The Bedford Row Mystery E-Book

J.S. Fletcher

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

The main character in the story is a detective story. He is investigating a mysterious murder. Detective and young Richard Marchmont soon discover that there is a triangle of financial intrigue that needs to be unraveled before the truth can be found out, and that in the hour of crime, not one suspicious person was hiding near the Marchmont house, but several.

Leseprobe

Contents

I. Called to Remembrance

II. The Dilemma

III. Murder!

IV. Gone!

V. Forestalled

VI. On Whose Behalf?

VII. The Ex-Superintendent

VIII. The Detective Theorises

IX. Smouldering Fires

X. News

XI. Mantrap Manor

XII. Mr. Louis Vandelius

XIII. Mr. Vandelius Explains

XIV. Through the Lady’s Maid

XV. Flown!

XVI. Lansdale Speaks

XVII. Twenty Thousand Pounds

XVIII. Trace the Notes

XIX. Side Whiskers

XX. The Riverside Hotel

XXI. The Bridge

XXII. Trapped

XXIII. Look for that Woman!

XXIV. The House in Bernard Street

XXV. The Dead Man’s Letter

XXVI. The Visiting Card

XXVII. Straight to the Point

XXVIII. Final

I. Called to Remembrance

Bedford Row, on the western edge of Gray’s Inn, is well known to all Londoners as being chiefly the business abode of limbs of the law; a severely respectable street of Georgian houses in age-coloured red brick; quiet, sombre, disdainful of change. Law is practised in nearly every one of its tall doorways; the rooms to which they admit smell of parchment and sealing-wax; the men who come out of them or hurry into them carry brief-bags, or bundles of papers tied about with red-tape; you may feel confident, if you chance to pace along the pavements, that nine out of ten of the individuals you encounter are connected in some way with legal processes–law, in short, is the life-business of Bedford Row, and there are few people entering it who are not there as either plaintiffs or defendants or as agents or witnesses for one or the other.

Nevertheless there are people who go into Bedford Row in pursuit of something other than law, and a young man who turned its corner at noon one October day certainly did not look as if he wanted to serve somebody with a writ, or had just been served with one himself. He was a well-built, athletic fellow of twenty-five or so, whose bronzed cheeks, clear eyes, and alert expression betokened a love of and close acquaintanceship with outdoor life; and had there been anybody about who knew him they could have told you that he was Richard Marchmont, well known on the leading English cricket grounds as one of the best all-round amateurs of the Middlesex County Eleven, and that he was scarcely less eminent as an exponent of Rugby football. He was of the sort that loathes gloves and overcoats, and though the October air was keen that morning he wore neither, and his suit of grey tweed and soft cap to match made a contrast to the black-coated law folk against whom he rubbed shoulders. It was not often that Richard Marchmont walked into Bedford Row; its character and atmosphere had no charm for him, used as he was to the level greens of the playing-fields. Yet he had a close connection with the place. At the farther end of the street, in one of the oldest and largest houses, lived his uncle, Mr. Henry Marchmont, sole surviving partner in the firm of Fosdyke, Cletherton, & Marchmont, Solicitors. Mr. Henry Marchmont was an old-fashioned solicitor, and an old-fashioned man. Being a confirmed bachelor, he lived above his offices, in a suite of rooms which he had arranged and furnished–long since–in accordance with his own taste. There he was occasionally visited by his nephew, who preferred to live in another quarter of the town, in a smart flat in Jermyn Street, close to his favourite club, the Olympic, every member of which was a figure of note in the athletic world. Richard, wealthy himself, used to wonder what made his uncle, equally wealthy, tie his life down to the sombreness of Bedford Row when he might have had a proper establishment in the West End. Henry, teased on this point, always declared that he set his own neighbourhood high above either Mayfair or Belgravia, and the pavement before his front door to the flags of Pall Mall; he had taken root there, he said, and nothing should pull him up.

