"Hardly," said Robin. "Remember, Mary Trevert was at the door when the shot was fired. Your theory presupposes the employment of force, in other words, a struggle. Miss Trevert heard no scuffling. No, I've thought of that.. it won't do ..."

"Have you any suspicion of who the murderer might be?"

Robin shook his head decidedly.

"Not a shadow of an idea," he affirmed positively. "But I have a notion that we shall find a clue in this letter which, like a blithering fool, I left on Parrish's desk. It's the first glimmer of hope I've seen yet ..."

Bruce Wright squared his shoulders and threw his head back.

"I'll get it for you," he said.

"Good boy," said Robin. "But, Bruce," he went on, "you'll have to go carefully. My name is mud in that house. You mustn't say you come from me. And if you ask boldly for the letter, they won't give it to you. Jeekes might, if he's there and you approach him cautiously. But, for Heaven's sake, don't try any diplomacy on Manderton ... that's the Scotland Yard man. He's as wary as a fox and sharp as needles."

Bruce Wright buttoned up his coat with an air of finality.

"Leave it to me," he said, "I know Harkings like my pocket. Besides I've got a friend there ..."

"Who might that be?" queried the barrister.

"Bude," answered the boy and laid a finger on his lips.

"But," he pursued, jerking his head in the direction of the window, "what are we going to do about him out there?"

Robin laughed.

"Him?" he said. "Oh, I'm going to take him out for an airing!"

Robin stepped out into the hall. He returned wearing his hat and overcoat. In his hand were two yale keys strung on a wisp of pink tape.

"Listen, Bruce," he said. "Give me ten minutes' start to get rid of this jackal. Then clear out. There's a train to Stevenish at 3.23. If you get on the Underground at the Temple you ought to be able to make it easily. Here are the keys of the chambers. I can put you up here to-night if you like. I'll expect you when I see you ... with that letter. Savvy?"

The boy stood up.

"You'll have that letter to-night," he answered. "But in the meantime,"—he waved the blue sheet with its mysterious slots at Robin,—"what do you make of this?"

Robin took the sheet of paper from him and replaced it in his cigarette-case.

"Perhaps, when we have the letter," he replied, "I shall be able to answer that question!"

Then he lit a cigarette, gave the boy his hand, and a minute later Bruce Wright, watching through the chink of the curtain from the window of Robin Greve's chambers, saw a lanky form shuffle across the court and follow Robin round the angle of the house.

Robin strode quickly through the maze of narrow passages and tranquil, echoing courts into the Sabbath stillness of the Strand. An occasional halt at a shop-window was sufficient to assure him that the watcher of the Temple was still on his heels. The man, he was interested to see, played his part very unobtrusively, shambling along in nonchalant fashion, mostly hugging the sides of the houses, ready to dart out of sight into a doorway or down a side turning, should he by any mischance arrive too close on the heels of his quarry.

As he walked along, Robin turned over in his mind the best means for getting rid of his shadow. Should he dive into a Tube station and plunge headlong down the steps? He rejected this idea as calculated to let the tracker know that his presence was suspected. Then he reviewed in his mind the various establishments he knew of in London with double entrances, thinking that he might slip in by the one entrance and emerge by the other.

In Pall Mall he came upon Tony Grandell, whom he had last seen playing bridge in the company dugout on the Flesquieres Kidge. Then he had been in "battle order," camouflaged as a private soldier, as officers were ordered to go over the top in the latter phases of the war. Now he was resplendent in what the invitation cards call "Morning Dress" crowned by what must certainly have been the most relucent top-hat in London.

"Hullo, hullo, hullo!" cried Tony, on catching sight of him; "stand to your kits and so forth! And how is my merry company commander? Robin, dear, come and relieve the medieval gloom of lunch with my aunt at Mart's!"

He linked his arm affectionately in Robin's.

Mart's! Robin's brain snatched at the word. Mart's! most respectable of "family hotels," wedged in between two quiet streets off Piccadilly with an entrance from both. If ever a man wanted to dodge a sleuth, especially a grimy tatterdemalion like the one sidling up Pall Mall behind them ...

"Tony, old son," said Robin, "I won't lunch with you even to set the board in a roar at your aunt's luncheon-party. But I'll walk up to Mart's with you, for I'm going there myself ..."

They entered Mart's together and parted in the vestibule, where Tony gravely informed his "dear old scream" that he must fly to his "avuncular luncheon." Robin walked quickly through the hotel and left by the other entrance. The street was almost deserted. Of the man with the dingy neckerchief there was no sign. Robin hurried into Piccadilly and hopped on a 'bus which put him down at his club facing the Green Park.

