"What did you say to Hartley Parrish in the library this afternoon?"

Robin stared at her in amazement.

"But I was not in the library!" he answered.

The girl dropped her hands sharply to her side.

"Don't quibble with me, Robin," she said. "What did you say to Hartley Parrish after you left me this afternoon in the billiard-room?"

He was still staring at her, but now there was a deep furrow between his brows. He was breathing rather hard.

"I did not speak to Parrish at all after I left you."

His answer was curt and incisive.

"Do you mean to tell me," Mary said, "that, after you left me and went down the corridor towards the library, you neither went in to Hartley nor spoke to him!"

"I do!"

"Then how do you account for the fact that, almost immediately after you had crossed Bude in the hall, he heard the sound of voices in the library?"

Robin Greve stood up abruptly.

"Bude, you say, makes this statement?"

"Certainly!"

"To whom, may I ask?"

He spoke sharply and there was a challenging ring in his voice. It nettled the girl.

"Only to me," she said quickly, and added: "You needn't think he has told the police!"

Very deliberately Robin plucked his handkerchief from his sleeve, wiped his lips, and replaced it. The girl saw that his hands were trembling.

"Why do you say that to me?" he demanded rather fiercely.

Mary Trevert shrugged her shoulders.

"This afternoon," she said, "when I told you of my engagement to Hartley, you began by abusing him to me, you rushed from the room making straight for the library where we all know that Hartley was working, and a few minutes after Bude hears voices raised in anger proceeding from there. The next thing we know is that Hartley has ..."

She broke off and looked away.

"Mary,"—Robin's voice was grave, and he had mastered all signs of irritation,—"you and I have known one another all our lives. You ought to know me well enough by now to understand that I don't tell you lies. When I say I haven't seen or spoken to Hartley Parrish since lunch this afternoon, that is the truth!"

"How can it be the truth?" the girl insisted. "Horace and Dr. Romain were both in the lounge-hall, Bude was in the hall, the other menservants were in the servants' hall. You are the only man in the house not accounted for, and a minute before Bude heard these voices you go down the corridor towards the library. I can understand you wanting to keep it from the police, but why do you want to deceive me?"

"Mary," answered the young man sternly, "I know you're upset, but that's no justification for persisting in this stupid charge against me. I tell you I never saw Parrish or spoke to him, either, between lunch and when I saw him lying dead in the library. I am not going to repeat the denial. But you may as well understand now that I am not in the habit of allowing my friends to doubt my word!"

Mary flamed up at his tone.

"If you are my friend," she cried, "why can't you trust me? Why should I find this out from Bude? Why should I be humiliated by hearing from the butler that he kept this evidence from the police in order to please me because you and I are friends? I am only trying to help you, to shield you ..."

"That will do, Mary," he said. "No, you must hear what I have to say. If you insist on disbelieving me, you must. But I don't want you to help me. I don't want you to shield me. I shall make it my business to see that Bude's evidence is brought before the detective inspector from Scotland Yard who is being brought down here to handle the case ..."

"A detective from Scotland Yard?" the girl repeated.

"Yes, a detective. Humphries is puzzled by several points about this case and has asked for assistance from London. He is right. Neither the circumstances of Parrish's death nor the motive of his act are clear. Bude's evidence is sufficient proof that somebody did gain access to the library this afternoon. In that case...."

"Yes...."

"In that case," said Greve slowly, "it may not be suicide...."

Mary put one hand suddenly to her face as women do when they are frightened. She shrank back.

"You mean...."

He nodded.

"Murder!"

The girl gave a little gasp. Then she stretched out her hand and touched his arm.

"But, Robin," she spoke in quick gasps,—"you can't give the police this evidence of Bude's. Don't you see it incriminates you? Don't you realize that every scrap of evidence points to you as being the man that visited Mr. Parrish in the library this afternoon? You're a lawyer, Robin. You understand these things. Don't you see what I mean?"

He nodded curtly.

"Perfectly," he replied coldly.

"Bude will do what I tell him," the girl hurried on. "There is no need for the police to know...."

"On the contrary," said the other imperturbably, "it is essential they should be told at once."

The girl grasped the lapels of his coat in her two hands. Her breath came quickly and she trembled all over.

"Are you mad, Robin?" she cried. "Who could have wanted to kill poor Hartley? Why should you put these ideas into the heads of the police? Bude may have imagined everything. Now, you'll be sensible, promise me...."

Very gently he detached the two slim hands that held his coat. His mouth was set in a firm line.

"We are going to sift this thing to the bottom, Mary," he said, "no matter what are the consequences. You owe it to Parrish and you owe it to me...."

The telephone trilled suddenly.

Robin picked up the receiver,

"Yes, Bude," he said.

There was a moment's silence in the room broken as the clock on the mantelpiece chimed nine times. Then Robin said into the telephone:

"Right! Tell him I'll be down immediately!"

He put down the receiver and turned to Mary.

"A detective inspector has arrived from London. He is asking to see me. I must go downstairs."

Mary, her elbows on the mantelpiece, was staring into the fire. At the sound of his voice she swung round quickly.

"Robin!" she cried.

But she spoke too late.

Robin Greve had left the room.



CHAPTER IX

MR. MANDERTON

A quality which had gone far to lay the foundations of the name which Robin Greve was rapidly making at the bar was his strong intuitive sense. He had the rare ability of correctly 'sensing' an atmosphere, an uncanny flair for driving instantly at the heart of a situation, which rendered him in the courts a dexterous advocate and a redoubtable opponent.

Now, as he came into the lounge from the big oak staircase, he instantly realized that he had entered an unfriendly atmosphere. The concealed lights which were set all round the cornice of the room were turned on, flooding the pleasantly snug room with soft reflected light. A little group stood about the fire, Bude, Jay, Hartley Parrish's man, and a stranger. Jay was engaged in earnest conversation with the stranger. But at the sound of Greve's foot upon the staircase, the conversation ceased and a silence fell on the group.

Greve's attention was immediately attracted towards the stranger, whom he surmised to be the detective from Scotland Yard. He was a big, burly man with a heavy dark moustache, straight and rather thin black hair, and coarse features. He looked a full-blooded, plethoric person with reddish-blue veins on his florid face, and a heavy jowl which over-feeding, Robin surmised, had made fullish. He was very neatly dressed in his black overcoat with velvet collar carefully brushed, his natty black tie with its pearl pin, and well-polished boots. His black bowler hat, with a pair of heavy dogskin gloves, neatly folded, lay on the table.

"This Mr. Greve?"

Bude and Jay fell back as Robin joined the group. The detective bent his gaze on the young barrister as he put his question, and Robin for the first time noticed his eyes. Keen and clear, they were ill-suited, he thought, to the rather gross features of the man. By right he should have had either the small and roguish or the pale and expressionless eyes which are habitually found in individuals of the sanguine temperament.

The detective had a trick of dropping his eyes to his boots. When he raised them, the effect was to alter his whole expression. His eyes, well-open, keenly observant, in perpetual motion, lent an air of alertness, of shrewdness, to his heavy, florid countenance.

"That is my name," said Robin, answering his question. "I am a barrister. I have met some of your people at the Yard, but I don't think...."

"Detective-Inspector Manderton," interjected the big man, and paused as though to say, "Let that sink in!"

Robin knew him well by repute. His qualities were those of the bull-dog, slow-moving, obstinately brave, and desperately tenacious. His was a name to conjure with among the criminal classes, and his career was starred with various sensational tussles with desperate criminals, for Detective-Inspector Manderton, when engaged on a case, invariably "took a hand himself," as he phrased it, when an arrest was to be made. A bullet-hole in his right thigh and an imperfectly knitted right collar-bone remained to remind him of this propensity of his. His motto, as he was fond of saying, was, "What I have I hold!"

"Well, Mr. Greve," said the detective in a loud, hectoring voice, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me what you know of this affair?"

Robin flushed angrily at the man's manner. But there was no trace of resentment in his voice as he replied. He told Manderton what he had already told Humphries: how he had gone from the billiard-room across the hall and down the library corridor to the side-door into the grounds, intending to have a stroll before tea, but, finding that it was threatening rain, had returned to the house by the front door.

The detective scanned the young man's face closely as he spoke. When Robin had finished, the other dropped his eyes and seemed to be examining the brilliant polish of his boots. He said nothing, and again Robin became aware of the atmosphere of hostility towards him which this man radiated.

"It is dark at five o'clock?"

Manderton turned to Bude.

"Getting on that way, sir," the butler agreed.

"Are you in the habit, sir,"—the detective turned to Robin now,—"of going out for walks in the dark?"

Greve shrugged his shoulders.

"I had been sitting in the billiard-room. It was rather stuffy, so I thought I'd like some air before tea!"

"You left Miss Trevert in the billiard-room?"

"Yes!"

"Why?"

Greve put a hand to his throat and eased his collar.

"The gong had sounded for tea," the detective went on imperturbably; "surely it would have been more natural for you to have brought Miss Trevert with you?"

"I didn't wish to!"

Mr. Manderton cleared his throat.

"Ah!" he grunted. "You didn't wish to. I should like you to be frank with me, Mr. Greve, please. Was it not a fact that you and Miss Trevert had words?"

He looked up sharply at him with contracted pupils.

"You took a certain interest in this young lady?"

"Mr. Manderton,"—Robin spoke with a certain hauteur,—"don't you think we might leave Miss Trevert's name out of this?"

