasingly friendly feeling for Mr. Kingsley Starr, whom she regarded as the originator of this very profitable excitement.

CHAPTER IX

MAJOR CATTELL-PRATT of the C.I.D. (you must be careful about the Cattell, putting at least a couple of hundredweight of accent on the last syllable - his mother was a Cattell of the Slushford branch) had had an uncomfortable half-hour that morning with the Assistant Commissioner.

        Not that he had been rude, or unreasonable, or even unsympathetic; nor did he make the mistake of calling him Cattle-Pratt, as was too lamentably frequent among his brother officers at the Yard. It was just because he was being reasonable that it had been so hard to endure.

        "You know," he had said, rising from his chair, and walking up and down the room in the stress of an irritation to which he did not allow a verbal exit, "it isn't as though I'd asked you to do impossible things. I don't say you must catch a fraudulent financier once a fortnight. You did well in the Lidworth case. We both know that. We mention it every time you come here to report. If you don't, I do; and if I don't, you do. But that's two years old now.

        "I don't want to rub it in, but you can't go on for ever on the strength of that one success. It isn't as though you'd come in at the front door, so to speak. Of course, there's the unemployed officer - 'wounded in the war' - argument, that got you here, first, as a kind of extra. That's all right. And it meant that you ought to have a chance, and so you had, and you did well. I'll always say that.

        "You showed you'd got nerve, and it looked as though you'd got brain; and so I gave you this Mortimer Trentham to follow up - and that's nearly two years ago."

        He had thrown a half-smoked cigarette into the grate, and lighted another immediately.

        The signs had been ominous, for he was a man of controlled speech and actions, and had caused Major Cattell-Pratt to speculate somewhat anxiously as to the probable conclusion of the interview.

        And he had had nothing to say. He had reported failure, which is soon done. There was no more - or, at least, not much more - to be said; and what there was must be kept in hand for a last extremity.

        So the Assistant Commissioner had gone on.

        "It isn't as though the man might be straight. If I thought that, I'd call you off, and say it had been my mistake from the first. But we know he's a crook. We know what happened over that Ipswich matter, only Lord Roughton couldn't be persuaded to prosecute. And then the Albemarle suicide. . . . And now there have been two more promotions, and two more smashes, and you and your City friends watching him all the time, and he just walks off, and you tell me that there's nothing that you can get at - and he doesn't seem to have made a penny from first to last. Is it sense?

        "And so I suppose he'll be quiet again for six months or twelve, and then start a new game.

        "And now, Major, just tell me this. I know it's hard on you, and I know how you're placed - but can I call you off this man, and just say you've failed, and then put you on to something else that our regular men might handle better, and couldn't handle worse; or can I keep you on, just to wait and watch for another chance at the man, that may end in the same way?"

        "No, sir; I don't see how you could. But I don't think it means much waiting this time. There's something on foot now, though I can't tell what yet. He's taken an office off Fenchurch Street - just a single room, with a good address. It's not taken in his name, but he's the only one who's been there and there's some sign-writing ordered. That'll show something."

        "Already? That isn't his usual way. I thought you told me that he was finishing off with the typist at Brighton, as he always does?"

        "So he is, to a point. He's got her there, and he's spending money as freely as ever. But he's coming up to London two or three times a week. I was going to ask you to have him watched. I know it's proved useless before, but I've got a feeling that it might be different this time."

        The Assistant Commissioner had sat down. He had made a note.

        "Go ahead," he had replied, with a resumed geniality. "I'll see that he's watched well. Cleveland can take that on, with any help that he needs, and report to you as often as you wish. You can get him on the 'phone, and he'll only come to you if there's an urgent need. It's not wise for you to be coming here too often. . . . Don't think too much of what I've said. I expect you'll haul in the line at the finish."

        He had shaken hands quite warmly. He meant it to be Major Cattell-Pratt's last chance, but he knew that men do not do their best work when under a cloud.

CHAPTER X

THE press-men had gone at last, and the Major, drawing quietly at his pipe, had sunk into one of his usual silences. Cora saw that, if she were to obtain any further information upon the day's events, she must exert herself to that end.

        "You didn't tell me you were calling at the Yard today."

        "I don't quite follow."

        "You're not likely to find out anything worth detecting if you can't follow that."

        "Well, then, I haven't. So you thought wrong."

        "Haven't what?"

        "You'd be no good at detection if you can't follow that. I mean I have been to the Yard, but I didn't get sacked, as you thought I should."

        "Ted, I am glad! I hope they gave you something better to do."

        "No, they didn't. Niblett gave me a last chance to catch Mortimer."

        "That was before they knew about this murder?"

        "Yes. I'm not put on to that. It's about his financial operations. It doesn't follow that he's involved in the murder at all. I don't suppose he is."

        "Then I'm afraid it isn't much of a chance. I don't mean it's your fault, but he's too wary. Anyway, you should have let me help before now."

        "It's no use asking that, Cora; I've told you twenty times that it's not work for girls. . . . I hate it myself, but I couldn't get anything else."

        "You're not likely to do much good, with that feeling."

        "I did well enough in the Lidworth case."

        "Yes. One. And you were fresh then. New broom, and all that. I've always said you should let me help."

        "I'd never do that."

        "Anyway, you can tell me what you think he's getting up to this time."

        "There's not much to tell yet. I only know he's just taken that office, and they've painted up the new name - this Bulfwin, who's got shot."

        "You can't make much out of that."

        "No. I can only watch. But this murder will probably blue it, whatever it was."

        "How did you find out?"

        "Through Billy Trickett. He knows I'm interested in Trentham, and of course most people are talking about him in the City just now, so he mentioned he'd seen him go in at Bodmin House. Then I saw him there myself yesterday, so I thought I'd inquire for an office this afternoon, and see if there was anything I could pick up."

        "Suppose you'd met him?"

