Who Murdered Reynard?

by Sydney Fowler

Rich & Cowan
1947

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Inside front cover:

PROFESSOR BLINKWELL the suave, unscrupulous scientist and drug trafficker, already well known to readers of The Bell Murders and The Secret of the Screen, proceeds to Paris with his niece Myra, to outwit police activities there, which threaten the international traffic of the gang which he controls.

        Almost immediately, the French police officer who is in charge of the investigation is murdered in the hotel at which Professor Blinkwell is staying.

        The position is complicated by the fact that the crime occurs in the apartment of the United States Ambassador to Great Britain (who is visiting Paris with his daughter, Irene) and under such circumstances "that he is not himself entirely free from suspicion, so that a delicate international situation impedes the actions both of the Sûreté and Scotland Yard.

        The adroitness with which Professor Blinkwell uses the position to smuggle through a parcel of illicit drugs with the unwilling help of both the United States ambassador and an agent of the police, and the complications which follow, leading to abduction and further homicides, provides an exciting situation of sustained suspense with such climax as may be expected from a Sydney Fowler crime book.

CHAPTER

I	MYRA IS TO LIE WELL
II	OF THOSE ON THE FLOOR ABOVE
III	MYRA GOES INTO ACTION
IV	MYRA SEEKS ADVICE
V	AN UNOPENED PARCEL
VI	THE METHODS OF HENRY REYNARD
VII	REYNARD CONTRIVES CRIME
VIII	MISADVENTURE OF A FALSE BOTTOM
IX	MURDER
X	MR. THURLOW IS ANNOYED
XI	IRENE KNOWS NOTHING
XII	M. SAMUEL OVERHEARS
XIII	KINDELL WILL SAY NOTHING
XIV	KINDELL AS A LIVE BAIT
XV	EFFORT IN MENDACITY
XVI	IRENE RESOLVES TO TRY
XVII	IRENE CAN CHANGE HER MIND
XVIII	IN WHICH EVERYONE FEELS RELIEF
IX	MR. THURLOW IS NOT PLEASED
XX	AN OLD BLANKET WILL DO
XXI	AN ERROR WITHOUT EXCUSE
XXII	KINDELL TAKES IT THE RIGHT WAY
XXIII	MR. THURLOW MUST GIVE WAY
XXIV	PURSUIT
XXV	IRENE DOES NOT RETURN
XXVI	PROFESSOR BLINKWELL DINES AND TALKS
XXVII	ACTION AT SCOTLAND YARD
XXVIII	SYLVESTER SNACKLIT IS NOT DECEIVED
XXIX	MR. SNACKLIT THINKS
XXX	A SKIRMISH OF DEADLY WORDS
XXXI	MRS. COLLINSON HOLDS HER OWN
XXXII	IRENE HAS SEEN TOO MUCH
XXXIII	A QUESTION OF RED HAIR
XXXIV	THURLOW DECLINES TO WAIT
XXXV	PROFESSOR BLINKWELL IS ROUSED TO WRATH
XXXVI	THE POKER, OR ELSE THE BELL
XXXVII	THE HOME SECRETARY WANTS TO KNOW
XXXVIII	INCIDENTS OF AN ACTIVE HOUR
XXXIX	OBJECTION TO BEING ROASTED ALIVE
XL	PROFESSOR BLINKWELL WAS PLEASED
XLI	BUT MYRA FELT DIFFERENTLY

CHAPTER ONE

MYRA IS TO LIE WELL

YOU SHOULD KNOW by this time, my dear Myra," Professor Blinkwell said easily, "that I have made it a rule of life that I take risks."

        His niece delayed her reply while she put away another mouthful of the excellent bacon which the Professor had instructed her to order for breakfast, in preference to the rolls and coffee which the Hôtel Splendide usually served for the first meal of the day. Then she said, "I know how clever you are; and, of course, I've heard you say that before, but I can't see why you came over here while you might have stayed in London and kept clear of whatever trouble there is."

        "That," the Professor replied, with the patient tolerance which he always showed towards his companion's intellectual inferiority, "is because you foolishly presume that danger is increased by proximity, or reduced by distance, whereas the fact may often be of a contrary kind.

        "Where knowledge must be transmitted from mind to mind, it is well to observe that there is no form of communication that cannot be tapped, no code that cannot be read. There is one safe method alone - that of the open place and the whispered word."

        It might be wrong to assume that Myra could not have followed her uncle's argument, had there been sufficient reason, but it is certain that she did not attempt to do so. She took no interest in the reflections of abstract wisdom, but held to her point in a woman's way.

        "What I mean is, that if you'd stayed in London it wouldn't have been your business at all. You've often told me that you've no concern with what happens until you hear that it's landed in England, and mayn't even know who handles it until then."

        "That is true in the ordinary course. It is an organization in which curiosity is mutually undesirable, and is not encouraged by the head of the firm. But now that there is reason to think that something has gone wrong, and Gaspard being in jail - - "

        "I thought you said that that was on a charge of another kind?"

        "So it is. We suppose it to have been faked, so that he can be kept under arrest at a time when his absence may be disastrous to us."

        "And suppose they treat you in the same way?"

        "My dear Myra! It would be an international outrage, which even the French police would be too shrewd, and too cautious, to try, even if such a thought should enter their heads, which it is not reasonable to suppose. What have I to do with the matters about which they fuss in this needless way, or what have they to do with me?"

        Professor Blinkwell did not raise his voice, nor did his manner show any offence. His tone was that of good-humoured remonstrance against a preposterous suggestion. But his niece was sensitive to the resentment which lay beneath the controlled suavity of a manner which seldom changed. She said: "Yes. I was silly, of course. But somehow I always feel safer in London than I do here."

        "You are quite safe, if you take sufficient care to avoid the traffic of the busier streets."

        "You know I didn't mean that."

        "But I did. The French driving is of a peculiarly dangerous type. We kill each other in a stolid efficient manner, but they will run you down here with a flair, as taking pleasure in what they do."

        Myra understood that her uncle intended to turn the conversation, which had developed a direction he did not approve though its subject was one on which he must speak frankly at times, she being the one person in the world who had his confidence in connection with the international drug trafficking of which he largely controlled the distribution in the British Isles, at least so far as was necessary to enable her to act with intelligence in dealing with certain accounts through which it was contrived to manipulate the financial transactions involved, so that they should be innocent in their appearance to the banks concerned, and capable of plausible explanation if enquiry should be directed upon them.

        Accepting the hint he gave, she spoke of that which had been on the surface of her mind before this conversation commenced. "I saw Will Kindell in the lounge yesterday evening. I suppose he's followed us here."

        They both knew that she might have used the singular pronoun with greater accuracy, and the Professor, who was only vaguely aware of the existence of the young man she mentioned, and not always interested in her indecisive amours, became alertly curious.

        "A young man of good family?"

        "He's Lord Sparshott's cousin."

        "And of good character, may we hope?"

        "I should call him a bit soft."

        "Of substantial means?"

        "He hasn't a bean that he doesn't cadge."

        "An unattractive type. . . . But he has the good sense to be - shall we say, infatuated by what he thinks you to be?"

        "Yes. Dotty. That's why he's here."

        "And I may observe that his affections are not reciprocated with equal fervour?"

        "It's just a bore to have to get out of his way."

        The breakfast-table became silent. Professor Blinkwell understood his niece very well, and she understood him, if not equally, at least better than most of his fellow-creatures were able to do.

        He knew that she was very unlikely to lose her head over Lord Sparshott's impecunious and apparently idle cousin, though her attitude towards him might not be entirely consistent with the boredom that she professed.

        He knew that she liked to be flattered and stroked, like a well-fed cat, without caring overmuch whose hand might be smoothing her fur, and without desiring any more intimate association, or having the least intention of making return beyond the sound of a pleasant purr.

        On her side she showed that she had followed her uncle's mind beyond anything which had been spoken aloud, when she broke the silence to add, "He's not the sort to be of any use to us, if you mean that."

        "I wonder. . . He knows Thurlow, doesn't he? And Miss Thurlow, too?"

        "Yes. He's a sort of English cousin to them. I don't know exactly what the relationship is. But I know that when they came to England they looked him up in the way Americans do."

        "Well, that doesn't matter to us."

        The breakfast-table became silent again, and it was only as they were about to rise that Professor Blinkwell said: "You'd better not tire yourself trying to get out of his way. In fact, you'd better be as nice to him as you can contrive to be."

        "May I ask why?"

        After a moment's hesitation, the Professor, who had spoken in the act of rising, resumed his seat. He offered his cigarette-case to his niece, and struck a match for their common use before he replied.

        "Yes. I think you may. In fact, it may be necessary for you to know. . . . Suppose," he went on, after a moment of thoughtful silence, "that you have some very valuable jewellery, of the existence of which I am unaware. Which could not come to my knowledge without grave embarrassment to yourself?"

        "Yes?"

        "You will be confronted with a difficult problem when we return to England in a few days' time. You will have to declare it to the Customs, and perhaps pay duty upon it, which you could hardly expect to do without my knowledge, or else take the risk of trying to smuggle it through."

        As he said this, Professor Blinkwell observed a half-frightened, half-mutinous expression upon Myra's attractive, but rather heavy, features, which were not usually quick to expose her thoughts.

        "I shouldn't like - - " she began. "I didn't think you'd ever ask me to - - "

        "My dear Myra, don't be a fool! What are you supposing that you didn't think that you ever should?"

        "I suppose you want me to ask Mr. Kindell to smuggle it through, without telling him what it is."

        "Then you must think me a bigger fool than yourself. All you've got to do is to tell him about the trouble you're in. Do that within the next two days, but don't ask him to do any smuggling on your behalf, and don't agree to any offer that comes from him. For one reason, he'd be almost certain to fail; and there are two others that are even better than that."

        As he spoke, the slightly sullen expression passed from his niece's face. She looked half puzzled and half relieved. She said: "Very well. I can do that, if it's any good."

        "You can do it excellently, if you try, as I'm sure you will."

        He rose again as he spoke, taking out a wallet at the same time, from which he drew some banknotes, which he handed to her.

        "I Suppose you'll want to go shopping now you're here," he said casually. "Most women do."

        He paused at the door to add: "And don't forget that I never run any risks, and I shouldn't ask you to do anything that isn't perfectly safe. I've got too much to lose."

        Myra heard these words with the relief which they had been intended to cause. They reminded her of the immunity with which Professor Blinkwell had controlled the English traffic in certain illicit drugs for the past five years, without evidence of the faintest suspicion being directed towards himself. Had he not told her more than once before that she would never have cause to fear so long as she obeyed his instructions with exactness, and without questioning what they meant? And had not this assurance always been justified by the event

        The tale he had asked her to tell now was certainly not of a dangerous kind. Even had it been true, there could be no legal offence, in advance of an overt act.

        She looked at the banknotes she had received and saw that they amounted to a total of two thousand francs. She was pleased at that, but she saw by the magnitude of the bribe, that her uncle attached unusual importance to the part he had asked her to play, however safe it might be.

        Well, it was not one she was likely to bungle! She remained thoughtful for the next ten minutes, and then picked up the telephone and asked to be put through to Mr. Kindell's apartment.

CHAPTER TWO

OF THOSE ON THE FLOOR ABOVE

WHILE PROFESSOR BLINKWELL and his niece discussed business, finance, and matters which might be designated by a more sinister word, Mr. Cyril B. Thurlow, United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and his daughter Irene, were consuming an equally satisfactory breakfast of grapefruit and shredded wheat in their own suite on the floor above.