He had a late lunch there and afterwards took a taxi back to the Temple. The daylight was failing as he crossed the courtyard in front of his chambers. In the centre the smoke-blackened plane-tree throned it in unchallenged solitude. But, as Robin's footsteps echoed across the flags, something more substantial than a shadow seemed to melt into the gathering dusk in the corner where the narrow passage ran.

Robin stopped to listen at the entrance to his chambers. As he stood there he heard a heavy tread on the stone steps within. He turned to face a solidly built swarthy-looking man who emerged from the building.

He favoured Robin with a leisurely, searching stare, then strode heavily across the courtyard to the little passage where he disappeared from view.

Robin looked after him. The man was a stranger: the occupants of the other chambers were all known to him. With a thoughtful expression on his face Robin entered the house and mounted to his rooms.



CHAPTER XVI

THE INTRUDER

"D——!" exclaimed Bruce Wright.

He stood in the great porch at Harkings, his finger on the electric bell. No sound came in response to the pressure, nor any one to open the door. Thus he had stood for fully ten minutes listening in vain for any sound within the house. All was still as death. He began to think that the bell was out of order. He had forgotten Hartley Parrish's insistence on quiet. All bells at Harkings rang, discreetly muted, in the servants' hall.

He stepped out of the porch on to the drive. The weather had improved and, under a freshening wind, the country was drying up. As he reached the hard gravel, he heard footsteps, Bude appeared, his collar turned up, his swallow-tails floating in the wind.

"Now, be off with you!" he cried as soon as he caught sight of the trim figure in the grey overcoat; "how many more of ye have I to tell there's nothing for you to get here! Go on, get out before I put the dog on you!"

He waved an imperious hand at Bruce.

"Hullo, Bude," said the boy, "you've grown very inhospitable all of a sudden!"

"God bless my soul if it isn't young Mr. Wright!" exclaimed the butler. "And I thought it was another of those dratted reporters. It's been ring, ring, ring the whole blessed morning, sir, you can believe me, as if they owned the place, wanting to interview me and Mr. Jeekes and Miss Trevert and the Lord knows who else. Lot of interfering busybodies, I call 'em! I'd shut up all noospapers by law if I had my way ..."

"Is Mr. Jeekes here, Bude?" asked Bruce.

"He's gone off to London in the car, sir ... But won't you come in, Mr. Wright? If you wouldn't mind coming in by the side door. I have to keep the front door closed to shut them scribbling fellows out. One of them had the face to ask me to let him into the library to take a photograph ..."

He led the way round the side of the house to the glass door in the library corridor.

"This is a sad business, Bude!" said Bruce.

"Ah, indeed, it is, sir," he sighed. "He had his faults had Mr. Parrish, as well you know, Mr. Wright. But he was an open-handed gentleman, that I will say, and we'll all miss him at Harkings ..."

They were now in the corridor. Bude jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

"It was in there they found him," he said in a low voice, "with a hole plumb over the heart."

His voice sank to a whisper. "There's blood on the carpet!" he added impressively.

"I should like just to take a peep at the room, Bude," ventured the boy, casting a sidelong glance at the butler.

"Can't be done, sir," said Bude, shaking his head; "orders of Detective-Inspector Manderton. The police is very strict, Mr. Wright, sir!"

"There seems to be no one around just now, Bude," the young man wheedled. "There can't be any harm in my just going in for a second?..."

"Go in you should, Mr. Wright, sir," said the butler genially, "if I had my way. But the door's locked. And, what's more, the police have the key."

"Is the detective anywhere about?" asked Bruce.

"No, sir," answered Bude. "He's gone off to town, too! And he don't expect to be back before the inquest. That's for Toosday!"

"But isn't there another key anywhere?" persisted the boy.

"No, sir," said Bude positively, "there isn't but the one. And that's in Mr. Manderton's vest pocket!"

Young Wright wrinkled his brow in perplexity. He was very young, but he had a fine strain of perseverance in him. He was not nearly at the end of his resources, he told himself.

"Well, then," he said suddenly, "I'm going outside to have a look through the window. I remember you can see into the library from the path round the house!"

He darted out, the butler, protesting, lumbering along behind him.

"Mr. Wright," he panted as he ran, "you didn't reelly ought ... If any one should come ..."

But Bruce Wright was already at the window. The butler found him leaning on the sill, peering with an air of frightened curiosity into the empty room.

"The glazier from Stevenish"—Bude's voice breathed the words hoarsely in Wright's ear—"is coming to-morrow morning to put the window in. He wouldn't come to-day, him being a chapel-goer and religious. It was there we found poor Mr. Parrish—d'you see, sir, just between the window and the desk!"

