Title: The Man at the Carlton
Author: Edgar Wallace
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Language:  English
Date first posted: February 2008
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The Man at the Carlton

by

Edgar Wallace

CHAPTER I

I

There was a man named Harry Stone (also called Harry the Valet), who was a detective until they found him out, which was about three months after he had entered the C.I.D. of a police force in Rhodesia. He might have been prosecuted, but at that time this particular police force was not at all anxious to expose the dishonesty of its officers, so that when he got away by the night mail to Cape Town they took no trouble to call him back.

Harry went south with about three hundred ill-gotten pounds in the hope of meeting Lew Daney, who was a good trooper and a great, if unfortunate, artist. But Lew was gone, had been gone a very long time, was indeed at that moment organising and carrying into effect a series of raids more picturesque than his essay against the National Bank of Johannesburg, and considerably better organised.

Harry broke back again to Rhodesia by the Beira route, and through the Massi-Kassi to Salisbury, which was a misfortune for him, for Captain Timothy Jordan, Chief of the Rhodesian C.I.D., did him the honour of making a personal call on him at his hotel.

"You are registered as Harrison, but your name is Stone. By the way, how is your friend Lew Daney?"

"I don't know who you mean," said Harry the Valet.

"Tiger" Tim Jordan smiled.

"Be that as it may," he said, "the train leaves for Portuguese territory in two hours. Take it!"

The mystified Harry did not argue. He was mystified because he had never come across Tiger Tim Jordan, though he had heard of that dynamic young man and knew most of the legends concerning him by heart.

Tiger, being rather a wealthy man, could afford to be conscientious. He made a very careful study of the photographs of undesirables that came his way, and made a point of meeting all the mail trains in, and superintending the departure of all the mail trains out, most of which contained somebody he had no desire should further pollute the fair air of Southern Rhodesia, and Harry's photograph had gone to Salisbury in the ordinary way of business.

At Beira Mr. Stone boarded an East Coast boat that plied between Durban and Greenock. He had tried most things once or twice, but there had been several happenings in London that made it desirable that the ex-detective should seek a port of entry not under the direct scrutiny of Scotland Yard, which though it was extraordinarily busy at that time, could spare a few officers to watch incoming liners and give a hearty welcome to returned wanderers who would rather have been spared the reception.

A few days after Harry had hired a respectable lodging in Glasgow, Chief Constable Cowley of Scotland Yard called a conference of his chief inspectors.

"This is the second big hold-up in three weeks," he said. "It is the same crowd working, and it has only failed to get away with big money by sheer bad luck."

He was referring to the scientific busting of the Northern Counties Bank. A night watchman and a patrolling police-cyclist had been shot down in cold blood, and a vault had been opened. The robbers had got little or nothing for their pains. A big block of currency had been moved the day before, "on information received."

"One of the crowd squealed," said Cowley. "It couldn't have been for the reward, for he never claimed it--I suppose it was a case of needle. With the information the police had, it was criminal that they let the gang slip."

The Northern Counties Bank crime was followed immediately by the Mersey Trust affair, which involved two hundred thousand pounds' worth of bar gold.

"The most beautifully organised job I've ever known," said Cowley, with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur. "Everything perfectly arranged. If the purser of the Ilenic hadn't been putty-headed and delayed the delivery of the gold for an hour because he'd mislaid the documents, they'd have had it!"

"I gather, sir," said Chief Inspector Pherson, who was ponderous even when he was not sarcastic, "that you have read the accounts in the daily Press?"

Cowley rubbed the back of his head irritably.

"Naturally," he said.

Scotland Yard was annoyed, for none of the local police forces had so much as consulted headquarters.

"Why Scotland Yard?" asked the Chief Constable of Blankshire. "Haven't I a C.I.D. of my own? What nonsense!"

He was a military chief constable, a C.B.E. and a D.S.O.

Cowley said that he had more esprit de corps than prenez garde, which was probably a prejudiced view.

Chief Constables of counties are not compelled to call in Scotland Yard. Scotland Yard must not interfere with local police administrations. Their advice was not sought either in the case of the Northern Counties or the Mersey business. As the Chief Constable of Northshire said:

"If we can't do this job ourselves we ought to be boiled. We've got our own C.I.D., and I'm all for trusting the Man on the Spot. I remember some years ago when I was commanding a brigade in Poona..."

The five men who sat around the big table at Scotland Yard, examining local maps and such data as had been unofficially collected, had never been to Poona, and none was likely to command any brigade, unless it were a fire brigade.

"Number three is coming," said Cowley. "This in my opinion is a series; there are signs of long preparation and the most careful planning. Who is the artist?"

The "artist" was Lew Daney, and nobody thought of him because at the moment he was unknown to the police force, though there was an ex-detective who knew him rather well.

On the day that Harry Stone decided that, Scotland held nothing for him but incredulous business men--he was working a gold mine swindle--the third coup was thrown, and succeeded.

The Lower Clyde Bank had its palatial premises in the City of Glasgow. Between the hours of 9 p.m. on a foggy Thursday night and 4 a.m. on an even foggier Friday morning. No. 2 vault was opened and cleared. It contained about a hundred and twelve thousand pounds in English currency, but, what was more important, the vault held the sum of ten million reichsmarks deposited by the Chemical Bank of Dusseldorf, being their contribution under their working arrangement with the North British Chemical Trust. It was made up of ten thousand notes of a thousand marks, and was contained in two steel boxes, each containing five thousand notes in packages of a thousand.

There were two night watchmen, McCall and Erskine. They had disappeared. It was their failure to repeat the hourly signal to police headquarters which had brought the police to the bank.

Not until three hours later were they found in a lift which had been stopped between two floors, the mechanism of the elevator having been put out of action by the smashing of the selector bar. They were both dead--shot at close quarters.

Only one man could have given evidence that would have been of the slightest value to the police. Harry Stone had had the good luck that evening to find a well-to-do-Scotsman, in whom from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. the fires of romance burned brightly. He had listened breathlessly to the story Harry told of the hidden gold mine that lay in the folds of the Magalies Berge (from which nothing more golden than tobacco had ever come), and he had taken Harry home to his handsome flat, and Harry had drawn maps--for Harry was a man of education, spoke three languages and could draw an unlimited number of maps if it paid him to do so. His plans embellished his story so convincingly that he almost had the cheque in his pocket. Being an artist, he did not rush things, said "good night" to his host at three o'clock in the morning and walked home.

He saw a big car snailing by the sidewalk; it stopped and he passed it by. Then, walking quickly towards him, he saw a man and caught one glimpse of his face out of the corner of his eye, Somebody he knew--who was it? He walked half a dozen paces and then turned. The first man had been joined by another, carrying a bag. A third came running across the street. They all seemed to disappear into the car together as the machine turned and sped swiftly away.

Lew Daney! He had had a moustache when Harry knew him. He whistled. Lew had done a bust! It was not healthy to be around the scene of any of Lew's exploits. He had a gun and was not averse to using it. Harry had no desire to be pulled in by the police and questioned about one of Lew's more lurid adventures.

He was relieved to reach his home. He read all about the crime in the early editions of the evening newspapers next day, and was staggered by the haul. He was as staggered by the attitude of his prospective financier, for the well-to-do Scotsman, who had been so sympathetic and so enthusiastic about that secret mine in the folds of the Magalies Berge, was strangely sane and sober and sceptical in the cold forenoon, and had no disposition to sign a cheque or to do anything save have Harry thrown out of his office.

Mr. Stone went south. There was a way of making money out of his knowledge. He did not dream of going to the bank, or to the police, or to any unprofitable source of reward. Lew Daney's haul had been a big one; he would cut in on it. But first he must find Lew Daney, and that would be a business demanding the greatest patience.

II

Harry the Valet had been established in London for a fortnight when Mary Grier came from Scotland with a third-class return ticket, a pound for expenses, a small notebook in which to keep a very careful account of how the pound was spent, and three cheques, for different amounts, to settle a claim which had been made on Mr. Awkwright by a firm of outside brokers.

"You can tell him you're my niece and that I'm not right in my head," Mr. Awkwright had said with the greatest calmness.

"He's a swindler, anyway--all these outside brokers are--and if he thinks that there's no chance of getting the lot he'll take what he can get in settlement. Don't produce the cheque until he agrees to settle, and beat him down to the lowest one if you can."

Mary had settled these accounts before. It was an ugly and unpleasant business, but jobs are not easy to get, and, generally speaking, Mr. Awkwright was a good employer.

Three hours after she arrived in London she interviewed the broker. He held her hand in quite a fatherly way and tried to kiss her. She came from the office a little flushed, rather breathless, but with a receipt for a hundred pounds in full settlement of a debt of four hundred, and she did not even have to lie; Mr. Awkwright's pathetic letter supplied the necessary invention.

Mary thought neither less nor more of men because of an experience which was not unusual. She had that sort of pale prettiness which seems very lovely to some men. She was slim and neat of figure, could walk and stand well, had a flair for dressing inexpensively and gave a four-guinea costume the illusion of Savile Row tailoring.

She was a little annoyed, but she did not feel "soiled." Men had tried to kiss her before, men of all ages and conditions. Mr. Awkwright's occasional guests, for example; they used to come upon her in the library, close the door with the greatest carelessness, and slip their arms absent-mindedly round her shoulders.

And they were respectable men, including a London solicitor.

Only one had ever treated her with complete respect.

She hated this debt settling that Mr. Awkwright practised in his extreme meanness, but she was growing more and more philosophical.

She went back to the little temperance hotel in Bloomsbury where she had taken her lodging, to get the letter she had brought over from Scotland. In the reading-room she found a copy of a morning newspaper, and studied the shipping list.

The Carnarvon Castle was due that morning, and probably had already arrived. Mr. Awkwright had given her a list of four hotels where his nephew would be likely to stay. They were all very expensive. His nephew, said Mr. Awkwright sourly, invariably chose hotels which he could not afford. By luck she tried the Carlton first, and saved herself several unnecessary twopences.

Captain Timothy Jordan had arrived. Could she speak to him? A little delay, and then:

"Hallo!" said a not-unpleasant voice. "Is that you, Colonel?"

Mary Grier smiled. "No, I am a mere private," she said. "Is that Captain Timothy Jordan? I am Mr. Awkwright's secretary."

"Oh Lord, Uncle Benjamin's? Where are you speaking from?"

She told him.

"I knew it wasn't Scotland," said the voice. "Is he in town?"

Mary explained that Mr. Awkwright was at that moment at Clench House.

"I have a letter for you. Captain Jordan. Mr. Awkwright told me to see you and find out when we could expect you in Scotland."

"In a few days," was the reply. "And when may I expect you at the Carlton? You are Miss Grier, aren't you? You are 'rather attractive and a great expense.' I am quoting my sainted uncle, who has written about you. Come and lunch."

She hesitated. She was very anxious to see this nephew of her employer. Mr. Awkwright had spoken very freely on, the subject of ungrateful relations.

"I am not sure that I have the time," she said. "It might be very embarrassing."

"If you come down don't forget to ask for Timothy Jordan; there are two of the great Jordan clan in this hotel--ask for Timothy and refuse all substitutes!"

"Timothy Jordan," she repeated, and heard a little sound behind her.

She turned and saw a man standing in the corridor, his back to her, evidently waiting to take his turn at the one telephone which the hotel possessed. She could not see his face. A derby hat was at the back of his head; the collar of his overcoat was turned up. When later she passed him, he manoeuvred so that he still presented a back view to her.

Harry Stone was more surprised than alarmed to hear his enemy was in London. After all, Tim Jordan might be a great man in Southern Rhodesia, but he was just a man on the side-walk in the Haymarket. Still, there might be certain unpleasantnesses if he were recognised, particularly as Harry had that morning located the one man in the world he wanted to meet, and that man's name was Money; pounds to spend, dollars and francs to gamble with at Monte Carlo, marks to keep him in luxury in the Tyrol.

He waited till Mary disappeared, then he went to the 'phone and gave a number. It was some time before the man he asked for came to the instrument.

"It's Harry Stone speaking," he said in a low voice. "Could I see you some place tonight?"

There was a long silence. The man at the other end did not ask unnecessary questions. "Sure," he said. "How are you, Harry?"

"Fine," said Harry glibly. "I cleaned up a bit of money before I left the Cape. I am leaving for Australia next week and I'd like to have a chat with you before I go."

"Where are you speaking from?"--after another long pause.

Harry gave the name of the hotel and the telephone number, Lew Daney considered this.