        Mr. Thurlow, whose name had been prominent two years before as a probable candidate for the United States presidency, but who had withdrawn in favour of a more popular candidate, had been subsequently appointed - in recognition of the party loyalty which he had shown, and other excellent qualifications - to the office which he now held.

        Having secured that exalted position, he had maintained its high traditions to the satisfaction of the nations concerned, and was seldom absent from his official residence in London; but on this occasion, the political skies being clear, and there being a sufficient interval during which no ceremonial functions would require his presence, he had left his official duties in the hands of capable secretaries, and followed inclination and his daughter's wishes by making a short visit to Paris.

        Mr. Thurlow was an Alabama cotton-planter, of substantial wealth, and assured social position. He was known as a man of something more than superficial scholarship, as a collector of medieval tapestries, and as one of the three best after-dinner speakers of his race and generation.

        He had shown another side of his character, and had greatly increased his popularity with his fellow-citizens five years before when he had come suddenly upon three men who were in the act of kidnapping his daughter, in accordance with one of the best known customs af his native land.

        Declining the usual invitation to raise his hands, he had pulled out his own gun with such celerity, and used it to such effect, that the police had been subsequently called upon to do no more than remove one dying and two seriously wounded men, while his own injuries had been confined to a grazed cheek and an abbreviation of the-little finger of the left hand, which had been shot off at the upper joint.

        He spoke excellent English, with a slight pleasant Southern-States drawl; and though he insisted on pronouncing schedule with a k, for which authority can be advanced, it is improbable that he ever expressed approval of a fellow-man by describing him as a swell guy.

        His daughter Irene, a vivaciously attractive, rather impulsive girl of nineteen or twenty years, an only and motherless child, had left college at her urgency, and to his own satisfaction, when he had been appointed to his present position, so that she could accompany him to England.

        On arriving in that country, she had made it a primary occupation to discover descendants of her Father's Scottish ancestors, or living relatives of her mother, who was traditionally connected with the Shropshire Charlings.

        In this pursuit she had done no more for her father than to identify his family with that of an Alexander Thurlow who was the proprietor of a general store in a small village near Haddington. The man was of dubious character, and less than dubious sobriety, and the relationship had been left unclaimed, after her father's inclinations had been expressed with as much freedom of emphasis as he would often allow himself to use in his daughter's presence.

        But she had been more successful, at least to her own, if not to the ambassador's, mind in her search for her mother's kin. They proved to be numerous, of a good average respectability, and including some of more than average social status. Considered broadly, they were a family in which charm of manner and speech, a resilient optimism, and an opportunist ability to avoid the impact of adverse circumstance, were conspicuous above the more solid and pedestrian virtues, though it would be uncharitable to suggest that these may not have been also present.

        Among them, William Kindell, cousin of Lord Sparshott, who had been living in London, with more evidence of leisure than occupation, had shown some disposition to accept the generous Embassy hospitality which Mr. Thurlow had offered to the family of his dead wife, and which he had lacked excuse to withdraw when he had observed, with some inward dissatisfaction, that the young man appeared to be gaining an exceptional measure of his daughter's regard, especially as he could not detect anything in his conduct either open to criticism in itself or suggesting that he regarded Irene with more than the friendliness natural to their ages and dispositions, and to the blood-relationship that existed between them.

        Now Irene broke a short silence to ask, in the pseudo-casual voice of one who is self-conscious of speaking too often on a subject which fills the mind, and yet cannot resist the inclination to do so, "Did you notice that Will Kindell's been here since yesterday?" To which he answered with a vague illogical feeling of grievance (for the Hôtel Splendide was equally open to all who dressed in the right way, avoided public disgrace, and could pay its bills): "Kindell? I wonder whatever he's doing here. I suppose he's not following us?"

        Irene would have liked to feel that the supposition was wrong, but she had some reluctant reason for a different opinion. She said: "No. I don't think he knows we're here. It's more likely to be something to do with a Professor Blinkwell, or some name like that, on the floor below. I saw him talking last night to the Professor's daughter, unless she's his wife, a fat Jewish-looking woman, but he didn't notice me as I passed."

        The ambassador surprised himself by saying, "Well, if he's staying here, you'd better ask him to look us up."

        He spoke from mingled, unanalysed feelings which pulled contrary ways. He was naturally hospitable, and unlikely to fail in friendly offices towards a kinsman in a strange city. He had a clear perception that the permission would please Irene to do which was always his first aim. He did not wish the young man, for whom he had only moderate liking, to become too attractive to her, but he had an unreasonable feeling of resentment at the idea that William Kindell might not value that which he did not mean him to have. If Irene should show liking for him, it would be intolerable for him to give preference to Professor Blinkwell's niece!

        He thought he detected, beyond the fact, a tone of hostile jealousy in Irene's description of the lady in question. Like many men of spare frame, he had a tendency to admire women of the more fleshy types, and Myra might have had some just cause for annoyance had she known that anyone called her fat. A controlled plumpness, equally due to laziness, good living, and a placidity of conscience such as is possible only to those who can do evil without regret, would be a fairer description of the curves to which the ambassador had paid the tribute of an admiring glance as he had passed her upon the stairs. But to Irene, subconscious of her own lithe slimness and her ten years advantage of youth, fat was the fitting word.

        Irene hesitated in her reply, the simplicity of her desire for her cousin's company warring against the feminine instinct that aims less to pursue than attract pursuit. "I don't think," she said, "I'll call him up if he doesn't know that we're here. I expect we shall run across him somewhere."

        "Yes," her father agreed drily, "I'd say we shall."

        He rose up from the breakfast-table saying that he had some correspondence with which to deal, but no more than could be cleared off in a couple of hours. After that, perhaps an early lunch, and then where would she like to go?

        Irene said she would think it over. Her father retired to his own room, and left her to a thoughtful solitude, similar to that of Myra on the floor below.

        And meanwhile William Kindell, the common subject of these two very different conversations, having breakfasted in the more expeditious manner of those whom conversation does not divert, had strolled into the smoking-room to pick up a paper which he did not read, while his thoughts dwelt upon the two young women who had been talking of him.

        It was true that he had not seen Irene when she had passed him the evening before, but he knew that she was there, having signed the hotel register immediately below the entry of Cyril B. Thurlow and his daughter. The information would have been more welcome had he not come in pursuit of another girl, and seen also the possibility that his appearance might be misinterpreted, in the absence of an explanation he could not give.

        He liked Irene, as, indeed, it was easy to do. Had his position been free, when they had first met, her own ready liking for him might have wakened a warmer response. But that was only a few days after his introduction to Myra Blinkwell, and the commencement of a flirtation which appeared to have been stimulated rather than cooled by her own lazily good-humoured indifference.

        Myra might say little and do less, but she was one of those women whose physical appearance suggests (perhaps delusively), a voluptuousness of passion which is waiting to be awakened, like a fire unlit, but which has been generously laid, with piling of ample logs.

CHAPTER THREE

MYRA GOES INTO ACTION

WILLIAM KINDELL WAS known to have a small income which had been settled upon him by a relative, on an impulse of exceptional family prudence, in such a way that it was beyond his creditors' reach. Apart from that, he appeared to have no regular occupation, and no financial resources beyond what he could gain by backing his considerable wits against those of the professional bookmaker or the banker of the baccarat-table.

        He had thus some measure of freedom for the pursuit of whatever might attract attention or rouse desire, and when Myra, whether casually or deliberately, had mentioned that she would be accompanying Professor Blinkwell to Paris (which Mrs. Blinkwell, being a nervous invalid, was unwilling to do), it had required no more than a few hours to enable him to provide himself with an excuse for travelling in the same direction.

        He might not wish to advertise to the whole world that it was the attraction of Myra Blinkwell which had caused that hurried journey to be undertaken, but he was not unwilling that she, at least, should be able to make a good guess. The fact that he had come in pursuit of one lady may have made him quicker to see that he might be judged in the same way in a direction he had not meant, and it implied neither unfriendliness to Irene, nor ingratitude for the hospitality he had received from her father's hands, that the difficulty of putting himself in the way of one fellow-guest at the hotel, while keeping out of the sight of another, was the dilemma which he now considered.

        He was in funds at the moment, having backed Pilgrim's Progress rather heavily a fortnight before, when the odds had been exceptionally good; and he was not one who held tightly to the money that fortune gave. He went through life bringing subordinates to his service with liberal tips, and the first thought that came to him now was that a ten-franc note would obtain the number of the Blinkwells' suite, without the necessity for a personal enquiry at the hotel bureau; and a more substantial outlay would discover the nearest vacant room with a similar discretion.

        After that, it would be a simple matter to make some excuse for being transferred to a position in which he could meet the girl he sought, in the corridor or upon the stairs, with little risk of the encounter which he would prefer to avoid.

        He had come to this resolution, and was in the act of beckoning for a boy who would have been commissioned to undertake the first part of the programme, when his purpose was arrested by the sight of Myra standing in the gap of the open door.

        Her eyes glanced over a dozen other occupants of the room to fall upon himself, at which they gave a look of pleased, rather surprised recognition, and she came directly towards him.

        "I am looking," she explained, "for Professor Blinkwell. I suppose you haven't seen him anywhere about?"

        She might not have felt it necessary to make so direct or prompt an approach had not the gentleman she professed to seek returned to the breakfast-room a few minutes before, and said, with an emphasis he rarely employed: "It's no use sitting here. When I ask you to do anything, I don't want it delayed. I want you to act at once."

        To which Myra, who was not easy to hurry, either in physical or mental movements, had replied reasonably: "Why, you only asked me ten minutes ago! You didn't say there was such a hurry as that. And I haven't lost any time at all. I've tried to ring him up in his room, but he isn't there. I was just thinking how to make up the tale in a natural way."

        As she spoke, she perceived that her uncle's reproach had not only been unreasonable in itself, which, coming from him, was a sufficiently surprising circumstance, but that it had been spoken in a manner as near to perturbation as she had ever seen him exhibit. The few minutes that he had been absent had been spent in his writing-room, which opened out of the one they were in, and had no other entrance. Almost certainly he had been alone the whole time. What could have occurred to cause him to talk to her in such a way? Even for him (or rather, for all the money that he was likely to give), she did not intend to run any risk of being arrested on a criminal charge. She said inconsequently, "I don't think you ought to ask me to do things without explaining what they're about."

        But while she spoke Professor Blinkwell had recovered whatever of his usual suave urbanity may have been momentarily lost.

        I'm afraid," he said, "I gave rather a jolt to your mental processes before your rather ample breakfast had settled down. But the fact is that I have just recollected that there is a board-meeting of the Purling Chemical Company on Thursday which it is important for me to attend, so that we must get back to London almost at once.

        "But as to what I've asked you to do, it's a simple matter that can't make trouble under any circumstances. Even if Kindell should give you away, which you know quite well that he wouldn't do, and if his tale were believed (and it wouldn't sound very probable when there's no such jewellery to be found), you couldn't be charged with any offence that is known to the French law. He couldn't say that you'd done more than talk about doing something wrong, and even that would have no more than his unsupported word against ours, which is quite as good."

        "Yes, I see that. But I don't understand - - "

        "And it isn't necessary that you should. If I want you to do anything further, I'll explain then, which will be the best time. But I want you to get it into your head that neither you nor I are going to risk anything over this affair. We're not going to be in it at all."