But Bruce Wright did not heed him. His eyes were fixed on the big writing-desk, on the line of black japanned letter-trays set out in orderly array. Outside, the short winter afternoon was drawing in fast, and the light was failing. Dusky shadows within the library made it difficult to distinguish objects clearly.

A voice close at hand cried out sharply:

"Mr. Bude! Mr. Bu-u-ude!"

"They're calling me!" whispered the butler in his ear with a tug at his sleeve; "come away, sir!"

But Bruce shook him off. He heard the man's heavy tread on the gravel, then a door slam.

How dark the room was growing, to be sure! Strain his eyes as he might, he could not get a clear view of the contents of the letter-trays on the desk. But their high backs hid their contents from his eyes. Even when he hoisted himself on to the window-sill he could not get a better view.

He dropped back on to the gravel path and listened. The wind soughed sadly in the bare tree-tops, somewhere in the distance a dog barked hoarsely, insistently; otherwise not a sound was to be heard. He cast a cautious glance round the side of the house. The glass door was shut; the lamp in the corridor had not been lit.

Hoisting himself up to the window-sill again, he crooked one knee on the rough edge and thrusting one arm through the broken pane of glass, unbolted the window. Then, steadying himself with one hand, with the other he very gently pushed up the window, threw his legs across the sill, and dropped into the library. Very deliberately, he turned and pushed the window softly down behind him.

Some unconscious prompting, perhaps an unfamiliar surface beneath his feet, made him look down. Where his feet rested on the mole-grey carpet a wide dark patch stood out from the delicate shade of the rug. For a moment a spasm of physical nausea caught him.

"How beastly!" he whispered to himself and took a step towards the desk.

Hartley Parrish's desk was arranged just as he always remembered it to have been. All the letter-trays save one were empty. In that was a little pile of papers held down by a massive marble paper-weight. Quickly he stepped round the desk.

He had put out his hand to lift the weight when there was a gentle rattle at the door.

Bruce Wright wheeled instantly round, back to the desk, to face the door, which, in the gathering dusk, was now but a squarer patch of darkness among the shadows at the far end of the library. He stood absolutely still, rooted to the spot, his heart thumping so fast that, in that silent room, he could hear the rapid beats.

Some one was unlocking the library door. As realization came to the boy, he tiptoed rapidly round the desk, the sound of his feet muffled by the heavy pile carpet, and reached the window. There was a click as the lock of the door was shot back. Without further hesitation Bruce stepped behind the long curtains which fell from the top of the window to the floor.

The curtains, of some heavy grey material, were quite opaque. Bruce realized, with a sinking heart, that he must depend on his ears to discover the identity of this mysterious interloper. He dared not look out from his hiding-place—at least not until he could be sure that the newcomer had his back to the window. He remained, rigid and vigilant, straining his ears to catch the slightest sound, scarcely daring to breathe.

He heard the door open, heard it softly close again. Then ... silence. Not another sound. The boy remembered the heavy pile carpet and cursed his luck. He would have to risk a peep round the curtains. But not yet! He must wait ...

A very slight rustling, a faint prolonged rustling, caught his ear. It came nearer, then stopped. There was a little rattling noise from somewhere close at hand, a small clinking sound.

Then silence fell again.

The wind whooshed sadly round the house, the window clattered dismally in its frame, the curtains tugged fretfully before the cold breeze which blew in at the broken pane. But the silence in the room was absolute.

It began to oppress the boy. It frightened him. He felt an uncontrollable desire to look out into the room and establish the identity of the mysterious entrant. He glided his hand towards the window-frame in the hope that he might find a chink between curtain and wall through which he might risk a peep into the room. But the curtain was fastened to the wall.

The room was almost entirely dark now. Only behind him was a patch of grey light where the lowering evening sky was framed in the window. He began to draw the curtain very slowly towards him, at the same time leaning to the right. Very cautiously he applied one eye to the edge of the curtain.

As he did so a bright light struck him full in the face. It streamed full from a lamp on the desk and almost blinded him. It was a reading-lamp and the bulb had been turned up so as to throw a beam on the curtain behind which the boy was sheltering.

Behind the desk, straining back in terror, stood a slim, girlish figure. The details of her dress were lost in the gathering shadows, but her face stood out in the gloom, a pale oval. Bruce could see the dark line made by the lashes on her cheek.

At the sight of her, he stepped boldly forth from his hiding-place, shielding his eyes from the light with his hand.

"It's Bruce Wright, Miss Trevert," he said, "don't you remember me?"



CHAPTER XVII

A FRESH CLUE

"Oh!" cried the girl, "you frightened me! You frightened me! What do you want here ... in this horrible room?"

She was trembling. One slim hand plucked nervously at her dress. Her breath came and went quickly.