Henry Marchmont was at his front door, or, rather, on the broad, well-scoured step of it as Richard came along. He was a tall, fine-looking man, well and sturdily built, fresh-coloured, blue-eyed, silver-haired, very particular about his personal appearance. He looked very distinguished as he stood there now, in his smart black morning coat, his familiar monocle screwed into his right eye, bending down from the step to talk with two women who stood on the pavement, and whom Richard took for clients that Henry had seen to the door. Richard knew enough of his uncle and his habits to know that that was an honour the old lawyer accorded to few of his visitors, and he looked more closely at the women. He decided that they were the sort of women of whom one says at once that they have seen better days; their clothes looked as if they were usually laid up in lavender and only brought out on very special occasions. Richard knew–from a more or less diligent reading of back numbers of Punch–that the style and cut of their garments was after the fashion of twenty years before. But just then Henry Marchmont caught sight of his nephew and beckoned him to approach. He drew the attention of the two women to him with a smile.

“You don’t know this chap!” he said jocularly. “Chip of the old block, though! This is John’s boy–Richard.”

The elder of the two women held out a gloved hand. Richard noticed that the glove was carefully darned.

“You don’t say so, Mr. Henry!” she exclaimed. “Dear me!–yes, I see the likeness to his father. Mr. Richard Marchmont. Ah! My sister and I knew your father well, sir, in the old days.”

“This lady is Mrs. Mansiter, Dick; this, Miss Sanderthwaite,” said Henry Marchmont. “As Mrs. Mansiter says, they knew your father in the old days. Long before you were born, my lad!”

Richard made some remark–what, he scarcely knew. He remembered very little of his father, Henry’s elder brother, and he was wondering when and where John Marchmont had known these ladies, each so faded, so reminiscent of the past. He looked at them curiously; although they were sisters there was a difference between them. Mrs. Mansiter was a somewhat comfortable, placid sort of person–the sort of woman who gave the idea of a too-ready acceptance of things as they came along; her manner and tone indicated acquiescence. But her sister, thin, wiry, old-maid in every look and movement, struck Richard as one in whom hidden fires might be concealed; there was still a burning vitality in her deep-sunken black eyes; a flash came from them as she turned to inspect him. Once, he was quick to see, this had been a handsome woman, perhaps a beauty. And he began to wonder what tragedy lay behind the old-fashioned clothes and under the queer old hats of these two, who looked like ships of a century ago, washed out of some backwater....

“Oh, yes, long before he was born!” Mrs. Mansiter was saying. “Oh, yes, time will fly, Mr. Henry! And we must fly too, sister–”

When they had gone, with old-fashioned bows and smiles, Henry Marchmont looked after them and shook his head.

“Knew those two when your father and I were boys, Dick!” he said. “They were of some consequence in the world, in our part, in those days–their family, I mean. Now, those two poor old things keep a boarding-house in Bloomsbury! Egad!–I remember the time when the younger one, Cora Sanderthwaite, used to ride to hounds–she was a fine horsewoman and always well horsed too. Well, well!–and how are you, my boy?”

“All right, thanks; no need to ask how you are,” replied Richard. “You always look in the best of condition. I dropped in to see if you’d lunch with me?”

“I will, my boy–but I won’t go up West,” answered Henry. “Too far off–I’m busy this afternoon. I’ll go round to the Holborn with you, though. But come in a minute–I must just speak to Simpson.”

He led the way into the house, with the arrangements of which Richard was thoroughly familiar. It had been a family mansion a hundred and fifty years before; the residence, no doubt, of some rich City merchant, and Henry Marchmont, a lover of the antique, had always since his coming to it kept a careful eye on its upkeep and preservation. There was a fine, if dark, panelled hall on the lower floor, and fine rooms on either side; the staircase was of rare wood and the mouldings of the ceilings and fireplaces of singular artistic quality; the upper floors, in which Henry had his private residence, were similarly panelled and decorated. Richard knew that his uncle was prouder of the whole place than he ever admitted. It was, indeed, impossible for Henry Marchmont to cross the hall or climb the stairs without a lingering glance of admiration at the polish of one or the carving of the other; he and the old house, he always said, just fitted.