        "Well," she said, rising in a slow and rather sullen reluctance under the force of his stronger will, "if there's such a rush, I'd better see if I can find him anywhere now. I don't want to have to ring up his room again."

        She did not believe the tale of the board-meeting, and she had an instinctive perception of the fact that her uncle was in nearer danger than he would admit to her, or perhaps to his own mind.

        But she had confidence still in his ability to avoid it, well founded on past experience, and she could not answer his argument that there was, as yet, little aspect of danger to herself in that which he had asked her to do.

        As to any development in his own affairs which could have disturbed his mind since his request had been made half an hour before, it is a fact that he had been alone in his room for the whole of the intervening period, occupied in the writing of a quite innocent business letter, and interrupted only by a telephone call which, on the evidence both of himself and the angry Frenchman at the other end of the line, had not been intended for him. M. Bonfleur had been urgent in his desire to inform the Messieurs Celeste et Cie that a consignment of Spanish grapes must be taken off his hands by 5 p.m. tomorrow if legal consequences were to be avoided. He had been in a state of angry and voluble excitement which had made it difficult for the Professor to convince him that he had been put through to the wrong number, and he had expressed and repeated his facts and feelings with much unnecessary emphasis before admitting his mistake, and checking, abruptly, with a curt apology, and a more elaborate curse upon the inefficiency of the telephone service. . . .

        "No," Kindell replied, "I don't think he's been here. Not since I came in some time ago."

        "Then I don't know where he can be. I've looked about everywhere else."

        "Perhaps, if you wait here, he might - - "

        "Yes, I dare say that's as good a chance as running around," she said doubtfully. "We might only miss each other again." Hesitantly, she sat down, and accepted a cigarette, her eyes still watching the door.

        "Nothing that I can do for you?" he asked hopefully, thanking Fate for that which had the appearance of better fortune than he could reasonably have expected.

        "No, thanks. I'm only going shopping, but I thought I'd get him to go with me, if he hadn't anything special on this morning. He talks the language a lot better than I do."

        "You know Paris?"

        "I've never been here before."

        "Then, if Professor Blinkwell isn't available, may I offer to show you round?"

        "Oh, no," she said, but in a more gracious tone than he had expected to hear. "I couldn't ask you to do that. You'd get bored to death. I might stay in one shop for hours! Besides I don't suppose it will be more than two minutes before my uncle turns up."

        William Kindell could not regard this as a very hopeful reply, but did not accept rebuff. He said: "Oh, but you're wrong there! There's nothing I should like more."

        He said this with a sincerity which was sufficiently evident but Myra, remembering a coolness she had shown him at their last meeting in London, was too adroit to accept the proffered service now. She said: "It's very nice of you to say that. But I've no doubt you've got your own business to do. You haven't come to Paris to waste time showing me round the shops!"

        He was sufficiently skilful in such exchanges to avoid the obvious denial which would have sounded as no more than a perfunctory courtesy. He said: "Oh, well, it's always better to expect little and get a lot. I only came to look up a man who owes me a betting debt, as I happened to hear he was in funds and it would be the right time to touch him for the amount can get hold of him best at night, so I'm quite free now."

        His voice and manner dismissed the defaulting debtor into the category of trivial things. They suggested more convincingly than direct assertion might have done that she had been the real lure that had brought him there. As she remained non-committally silent, and the gesture with which she crushed out the end of her cigarette indicated that at the next moment she might be rising to go, he added, "Suppose you give Professor Blinkwell another two minutes, and if he hasn't turned up by then, you make the best of me for a substitute?"

        She appeared to hesitate at this, and said at last: "It's very kind of you, if you really mean it. But I'm not dressed to go out so we can give him longer than that. I shall be down in about ten minutes, and if he hasn't appeared by then, I shall suppose he's forgotten me altogether. So if he comes in while I'm upstairs perhaps you'd ask him to wait."

        Mr. Kindell undertook this, and she went back to her own rooms to warn the Professor not to go down until she had left the hotel, and to prepare herself for the expedition during the next half-hour, which was as punctual to the promised ten minutes as a woman could be expected to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

MYRA SEEKS ADVICE

MYRA SHOPPED WITH discrimination, and the economy of effort which her disposition preferred, and even a man less infatuated than William Kindell appeared to be would not have found attendance upon her to be a very arduous or boring task.

        She was not one of those women who turn over a hundred articles and remain in a condition of bewildered indecision as to what, if anything, they desire to purchase. Her usual method was to examine the shop windows, and occasionally to fasten upon some article which she would acquire, not without some shrewdness of bargaining in her indolent way, but with a fixed intention of having it at the best price she could, be it low or high. That was no more than her normal manner, but in this case her primary object was of another kind.

        At eleven-thirty she required coffee. At twelve-fifty-five she consented graciously to a suggestion of lunch.

        During the course of the meal, a discussion of her purchases led very naturally to the question of what duty she would have to pay to the English Customs upon them. She said that she had had no trouble coming out.

        "No," he said, "you wouldn't be likely to have much, if you only brought your own things."

        "I heard someone say it's much worse going back."

        "You mean the English Customs are worse than the French? I should say no to that. Rather the other way. But, of course, if you come over and buy things here, the trouble comes when you're getting them home. . . . Not that it ought to be any trouble to you. You don't want to smuggle anything. It wouldn't be worth your while."

        "No. Of course not. But I don't see how they can find out if anyone really plans to get some jewellery through. Suppose a woman hid a diamond ring in her dress? They don't search people. Not most of them, anyway."

        "No; but I believe they're very good at guessing who to suspect. Though I've no doubt they get done at times. . . . They've got a good many ways of checking up that the public don't know. I believe a lot of the shop-assistants here are bribed to report purchases by foreign visitors, so that the Customs officers know just what to look for before they start."

        "It seems rather a mean thing to do."

        "But I don't think that would apply to such purchases as you made this morning. They weren't very costly, and you spread them out over several shops. All the same, I should say you'd do the wise thing if you declare them carefully."

        "Of course I shall. . . . I wasn't thinking of them. You can't be charged duty on anything you brought out of England, if you're just taking it back?"

        "No. You can be quite sure about that."

        "Even if you didn't declare it when you came out?"

        William Kindell did not answer this conundrum directly. He had wits enough to perceive that he was not merely asked his opinion on an abstract question. He said, "Perhaps I could advise you better if you would tell me just what the trouble is."

        "I have got some things I didn't declare. I couldn't very well without Uncle knowing I'd got them with me, which there was a reason against, and I shan't want to going back."

        Kindell looked puzzled. "It wasn't very wise to bring them under those circumstances, was it?"

        "No, perhaps not. But it's done now. I thought I might go to places where I could wear them - times when he wouldn't be coming along."

        "And now you're getting worried as to how you'll get them back?"

        "Yes. I thought you might think of something. You know more about how these things are arranged."

        "I'm afraid I can't claim - - "

        "If you wanted to, I think you'd be certain to find a way."

        "How soon are you going back?"

        "Almost at once. There's a wretched meeting Uncle's got to attend."

        "I think, if I were you, I'd go to the Customs here, and tell them just what the facts are. You'd probably be able to prove that whatever it is - jewellery? Well, I might have guessed that - was bought in England, and whether they make you pay duty or not, you could arrange to send them home by registered post." Myra showed no pleasure at this prospect. "I thought you'd think of something a lot better than that."

        "Well, perhaps I shall. I'll let you know if I do."

        It was an assurance that won him her sweetest smile. "I knew," she said, assuming much more than he had said, "that you'd think of something to get me out of the mess."

        She shook her head in smiling rejection of his protest that she must not be too confident of his power to help her, however willing he might be.

        She turned the conversation to more personal directions as they drove back to the hotel, being more familiar in her lazy sensuous manner than he had found her before.

        On arriving, they parted at the lift-door, she going up to her uncle's suite, after he had accepted her invitation to join them for the English tea which the Professor required to be served to him at 4 p.m., in whatever country he might honour with his distinguished presence.

        She went up to announce that she had accomplished what she had been told to do, and received the expected praise. Her digestive processes might have worked less smoothly had she been able to hear the conversation which was proceeding in one of the telephone booths on the ground floor. "I think," Kindell was saying, "they're trying to make me a stooge to smuggle the stuff through. But I'll see you tonight. I may know a bit more then."

        Coming out of the booth, he met Irene, and accepted the invitation which she gave in her father's name that he should join them that night at dinner. She would have been better pleased had he not added that he might have to leave almost immediately afterwards. He did not mention the evasive debtor of whom he had told Myra, but he said he might have business which he could not defer.

        Irene, who had assumed that an acceptance of the invitation would imply an evening among the pleasure resorts of a city which had so much gaiety to offer to the visitor whose purse was sufficiently plenished, allowed her disappointment to show for one short second before she answered. with her usual friendly tone: "Oh well, of course, if you must. Les affaires sont les affaires."

        She went up to tell her father that she had given the invitation he had proposed, and how it had been received. Had she, she wondered, been incredibly snubbed? Did he mean that he would dine with her father, but did not intend to risk having to spend subsequent time with her? She put the idea resolutely from a generous mind.

CHAPTER FIVE

AN UNOPENED PARCEL

IT MAY BE that whatever the enigmatic telephone call had required Professor Blinkwell to arrange before 5 p.m. tomorrow had been accomplished when Myra returned to lunch, for he met her in his usual mood of cheerful complacency. and praised her for what she had done. He would be pleased, he said, and at leisure, to meet Kindell at four for tea.

        "I don't see," she answered, "that I've done much yet, nor what I'm supposed to be going to do."

        "My dear Myra! Can you not leave that to me to judge? If I am pleased, you may be content that you have done well. . . . There is a parcel on my desk. Will you secrete it somewhere now, and show it to him this afternoon, when I am not about, as containing the articles which you must conceal? I will provide you with opportunity to do that. . . . But do not give it to him today. I do not wish it to pass into his hands until you are on the point of leaving tomorrow. . . . It is possible that I may not be able to go myself till the next day."

        Whatever pleasure Myra may have shown at the commencement of this speech gave way to a mutinous frown as its later purport penetrated her mind. Had she not had his explicit promise that she should not be directly involved in the handling of these illicit drugs? Was it not, apart from that contrary to the basic rule of his own conduct, the wisdom of which he had so often impressed upon her lazily receptive mind? And at a time when suspicion of complicity in such trafficking had approached him more nearly than they believed it had ever done before! And the parcel in their own room! There was excuse for the sullen rebellious pout that emphasized the heaviness of her lips as she protested, "You can't ask me to do that! You've told me ever so many times - - "

        The Professor interrupted her with his usual suavity, but with an inflection in his voice which she knew to be a sign of rising anger not to be lightly provoked: "If I've told you ever so many times, there should be no occasion to do so again. You should have learnt by now that I mean what I say, neither more nor less."

        It may be thought that if Myra, knowing Professor Blinkwell's occupations and moral code as she did, could think him incapable of a lying assurance, she must have been of a peculiar intellectual density, but there was reason behind his words.

        It would not have occurred to either of them to tell the truth if they should have seen use in a lie. To do so would have seemed as foolish as to walk through a pool of water when a side-step! would find drier ground. But because your comrade carries an offensive weapon it does not follow that he will make a habit of sticking it into your own back.