"Mr. Greve," replied the detective bluntly, "I don't!"

Robin made a little gesture of resignation.

"Before the servants...."

"Come, come, sir," the detective broke in, "with all respect to the young lady and yourself, it was a matter of common knowledge in the house that she and you were ... well, old friends. It was remarked, Mr. Greve, I may remind you, that you looked very upset-like when you left the billiard-room to"—he paused perceptibly—"to go for your stroll in the dark."

Robin glanced quickly round the group. Jay averted his eyes. As for Bude, he was the picture of embarrassment.

"You seem to be singularly well posted in the gossip of the servants' hall, Mr. Manderton!" said Robin hotly.

It was a foolish remark, and Robin regretted it the moment the words had left his mouth.

"Well, yes," commented the detective slowly, "I am. I shall be well posted on the whole of this case, presently, I hope, sir!"

His manner was perfectly respectful, but reserved almost to a tone of menace.

"In that case," said Robin, "I'll tell you something you don't know, Mr. Manderton. Has Bude told you what he heard after I had passed him in the hall?"

Interest flashed at once into the detective's face. He turned quickly to the butler. Robin felt he had scored.

"What did you hear?" he said sharply.

Bude looked round wildly. His large, fish-like mouth twitched, and he made a few feeble gestures with his hands.

"It was only perhaps an idea of mine, sir," he stammered,—"just a sort of idea ... I dare say I was mistaken. My hearing ain't what it was, sir...."

"Don't you try to hoodwink me," said Manderton, with sudden ferocity, knitting his brows and frowning at the unfortunate butler. "Come on and tell us what you heard. Mr. Greve knows and I mean to. Out with it!"

Bude cast a reproachful glance at Robin. Then he said:

"Well, sir, a minute or two after Mr. Greve had passed me, I went back to the hall and through the open door of the corridor leading to the library, I heard voices!"

"Voices, eh? Did you recognize them?"

"No, sir. It was just the sound of talking!"

"You told Miss Trevert they were loud voices, Bude!" Robin interrupted.

"Yes, sir," replied the butler, "they were loudish in a manner o' speaking, else I shouldn't have heard them!"

"Why not?"

The detective rapped the question out sharply.

"Why, because the library door was locked, sir!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because Miss Trevert and Dr. Romain both tried the handle and couldn't get in!"

"Ah!" said Manderton, "you mean the door was locked when the body was found! Now, as to these voices. Were they men's voices?"

"Yes, sir, I should say so."

"Why?"

"Because they were deep-like!"

"Was Mr. Hartley Parrish's voice one of them?"

The butler spread out his hands.

"That I couldn't say! I just heard the murmur-like, then shut the passage door quickly ..."

"Why?"

"Well, sir, I thought ... I didn't want to listen...."

"You thought one of the voices was Mr. Greve's, eh? Having a row with Mr. Parrish, eh? About the lady, isn't that right?"

"Aren't you going rather too fast?" said Robin quietly.

But the detective ignored him.

"Come on and answer my question, my man," he said harshly. "Didn't you think it was Mr. Hartley Parrish and Mr. Greve here having a bit of a dust-up about the young lady being engaged to Mr. Parrish?"

"Well, perhaps I did, but...."

Like a flash the detective turned on Robin.

"What do you know about this?" he demanded fiercely.

"Nothing," said Greve. "As I have told you already, I did not see Mr. Parrish alive again after lunch, nor did I speak to him. What I would suggest to you now is that upon this evidence of Bude's depends the vitally important question of how Mr. Parrish met his death. Though he was found with a revolver in his hand, none of us in this house know of any good motive for his suicide. I put it to you that the man who can furnish us with this motive is the owner of the voice heard by Bude in conversation with Mr. Parrish, since obviously nobody other than Mr. Parrish and possibly this unknown person was in the library block at the time. And I would further remark, Mr. Manderton, that, until the bullet has been extracted, we do not know that Mr. Parrish killed himself..."

"No," said the detective significantly, "we don't!"

He had dropped his eyes to the ground now and was studying the pattern of the hearth-rug.

"You say you heard no shot?" he suddenly asked Robin.

"No!"

"No one other than Miss Trevert, I gather, heard the shot?"

"That is so!"

Mr. Manderton consulted a slip of paper which he drew from his pocket.

"Inspector Humphries," he said, "has drawn up a rough time-table of events leading up to Mr. Parrish's death, based on the evidence he has taken here this evening. You will tell me if it tallies."

He read from the slip:

5 P.M. Bude sounds the gong for tea.

5.10 Mr. Greve passes Bude in the hall and goes down the corridor leading to the library. Mr. Greve states he went straight out by the side door into the gardens.

The detective looked up from his reading.

"At 5.12, let us say, Bude comes back from the servants' quarters to the hall and hears voices from the library. He closes the passage door. Is that right?"

Bude nodded.

"It would be about two minutes after I saw Mr. Greve the first time," he agreed.

"Very well!"

The detective resumed his reading.

5.15 P.M. Miss Trevert goes to fetch Mr. Parrish in to tea. She finds the library door locked. Tries the handle and hears a shot.

5.18 (say) Miss Trevert comes into the lounge hall and gives the alarm.

"Now, sir," said Mr. Manderton briskly, "I should like to ask you one or two further questions. Firstly, how long were you out on your stroll in the dark?"

"I should think about two or three minutes."

"That is to say, if you left the house by the side door at 5.10, you were back in the house by 5.13."

"Yes, that would be right," Robin agreed.

"And what did you do when you came in?"

"I went up to my room to fetch a letter for the post."

"Miss Trevert heard the shot fired at 5.15. Where were you at that time?"

"In my bedroom, I should say. I was there for a few minutes as I had to write a cheque...."

"And where is your bedroom?"

"In the other wing above the billiard-room."

"Hm! A pistol shot makes a great deal of noise. It seems strange that nobody in the house should have heard it."

Here Bude interposed.

"Mr. Parrish, sir, was very particular about noise. He had the library door and the door leading from the front hall to the library corridor specially felted so that he should not hear any sounds from the house when he was working in the library. That library wing was absolutely shut off from the rest of the house. It was always uncommon quiet...."

But the detective, ignoring him, turned to Robin again.

"I have been round the house," he said. "It does not seem to me it ought to take you three or even two minutes to walk from the side door to the front door. I should say it would be a matter of about thirty seconds!"

"Excuse me," Robin answered quickly, "I didn't say I went straight from the side to the front door. I went through the gardens following the path that leads to the main drive. There I turned and came back to the front door."

"And you assert that you heard nothing?"

"I heard nothing."

"Neither the 'loud voices' which the butler heard within two minutes of your leaving the house nor the shot fired five minutes later?"

"I heard nothing."

Mr. Manderton examined the toes of his boots carefully.

"You heard nothing!" he repeated.

The door opened suddenly and Dr. Romain appeared. With him was the village practitioner and Inspector Humphries.

Dr. Redstone carried in his hand a little pad of cotton wool. He bore it over to the fireplace and unwrapping the lint showed a twisted fragment of lead lying on the bloodstained dressing.

"Straight through the heart and lodged in the spine," he said. "Death was absolutely instantaneous."

The detective picked up the bullet and scrutinized it closely.

"Browning pistol ammunition," observed Humphries; "it fits the gun he used. There's half a dozen spare rounds in one of the drawers of his dressing-room upstairs."

Mr. Manderton drew Inspector Humphries and Dr. Redstone into a corner of the room where they conversed in undertones. Bude and Jay had vanished. Dr. Romain turned to Robin Greve, who stood lost in a reverie, staring into the fire.

"A clear case of suicide," he said. "The medical evidence is conclusive on that point. A most amazing affair. I can't conceive what drove him to it. Why did he do it?"

"Ah! why?" said Robin.



CHAPTER X

A SMOKING CHIMNEY

A Red sun glowed dully through a thin mist when, on the following morning, Robin Greve emerged from the side door into the gardens of Harkings. It was a still, mild day. Moisture from the night's rain yet hung translucent on the black limbs of the bare trees and glistened like diamonds on the closely cropped turf of the lawn. In the air was a pleasant smell of damp earth.

Robin paused an instant outside the door in the library corridor and inhaled the morning air greedily. He had spent a restless, fitful night. His sleep had been haunted by the riddle which, since the previous evening, had cast its shadow over the pleasant house. The mystery of Hartley Parrish's death obsessed him. If it was suicide,—and the doctors were both positive on the point—the motive eluded him utterly.

His mind, trained to logical processes of reasoning by his practice of the law, baulked at the theory. When he thought of Hartley Parrish as he had seen him at luncheon on the day before, striding with his quick, vigorous step into the room, boyishly curious to know what the chef was giving them to eat, devouring his lunch with obvious animal enjoyment, brimful of energy, dominating the table with his forceful, eager personality....

The sound of voices in the library broke in upon his thoughts. Robin raised his head and listened. Some one appeared to be talking in a loud voice ... no, not talking ... rather declaiming.

Stepping quietly on the hard gravel path, Robin turned the corner of the house and came into view of the library window. The window-pane gaped, shattered where Horace Trevert had broken the glass on the previous evening when effecting an entrance into the room. Framed in the ragged outline of the splintered glass, bulked the large form of Sergeant Harris. He stood half turned from the window so as to catch the light on a copy of The Times which he held in his red and freckled hands. He was reading aloud in stentorian tones from a leading article.