Henry led his nephew into his private office and rang a bell that stood on his desk. A man whom Richard knew as Hemingway Simpson, managing clerk, and whom, for some unexplainable reason, he cordially detested, put his head in at the door. He was a sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed man, whose naturally somewhat supercilious air was heightened by his pince-nez spectacles; to Richard he always conveyed the impression of being both prig and sneak. But he knew that his uncle had the greatest belief in Simpson’s abilities as a solicitor and relied firmly on his advice.

“Oh, Simpson!” said Henry, as the clerk silently looked his attention. “I’ve been thinking over that matter we spoke of this morning. I think it’ll be best, wisest, if I see the fellow alone–he’ll probably talk more freely if there’s no other person present. What do you think?”

“It might be more advisable, certainly, Mr. Marchmont,” replied the clerk. “If he thinks you have me here on purpose–”

“That’s just it!” interrupted Henry. “He would! All right, Simpson–I’ll see him alone, then–I shall get more out of him, no doubt. So you needn’t stay, you know. Now, Dick,” he went on, as the clerk’s head was withdrawn, “that’s all. At your service, my lad–and I can give you just an hour and a half. Got an important appointment here at three o’clock, and it’s one now. Come along!”

He chattered about anything and nothing as they walked together to the Holborn Restaurant, and turned to no particular subject across the luncheon table. But later, in a quiet corner, over a cigar and coffee, he suddenly turned to his nephew with a look of confidence.

“Dick, my boy!” he said. “I’d one of the most curious experiences last night that I’ve ever had in the whole course of my professional life! You’re not a lawyer, but you’ve seen enough of the world to see the dramatic properties of this little story. I met a man last night who, twenty-five years ago, I and a lot more people wanted very much to meet, but who wasn’t to be met!–indeed, I, personally, never thought to meet him again. And last night–there he was!”

“Easily recognisable?” asked Richard.

“Oh, just so!–knew him at once. But I’ll tell you all about it,” continued Henry Marchmont, settling himself comfortably in his seat. “It’s a queer business. Now, I think you know that I began my professional career at our family’s native place, Clayminster, away in the Midlands. I was in practice there for some years before I came to London and bought a partnership in Fosdyke & Cletherton, which then became Fosdyke, Cletherton, & Marchmont. Well, during the last year or so of my time at Clayminster there were some queer happenings in the town–a small town, as you know. There was a man in Clayminster named Land. He had begun life as a schoolmaster–elementary school–but he had a special bent towards mathematics, or, anyhow, figures, and it led him to throw up schoolmastering and take to accountancy. Then he turned that up and turned to stock and share broking. He was a clever chap, a plausible chap, and he got hold of, or round, a lot of the moneyed people in the town and neighbourhood. There was no doubt that a great deal of gambling in stocks and shares went on in Clayminster and the district through Land–a very great deal! Of course, it was nobody’s concern but that of the folk actually engaged, though there was plenty said. However, at the very height of it, this man Land suddenly disappeared! One evening he was seen in one of his usual haunts–the club, or the Angel, or somewhere–the next morning he’d vanished! Gone, Dick!–as clear as if he’d been snatched into the clouds!”

“Without a trace?” asked Richard.

“Without the ghost of a trace! He must have arranged the whole thing cleverly–had it all cut and dried. As soon as he’d gone, things came out. There were–well, irregularities. It was difficult to decide, in his absence, if he’d overstepped the bounds or not in respect of moneys entrusted to him. But there was the fact that several individuals were hard hit, very hard hit, and two or three families brought to something like destitution. In one or two cases, it certainly looked as if he’d appropriated considerable sums handed to him for speculation, or investment. The police came into it, and they made the most exhaustive inquiries. It was useless–he was never tracked. There are people in Clayminster to-day who believe that he committed suicide by throwing himself down one of the disused pit-shafts in the neighbourhood. But I never believed that–he was too cute and clever! If he’d come a cropper at that time and fled, it was only to start again and come up again in another place!”