"Pack all your things and clear out of there tonight. I will put you up. You can send your things to a railway cloak-room. You know London?"

"Pretty well," said Harry.

"Meet me at ten tonight at Hampstead. Go past the Spaniards about two hundred yards towards Highgate. I will be waiting for you on the sidewalk."

Harry Stone hung up the receiver, very satisfied with the beginning of his adventure. He had considered a long time before he adopted this method of approach. Lew was not the kind of man to come upon suddenly; he was a killer, and though he was not named in the flaming reward bill as the murderer of the two night-watchmen, there was a reward of five thousand pounds on his head.

Harry packed his suitcase that evening, carefully oiled and loaded a snub-nosed revolver, and went out. As he passed through the hall, he saw the pretty girl he had seen that morning. She was evidently leaving the hotel, for her box was packed and waiting. He was interested in her: she was a friend of Tiger Tim's. He wondered how near a friend. He would like to get better acquainted with her--it would be a great joke to get back on Tiger through his girl.

He deposited his suitcase at King's Cross Station and went by Tube to Hampstead. He would have to be careful. If Lew knew he had been recognised outside the bank...but this was London, not South Africa.

He reached the rendezvous and found himself alone. It was a miserable night; a drizzle of sleet was falling and the asphalt pavement was slippery. He glanced at the illuminated dial of his watch; it was five minutes to ten. Would Lew double-cross him? That was not Lew's way.

Two cars passed, moving swiftly, and then a third came crawling along by the side of the pavement. Harry Stone took the revolver from his pocket and slipped it up his sleeve. The car stopped opposite to where he stood--an American saloon.

"Is that you, Harry?"

It was Lew's voice.

"Step inside."

He opened the door and sank down on the seat by the side of a former confederate and one who had shared a cell at Pretoria Central in the days when the prison was a little overcrowded.

"I knew your voice the moment I heard it."

Lew sent the car forward at a moderate pace.

"Doing well, are you. Harry? Made a big clean up?"

"About twenty thousand--" began Harry.

"You are a liar," said the other calmly. "I know you! If you had made twenty thousand you would have bought the Ritz. You wouldn't be staying in a punk hotel in Bloomsbury. Did you leave your bag at the station?...Good!"

Harry the Valet, a quick worker, began his tale.

"I thought I would like to have a chat with you," he said. "I've got a big scheme that wants a little money. You are quite right, I am broke--and I thought perhaps you might be able to stake me. The boys told me you've done pretty well."

He heard a low chuckle from the man at the wheel.

"Which boys? There are no boys in London who know anything about me, Harry. You know I have done well. And how well!"

"Only what I've been told--" began Harry.

"You know just what you've seen! I recognised you that night in Glasgow, boy. You are out after the five thousand pounds' reward, or do you want bigger money than that?"

Harry said nothing.

"We'll go to my place at Barnet and have a little chat," Lew went on. "I am a sensible man, Harry. I don't kick at trouble when it comes along, and you are trouble. And I have never been a greedy man. I have got six hundred thousand pounds--all in currency, and all where I can put my hand on it, so the question of splitting with you won't trouble me any. There is enough for you and me and the rest of the crowd. They are out of the country, by the way, and they don't know as much as you. They don't even know I am Lew Daney."

"Where have you cached the stuff?" asked Stone boldly.

It was a question which invited a lie or an offensive rebuff, but Lew Daney told him the amazing truth. He described the location of the treasury place with the greatest frankness and in the greatest detail. So clear was the description that he might have drawn a plan of the spot. Harry listened incredulously, and it only dawned upon him that the man was speaking the truth when he realised that he had nothing to gain by lying.

After all, he need not have kept the appointment.

They were in the open country now. The car was moving at a leisurely gait. Suddenly Lew switched off the headlamps and ran on his sidelights. "I don't want to attract too much attention," he said. "We'll be getting on the new road in a minute, and there's a cop at the crossing."

They passed the policeman and moved smoothly along the concrete surface of the wide road, always keeping close to the kerb.

A little light suddenly glowed in the dashboard immediately opposite to where Harry was sitting.

"Do you mind?" asked the other coldly. "I want to keep you illuminated. I don't suppose you've been such a fool as to come out without a gun."

Harry looked down; one of Lew's hands was on the driving wheel; the other rested on his lap, holding the butt of a long-barrelled automatic, and the muzzle covered the passenger.

"You'll be surprised to know I have told you the truth. And you won't be surprised to know that I told you the truth because I am going to make it impossible for you to tell the truth to anybody else! There is no cut for you, Harry. You are going to be what I would describe as another of London's undiscovered murder mysteries. Been looking for me, haven't you? I've been looking for you! I have got your record--squealer! You have squealed in prison and out."

He glanced at the driving mirror at his right hand. There were no lights in sight behind him, none before.

Five minutes later a big car, bound for Cambridge, passed a car stationary by the side of the road. Nearby was a broad stretch of water. The car was there for half an hour, and during that time the one man interested was extremely busy.

Near the margin of the lake were a number of pleasure boats, lying keel uppermost on the bank. To launch one was not a very difficult business. To paddle it out two hundred yards from the shore with the aid of a floorboard was not so easy, especially since a very heavy burden lay in the stern. The hardest job of all was to pull the boat ashore and restore it to its keel uppermost position.

The rower came back to the car, and was relieved to find no cyclist policeman standing by its side. He wiped his wet face with a scented silk handkerchief--Lew Daney had always been something of a dandy--and, sitting down at the driving wheel, he turned the car northward and went on into the night.

III

Tim Jordan made a call at Scotland Yard which proved to be a waste of time. That morning he had collected all the back numbers of newspapers he could secure, and had made a careful study of the Lower Clyde Bank murders, and he had a theory.

It was his misfortune to meet an "office man" who was not particularly interested in crime except in so far as it appeared in a statistical record. "I'm afraid, Captain Jordan, I can give you no information. The Chief Constable went back to Glasgow yesterday."

"Have you a record of Lew Daney?" urged Jordan. "I know just how you feel, having an interfering outsider butting into your business, but if this isn't one of Lew Daney's jobs I'm a Dutchman! He is wanted in Johannesburg for a similar, crime--without murder--and the methods are identical."

The office man sighed. "Yes, yes...I'm sure. Write his name down, will you? I'll put through an inquiry to the Records Department."

Altogether a disappointing morning.

Somebody saw Tim come impetuously through the swing doors of the Carlton, and go up the broad stairs three at a time.

Captain Jordan was in no especial hurry; no life and death appointment awaited him; he was, in point of fact, on his way to change his shoes.

"That," said the observer to his companion, "is the Tiger Man!"

"How very dramatic! Is he in a circus or something?" asked the bored young lady who was with him.

He explained Captain Timothy Jordan's peculiar position.

"He's a policeman in Rhodesia. The natives say that he walks like one and hunts like one...a terribly clever fellow...Did I ever tell you the story of the storekeeper who was murdered at Manandalas?"

He was an African millionaire, a person of some consequence; she forced a hypocritical interest and listened.

Tim Jordan was changing. He had landed less than thirty hours before, had an appointment with his tailor, his banker, his solicitor, a dinner engagement with his old colonel, and supper with a man and his wife whom he had met on the boat.

He wished it was with the girl whose voice he had heard on the telephone. He was annoyed with her for leaving his uncle's letter without presenting herself for inspection. Yet he was very happy to be in London, and sang at the top of his voice, which was not a good one. In the midst of his vocal adventures came the page boy.

"Jelf! Who's Jelf?"

He frowned down at the slip of paper that was put before him, and then remembered.

"Shoot him up, will you?"

Jelf came, an undersized man, rather furtive, and just as respectful as anybody would be who wanted a job.

"Who told you I needed a chauffeur?"

The little man wriggled uncomfortably.

"I used to work for Mr. Van Tyl, and I heard you were coming to England, sir, and thought you might like to use this car of mine. She can do eighty."

"Mr. Van Tyl?"

Tim knew twenty South African Van Tyls, and none of them well.

"He knows you, sir, and he said you were coming from Africa, and that you liked a fast car."

"How did you know when I would arrive?" asked Tim.

"I got your name from the shipping company."

Captain Jordan laughed.

"All right," he said. "You deserve something for your enterprise. Let's see that old car of yours. Have it here"--he looked up at the ceiling--"at seven o'clock on Wednesday. Do you know Scotland?"

"Very well, sir," said the man eagerly.

"Well, I'm leaving at six in the morning, and if your car is up to the description, I will hire you. Why did you shave off your moustache?"

The man was startled.

"I--I beg your pardon, sir?" he stammered.

"You had a moustache until quite recently. You shaved it off. You've fingered it twice since you've been here. Have you always worn glasses?"

"Always, sir." said the man, "but my sight's very good."

Tim looked at him for a long time, considering.

"All right. You're probably a crook, but that doesn't matter. Why do you fellows imagine that you can disguise yourselves by ringing the changes on your upper lips?"

"I'm not a crook, sir," began the man. "I've got a character--

"I am sure you have," interrupted Tim. "Bring the machine at the time I said."

Later in the day he saw it and approved.

He came back from his dinner party that night a little disappointed, for people one meets on board usually lose seventy-five per cent. of their glamour when they are met on dry land, and the dinner had been a bore.

"There's a lady waiting to see you, sir."

"A lady?" he said, and then a thought struck him. "A Miss Grier?"

"No, sir, a Mrs. Smith."

He looked past Tim, and the woman who had been sitting in the lounge rose and came towards them. She was tall, good-looking, handsomely dressed. He judged her to be somewhere about the thirties.

"Do you want to see me?" he asked.

She nodded, looked at the porter who stood by, and then:

"Could I see you in your room?" she asked in a low voice.

It was a pleasant voice, deep and rich. Tim hesitated. A man didn't see strange women in is private sitting-room at eleven o'clock at night.

"I don't want to be seen talking to you," she said. "It is very important".

He smiled. "All right. You will lose your reputation. Come along!"

They went up by elevator. He opened the door and ushered her in. It was she who closed the door he had left ajar.

"You are Captain Jordan of the Rhodesian C.I.D., aren't you? My name is Lydia Daney."

He stared at her.

"Lew Daney's wife?"

She nodded.

"The wife of the man who did the Glasgow job," she said coolly. "I thought you'd like to know that."

IV

Tim Jordan stared at the woman.

"The devil you are! It was Daney, then?"

She nodded.

"He's in London somewhere. I'm trying to find him. Do you mind if I smoke?"

She took a jewelled cigarette case from her bag, opened it, and Tim supplied her with a light.

"I am the legal, wedded wife of Lew Daney," she said. "It may surprise you that he has ever done anything legal in his life--but it's the fact."

"Why do you come to me?" he asked bluntly.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"I knew you were in London. Lew has often spoken about you. As a matter of fact, he spoke today."

"He's in town?"

She nodded.

"He was. And a Miss Grier was in town--a Miss Mary Grier." She spoke slowly.

He remembered now...the girl on the telephone.

"She came from Scotland."

Mrs. Daney blew a ring of smoke to the ceiling, and did not take her eyes off it until it broke.

"She is secretary to an old gentleman in Scotland, and the romance of Lew's young life."

There was a touch of acid in the last phrase.

"And that's the reason for the squeal?" he asked.

She nodded slowly.

"That's the reason for the squeal," she repeated. "I've stood a great deal from Lew. He's been pretty generous about money, though I've had my hard times. But when a man is cool enough to tell his wife that he's in love with another woman, and makes her a cash offer for a divorce--that's how respectable Lew is getting--the question of money fades out, Captain Jordan."

"The girl came down to see him--?"

She shook her head. "No. If you believe Lew--and he's the world's worst liar, though now and again he tells the truth out of sheer malice--she doesn't even know the stir she's created in his young heart. She's met him--somewhere. A case of love at first sight--and he's fifty if he's a day!"

"Has she been in Africa?"

She shook her head.

"Get that idea out of your head, that Lew is an African worker. He went to the Cape when things were too hot for him. He has been planning big things in this country for years. Africa was an interlude. He wasn't there a year. And he was in love before he went; he told me that. And he means it, Captain Jordan. He's got a way of talking when he means things that you can't mistake if you know him."

She finished her cigarette--it was one of those Russian things that are half mouthpiece--threw it into the fireplace and took another.

"I'm not going to give you the history of my life, but there are many reasons why Lew should play square with me, and I have decided that he had better go."

"To the scaffold, in fact?" said Tim grimly.

She nodded.

"To the scaffold, in fact," she repeated. "It doesn't sound that I'm sane, but I feel very cold-blooded about it."