"I saw the curtain move. I thought it was the wind at first. But then I saw the outline of your fingers. And I imagined it was he ... come back ..."

"Miss Trevert," said the boy abashed, "I must have frightened you terribly. I had no idea it was you!"

"But why are you hiding here? How did you get in? What do you want in this house?"

She spoke quickly, nervously. Some papers she held in her hand shook with her emotion. Bruce Wright stepped to the desk and turned the bulb of the reading-lamp down into its normal position.

"I must apologize most sincerely for the fright I gave you," he said. "But, believe me, Miss Trevert, I had no idea that anybody could gain access to this room. I climbed in through the window. Bude told me that the police had taken away the key ..."

The girl made an impatient gesture.

"But why have you come here?" she said. "What do you want?"

The boy measured her with a narrow glance. He was young, but he was shrewd. He saw her frank eyes, her candid, open mien, and he took a rapid decision.

"I think I have come," he answered slowly, "for the same purpose as yourself!"

And he looked at the papers in her hand.

"I used to be Mr. Parrish's secretary, you know," he said.

The girl sighed—a little fluttering sigh—and looked earnestly at him.

"I remember," she said. "Hartley liked you. He was sorry that he sent you away. He often spoke of you to me. But why have you come back? What do you mean by saying you have come for the same purpose as myself?"

Bruce Wright looked at the array of letter-trays. The marble paper-weight had been displaced. The tray in which it had lain was empty. He looked at the sheaf of papers in the girl's hand.

"I wanted to see," he replied, "whether there was anything here ... on his desk ... which would explain the mystery of his death ..."

The girl spread out the papers in her hand on the big blotter.

She laid the papers out in a row and leant forward, her white arms resting on the desk. From the other side of the desk the boy leant eagerly forward and scanned the line of papers.

At the first glimpse his face fell. The girl, eyeing him closely, marked the change which came over his features.

There were seven papers of various kinds, both printed and written, and they were all on white paper.

The boy shook his head and swept the papers together into a heap.

"It's not there?" queried the girl eagerly.

"No!" said Bruce absent-mindedly, glancing round the desk.

"What isn't?" flashed back the girl.

Bruce Wright felt his face redden with vexation. What sort of a confidential emissary was he to fall into a simple trap like this?

The girl smiled rather wanly.

"Now I know what you meant by saying you had come for the same purpose as myself," she said. "I suppose we both thought we might find something, a letter, perhaps, which would explain why Mr. Parrish did this dreadful thing, something to relieve this awful uncertainty about ... about his motive. Well, I've searched the desk ... and there's nothing! Nothing but just these prospectuses and receipts which were in the letter-tray here. They must have come by the post yesterday morning. And there's nothing of any importance in the drawers ... only household receipts and the wages book and a few odd things like that! You can see for yourself ..."

The lower part of the desk consisted of three drawers flanked on either side by cupboards. Mary Trevert pulled out the drawers and opened the cupboards. Two of the drawers were entirely empty and one of the cupboards contained nothing but a stack of cigar boxes. One drawer held various papers appertaining to the house. There was no sign of any letter written on the slatey-blue paper.

The boy looked very hard at Mary.

"You say there was nothing in the letter-tray but these papers here?" he asked.

"Nothing but these," replied the girl.

"You didn't notice any official-looking letter on bluish paper?" he ventured to ask.

"No," answered the girl. "I found nothing but these."

The boy thought for a moment.

"Do you know," he asked, "whether the police or anybody have been through the desk?"

"I don't know at all," said Mary, smoothing back a lock of hair from her temple; "I daresay Mr. Jeekes had a look round, as he had a meeting with Mr. Parrish's lawyer in town this afternoon!"

She had lost all trace of her fright and was now quite calm and collected.

"Do you know for certain whether Mr. Jeekes was in here?" asked Bruce.

"Oh, yes. The first thing he did on arriving last night was to go to the library."

"I suppose Jeekes is coming back here to-night?"

No, she told him. Mr. Jeekes did not expect to return to Harkings until the inquest on Tuesday.

Bruce Wright picked up his hat.

"I must apologize again, Miss Trevert," he said, "for making such an unconventional entrance and giving you such a fright. But I felt I could not rest until I had investigated matters for myself. I would have presented myself in the ordinary way, but, as I told you, Bude told me the police had locked up the room and taken away the key ..."

Mary Trevert smiled forgivingly.

"So they did," she said. "But Jay—Mr. Parrish's man, you know—had another key. He brought it to me."

She looked at Bruce with a whimsical little smile.

"You must have been very uncomfortable behind those curtains," she said. "I believe you were just as frightened as I was."

She walked round the desk to the window.

"It was a good hiding-place," she remarked, "but not much good as an observation post. Why! you could see nothing of the room. The curtains are much too thick!"