"While this country," he bawled sonorously, "cannot ... in h'our belief ... hevade ... er ... responsibility ... er ... h'm disquieting sitwation ..."

"Dear me!" thought Robin to himself, "what a very extraordinary morning pursuit for our police!"

Suddenly the reading was interrupted.

Robin heard the library door open. Then Manderton's voice cried:

"That'll do, thank you, Sergeant!"

"Did you 'ear me, sir?" asked the sergeant, who seemed very much relieved to be quit of his task.

"Not a word!" was the reply. "But we'll try with the library door open! I'll go back to the hall and you start again!"

A thoughtful look on his face, Robin turned quickly and, hurrying round the side of the house, entered by the front door. Standing by the door leading to the library corridor he found Manderton.

The detective did not seem particularly glad to see him.

"Good-morning, Inspector," said Robin affably, "you're early to work, I see. Having a little experiment, eh?"

Manderton nodded without replying. Then the stentorian tones of Sergeant Harris proclaiming the views of "The Thunderer" on the Silesian situation rolled down the corridor and struck distinctly on the ears of the listeners in the hall.

Presently Manderton closed the corridor door, shutting off the sound abruptly.

"I think you said you could not hear the sergeant with the library door shut?" queried Robin suavely.

"With the door shut—no," answered the detective shortly. "But with the door open ..."

He broke off significantly and dropped his eyes to his boots.

"Would it be troubling you," Robin struck in, "if we pushed your experiment one step farther?"

Manderton lifted his eyes and looked at the young man, Robin met his gaze unflinchingly.

"Well?"

There was no invitation in his voice, but Robin affected to disregard the other's coldness.

"Let the library door be shut," said Robin, "but leave the glass door leading into the garden open. Then give Sergeant Harris another trial at his reading...."

The detective smiled rather condescendingly.

"With the library door shut, you'll hear nothing," he remarked.

"The library window is open," Robin retorted, "or rather it is as good as open, as one of the two big panes is smashed...."

His voice vibrated with eagerness. The detective looked at him curiously.

"Oh, try if you like," he said carelessly.

Without waiting for his assent, Robin had already plucked open the corridor door and was halfway down the passage as the other replied. He was back again almost at once and, motioning the detective to silence, took his place at his side by the open door. Then the sound of the policeman's voice was heard from the corridor. It was muffled and indistinct so that the sense of his words could not be made out. But the voice was audible enough.

Robin turned to the detective.

"Bude could make out no words," he said.

"But how do we know that the glass door was open?" queried the detective sceptically.

"Because I left it open myself," Robin countered promptly, "when I went out for my walk before tea. Sir Horace told me that he found the door banging about in the wind when he went out lo get into the library by the window."

Mr. Manderton allowed his fat, serious face to expand very slowly into a broad, superior smile.

"Doesn't it seem a little curious," he said, "that Mr. Hartley Parrish should choose to sit and work in the library on a gusty and dark winter evening with the window wide open? You'll allow, I think, that the window was not broken until after his death ..."

Robin's nerves were ragged. The man's tone nettled him exceedingly. But he confined himself to making a little gesture of impatience.

"No, no, sir," said Mr. Manderton, very decidedly, "I prefer to think that the library door was open, left open by the party who went in to speak to Mr. Parrish yesterday afternoon ... and who knows more about the gentleman's suicide than he would have people think ..."

Robin boiled over fairly at this.

"Good God, man!" he exclaimed, "do you accept this theory of suicide as blandly as all that? Have you examined the body? Don't you use your eyes? I tell you ... bah, what's the use? I'm not here to do your work for you!..."

"No, sir," said the detective, quite unruffled, "you are not. And I think I'll continue to see about it myself!"

With that he opened the corridor door and vanished down the passage.

With great deliberation Robin selected a cigarette from his case, lit it, and walked out through the front door into the fresh air again. More than ever he felt the riddle of Hartley Parrish's death weighing upon his mind.

His intuitive sense rebelled against the theory of suicide, despite the medical evidence, despite the revolver in the dead man's hand, despite the detective's assurance. And floating about in his brain, like the gossamer on the glistening bushes in the gardens, were broken threads of vague suspicions, of half-formed theories, leading from his hasty observations in the death chamber ...

In itself the death of Hartley Parrish left him cold. Yes, he must admit that. But the look in Mary Trevert's eyes, as she had urged him to shield himself from the suspicion of having driven Hartley Parrish to his death, haunted him. Already dimly he was beginning to realize that Hartley Parrish in death might prove as insuperable a bar between him and Mary Trevert as ever he had been in life ...

She was now a wealthy woman. Hartley Parrish's will had ensured that, he knew. But it was not the barrier of riches that Robin Greve feared. He had asked Mary Trevert to be his wife before there was any thought of her inheriting Parrish's fortune. He derived a little consolation from that reflection. At least he could not appear as a fortune-hunter in her eyes. But, until he could clear himself of the suspicion lurking in Mary Trevert's mind that he, Robin Greve, was in some way implicated in Hartley Parrish's death, the dead man, he felt, would always stand between them. And so ...

Robin pitched the stump of his cigarette into a rose bush with a little gesture of resignation. Almost without knowing it, he had strolled into the rosery up a shallow flight of steps cut into the bank of green turf, which ran along the side of the house facing the library window to the corner of the house where it met the clipped box-hedge of the Pleasure Ground.

The rosery was a pleasant rectangle framed in a sort of rustic bower which in the summer was covered with superb roses of every hue and variety. Gravel paths intersected rose-beds cut into all manner of fantastic shapes where stood the slender shoots of the young rose-trees each with its tag setting forth its kind, for Hartley Parrish had been an enthusiastic amateur in this direction.

Robin turned round and faced the house. From his elevation he could look down into the library through the window with its shattered pane. He could see the gleaming polish on Hartley Parrish's big desk and the great arm-chair pushed back as Hartley Parrish had pushed it from him just before his death.

The bare poles of the woodwork festooned with the black arms of the creeping roses, standing out dark in the fast falling winter evening, must, he reflected, have been the last view that Hartley Parrish had had before ...

But then he broke off his meditations abruptly. His eye had fallen on a narrow white patch standing out on one of the uprights supporting the clambering roses.

It was a stout young tree, the light brown bark left adhering to its surface. It was a long blaze on the bark on the side of the trunk which had caught his eye. Robin walked round the gravel path until he was within a foot of the pole to get a better view.

The pole stood almost exactly opposite the library window. The scar in the bark was high up and diagonal and quite freshly made, for the wood was dead white and much splintered.

The young man put a hand on the upright for support and leant forward, carefully refraining from putting his foot on the soft brown mould of the flower-bed which fringed the path between it and the rustic woodwork. Then he ran lightly down the steps until he stood with his back to the library window. From here he carefully surveyed the upright again, then, returning to the rosery, began a careful scrutiny of the gravel paths and the beds.

Apparently his search gave little result, for he presently abandoned it and turned his attention to the wooden framework on the other side of the rectangular rose-garden. He plunged boldly in among the rose-bushes and examined each upright in turn. He spent about half an hour in this meticulous investigation, and then, his boots covered with mould, his rough shooting-coat glistening with moisture, he walked slowly down the steps and reentered the house.

As he was wiping the mud off his boots on the great mat in the front hall, Bude came out of the lounge hall with a pile of dishes on a tray.

"Bude," said Robin, "can you tell me if the fire in the library has been smoking of late?"

"Well, sir," replied the butler, "we've always had trouble with that chimdy when the wind's in the southwest."

"Has it been smoking lately?" The young man reiterated his question impatiently.

The man looked up in surprise.

"Well, sir, now you come to mention it, it has. As a matter o'fact, sir, the sweep was ordered for to-day ..."

"Why?"

"Well, sir, Mr. Parrish had mentioned it to me ..."

"When?"

The question came out like a pistol shot.

"Yesterday, sir," answered the butler blandly. "Just before luncheon, it was, sir. Mr. Parrish told me to have that chimdy seen to at once. And I telephoned for the sweep immediately after luncheon, sir ..."

"Did Mr. Parrish say anything else, Bude?"

Robin eagerly scanned the butler's fat, unimpressive countenance. Bude, his tray held out stiffly in front of him, contracted his bushy eyebrows in thought.

"I don't know as he did, sir ..."

"Think, man, think!" Robin urged.

"Well, sir," said Bude, unmoved, "I believe, now I come to think of it, that Mr. Parrish did say something about the wind blowing his papers about ..."

"That is to say, he had been working with the window open?"

Robin Greve's question rang out sharply. It was an affirmation more than a question.

"Yes, sir, leastways I suppose so, sir ..."

"Which window?"

"Why, the one Mr. Parrish always liked to have open in the warm weather, sir, ... the one opposite the desk. The other window was never opened, sir, because of the dictaphone as stands in front of it. The damp affects the mechanism ..."

"Thank you, Bude," said the young man.

With his accustomed majesty the butler wheeled to go. In the turn of his head as he moved there was a faint suggestion of a shake ... a shake of uncomprehending pity.



CHAPTER XI

"... SPEED THE PARTING GUEST!"

Dr. Romain was just finishing his breakfast as Robin Greve entered the dining-room, a cosy oak-panelled room with a bow window fitted with cushioned window-seats. Horace Trevert stood with his back to the fire. There was no sign of either Lady Margaret or of Mary. Silence seemed to fall on both the doctor and his companion as Robin came in. They wore that rather abashed look which people unconsciously assume when they break off a conversation on an unexpected entry.