She rose, still smoking, and paced up and down the room.

"Do you know a man called Stone?"

"Harry the Valet?" Tim nodded.

"He's in London--I hope."

"Who are the other members of the gang?" interrupted Tim.

Her gesture was expressive of her indifference. "I don't know. I never questioned him about them. He shifts his workers--never stays long with the same crowd." She threw the second cigarette, unfinished, into the fire.

"That's all," she said. "You can go to Scotland Yard with the information, but if you send them to me, I'll make them look foolish. From what I've heard, you like a little hunt of your own. Well, you've got a chance. I may change my mind tomorrow and tell Lew I've told you, in which case you will be well advised to keep under cover. I shall probably be dead, but there's no reason why you should be."

"Thank you for those cheering words," said Tim, and led her to the door.

He sat up for two hours, thinking the matter over. There was very little he could take to Scotland Yard; he did not even know where the woman was to be found. The whole story might be a lie; he was the more inclined to view it critically because it confirmed his own theories.

The early hours of the morning brought Jelf and his fast car. Tim looked it over, and for the second time approved. He climbed into the driver's seat.

"Do you know the road from Glasgow to Kinross?"

"Like a book, sir. I've taken parties up there in the summer--

"All right, let's go," said Timothy Jordan. And then: "Do you know Clench House, by any chance?"

The man shook his head.

"I've got an idea it's near Rumble Bridge, sir, but I'm not sure. There's a lot of big houses in that country, and some of the best aristocracy live there."

"The person I'm week-ending with is not an aristocrat--not by a darned sight," said Tim Jordan grimly.

V

They called the place Clench House because, by repute, Ben Clench was visible from the little hill behind. It lay between Kinross and Glasgow and had several histories. There had been a castle here; you saw the footings of it in the firs a quarter of a mile north of the house itself. Archaeologists had varying theories. Local historians who prepared guidebooks for the use of the unlettered Southerner allowed their imagination the fullest rein, and brought Bannockburn into it.

It was a big, ugly building behind a stone wall, gaunt-faced, depressing, and made lop-sided by a monstrous garage which had once been a chapel by all accounts.

It boasted its own private graveyard. There were huge mounds beyond the orchard and a solid-looking mausoleum of granite, bearing a Gaelic inscription, which the weather of centuries had effaced.

Mr. Awkwright never ceased to complain of the place. He was a thin, complaining old man, lined of face, very rich, very mean, and he hated Scotland. He hated England as intensely; France came into the category of unpopular countries, as did Holland, Egypt, Monte Carlo and Italy.

He had never lived anywhere else. He had in his youth married a Miss Brodie, and through her claimed Scottish descent, wore the Brodie tartan (without any title to the distinction), ate porridge with a wry face, would have attended church if there had been a church of his persuasion to attend, and compromised with family prayers twice daily.

He found it difficult to keep servants, but not so difficult to keep Mary Grier, who was his secretary. Young ladies, and pretty young ladies of education, with no visible means of support, are easier to find than cooks. And Mary was held by a bond more enduring than a contract. She did not leave Mr. Awkwright's service for the same reason that a convict did not leave a prison. She had been sentenced to service. Perhaps for life.

Stocker did not come to prayers, because he was in the house but not of the household. He was one of the permanencies that Mr. Awkwright had taken over with his lease. He could not discharge him without discharging himself from his residence, which he had hired furnished at a ridiculously low figure from the London agents of Mr. Ledbetter, the absentee owner.

Mr. Ledbetter spent most of his time in warmer climates. He was, said Stocker the butler (quite unnecessarily), a great traveller. Stocker was a big man, on the fat side, with a large, fat face and blue, unintelligent eyes. He had been, he said, with Mr. Ledbetter since he was so high. He said most of these things to Mr. Awkwright's pretty secretary.

Mary smiled.

"Your knowledge is extensive and peculiar, Stocker," she said.

He nodded gloomily.

"There's very few people in the world I don't know, miss, including crowned 'eads. I've spent me life making studies of human beings, though I don't call Mr. Awkwright a human being."

Mary was taking tea in the big, chilly drawing-room alone.

Mr. Awkwright had gone into Glasgow to consult his harassed stockbroker. He was a petty punter, speculating in margins to infinitesimal sums. In addition he was interested in the sport of thoroughbred horse-racing, and had complicated bets with a Glasgow bookmaker, never losing more than a few shillings a day, and more often winning.

He used to spend his evenings after family prayers working out the form of horses that were due to run the next day, his calculations being supplemented by private information, for he received on an average six private wires or special letters from gentlemen who, for a small consideration, conveyed the cream of stable intelligence to a select list of clients. There was little that happened in the racing world which he did not know.

This was one of his illusions.

Mary remembered something she had heard in the bus driving back from the station.

"Stocker!" She called him back as he was leaving the room. "Is Mr. Ledbetter a philanthropist?"

He frowned.

"A what, miss?"

"Does he give things away?"

Stocker smiled.

'No, miss, he's a very careful man, is Mr. Ledbetter."

"Then how is it that Mr. Awkwright can hire Clench House for such a ridiculously low figure?"

Stocker came slowly back.

"He's particular, miss. He'd sooner take a low figure from an old gentleman like Mr. Awkwright than a big figure from some of these harum-scarum young people who come up for season and turn a house into a bear garden. Who's that young gentleman coming today, miss?"

Mary got up with a feeling of guilt.

"Oh, Captain Jordan. I promised to see to his room--

"It is all ready, miss. From Africa, isn't he?"

"Yes. He's Mr. Awkwright's nephew."

"In the Army, eh?" said Stocker. He rubbed his hand across his massive chin musingly. "It's funny, but soldiering never appealed to me, miss. I had a young brother, in the Grenadier Guards, but he deserted."

The girl shook her head.

"No, he's in the police--the South African Police. He's a sort of Commissioner."

"Fancy!" said Stocker.

It was a favourite expression of his, and stood for amazement.

"Fancy, miss! In the police, eh? I'll bet that's a good job. I've never been to Africa. A young cousin of mine named 'Erbert Smith got a job in a tea field or whatever they call it--

"Plantation," she suggested.

He nodded.

"Fancy being in the police. I'll bet he's a clever gentleman?"

Mary wasn't quite sure about this. There were moments when Tim Jordan was the most brilliant of Mr. Awkwright's nephews; there were times when he was a spendthrift and a wastrel. It depended very much upon the mood the old man was in when he discussed him, and the amount of money Tim required to meet his mess bills and the etceteras of his existence.

She gathered from Mr. Awkwright that he was a sort of favoured pensioner, a dependent whose extravagance was leading his devoted uncle to ruin. She was to learn later that Mr. Awkwright was officially the guardian of the young man of twenty-eight, the executor of his father's will, and, until he was thirty, his paymaster. It was one of those eccentric wills that elderly men make, and Tim Jordan had submitted to the indignity with exemplary patience.

Mary discovered this within an hour of knowing him. He came in a mud-spattered speed car as she was going up to dress for dinner.

Mr. Awkwright telephoned subsequently that he would not be home that night, and gave specific instructions as to the attitude she should adopt towards the visitor.

"There's no need to sit up late; he's quite capable of looking after himself. And you're not to discuss my affairs, Mary. You understand?"

She sighed. "Yes, I understand," she said.

"And don't answer any questions he puts to you about yourself."

Mary listened meekly, and went back to the dining-hall, where the young man was smoking his first after-dinner cigarette.

"May I ask you as a special favour not to let Mr. Awkwright know that you have told me the story of your gallant exploits?" she asked.

He smiled delightedly.

"Is that how it struck you? I suppose I am a boastful person. And I thought I was going to be so bored at this horrible place."

He was a personable young man; the hair at his temples was slightly grey (he had told her all about the lioness that came on him through his bungalow window). His skin was brown and clear; his eyes were bright with laughter. Tim Jordan found life a most amusing business. "When I saw this mausoleum," he went on, "my heart sank! And then out of the yawning mouth of the tomb, came light! I am going to stay here three months."

"You are going when you said you'd go--on Saturday," she said. "May I impress you again that I am one of the servants of the house, and the last instruction I received from Mr. Awkwright was that in no circumstances was I to indulge in any familiarity. So far you've been very, very good."

He lit another cigarette and looked up at the raftered ceiling.

"It's rather like living in the parish hall, isn't it? What a devil of a place to spend your life! I suppose you get it cheap? Uncle Ben must be worth a million pounds--don't look so incredulous; he's enormously rich. And I'm the only one who doesn't care two hoots where he leaves the money. Have you met any of his wife's relations? They're ghastly! She was a Brodie--has he told you that? Have you ever seen him dance the Highland Fling? He can be most abominably Scottish. All these Southern people who claim the Highlands as their home get that way. They have pipers who walk around the table--has he got a piper?"

Mary shook her head.

"He wouldn't pay him. But I'll bet he has bagpipe selections on the gramophone!"

He was the sort of man you knew at once or never knew. When he arrived he had taken her by the hand, kissed her, very coolly, claiming her as a cousin, and had done things which in other men would have been intolerable.

He looked over his shoulder at the watchful Stocker.

"Are you looking after my chauffeur?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," said Stocker. "His room is ready, but I haven't seen him. After he put the car away he went down to the village." Tim Jordan favoured him with a delightful smile.

"Then," he said, "you can put yourself away, my friend! If I want any more coffee, I'll ring for it."

Stocker retired.

"I can't abide servants who stand behind me," explained Tim. "Ever since a certain day in Umtali--but I'm boasting again. Now tell me all that my dear relative has said about me."

"There is such a thing as loyalty to one's employer," she said, and he chuckled at this.

"Don't let a little thing like that stand in your way. He's a rum old bird. I suppose he's told you that I am a poor relation? He generally does. Be respectful to me--I'm very rich--perhaps not as rich as the late Mr. Croesus, but reasonably wealthy."

"When are you going back to Africa?" she asked.

"Never," was his reply. "I've left the service. I haven't broken it to Uncle Ben, but he'll know in good time. I've got a flat in London, and I'm going to live the life of a young man about town. I went to Scotland Yard today and tried to persuade them to take me on as a commissioner. They put me straight away into the refrigerator, and I haven't thawed since."

He looked at her coldly. "By the way, do you know a man called Daney?"

He thought she hadn't heard the question, and repeated it. She was staring blankly at the panelled wall. "No, I have never heard of him," she said steadily.

"That's curious, because--"

He stopped, got up and moved noiselessly to the door. With a quick movement he pulled it open, Stocker was standing there.

"I was just coming in, sir--" he began.

"Just stay out," said Tim. He was thoughtful after that, but with little inducement went on to speak about himself. "I want to settle down to the real business of life, which is finding bad men and discovering why they're bad."

"In other words, you want to be a detective? How fascinating!"

"Don't be sarcastic," he warned her. "I have been very successful in Africa. My reputation stands at a premium. I have all the qualities of a good police officer--

"Do they include modesty?" she asked.

He shook his head. "No; modesty is a stupid affectation."

"Quite a lot of people suffer from it," she suggested.

He smiled, "Not me!"

This girl puzzled him. He thought that he had known her from the moment he had met her, as she, he guessed, knew him. But every hour in her society brought a new question-mark against his judgment. Behind her self-possession and poise he had imagined the respectable capability of the trained private secretary, but there was something more than that. She was--he pondered an exact description. "Deep" was one word, but it carried too sinister a meaning. She gave him an impression which, as a police officer, was not unfamiliar, that she was living one life and concealing another. Only, she was successful, and his earlier "clients" had failed miserably to sustain the deception.

He was an adept in the art of cross-examination.

"Yes, I have a family--a mother and a sister."

"In Scotland?"

She regarded him carefully. "No, not in Scotland. They have a house outside of London. Mother is an invalid. I saw her when I was in town."

Her lips pressed tightly together when she had finished. He knew that she had told him just as much about herself as she intended. Then suddenly, as she leaned across the table to strike a match for him, he saw something...

"That was a pretty bad cut," he said. She drew her hand back quickly and pulled down her sleeve. The scar ran from a few inches above her wrist to somewhere out of sight. He saw her face go red and white. "Yes--I cut it," she said breathlessly. "A knife slipped when I was...cutting bread. Have you any more questions?"

"I'm sorry," he said, and really was. The pink came back to her cheeks and she smiled. "Mr. Awkwright told me not to answer any questions," she said with a touch of her old flippancy. She looked at the solemn-faced clock on the mantelshelf. "I'm going to bed soon. Will you look after your chauffeur?"