        "It didn't seem likely; and it wouldn't have mattered if I had. He didn't know me at all. . . . Of course, we did meet, the way things happened, but it wasn't so that he could think that I was taking any interest in him.

        "Anyway, if he were up to another game, I wanted to watch from the start."

        "Perhaps he isn't. Hasn't he always had an interval between his enterprises? I thought he retired to Brighton with a typist. Is it always the same?"

        "So he does. No - different.

        "He's had a confidential lady secretary each time, who's stood by him during the smash, and been rewarded at last. I suppose he knows how to pick them. The weekend type of young woman, but one who looks as though she'd have some loyalty and a share of brains."

        "You seem to know. Look here, Ted, there's only one chance for you, and that means for me too, unless I'm to end life as a charlady. I've got to get that job. . . . By the way, what becomes of them, when they leave the seaside? If you hunted up the discarded typists, you might strike oil there."

        "So I might, but it can't be done. He left one of them in Paris, or she left him. 'Gone, no address' now. Another wrote to a friend that she was off to Los Angeles, and was changing her name to something more suitable for a film star. It was something like Shufflebottom, so you can't blame her for that. Jane, I think. But she didn't say what she was changing it to, and that was the last of her. Number three's with him now. Or, at least, was. He said something about a secretary having been drowned at Brighton this morning."

        "Well, if she weren't, she'd better clear. Number four's on the doorstep. I'm glad I had that six months at Purford's Practical, though it didn't lead to anything better than an offer of fifteen shillings a week, and find your own soap, towel, boot-leather, tea and travelling expenses out of that, which I gave up, as you know, because it didn't seem fair to put you to so much expense. What's the shorthand for contango? Is it a 'g' or a 'j'?"

        "I wish you wouldn't talk such rot. You know you couldn't get the job, and I shouldn't let you if you could."

        "Ted;" his sister answered, in her sweetest tone, but setting a small mouth mutinously, "you've got to drop that. I was twenty-one yesterday."

        "I don't care if you were eighty. I'm fifteen years older than you, and I'm not going to let you get into any mischief like that. . . . But, oh, I say . . . I didn't mean to forget. I really didn't. Are you sure it was yesterday?"

        "Not from memory. It's hearsay evidence, really. Though I suppose I was present at the time. Authority of tradition more than anything else. . . . But you needn't worry. I bought myself a new hat, and told them to send you the bill, so you didn't really forget. Not to matter, anyway. . . . But, Ted, if you're a beast about this, you'll be sorry for a good while. It will simply mean that I shan't take the job in my own name. Not Cattell-Pratt, nor Cattle-Pratt. And I shouldn't take a new name altogether, because I might forget it myself.

        "'Will you kindly take down this letter, Miss - er - I'm afraid I forget.'

        "'Very sorry, Mr. Mortimer Trentham, it's the same here.'

        "I might call myself Prattle-Cat. That's near enough to the truth, and it isn't the sort that anyone forgets before they need to use it again."

        The Major pushed his chair back sulkily. Cora knew that he knew that she knew that he hated jokes about the honourable name they shared, and she ought to know better than to make them.

        It wasn't that he hated all jokes. We know that he liked to make one now and then himself. But he liked his jokes to be deliberate, isolated, well-rounded, and of a seemly subject. Cora went on chattering, and you often couldn't tell whether she were joking or not, and before you could think it out properly she might have made two more.

        Still, she was a very charming girl. She was a Cattell-Pratt. What more need be said?

        He was going out of the room, when she added, "I'll come with you tomorrow, Ted, to look at the new office you're supposed to be taking, and you can introduce me to Mr. Trentham, if he's on the spot. It'll feel like making a start."

        "That you won't," he said with decision; and then, changing his mind, "Oh yes, you shall, if you like. The man may be there, and I'll see you come under his notice in a way that'll make him too suspicious to engage you afterwards."

        "Perhaps you're right, Ted," she answered, meekly. "I don't think I will."

        She had no change of intention, but had decided that she could play this game best by herself.

        He was content with the victory of the moment, and subsided into his habitual silence.

CHAPTER XI

Mr. (or MAJOR) CATTELL-PRATT sat in a low chair by the November fire for a full hour after he had risen from the breakfast of eggs and bacon which is the portion of all right-thinking English-men. He ate that breakfast as he performed all his national duties, and those of the social order to which he belonged. Had he ever been guilty of such bad form as to thank Heaven for his own virtues, he would no doubt have expressed his gratitude to a Power which had not made him a crank. It would not have occurred to him to thank Heaven that he was not a snob, though he would have repudiated the suggestion with genuine indignation and partial truth.

        He might have been puzzled to define what he meant by a crank, but it was really a comprehensive word, covering all supporters of minorities of an aggressive or unpopular kind.

        A man who had declined to wear stiff cuffs with a soft shirt, when those detached linen ornaments were popular, would have been a crank. A man who wore them today would be a crank, and might deserve to be described as a bounder also, which is depth below depth.

        An anti-vivisectionist was a crank. But should opposition to vivisection suddenly spread, so that it would become a general attitude, he would cease to be a crank, without necessity for any change in himself, and would become a respectable member of the community.

        The Major's reading was from The Times and the Morning Post. He studied the financial columns with a somewhat slow but retentive mind.

        He rose at last, and went to the telephone. He got through to Mr. William Trickett.

        "That you, Bill? I want you to buy me a hundred Cobbetts at not more than five and seven-eighths. If they fall more today, you can make it two . . . No, it isn't a safe tip. It isn't a tip at all. I just thought I'd like a few, if they're cheap."

        He put back the receiver, and went to a davenport in the far corner, where he took out a diary and made careful note of the order which he had given.

        He was not the first man to find a treasure which he had not sought. He had taken to a daily study of financial news, that he might be the more able to comprehend the wiles of his appointed antagonist, and in the course of two slow-thinking years, he had gained so firm a grasp of the movements of the financial markets that his cautious and limited transactions were the index by which other operators were guided in Mr. Trickett's office, to an extent which he would have found it hard to believe, and with results which added greatly to that gentleman's reputation for sound advice, and augmented his business accordingly.