"Not a thing," Bruce agreed rather ruefully. "I thought you were the detective!"

He held out his hand to take his leave with a smile. He was a charming-looking boy with a remarkably serene expression which went well with close-cropped golden hair.

Mary Trevert did not take his hand for an instant. Looking down at the point of her small black suede shoe she said shyly:

"Mr. Wright, you are a friend of Mr. Greve, aren't you?"

"Rather!" was the enthusiastic answer.

"Do you see him often?"

The boy's eyes narrowed suddenly. Was this a cross-examination?

"Oh, yes," he replied, "every now and then!"

Mary Trevert raised her eyes to his.

"Will you do something for me?" she said. "Tell Mr. Greve not to trust Manderton. He will know whom I mean. Tell him to be on his guard against that man. Say he means mischief. Tell him, above all things, to be careful. Make him go away ... go abroad until this thing has blown over ..."

She spoke with intense earnestness, her dark eyes fixed on Bruce Wright's face.

"But promise me you won't say this comes from me! Do you understand? There are reasons, very strong reasons, for this. Will you promise?"

"Of course!"

She took Bruce's outstretched hand.

"I promise," he said.

"You mustn't go without tea," said the girl. "Besides,"—she glanced at a little platinum watch on her wrist,—"there's not another train until six. There is no need for you to start yet. I don't like being left alone. Mother has one of her headaches, and Horace and Dr. Romain have gone to Stevenish. Come up to my sitting-room!"

She led the way out of the library, locking the door behind them, and together they went up to the Chinese boudoir where tea was laid on a low table before a bright fire. In the dainty room with its bright colours they seemed far removed from the tragedy which had darkened Harkings.

They had finished tea when a tap came at the door. Bude appeared. He cast a reproachful look at Bruce.

"Jay would be glad to have a word with you, Miss," he said.

The girl excused herself and left the room. She was absent for about ten minutes. When she returned, she had a little furrow of perplexity between her brows. She walked over to the open fireplace and stood silent for an instant, her foot tapping the hearth-rug.

"Mr. Wright," she said presently, "I'm going to tell you something that Jay has just told me. I want your advice ..."

The boy looked at her interrogatively. But he did not speak.

"I think this is rather important," the girl went on, "but I don't quite understand in what way it is. Jay tells me that Mr. Parrish had on his pistol a sort of steel fitting attached to the end ... you know, the part you shoot out of. Mr. Parrish used to keep his automatic in a drawer in his dressing-room, and Jay has often seen it there with this attachment fitted on. Well, when Mr. Parrish was discovered in the library yesterday, this thing was no longer on the pistol. And Jay says it's not to be found!..."

"That's rather strange!" commented Bruce. "But what was this steel contraption for, do you know? Was it a patent sight or something?"

"Jay doesn't know," answered the girl.

"Would you mind if I spoke to Jay myself?" asked the young man.

In reply the girl touched the bell beside the fireplace. Bude answered the summons and was despatched to find Jay. He appeared in due course, a tall, dark, sleek young man wearing a swallow-tail coat and striped trousers.

"How are you, Jay?" said Bruce affably.

"Very well, thank you, sir," replied the valet.

"Miss Trevert was telling me about this appliance which you say Mr. Parrish had on his automatic. Could you describe it to me?"

"Well, sir," answered the man rather haltingly, "it was a little sort of cup made of steel or gun-metal fitting closely over the barrel ..."

"And you don't know what it was for?"

"No, sir!"

"Was it a sight, do you think?"

"I can't say, I'm sure, sir!"

"You know what a sight looks like, I suppose. Was there a bead on it or anything like it?"

"I can't say, I'm sure, sir. I never gave any particular heed to it. I used to see the automatic lying in the drawer of the wardrobe in Mr. Parrish's room in a wash-leather case. I noticed this steel appliance, sir, because the case wouldn't shut over the pistol with it on and the butt used to stick out."

"When did you last notice Mr. Parrish's automatic?"

"It would be Thursday or Friday, sir. I went to that drawer to get Mr. Parrish an old stock to go riding in as some new ones he had bought were stiff and hurt him."

"And this steel cup was on the pistol then?"

"Oh, yes, sir!"

"And you say it was not on the pistol when Mr. Parrish's body was found?"

"No, sir!"

"Are you sure of this?"

"Yes, sir. I was one of the first in the room, and I saw the pistol in Mr. Parrish's hand, and there was no sign of the cup, sir. So I've had a good look among his things and I can't find it anywhere!"

Bruce Wright pondered a minute.

"Try and think, Jay," he said, "if you can't remember anything more about this steel cup, as you call it. Where did Mr. Parrish buy it?"