"Morning, Horace! Morning, Doctor!" said Robin, crossing to the sideboard. "Any sign of Lady Margaret or Mary yet?"

The doctor had risen hastily to his feet.

"I rather think Dr. Redstone is expecting me," he said rapidly; "I half promised to go over to Stevenish ... think I'll just run over. The walk'll do me good ..."

He looked rather wildly about him, then fairly bolted from the room.

Robin, the cover of the porridge dish in his hand, turned and stared at him.

"Why, whatever's the matter with Romain?" he began.

But Horace, who had not spoken a word, was himself halfway to the door.

"Horace!" called out Robin sharply.

The boy stopped with his back towards the other. But he did not turn round.

Robin put the cover back on the porridge dish and crossed the room.

"You all seem in the deuce of a hurry this morning ..." he said.

Still the boy made no reply.

"Why, Horace, what's the matter?"

Robin put his hand on young Trevert's shoulder. Horace shook him roughly off.

"I don't care to discuss it with you, Robin!" he said.

Robin deliberately swung the boy round until he faced him.

"My dear old thing," he expostulated. "What does it all mean? What won't you discuss with me?"

Horace Trevert looked straight at the speaker. His upper lip was pouted and trembled a little.

"What's the use of talking?" he said. "You know what I mean. Or would you like me to be plainer ..."

Robin met his gaze unflinchingly.

"I certainly would," he said, "if it's going to enlighten me as to why you should suddenly choose to behave like a lunatic ..."

Horace Trevert leant back and thrust his hands into his pockets.

"After what happened here yesterday," he said, speaking very clearly and deliberately, "I wonder you have the nerve to stay ..."

"My dear Horace," said Kobin quite impassively, "would you mind being a little more explicit? What precisely are you accusing me of? What have I done?"

"Done?" exclaimed the young man heatedly. "Done? Good God! Don't you realize that you have dragged my sister into this wretched business? Don't you understand that her name will be bandied about before a lot of rotten yokels at the inquest?"

Robin Greve's eyes glittered dangerously.

"I confess," he said, with elaborate politeness, "I scarcely understand what it has to do with me that Hartley Parrish should apparently commit suicide within a few days of becoming engaged to your sister ..."

"Ha!"

Horace Trevert snorted indignantly.

"You don't understand, don't you? We don't understand either. But, I must say, we thought you did!"

With that he turned to go. But Robin caught him by the arm.

"Listen to me, Horace," he said. "I'm not going to quarrel with you in this house of death. But you're going to tell here and now what you meant by that remark. Do you understand? I'm going to know!"

Horace Trevert shook himself free.

"Certainly you shall know," he answered with hauteur, "but I must say I should have thought that, as a lawyer and so on, you would have guessed my meaning without my having to explain. What I mean is that, now that Hartley Parrish is dead, there is only one man who knows what drove him to his death. And that's yourself! Do you want it plainer than that?"

Robin took a step back and looked at his friend. But he did not speak.

"And now," the boy continued, "perhaps you will realize that your presence here is disagreeable to Mary ..."

"Did Mary ask you to tell me this?" Robin broke in.

His voice had lost its hardness. It was almost wistful. The change of tone was so marked that it struck Horace. He hesitated an instant.

"Yes," he blurted out. "She doesn't want to see you again. I don't want to be offensive, Robin.."

"Please don't apologize," said Greve. "I quite understand that this is your sister's house now and, of course, I shall leave at once. I'll ask Jay to pack my things if you could order the car ..."

The boy moved towards the door. Before he reached it Robin called him back.

"Horace," he said pleasantly, "before you go I want you to answer me a question. Think before you speak, because it's very important. When you got into the library yesterday evening through the window, you smashed the glass, didn't you?"

Horace Trevert nodded.

"Yes," he replied, looking hard at Robin.

"Why?"

"To get into the room, of course!"

"Was the window bolted?"

The boy stopped and thought.

"No," he said slowly, "now I come to think of it, I don't believe it was. No, of course, it wasn't. I just put my arm through the broken pane and shoved the window up. But why do you ask?"

"Oh, nothing," answered Robin nonchalantly. "I just was curious to know, that's all!"

Horace stood and looked at him for an instant. Then he went out.

A quarter of an hour later, Hartley Parrish's Rolls-Royce glided through the straggling main street of Stevenish. A chapel bell tinkled unmusically, and on the pavements, gleaming with wet, went a procession of neatly dressed townsfolk bound, prayer-book in hand, for their respective places of worship. A newsboy, sorting out the Sunday newspapers which had just come down by train from London, was the only figure visible on the little station platform. Kobin bought a selection.

"There's all about Mr. Parrish," said the boy, "'im as they found dead up at 'Arkings las' night. And the noospapers 'asn't 'arf been sendin' down to-day ... reporters and photographers ... you oughter seen the crowd as come by the mornin' train ..."

"I wonder what they'll get out of Manderton," commented Robin rather grimly to himself as his train puffed leisurely, after the habit of Sunday trains, into the quiet little station.

In the solitude of his first-class smoker he unfolded the newspapers. None had more than the brief fact that Hartley Parrish had been found dead with a pistol in his hand, but they made up for the briefness of their reports by long accounts of the dead man's "meteoric career." And, Robin noted with relief, hitherto Mary Trevert's name was out of the picture.

He dropped the papers on to the seat, and, as the train steamed serenely through the Sunday calm of the country towards London's outer suburbs, he reviewed in his mind such facts as he had gleaned regarding the circumstances of his late host's death.

He would, he told himself, accept for the time being as facts what, he admitted to himself, so far only seemed to be such. Hartley Parrish, then, had been seated in his library at his desk with the door locked. The fire was smoking, and therefore he had opened the window. According to Horace Trevert, the window had not been bolted when he had entered the library, for, after smashing the pane in the assumption that the bolt was shot, he had had no difficulty in pushing up the window. Hartley Parrish had opened the window himself, for on the nail of the middle finger of his left hand Robin had seen, with the aid of the magnifying-glass, a tiny fragment of white paint.

Who had closed it? He had no answer ready to that question.

Now, as to the circumstances of the shooting. The suicide theory invited one to believe that Hartley Parrish had got up from his desk, pushing back his chair, had gone round it until he stood between the desk and the window, and had there shot himself through the heart. Why should he have done this?

Robin had no answer ready to this question either. He passed on again. Bude had heard loud voices a very few minutes before Mary had heard the shot. That morning's experiments had shown that Bude could have heard these sounds only by way of the open window of the library and the open doors of the garden and the library corridor. Additional proof, if Bude had heard aright, that the library window was open.

Leaning back in his seat, his finger-tips pressed together, Robin Greve resolutely faced the situation to which his deductions were leading him.

"The voice heard at the open window," he told himself, "was the voice of the man who murdered Parrish and who closed the window, that is, of course, if the murder theory proves more conclusive than that of suicide."

This brought him back to his investigations in the rosery. The abrasure he had discovered on the timber upright was the mark of a bullet and a mark freshly made at that. Moreover, it had almost certainly been fired from the library window—from the window which Parrish had opened; the angle at which it had struck and marked the tree showed that almost conclusively.

Yet there had been but one shot! If only he had been able to find that bullet in the rosery! Robin thought ruefully of his long hunt among the sopping rose-bushes.

Yes, there had been only one shot. Mary Trevert had stated it definitely. Besides, the bullet that had killed Hartley Parrish had been fired from his own revolver and had been found in the body. Robin Greve felt the murder theory collapsing about him. But the suicide theory did not stand up, either. What possible, probable motive had Hartley Parrish for taking his own life?

"He wasn't the man to do it!"

The wheels of the train took up the rhythm of the phrase and dinned it into his ears.

"He wasn't the man to do it!"

The riddle seemed more baffling than ever.

Robin thrust one hand into his right-hand pocket to get his pipe, his other hand into his left-hand pocket to find his pouch. His left hand came into contact with a little ball of paper.

He drew it out. It was the little ball of slatey-blue paper he had found on the floor of the library beside Hartley Parrish's dead body.



CHAPTER XII

MR. MANDERTON IS NONPLUSSED

Horace Trevert walked abruptly into Mary's Chinese boudoir. Lady Margaret and the girl were standing by the fire.

"Well," said Horace, dropping into a chair, "he's gone!"

"Who?" said Lady Margaret.

"Robin," answered the boy, "and I must say he took it very well ..."

"You don't mean to tell me, Horace," said his mother, "that you have actually sent Robin Greve away ...?"

Mary Trevert put her hand on her mother's arm.

"I wished it, Mother. I asked Horace to send him away ..."

"But, my dear," protested Lady Margaret.

Mary interrupted her impatiently.

"Robin Greve was impossible here. I had to ask him to go. I suppose he can come back if ... if they want him for the inquest ..."

Lady Margaret was looking at her daughter in a puzzled way. She was a woman of the world and had brought her daughter up to be a woman of the world. She knew that Mary was not impulsive by nature. She knew that there was a wealth of good sense behind those steady eyes.

In response to a look from his mother, Horace got up and left the room.

"Mary, dear," said the older woman, "don't you think you are making a mistake?"

The girl turned away, one slim shoe tapping restlessly against the brass rail of the fireplace.

"My dear," her mother went on, "remember I have known Robin Greve all his life. His father, the Admiral, was a very old friend of mine. He was the very personification of honour. Robin is very fond of you ... no, he has told me nothing, but I know. Don't you think it is rather hard on an old friend to turn him away just when you most want him?"