“This is the man you met last night?” suggested Richard.

“The man! I met him in this way. I went to dine with some City men, financiers, at the Cannon Street Hotel–private dinner, of course, in a private room. Before dinner, while we were all standing about, a man I know very well indicated another who was one of a group–a man who was talking volubly, but had his back towards me. “That’s an interesting man who’s making some figure in the City,’ he said. “He’s from way back somewhere–Colonies, I think–and has come over here with valuable concessions and options–said to be of enormous wealth himself, I understand.’ Presently the man turned–and I instantly recognised him as Land!”

“After all those years?” exclaimed Richard.

“After twenty-five years!” said Henry. “And easily! He’s a big man–not unlike me, as a matter of fact–tall, well-built, fresh-coloured. But–he’s a drooping eyelid! The left–no mistaking that! Oh, yes, I knew him–immediately!”

“What happened?” asked Richard.

“He gave a big start–and suppressed it. He changed colour–went pale–and turned away. But in a second or two he looked round again. I nodded to him–significantly. He came over to where I stood, alone. “For God’s sake, Marchmont!’ he said in a whisper, “let me have a word with you, in private! Let me come and see you–I want to! I want to explain. Give me your card!’ Well, I gave him my card! I told him he could come to Bedford Row, to-night, and what time. He was damned grateful, Dick! “It’s good of you–kind of you!’ he said. “But for God’s sake, Marchmont, wait–wait till I’ve seen you! Say nothing here! Don’t tell any of these men my real name!’ ”

“What does he call himself now, then?” inquired Richard.

“Now? Lansdale! John Lansdale. But his real name’s Land–James Land. Good Lord!–What a fellow! I suppose I ought to tell the police. However, I’ll hear what he has to say. Queer story, Dick, isn’t it? Now I’m off, my boy–time’s up!”

He hurried away, but Richard sat there, thinking. And his thoughts were chaotic–black. For he was very much in love with a girl whom he had only recently met–and her surname was Lansdale!

II. The Dilemma

Up to that hour of his life Richard had never known what it was to be faced by a really awkward situation. He had had a very easy time of it. The only child of wealthy parents, who had both died while he was still a boy, leaving him under the guardianship of his Uncle Henry, he had come at twenty-one into the uncontrolled possession of a very considerable fortune. Thanks to Henry’s tutelage, and not a little to his own natural inclinations, he had never been likely to make ducks and drakes of it. His tastes were simple, and mainly for outdoor pursuits. Cricket in summer, football in winter, travelling at odd moments–these were the things he cared for, and until recently he had found nothing to affect his pursuit of them. But now there was a change. He was undoubtedly in love, and already knew that the girl he loved was also in love with him. And if her father turned out to be the man of whom Henry Marchmont had just told him–why then, indeed, he said to himself bitterly, there was going to be the very deuce of a mess!

Richard had been in the middle of a pleasing romance during the last few weeks. The more serious business of the cricket season being over for him early in September, he had amused himself during the last half of that month with a little country-house cricket, and in the course of this picnic-like diversion had met, at an old house in Surrey, the home of a big City magnate, a very pretty girl who was introduced to him as Miss Lansdale, and whose Christian name he quickly discovered to be Angelita. They met again–at another country house–and yet again–by their own appointment, in Kensington Gardens, and they had gone on meeting; they were meeting now, nearly every day. Bit by bit, Richard had learned a good deal about his lady-love. She appeared to be pretty much her own mistress. From what he had gathered from her own lips she, like himself, was an only child. Her mother was dead–had died years ago. She had been born in South America–in the Argentine; the mother had been of old Spanish ancestry; hence Angelita’s name, and dark eyes, and dark hair, and rich colouring. In the Argentine Angelita had lived all her twenty years until recently, when she and her father had come to England, on business. Her father was English; that much Angelita knew, but it seemed to be about all that she knew of him, except that he was a very busy man, much concerned in financial matters, and always going into the City, or away for days together to places like Birmingham, or Manchester, or Sheffield, leaving her comparatively alone in the suite of rooms at a fashionable hotel which they had occupied since their arrival in England.