        It may be thought that these successful transactions should have gone far to render him independent of the very moderate salary which he received for his services to the civil power, but the fact was that he would as little have thought of appropriating any of his stock-exchange winnings to the expenses of the flat, as he would have thought of risking his small capital upon the currents of that treacherous sea.

        His speculations had commenced vicariously, when he had made an astute suggestion to Mr. Tnckett, which had resulted in Bill and his friends, with a decisive boldness which would have appalled the Major, netting something over £5,000 of Which he had accepted, with some hesitant protest, a ten-per-cent commission, which had been the nucleus of his subsequent operations.

        No fascination of quick profits, no allurement of margins, had ever tempted him to risk anything beyond the sum which lay in the separate account which he had opened for these transactions, and though his capital had now grown to over four thousand pounds, he would have regarded any suggestion of withdrawing a portion of it for the mere pleasure of spending as a chess-player, using pieces of precious metal, might do if he were asked to surrender one of them in the middle of a game, so that it might be realized in the melting-pot.

        .. . . The telephone rang.

        "That you, Major? Yes, Cleveland. I didn't mean to ring up so soon, but we've learnt something that you may like to know, though it may have no direct bearing on anything that you have on hand. . . . You know Trentham'd got his secretary with him at Brighton at the Palatine? Well, she was drowned yesterday morning. Boating accident, quite early. No, I don't see how he could. He was in bed at the time. There's no doubt of that. . . . Still, I thought you might like to know. . . . Yes, of course. We shall overhaul her things, if we get half a chance. I've got a man at the hotel now, seeing what he can learn. . . . No, a collision. Half a dozen in the water. Other boats near, and they were soon fetched out, but Miss Neilson was dead. . . . No thanks; not another call. That's all now."

        The voice ceased, and the Major went thoughtfully back to his chair. . . . No, he didn't think that the young lady had been murdered. He wasn't a romantic ass. Mortimer Trentham was in bed. Surely that was enough.

        Still, they did disappear, one way or other. That was a fact. He turned it over thoughtfully in a slow mind.

        Finally, he was overcome by the temptation to show the wisdom of his prohibition of the night before. He shouted, "Cora!" and that young lady came from the kitchen, with flour whitened hands.

        "Well," she said, "what have you lost now?"

        "I haven't lost anything. I haven't wanted anything that you've moved yet, though I expect I soon shall. But I've just had the details of something that it may do you good to know. I shan't ever learn anything from number three. She was drowned at Brighton this morning. . . . You can see the sort of trouble you might get into, if I weren't here to look after you."

        "I suppose you mean that he drowned her?"

        "No, I can't say that. He was in bed. But it isn't healthy to be one of his secretaries, it seems to me."

        "Well, anyway, it was better than having to be a film-star."

        She went back to the kitchen.

        The Major felt the satisfaction which is experienced by the male who has displayed his wisdom, like a peacock's tail, to an admiring member of the more foolish sex, but he would have been less at peace had he been able to observe the smile that parted two mutinous lips, as the knife ran quickly around the pie-dish edges. But Mortimer Trentham might not be so easy to trim.

CHAPTER XII

SIR HARRY NIBLETT, Assistant Commissioner in the Metropolitan area, held a conference in his own office. There were two of the chief officers of the C.I.D., in addition to Inspector Cleveland, Dr. Crowther, and Major Cattell-Pratt, who were immediately concerned with the case, and the sole question to be determined was whether he should order the instant arrest of Lytton Kingsley Starr for the wilful murder of Mr. Bulfwin, or inform the Coroner that the police were not prepared to act, in which case an inquest must be held.

        "So far as Trentham is concerned, there is really nothing to connect him with it, beyond the fact that he stood to benefit by the death. We couldn't arrest him on that. Can we go further, and rule him out in our own minds? What do you say, Major? You know more about him than anyone else."

        "Well, sir, I don't think it's he, and I don't see how it could be. I can't go further than that. I've got the feeling that Trentham plans out his deals from the start, and if he'd known that the man would be murdered just when he was, he couldn't have done better for his own profit. That way, it looks just like something he might have planned, but there's not a shade of evidence that he did, and we've found out that he was certainly in Brighton during the previous forty-eight hours. Then there's no record of violence against him. As far as I know, he's never fired a shot in his life, even at a rat or a rabbit."

        "What do you say to that, Cleveland?"

        "I can't say the Major's wrong, sir. We've accounted for every hour of Trentham's time at Brighton, and we can't find that he had anyone with him that could have come to London during the time. . . . There's his secretary being drowned the next morning. Of course, that's a queer thing, but it appears to have been an accident. There's nothing to go upon against Trentham at all."

        "Very well. Rule him out. Now we come to Starr. I've read his account. He admits that he had good cause for quarrelling, and, as far as we know, he was the last one to see him alive. How do his statements come out, so far as you've been able to check them?"

        "I haven't found anything wrong. It's true that he went into the Empire that evening. A programme-seller remembers him. He's a man that might easily be noticed. . . . Of course, that doesn't show he didn't do it. On his own account, it's most likely he did, but I can't get the bit of extra evidence that I need, and now Dr. Crowther's queered the pitch in a new way."

        "We'll come to that in a minute. Let's finish with Starr first. I understand that he didn't go back to the Trevor last night?"

        "No, sir; and he didn't want to give us that address at all. But there's something queer about that too, and I can't make out what it means. He'd left the Trevor that morning, and paid his bill. He didn't mean to go back. He took a suitcase away in his hand. That was all the luggage he had. Of course, that looks as though he'd done it, and was preparing to hide. But, if so, why did he go back to Bulfwin's office? There's not much hiding about that . . . Then what followed is queerer still. I sent a man to watch outside his lawyers' in Fetter Lane, and he went there, just as we expected, and stayed for about an hour.