        Lying, like liars, differs. Much of it is no better (nor worse) than the poor shield of the weak. With some it may reach the degradation of habit, against which even friendship is not secure. With such, even the abject defensive value of it may be largely lost, for what is the power of a lie which is not believed? And as true words must be weighed in the same scale of discredit, those who fall so far become naked to every wind.

        But there are others to whom the lie is a weapon for cool and I deliberate use. Having learnt its deadliness in efficient lips, they do not give it light or promiscuous exercise, nor use it so that it must destroy confidence in themselves where it is important that it should remain. Honour among thieves is no empty phrase It is of the necessity which is above law.

        Myra knew her uncle to be cunning and ruthless; a man of heartless criminalities, and with no scruples at all. But she had found that what he promised would be performed; what he told her would happen, did. Now he had told her that he would not deviate from the rule that neither she nor he should have any part in the smuggling of the illicit drugs from which his fortune was made, and asked her to believe this, even while the parcel was in the room, and they were plotting together to procure Kindell to pass it through the English Customs in his own luggage. With a half-bewildered half-resentful mind, she yet bent to habit and experience, and the influence of a will more powerful if not more obstinate than her own. She said sullenly:

        "Well, I don't know what to believe when you say two things at once. They're not sense. But I'll show him the parcel, if that's all you want me to do. . . . What shall I say if he asks to see what's inside?"

        "My dear Myra! Are you a child? If you can't handle him in such a little matter as that - - ! And I've told you he's only to see that you've got it ready, and that you'll want him to take charge of it tomorrow. He needn't touch it at all."

        "But he'd have to tomorrow. And besides - - "

        "Myra, I sometimes think you're a fool. If he's coaxed into smuggling your parcel through, do you suppose that he'll want to know that it's full of things he ought to declare?"

        "Well, I don't like doing it. That's a fact."

        "You make that quite plain. But we all have to do things we don't like at times. And if you do just what I've told you - as I'm quite sure you will - you'll have nothing to worry over. Nothing at all."

        With these words they parted to their own rooms, and, when four o'clock and William Kindell came, Myra did her allotted part, as her uncle had been sure that she would.

        When he left the room, she showed the parcel, which she produced from beneath the head-cushion of a couch on which she had disposed herself with some exhibition of shapely limbs. She said, "I don't want to bother you with it now, but I thought you'd like to see that it isn't a dreadful size," assuming that it was agreed between them that he would give her the help she asked.

        "Perhaps," he said, watching her more closely than she was aware, and in another mood than that which she wished to rouse "if you'd let me declare them among my own things, the duty wouldn't be such a lot to pay."

        "No, indeed," she exclaimed, quickly controlling the startled note in her voice, "I couldn't possibly let you do that, especially when everyone knows how - - "

        She stopped abruptly. She was about to end with "how poor you are," and recognized, somewhat late, that they were words which politeness might not approve. But the suggestion was one for which she had been unprepared, and her uncle's readiness was not hers. She concluded, "No, I couldn't possibly let you do that."

        He might have replied, with less courtesy than truth, that he had not proposed that he should, but only asked whether it would be a large sum; but he responded easily, "Well, it's for you to say," and was paid with a grateful glance from lazily seductive eyes.

        It may be said that both of them acted well.

CHAPTER SIX

THE METHODS OF HENRI REYNARD

KINDELL'S DINNER WITH the Thurlows was not an entire success, for which there were more causes than one.

        Had he been directly asked, he would not have denied that the Blinkwells had entertained him for tea, but he was unaware that Irene had happened to see him enter the suite on the floor below, and that her father had seen him leave more than an hour and a half later. Following a morning spent with Myra among Paris shops, this seemed to suggest a degree of intimacy which exceeded fact, and its apparent significance was not lessened when an allusion was made to which he might have replied more frankly had he guessed how much was already known. As it was, his reticence gave the event a false importance, different from, if not greater than, that which it really had.

        With no entirely convincing reason for his withdrawal, he left almost as soon as dinner was over, both host and hostess dismissing him with a degree of coolness he had not experienced previously. Irene was vexed by the doubt which is more fretting than certainty. Her father felt the resentment of one whose hospitality is casually received, and, more consciously, of one whose daughter is too lightly esteemed.

        Besides that, he had a quick sympathy with Irene's feelings the understanding between them having the closeness which will come of single association. It led him, before Kindell had reached the lift, to the irritable exclamation:

        "What, in the name of Satan, the young fool can see in that coarse-faced Jewess - - "

        To which Irene aware of implications her pride would not consent to see, replied lightly: "Oh, I don't know! There's a lot of men who don't like short weight in a wife. But I'd say she'll cost him something to keep."

        His mind very far from any question of feeding Myra, either as a wife or in any other capacity, Kindell walked sharply to the next comer, and stood there until a vehicle drew up at the pavement. It was a taxi for public hire, but no word passed between him and the driver as he got in, and he left it, half an hour later, in the same manner, without tendering or being asked for a fare.

        He alighted in a quiet road, opposite a small gate that broke the line of a high dark hedge, and walked, as one who had been before, up a straight path that lengthened narrowly beneath meeting boughs, crossed a wide lawn, and came to the back of a house, isolated in its own grounds, which showed a solitary obscured light at the ground floor level.

        Making straight to this, he tapped a short Morse signal on the french window, which promptly opened a sufficient space to admit him.

        Blinking in the bright light as the window-curtains fell into place, he shook hands with a short, rather plump Frenchman, who greeted him with an official brusqueness which was habit, and a courtesy of more personal kind.

        With an abrupt gesture he directed his guest to a fireside chair opposite his own. He indicated wine and cigars on a low table at Kindell's side. Almost at the same instant his words turned to the business upon their minds.

        His glance, bright and sharp, read Kindell's face as he asked: "You bring news? You will land the fish?"

        He spoke in English, of which he had idiomatic control, only accent and an occasional idiosyncrasy of construction showing that he was using a foreign tongue.

        "Yes. That's how it looks to me."

        Concisely but fully, Kindell told of Myra's request, and of the parcel which she had asked him to take to England.

        Henri Reynard, normally an excitable and voluble man, could control his speech at the right times. Had it been otherwise, he would not have risen to be a departmental head of the Bureau de Sûreté, nor would he have been the police official of all Europe most dreaded by the international criminals it was his special business to foil and catch.

        Now he listened with silent, concentrated attention till the tale was told. Then he asked, but not as one who is interested in the reply: "You think it is as simple as that? . . . Well, who knows!" He became silent, gnawing a moustache which seemed a size too large for its owner's mouth, as his habit was. He muttered, "Toujours la femme," but not as one to whom conviction easily came.

        Kindall saw that his narrative had roused doubt rather than satisfaction. He answered: "Well, that's what the facts are. It looks a walkover now to me, unless they get frightened, and jib. If you think that's likely, I suppose it would be better to raid them at once, while the parcel's there. But I don't see why they should. They must have been very sure of me before - - "

        His words ceased as he saw that Reynard was giving little attention as he chewed the doubt in his own mind. Kindell thought the little Frenchman to be theatrical in his manners, and over-elaborate in his methods.

        He thought the way in which they met to be of a melodramatic quality beyond anything which the occasion required. English police methods, he would have said, are no less effective because they move along straighter paths. But he knew Reynard's reputation, and paid him the respect which achievements earn. He became silent also, until the French police officer gave him a belated reply.

        "Raid Blinkwell's suite now? But I should say not! If they really trust you, it would be a rotten mistake; and a lot worse if they don't. No, we must go on. Let the woman know that you'll see her through; and fall in with her own plans. That shouldn't be hard to do."

        There was nothing discourteous in this, either in words or tone but there came an uneasy doubt to Kindell's mind. Was there an underlying sarcasm, as though Reynard thought that hard things were beyond his power? It seemed undeserved. So far he had done all that he had been asked, and had reported success. Reynard asked abruptly, "Blinkwell knows you're a friend of the Thurlows?"

        "Yes. I believe he does. Myra knows."

        "And she hasn't asked you to use them for this?"

        "No. It hasn't been mentioned at all."

        "Well, there's time yet."

        "You mean that the Thurlows' baggage wouldn't be opened?"

        Reynard was precise. "They are not entitled to take anything dutiable through our Customs because he is an ambassador to a third Power, but it is extremely unlikely that they would attempt any serious smuggling, and their declarations would normally be accepted without much interference. if any, with the contents of their trunks. Going back to England, it is unlikely that they would be challenged by suppose that mine would be examined in the usual way? It seems to me that they are taking a great risk."

        "Yes. You see that." (Was there sarcasm in this wording again? It was hard to say.)

        "Of course, they may think that I shouldn't be under suspicion, and more likely - - "

        "Then they must think they are under no suspicion themselves. Otherwise, having been associated with them - - "

        "Still - if they're cornered, it may be the best they can do."

        "Yes," Reynard agreed; "we must hope it is." But there was no conviction in his voice.

        "Anyhow, I'm to carry on, even if I'm to be the fool of the piece?"

        A gleam of appreciative humour came into the Frenchman's eyes. His thought was - how hard it is to tell how dull these stolid English actually are! He said cordially, "Oh, but you won't be that! You do your part well."

        Kindell got up to go, but learnt that he would have to stay ten minutes longer, after which he must walk away from the gate, taking a left-hand way, until a taxi should pick him up, as, at that time, it would be certain to do. Well, everyone to his own methods! With a word of polite recognition of the precautions with which the secrecy of his movements was guarded, he accepted the plan.

CHAPTER SEVEN

REYNARD CONTRIVES CRIME

FEW PEOPLE HAVE sleepless nights, and even to those few the experience seldom comes. But if a man wake at intervals to concentrate an alert mind on a problem that has baffled him during the day, and those intervals occupy even a quarter of the night hours, he may scarcely be conscious of having slept. And those sleep-divided oases of thought may often be more fruitful both of decision and design than the most wakeful hours of the day.

        Henri Reynard had been engaged for the past two years in a duel which he had not won - so far was he from his goal that he had only recently been able to make a good guess of whom his principal opponents were. Now he had progressed so far that he was assured of several names, of whom Professor Blinkwell, an Englishman of international scientific reputation, was not least. He was so sure of Blinkwell that, had it been in his power to sentence him without trial, he would have done it in the certainty of a just deed. But suspicion, however strong, is not proof, of which he owned to himself that he had none. Scotland Yard which had first suggested Blinkwell as the probable head of the English operations of the gang, had to admit the same difficulty. Now, the fact that Blinkwell had come to Paris confirmed these presumptions. But, in itself, it was of no evidential value. To visit Paris was not a crime.

        Yet the hunt was up. A large parcel of illicit drugs, designed to be realized at a huge profit among English addicts, had been nearly seized. The channels used for conveying previous parcels to England had been blocked. Beyond that, the places for secure hiding in Paris had been exposed. It had become precarious to keep it longer in Paris, and perilous to attempt its transit to England. And now the temptation to attempt that transit must be extreme; for the English police admitted frankly that, if it could not be seized en route, they had no clue to the hands into which it would afterwards pass. The closer the Paris hunt, the more arrests that were made, the stronger the inducement would be to take the path, however perilous, at the end of which both profit and safety lay. And now Blinkwell, departing, it seemed, from his usual aloofness, had come himself to oversee, if not to conduct, the operations which the occasion required.