There was a heightened colour in the girl's face as she turned and looked her mother in the face.

"Robin has not behaved like a friend, Mother," she answered. "He knows more than he pretends about ... about this. And he lets me find out things from the servants when he ought to have told me himself. If he is suspected of having said something to Hartley which made him do this dreadful thing, he has only himself to thank. I did try to shield him—before I knew. But I'm not going to do so any more. If he stays I shall have the police suspecting me all the time. And I owe something to Hartley ..."

Her mother sighed a soft little sigh. She said nothing. She was a very wise woman.

"Robin left me to go to the library ... I am sure of that ..." Mary went on breathlessly.

"Why?" her mother asked.

The girl hesitated.

Then she said slowly:

"You and I have always been good pals, Mother, so I may as well tell you. Robin had just asked me to marry him. So I told him I was engaged to Hartley. He went on in the most awful way, and said that I was selling myself and that I would not be the first girl that Hartley had kept ..."

She broke off and raised her hands to her face. Then she put her elbows on the mantel-shelf and burst into tears.

"Oh, it was hateful," she sobbed.

Her mother put her arm round her soothingly.

"Well, my dear," she said, "Robin was always fond of you, and I dare say it was a shock to him. When men feel like that about a girl they generally say things they don't mean ..."

Mary Trevert straightened herself up and dropped her hands to her side. She faced her mother, the tear-drops glistening on her long lashes.

"He meant it, every word of it. And he was perfectly right. I was selling myself, and you know I was, Mother. Do you think we can go on for ever like this, living on credit and dodging tradesmen? I meant to marry Hartley and stick to him. But I never thought ... I never guessed ... that Robin ..."

"I know, my dear," her mother interposed, "I know. Perhaps it doesn't sound a very proper thing to say in the circumstances, but now that poor Hartley is gone, there is no reason whatsoever why you and Robin ..."

The Treverts were a hot-tempered race. Lady Margaret's unfinished sentence seemed to infuriate the girl.

"Do you think I'd marry Robin Greve as long as I thought he knew the mystery of Hartley's death!" she cried passionately. "I was willing to give up my self-respect once to save us from ruin, but I won't do it again. I'm not surprised to find you thinking I am ready to marry Robin and live happy ever after on poor Hartley's money. But I've not sunk so low as that! If you ever mention this to me again, Mother, I promise you I'll go away and never come back!"

"My dear child," temporized Lady Margaret, eyebrows raised in protest at this outburst, "of course, it shall be as you wish. I only thought ..."

But Mary Trevert was not listening. She leant on the mantel-shelf, her dark head in her hands, and she murmured:

"The tragedy of it! My God, the tragedy of it!"

Lady Margaret twisted the rings on her long white fingers.

"The tragedy of it, my dear," she said, "is that you have sent away the man you love at a time when you will never need him so badly again ..."

There was a discreet tapping at the door.

"Come in!" said Lady Margaret.

Bude appeared.

"Mr. Manderton, the detective, my lady, was wishing to know whether he might see Miss Trevert ..."

"Yes. Ask him to come up here," commanded Lady Margaret.

"He is without—in the corridor, my lady!"

He stepped back and in a moment Mr. Manderton stepped into the room, big, burly, and determined.

He made a little stiff bow to the two ladies and halted irresolute near the door.

"You wished to see my daughter, Mr. Manderton," said Lady Margaret.

The detective bowed again.

"And you, too, my lady," he said. "Allow me!"

He closed the door, then crossed to the fireplace.

"After I had seen you and Miss Trevert last night, my lady," he began, "I had a talk with Mr. Jeekes, Mr. Parrish's principal secretary, who came down by car from London as soon as he heard the news. My lady, I think this is a fairly simple case!"

He paused and scanned the carpet.

"Mr. Jeekes tells me, my lady," he went on presently, "that Mrs Fairish had been suffering from neurasthenia and a weak heart brought on by too much smoking. It appears that he had consulted, within the last two months, two leading specialists of Harley Street about his health. One of these gentlemen, Sir Winterton Maire, ordered him to knock off all work and all smoking for at least three months. He will give evidence to this effect at the inquest. Mr. Parrish disregarded these orders as he was wishful to put through his scheme for Hornaway's before taking a rest. Mr. Jeekes can prove that. In these circumstances, my lady...."

"Well?"

Lady Margaret, in her black crepe de chine dress, setting off the silvery whiteness of her hair, was a calm, unemotional figure as she sat in her lacquer chair.

"Well?" she asked again.

"Well," said the detective, "the verdict will be one of 'Suicide whilst of unsound mind,' and in my opinion the medical evidence will be sufficient to bring that in. There will not be occasion, I fancy, my lady, to probe any farther into the motives of Mr. Parrish's action...."

"And are you personally satisfied"—Mary's voice broke in clear and unimpassioned—"are you personally satisfied, Mr. Manderton, that Mr. Parrish shot himself?"

The detective cast an appealing glance at the tips of his well-burnished boots.

"Yes, Miss, I think I may say I am...."

"And what about the evidence of Bude, who said he heard voices in the library...."

Mr. Manderton gave his shoulders the merest suspicion of a shrug, raised his hands, and dropped them to his sides.

"I had hoped, my lady," he said, throwing a glance at Lady Margaret, "and you, Miss, that I had made it clear that in the circumstances we need not pursue that matter any further...."

Lady Margaret rose. Her dominating personality seemed to fill the room.

"We are extremely obliged to you, Mr. Manderton," she said, "for the able and discreet way in which you have handled this case. I sometimes meet the Chief Commissioner at dinner. I shall write to Sir Maurice and tell him my opinion."

Mr. Manderton reddened a little.

"Your ladyship is too good," he said.

Lady Margaret bowed to signify that the interview was at an end. But Mary Trevert left her side and walked to the door.

"Will you come downstairs with me, Mr. Manderton," she said. "I should like to speak to you alone for a minute!"

She led the way downstairs through the hall and out into the drive. A pale sun shone down from a grey and rainy sky, and the damp breeze blowing from the sodden trees played among the ringlets of her dark hair.

"We will walk down the drive," she said to the detective, who, rather astonished, had followed her. "We can talk freely out of doors."

They took a dozen steps in silence. Then she said:

"Who was it speaking to Mr. Parrish in the library?"

"Undoubtedly Mr. Greve," replied the man without hesitation.

"Why undoubtedly?" asked the girl.

"It could have been no one else. We know that he left you hot to get at Mr. Parrish and have words with him. Bude heard them talking with voices raised aloud...."

"But if the door were locked?"

"Mr. Parrish may have opened it and locked it again, Mr. Greve getting out by the window. But there are no traces of that ... one would look to find marks on the paint on the inside. Besides, a little test we made this morning suggests that Mr. Greve spoke to Mr. Parrish through the window...."

"Was the window open?"

"Yes, Miss, it probably was. The fire had been smoking in the library. Mr. Parrish had complained to Bude about it. Besides, we have found Mr. Parrish's finger-prints on the inside of the window-frame. Outside we found other finger-prints ... Sir Horace's. Sir Horace was good enough to allow his to be taken."

The girl looked at the detective quickly.

"Were there any other finger-prints except Horace's on the outside?" she asked.

Mr. Manderton shook his head.

"No, Miss," he answered.

They had reached the lodge-gates at the beginning of the drive and turned to retrace their steps to the house.

"Then we shall never know exactly why Mr. Parrish did this thing?" hazarded Mary.

Mr. Manderton darted her a surreptitious glance.

"We shall see about that," he said.

There was menace in his voice.

Mary Trevert stopped. She put her hand on the detective's arm.

"Mr. Manderton," she said, "if you are satisfied, then, believe me, I am!"

The detective bowed.

"Miss Trevert," he said,—and he spoke perfectly respectfully though his words were blunt,—"I can well believe that!"

The girl looked up quickly. She scanned his face rather apprehensively.

"What do you mean?" she asked, "I don't understand...."

"I mean," was the detective's answer, given in his quiet, level voice, "that when you attempted to mislead Inspector Humphries you did nobody any good!"

The girl bent her head without replying, and in silence they regained the house. At the house door they parted, Mary going indoors while the detective remained standing on the drive. Very deliberately he produced a short briar pipe, cut a stub of dark plug tobacco from a flat piece he carried in his pocket, crammed the tobacco into his pipe, and lit it. Reflectively he blew a thin spiral of smoke into the still air.

"He told me about that fat butler's evidence," he said to himself; "he put me wise about that window being open; he gave me the office about the paint on the finger-nails of Mr. H.P."

He ticked off each point on his fingers with the stem of his pipe.

"Why?" said Mr. Manderton aloud, addressing a laurel-bush.



CHAPTER XIII

JEEKES

Mr. Albert Edward Jeekes, Hartley Parrish's principal private secretary, lunched with Lady Margaret, Mary and Horace. Dr. Romain seemed not to have got over his embarrassment of the morning, for he did not put in an appearance.

Mr. Jeekes was an old young man who supported bravely the weight of his Christian names, a reminder of his mother having occupied some small post in the household of Queen Victoria the Good. He might have been any age between 35 and 50 with his thin sandy hair, his myopic gaze, and his habitual expression of worried perplexity.