        "When he came out, our man followed him along the Strand, and over Waterloo Bridge He says he went straight on, but didn't hurry, or try any tricks to get away, and when our man turned the corner of Cobden Street, he'd stopped, and was waiting for him there. He made some remark about it being more sociable to walk together, and they went to private hotel - the Ellam's - about half a mile farther on."

        "Making the best of a bad job?"

        "Our man doesn't think so. He says he got the idea before then that he was anxious to be followed, and afraid of being lost if he went too fast. . . . But that isn't all. He took the man upstairs to his room, and told him he could look at anything he liked He'd got a pistol packed at the bottom of his grip. He said he hadn't had it out since he left Chickadee. It didn't look as though it had been used."

        "Bullets fit?"

        "No, they wouldn't. That's in his favour, but, like the rest, it proves nothing. He may have had two, and thrown the other away. . . . It's the same with the shoes. I'm certain that we've got the mark of a rubber sole, of the kind he wears, but the shoes he's wearing now don't quite fit."

        "No mark of blood on them?"

        "Not the least. . . . But again that doesn't disprove anything. He may have had two pairs, and thrown one away. . . . The other queer thing's this. He hadn't moved into Ellam's yesterday. He'd been there all along."

        "Had he been sleeping at the Trevor?"

        "Yes, so they say, and they seem to thin'.; he had at Ellam's. too, but they're not so sure. They gave him a latch-key there, and he went in and out as he liked. There's another hotel, a larger one, under the same management, the other side of the road, and most of the staff sleeps there, so there isn't over-much supervision, not that that point's of any importance, as far as we can see yet."

        "But it looks as though he had prepared to hide himself at any time by having these two addresses?"

        "Yes. It does. But, if so, why didn't he try to hide when he'd shot his man?"

        "He must have altered his mind, or his nerve went, as it often does."

        The Inspector shook his head with a scepticism only restrained by the respect which Assistant Commissioners inspire.

        "No, sir; he hasn't lost his nerve. But I don't say we couldn't bring it home but for what Dr. Crowther says, and that doesn't show it wasn't he, it only shows we've got more to find out before we've finished this case."

        "Well, Doctor, we'd better have your report now."

        Dr. Crowther spoke with deliberation. He had the type of mind which is careful in deduction and exact in statement. If he were somewhat oracular in manner, it was a not unnatural result of the deference which his opinions had earned - a reward of many years of precision and impartiality.

        "The cause of death," he said, "was hæmorrhage from four bullet wounds in the abdominal regions, none of which could have been self-inflicted. The first two were fired at the same time from almost opposite directions, and from distances of two or three yards, more rather than less, while the man was standing. The third and fourth shots were almost certainly fired after he had fallen forward. He probably lived from ten minutes to half an hour after receiving the first two bullets. The bullets were of slightly different patterns - two of each. That is, in brief summary, the evidence from the post-mortem examination."

        "Can you say how long he had been dead?" the Assistant Commissioner asked.

        "About twenty-four hours, more or less. It would be impossible to tell to a few hours. It was certainly not much longer. Probably less."

        "When you say he was shot from two directions, do you intend to imply that he must have been shot by two people at the same time?"

        "Yes. That is quite certain."

        "It could not have been done by one man, having a pistol in each hand?"

        "No. It would be impossible owing to the distance from which the shots were fired."

        "I don't quite see, Doctor, how you can say with certainty that two shots were fired at the same instant."

        "It would be impossible but for one circumstance. The two bullets collided, and continued their course side by side, each having been somewhat deflected by the other, though in unequal degrees."

        "Well," said Sir Harry, "that seems final. . . . I understand that there was no indication that the contents of the pockets had been disturbed. . . . Do they help you, Cleveland?"

        "Well, sir, I think they may. Anyhow, they're rather interesting. There was the agreement for assigning part of his salary to Mr. Starr in his breast-pocket, and that was higher than the other papers, and rather crooked, as though someone had pulled it out, or half out, to see what it was, and then pushed it back till it got caught on another. There are two sets of finger-prints on the deed. I thought I'd struck oil when we found them. They're small, and Starr has a small hand, but they don't appear to be his."

        "Tried Trentham's?"

        "Not yet, sir; but it's hardly worth doing. His hand's about twice the size."

        "Does the agreement confirm Starr's tale?"

        "Yes. Everything does that we can check. . . . It's what we can't that floors us here."

        "Were the other papers of importance?"

        "There's one that may be, though it's hard to say how. It's a letter from a Soviet Commissioner, and it seems to show that Bulfwin was trying to double-cross Trentham, as well as Starr, if he could get enough to make it worth his while."

        "Anything else?"

        "There were some receipted bills, and a wallet of notes, and some private letters that don't seem to lead anywhere, though there's one or two things in them that we're following up on the chance. . . . There were some keys and oddments in the lower pockets, and some loose money. But we can't find the office key, which he must have had. Of course, whoever killed him would have needed that to lock the door when he left. . . . But there's one thing certain: they couldn't have got it out of the lower pockets after he was dead without getting themselves in a mess, and leaving traces of what they had done. In fact, we're certain the trouser-pockets had not been disturbed."

        "He wasn't armed?"

        "No. But the shape of his hip-pocket showed that he usually carried a pistol. We thought we might find it at his hotel, but it isn't there. Of course, he may not have brought it to England."

        Superintendent Withers spoke for the first time. He was a mild-mannered man, who looked as though he might cross the road to avoid a sheep, if it wore horns, but he had a reputation for some of the coolest and most sensational arrests and intricate crime-solutions of his time.

        He said, "Is the process really valuable?"

        "I can't answer that," said the Inspector. "Everyone seems to think it is. That seems clear enough."

        "I think, sir," said the Superintendent, turning to Sir Harry, "that's the most important question of all, if we're looking first for the motive. If Starr or Trentham - or both of them - knew it was a fake, there was only one sure way of closing down with a good profit, and that was the insurance."