        M. Reynard's wakeful hours, it might be thought, would be engaged upon subtle plans for trapping the man of whose guilt he was so confidently assured. But this idea would be wrong. Through the night hours he was Professor Blinkwell, not a chief of Paris police. Ceaselessly, he contrived plans to baffle the Customs officers, casting them aside, one by one, as he saw their flaws. "I must think," he told himself time after time, "of something better than that." It was near the dawn when he passed into peaceful sleep with the thought that he had a solution at last. "It is simple," he told himself. "It is about the simplest plan I have had. But it may be the better for that."

CHAPTER EIGHT

MISADVENTURE OF A FALSE BOTTOM

MYRA WAS PLAINLY nervous. She looked at Kindell with troubled, questioning eyes. She asked:

        "You really think you will get it through?"

        She had had an angry enigmatic contest with her uncle, who had given assurances which appeared to be inconsistent with that which, in the same breath, he required her to do, and which had ended in his telling her that she talked too much, and it was no use her trying to use brains that she hadn't got, and that she must trust his judgment, or go back to England to find another home than she now had.

        "Do you think, my dear Myra," he had asked, "I should entrust anything to you which you might muck? Don't I know that you would give me away in a moment if you thought that you were in the slightest danger from the police which you could ward off in no other way? When you say I'm asking you to do a dangerous thing, you simply call me a fool."

        The smoothness of his quiet voice had not concealed from her the anger with which he spoke. She cared nothing for the imputations on her own brains, which she had heard often before, but fear made her stubborn as she replied: "I can't see why you won't tell me plainly what it all means. Everyone likes to understand what they do."

        "Which is precisely the position in which I have placed you now. You have only to do what you are told - and even you are not stupid enough to go wrong in that - and you'll have nothing to fear. . . . As a matter of fact, I can tell you this. The Customs will pass anything Kindell carries with no trouble at all."

        "You mean it's an arranged thing?"

        "I mean just what I have said. Neither more nor less. When you're in England, you can take the parcel back from him, and keep it till I return, and if you've got any use for a hundred pounds, I'll give you a note of that value when I see you again. But that's on condition that I have no more sulky nonsense to hear, for I've got things of more importance to do."

        Sulky or not, she had become silent at that, but she was only half assured, and her nervousness was plain for Kindell to see.

        He answered confidently. "Yes. It will be all right. See what I've brought."

        He opened a small suit-case, such as would be easy to handle. He showed a false bottom, of a size which proved to be sufficient for the parcel which lay between them. That was well. She had feared, as he spoke, that she would be required to open and repack it. She was in a puzzled doubt as to what it would show, but she was sure that her uncle would not thank her for that.

        He said: "You needn't worry. You needn't even be near me. gut anyway I shall get it through."

        He spoke with literal accuracy. Whatever the parcel might contain, her trouble was meant to be at a later hour. He was to be passed through the Customs with light inspection, by an arrangement the police had made, and then return the parcel to Myra. After that, they would part, and what would happen then would be beyond his knowledge or his control. Actually she was to be shadowed by members of the C.I.D., who would either arrest her with the packet still in her possession or let her go to do with it what she would. The alternatives were to depend upon a wire from the Bureau de Sûreté, which Reynard had undertaken to send so that it would arrive at about the same time as they. Such was the plan which he had proposed in a telephone discussion between his department and the head-quarters of the C.I.D., which had become heated at times, as he had insisted on his own way with less adequate explanation than his colleagues thought they were entitled to have. Did they want, he asked, to alarm the Blinkwells by arresting Myra on a minor charge? Did they want Kindell implicated in a Customs fraud? Or was his connection with the police to be publicly exposed?

        Did he, it was retorted, really think that the woman was trying to smuggle jewellery through without her uncle's knowledge? That there was no more in it than that?

        He became voluble in denials. He appealed to the sacred skies, did they think him a fool? But he had a doubt which he must test, and, in short, they must await the wire they would get from him. He would have nothing but that.

        His prestige, his irritable volubility, his obstinate certainty encountering nothing more resistant than reasoned doubts, had prevailed at last. So it was to be - and so it wasn't at all, for the plan failed. It came to casual disaster at the English Customs, and, at the Hôtel Splendide, to a more tragic catastrophe.

        The trouble at the Customs arose from the factor which must make all mortal calculation unsure - the physical instability of the human body. There was a Customs officer who was in the confidence of the Yard, and who took instructions from them. He knew what was to be done, and he was not one who would be r likely to fail. He was a man in robust health, who would not be expected to fall suddenly ill. Yet fall ill he did, experiencing a sharp bilious attack which he attributed to a sister-in-law's too sanguine belief in the soundness of last Sunday's mutton, which she had curried the night before. But that is a domestic matter we need not probe.

        Yet, however unfit he may have felt, he did not go off duty until he had prompted another officer. This was a man who had recently come on the staff, and who appeared to be of more than average alertness, and therefore fit both to take instructions from a senior officer and carry them out intelligently.

        He described Kindell to this man, and was explicit upon what should be done. "You needn't be too nosy with him. Just a look-see, and chalk him through."

        The man to whom he spoke responded readily. There was no indication that the order would not be exactly obeyed.

        But it happened that he had been introduced by the Excise authorities for the especial purpose of detecting corruption, which was suspected among the staff. Neither knew of the secret function the other had. It seemed to him that fortune had opened his way to a discovery from which reward and perhaps promotion would be likely to come.

        He watched for Kindell, and made for him with an elbow in I a brother officer's side. He took him out of turn, letting other passengers stand impatiently behind their open baggage.

        Kindell was not concerned when he saw him approach in this purposeful manner. It was about what he had expected. He opened the suitcase containing the hidden parcel, and another of more orthodox construction, in the expectation that their contents would receive no more than the flick of a carelessly probing hand, while the routine questions were answered in the routine way.

        Article by article, his possessions were examined with care. He was closely questioned concerning the origin of those which were least worn. Was it, he wondered with growing impatience, no more than an elaborate pretence? Anyway, he had bought nothing of consequence while in Paris.

        But the concealment was not destined to last. The zeal of the baffled officer had now become a conspicuous matter. The baggage of other passengers had been passed, and he operated on an otherwise bare bench. He saw that he must succeed for his own justification, and his conviction that there was something to be discovered remained unshaken. His hands felt along the linings of the emptied case, while he considered the expediency of conducting Kindell to a room where he could be personally searched - and then suddenly he knew. "Do you mind," he asked, with an ominous suavity, "opening the lower compartment of this case?"

        Kindell had the wit to look blank incomprehension. He said:

        "I don't know what you mean."

        He was answered with a sarcastic:

        "No? Then I think you soon will."

        A little group of interested Customs officials had gathered round them now in the otherwise empty shed. The man measured the outside of the case, and then its interior depth. There was a difference of several inches. He asked:

        "Don't you see that you'd better open it now?"

        Kindell said innocently: "It does look queer. But if there's a pocket, there can't be anything in it. I've never used it. I didn't know it was there," he added in an attempt at natural explanation. "I only bought it quite recently - secondhand."

        The man, in his moment of triumph, forgot the restraint of language which official correctitude requires, even in dealing with those who are destined to be heavily fined. He said, "Tell that to the marines." He picked up a knife, with, "Well, if you won't, I must," and slit the lower part of the case. Myra's parcel lay exposed.

        "I can only tell you," Kindell said, "that it isn't mine. I'd no idea it was there. I expect you'll have to admit that when you open it. I know you'll find nothing of mine."

        It was the best line he could take, while still in ignorance of what its opening would reveal. He knew that something had gone wrong. He knew also that while, if he should be in any serious trouble, there were ways in which he might be protected and helped, his connection with the C.I.D. would not be publicly owned. He might be expected to sacrifice even his personal reputation. even his liberty, to the major interests of the state, and of the criminal investigation in which he was taking a minor

        With no thought to spare for an anxious, bewildered Myra, leaning from the window of a first-class carriage as the train began to move slowly along the platform, and still hoping to see him board it at the last second, while trying to persuade herself that he might have escaped her observation, and be already upon the train, he watched the opening of the parcel, and saw a glitter of miscellaneous trinkets scattered upon the bench, among which a shell necklace was the largest, if not the most valuable, article.

        With a smile of satisfaction, the officer swept them together again. "You'd better come to the office with me," he said crisply.

        "I suppose it's no use telling you again that I've never seen - - " Kindell began, in what he now felt to be futile protest, however true.

        But he was interrupted by an older officer, who had been watching silently, and now pushed forward to examine the trinkets with experienced eyes. "Talbot," he asked sharply, "what is the charge you propose to make against this gentleman?"

        "Well, I should have thought that was clear enough."

        "It isn't to me." His fingers moved expertly among the baubles. "It's all rubbish. There's nothing dutiable here."

        "Then why on earth did he - - "

        "I've told you already that the rubbish is not mine," Kindell interrupted, "and I didn't know it was there. The question is who's going to pay me for a new case?"

        The older officer answered with the diplomatic politeness which the incident had come to require.

        "There'll be no difficulty about that, sir, if you send in a claim. We'll find something for you to pack your things in now."

        On this pretext, he moved away, drawing with him the officer whose extreme zeal had had so strange a result. As they passed out of Kindell's hearing, his tone changed. "Queer business, Talbot. What made you suspect him?"

        "I do still. There's something fishy about it, even if the things aren't worth tuppence."

        "So there is. We see some queer things here, but not many queerer than that. What I asked was why you fastened on him the way you did?"

        "Because, before Gibbons went off duty, he asked me to pass him without looking too hard, and that seemed fishy to me, too."

        "Gibbons? You've made a bigger ass of yourself than I supposed. What Gibbons says goes."

        "You mean you're all in it with him?"

        "In it? In what? Don't be a bigger fool than you've been yet. Gibbons is Scotland Yard."

        The jaw of the Excise and Customs detective dropped. He uttered a diminished "Oh."

CHAPTER NINE

MURDER

KINDELL CONSIDERED what he should do. The train had gone, and Myra doubtless with it. Returning the parcel to her could no longer be important. The question of her arrest, unless upon a charge of complicity too vague for him to define or judge, no longer arose. If at all, it would be at a later date. The event had justified Reynard's doubt. There was probably a telegram of instructions waiting now which would disclose the Frenchman's verification of that which he had deduced before. But the use of that telegram had gone. The incident had taken its own course. His own must be to report to Scotland Yard, and almost certainly be told that his services in this matter were no longer needed. Would that leave him free to tell the Thurlows enough of the truth to put himself right with them? He wished that he could have more confidence in that than he was able to feel. His oath of secrecy was strictly worded, and must be strictly observed. Still, if Blinkwell should be arrested - - But would he? Reynard had been shrewd enough to guess that they were being offered a false scent, but did it follow that he had discovered the real channel by which the smuggling was to be done? He put surmise aside to ask Talbot, who was now offering his assistance to pack the suitcase which had been found to replace the cut one:

        "Do you know when the next train will leave for Victoria?"

        The man was about to reply when his attention was diverted to a uniformed official who held an open telegram in his hand. After a whispered word, he asked, "You are William Kindell?"

        "Yes. Is that for me?"

        "It is a message for you." The man spoke with a gravity which the situation did not seem to require until he added, "You are required to return to Paris at once. Henri Reynard has been murdered."

        It was startling, unexpected news, but his profession had accustomed him to take what came without confusion of mind. He asked: "Required? Is it from the Bureau de Sûreté? He frowned at a word which he felt to be ill-chosen, even under such circumstances. His responsibility was not to them.

        "No. It is signed Wickham."

        Then it was from Scotland Yard. It was an instruction to be obeyed. But he would prefer to know more, if he could. He asked, "When does the boat leave?"