"Can't say, I'm sure, sir. He had it before ever I took service with him!"

Jay put his hand to his forehead for an instant.

"Now I come to think of it," he said, "there was the name of the shop or maker on it, stamped on the steel. 'Maxim,' that was the name, now I put my mind back, with a number ..."

"Maxim?" echoed Bruce Wright. "Did you say Maxim?"

"Yes, sir! That was the name!" replied the valet impassively.

"By Jove!" said the boy half to himself. Then he said aloud to Jay:

"Did you tell the police about this?"

Jay looked somewhat uncomfortable.

"No, sir."

"Why not?"

Jay looked at Mary Trevert.

"Well, sir, I thought perhaps I'd better tell Miss Trevert first. Bude thought so, too. That there Manderton has made so much unpleasantness in the house with his prying ways that I said to myself, sir ..."

Bruce Wright looked at Mary.

"Would you mind if I asked Jay not to say anything about this to anybody just for the present?" he asked.

"You hear what Mr. Wright says, Jay," said Mary. "I don't want you to say anything about this matter just yet. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Miss. Will that be all, Miss?"

"Yes, thank you, Jay!"

"Thanks very much, Jay," said the boy. "This may be important. Mum's the word, though!"

"I quite understand, sir," answered the valet and left the room.

Hardly had the door closed on him than the girl turned eagerly to Bruce.

"It is important?" she asked.

"It may be," was the guarded reply.

"Don't leave me in the dark like this," the girl pleaded. "This horrible affair goes on growing and growing, and at every step it seems more bewildering ... more ghastly. Tell me where it is leading, Mr. Wright! I can't stand the suspense much more!"

Her voice broke, and she turned her face away.

"You must be brave, Miss Trevert," said the boy, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Don't ask me to tell you more now. Your friends are working to get at the truth ..."

"The truth!" cried the girl. "God knows where the truth will lead us!"

Bruce Wright hesitated a moment.

"I don't think you have any need to fear the truth!" he said presently.

The girl took her handkerchief from her face and looked at him with brimming eyes.

"You know more than you let me think you did," she said brokenly. "But you are a friend of mine, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Bruce, and added boldly:

"And of his too!"

She did not speak again, but gave him her hand. He clasped it and went out hurriedly to catch his train back to London.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE SILENT SHOT

That faithful servitor of Fleet Street, the Law Courts clock, had just finished striking seven. It boomed out the hour, stroke by stroke, solemnly, inexorably, like a grim old judge summing up and driving home, point by point, an irrefutable charge. The heavy strokes broke in upon the fitful doze into which Robin Greve, stretched out in an armchair in his living-room, had dropped.

He roused up with a start. There was the click of a key in the lock of his front door. Bruce Wright burst into the room.

The boy shut the door quickly and locked it. He was rather pale and seemed perturbed. On seeing Robin he jerked his head in the direction of the courtyard.

"I suppose you know they're still outside?" he said.

Robin nodded nonchalantly.

"There are three of them now," the boy went on. "Robin, I don't like it. Something's going to happen. You'll want to mind yourself ... if it's not too late already!"

He stepped across to the window and bending down, peered cautiously round the curtain.

Robin Greve laughed.

"Bah!" he said, "they can't touch me!"

"You're wrong," Bruce retorted without changing his position. "They can and they will. Don't think Manderton is a fool, Robin. He means mischief ..."

Robin raised his eyebrows.

"Does he?" he said. "Now I wonder who told you that ..."

"Friends of yours at Harkings asked me to warn you ..." began Bruce awkwardly.

"My friends are scarcely in the majority there," retorted Robin. "Whom do you mean exactly?"

But the boy ignored the question.

"Three men watching the house!" he exclaimed; "don't you think that this looks as though Manderton meant business?"

He returned to his post of observation at the curtain.

Robin laughed cynically.

"Manderton doesn't worry me any," he said cheerfully. "The man's the victim of an idee fixe. He believes Parrish killed himself just as firmly as he believes that I frightened or bullied Parrish into doing it ..."

"Don't be too sure about that, Robin," said the boy, dropping the curtain and coming back to Robin's chair. "He may want you to think that. But how can we tell how much he knows?"

Robin flicked the ash off his cigarette disdainfully.

"These promoted policemen make me tired," he said.

Bruce Wright shook his head quickly with a little gesture of exasperation.

"You don't understand," he said. "There's fresh evidence ..."

Robin Greve looked up with real interest in his eyes. His bantering manner had vanished.

"You've got that letter?" he asked eagerly.

Bruce shook his head.

"No, not that," he said. Then leaning forward he added in a low voice:

"Have you ever heard of the Maxim silencer?"