Angelita knew scarcely anybody save a few people who were really financial acquaintances of her father–and since becoming interested in Richard she had not cared to enlarge her circle; Richard, with his thoroughly English matter-of-factness, his cool, good temper, and suggestion of protection, appealed to her. It had been what Richard called a dead-sure business with these two from the very first, and the time was now come when he wanted to settle things with Angelita’s father. But that individual had been so far something of a will-o’-the-wisp; it was difficult to get hold of him, for his daughter scarcely ever knew where he was to be found, or when he could be seen; all she knew was that he lived in a whirl of business, supplied and surrounded her with every luxury and comfort, stuffed her purse with money, and left her to herself. Still–he had got to be run to earth, said Richard: Richard was getting impatient.

And, in truth, he had gone to Bedford Row that morning with the intention of telling Henry Marchmont all about it, and making Henry go with him to see Angelita’s father. He had reserved his communication until after lunch; he had a full share of English reserve, and knowing his uncle to be a confirmed old bachelor and a bit of a cynic, felt somewhat shy and bashful about telling him that he had fallen in love. Then, before he could begin, Henry had started out on his own story–to wind it up with a dramatic conclusion that made Richard feel as if ice-cold water had been poured suddenly down his spine. For Lansdale is not a very common name, and taking all the other features of the story into consideration–the dinner of financial men, the fact that Lansdale was spoken of as a man from abroad, and that he was mixed up in big financial affairs–Richard found it impossible to avoid the conclusion that the man of whom his uncle told was any other than Angelita’s mysterious father.

He sat for some time, his hands plunged in his pockets, his chin sunk in his collar, his cigar gone out, thinking. If Henry Marchmont’s story were all true–and he knew it would be true enough in Henry’s opinion–and Lansdale was Land, then Lansdale, twenty-five years before, must have been a shady sort of person, if not actually a bad lot. Nay, if what Henry had hinted at were true, Lansdale must be liable to prosecution–hadn’t Henry used certain words, all the more significant as coming from a lawyer? “I suppose I ought to tell the police’ he had said. That was enough to show that Henry regarded Lansdale as a criminal escaped from justice.

Richard knew little of law, but in common with most Englishmen he was aware that lapse of time is no bar to criminal prosecution, and that a man can be as readily arrested for a crime committed years before as for one committed yesterday. It was a strange business, an unpleasant combination of circumstances, and there was only one crumb of comfort in it–at which Richard, thinking things over, was eager to snatch. That was–would any man in his common senses who knew that a criminal charge hung over him, in a country from which he had long escaped, be such a damned fool as to return to that country under circumstances which must needs bring him into prominence? Richard thought not–and it seemed to him that if Lansdale, the financier, were really Land, the quondam stockbroker of Clayminster, Land’s doings in that sleepy little town, even if doubtful, must have been regular and within the law–or he would never have dared to return to England.