"Tell me one thing," he said as she rose. "Why do you bury yourself with my fossilised relative? There must be lots of jobs--

"I suppose there are," she interrupted.

She went to the door and came back. "Do you know Mr. Awkwright very well?" she asked.

He had to confess that he had only met the old man three times in his life.

"No--practically I know nothing about him, except that he was married twice and had a child who died. I know that he's as mean as a stage, miser--"

She stopped him. "There is a lot about him that is rather wonderful," she said.

Mary went to bed soon after ten o'clock. Captain Jordan's room was three from her own, and she was falling to sleep when she heard his light footsteps pass quickly along the corridor, and the soft thud of his door as it closed. She dropped into sleep and woke again, it seemed instantly, though hours had passed.

She sat up in bed, her heart beating quickly. Something had wakened her, something that had made a bad dream which she could not remember.

She listened; there was no sound. It must have been imagination, she thought, and, recovering her breath, she slid down into the bed again. The window was slightly open; it was misty outside, and above the mist the moon was shining. She could see smoky wisps of fog coming slowly through the open casement, and was half inclined to get up and close the window. And then--

She heard distinctly a noise at her door, a confused, scrambling noise. "Who is there?" she asked.

She heard it again--not a tap, a sort of scratch and a groan.

Springing out of bed, she switched on the light, ran to the door and pulled it open. As she did so, a man fell almost into her arms.

She saw his face in the half-light, ghastly white. And then she saw, under the hand that was clasping his throat, the blood welling, and screamed.

She tried to hold him up, but he went sliding through her arms to the floor. She heard a quick patter of feet in the corridor outside, and Tim Jordan came in. He went down on his knee by the side of the man.

"How odd!" he said, in his quick, staccato way. "Jelf...my chauffeur!"

The man was fully dressed; his boots were wet and muddy.

"Can we get a doctor?" she faltered.

He shook his head.

At that moment the man opened his eyes; his gaze wandered for a while from one to the other. Finally it rested on the horrified girl. His lips parted.

"He did it!" he whispered. "The man we saved you from!"

Tim saw her wilt and caught her as she fell. He carried her out of the room and gave her into the charge of one of the women servants. When he got back to Jelf the man was dead.

Stocker, in shirt and trousers, came running in from his room below. From him Jordan borrowed an electric torch and followed the trail of blood, which ran the length of the corridor.

The trail stopped at a little door deeply recessed in the wall.

The door was unlocked and led to a private stairway, and eventually into the stable yard at the back of the house. Jordan went back to his room, dressed quickly, and followed the blood trail. It passed through an open gateway into the garden, and here it was lost in the wet soil.

Something glittered in the light of his lamp. Stooping, he picked it up. It was a small gold cigarette case, and it was open. Inside was an inscription: "To Lew, from his wife."

VI

Examining the case carefully by the light of the lantern he carried, Tim saw that one of the inner linings was loose, and inserted the point of his knife. It came back, a thin gold leaf that was hinged. Inside there were half a dozen sets of figures which he could not distinguish in the lining. At the bottom of the case was a word, "treasure." All the writing was beautifully engraved.

He fastened back the false side of the case, slipped it into his pocket and returned to the house to make a more careful examination. The figures were now obvious, in all about twelve lines.

Stocker arrived with hot coffee in time to see Tim drop the case into his pocket.

"Did you find anything, sir?" he asked. "What a terrible thing to have happened!"

"Where is Miss Grier?" asked Tim.

"She's gone into a spare room. One of the maids told me she was dressing. Did you know the man, sir?"

There was a note of anxiety in his voice for which the tragedy of the evening might have accounted.

"I've never seen him before I engaged him a couple of days ago," said Tim.

Stocker scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"I suppose he didn't by any chance make any kind of statement?" he suggested rather than asked.

"None."

"The girl who was outside the door thought she heard him speaking," insisted Stocker.

"Which girl?"

"The servant girl--the first one to get down."

"He said something which was quite indistinguishable," said Tim. Was he mistaken, or did he hear a little sigh from the stout man, and see in his eyes evidence of his relief?

"Poor Mr. Awkwright will be in a sad state when be hears about this," he said. "He doesn't like unpleasantness, and I wouldn't be surprised if this sent him to bed for a week."

"How long has Mr. Awkwright been living here?"

Stacker looked up at the raftered ceiling.

"Off and on for about four years. He took the place, went away for six months and came back again. Why, sir?"

Tim did not satisfy his curiosity. He nodded a dismissal, but Stacker lingered on; "Excuse me asking, sir, but you were the first person on the spot when this thing happened--could you tell me whether Miss Mary had her door unlocked?"

Tim stared at him.

"I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering," said Stacker.

He looked past Tim and made a movement forward.

"Can I get anything for you, miss?"

"Nothing, thank you, Stacker."

Mary Grier had come into the room, very cool, very self-possessed, and, if you could forget the pallor of her face, quite unmoved by her awful experience.

She sat down on the opposite side of the refectory table where Tim was sitting, took a cigarette from the little silver box by her elbow, and lit it. The hand that held the match did not tremble, Tim noticed.

"Yes, I think I will have some coffee, Stocker," she said.

Tim waited till the man was gone.

"You knew Jelf?"

She shook her head. "I don't remember him," she said. "I don't think that I have ever consciously seen him."

"What did he mean when he talked about the person from whom he rescued you?"

She blew a spiral of smoke across the table.

"He meant just what he said," was her quiet reply. "About three years ago I was attacked by a man, on the Kinross road. I think he was drunk." She held out her arm and bared it. "He had a knife." She touched the long cicatrice gently. "I told you I did this by accident, but it wasn't true. I hadn't the least desire to recall a very unhappy incident. If those two men hadn't been near I should have been killed, I think."

"And one of them was Jelf?" he said, in surprise.

"I don't know," she answered, and spoke truly. "It was nearly dark. The man who picked me up and brought me back to the house was--was the only one I really saw."

"Who was the man who attacked you?"

She looked down at the glowing end of her cigarette.

"I'm afraid I can't tell you. He was a stranger."

"Did you inform the police?" he asked.

There was a moment's hesitation. "No; I didn't want to get my name in the newspapers. But I should have been much happier than I am."

He looked at her in astonishment.

"It didn't strike me that you were particularly unhappy."

"Neither am I," she smiled.

"And it was the same man tonight who killed Jelf--?" began Tim.

"For God's sake don't talk about it, Captain Jordan!" she said.

Her voice broke, and he saw now something of the terror which that mask of hers hid.

"I don't want to talk about it--I won't talk about it! And if you ask me questions I'll go out of the room."

He stretched out his hand and caught hers. "Then I'm not going to ask questions," he said.

Stocker came in at that moment and served the coffee, and there was silence until he had taken his departure.

"He was very anxious to know whether your door was locked."

She nodded. "I know; he's very keen about that--my locking my door."

"Why?" he asked.

She lit another cigarette; this time her hand was trembling.

"It's horrible--horrible!" she said in a low voice. "Have the police come yet?"

"They won't be very long," he said. "They were on their way soon after I telephoned them."

She looked up at him quickly, and was about to speak, but apparently changed her mind.

"You were going to say--?"

She shook her head hesitantly, and looked at him again--a long, searching scrutiny.

"I suppose you'll think that what I'm going to ask you is rather extraordinary...you're a police officer and you won't understand...No, I won't ask you!"

"I think you'd better," said Tim quietly. "When the police come you want me not to repeat what the man said--Jelf, I mean."

Her eyes opened a little wider.

"How did you know that?" she gasped, and he laughed.

"My well-known instinct. And, anyway, it would be awkward for you if I repeated what a man said in his delirium. Perhaps some day you'll take me into your confidence."

Again she opened her lips to speak, but closed them firmly again. Then, after a pause: "Perhaps I will," she said.

One thing struck him as being curious: she made no further reference to Mr. Awkwright or to the effect this dreadful happening might have upon him. Awkwright was an elderly man; even a few years ago he had seemed decrepit; and such a shock might have the most serious consequences..

If the truth be told, Tim Jordan was in some awe of this old man, who had never shown him the least affection or friendship. Indeed, he had not concealed from his ward that he regarded his "guardianship" as one of the trials of his life.

Tim knew little about him, except that he was a secretive, suspicious man, who had odd and petty recreations--he had been a small gambler all his life. Yet he was a careful-living man, and a shrewd investor when real investments had to be made.

The police arrived as Mary was finishing her third cigarette, and there was an unpleasant hour during which she answered questions which seemed irrelevant (quite a number of them were), and reconstructed, for the enlightenment of the officers, the tragedy she had witnessed.

Jelf's body went away with the police. The doctor who came with them described the wound as having been caused by a knife used with considerable strength. The murderer must have come upon his victim from behind and stabbed him before Jelf had a chance of putting up a defence. There were no marks either on his hands or on any other part of his body.

Tim went to the door to see the last police car go, and then returned to the dining-room to find Mary lying across the table with her head on her arms, half asleep. He packed her off to bed, sending one of the maids with her, went up to his own room, had a bath, and was back in the dining-hall by five.

"No, thank you, sir," said Stocker when it was suggested he should go to bed too. "I sleep very little, and it's past five o'clock. These servants will be fit for nothing, and I had better wait up and look after things. May I suggest that you take a few hours--"

"Certainly you may," said Tim cheerfully, "and as I've given you permission I shan't return the rude answer which would otherwise be inevitable! No; as soon as it gets light, I'm going out to look round."

CHAPTER 2

I

It proved to be a misty morning, but he had no difficulty in following the trail he had traced overnight. One thing was certain: Jelf knew the house. He had found the private way in to the main floor, which he must have opened with one of the two skeleton keys that were found in his pocket when his clothes were searched.

Another discovery was that Jelf had in his possession some five hundred pounds in bank-notes, so there seemed no pressing reason why he should have accepted the job of chauffeur.

Near to where he had found the cigarette case Tim discovered a blood-stained silk handkerchief, and remembered that the "chauffeur" had had this rather conspicuously displayed in his top left-hand pocket. Here might be an explanation of the discovery of the gold case. The man had pulled out the handkerchief and pulled the case with it. It had contained three or four cigarettes, but no other clue than the engraved figures.

He could find no trail beyond the road, but, walking fifty yards, he came to a chained wicket gate which led into the cemetery. A very low wall surrounded this, and after searching up and down in a vain effort to pick up the trail, Tim jumped over the wall and wandered through the weed-grown patch amidst the mounds and crumbling stones that stood to the glory of departed generations.

He had heard about the mausoleum, and had seen it from a distance. It was a granite hut with a stone roof. How old it was he could not guess. On one side was an effaced inscription crudely cut and wholly indecipherable. The doors, however, had been more recently fitted. They were about five feet high and two and a half feet wide, and were of gunmetal. There was a brief inscription in raised letters:

"THOS. BRODIE, ESQ. AGED 70. UNIVERSALLY RESPECTED."

On the arched top of the door was a smaller inscription;

"THESE DOORS WERE ERECTED BY THE GRANDSONS OF THOS. BRODIE IN 1925, AS A MARK. OF THEIR RESPECT FOR THE MEMORY OF A GOOD MAN AND A GREAT BENEFACTOR."

The end of the tomb where the bronzed doors were was that which faced inward from the road. It must have been a family tomb; generations of Brodies must have been buried there. Tim began to understand the peculiar attraction of this gaunt house for Mr. Awkwright, a Brodie by marriage.

A high wall separated the graveyard from the grounds about the house, and, save for the wicket and the free-and-easy method of jumping the wall, there seemed to be no other entrance.

He was walking away when something attracted his attention, and, stooping, he picked up three sodden cigarettes. They were made by a London tobacconist and were not of a kind that can be usually bought at any tobacconist's shop. Moreover, they had this interest for Tim, that they were exact fellows of the cigarettes he had found in Jelf's case. They lay together as if they had been deliberately thrown down. None of them had been lit, and on each of the three he detected the little depression made by the elastic band which bisected one half of the cigarette case.

Jelf had dropped them there; he had been in the churchyard on the previous night.

Tim began a search for bloodstains, and walked the whole length of the wall, scrutinising every stone, without success.

As he walked slowly back to the house a girl came through the mist to meet him. It was Mary Grier.

"Of course I didn't go to bed!" she said scornfully. And then, in a more serious tone: "Did you find anything?"

"Nothing," he said, "except these."

He showed her the cigarettes and told her of the case he had found. She made no comment.

"You haven't found any--anybody, have you? I mean, there is no trace of the murderer?" she asked anxiously.