"I believe I have, vaguely," replied Robin. "Isn't it something to do with a motor engine?"

"No," said Bruce. "It's an extraordinary invention which absolutely suppresses the noise of the discharge of a gun."

Robin shot a quick glance at the speaker.

"Go on," he said.

"It's a marvelous thing, really," the boy continued, warming to his theme. "A man at Havre had one when I was at the base there, during the war. It's a little cup-shaped steel fitting that goes over the barrel. You can fire a rifle fitted with one of these silencers in a small room and it makes no more noise than a fairly loud sneeze ..."

"Ah!"

Robin was listening intently now.

"Parrish had a Maxim silencer," Bruce went on impressively.

"Parrish had?"

"It was fitted on his automatic pistol, the one he had in his hand when they found him ..."

"There was no attachment of any kind on the gun Parrish was holding when he was discovered yesterday afternoon," declared Robin positively; "I can vouch for that. I was there almost immediately after they found him. And if there had been anything of the kind Horace Trevert would certainly have mentioned it ..."

"I know. Jay, who came in soon after you, was surprised to see that the silencer was not on the pistol. And he made a point of looking for it ..."

"But how do you know that Parrish had it on the pistol?..."

"Well, we don't know for certain. But we do know that it was permanently fitted to his automatic. Jay has often seen it. And if Parrish did remove it, he didn't leave it lying around any where. Jay has looked all through his things without finding it ..."

"When did Jay see it last?"

"On Thursday!"

"But are you sure that this is the same pistol as the one which Jay has been in the habit of seeing?"

"Jay is absolutely sure. He says that Parrish only had the one automatic which he always kept in the same drawer in his dressing-room ..."

Robin was silent for a moment. Very deliberately he filled his pipe, lit it, and drew until it burned comfortably. Then he said slowly:

"This means that Hartley Parrish was murdered, Bruce, old man. All through I have been puzzling my mind to reconcile the unquestionable circumstance that two bullets were fired—I told you of the bullet mark I found on the upright in the rosery—with the undoubted fact that only one report was heard. We can therefore presume, either that Hartley Parrish first fired one shot from his pistol with the silencer fitted and then removed the silencer and fired another shot without it, thereby killing himself, or that the second shot was fired by the person whose interest it was to get rid of the silencer. There is no possible or plausible reason why Parrish should have fired first one shot with the silencer and then one without. Therefore, I find myself irresistibly compelled to the conclusion that the shot heard by Mary Trevert was fired by the person who killed Parrish. Do I make myself clear?"

"Perfectly," answered Bruce.

"Now, then," the barrister proceeded, thoughtfully puffing at his pipe, "one weak point about my deductions is that they all hang on the question as to whether, at the time of the tragedy, Parrish actually had the silencer on his pistol or not. That is really the acid test of Manderton's suicide theory. You said, I think, that a rifle fired with the silencer attachment makes no more noise than the sound of a loud sneeze!"

"That's right," agreed Bruce; "a sort of harsh, spluttering noise. Not so loud either, Robin. Ph ... t-t-t! Like that!"

"Loud enough to be heard through a door, would you say?"

"Oh, I think so!"

Robin thought intently for a moment.

"Then Mary is the only one who can put us right on that point. Assuming that two shots were fired—and that bullet mark in the rosery is, I think, conclusive on that head—and knowing that she heard the loud report of the one, presumably, if Parrish had the silencer on his automatic, Mary must have heard the muffled report of the other. What it comes to is this, Mary heard the shot fired that killed Parrish. Did she hear the shot he fired at his murderer?"

"By Gad!" exclaimed Bruce Wright impressively, "I believe you've got it, Robin! Parrish fired at somebody at the window—a silent shot—and the other fellow fired back the shot that Mary Trevert heard, the shot that killed Parrish. Isn't that the way you figure it out?"

"Not so fast, young man," remarked Robin. "Let's first find out whether Mary actually heard the muffled shot and, if so, when ... before or after the loud report."

He glanced across at the window and then at Bruce,

"I suppose this discovery about the silencer is responsible for the deputation waiting in the courtyard," he said drily.

"The police don't know about it yet," replied Bruce; "at least they didn't when I left."

Robin shook his head dubiously.

"If the servants know it, Manderton will worm it out of them. Hasn't he cross-examined Jay?"

"Yes," said Bruce. "But he got nothing out of him about this. Manderton seems to have put everybody's back up. He gets nothing out of the servants ..."

"If Parrish had had this silencer for some time, you may be sure that other people know about it. These silencers must be pretty rare in England. You see, an average person like myself didn't know what it was. By the way, another point which we haven't yet cleared up is this: supposing we are right in believing Parrish to have been murdered, how do you explain the fact that the bullet removed from his body fitted his pistol?"