Richard had all the average healthy-minded young Englishman’s dislike of anything that was not in accordance with the rules, that was not playing the game, that–to use his own term–was not cricket. But he felt that the probability was that Lansdale, or Land, tackled with his sudden disappearance of five-and-twenty years before, would be able, not only to show plausible reasons for it, but to prove that he had done nothing to bring himself within the law. How else could he dare to show his face here again? Still, there was the sudden disappearance, under suspicious circumstances, and the loss of people’s money–and there was Henry Marchmont. Richard knew well that whatever specious arguments or apparently good-faith reasons Land, or Lansdale, might offer for his conduct, Henry Marchmont would not change his opinion of the man and his doings. Henry was a man of essentially conservative mind; a hard man. To him another man who behaved as Land had done, would always be an object of contempt and scorn–and Richard quaked inwardly as he fancied himself telling his uncle that he wanted to marry the daughter of the man who had absconded from Clayminster and left various folk sitting amidst the wreckage of their fortunes. Henry would screw his monocle into his eye and look....

“What a beastly situation!” muttered Richard at last. “And how the devil is one to make the best of it? Still, Angelita isn’t her father!”

With this comfortable reflection he rose and looked at his watch. As was becoming almost a daily practice, he had an appointment with Angelita, and it was time he set out to keep it. Musing and brooding over the dilemma into which their love affairs seemed likely to be plunged, he went off to his own quarter of the town, and strolling into the National Gallery found Angelita awaiting him in a quiet corner.

Richard was one of those young men who find it impossible to avoid direct issues; in the cricket field he was famous as a batsman who lost no time in getting to work on the bowling, and in life, if he had a thing on his mind, he fidgeted until he had turned it into words. And before he had been at Angelita’s side five minutes, he came to the question that was bothering him.

“Look here!” said Richard. “When am I going to see your father?”

Angelita shook her head and pursed her lips.

“The thing is–to catch him!” she answered. “During the last few days he’s been busier than ever. He was away–I forget where–for two days. Then he’s been dining out–business dinners. And now he goes away to the City, wherever that may be, so early in the morning that I scarcely see him. However, that can’t last long, because”–here she turned and regarded Richard significantly–“because he told me this morning that his principal business here would be completed in a fortnight, and then we’re to leave.”

“To leave?” exclaimed Richard. “For–where?”

“Home, I suppose,” replied Angelita. “Yes, of course, it will be home.”

“That settles it, then,” said Richard doggedly. “Got to see him at once. You must fix it!”

Angelita studied the points of her shoes.

“I–I haven’t told him anything yet,” she murmured. “I mean, about you. About–you and me.”

“Then you’d better!” retorted Richard with masculine severity. “Can’t take long, that. Then–then I’ll come in next. And I say–you’re quite certain it’ll be home when you leave?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure of it. There are things–business matters–he wants to get back to,” she answered. “We have been here now longer than he intended.”

“All right!” said Richard. “Then–I’ll go back with you. That’ll be the very thing to do! Yes–I’ll go back with you.”

He was not talking to her as much as to himself. If he went back with father and daughter to South America, he would be relieved of the difficulties which he had foreseen as regarded Henry Marchmont. It would all pan out nicely–what could be better than that he should winter across the Atlantic, and return for next year’s cricket season, bringing a bride with him. Splendid notion!–he saw it all before him like a well-thought-out campaign, on paper. But a sudden idea chilled him.

“You don’t think your father will kick me out?” he demanded suddenly.

Angelita gave him a look that made his head swim.

“Don’t think so!” she replied demurely. “Why should he? Besides, he always lets me have everything I want.”

“Sure he hasn’t got some other chap in view?” asked Richard suspiciously. “Might have some notion of a big financial union, you know: these financiers are up to all those games!”

“That wouldn’t matter,” said Angelita. “It is I who am the one to decide. Besides, you see, I know my father. It will all be like this. I shall tell him–he will listen as I have often seen him listen to business propositions–oh, yes, often! He will seem as if he did not hear at all, abstracted, blinking his eyes, so. Then he will wake up. “So that is it, is it?’ he will say. “Yes–I get you! You want to marry this young man? You are quite satisfied that it is a sound business? Very well–now go ahead!’ That is how it will be–that will be all. Then–we do the rest.”