"No; he got away. The police are investigating in every village. It's too early for them to report, but I should imagine they'd find him."

"I hope they won't find him," she said in a low voice, and was turning away when he caught her by the arm.

"Why do you say that, Mary?"

She forced a smile.

"I don't know...hysteria, I suppose! Or possibly I have a criminal mind--I once stole seventy pounds! Don't smile--I did--seventy pounds in bank-notes out of a steel box. I was desperate--you don't know how desperate I was!"

She was overwrought, so near to hysteria that her emotion might be mistaken for the real thing; and he knew she was telling the truth. Once she had stolen seventy pounds, and the knowledge of this was an obsession. It had to be blurted out now, when her nerves were on edge and she was near to breaking point.

"You stole seventy pounds, did you?" he chuckled. "That's nothing--I once stole a thousand! We're fellow criminals, Mary, and neither of us has been found out--"

"I was." The words came jerkily. "Almost as soon as it was stolen...and there was no escape for me. I wasn't even called upon to lie."

She was breathing quickly, and when he took her arm he found she was shaking.

"Let's walk," he said authoritatively, and as she went by his side obediently, "I told you to sleep, and you didn't, and that is why you're jumpy. It is a fine morning--let us eat something!"

Nearing the house, she told him more calmly that she had telephoned the news to Mr, Awkwright, and that he was returning at once.

"I don't think I'll have any breakfast," she said. "It's very early....I really will try to sleep."

He left her at the foot of the broad stairs that led out of the cold, gloomy hall.

"I think the young lady's very wise."

Tim turned with a start; he had not seen Stocker in the shadows.

"Oh, you do, do you?" he said, and his tone was not of the friendliest. "Where did you spring from?"

"I came in after you, sir. You've been to our churchyard."

"How do you know?" asked Tim sharply.

He could not have been seen from the house for the mist was still thick.

"I followed Miss Mary when she went out, and I saw you," said Stocker coolly.

"Why did you follow her?"

The stout man smiled.

"After what happened in the night, sir, I didn't think it was very safe for the young lady to be wandering about a lonely road by herself, and I took the liberty of going after her."

There was no reply to this, Tim felt.

"Were you here some years ago, when Miss Grier was attacked on the road by a man?"

Stocker nodded.

"Yes, sir, I have always been here during the tenancy of Mr, Awkwright. I remember it very well, sir. I gave the young lady first-aid."

"Did they ever find the man who did it?"

"I can't remember," said Stocker, with a beaming smile, "but I rather imagine he escaped."

"Mr. Awkwright gave you orders to look after her, eh?"

"No, sir, Mr. Awkwright has never expressed a view on the matter."

At seven o'clock came Mr. Awkwright himself, a pallid, trembling old man with a harsh voice, eyes that glared suspiciously from Tim to the watchful Stocker, and a manner that was constitutionally antagonistic to all humanity.

"What's all this, what's all this?" He spoke rapidly and with unexpected vigour. "Bringing a chauffeur here, Jordan, and getting him murdered...in my house! What's the meaning of it? It wasn't necessary for you to come here at all: I wrote to you and told you it wasn't necessary. You could have seen my lawyers in town. If you hadn't come this wouldn't have happened. Where is Miss Grier?"

"She's lying down, sir," said Stocker.

"Get her--I want her; I have some very important letters to write."

"And she has some very important sleep to get," said Tim coolly. "Dictate 'em to me. I write a fairish kind of shorthand."

The old man scowled at him, hesitated, and then: "Come into my study," he said.

Tim followed him along the corridor into the untidy room.

Its only title to the description the old man gave of it was that here he studied the form of thoroughbred racehorses.

Tim was puzzled. Benjamin Awkwright was acting; he was certain of it from the moment the old man had come into the house and begun snapping his questions and comments. Why was he acting? What had he to conceal? All this bullying, hectoring manner of his was put on for the occasion; the real Mr. Awkwright was betrayed by the white face, the quivering hands, and the pathetic droop of his mouth.

"Sit down, Jordan," said the old man, and dropped into his own comfortable desk chair with a groan. "I'm sorry this thing has happened, but it can't be helped. I suppose you've no idea who killed your man?"

"None," said Tim.

"Did it happen in the house?"

Tim shook his head.

"No; on the road. It seems a senseless sort of murder. I haven't told the police, but before he died Jelf said that he had been stabbed by the same man who attacked Miss Grier."

"What?"

Old Awkwright came to his feet, glaring at the young man.

The colour of his face had become suddenly livid. In his wide-open eyes was a horror he could not conceal.

"That's a lie!" he quavered. "She didn't tell me that--and she would have told me!"

As suddenly as he rose he collapsed over the desk. Tim thought he had fainted, but he waved away all offers of assistance.

"I'm all right," he mumbled. "Indigestion....Sit down, sit down, Jordan."

He seemed to have shrunk. His face, entirely colourless, appeared even more shrivelled.

"Tell me all about it. Don't mind me, Jordan. I'm rather upset this morning. At my age...being called out of bed with this dreadful news."

Tim Jordan told the story briefly, and the old man listened without interruption.

"You know nothing about this man Jelf?" he quavered at the finish of Tim's narrative. "Who he was, where he came from? Why did you engage the man? Why did you bring him here? It's the sort of thing you've done all your life. You haven't considered me in the least...thoughtless, selfish!"

He was working himself up to a fury, but behind his anger was fear, an anguish of mind which he could not conceal. Tim recognised, too, the antagonism that the old man had always shown to him.

"I wish to God I'd never seen you or heard of you!" he went on violently. "Why did your father burden me with your affairs? I'm going to put an end to it. My lawyers will settle with you!"

Tim was staggered by his vehemence, though he could understand that his guardian was temporarily knocked over by the dreadful thing which had happened in his house.

The old mouth drooped even more pathetically.

"I hate this country, I hate this house. God hasn't been good to me! Life has been a curse to me..."

Tim made his escape, and the broken old man did not notice he had gone.

He strolled out into the garden, if garden it could be called, walked along the front of the house, and came to the big door of the chapel garage. It was detached from the house, a high-walled building with mullioned windows that once had held priceless specimens of stained glass. The structure was a very old one; the granite walls had weathered and in places were covered with ivy.

He walked all round the building and came back to the big door, where to his surprise he found Stocker.

"A queer old place, sir." Stocker beamed at him. "It goes back to the twelfth century, so they say. There used to be a castle here...." He became descriptive.

"What is inside?" asked Tim, stopping the flow of garbled history.

Stocker put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a key and, thrusting it into the lock, turned it and pulled open one of the leaves of the two doors. Tim walked in. He had expected to find an untidy litter of old tyres, petrol tins and spare parts, but the interior of the garage was in a remarkable state of orderliness.

There were two cars--a big roadster, covered by a waterproof sheet, and a smaller machine--and a powerful-looking farm tractor on caterpillar wheels.

"Where is Jelf's machine?" he asked.

"He took it to the village, sir, Mr. Ledbetter is rather particular about strange cars being garaged here. We once had a fire, or nearly had a fire, as the result of a chauffeur's carelessness."

"Whose car is that?" Tim pointed to the big roadster under the cover.

"Mr. Ledbetter's, sir. He does a lot of motoring when he's at home. The smaller one belongs to Mr. Awkwright."

"And the tractor?"

Stocker smiled.

"That is ours, sir. We intended farming some land--we have got about a hundred acres--and Mr. Ledbetter purchased the tractor, and then changed his mind."

Tim examined the powerful machine carelessly. Behind the driver's seat, and hanging to the back of the car, was a coil of steel rope. The machine had done very little work: there was no sign of clay or mud on the caterpillar; and he questioned the butler.

"No, sir, it has never been on the field. I wanted Mr. Ledbetter to sell it, but he's rather peculiar; he never sells things he has purchased. In fact, he has refused a very large offer for the house--much more than it's worth. I notice you're looking at the padlock and chain. That is another of Mr. Ledbetter's peculiarities. He doesn't like things used until he has decided how they can be used."

"So that if you wanted to take the tractor out you couldn't?"

"We never wish to take the tractor out--I know nothing of agriculture."

Tim came out of the garage, apparently unimpressed. Unless Mr. Ledbetter had been in the house very recently, Stocker was lying; for on the solid stone floor there was a distinct mark of a track which had been recently made.

Tim Jordan had hoped to leave Clench House a few days after his arrival, but the death of Jelf involved an inquiry, at which he had to give evidence.

He saw very little of Mary the first day. The three of them dined together almost in silence, Mr. Awkwright glowering at the girl every time she attempted to make conversation. After dinner he took her away to his study, and Tim gave up hope of seeing her again that night; but just as he was thinking of going to bed she returned, looking very tired. Looking at her closely, he saw that she had been crying. She might have used all manner of methods to hide the fact, but they did not deceive him.

She had something to say to him; he realised that she had come back for that purpose when she moved her position from the end of the table and sat opposite to him.

"Captain Jordan, Mr. Awkwright says that the inquiry will be ended, as far as you're concerned, the day after tomorrow, Are you going back to London?"

"Yes," he said, in surprise, "but I thought I should be here a week."

She shook her head. "Mr. Awkwright thinks that it can be arranged for your evidence to be taken."

"Does he want to get rid of me?" he asked bluntly.

"Don't you want to go?" she countered. "You ought to be very happy! If I could only--" She stopped suddenly.

"If you could only go? Why don't you?"

She drew a quick breath. "Don't be absurd. Why should I want to go?"

She took out of the little bag which lay before her a slip of paper. "When you get back to London will you have your solicitors see Mr. Awkwright's and arrange the transfer of your money? He is very anxious to--" She hesitated for a word.

"Get rid of me?" he suggested, and she smiled faintly.

"Something like that."

She looked at him for a long time.

"Are you going to tell me?" he asked gently, and she started.

"Tell you what? There is nothing to tell."

"There's a lot to tell," he said; "but at the moment you feel you can't, eh?"

She rose abruptly. "I wish you'd go back to London," she said. "I'm serious. You can't do any good here, and I feel your presence is worrying Mr. Awkwright."

"Worrying you?" he asked.

There was a little pause.

"Yes"--almost defiantly. "It does worry me a little."

"But why?"

She either could not or would not answer this.

"Are you expecting another murder?"

It was a stupid question to put--a little cruel. The effect upon her was remarkable. Her face went whiter than it had been.

"How can you say that?" she asked, and, turning quickly, almost ran out of the room.

Tim Jordan was puzzled. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he had suddenly turned over a stone and seen all manner, of strange, creeping things that the imagination of man had never conceived.

What was the girl doing in all this? Who was the man who had once wounded her? Stacker could tell, but he recognised the futility of questioning the butler. It would be better, perhaps, to follow her advice and take his belongings to the nearest inn, for he realised that it was not so desirable that he should return to London as it was that he should leave the house.

The inquiry would take two or three days, but he would be able to contribute very little to the sum of information which the police had, and already they were in possession of the vital facts..

That night when he went to bed he locked the door, which was an unusual proceeding on his part. But there was no interruption to his slumbers. When he woke the sun was shining through his window, and, dressing, he went downstairs and out through the garden on to the road.

On the previous afternoon he had handed over to the police the gold cigarette case, but he had only done this after he had been into the village, discovered a photographer, and had the inscription carefully photographed. He had made no mention of the cigarettes he had found in the graveyard; they were his own private clue. He had made up his mind to work independently of the official investigators, but was still in some dilemma as to where and how he should start.

He examined the enlarged print he had secured, but found no inspiration there. When he came back to the house after his walk, Stocker had laid a solitary breakfast on the long refectory table. That stout man was very cheerful.

"Have you found anything, sir?"

It irritated Tim that the man should assume he was in search of information.

"Why should I find anything?"

"I thought you were unusually interested in the case, sir. Naturally, being a police officer, you would be interested. My own opinion is that the murder was committed by a tramp. There have been some pretty bad characters about here lately."

"That's fairly obvious, isn't it?" said Tim dryly. "One of them was a murderer. Did you know Jelf?"

"Jelf? You mean the unfortunate man? No, sir, I have never seen him before. In fact, I didn't see him at all. He spoke to one of the kitchen-maids, and took his car down to the village before I could see him."

"You didn't by any chance go into the village?"

"No, sir."

Tim smiled.

"If I told you that you were seen a few hundred yards from here just after dark, quarrelling with Jelf, what would you say? You were seen by two people. I think it is only fair to tell you that that is the information which the police have and which they communicated to me last night."

Stocker was in no sense perturbed.