He was a shorthand-writer and typist of incredible dexterity and speed which, combined with an unquenchable energy, had recommended him to Hartley Parrish. Accordingly, in consideration of a salary which he would have been the first to describe as "princely," he had during the past four years devoted some fifteen hours a day to the service of Mr. Hartley Parrish.

He was unmarried. When not on duty, either at St. James's Square, Harkings, or Hartley Parrish's palatial offices in Broad Street, he was to be found at one of those immense and gloomy clubs of indiscriminate membership which are dotted about the parish of St. James's, S.W., and to which Mr. Jeekes was in the habit of referring in Early-Victorian accents of respect.

"When I heard the news at the club, Miss Trevert," said Jeekes, "you could have knocked me down with a feather. Mr. Parrish, as all of us knew, worked himself a great deal too hard, sometimes not knocking off for his tea, even, and wore his nerves all to pieces. But I never dreamed it would come to this. Ah! he's a great loss, and what we shall do without him I don't know. There was a piece in one of the papers about him to-day—perhaps you saw it?—it called him 'one of the captains of industry of modern England.'"

"You were always a great help to him, Mr. Jeekes," said Mary, who was touched by the little man's hero-worship; "I am sure you realized that he appreciated you."

"Well," replied Mr. Jeekes, rubbing the palms of his hands together, "he did a great deal for me. Took me out of a City office where I was getting two pound five a week. That's what he did. It was a shipping firm. I tell you this because it has a bearing, Miss Trevert, on what is to follow. Why did he pick me? I'll tell you.

"He was passing through the front office with one of our principals when he asked him, just casually, what Union Pacific stood at. The boss didn't know.

"'A hundred and eighty-seven London parity,' says I. He turned round and looked at me. 'How do you know that?' says he, rather surprised, this being in a shipping office, you understand.

"'I take an interest in the markets,' I replied. 'Do you?' he says. 'Then you might do for me,' and tells me to come and see him."

"I went. He made me an offer. When I heard the figure ... my word!"

Mr. Jeekes paused. Then added sadly:

"And I had meant to work for him to my dying day!"

They were in the billiard-room seated on the selfsame settee, Mary reflected, on which she and Robin had sat—how long ago it seemed, though only yesterday! Mary had carried the secretary off after luncheon in order to unfold to him a plan which she had been turning over in her mind ever since her conversation with the detective.

"And what are you going to do now, Mr. Jeekes?" she asked.

The little man pursed up his lips.

"Well," he said, "I'll have to get something else, I expect. I'm not expecting to find anything so good as I had with Mr. Parrish. And things are pretty crowded in the City, Miss Trevert, what with all the boys back from the war, God bless 'em, and glad we are to see 'em, I'm sure. I hope you'll realize, Miss Trevert, that anything I can do to help to put Mr. Parrish's affairs straight...."

"I was just about to say," Mary broke in, "that I hope you will not contemplate any change, Mr. Jeekes. You know more about Mr. Parrish's affairs than anybody else, and I shall be very glad if you will stay on and help me. You know I have been left sole executrix...."

"Miss Trevert,"—the little man stammered in his embarrassment,—"this is handsome of you. I surely thought you would have wished to make your own arrangements, appoint your own secretaries...."

Mr. Jeekes broke off and looked at her, blinking hard.

"Not at all," said Mary. "Everything shall be as it was. I am sure that Mr. Bardy will approve. Besides, Mr. Jeekes, I want your assistance in something else...."

"Anything in my power...." began Jeekes.

"Listen," said Mary.

She was all her old self-composed self now, a charming figure in her plain blue serge suit with a white silken shirt and black tie—the best approach to mourning her wardrobe could afford. Already the short winter afternoon was drawing in. Mysterious shadows lurked in the corners of the long and narrow room.

"Listen," said Mary, leaning forward. "I want to know why Mr. Parrish killed himself. I mean to know. And I want you, Mr. Jeekes, to help me to find out,"

Something stirred ever so faintly in the remote recesses of the billiard-room. A loose board or something creaked softly and was silent.

"What was that?" the girl called out sharply. "Who's there?"

Mr. Jeekes got up and walked over to the door. It was ajar. He closed it.

"Just a board creaking," he said as he resumed his seat.

"I want your aid in finding out the motive for this terrible deed,"—Mary Trevert was speaking again,—"I can't understand.... I don't see clear...."

"Miss Trevert," said Mr. Jeekes, clearing his throat fussily, "I fear we must look for the motive in the state of poor Mr. Parrish's nerves. An uncommonly high-strung man he always was, and he smoked those long black strong cigars of his from morning till night. Sir Winterton Maire told him flatly—Mr. Parrish, I recollect, repeated his very words to me after Sir Winterton had examined him—that, if he did not take a complete rest and give up smoking, he would not be answerable for the consequences. Therefore, Miss Trevert...."

"Mr. Jeekes," answered the girl, "I knew Mr. Parrish pretty well. A woman, you know, gets to the heart of a man's character very often quicker than his daily associates in business. And I know that Mr. Parrish was the last man in the world to have done a thing like that. He was so ... so undaunted. He made nothing of difficulties. He relied wholly on himself. That was the secret of his success. For him to have killed himself like this makes me feel convinced that there was some hidden reason, far stronger, far more terrible, than any question of nerves...."

Leaning forward, her hands clasped tightly in front of her, Mary Trevert raised her dark eyes to the little secretary's face.

"Many men have a secret in their lives," she said in a low voice. "Do you know of anything in Mr. Parrish's life which an enemy might have made use of to drive him to his death?"

Her manner was so intense that Mr. Jeekes quite lost his self-composure. He clutched at his pince-nez and readjusted them upon his nose to cover his embarrassment. The secretary was not used to gazing at beautiful women whose expressive features showed as clearly as this the play of the emotions.

"Miss Trevert," he said presently, "I know of no such secret. But then what do I—what does any one—know of Mr. Parrish's former life?"

"We might make enquiries in South Africa?" ventured the girl.

"I doubt if we should learn anything much through that," said the secretary. "Of course, Mr. Parrish had great responsibilities and responsibility means worry...."

A silence fell on them both. From somewhere in the dark shadows above the fire glowing red through the falling twilight a clock chimed once. There was a faint rustling from the neighborhood of the door. Mr. Jeekes started violently. A coal dropped noisily into the fireplace.

"There was something else," said Mary, ignoring the interruption, and paused. She did not look up when she spoke again.

"There is often a woman in cases like this," she began reluctantly.

Mr. Jeekes looked extremely uncomfortable.

"Miss Trevert," he said, "I beg you will not press me on that score...."

"Why?" asked the girl bluntly.

"Because ... because"—Mr. Jeekes stumbled sadly over his words—"because, dear me, there are some things which really I couldn't possibly discuss ... if you'll excuse me...."

"Oh, but you can discuss everything, Mr. Jeekes," replied Mary Trevert composedly. "I am not a child, you know. I am perfectly well aware that there's a woman somewhere in the life of every man, very often two or three. I haven't got any illusions on the subject, I assure you. I never supposed for a moment that I was the first woman in Mr. Parrish's life...."

This candour seemed to administer a knock-out blow to the little secretary's Victorian mind. He was speechless. He took off his pince-nez, blindly polished them with his pocket-handkerchief and replaced them upon his nose. His fingers trembled violently.

"I have no wish to appear vulgarly curious," the girl went on,—Mr. Jeekes made a quick gesture of dissent,—"but I am anxious to know whether Mr. Parrish was being blackmailed ... or anything like that...."

"Oh, no, Miss Trevert, I do assure you," the little man expostulated in hasty denial, "nothing like that, I am convinced. At least, that is to say ..."

He rose to his feet, clutching the little attache case which he invariably carried with him as a kind of emblem of office.

"And now, if you'll excuse me, Miss Trevert," he muttered, "I should really be going. I am due at Mr. Bardy's office at five o'clock. He is coming up from the country specially to meet me. There is so much to discuss with regard to this terrible affair."

He glanced at his watch.

"With the roads as greasy as they are," he added, "it will take me all my time in the car to ..."

He cast a panic-striken glance around him. But Mary Trevert held him fast.

"You didn't finish what you were saying about Mr. Parrish, Mr. Jeekes," she said impassively. The secretary made no sign. But he looked a trifle sullen.

"I don't think you realize, Mr. Jeekes," she said, "that other people besides myself are keenly interested in the motives for Mr. Parrish's suicide. The police profess to be willing to accept the testimony of the specialists as satisfactory medical evidence about his state of mind. But I distrust that man, Manderton. He is not satisfied, Mr. Jeekes. He won't rest until he knows the truth."

The secretary cast her a frightened glance.

"But Mr. Manderton told me himself, Miss Trevert," he affirmed, "that the verdict would be, 'Suicide while temporarily insane,' on Sir Winterton Maire's evidence alone ..."

Mary Trevert tapped the ground impatiently with her foot.

"Manderton will get at the truth, I tell you," she said. "He's that kind of man. Do you want me to find out from them? At the inquest, perhaps?"

The secretary put his attache case down on the lounge again.

"Of course, that would be most improper, Miss Trevert," he said. "But your question embarrasses me. It embarrasses me very much ..."

"What are you keeping back from me, Mr. Jeekes?" the girl demanded imperiously.

The secretary mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. Then, as though with an effort, he spoke.

"There is a lady, a French lady, who draws an income from Mr. Parrish ..."

The girl remained impassive, but her eyes grew rather hard.

"These payments are still going on?" she asked.