“Sounds straightforward sort of work,” observed Richard. “Now, look here–you get hold of your father this very day–never mind if you have to sit up half the night to catch him! Tell him all about it, and all about me. And say that I’m coming to see him at your hotel at breakfast time to-morrow morning.”

He felt better when he had made this arrangement. But after he and Angelita had parted he became anxious again, remembering what Henry Marchmont had told him–that Lansdale was to visit him, Henry, at Bedford Row that very evening. What would happen there? What would Lansdale say to Henry? What would Henry say or do, in consequence? Would anything take place that would make his interview with Angelita’s father, next morning, impossible or fruitless? He had ideas of going back to Bedford Row, telling his uncle everything, and insisting that whatever Lansdale or Land’s past might be, he, Richard, was going to marry Angelita and that Henry must do nothing to rake up that past. But on reflection he thought it best to let matters take their course; he felt certain, from Angelita’s chance remarks about her father, that Lansdale, if he really was the Land of Clayminster of whom Henry Marchmont had spoken, would be well able to justify his behaviour of twenty-five years before.

So Richard turned to his club, and there he dined, and as luck would have it, after dinner he came across a noted cricketer of a previous day, who was well known to spend all his winters in the Argentine, and, with more craft than was usual with him, Richard drew him out to talk about that country, giving as his reason that he was thinking of going over there for a few months. The man of experience talked, and at last Richard put a direct question to him.

“Ever hear of a man named Lansdale out there?” he asked.

The other man’s face showed instant recognition.

“Lansdale? Oh, yes–well-known man out there. He’s a man who came there, either from here or New York, years ago, and went in for developing the country. Very wealthy man now, I believe–deals in options and concessions, and that sort of thing.”

“Know him personally?” inquired Richard.

“No, I don’t–never seen him. Heard lots about him, though. Very familiar name across there in connection with developments.”

This cheered Richard. Lansdale, if he were Land, had too much at stake, surely, to run his head into the lion’s mouth as Henry Marchmont seemed to suggest he was doing. He went home to his flat in Jermyn Street rehearsing what he would say to Angelita’s father in the morning and for the first time in his life he realised what it meant to be able to show that he was well equipped with this world’s goods.

But Richard never got to Lansdale’s hotel next morning. He was hastily breakfasting before setting out thither, when his valet called him to the telephone. The first sound of the voice coming over filled him with a sudden strange fear.

“Mr. Richard? This is Simpson speaking, sir. Can you come here, Bedford Row, at once?”

“Yes!” answered Richard. “But what is it? Say!”

“Your uncle, Mr. Richard. An–an accident–”

“Say straight out!” demanded Richard. “Quick, now!”

“Mr. Marchmont is dead, sir!” replied Simpson.

III. Murder!

Richard was out in the street and running for the nearest cab-rank before he realised the full significance of the managing clerk’s announcement. Dead?–Henry Marchmont dead?–it seemed impossible of belief! He had a vision of his uncle as he had seen him the day before–alert, vigorous, full of life and the enjoyment of it; anybody with half an eye would have said Henry looked good for quite another twenty years. And it was all very well to think of the usual platitudes about the uncertainty of human life, and never knowing what a day may bring forth, and all that!–ninety-nine people out of every hundred would have laid long odds on Henry Marchmont’s prospects of living to a great age. But he was dead–there was no doubt about that. And now–the cause of his death.

Richard knew, well enough, what was at the back of his mind. He had a vivid recollection of all that Henry had said to him the day before about Lansdale’s coming visit to him at Bedford Row. Had that visit come off? Had anything taken place because of it–arising out of it? Was it connected with Henry’s sudden death? Had the two men quarrelled, come to blows? Was it possible that... he turned hot, cold, hot again, with a fear that he dare not put into words.

The taxicab into which he had leapt carried Richard past the front of the Hotel Cecil, where Lansdale had his suite of private rooms. Richard glanced up and along the rows of windows; somewhere behind one or other of them was Angelita. And it was of Angelita and her future, and his and her future, that he was really thinking. Supposing... merely supposing, of course... and yet supposing... supposing...