"Was that the fellow?" he said coolly. "I certainly did have a slight disagreement with a man I met quite by accident. He was rather drunk. I thought he was a local. So that was Mr. Jelf!"

Visibly he was not put out by the news, but Tim detected a sort of tightening-up of his caution. There was an indefinable change both in his attitude and in his speech. He still preserved the appearance of carelessness. Actually, Tim saw, he was alert, with all his defences set against surprise.

"It only shows you how perfectly innocent people can be implicated," he said. "The man knocked against me as I was walking back to the house--I invariably take a little constitutional before turning in. I tried to avoid him, but he was intent upon picking a quarrel. I admit he annoyed me. I probably said things to him which in the circumstances I now regret. Eventually he went on his way, and I returned to the house. So that was Jelf!" he repeated for the third time. "I had never connected him with the unfortunate man who was murdered."

"What time was this?" asked Jordan.

Stocker looked up at the ceiling.

"It must have been nearly eleven o'clock. It was just after you had gone to bed," he said.

When the police came later they interrogated Stocker, and seemed satisfied with the explanation he offered. It had some support from other information they had received. Jelf had spent the evening at a little public-house, where he drank, spirits and was indeed inclined to be quarrelsome.

The day was a particularly dull one for Tiger Tim Jordan.

He lunched alone and did not see Mary Grier until late in the afternoon. She spent most of the day behind the closed door of Mr. Awkwright's study. Apparently he was a man who had a great deal of business, for Tim heard a typewriter going every time he paced past the study window in the hope of catching a glimpse of her.

The Chief Constable came with the police, and Tim was told there would be no objection made if he left, providing he was prepared to return to give evidence at the adjourned inquest.

Jelf had given him a London address, which his employer had passed on to Scotland Yard, but here they drew blank. It was a little furnished room in South London, which the man had not occupied for a week. A search of his few belongings gave no other clue to his identity.

Tim was coming away from the telephone in the hall when he saw the girl. She was hurrying towards the foot of the stairs, and was apparently not particularly anxious to see him, for she would have passed on with a nod, but he stood squarely in her way.

"When am I going to see you?" he asked.

"I don't know; I am rather busy."

She was looking very tired, and he had not the heart to force his company upon her, but returned to the solitude of the drawing-room. He had not been there very long when Stocker came in.

"There's a 'phone message for you, sir."

"Is it the police?"

"No, I don't think so, sir. The lady wouldn't tell me her name."

"A lady?"

He got up quickly and went out into the hall. Somebody asked him in a low voice if he was Captain Jordan, and when he replied in the affirmative: "Can I see you?"

"Who is it?" he asked. The voice was familiar, but for the moment he could not place it.

"Mrs. Daney. Could you come along the Glasgow road? You'll find my car waiting for you. I think I have something very interesting to tell you."

He hesitated.

"All right," he said at last, 'I'll be with you. How far must I go before I meet you?"

"Not far," said the voice, and there came the click of the receiver as she hung up.

Jelf's car was in the hands of the police, but the garage proprietors, realising Jordan's predicament, had offered to hire him a car whenever he wanted one. He telephoned them, and in ten minutes a car was at the door. He had to go five miles, and on the outskirts of a little village he came upon a big coupe drawn up on the verge of the road. He stopped his own machine, got out and walked the fifty yards which separated them.

Mrs. Daney sat at the wheel. Even in the hard light of day she was a pretty woman, though she was much older than he had thought at their first meeting.

She opened the door.

"Come inside," she said.

She glanced back through the window at the back of the hood. "Your chauffeur will wait?"

He nodded.

"A man has been murdered here--a man called Jelf, isn't it? Do you know him? His real name is Jaffrey."

"How do you know?" he asked quickly.

"Because I have seen him." Her voice was perfectly calm. "It was rather beastly, but the police let me see him. I told them I might be able to identify him. Walter Jaffrey. He was one of my husband's gang. He was in the Mersey job. Lew quarrelled with him. Jaffrey couldn't go straight and Lew fired him. He used to be in charge of the get-away car. I warned Lew against him."

"Why have you come up here?" he asked bluntly.

"I am rather anxious to meet Lew," she said. "I want to give him one more chance. I knew that where Mary Grier was. Lew would be."

"Are you suggesting that your husband killed this man?"

She smiled contemptuously and shook her head. "Ask Mary Grier who killed him. She knows!"

CHAPTER 3

I

"Do you really hate her as much as that?" he asked.

She looked at him for a while and then laughed. "I don't hate anybody very much--except Lew, and I couldn't tell you why I hated him without giving you material for your reminiscences that you wouldn't be able to use--not if they were published by a respectable newspaper."

She leaned forward, touched a spring in the dashboard, and a little panel dropped. Behind he saw cigarettes in a deep crystal receptacle. Evidently this lady smoked incessantly, for her store was a large one. She took a cigarette, lit it and snapped back the panel, Tim stretched out his hand.

"I'm sorry." She touched the spring again. "Help yourself."

"May I take two?"

"Twenty-two if you wish. They're not the ordinary brand, so don't look at them so critically. They cost quite a lot of money. Lew is rather lavish in these matters."

He put one in his cigarette case and lit the other. They were exactly the same brand as he had found in the graveyard and in the case he had picked up on the road.

"I'm going through with this business of Lew," she went on; "not really because I'm jealous, but because he's humiliated me. I tried to kill him once, but the gun misfired. When you meet him he'll tell you all about it."

He was looking at her with interest. She was pretty, a little hard, immensely sophisticated; her eyes had the colour and the hardness of sapphires. She was expensively dressed, and paid for it; she had a perfect figure. The car in which they sat was a Phantom Rolls of the newest type. On one ungloved hand sparkled a blue diamond which he calculated at ten carats, and worth 2,000. Suddenly; "How much do you know?" she asked.

"About what?'

"About Mary Grier. By the way, is she pretty?"

"Haven't you seen her?" he asked, in surprise.

She shook her head.

"I am not really curious about her. Is she pretty?"

"Yes," he said, with enthusiasm, and she laughed softly.

"Do you know a lot about her?"

"No--practically nothing."

"You're Tiger Tim Jordan, aren't you? Lew used to be very interested in you; he heard a lot about you in Africa, and avoided you. I'm not so sure he ever came into your country." She looked at him with calm, amused eyes. "You're in love with her--how amusing! You and Lew in love with the same woman!"

She leaned back in the cushioned seat and laughed softly.

"I'm glad," she said. "That will give you a little zest--forgive me if I talk somewhat pedantically. I had a University education, and English was my long suit. I'm almost tempted to tell you, but on the whole I think I'd better leave you to make your own discoveries--perhaps you'll get more fun out of it!"

Then suddenly her calm, insolent tone changed to one of great earnestness.

"Have you any idea at all why Jelf came up here? You brought him up as your chauffeur, but I gather from what I read in the Glasgow newspapers that you knew nothing about this man. His name is--well, I've told you that. Why did he want to come to Clench House? That is worrying me a little bit."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that he wouldn't have come to Clench House if he thought Lew was within a hundred miles--but it wasn't Lew who killed him. Lew shoots; that's his weakness--a quick draw and a straight shot. He never uses a knife. It must be the other man."

"Which other man?" asked Tim.

She did not speak for a while; she was staring straight through the windscreen, oblivious of his presence.

"I'm going to Glasgow," she said suddenly, and gave him the name of her hotel. "Will you get me on the wire if anything happens?"

When she looked at him he was smiling.

"You're amused?"

"Very," he said. "Perhaps you will explain why I should go to any trouble to keep you posted--you, who are the wife of a man wanted for murder and robbery?"

"Perhaps you will explain," she mimicked, "why I am taking all this trouble to keep you informed and to save your life? You can take the smile off your face, because I'm serious. I'll tell you. I came to you in London in a fit of pique. I was hating Lew, and I wanted to get even with him. I had heard a lot about you, but I had no idea you were so"--she hesitated for a word--"nice, shall I say? I'm rather an impulsive person: I like people or loathe them the first time I meet them. I rather like you."

Those blue eyes of hers looked straight at him. There was a queer little smile on the hard mouth.

"So I killed two birds with one stone."

"I being the second bird?"

"Exactly," she said.

She leaned across and pushed open the door.

"Now you can go."

As he moved she stooped and caught him by the arm.

"You can kiss me if you like," she said.

He chuckled.

"Get thee behind me, Satan!"

He got down on to the road and slammed the door.

"Scared?" she mocked.

"Frightened to death," said Tim. "On you go to Glasgow before you turn my head!"

She waved her hand to him.

"Good-bye, Sir Galahad!"

He stood in the roadway, watching the car until it was a speck on the long stretch of road. Then he went back to his hired car, and he was a very thoughtful man.

It was a new experience to him. Women had betrayed their men before, but betrayed them in a fit of screaming rage. That kind of squeal was part of a policeman's day's work. But he had never before come upon the cold-blooded betrayer, the woman who, calculating all the consequences, and in no fit of anger, but coolly and deliberately, planned to send her man to the scaffold. His offence must have been very great. Yet jealousy could not wholly explain her attitude.

There was only one possible explanation, namely, that she was working in conjunction with the man she professed to hate, and was using that pretext to get into Tim Jordan's confidence.

He knew little of Lew Daney, except that he was a brilliant workman. It would be unusual for a man of his type to draw attention to and cast suspicion upon himself in connection with so serious a crime as the killing of Jelf.

When he returned to the house he put a trunk call through to London, and found Chief Constable Cowley, whom he knew slightly. To him he stated most of the facts of the case.

"The Jelf murder? No, we haven't been called in. We've had his finger-prints down here and identified him. He's a man named Jaffrey; he had two convictions and was a clever cracksman."

"Do you know Lew Daney?" asked Tim..

He heard a gasp of surprise.

"Lew Daney? Is he back in England? The last we heard of him he was in South Africa. I know Lew all right," added the Chief Constable grimly. "By the way, did you meet him in South Africa?" And, when Tim answered in the negative: "Or his wife? A pretty girl."

"Yes, I've met her," said Tim dryly.

"Then keep her well away from you!" said Cowley. "Or you're going to be involved in something more serious than a divorce case. She's got a playful habit of betraying her husband for six months in the year and being terribly penitent about it for the other six. And the people she betrays him to are usually very sorry for themselves."

He gave a brief description of Mrs. Daney which was not particularly flattering to her private character.

Tim went up to his room to write in the newest details of the case. It was his practice to keep a sort of case-book; in this he would enter the most minute details in connection with any crime which interested him, even though he might not himself be engaged in its investigation.

Mrs. Daney baffled him. But she brought contact with the unknown, and in this case the unknown was her own private life and her peculiar association with the mysterious Lew Daney.

He had intended to ask Scotland Yard to furnish him with a photograph of the man and further details about his life, but this omission did not make a great deal of difference, for not only were Scotland Yard without the photograph and particulars he required, but they themselves had spent many years of fruitless inquiry to secure the data.

Happening to glance out of the window as he was blotting the last page of his notes, he saw Mary Grier walking alone in the garden. He was turning from the window when he thought lie saw something move behind a high box hedge at the other end of the garden. He looked carefully, and presently saw a thin spiral of smoke come up. He was downstairs in a few seconds, and in the garden. Mary was out of sight from where he stood, but the box hedge was within a dozen yards, and crossing quickly and noiselessly, he came round the corner....

It was Stocker. From the corner of his mouth drooped a long cigar; his hands were thrust unprofessionally into his pockets, and on his large face was a deep frown. He started as Tim came into sight, took his hands out of his pockets and removed his cigar.

"Having a little smoke before dinner, sir," he said good-humouredly.

"And keeping an eye on Miss Grier?" suggested Tim.

The man nodded. "And keeping an eye on Miss Grier," he repeated. "I don't like the young lady to be out of the house alone when night's coming on."

"Is this Mr. Awkwright's idea?" asked Tim.

The butler shook his head. "No, sir, it's my idea. May I smoke?"

Tim nodded, and Stocker returned the cigar to the corner of his mouth.

"I'm a pretty good watcher," he said. "I ought to have been a detective."

"We shall have to make you one," said Tim, catching his humour, but Stocker shook his head.

"I don't think so, sir. I'm too honest to join the police."

"You're talking like an old lag," said Tim, and Stocker beamed.

"That's good--so I am. If I was a detective," he went on, "I'd spend my life doing good. Fancy me saying that, sir! What I meant was, I'd give a tip to people who were doing the wrong thing."

"You had much better pinch them," said Tim, amused.

"Do you think so, sir? I doubt it. What I was thinking of at the moment was law-abiding people--police officers and what not."