        "In about four hours from now."

        Then there was plenty of time. Time for a needed meal. Time to get more information as to what he would find in Paris. He went at once to the telephone, got through to London, asked to speak to Mr. Wickham, and heard Superintendent Henderson's voice at the other end of the wire.

        He wanted information, and found that he was expected to be able to give it.

        "This is a bad business, Kindell. What do you know about it?"

        "About what? Reynard being murdered? Nothing at all."

        "But I understand you were there at the time?"

        "Then you've been told something wrong. Where did it happen?"

        "In Thurlow's rooms. The Paris police say it's between you and the ambassador, and naturally you're the one they'd prefer to charge."

        "Charge me? You know that's absurd. Actually, I knew nothing about it until I heard what you'd wired here."

        "But they say you were seen coming out of Thurlow's suite just before the body was found. What can you say to that?"

        "I called there before leaving. Naturally. They were friends. I can't say what bodies were found after, or where. I know nothing about it. But I'm sure Thurlow wouldn't kill anyone. It's that swine Blinkwell more likely than not."

        "I can't say about that. You say Thurlow wouldn't kill anyone. The Paris police don't seem equally sure. They say he's known to be a handy man with a gun."

        "And Reynard was shot?"

        "I didn't say that. Being quick one way doesn't imply being slow in another. But our Paris friends seem to prefer the idea of you."

        "But how can they when they know why I was there? It isn't sense. And what motive - - "

        "They don't know anything. Reynard did; but he's dead."

        "You can let them know."

        "But I can't say that we shall. You'll be a lot more likely to get at the truth if no one knows why you were there."

        "I don't see that, and besides - - "

        "But we do. And I don't suppose you'll have any real difficulty. Innocent men aren't guillotined. You'll find our Paris friends will assure you of that. . . . You're best course is to get back as quickly as you can, and let them know you didn't wait to be extradited."

        "It sounds pleasant for me."

        "Sorry, Kindell. But it's all in the game. And if you will go where policemen are being killed, and where you've no business to be - - "

        "Yes. I see that. . . . Well, I'll get back, and find out what I can."

        He hung up, conscious rather of a confused excitement of mind than any real fear. It would be absurd to accuse him of such a crime. Yet he saw points which he disliked. It was true that no one but Reynard had known that he was an agent of the English police. True that Reynard's methods were so individual, so secretive, that no one living might know the purpose which had taken him to the Hôtel Splendide, or why he should have been in the ambassador's suite. Kindell himself could form no more than a vague conjecture concerning that, though he must accept the fact, Superintendent Henderson being a most unlikely man to be inaccurate, or extend statements beyond that of which he had been clearly informed. He saw also that, if the murder had been perpetrated in such a manner that suspicion was divided between Thurlow and himself, there might be a very natural official inclination to prefer the less conspicuous accusé.

        He looked at the clock, and said, "Damn," observing that he still had more than three hours to wait. He had the temperament which prefers to meet trouble quickly, if it cannot be left aside. But that disposition did not prevent him eating a good dinner, or sleeping well on a boat that pitched and rolled as it faced a gusty wind and a choppy sea.

CHAPTER TEN

. THURLOW IS ANNOYED

CYRIL B. THURLOW, accredited Ambassador Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary from the United States to the Court of St. James, might or might not be a guilty, but he was certainly a most angry, man.

        The French have a reputation for being more excitable than the people of his own land, but in this instance the contrast was of a contrary kind. Mr. Thurlow's explosive indignation found itself unable to disturb the calm, or deflect the course, of an investigation which, while treating him with extreme courtesy was yet of a coldly probing implacability.

        M. Samuel's colleagues said that he had no imagination, and that self-confidence born of invincible stupidity, had established him in the high position he held - which would, indeed, have been too high to have permitted him to give his time to the details of this investigation, but for the national humiliations or international complications which might arise from any major blunder.

        M. Samuel would himself have accepted (with important qualifications) the character which his enemies attributed to him. He would have said that his success was due to the fact that he preferred the obvious and commonplace to the bizarre or recondite explanation of any problem with which he might have to deal. In the result, he had had few spectacular triumphs of which to boast, but his mistakes had been fewer still. So he had come to his present place.

        Now he sat opposite Mr. Thurlow, in the lounge of that gentleman's suite, sharing a pleasant fire, and having accepted one of the ambassador's excellent cigars.

        "Monsieur - Your Excellency - - " he said, "that you should be annoyed thus - our regret is extreme. But you will see how we stand. M. Reynard is dead. He was a police-officer of France and he has been murdered here. He did not die by his own hand, that is sure. We do not say it was done by you. We have no cause to suggest! But a motive there must have been. And it is between yourself and Mr. Kindell the deed must lie. You say you are sure it was not he; and beyond that you will tell us nothing at all. It is hard to think that you know as little as that!"

        "I tell you I never heard of the man till I saw his dead body lying in the room, on which I rang the hotel office at once. I did not know who he was, nor how he came to be there. Can I be plainer than that? It is for you to explain, and for the hotel management to apologize that they cannot keep my rooms clear of a sight which I was sorry for my daughter to see."

        M. Samuel, allowed himself to smile slightly at this view of the matter, but continued the conversation without being diverted from the patient persistent path which he had decided to take.

        "You should consider," he said, "that our Bureau can be discreet. It is with us that a confidence may be safely made. There may be questions of mistake, or of self-defence. Even that of justification might be proposed. Our Government would listen to representations made in the right way, coming from one in the position you hold, or from your Government on your behalf, Even though M. Reynard's position, and the character that he held - ! But you will say nothing at all, and the hours pass! That which may be done now may be impossible on another day."

        "I tell you I know nothing at all. Can I add to that?"

        "There is this young man you would shield?"

        "I would shield no one who shoots men in rooms I have taken at a price which should secure my privacy, unless I know a good reason why, which I certainly don't now."

        "Yet Mr. Kindell is a friend?"

        "He is slightly related to me."

        "If you would tell me why you came to Paris at all?"

        "My daughter approves your shops."

        M. Samuel shrugged his shoulders slightly. He gave an audible sigh. "And the young man who is slightly related? He would have come for the same cause?"

        "I know nothing of that. He did not come with us."

        "No. But he was here. I must regret that you will not help me at all. . . . I will see Miss Thurlow now, if you please."

        "She can tell you nothing. She was not here at the time."

        "That is to be seen."

        "Well, I will call her."

        "I should prefer to see her alone."

        Mr. Thurlow hesitated. Then, with an impatient gesture, he gave way, as he dearly must.

        "Very well. You are wasting time. But I waste my own if I tell you that. I will ask Miss Thurlow to see you here."

        But as he spoke Irene entered the room. She would have withdrawn when she saw M. Samuel, but her father said: "Irene, you had better answer any questions this gentleman asks. He thinks I have no more sense than to kill strangers who enter my apartment, with a knife that I haven't got."

        He walked out as he spoke, leaving M. Samuel to interrogate a girl who now looked at him with wary and hostile eyes.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IRENE KNOWS NOTHING

IRENE WAS THE first to speak, coming to the point with an abruptness which the Frenchman would not have used. "What is it you want to know?"

        "I want you to be kind enough to tell me all you can concerning M. Reynard's death."

        "I can soon do that. I know nothing. I went out shopping, and when I came back there was a dead man on the floor."

        "At what time was that?"

        "Oh, during the afternoon. It was a good while after lunch."

        "Can't you be more definite than that?"

        "Not unless I guess. When anyone sees a dead man the next thing she does isn't to look at the clock. Not unless it's in books."

        "You're not trying to be very helpful."

        "I'm not trying either way. I 'm trying to make you understand that if you want to find out who did it you're wasting time asking us."

        "Who was in the room when you entered?"

        "No one except His Excellency. He'd just come in."

        "What do you know about Mr. Kindell?"

        "He's my cousin."

        "Then you probably know the business that brought him over here at the same time as yourselves."

        "I might guess, and be wrong. It mayn't have been business at all. He's not the sort who'd go about killing strange men in other people's rooms, if you mean that."

        "I'm sorry to hear that you have so decided an opinion. Here is a homicide which appears to have been the act of either your father or this young man, and of which we should greatly prefer that His Excellency should be cleared. I hoped that you might be able to give us a pointer in the right direction."

        "Well, I can't. They're both silly ideas. I've told you my father had only just come into the room."

        "How do you know that?"

        "He told me himself. I could see how angry he was that the man was there."

        "Angry? Surely that is a curious reaction to the discovery of a murdered man? Perhaps his annoyance was that you should see what had occurred?"

        "Perhaps it was, more or less. My father is particular about his suite being private and quiet. It's what he's got a right to expect, being who he is. . . . And if he had found it necessary to shoot someone, I don't see how you should interfere. He's an American citizen. You might say he is America, having the office he has. . . . Extra-territorial you call it, don't you? Or something like that."

        M. Samuel permitted himself a slight smile. "The ambassadorial immunity to which you allude does not extend to a neutral country. His Excellency is not accredited to France. But we are anxious to do what we can to spare him from any annoyance if - as we are anxious to think - the crime was not his, or even if he could give us any plausible justification for what occurred, our Government might be disposed to receive it in a spirit of tolerance. Our trouble is that neither you nor His Excellency will help us at all."

        "But we know nothing about it. What can we say more?"

        "You could tell me more of Mr. Kindell than you do. Why did he come up to these rooms at about the time the murder occurred?"

        "To say good-bye to me, more likely than not. He was going back to England last night."

        "Well, he will be coming back now."

        "Then he can tell you himself whatever you want to know."

        "Yes. He may see that it will be wise to do that."

        M. Samuel's tone indicated that it would be better if others were of the same mind. With a sufficient minimum of courtesy he got up to go. He thought that after he had talked to Kindell he might persuade the girl to a greater frankness.

        He felt that she had already told him more than she was aware, and a theory which would explain much was already taking place in his practical and experienced mind.

CHAPTER TWELVE

M. SAMUEL OVERHEARS

On ARRIVING in Paris Kindell went straight to the Hôtel Splendide, and by so doing obtained about ten minutes' conversation with the ambassador and his daughter before M. Samuel, to whom his movements had been promptly reported, arrived on the scene

        He found Mr. Thurlow irritated, and Irene worried. They thanked him for the promptness of his return, but in the next moment the ambassador broke out with:

        "For God's sake Kindell, give us some light, if you can, on this infernal business. The police say you were here in this flat at two-forty-five, and it wasn't three when I came out of my own room and found the man lying here, in a filthy mess - - " He broke off with his eyes on a dark stain which disfigured the cream-and-rose of the Aubusson carpet, large enough to indicate the feature of Reynard's death which appeared to be most prominent in his orderly mind; and then added, "If you'll tell me on your word of honour that you didn't know the fellow, and had nothing to do with it, of course I'll believe you, but - - "

        "I couldn't say that exactly." Kindell saw Irene's startled paleness as he made this admission, but her father took it as no more than he expected to hear. He said: "Well, I'm glad you're so frank. Tell us the truth, and we'll do all we can to get you out of the mess."

        "I think you misunderstand me. I didn't mean I know anything about the murder. I meant I couldn't say that I'd never met Reynard."

        "Then you do know something! You knew the man, and you were here just at the time he was bumped off. If you didn't do it yourself, you must have been within arm's length of the man who did. . . . I tell you, William, as an older man than yourself, and one with more experience of the world, that you're in a tight spot, and your best chance is to hold nothing back, even if it seems to make it blacker for you."