Jeekes hesitated. Then he nodded,

"Yes," he said.

"Well? Was she blackmailing ... him?"

"No, no," Mr. Jeekes averred hastily. "But there was some unpleasantness some months ago ... er ... a county court action, to be precise, about some bills she owed. Mr. Parrish was very angry about it and settled to prevent it coming into court. But there was some talk about it ... in legal circles ..."

He threw a rather scared glance at the girl.

"Please explain yourself, Mr. Jeekes," she said coldly. "I don't understand ..."

"Her lawyer was Le Hagen—it's a shady firm with a big criminal practice. They sometimes brief Mr. Greve ..."

Mary Trevert clasped and unclasped her hands quickly.

"I quite understand, Mr. Jeekes," she said. "You needn't say any more ..."

She turned away in a manner that implied dismissal. It was as though she had forgotten the secretary's existence. He picked up his attache case and walked slowly to the door.

A sharp exclamation broke from his lips.

"Miss Trevert," he cried, "the door ... I shut it a little while back ... look, it's ajar!"

The girl who stood at the fire switched on the electric light by the mantelpiece.

"Is ... is ... the door defective? Doesn't it shut properly?"

The little secretary forced out the questions in an agitated voice.

The girl walked across the room and shut the door. It closed perfectly, a piece of solid, well-fitting oak.

"What does it mean?" said Mr. Jeekes in a whisper. "You understand, I should not wish what I told you just now about Mr. Parrish to be overheard ..."

They opened the door again. The dusky corridor was empty.



CHAPTER XIV

A SHEET OF BLUE PAPER

The sight of that crumpled ball of slatey-blue paper brought back to Robin's mind with astonishing vividness every detail of the scene in the library. Once more he looked into Hartley Parrish's staring, unseeing eyes, saw the firelight gleam again on the heavy gold signet ring on the dead man's hand, the tag of the dead man's bootlace as it trailed from one sprawling foot across the carpet. Once more he felt the dark cloud of the mystery envelop him as a mist and with a little sigh he smoothed out the crumpled paper.

It was an ordinary quarto sheet of stoutish paper, with a glazed surface, of an unusual shade of blue, darker than what the stationers call "azure," yet lighter than legal blue. At the top right-hand corner was typewritten a date: "Nov. 25." Otherwise the sheet was blank.

The curious thing about it was that a number of rectangular slits had been cut in the paper. Robin counted them. There were seven. They were of varying sizes, the largest a little over an inch, the smallest not more than a quarter of an inch, in length. In depth they measured about an eighth of an inch.

Robin stared at the paper uncomprehendingly. He remembered perfectly where he had found it on the floor of the library at Harkings, between the dead body and the waste-paper basket. The basket, he recalled, stood out in the open just clear of the desk on the left-hand side. From the position in which it was lying the ball of paper might have been aimed for the waste-paper basket and, missing it, have fallen on the carpet.

Robin turned the sheet over. The back was blank. Then he held the paper up to the light. Yes, there was a water-mark. Now it was easily discernible. "EGMONT FF. QU." he made out.

The train was slowing down. Robin glanced out of the window and saw that they were crossing the river in the mirky gloom of a London winter Sunday. He balanced the sheet of paper in his hands for a moment. Then he folded it carefully into four and stowed it away in his cigarette-case. The next moment the train thumped its way into Charing Cross.

A taxi deposited him at the Middle Temple Gate. He walked the short distance to the set of chambers he occupied. On his front door a piece of paper was pinned. By the rambling calligraphy and the phonetic English he recognized the hand of his "laundress."

Dere sir [it ran], mr rite call he want to see u pertikler i tole im as you was in country & give im ur adress hope i dun rite mrs bragg

Robin had scarcely got his key in the door of his "oak" when there was a step on the stair. A nice-looking young man with close-cropped fair hair appeared round the turn of the staircase.

"Hullo, Robin," he exclaimed impetuously, "I am glad to have caught you like this. Your woman gave me your address, so I rang up Harkings at once and they told me you had just gone back to town. So I came straight here. You remember me, don't you? Bruce Wright ... But perhaps I'm butting in. If you'd rather see me some other time...."

"My dear boy," said Robin, motioning him into the flat, "of course I remember you. Only I didn't recognize you just for the minute. Shove your hat down here in the hall. And as for butting in,"—he threw open the door of the living-room,—"why! I think there is no other man in England I would so gladly see at this very moment as yourself."

The living-room was a bright and cheery place, tastefully furnished in old oak with gay chintz curtains. It looked out on an old-world paved court in the centre of which stood a solitary soot-laden plane-tree.

"What's this rot about Parrish having committed suicide?" demanded the boy abruptly.

Robin gave him in the briefest terms an outline of the tragedy.

"Poor old H.P., eh?" mused young Wright; "who'd have thought it?"

"But the idea of suicide is preposterous," he broke out suddenly. "I knew Parrish probably better than anybody. He would never have done a thing like that. It must have been an accident...."

Robin shook his head.

"That possibility is ruled out by the medical evidence," he said, and stopped short.

Bruce Wright, who had been pacing up and down the room, halted in front of the barrister.

"I tell you that Parrish was not the man to commit suicide. Nothing would have even forced him to take his own life. You know, I was working with him as his personal secretary every day for more than two years, and I am sure!"

He resumed his pacing up and down the room.

"Has it ever occurred to you, Robin," he said presently, "that practically nothing is known of H.P.'s antecedents? For instance, do you know where he was born?"

"I understand he was a Canadian," replied Robin with a shrewd glance at the flushed face of the boy.

"He's lived in Canada," said Wright, "but originally he was a Cockney, from the London slums. And I believe I am the only person who knows that...."

Robin pushed an armchair at his companion.

"Sit down and tell me about it," he commanded.

The boy dropped into the chair.

"It was after I had been only a few months with him," he began, "shortly after I was discharged from the army with that lung wound of mine. We were driving back in the car from some munition works near Baling, and the chauffeur took a wrong turning near Wormwood Scrubs and got into a maze of dirty streets round there...."

"I know," commented Robin, "Notting Dale, they call it...."

"H.P. wasn't noticing much," Wright went on, "as he was dictating letters to me,—we used to do a lot of work in the Rolls-Royce in those rush days,—but, directly he noticed that the chauffeur was uncertain of the road, he shoved his head out of the window and put him right at once. I suppose I seemed surprised at his knowing his way about those parts, for he laughed at me and said: 'I was born and brought up down here, Bruce, in a little greengrocer's shop just off the Latimer Road.' I said nothing because I didn't want to interrupt his train of thought. He had never talked to me or Jeekes or any of us like that before.

"'By Gad,' he went on, 'how the smell of the place brings back those days to me—the smell of decayed fruit, of stale fish, of dirt! Why, it seems like yesterday that Victor Marbran and I used to drive round uncle's cart with vegetables and coal. What a life to escape from, Bruce, my boy! Gad, you can count yourself lucky!'

"He was like a man talking to himself. I asked him how he had broken away from it all. At that he laughed, a bitter, hard sort of laugh. 'By having the guts to break away from it, boy,' he said. 'It was I who made Victor Marbran come away with me. We worked our passages out to the Cape and made our way up-country to Matabeleland. That was in the early days of Rhodes and Barney Barnato—long before I went to Canada. I made Victor's fortune for him and mine as well. But I made more than Victor and he never forgave me. He'd do me a bad turn if he could ...'

"Then he broke off short and went on with his dictating ..."

"Did he ever come back to this phase of his life?"

"Only when we got out of the car that morning. He said to me: 'Forget what I told you to-day, young fellow. Never rake up a man's past!' And he never mentioned the subject again. Of course, I didn't either ..."

Stretched full length in his chair, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Robin remained lost in thought.

"The conversation came back to me to-day," said the boy, "when I read of Parrish's death. And I wondered ..."

"Well?"

"Whether the secret of his death may not be found somewhere in his adventurous past. You see he said that Victor Marbran was an enemy. Then there was something else. I never told you—when you took all that trouble to get me another job after Parrish had sacked me—the exact reason for my dismissal. You never asked me either. That was decent of you, Robin ..."

"I liked you, Bruce," said Robin shortly.

"Well, I'll tell you now," he said. "When I joined H.P.'s staff after I got out of the Army, I was put under old Jeekes, of course, to learn the work. One of the first injunctions he gave me was with regard to Mr. Parrish's letters. I suppose you know more or less how secretaries of a big business man like Hartley Parrish work. They open all letters, lay the important ones before the big man for him to deal with personally, make a digest of the others or deal with them direct ..."

Robin nodded.

"Well," the boy resumed, "the first thing old Jeekes told me was that letters arriving in a blue envelope and marked 'Personal' were never to be opened ..."

"In a blue envelope?" echoed Robin quickly.

"Yes, a particular kind of blue—a sort of slatey-blue—Jeekes showed me one as a guide. Well, these letters were to be handed to Mr. Parrish unopened."

Robin had stood up.

"That's odd," he said, diving in his pocket.

"I say, hold on a bit," protested the boy, "this is really rather important what I am telling you. I'll never finish if you keep on interrupting."

"Sorry, Bruce," said Robin, and sat down again.

But he began to play restlessly with his cigarette case which he had drawn from his pocket.