"You'd give me advice, would you? And what would it be?"

Stocker took the cigar out of his mouth, looked at the ash critically and returned the stub to between his teeth.

"I'd advise them to be very careful of the kind of yarns they hear. Because a lady drives a big Rolls-Royce she isn't necessarily a--lady! The particular female I have in my mind, sir, is about as safe as a wild-cat."

"You followed me this afternoon, did you?"

"Fancy your guessing that!"

His face was a mask; but for the twinkle in his eyes one might not have suspected his sarcasm.

"In a sense I did follow you. I was on the luggage grid of the car you hired, and a very uncomfortable ride it was!"

"Why did you follow me?" asked Tim quietly.

Stacker's eyebrows went up, and he sighed.

"A breath of fresh air does nobody any harm. I took the liberty, sir, of stealing a ride."

"You know the lady, do you?"

"By reputation," said Stocker. "Excuse me, sir, but I'll just go and see what the young lady is doing."

"I'll save you the trouble," said Tim.

He found the girl at the far end of the garden. The evening was chilly; she wore a heavy cloth coat, and apparently resented his intrusion into her solitary meditations, for she gave him no encouragement to stay, and, after an abortive attempt to make conversation, announced her intention of returning to the house.

He fell in by her side.

"Why are you so infernally unfriendly?" he asked.

"Am I? I don't intend to be."

"What is really the trouble?" he demanded. "Is it the--man?"

She looked at him quickly.

"Which man?"

It was not the moment to seek her confidence.

"Any man," he said recklessly. "Me, Stocker, Awkwright--"

She smiled faintly.

"Poor Stocker! Does he come into it?"

He tried to detain her in the hall, but she made an excuse and went up to her room, and he prepared for another evening if loneliness, and was agreeably surprised, when he came down lo dinner, to find Mr. Awkwright sitting at the head of the table, with the girl on his right. Mr. Awkwright was morose, a little snappy, but before the dinner was halfway through he had thawed a little, and condescended to speak about his hobby; for he made no secret of his strange weakness.

Tim was amazed to learn how much this old man knew about horses and jockeys, the peculiarities of trainers, the eccentricities of certain well-known thoroughbreds. From where Tim sat he commanded a view of two doors, one leading to the hall, the other into the servery; and throughout the meal he had an opportunity of watching the butler.

Stocker, in his duty moments, was a highly trained servant. He had all the benevolence of the old family retainer, and conveyed a sense of comforting efficiency. Once or twice Tim tried to catch his eye, but failed. Stocker's stolid gaze was always fixed elsewhere, though Tim could have sworn that the man had been watching him.

He had set the finger-bowls and plates, and put the fruit on the table, and was turning away when Mr. Awkwright called him.

"Stocker, who was that strange man in the burial field this evening?"

Stocker came round quickly.

"I didn't see any strange man. What was he like?" he asked sharply.

It was so unlike his usual tone that the girl looked up at him in surprise. Instantly he regained his old manner.

"One of the detectives, I expect, sir."

"There have been no detectives here this afternoon," said the girl.

"Or Captain Jordan."

"Rubbish!" said the old man impatiently. "Don't you think I should know Captain Jordan if I saw him? This man came in a small car, got out near the gate and jumped over the wall. He was near the big tomb."

Stocker's eyebrows met in a frown.

"How long was he there, sir?"

"Not five minutes. He went back to the car and drove on past the house. I saw him from the bay of my window."

"Tall?"

"Yes, he was tall. I thought it was the fellow who was staying with you last autumn--your friend from London."

Tim saw the girl's head jerk up and her anxious eyes meet Stocker's.

"You didn't see the car by any chance, did you, sir?" asked Stocker. "Was it a two-seater?"

The old man nodded impatiently.

"I suppose it was."

Stocker was no longer smiling. Throughout the rest of the meal there was no evidence of his mechanical geniality. His face was tense; behind those dark eyes he was doing some rapid thinking, Tim decided. Who was the mysterious visitor of the butler's in whom Mary was more than ordinarily interested?

Clench House was beginning to get on his nerves; but even as he situation grew more and more confused, so grew his determination to stay and see the thing through.

They came to coffee. Mr. Awkwright became almost garrulous as he pursued his favourite topic. As for Mary, she said not a word, but sat very upright, her hands on her lap, her eyes seldom raised from the table. Once or twice Tim noticed the old man's eyes stray to her, and there was in his expression a hint of anxiety.

Tim had asked for some more coffee, and the butler was placing a clean cup for him, when there was a commotion in the hall outside, a hubbub of noise, dominated by one harsh, strident voice.

Stocker was on the side of the table farthest from the door. He had to make a complete circuit before he reached it.

Swiftly he moved, but not fast enough. The door flung open, and there staggered in a tall, gaunt woman. Her face was flushed, her speech was thick. She stood with her hands on her hips, scowling at the company.

"Well, here you are!" she almost shouted. "And here I am. Don't come near me, Stocker, or I'll break your face!"

Her voice was harsh; there was a suggestion of Cockney in it. From her physique Tim supposed that she was quite capable of carrying her threat into effect, and indeed, when Stocker gripped her by the arm, she wrenched herself free and struck him a blow o0n the chest that sent him backwards.

Mary, pale as death, had risen and faced the woman, her hands behind her gripping the edge of the table. Old Awkwright was standing, bent forward, his lined face working.

"You didn't expect to see me, did you? I've come to tell you I'm finished! I'm going back to London by tonight's train! It's a dog's life I'm living! You, young woman, do your own dirty work, d'ye hear? I've had enough of it. I'm going--"

At that moment Stocker leapt at her, grasped her by the shoulder with a powerful grip, and with his other big hand covered her mouth. He lifted her as though she were a child, half carried, half flung her from the room, and slammed the door behind them. Tim heard the muffled screams of the virago and made for the door, but suddenly his arm was caught.

"Don't go--please don't go! Stay here!"

Mary was clinging to him; her pitiful face was the colour of chalk.

"Help Mr. Awkwright."

The old man had sunk down into his chair and was lying across the table, his head on his arm. Tim thought he had collapsed, but at the girl's words he raised his face and turned it slowly in the direction of the closed door. The noise outside had subsided, but Stocker did not come back.

"A drunken pensioner of mine," said the old man, in a high, shaky voice. "Now, Mary, I think we will have family prayers. I don't think my nephew has assisted at our homely little service...."

CHAPTER 4

I

IT was in the study that these three strangely different people knelt at their most unreal devotions. To Tim it seemed like an odd sort of dream.

The girl followed him into the hall at the conclusion.

"Thank you for being so nice," she said under her breath.

"Are you going to tell me?" he asked in the same tone.

She shook her head.

"Is there any especial reason why you should keep other people's secrets?"

"It's my secret," she answered. "Come into the dining-room. The maids will have cleared away, and we can smoke."

"And talk?" he suggested.

"And talk," she nodded, "but we will keep to safe subjects."

He could only admire the amazing grip she had on herself. The colour had come back to her cheeks; she could laugh at some little jest of his as though she had not a care in the world. "You're wonderful."

"Am I?" The red lips curled. "I'm glad I'm wonderful to somebody. You'll carry a curious memory of us back to Africa, Captain Jordan."

"My name is Tim," he suggested.

"Tim? Yes; it is more familiar than most names, isn't it? But you will try to think well of us?"

"I'm not going back to Africa. As a matter of fact, I am taking a suite at the Carlton and I'm staying there until London bores me. When London bores me I'm coming to Clench House."

She shook her head.

"Oh, yes, I am," he went on. "There is a real mystery here--probably half a dozen."

She smiled at this.

"Every day brings a new one?"

"Almost," he said.

She spoke prophetically, for after she had gone he went up to his room, to make an important discovery. The window was wide open. When he switched on the light he saw that every drawer in the bureau had been pulled out and the contents thrown on the bed. His suitcase had been broken open, though there was no necessity, but the thief had probably thought it was locked.

He rang the bell, and when the maid eventually came--the service at Clench House was not very good--he sent for Stocker.

"I think Mr. Stocker is away, sir," said the little Scottish maid who answered the summons, "but I'll see."

A few minutes after she left Stocker came in. He was a little dishevelled; his white shirt front was crumpled and stained, and there was a scratch on his face which he had treated with iodine within the last few minutes.

Evidently he expected to be questioned about the woman, for he began: "She's a drunken--"

And then his eyes fell upon the disorder. "What's this, sir?"

"That's what I want to know. It must have happened when we were at dinner."

Stocker went to the window and looked down.

"There's a ladder here," he said. "Have you lost anything?"

"I can't tell you yet." Tim was looking round the room, and after a while he missed something. It was his notebook.

"Is there anything valuable in it?" asked Stocker anxiously.

"Nothing. Just an account of this Jelf business."

The butler opened the doors of the long wardrobe, looked under the bed, and, showing a surprising agility, got through the window and descended the ladder to the ground.

"Do you want a light?"

"I've got one, sir."

The beam of an electric lamp played on the ground. Tim saw him cross the lawn, following some trail. After a while he came back and ascended to the room.

"He was looking for something. It wasn't an ordinary ladder larceny. Do you notice all your pockets are turned inside out? Are you sure you've missed nothing else?"

Tim shook his head.

"What's this?"

Stocker picked up a newspaper cutting from the dressing-table, read it, and passed it without a word to Captain Jordan.

"The only clue the murderer left was a gold cigarette case, inscribed 'To Lew from his wife.' It was found by a visitor who happened to be staying with Mr. Awkwright."

"Did you find a cigarette case?" demanded Stacker.

"Yes; I handed it to the police."

"'To Lew from his wife,'" repeated Stocker, and pursed his lips. "That's queer!"

"Do you know him?" asked Tim.

Stocker did not answer.

"Your name wasn't mentioned. He wouldn't come here. I'll take my oath he hasn't been in the house before. Let's try the other rooms." Then, as a thought struck him: "Did you leave a light on when you came to dinner?"

Tim nodded.

"Oh, that explains it! Of course, he knew you were the visitor by your suitcases. Excuse me, sir."

He went down to the domestic quarters. Tim met him in the hall. "One of the maids says that a man asked her who was staying at the house. She didn't know your name, but she told him you were Mr. Awkwright's nephew. That must have been while we were out this afternoon, Captain Jordan. What was the cigarette case like?"

Tim described it. It was evidently not unfamiliar to Stocker, for, when the description was finished: "That sounds like it," he said.

"Let me put it to you fairly and squarely, Stocker: do you know Lew Daney?"

"There are very few people I don't know," said Stocker, with his broadest smile, "and there are fewer people that I ever talk about."

"Stocker, have you any idea, who the man was who ransacked my room?"

"Not the least idea in the world--and for once in my life I am telling the truth," said Stocker.

At eleven o'clock that night the house was silent, and Tim, who had read all the Scottish newspapers and a month-old illustrated journal, went up to bed, and never felt less like sleeping. He did not undress, but, drawing the heavy curtains, he switched on the light and lay on the bed. The maids had tidied his room, repacked his belongings, and Stocker had even provided a spare suitcase to replace the one which had been destroyed.

London and the Carlton were very attractive prospects to him at that moment. He wanted to get away from this dull, grim place of death, and if it were not for Mary...

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up with a grin. He was not an impressionable man. Women had come into and gone from his life without leaving any very definite impressions. Some of them had been beautiful; most of them interesting; but none had had quite the same effect on him as this secretary of Uncle Benjamin's.

It was a strange life she was living; but weren't there thousands and tens of thousands of girls similarly circumstanced, who were living in greater discomfort of mind and body? Service meant--service, with all its attendant discomforts and humiliations, and Mary Grier, he told himself, was in no different position from that of any other girl who depended for her livelihood upon the caprices of a crotchety employer.

He heard the hall clock strike the half-hour, and was even wider awake than he had been when he came upstairs. Slipping into his shoes, he took a small, flat electric torch from the top of the bureau, pulled on an overcoat and a hat, and, going softly out of the room, lit his way down the stairs to the main door. To his surprise, it was neither locked nor barred, though Mary had told him that this was one of the most rigid of Mr. Awkwright's rules.

He opened the door, went out and closed it behind him. It was a bright night, rather chilly; the sky was clear and full of stars. At the back of the house from the road he could see no lights. It would be rather awkward, he realised, if Stocker came down and locked and barred the door in his absence. It would mean either that he would have to arouse the household or spend the night in the open. The latter experience, however, would have no terrors for him. He did not feel in the least tired, and when he had lit his pipe he had a feeling of contentment which he had not experienced since he had come to Clench House.