        "I can't be franker than I have been already. I had met Reynard, though I don't mean that he was a friend, or I knew him well. But I know nothing about his murder. I didn't meet him yesterday, and I didn't know that he'd come here, till I heard it after I'd landed at Newhaven."

        "You'll have to say a lot more if you want to make the cops believe that."

        "I'm sorry, but there's really no more to say."

        "Can't you understand that we're anxious to help, if you'll only tell us everything while you've got time?"

        "I quite understand that. I've shown that I don't want to keep anything back. I needn't have told you that I knew him at all. But I look on you as my friends, and I wasn't going to give you my word of honour to something that wasn't true."

        Mr. Thurlow pondered this, gnawing his lips. He asked: Why do you suppose he came here? To see you?"

        "No. I'm sure he didn't."

        "How can you possibly be sure unless you know why he did come?"

        "I'm sorry I can't answer that. I've said too much already. All I can say is that I know nothing about it, and didn't know he'd been shot till - - "

        "He wasn't shot. He was knifed in the neck."

        "And you heard nothing - practically in the next room?"

        "There wouldn't be much to hear. If you ever get a knife through your neck from the side like he did, you'll find your larynx isn't in very good vocal order. . . . He must have been struck from behind, a particularly savage blow, and after that - - "

        "I expect," the voice of M. Samuel interposed, "Mr. Kindell knows as much about that as he can be told." Three pairs of eyes turned towards a door which had been left unlatched, and quietly pushed open without attracting their notice in the tension of their own argument. How much had he heard?

        Irene spoke for the first time: "Bill, you've simply got to tell everything now. It's only fair to Father, and it's sure to be best for you."

        "I'm sure," M. Samuel said suavely, "that that is just what Mr. Kindell was meaning to do. If you will be so kind as to leave us together - - "

        "Irene you'd better come with me," the ambassador said with a decisive sharpness in his voice that his daughter would rarely hear. When they were outside the door he added: "The young man knows a lot more than he's let out yet. When he's finished talking, I reckon that French cop will have been told who the murderer is, or know he can get him without leaving the room."

        "I suppose he does," Irene replied in a troubled voice; "but I hope he hasn't got himself into a mess through being confidential to us."

        "I wouldn't say that that's quite the word to use," her father replied. He felt too near to being charged with the murder himself to have much patience with the reticence of his young relative, whatever its cause might be. Ambassadors of the United States are not expected to embroil themselves, and perhaps even their Government, with foreign powers by having dead policemen inexplicably littered about their hotel suites. He was not indifferent to any trouble which Kindell - probably by some discreditable folly, if nothing worse - had brought on his own head. But he felt that he should have shown an earlier and completer frankness. He had a duty to his official relative not to involve his name in such a scandal. He must have known if not of the murder, at least enough to know that he should have stood his ground, and not slipped off to England the way he had. So he said to Irene, who replied, as in explanation, but with the coldness of tone that the name induced, "Miss Blinkwell was going back."

        "And you think that was his affair? You're not suggesting that she had something to do with what happened here?"

        "You think I don't like her? Perhaps not. But I'm not quite so silly as that. Besides, she left the hotel half an hour earlier."

        "I don't care whom you dislike. I only hope you don't - - "

        "Well, I haven't said that I do."

        With this enigmatic exchange, which neither father nor daughter appeared to find any difficulty in comprehending, Mr. Thurlow had turned to pass into his own room, when Kindell's voice was heard, raised to a pitch of angry protest, though the words were inaudible through the thickness of the closed door.

        "It sounds " the ambassador added, "as though that young fool's losing his temper. It's a mug's game when you're dealing with foreign cops."

        It might have occurred to Irene to retort that her own father's reaction to police enquiries had not been entirely equable, but she only replied: "Men are silly like that. I think I'd better go back and see what the trouble is."

        "You'd better stay where you are."

        It is improbable that Irene would have accepted this advice had not the voices sunk to a more equable tone. "Well," she said doubtfully, "he ought to be old enough to look after himself. Only men never are."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KINDELL WILL SAY NOTHING

"NOW," M. SAMUEL said, in the assured voice of one who dealt with trivial matters, and has no doubt that his request will be granted as casually as it is made, "perhaps you'll tell me what happened."

        "You mean when I called here yesterday afternoon? I just ran up to say good-bye to Miss Thurlow - she's my cousin, you know - and found nobody here, so I didn't stay. I'd only got about three minutes, in any case, before I had to leave for the train."

        "Nobody?"

        "Mr. Thurlow may have been in his own room. I didn't try to disturb him there."

        "And Miss Thurlow may have been in hers?"

        "No. I knocked on her door. I'm sure she'd have answered if she d been there."

        "But Mr. Thurlow would doubtless have heard you knock?"

        "I don't know. Mr. Thurlow could tell you that best himself."

        "So he could. But will he?"

        "I've no doubt he would. But I can't see that it matters. It would only show I was here, and I've told you that."

        "I must judge of that. . . . We must reconstruct. . . . You saw no one, alive or dead?"

        "No. I certainly didn't. A dead body in the middle of a room isn't the sort of thing you overlook or forget."

        "But no! We will agree there. And after you left no one came in or out till Miss Thurlow returned a few minutes later, and the dead body was here?"

        "How on earth can I say that? I don't know what happened

"Miss Thurlow came in. We know when you left. You were seen."

        "Naturally. I did it openly enough. Probably I was also seen to come up, in which case it will be known that it was a mere moment that I was here."

        "It appears that no one saw you come up."

        "Or M. Reynard?"

        "No. Did you come up together?"

        "I have answered that already."

        "Did you hear anything while you were here? Any sound of voices or other noise? Anything, perhaps, from Mr. Thurlow's room?

        "No. Nothing at all."

        M. Samuel changed the subject abruptly:

        "Mr. Kindell, what business had you in Paris?"

        "Nothing very definite."

        "And the indefinite business was?"

        "Nothing to do with murdering M. Reynard, or anyone else."

        "Will you answer my question, and leave me to judge of that?"

        "I'm afraid I can't add to the answer I have already given."

        "Which was no answer at all. . . . Mr. Kindell, do you realize that your attitude must lead, if you are so foolish as to continue it, to your arrest?"

        "I don't see what more you can expect me to say. I have told you all I know of the matter, which is practically nothing."

        "Pardon me that I cannot agree. You admitted in my hearing that M. Reynard was known to you."

        "He must have been known to very many. There is no crime in that."

        "But there is a deduction that his call at this hotel was not disconnected with that acquaintance. He knew many who wished that he did not know them. If he called here to detain a gentleman whom he knew to be on the point of leaving Paris - - "

        "Then why should he have gone to the floor above?"

        "He may have been unsure of your room."

        "He could have enquired at the desk. . . . Perhaps he did and that would show you that he was not looking for me."

        "Of course, we have not overlooked that. He made no such enquiry But there is a most likely presumption that he saw you on your way to the floor above, and followed you to this apartment."

        "And when he got here, I was ready to crawl up behind him and cut his throat with a knife which I keep ready for such occasions? I should call it a grotesque improbability. And all done without a sound that Mr. Thurlow could hear!"

        "But it was done without any such sound, if Mr. Thurlow is to be believed."

        "Then you can conclude that Reynard came here with a definite purpose, and that the man who killed him followed him - not the other way round - with the equally definite purpose of murder, to prevent whatever he was going to do. Find out why Reynard came to this room, and I should say the murderer would be in the bag."

        M. Samuel received this advice in a momentary silence, stroking his chin. It was a version of what had occurred which had been present to his own mind, and he saw its probabilities; but he saw also that there were many other possibilities of almost equal plausibility. It was an explanation that might be mere theory, or more probably come from a mind which knew supporting facts which it would not disclose. He was far from sure that he was questioning a guilty man, but he was sure that he could tell him more than he did, and he was resolved both to get at the concealed facts and the motive for their concealment.

        "That may be true enough." he answered. "Though it may not be the only explanation of what occurred. But, if it were adopted by us, it would do nothing to remove the suspicion which rests upon you. You might yourself have followed M. Reynard, rather than he you."

        "And why in heaven's name should I do that? If you will enquire from the English police, you will find that I have no reputation for crawling up hotel stairs to murder people with knives."

        "Murder is not a habit, even with most murderers, Mr. Kindell. And a motive is not difficult to imagine. M. Reynard might have been about to disclose to Mr. Thurlow such things as it would have been to your disadvantage for him to know. Perhaps the lady with whom you returned to England could throw some light upon this?"

        "I returned to England alone. A lady who was also staying here returned on the same boat. But you can ask her anything that you like, so far as I am concerned. You will waste your time, because she can have nothing to tell you."

        As Kindell said these last words he had a double doubt. He doubted that they went beyond the truth, for it was possible that a close cross-questioning of a frightened Myra might result in disclosures which would put M. Samuel on the right track, if his own theory were right; and he doubted their wisdom, because it was to his advantage that M. Samuel should be so directed, though he could not openly be the one to do it.

        But M. Samuel ignored his reply. "She was a lady you knew," he repeated. "You had been out together. You had been entertained in her rooms. . . . Mr. Kindell, I will be plain with you, and you will hear the advice of a man who is much older than you, and more experienced in such matters as this than you can possibly be. I do not know that you killed M. Reynard. But for the fact that someone certainly did, and that it seems to lie between you and another who is an equal improbability, I should call it a most unlikely supposition. And I am impressed by the fact that you came back promptly to face the charge, which was the act of an innocent man, or of a guilty one who is bolder and shrewder than most are. But if you are innocent, you are placing yourself in a great and needless peril; and if you are guilty you are doing yourself harm rather than good by refusing to be frank with me concerning your relations with the dead man, and other matters which may, or may not, have a bearing upon the crime."

        "I am sorry. I believe your advice is sincerely given, and I have no doubt it is good. But I can add nothing to what I have said already. I know nothing of the murder, and I am convinced that Mr. Thurlow is equally ignorant. Till you realize that, you will waste your own time, and allow the murderer more to cover his traces, or get away."

        M. Samuel went on patiently, as though he had not heard this reply: "You must remember that you are now subject to French, not to English, law. When we charge a man with murder, we do not allow him to go to sleep in the dock. We think that your rules of evidence are designed to protect guilty rather than innocent men. However that may be, our methods have this result, that an accused person must give a coherent and detailed account of his own actions or fall under a suspicion which will almost certainly result in a verdict of guilt, with all its consequences, being recorded against his name.

        "In practice, such refusals seldom, if ever, occur. An accused person will always put forward a detailed account of his own movements and relationships to the crime, and it is upon the degree to which they obtain credence, or collapse on close examination, that his fate will largely depend."

        "I have no doubt that there is a good deal to be said for your practice," Kindell replied, "and there may be something to be said for ours; but I've got to take things as they are, and nothing alters the fact that I've told you all I can, and the sooner you realize that neither Mr. Thurlow nor I had anything to do with the murder, the sooner you're likely to get on the right track."

        M. Samuel rose. He said: "Mr. Kindell, you must not think me rude if I quote a proverb of your own country. Experience keeps a dear school - - "

        " - but fools will learn in no other. You need not hesitate to complete it. Will you think me even ruder than you if I add that there are some whom even that school seems unable to teach? . . . Surely your experience should enable you to distinguish between innocent and guilty men."