“My God! what an awful business if...” he groaned, as the cab extricated itself from the crowded traffic of the Strand and turned up Aldwych. “But it can’t be!–it can’t be! It must have been a sudden seizure–I always told him he didn’t take enough exercise. Apoplexy, perhaps–he was rather full-blooded. Still, there was something in that fellow Simpson’s voice–”

Simpson came out to the door as Richard’s cab pulled up in front. He looked unusually grave; so, too, did a youngish man, a stranger who was with him. A knot of curious bystanders stood round; a uniformed policeman moved them aside as Richard sprang out and hurried across the pavement to the managing clerk.

“Well?” he asked quickly as he made up to Simpson. “Is–is that true?”

Simpson motioned him towards a door just within the hall and signed to the stranger to follow them.

“I’m sorry to say it’s quite true, Mr. Richard,” he answered, as he closed the door on the three of them. “I didn’t mean to break it so abruptly, but you asked me. Your uncle is dead, sir–was found dead.” He paused and looked at his companion. “This is Mr. Liversedge, Mr. Richard,” he continued. “Detective-Sergeant Liversedge, of the Yard.”

“Police!” exclaimed Richard. “Then–”

The other two men exchanged glances. Liversedge spoke.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it, sir,” he said. “Mr. Marchmont was murdered!”

In spite of his sound nerves, Richard felt himself reel under this curt announcement. He dropped back into a chair and for a few seconds found it impossible to frame a word. When he did speak his voice sounded strangely level and quiet.

“Are you really sure of that?” he asked.

“Quite sure, sir,” replied Liversedge. “There are two doctors upstairs now, and they will tell you that there is no doubt in the matter. Mr. Marchmont was shot dead, sir–through the heart, and from behind his back–a cowardly affair! According to the medical gentlemen, it would be about eight o’clock last night. That is, just about twelve hours before his dead body was found.”

Richard turned to the managing clerk.

“Who found him?” he asked.

“Mrs. Pardoe found him, Mr. Richard,” replied Simpson. “Mrs. Pardoe is the woman who acts as cleaner; she has been employed here a good many years. Perhaps,” he went on, glancing at the detective, “I ought to tell you what the arrangements have been here?–I don’t know if Mr. Richard is aware of them, either. Mr. Marchmont had a suite of private rooms over the offices–he’s always lived there. But he has never kept servants there. His breakfast was sent in every morning at nine o’clock from a neighbouring restaurant; he always lunched and dined out. A man came every day about the same time to do his valeting. Mrs. Pardoe acted as charwoman and bedmaker. She came of a morning at eight o’clock and attended first to the business offices; later she went up to Mr. Marchmont’s private rooms. She has a key, of course, by which she lets herself in at the front door.”

“Latch-key, I suppose?” suggested Liversedge.

“A latch-key,” assented Simpson. “According to her account, when she came this morning the door was not on the latch. That is, the latch had been fastened back, inside. It’s kept like that, during the day–during business hours, anyway. When Mrs. Pardoe entered she saw Mr. Marchmont–that is, she saw a man’s body, which turned out to be that of Mr. Marchmont–lying on the first landing, with an arm and hand drooping over the steps. Mrs. Pardoe is not, I should say, a strong-nerved woman, and she immediately ran out of the door into the street. Fortunately, she caught sight of a policeman not far off and she attracted his attention and brought him in. He went up to the landing and found that the body was that of Mr. Marchmont, whom he knew quite well by sight, as indeed everybody about here did. He sent round to the neighbouring police-station, and the doctors came. That is about all that we know, Mr. Richard. I came in at my usual time–nine o’clock, and I at once telephoned to you. Perhaps,” he concluded, eyeing Richard diffidently, “perhaps you would like to go upstairs? The doctors are in Mr. Marchmont’s private office. We–we had him carried in there.”