He strode along the road, passing the house on the right. He saw the grey gleam of granite where the old churchyard was; beyond that on the right ran a thin plantation of trees, separated from the road by a shallow ditch. It was, he had gathered from the girl, part of Mr. Awkwright's demesne. It seemed much more dense by night that it had by day.

About a hundred yards from the stone wall of the yard a narrow cart-track ran from the road through the wood to the low hills beyond.

He took his flash-lamp from his pocket and sent the light along the lane. There was nobody in sight. Acting on an impulse, he turned off and followed the track through the wood.

It ran straight for a hundred yards to where the trees finished, then turned left. Beyond lay a stretch of land which at some remote time must have been under cultivation, for he could see where the ancient furrows ran.

No sound broke the stillness except the screech of a distant owl. He put his light on the field and startled a hare that had been crouching in the furrow at his approach. For a little time it lay quivering, its big, dark eyes staring at the light, and then, with an odd sound, turned and leapt into the darkness.

He came back to the cart track, and had turned again into the wood when at the other end of the lane he saw two dim lights show, and heard the purring of a motor-car. He stood, waiting. The lights disappeared; in their place shone the red tail-lamp of a machine that was backing towards him.

It might be a police car, he thought, for just now the county police were very active, though there seemed no reason why they should park so far from the house. Then the red light went out and he heard a door close softly.

By the time he came up to the car its occupant had gone. It bore a London number and was a coupe of an expensive make.

The machine was covered with dust, and there was mud on the wheels. He put his lamp inside, but found nothing that gave him the least clue to the identity of the owner.

He hurried to the road; the driver had vanished. Walking back, he examined the machine again. Evidently it was not a police car. He looked at the speedometer and found that it had registered twelve thousand miles, though there was nothing to indicate the extent of its more recent journey.

This was only a minor piece in the jig-saw puzzle of Clench House. The bigger piece might be that drunken woman who had come into the house that night, and had been so unceremoniously ejected by Stocker; though for the moment the most baffling of all things was Mary Grier herself.

What was the mystery of that cut on her arm? Where had she met Jelf before? Who was the "other man" who had killed the chauffeur? Then it struck him that the other man might have been this very mysterious driver who had arrived in the dead of night and hidden his car in the wood.

He quickened his pace; as he did so he heard the whirr of a motor-car engine coming from the grounds of the house. Keeping close to the wall, he moved forward cautiously. Then he heard a voice; it was Mr. Awkwright's.

"Wrap yourself up well, my dear. Have you got a rug, Stocker?"

"Yes, sir," said Stacker's voice.

The motor-car door slammed, and through the open gate of the drive came the big car which he had seen in the garage.

Stocker was at the wheel, a cigar between his teeth. He could not distinguish either Mary Grier or the old man. The car swung round and passed him, its speed increasing. For a moment he was tempted to run back to where the stranger's car was parked, and follow, but changed his mind.

Stocker, Mr. Awkwright and Mary Grier--where was the mysterious fourth?

He went down the drive, keeping to the untidy grass verge, and, turning a corner, came into view of the gaunt garage.

Near at hand was the flight of stone steps up which the dying Jelf had staggered. He went up cautiously; the door at the head was locked.

There was another car, he remembered, a smaller one, which the girl drove. He might take the liberty of following, so far as he could follow, the people who were making this strange excursion at such an hour. The garage doors would be locked, he thought, but there was just a chance that Stocker had omitted this precaution. He felt at the big door, and was surprised when it yielded to his tug.

As he opened it he saw, for the fraction of a second, a gleam of light inside. It showed only for the briefest space of time.

Somebody was in there, and that somebody knew he was at the door. He threw the door open wider and, torch in hand, slipped inside.

"Is anybody there?" he called. "I'm Captain Jordan--"

He heard an exclamation and switched on the lamp. The beam caught the lower part of a pair of striped trousers. Before he could raise the torch it was struck from his hand, and his assailant made a rush for the door. Tim leapt at him and got him by the collar. At that moment the man struck at him, and by a lucky chance caught him under the jaw. Tim Jordan staggered back, but before he could recover himself his assailant had gone and the door was slammed behind him.

Tim pushed at the door, but it was immovable. With the aid of a match he found the torch he had dropped. Luckily the bulb had not broken. He examined the door to discover how the lock was manipulated. There was no knob he could turn, no method by which the door could be opened from the inside.

His situation, however, was not especially serious, for he guessed that in a very short time Stocker would come back with the old man and Mary.

With the aid of his light he made a brief inspection, and the first thing he saw was a heavy overcoat lying across the smaller car, evidently left by the intruder. His second discovery came a little later; the heavy padlock attached to the chain which held the tractor immovable lay on the ground. Either the stranger had a key, or the lock had been picked.

In one corner of the garage was an extending ladder, which he had noticed before, possibly used for cleaning the windows.

He planted this against the wall and, mounting, succeeded in unfastening one of the windows. Returning to the floor of the garage, he took up the coat and, carrying it up the ladder, threw it from the window, through which he managed to wriggle.

Luckily for his peace of mind, he had noticed that the chapel was entirely surrounded by a broad garden bed, and he dropped on to the soft earth without mishap.

The coat could wait; he threw it over a bush and went in pursuit of the burglar. As he reached the road he saw the car come out of the lane and drive off the way Stocker had gone.

He was cursing himself now that he had not obeyed the impulse he had had to put the machine out of action until he had satisfied himself as to who was the owner.

Whilst he was looking he saw the tail-light swerve violently to the right and then to the left, and the car finally stopped.

Tim Jordan was something of a runner; he sprinted towards the machine and had covered half the distance which separated him from his quarry when he saw a flicker of light and there came back to him the crash of a shot. In another second the car moved on.

No bullet had come back; it was not at his pursuer that the man had fired. Tim dropped to a walk, and presently came up to where the car had stopped, for he saw the erratic tracks of its wheels. There was nobody in sight, and, puzzled, he turned back.

He was nearing the end of the graveyard when he saw somebody moving in the shadow of the wood, and sent his light in the direction. The sight he saw was so unexpected, so startling, that he nearly dropped the torch. The figure was that of a tall man, white-faced, haggard, a fringe of beard on his chin. He wore only a pair of trousers and a dark shirt. His hair was dishevelled. Two dark eyes glared at Tim.

"Hallo, who are you?"

"Put that light out--put it out!" screamed the man, "Damn you--!"

Tim saw the glitter of steel as the man struck, and flung himself aside only just in time. Before he could recover himself the man with the knife had darted into the wood.

Tim leapt the low ditch and went after him. And then his light went out. To follow an armed man through a dark wood was taking too great a chance. Hastily he unscrewed the head of his torch and gave a twist to the bulb, but no light came.

To return to the house for another lantern seemed a futile thing to do, yet it was the only course he could follow. He got back on to the road and, keeping to the centre, ran to Clench House. The front door was unfastened. He went in, switching on the light as he darted up the stairs to his room, and a few minutes later was racing back to the wood, this time with a gun in his pocket. As he had expected, his search proved fruitless. The midnight assassin had disappeared.

Tim Jordan could reconstruct the scene he had witnessed.

The unknown burglar had found himself confronted on the road by this weird figure, had swerved to avoid him and had been forced to stop. He had been attacked by the wild man, and had shot in self-defence. On one point Tim was now certain: the bearded man was the murderer of Jelf.

Returning to the house, he recovered the coat and took it up to his room. It was a heavy camel-hair coat, well worn. In the inside pocket he found a tailor's label, and, reading this, he gasped. It gave the name of the tailor, and underneath in marking ink: "L. Daney, Esq., 703, Jermyn Street."

CHAPTER 5

HE went carefully through the pockets. There was a pair of stained leather gloves in one, and in the other a carton of cigarettes, half filled, and a box of wooden matches. The inside pocket produced a more important clue: he found a folded paper and a small pocket-book. He opened the paper and whistled. It was a page torn from his case-book--the page on which he had copied out the inscription on Lew Daney's gold cigarette case.

So this intruder was the man who had entered his room on the previous night and searched his belongings for something--and what that something was he now knew. It was the case.

He opened the pocket-book, which was almost empty, and took out its contents one by one. The first thing his finger touched was a key of remarkable thinness. It was distinguished from every other key he had seen by the fact that the thumb-piece was of black enamel. It was obviously the key to a safety lock. There was a card on which was written: "Mary Grier, Clench House, 14th October, 1929."

The most interesting discovery, however, was a Press cutting, which was the third and only other object in the case. The printing seemed familiar. He looked at the back of it, and saw that, as he had already decided, it was a cutting from the Hue and Cry, the official police organ. It was just a slip, evidently one of many names which had appeared in a column of print.

"Wanted for fraud: Harry Stone, alias Hector Winter, alias Harry Levere, known also as Harry the Valet. Information should be given to the Chief Constable at Scotland Yard or should be laid at any police station. Description--"

The paper had been cut here, but this was not the remarkable feature of the cutting, for written across, in flowing script, were the words: "Dead 23rd March."

Harry the Valet! And then he remembered the man who had had that name in South Africa, the fraudulent policeman whom he had run out of the country. It might not have been the same man; it is a very common nickname, and he could himself recall at least three famous Harrys who because of their profession had been nicknamed "the Valet."

So Harry the Valet was dead! Why was the owner of this pocket-book so definite as to the date? Why, indeed, had he troubled to carry around with him this Press cutting?

He returned the articles to the pocket-book and locked it away in his drawer. As he did so he heard the sound of car wheels, and, switching out his light, he drew back the heavy curtains and looked through the window. Two dim lights showed at the entrance to the drive; they passed slowly out of sight towards the garage. He replaced the curtains, put on the light again, and, going out into the dark corridor, found the switch and illuminated the passage.

He was standing in the lighted hall when Mary came in, followed by Mr. Awkwright; she stopped stock-still at the sight of him. She was pale, hollow-eyed, and she regarded him with a look of mute hopelessness that went straight to his heart.

Mr. Awkwright closed the door behind him, took off his heavy wrap slowly, and never once did his eyes leave Tim Jordan's face.

"We've been for a drive," he said loudly. "We often go for a drive at night--eh. Miss Grier?...Gets the cobwebs out of your head."

His voice was high and squeaky; he looked pathetically old.

"Thought you were in bed, Jordan," he went on, and, with a nod, walked past Tim and up the stairs.

Mary Grier did not move. She waited till the old man was out of sight.

"Why aren't you in bed?" she asked in a low voice. "Have you been out?"

He nodded.

"You were the man standing in the drive? I saw you as we passed."

"I was not the man standing in the drive; I was, as a matter of fact, standing outside the drive," he said. "What is the trouble, Mary?"

"Nothing."

She put one foot on the stairs and stood in that attitude for a second.

"Come into the dining-room," she said. "Stocker will be back soon; he will make some coffee."

He followed her into the dining-room, waited until she had turned on the lights, then went in after her. She closed the door.

"Did you follow us?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"What were you doing out?"

"I also wanted a little fresh air," said Tim coolly. And then, more seriously: "Doesn't this place get on your nerves, Mary? It's getting on mine."

"I've ceased to have any nerves." Her voice was almost brusque. "Don't worry about me--go back to London."

He laughed. "Almost that sounds like a warning."

"It is," she said, her lips pressed tightly together.

"Is there any danger--if you will allow me to be melodramatic?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yes, but I think it's over for the time being."

She heard Stocker's step in the hall, and went out and spoke to him. As she was walking back to the table, Tim asked: "Do you know your neighbours very well?"

She stopped.

"Not very well. Why?"

"I thought I saw one of them tonight," he said, "a particularly unpleasant gentleman with a little beard. Quite young, I should imagine."

She stared at him.

"Did he speak to you?" It was obviously an effort for her to ask the question.

"He had a knife," said Tim.

She said nothing for a moment, and then: "Really?"

Walking to the table, she pulled out a chair and sat down.

The hand that reached for a cigarette did not tremble. He marvelled at her iron nerve, for, if there was one thing more certain than another, it was that she was under a strain which was almost at breaking point.

"You meet odd people in Scotland," she said. "Who was he?"

He looked at her for a long time, and then, slowly: "He was the man who killed Jelf, I think."

She lifted her eyes to his quickly. "In that case I suppose you will tell the police?"

"I'm wondering--you once stole seventy pounds, didn't you?"

She nodded.

"I thought it was a little joke when you told me the first time, but I realise that you were speaking the truth. You stole it from Uncle Benjamin?"

She nodded again.

"It was for a good cause," she said.

Behind the cynical flippancy of th