        "I don't quite see that," said the Major. "Trentham might have floated it for a good sum, and then let it smash, as he's done before."

        "He might have meant to do that," Withers answered, "and then altered his mind when he saw how things went with the Collman Trust. He may have thought it too dangerous, and changed his methods; but it's no use guessing on these points till we've got the first question answered. Is the process genuine? Is it the sort of thing that could be patented? And, if so, has anything been done on those lines? And if not, why not?"

        "I haven't missed that," the Inspector answered. "I asked Trentham, and I've got his explanation in his statement. He said he didn't want to patent unless he were obliged, or not till the last moment anyway, because there's a lot of platinum mined in Russia, and it would be giving it away to them. He said he had opened negotiations with the Soviet Government to sell to them for a cash sum, but he couldn't get them to decide. That seems reasonable enough, and it's borne out by the fact that Bulfwin was trying the same game."

        "Then you think it's a genuine discovery? Can you tell us anything of its nature, or what they claim that it does?"

        "I don't know more than what Trentham explained, and what I've looked up since, and I mayn't put it quite right, but I understand that platinum is never found pure. It's mixed up in the ore with iridium and other alloys, and it's not easy to separate them. That may be because platinum isn't easy to melt, but I don't really know.

        "Anyhow, platinum ore isn't easy to refine, and this process is said to do it at about a third of the present cost. . . . I can't say whether it's really any good, but I think they all believe it is."

        "I don't want. to criticize, Cleveland," Super-intendent Withers went on, "I think you've handled this thing really well. I can't see that you've missed anything, and you've been prompt every time. . . . And I think there's something due to the major too. If he hadn't been following Trentham up as close as he was, we shouldn't have come on this in the way we did. And it's casy to get slack when you've been on a cold scent for nearly two years."

        The inspector allowed a little smile of satisfaction to appear at this praise - from such a quarter it was high praise, indeed - but the Major's face was impassive, although it meant more to him, and was unexpected, for he had only been conscious of the exasperating fact that he was unable, as usual, to do more than demonstrate the improbability of Trentham having any connection with the crime. But they may both have waited with some interest, if not anxiety, for any sting which might lurk in the tail of the Superintendent's remarks.

        He went on, "I'm not criticizing, as I've said, but if wc allow the process to be genuine, I still think there's one point on which you should concentrate. We can take it, I think, that it was a carefully planned crime (there's one point I don't understand, though the explanation may be quite simple. I'll come back to that), but when we're dealing with a crime of that kind I always look first for anything that couldn't have been foreseen, and what influence that may have had.

        "Now, you've got a hand-print, and, perhaps, a boot-mark, that you can't place, and if you succeed with them you'll probably be able to pull in the line with a full catch; but, meanwhile, there are only two men you can suspect at all - Trentham and Starr - and you get them both coming up to that office in the afternoon, almost at the same minute, with the dead man the other side of the door. Now they couldn't have known that the Major would have got that office open a few minutes before they came. Whatever they did expect, it wasn't that.

        "If they were innocent men, of course they were just ordinary calls. But if we go on a theory that one or both of them knew what was the other side of the door, then we have to ask what course of action had they planned to take? I'd give something to know whether either of them had the office key in his pocket."

        "Trentham had a duplicate key," said the Inspector. "He told us that."

        "Then you ought to find out whether they had two from the landlords, or where they got it made. If he's told a lie about that, and he's got Bulfwin's key in his pocket, it's just the sort of little thing that might hang him, if he were asked suddenly in the witness-box for an explanation that he couldn't give."

        "But I've checked on that," the Inspector answered. "He had it made at Hinton's, in Lion Court."

        The Superintendent looked mildly disappointed. "That scraps one idea," he said frankly. "I thought it possible that Starr might have asked him to meet him there, knowing that he couldn't get in if he arrived first, perhaps having Bulfwin's key himself, or perhaps meaning that they should have to go to the caretaker when they found Bulfwin wasn't there to let them in. That was on the supposition that Starr had done it, and wanted to look innocent by being there when it was found. . . . But, of course, he mayn't have known of Trentham's key. . . . I still think those two men coming up as they did holds the explanation to everything, if we could only work it out. . . . But the other thing that's puzzled me is the caretaker's part in the matter. Why didn't he hear the shots? - Of course, they may have used silencers, if it were a planned thing. And why didn't he find it out sooner? Most caretakers open their rooms once a day."

        "There are one or two of these points that do seem a bit queer," the Inspector answered. "But not so much as you think before you look into them.

        "As to the last, the tenancy didn't really commence till today - June twenty-fifth - though they'd signed the lease, and got possession, nor did the caretaker begin to get anything for cleaning the room till today, when the furniture was to come in. - Trentham's put it off till tomorrow now, to get it wiped up, and some new floor-covering laid down. . . . Then as to the noise. Billings - that's the caretaker's name - lives in the basement, but there are some alterations going on there, and he's been sleeping with his family in rooms a couple of streets away for the last fortnight. The rule is that he closes the street-door at six-thirty, but will let any of the tenants in if they ring. They can open the door from the inside, if they stay later, and are supposed to pull it shut, which he says they don't always trouble to do. While he's been away at night, he's been fastening the front door open till eight-thirty, and then going round the building to make sure that no one's left inside, before he double-locks for the night and goes home.

        "As to anyone else hearing, if there were no one left in the offices near, the street traffic might drown it, even if ordinary pistols were used without silencers. Some of them aren't very loud. . . . But there's another point that comes in here. . . . We mustn't think that it need have happened between six and seven in the evening, because we suspect Starr. It might have happened any time during the night, and while these repairs were going on in the basement, it wouldn't have been very hard for anyone who'd let himself be locked in to get away. There's a yard-wall about eight feet high, and nothing worse than that till you're in a passage to Mortmain Street. . . . Of course, it isn't likely that Bulfwin would have waited in an empty office after closing hours for someone to murder him, but there's the fact that, if they had done it then, they could have got clear.