"Well, of course," Bruce resumed, "I wasn't much of a private secretary really, and one day I forgot all about this injunction. Some days old H.P. got as many as three hundred letters. I was alone at Harkings with him, I remember, Jeekes was up at Sheffield and the other secretaries were away ill or something, and in the rush of dealing with this enormous mail I slit one of these blue envelopes open with the rest. I discovered what I had done only after I had got all the letters sorted out, this one with the rest. So I went straight to old H.P. and told him. By Jove!"

"What happened?" said Robin.

"He got into the most paralytic rage," said Bruce. "I have never seen a man in such an absolute frenzy of passion. He went right off the hooks, just like that! He fairly put the wind up me. For a minute I thought he was going to kill me. He snatched the letter out of my hand, called me every name under the sun, and finally shouted: 'You're fired, d'ye hear? I won't employ men who disobey my orders! Get out of this before I do you a mischief! I went straight off. And I never saw him again ..."

Robin Greve looked very serious. But his face displayed no emotion as he asked:

"And what was in the letter for him to make such a fuss about?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders.

"That was the extraordinary part of it. The letter was perfectly harmless. It was an ordinary business letter from a firm in Holland ..."

"In Holland?" cried Greve. "Did you say in Holland? Tell me the name! No, wait, see if I can remember. 'Van' something—'Speck' or 'Spike' ..."

"I remember the name perfectly," answered Bruce, rather puzzled by the other's sudden outburst; "it was Van der Spyck and Co. of Rotterdam. We had a good deal of correspondence with them ..."

Robin Greve had opened his cigarette-case and drawn from it a creased square of blue paper folded twice across. Unfolding it, he held up the sheet he had found in the library at Harkings.

"Is that the paper those letters were written on?" he asked.

Bruce took the sheet from him. He held it up to the light.

"Why, yes," came the prompt answer. "I'd know it in a minute. Look, it's the same water-mark. 'Egmont.' Where did you get hold of it?"

"Bruce," said Robin gravely, without answering the question, "we're getting into deep water, boy!"



CHAPTER XV

SHADOWS

Robert Greve stood for an instant in silence by the window of his rooms. His fingers hammered out a tattoo on the pane. His eyes were fixed on the windows of the chambers across the court. But they did not take in the pleasant prospect of the tall, ivy-framed casements in their mellow setting of warm red brick. He was trying to fix a mental photograph of a letter—typewritten on paper of dark slatey blue—which he had seen on Hartley Parrish's desk in the library at Harkings on the previous afternoon.

Prompted by Bruce Wright, he could now recall the heading clearly. "ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & Co., GENERAL IMPORTERS, ROTTERDAM," stood printed before his eyes as plainly as though he still held the typewritten sheet in front of him. But the mind plays curious tricks. Robin's brain had registered the name; yet it recorded no impression of the contents of the letter. Beyond the fact that it dealt in plain commercial fashion with some shipments or other, he could recall no particular whatever of it.

"But where did you get hold of this sheet of paper?" Bruce Wright's voice broke in impatiently behind him. "I'm most frightfully interested to know ..."

"Found it on the floor beside Parrish's body," answered Robin briefly. "There was a letter, too, on the same paper ..."

"By Gad!" exclaimed the boy eagerly, "have you got that too?"

Robin shook his head.

"It was only your story that made me think of it. I had the letter. But I left it where I found it—on Parrish's desk in the library ..."

"But you read it ... you know what was in it?"

Robin shrugged his shoulders.

"It was a perfectly straightforward business letter ... something about steel shipments ... I don't remember any more ..."

"A straightforward business letter," commented the boy. "Like the letter I read, eh?..."

"Tell me, Bruce," said Robin, after a moment's silence, "during the time you were with Hartley Parrish, I suppose these blue letters came pretty often?"

Young Wright wrinkled his brow in thought.

"It's rather difficult to say. You see, there were three of us besides old Jeekes, and, of course, these letters might have come without my knowledge anything about it. But during the seven months I worked with H.P. I suppose about half a dozen of these letters passed through my hands. They used to worry H.P., you know, Robin ..."

"Worry him?" exclaimed Robin sharply; "how do you mean?"

"Well," said Bruce, "Parrish was a very easygoing fellow, you know. He worked every one—himself included—like the devil, of course. But he was hardly ever nervy or grumpy. And so I was a bit surprised to find—after I had been with him for a time—that every now and then he sort of shrivelled up. He used to look ... well, careworn and ... and haggard. And at these times he was pretty short with all of us. It was such an extraordinary change from his usual cheery, optimistic self that sometimes I suspected him of dope or some horror like that ..."

Robin shook his head. He had a sudden vision of Hartley Parrish, one of his long, black Partagas thrust at an aggressive angle from a corner of his mouth, virile, battling, strong.

"Oh, no," he said, "not dope ..."

"No, no, I know," the boy went on quickly. "It wasn't dope. It was fear ..."

Robin swung round from the window.

"Fear? Fear of what?"

The boy cast a frightened glance over his shoulder rather as if he fancied he might be overheard.

"Of those letters," he replied. "I am sure it was that. I watched him and ... and I know. Every time he got one of those letters in the bluish envelopes, these curious fits of gloom came over him. Robin ..."

"What, Bruce?"

"I think he was being blackmailed!"

The barrister nodded thoughtfully.

"Don't you agree?"

The boy awaited his answer eagerly.

"Something very like that," replied the other.

Then suddenly he smashed his fist into the open palm of his other hand.

"But he wouldn't have taken it lying down!" he cried. "Hartley Parrish was a fighter, Bruce. Did you ever know a man who could best him? No, no, it won't fit! Besides ..."

He broke off and thought for an instant.

"We must get that letter from Harkings," he said presently. "Jeekes will have it. We can do nothing until ..."

His voice died away. Bruce, sunk in one of the big leather armchairs, was astonished to see him slip quickly away from the window and ensconce himself behind one of the chintz curtains.

"Here, Bruce," Robin called softly across the room. "Just come here. But take care not to show yourself. Look out, keep behind the curtain and here ... peep out through this chink!"

Young Wright peered through a narrow slit between the curtain and the window-frame. In the far corner of the courtyard beneath the windows, where a short round iron post marked a narrow passage leading to the adjoining court, a man was standing. He wore a shabby suit and a blue handkerchief knotted about his neck served him as a substitute for the more conventional collar and tie. His body was more than half concealed by the side of the house along which the passage ran. But his face was clearly distinguishable—a peaky, thin face, the upper part in the shadow of the peak of a discoloured tweed cap.

"He's been there on and off all the time we've been talking," said Robin. "I wasn't sure at first. But now I'm certain. He's watching these windows! Look!"

Briskly the watcher's head was withdrawn to emerge again, slowly and cautiously, in a little while.

"But who is he? What does he want?" asked Bruce.

"I haven't an idea," retorted Robin Greve. "But I could guess. Tell me, Bruce," he went on, stepping back from the window and motioning the boy to do the same, "did you notice anybody following you when you came here?"

Bruce shook his head.

"I'm pretty sure nobody did. You see, I came in from the Strand, down Middle Temple Lane. Once service has started at Temple Church there's not a mouse stirring in the Inn till the church is out. I think I should have noticed if any one had followed me up to your chambers ..."

Robin set his chin squarely.

"Then he came after me," he said. "Bruce, you'll have to go to Harkings and get that letter!"

"By all means," answered the boy. "But, I say, they won't much like me butting in, will they?"

"You'll have to say you came down to offer your sympathy, ... volunteer your services ... oh, anything. But you must get that letter! Do you understand, Bruce? You must get that letter—if you have to steal it!"

The boy gave a long whistle.

"That's rather a tall order, isn't it?" he said.

Robin nodded. His face was very grave.

"Yes," he said presently, "I suppose it is. But there is something ... something horrible behind this case, Bruce, something dark and..and mysterious. And I mean to get to the bottom of it. With your help. Or alone!"

Bruce put his hand impulsively on the other's arm.

"You can count on me, you know," he said. "But don't you think ..."

He broke off shyly.

"What?"

"Don't you think you'd better tell me what you know. And what you suspect!"

Robin hesitated.

"Yes," he said, "that's fair. I suppose I ought. But there's not much to tell, Bruce. Just before Hartley Parrish was found dead, I asked Miss Trevert to marry me. I was too late. She was already engaged to Hartley Parrish. I was horrified ... I know some things about Parrish ... we had words and I went off. Five minutes later Miss Trevert went to fetch Parrish in to tea and heard a shot behind the locked door of the library. Horace Trevert got in through the window and found Parrish dead. Every one down at Harkings believes that I went in and threatened Parrish so that he committed suicide ..."

"Whom do you mean by every one?"

Robin laughed drily. "Mary Trevert, her mother, Horace Trevert ..."

"The police, too?"

"Certainly. The police more than anybody!"

"By Jove!" commented the boy.

"You ask me what I suspect," Robin continued. "I admit I have no positive proof. But I suspect that Hartley Parrish did not die by his own hand!"

Bruce Wright looked up with a startled expression on his face.

"You mean that he was murdered?"

"I do!"

"But how? Why?"

Then Robin told him of the experiment in the library, of the open window and of the bullet mark he had discovered in the rosery.

"What I want to know," he said, "and what I am determined to find out beyond any possible doubt, is whether the bullet found in Hartley Parrish's body was fired from his pistol. But before we reach that point we have to explain how it happened that only one shot was heard and how a bullet which apparently came from Parrish's pistol was found in his body ..."

"If Mr. Parrish was murdered, the murderer might have turned the gun round in Parrish's hand and forced him to shoot himself ..."