        M. Samuel showed no sign of offence at the implications of this reply. He said:

        "You will give me your word, Mr. Kindell, that you will remain here?"

        "I did not come back for the purpose of running away. I shall not leave the hotel without letting you know."

        "I accept your word." M. Samuel bowed and left.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

KINDELL AS A LIVE: BAIT

AS M. SAMUEL left, Mr. Thurlow and Irene returned to the room.

        "I hope," the ambassador said, "that you have been able to give the police the information which they require."

        His tone was that of one who is unsure whether he has cause for quarrel or complaint, or of how serious it may be; and there was no satisfaction to be found in Kindell's reply, "I told him what I told you, that I know nothing about it at all."

        "But after he had heard you say that you knew the dead man he would want something better than that."

        "Then it's something that he can't get."

        "If he should arrest you, you'll find that that will be a very dangerous attitude to adopt."

        "I'll worry about that if he tries it on."

        "Will," Irene interposed, looking at him with troubled eyes, "I don't know why you're making such a mystery of it, but if you really weren't here when it happened, is it quite fair to Father - or me? It's plain to everyone that you know something you're holding back, and, if you'd be frank about it, whatever else it did, it couldn't help getting Father out of the mess."

        "You're quite sure that that would be the result?"

        "It seems sense to me."

        "Well, I'm sorry I can't say more. The whole trouble is that M. Samuel heard me say more than I ought to have done to you."

        "I don't see that you did. You said next to nothing. You only said that you knew M. Reynard. There's no crime in that."

        "That is precisely the point of view which I recommended to M. Samuel's consideration."

        "Well, it's sense. It isn't what you said but what you won't say that's making trouble."

        "Rene," her father interposed, "it's no use arguing that Bill hasn't said anything. He's said a mouthful. I don't know why he won't trust us by spitting the whole tale out, but if he thinks it's better to keep it back, we're not going to press him to tell it because it might be helpful to us. . . . No, sir! If that's how you feel, we're not asking you to open anything up. Not for our sakes, that is. But if you did it for your own, you might be a wiser man than you are."

        In the voice with which this was said, even more than the words themselves, there was an implication of offence, if not of distrust, which Kindell could not fail to hear. He looked at Irene, and it was plain that she shared her father's feelings.

        They thought that he was leaving the ambassador under a cloud of unjust suspicion, which might be lightened, if not removed, by a frank statement of what he knew of the dead man. It was a natural presumption, for that he should have known him and yet had no connection with his presence there, and that such knowledge was of a nature he could not disclose either to his own friends or to those who were investigating the crime, were propositions of exceptional improbability And if they should seek in their own minds to excuse his reticence - the more substantial the excuse, the more seriously must they suppose him to be involved in some illicit activity, if not actually in the crime itself. Yet what more could he say?

        "Well, if you won't trust me - - " he began.

        Irene interrupted acutely. "You don't give us a chance. You're not trusting us."

        "Yes," he said, "I can see how it looks to you."

        He went back to his room, which was not the one he had had before, but one next to that which Professor Blinkwell still occupied, which he had given notice that he would be vacating on the following day, when he would return to England.

        Kindell did not interpret the undertaking he had given to M. Samuel as a pledge that he would not leave the precincts of the hotel, but he had no inclination to go out into the crowded life of the Paris streets. He paced the room restlessly, debating what he could do in the enigmatic position in which he stood, either to regain Irene's confidence or to solve the mystery of Reynard's murder.

        Finding no satisfaction in this solitude, and yet reluctant to put such thoughts aside, he ordered dinner to be served in his own room, and supposed, when he gave casual assent to a discreet knock, that the waiter was at the door. But it was M. Samuel who entered.

        "You will spare me a few moments?" The tone was friendlier than he had expected to hear, but he did not feel an inclination for further verbal fencing with the self-confident detective. If he meant to arrest him, well, there was no more to be said! If not, well, that was still the same. He said curtly, "I have just ordered dinner."

        M. Samuel showed no offence. "We have examined M. Reynard's papers," he said.

        "Naturally."

        Kindell's interest was aroused now, but he was still warily reticent.

        "We have also had a further conversation with London. We have learnt much."

        "Perhaps you will join me at dinner?"

        "I thank you, no. I have dined. But I will sit with you, and take a glass of wine, if you will."

        "As you please. . . . Perhaps you will order what you prefer."

        The waiter, as he spoke, was already in the room. M. Samuel gave his order. As the man retired, the detective asked:

        "Are you undisturbed here? Do you hear sounds at times from adjoining rooms?"

        "No. Nothing. I should say these are solid walls. But I have not had this room previously."

        "Yet I think we may feel secure."

        Having said this, M. Samuel became silent. The waiter came again, and withdrew, and still he gave Kindell the opportunity to be the first to speak, as at last he did.

        "I suppose you are satisfied that I am not a murderer now?"

        It was a question which told nothing, but invited a reply which might tell much.

        "Personally, yes. Officially - that is another matter."

        "That is difficult to understand. Whatever more you know now must have been officially learned."

        "Yet so it is."

        The reply irritated Kindell. Why could not the man talk in a plain way? He said: "Well, personally's enough for me. If you'll be good enough to tell Mr. Thurlow that you're personally sure that I didn't kill Reynard, I won't ask anything more."

        M. Samuel neither assented nor showed any resentment at the tone of this reply. He said: "I have a message for you from Mr. Wickham. He wishes you to co-operate with us - to do anything that we may require."

        "Then you know perfectly well - - "

        "I am coming to that. . . . Mr. Wickham said that you could telephone him for confirmation of our instructions, if you should feel it necessary to do so. But he thought it would be wiser not to communicate with him in any way."

        "Perhaps I can judge better if I hear from you what those instructions are."

        "We wish you to let Professor Blinkwell know that you are suspected of Reynard's murder."

        "Suspected by you?"

        "Yes."

        "What is the object of that? He will not easily believe. He must have concluded already that I am an agent of the police."

        "Must he? I am less than sure. Or, if he did, may he not be disposed to change his opinion now? The way you were treated in the Customs may support his doubt."

        "He may not even have heard of that."

        "Then you must tell him."

        "Which would be betraying his daughter's confidence, for which I see no plausible reason."

        "Then you must act as seems best to you. I should think you could do it in a most natural way. But we do not wish to dictate the details of what you do. It is as a man of ability that you are recommended to us. . . . We want you to act precisely as one would do who had had your experiences, and had had no connection with us. And we shall act to you in the same way."

        "Not precisely, I hope? I'm not still under danger of arrest?"

        "I cannot say that. But, if you should be arrested, I need not say that you will disclose nothing. We must subordinate all to the discovery of the murderer, and to bring the work he was doing to a success which M. Reynard would have approved."

        "You will say sufficient to Mr. Thurlow and his daughter to clear me with them?"

        "That is of such importance to you? . . . I regret that it is a promise I cannot give. . . . Is it not Miss Blinkwell whose good opinion you are most anxious to have?"

        "Damn Miss Blinkwell. . . . Yes, I see what you mean. I must leave it to you. . . . We must hope it will not be long." M. Samuel, having finished his wine, got up to go. "So we may," he agreed. "Which may rest with you. . . . At present you are experiencing much questioning from the police. There should be no secret of that."

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EFFORT IN MENDACITY

BEING LEFT ALONE, Kindell faced the fact that he was cast for a part which he did not like.

        There was the probability, if no more, that he was to be arrested for the murder of Reynard, and, for a time at least, he must allow it to appear that he could not clear himself of the charge. He was to allow his friends to convict him, in their own minds, of folly, if not of guilt, and to conclude either that he distrusted the quality of their friendship or had acted in a manner which he was ashamed to reveal.

        And, as an immediate requirement, he was to act a part which would be difficult to assume, and with a most dubious possibility of any credit or success resulting. He had to act as would be natural to one in his position who had been inexplicably and (as it would seem) pointlessly tricked by Professor Blinkwell's niece, and who was under suspicion of having committed an atrocious crime.

        What would an innocent young man, new to such experiences, naturally do? He would look round for friends. He would seek their confidence and support. On both the strange experiences of the last twenty-four hours, it was to the Professor that it would be natural for him to go. So he must, and at once, or his omission to do so would have a significance which the Professor would be quick to see.

        But Professor Blinkwell was a most astute, and would surely be a suspicious man. He might know that he was dealing with a police agent, in which case it would be an impossible enterprise. He certainly suspected it; and that suspicion would be difficult to remove.

        Well, there would be no gain in delay. He was an innocent puzzled, and angry man, with no clue to the meaning of the events in which he was involved! . . . Resolving to sustain this mood, to the exclusion of truth even in his own thoughts, he left his room and knocked on the Professor's door.

        Professor Blinkwell received him with his usual suavity, but with some distance of manner.

        "You have come back," he said, "more quickly than you had planned when you left."

        The tone was non-committal, as that of one who had heard dubious tales, but would not be hasty to judge.

        "Yes," Kindell replied, "it's this ghastly murder upstairs. They'd make out I'd got something to do with it, if they could. But I've no doubt you've heard about that?"

        "I have heard," the Professor replied, "that a French policeman was found dead, and presumably not by his own hand, in the room of a United States ambassador upstairs, but I should not have connected it with you, which has an improbable sound, even if you had not (as I suppose) already left the hotel when the unfortunate incident occurred. But I will not conceal from you that there was conversation in the lounge in the last hour which has prepared me for what you say."

        "Well, that's how it is, and I thought you might be able to advise me what best to do."

        "If," the Professor said, with a deliberation which might be taken to imply that, though by no means sure where the truth might lie, he was keeping a scrupulously open mind, "you had nothing whatever to do with it, I should say you could not do better than to go on doing nothing at all. Unless the police here have conclusive evidence of a kind which is hardly possible under such circumstances, I should say that they would be reluctant to drag you in. It has," the Professor concluded, with a slight smile, "an aspect of involving three nations instead of two."

        "I'm sorry that M. Samuel does not appear to regard it in that way. He seems to think that to fasten it on to me is the best conclusion he can desire."

        "And you really know nothing about it?"

        "Nothing at all."

        "You observed nothing to rouse your suspicions, or which would be helpful to the police?"

        "No. Nothing at all."

        "Well, you had better tell me just what happened as far as you are concerned. If I can help you by advice or in other ways, you can be sure that it will be done. I should have thought the police would have had the sense to see that you are not the sort to be concerned in such an affair. Had you any acquaintance with M. Reynard?"

        The question was asked casually, and the Professor's eyes expressed nothing but friendly enquiry and concern, but it was well for Kindell that he had foreseen its probability, and prepared himself for an instant denial.

        "No," he said readily. "I've only been in Paris once or twice in my life, and then only for weekends. It isn't reasonable to suppose that I should be personally acquainted with the police here, let alone want to murder them. It seems too absurd to take seriously."

        "Yes. It is a strong point," the Professor agreed, but in a tone of gravity which did not diminish as he went on, "but it is always difficult to prove a negative. And the police require you to satisfy them of your innocence in this country, rather than that they should be able to prove your guilt. . . . Still, if they can suggest no motive, I should say that you have little to fear. Some temporary inconvenience, perhaps. And some expense. . . . You will be able to deal with that? You should have a good lawyer for your defence. Perhaps you will let me help? As a friend of Myra's - - And, talking of her, does she know of this trouble? Was she with you when it was brought to your knowledge?"

        "No. She had gone on to the train."

        Kindell paused in a way which s