        "No one saw anyone leaving under suspicious circumstances, so far as we've inquired yet, and I've had two good men doing nothing else. . . . And so, there we are."

        "Well, gentlemen," said Sir Harry. "Is it to be an arrest, or shall we let the Coroner get to work? You haven't spoken yet, Gilkes; what do you say?

        sleepy eyes to answer, or rather ask:

        "Anyone see Starr leave? Was he alone?"

        "There's only one man who says he saw him, and he says he left alone," the Inspector answered. "But we can't trust what he says. He says Starr left at eight o'clock. He's sure of the time, because he had just closed his shop - he's a tobacconist opposite - and was going for the eight-eleven at Fenchurch Street, which he caught, when he saw him come out (so he says), and pull the street-door shut after him. The trouble about that is that Starr was in the Holborn Empire about half an hour before that, if another witness is to be believed, and I think she's the better one of the two. Anyway, they spoil each other. It's the usual thing."

        No one quarrelled with that statement. Many of a detective's troubles would disappear if he could eliminate the inaccurate individual who, from love of notoriety, or excess of imagination, pushes in to confuse the evidence with assertions, confidently made, which must be patiently probed, with loss of time and temper, and sometimes worse consequences if he be too readily credited.

        "I should say it was Starr," Gilkes said, "all the same. If you arrest him now, you'll probably have all the evidence you need before it goes into court."

        "Then you advise his arrest?" the Assistant Commissioner asked, doubtfully.

        "No, I wouldn't say that. There's a risk."

        "It would be better if we could go on a coroner's warrant?"

        "You won't do that, sir," he answered. "Russia. . . . You'll see."

        With this cryptic utterance, Superintendent Gilkes's eyelids descended to their previous level.

        "You'd better tell the Coroner he can go ahead," said Sir Harry, with decision, and the conference ended.

CHAPTER XIII

THE inquest on the enterprising but unfortunate Bulfwin was not a long one.

        The jury went through the rather useless formality of "viewing the body," or rather the face of the deceased, a ceremony which is at the Coroner's discretion, and which has been very generally omitted in recent years, during which three closed their eyes, five gave a fleeting glance, under compulsion of their oaths, and to the detriment of their dreams, and four would willingly have looked somewhat longer but for the pressure of the moving group at their rear.

        They were not asked to inspect the wounds which had occasioned this investigation - which would have been somewhat difficult after the surgical explorations which had preceded them - and it is not easy to see what advantage could result from this ceremony, unless it were to demonstrate that there really was a dead man in the case, and that the whole entertainment had not been staged for the weekend reading of the nation, by a patriotic Press, or a paternal government.

        They moved obediently in a single file beside the sheeted figure, and returned to their places to hear the evidence of Mr. Billings and Major Cattell-Pratt as to the discovery of the body, and that of Dr. Crowther as to the nature of the wounds it bore.

        It was only in reference to the doctor's theory of the two first shots being simultaneous that there were any questions asked, but Mr. Dibber (instructed by Bletchworth & Co.), who appeared on Mr. Starr's behalf, was rather curious on this point, and led the doctor to give a very exact and detailed description of the courses of the two bullets until (he said) they had encountered one another, and both had been deflected, continuing almost side by side, until the leading one had stopped when actually touching, but without injuring, the spinal column.

        "Though," the doctor added, "it is possible that there may have been sufficient shock to produce a temporary paralysis of the lower limbs, causing the immediate collapse, which appears to have occurred, the course of the other two bullets, Which were fired at a closer range, indicated that the man was either lying face downwards, or on his hands and knees when he received them."

        "It appears," said the Coroner at this stage, "that the deceased was a citizen of the United States, and his passport shows that he was on a business visit to this country. We have at present only succeeded in tracing two gentlemen with whom he had any intimate business or personal acquaintance, one of whom is said to have been with him alone on the evening before, and in the office in which his body was found. Neither of these gentlemen is obliged to give evidence, should he consider that it might tend to incriminate himself, but their legal advisers are present, and I am informed that they both desire to give us such assistance as they are able to do."

        Mr. Trentham was then called. It would be tedious to set down his evidence, so far as it repeated that which he had asserted before, and which remained unchallenged. A man cannot be accused of complicity in a murder which takes place fifty or a hundred miles away simply because he benefits financially by the event.

        There was only one point on which he was cross-examined at all, and that was by Mr. Starr's solicitor, who commenced in a way from which few could have guessed the point to which he was leading.

        "Since the discovery of platinum," he began, "I think I am correct in saying that the bulk of the mineral has been obtained from the Russian mines?"

        "Yes."

        "Over ninety per cent?"

        "Possibly. The Russian figures have always been unreliable."

        "Understated, rather than over?"

        "Probably."

        "Then there could be little importance in this process, unless it were adopted by the Soviet Government?"

        "That does not follow at all. Its greatest value lies in the fact that it would make many deposits commercially valuable, which it has not been possible to work hitherto."

        "Then," said Mr. Dibber, speaking with an increased deliberation and emphasis, "is it not true that this process is not only of great potential value to the Russian Government for their own use, but that it would be of enormous importance to them if they could obtain, or even suppress it, because of its probable effect, not merely in reducing costs, but in opening new sources of supply which must restrict the demand for the Russian product?"

        "Yes."

        "And the Soviet Government has been approached?"

        "Yes."

        "They knew what was claimed for the process, and that Mr. Bulfwin was, or had been, the custodian of the formula?"

        "Yes."

        "And the office where he lost his life had been taken for the marketing of this process?"

        "Yes."

        "That is all, thank you," said Mr. Dibber, and sat down. Mr. Trentham left the box.

        Mr. Starr gave his evidence confidently. He admitted his differences with the dead man, and the extent to which he might gain by his death. He repeated in substance the account of their final interview which he had given to Inspector Cleveland. He was unshaken in any serious particular, though the Coroner questioned him somewhat severely.

        He accounted for his two hotels by saying that after he came to London, and put up at one, he had got lost - he was not used to cities of such a size - and had been obliged to find accommodation elsewhere, being unable to remember the address to which he should have returned. It was two or three days before he found his way back to the first hotel, and he had then decided to keep a room at both, so that he could return to whichever should be nearer, after the nightly wanderings in which he indulged. It was, at least, a possible explanation.

        He made a good impression on the jury, excepting only that two or three were disposed to doubt whether he could be a genuine American, as he lacked the strength of accent, and the wealth of idiomatic speech to which they were accustomed by the talking films. Fortunately for his credit with these people, he had replied, "That's fine," when told that he had given all the evidence which the Court required.

        The Coroner summed up briefly and fairly. He thought the jury would have little difficulty in deciding that this was a case of murder - brutal murder of an unarmed and defenceless man. So far, he did not see that any other verdict was possible. But to decide where the responsibility lay was a more anxious and difficult question. A suggestion had been made - it would be a poor compliment to their intelligence to suppose that they had not understood it - that the murder might be the work of the emissaries of a Great Power with whom we were at peace, if not in actual friendship. He must tell them that there was not an atom of evidence to support such a suggestion, which, he felt, should not have been made. It came from the solicitor of one - Mr. Kingsley Starr - who was not himself free from the shadow of suspicion. He appeared to have been the last man who was known to have seen Mr. Bulfwin alive. He had a grievance - if his evidence were to be believed, a great and genuine grievance - which was being adjusted only under legal pressure; and such an adjustment could hardly produce any feeling of goodwill. It was not a voluntary restitution. They might think that a grave suspicion rested upon Mr. Kingsley Starr. But suspicion was not proof. They must not forget that Dr. Crowther had said definitely that the murder could not have been the work of one man. If they felt that they could do no more than to ascribe the homicide to some person or persons unknown, they could rest assured that the matter would not end there. It would become the duty of the police to continue such investigations as would in all probability result in such persons being brought to justice at last. . . .

        After this summing-up, and with Mr. Dibber's hint firmly planted in the minds of the jury, there could be little doubt as to what the verdict would be. They found that Mr. Bulfwin was murdered, but there was not sufficient evidence to say who were responsible for the crime.

CHAPTER XIV

INSPECTOR CLEVELAND laid a set of photographs on the table. "I'm up against it here," he said, "and if you can't help me, I don't know who can."

        Superintendent Withers said quietly, "Let's see what the trouble is."

        The Superintendent was not a man of excitable disposition. When a desperate criminal had confronted him with the muzzle of a six-shooter, and announced that if he were not out of the door in ten seconds it would commence exploding in his direction, he had only answered mildly, "I don't think I should, if I were you. Haven't you got a chair where I could sit down?" He had an air of rather weary patience with the follies of the criminal population. No one had ever known him to hurry, but neither had they known him to stop, and the amount of work he got through in the year must have been very great. Inspector Cleveland came to him for consultation not only because he was the recognized expert on finger-prints at the Yard, but because he could be relied upon to listen patiently to any statement, however improbable, and to approach its solution in a leisurely level-headed way which was often very consoling at times of unusual worry or indecision.

        The Inspector spread out the photographs as they were numbered from one to six.

        "The first four," he said, "are from the deed which was in Bulfwin's pocket when he was shot. The fifth is the thumb of Kingsley Starr's right hand, and the last one is his right hand complete. These first two show the marks that were at the top of the document, back and front."

        The Superintendent picked up the first two photographs. The one showed the front of the top joint of a thumb. That was a very clear print. The other showed the side of a finger. It was not equally well defined, but sufficiently so to be readily recognizable. They had been taken from each side of the top of the deed.

        The next two photographs were larger. One showed the side of a thumb, down to the ball. The other showed four fingers more or less completely. They had been taken from the opposite side of the same document, lower down.

        When he had looked at them, he picked up those which had been obtained from the right hand of Kingsley Starr. He looked at the thumb first and said, "You can't go beyond that. It's a different hand. It rules Starr out, so far as that it shows another man was there. But Crowther's always said there were two."

        Cleveland made no answer to that, for he saw, even as the words were spoken, that the Superintendent's eyes were upon the sixth print. Let it speak for itself.

        It was evidently doing that. Superintendent Withers was looking at it with an intentness which had forgotten his own words, and was in no expectation of reply. He examined the other prints again. He got out a microscope, concentrating upon the junction of the first and second fingers in the fourth print. There was a long silence. He laid down the microscope, and sat thinking silently. Then he said, "You know this is absurd?"

        "Yes. That's why I've brought them to you. I know it's impossible. And yet there it is."

        "You can't say it's impossible. . . . Ever heard of the card deals that come out one complete suit to each player?"

        "Yes. But I don't believe them."

        "No. You're probably right. But they're not impossible. It's only millions to one that they're not true. It's countless millions to one here. Indeed, it's that multiplied by itself, as you've probably seen if you've thought it out. . . . Any theory?"

        "None about that. I'm just beaten."

        "Apart from that. How and when do you reckon the marks came on the deed?"

        "That seems simple enough. The man who shot him must have pulled, or half-pulled, it out of his pocket, and then tried to push it back. It didn't go far back, if at all, because it caught in the top of a shorter paper - a letter - and the man didn't trouble any further. But for that, I suppose the lower marks would have been more or less rubbed off.

        "I reckon the man pulled it out with his hand on the side, and then loosed it, and tried to push it back, holding it at the top. We've got to remember that Bulfwin was lying on his face, and the man would feel what he was doing, rather than see."

        "Any idea why he changed his mind?"

        "Nothing certain. He might have been looking for something else, and pushed it back when he found it wasn't what he required. Or he may have taken something that he did want, and this came partly out with it. Or he may really have been uncertain whether it were best to leave it, and changed his mind. . . . It's mere guessing beyond that."

        "Yes. . . . Suppose it were Starr? . . . It would be best to leave it, wouldn't it? . . . Much."

        "Yes."

        "And it was left. . . . Of course, it may have been pulled out completely, and then put back. Both men may have handled it."

        "Yes. But the positions of the marks. . . . And the fingers join."

        "Yes. Those are the real difficulties. But you know there always is an explanation. Quite a simple one, more often than not. . . . It's like a chess problem that you haven't solved. When you've been at it for a couple of hours, you're quite sure there's a misprint, and when you've worked it out, you wonder you didn't see it at the first glance."

        Inspector Cleveland thought misprint was rather a good word, but he saw no consolation in that.

CHAPTER XV

"TED, there's a telegram for you on the davenport," Cora remarked, as they got up from dinner about a week after the date of the abortive inquest.

        "Is there?" he replied, Without enthusiasm. "Then why didn't you tell me before?"

        "Well, it's been there since midday, without being any trouble, so I thought it might go on waiting while you had something to eat. You know I never fuss."

        "Well, I don't suppose it matters. It's probably only Bill worrying about the drop in Associated Plasters. He's always wanting me to sell on a bad market. I suppose that's how brokers live. . . . Oh, I say, Cora, I'll never forgive you, if - - " He pulled himself up from the momentary excitement which the telegram had aroused, and became his restrained and dignified self again as he passed her the buff slip, with the remark:

        "I suppose Saturday's done that. . . . I hardly know whether I ought to accept. . . . Baird must have been rather desperate when he thought of me."

        "Of course you'll accept. You know that as well as I do. We'd better get a wire off at once."

        She picked up the reply-paid form which the envelope contained.

        "It's no use spoiling that. It wouldn't get through tonight now. I might get Baird at his club," her brother interposed; any excitement he might feel being insufficient to disturb the common-sense coolness with which he usually faced an emergency.

        "I'll see if he's there now."

        She went to the telephone, and rang up the Gardiner.

        "Is Mr. Baird in? Yes, T. A., of course. Please find him, if you can; it's important." And then, after a surprisingly short interval, "That you, Tommy? This is Cora. . . . Cora Pratt, of course. Who did you think? Ted's only just had your wire. Yes, he'll be there. . . . And about time too. . . . I think it gets stodgier every week."

        "You might have let me have a word with him."

        "I didn't know there was anything more to say. You can ring him up again, if you like. . . . You didn't want to thank him, did you? When they've been playing duds like Thorne and Joe Mackintosh."

        The Major said no more.

        He was one of those unfortunate cricketers who are always on the outskirts of county rank, but who fail to gain a regular place in the team. He had played more than once or twice, and was known as an attractive hard-driving bat when he got going. But he was without subtlety. He was not strong in back-play. He had no reverence for the two-eyed stance. He went for all bowling more or less in the same way.

        He had made many high scores in weekend games, and a hard-hit 136 not out the previous Saturday, on a pitch which most of his team found too difficult for their comfort, was doubtless responsible for the present invitation from the Middlesex captain.

        Tomorrow was Wednesday, Cora reflected, when the match would commence, and, if the skies were reasonably clear, there would be few things more certain than that her brother would be at Lord's from noon to six-thirty, and for the same periods, more or less, on the two following days. She could have no better opportunity. She reflected that the dispensations of Providence may be underrated by thoughtless or flippant minds.

CHAPTER XVI

IT WAS three o'clock on the following afternoon when Cora entered the Kensington High Street station, and took a ticket for Mark Lane. She had dressed herself with unusual care, aiming to combine an effect of business efficiency with as much feminine charm as could be consistent therewith, and being fortified with the new hat which her brother had so thoughtfully provided.

        Arriving at Bodmin House, she learnt from Billings, who was in charge of the lift, and whom she easily recognized from her brother's description, that she was fortunate enough to have called when Mr. Trentham was in the office.

        She stood a moment outside the door, not from any hesitation of nervousness, but because a lively imagination enjoyed the thought of the signwriter inscribing BULFWIN'S SYNDICATE, LIMITED upon it, in ignorance of the sight which lay upon the other side, awaiting those who should be the first to open it.

        Then she knocked, and a voice of dignified geniality invited her to enter.

        Cora had the feminine characteristic of swift and detailed observation. A well-educated and cultured woman may never be able to recollect more than a few of the leading facts of the history of her own land, such as that Mussolini won the battle of Hastings and that Harold was killed during the following century by an arrow in the eye, shot by Wat Tyler, when they were hunting together at Senlac, in the New Forest; but she will be able to memorize the physical characteristics and clothes of half a dozen women in the same number of seconds, and to make an approximately accurate guess at where the various articles were purchased, and how much elevenpence-three-farthings a yard the materials cost of such as were not ready-made at the time of purchase.

        Cora observed a rather large room, furnished en suite in light oak and dark green leather, having an air of ease rather than affluence, or of an affluence that would not boast.

        Mr. Trentham sat at a large flat desk in the centre of the room. There was a high pile of letters before him, which he had been commencing to open. Clearly he had only arrived a short time before her.

        There was a table against the opposite wall, with a new typewriter shining upon it, and a neat array of inkwells and pads, and wicker-baskets and other office requisites.

        She saw with satisfaction that they had an almost aggressive virginity, and this appearance, with the absence of any feminine occupant of the room, led her to conclude that Mr. Baird's invitation had not been issued too late for her purpose.

        She had not seen Mr. Trentham previously, and was surprised that he was not more formidable or sinister.

        These things (and many others) she observed as she took three steps into the room, the while he rose, and paid gratifying tribute to her own appearance by the courtesy of tone and manner with which he placed a chair, and inquired her business.

        We have the authority of Lord Tennyson, who professed to admire them, for the opinion that even