"That's a puzzler, I must say!" said Bruce.

"There's only one possible explanation, I think," Robin went on, "and that is that Parrish was shot by a pistol of exactly the same calibre as his own. For the murderer to have killed Parrish with his own weapon would have been difficult without a struggle. But Miss Trevert heard no struggle. For murderer and his victim to have pistols of the same calibre argues a rather remarkable coincidence, I grant you. But then life is full of coincidences! We meet them every day in the law. Though, I admit, this is a coincidence which requires some explaining ..."

He fell into a brown study which Bruce interrupted by suddenly remembering that he had had no lunch.

For answer Robin pointed at the sideboard.

"There's a cloth in there," he said, "also the whisky, if my laundress has left any, and a siphon and there should be some claret—Mrs. Bragg doesn't care about red wine. Set the table, and I'll take a root round in the kitchen and dig up some tinned stuff."

They supped off a tinned tongue and some pate de foie gras. Over their meal Bruce told Robin of his adventure in the library at Harkings.

"Jeekes must have collected that letter," Bruce said. "Before I came to you, I went to Lincoln's Inn Fields to see if he was still at Bardy's— Parrish's solicitor, you know. But the office was closed, and the place in darkness. I went on to the Junior Pantheon, that's Jeekes's club, but he wasn't in. He hadn't been there all day, the porter told me. So I left a note asking him to ring you up here ..."

"The case reeks of blackmail," said Robin thoughtfully, "but I am wondering how much we shall glean from this precious letter when we do see it. I am glad you asked Jeekes to ring me up, though. He should be able to tell us something about these mysterious letters on the blue paper that used to put Parrish in such a stew ... Hullo, who can that be?"

An electric bell trilled through the flat. It rang once ... twice ... and then a third time, a long, insistent peal.

"See who's there, will you, Bruce?" said Robin.

"Suppose it's the police ..." began the boy.

Robin shrugged his shoulders.

"You can say I'm at home and ask them in," he said.

He heard the heavy oaken door swing open, a murmur of voices in the hall. The next moment Detective-Inspector Manderton entered the sitting-room,



CHAPTER XIX

MR. MANDERTON LAYS HIS CARDS ON THE TABLE

The detective's manner had undergone some subtle change which Robin, watching him closely as he came into the room, was quick to note. Mr. Manderton made an effort to retain his old air of rather patronizing swagger; but he seemed less sure of himself than was his wont. In fact, he appeared to be a little anxious.

He walked briskly into the sitting-room and looked quickly from Bruce to Robin.

"Mr. Greve," he said, "you can help me if you will by answering a few questions ..."

With another glance at Bruce Wright he added:

"... in private."

Bruce, obedient to a sign from Robin, said he would ring up in the morning and prepared to take his leave. Robin turned to the detective.

"There are some of your men, I believe," he said coldly, "watching this house. Would it be asking too much to request that my friend here might be permitted to return home unescorted?"

"He needn't worry," replied Manderton with a significant smile. "There's no one outside now!..."

They watched Bruce Wright pass into the hall and collect his hat and coat. As the front door slammed behind him, the detective added:

"I took 'em off myself soon after seven o'clock!"

"Why?" asked Robin bluntly.

Mr. Manderton dropped his heavy form into a chair.

"I'm a plain man, Mr. Greve," he said, "and I'm not above owning to it, I hope, when I'm wrong. For some little time now it has struck me that our lines of investigation run parallel ..."

"Instead of crossing!"

"Instead of crossing—exactly!"

"It's a pity you did not grasp that very obvious fact earlier," observed Robin pointedly.

Mr. Manderton crossed one leg over the other and, his finger-tips pressed together, looked at Robin.

"Will you help me?" he asked simply.

"Do you want my help?"

Mr. Manderton nodded.

"Allies, then?"

"Allies it is!"

Robin pointed to the table.

"It's dry work talking," he said. "Won't you take a drink?"

"Thanks, I don't drink. But I'll have a cigar if I may. Thank you!"

The detective helped himself to a cheroot from a box on the table and lit up. Then, affecting to scan the end of his cigar with great attention, he asked abruptly:

"What do you know of the woman calling herself Madame de Malpas?"

Robin pursed up his lips rather disdainfully.

"One of the late Mr. Parrish's lady friends," he replied. "I expect you know that!"

"Do you know where she lives?" pursued the detective, ignoring the implied question.

"She's dead."

A flicker of interest appeared for an instant in Mr. Manderton's keen eyes.

"You're sure of that?"

"Certainly," answered Robin.

"Who told you?"

"Le Hagen—the solicitor, you know. He acted for this Malpas woman on one or two occasions."

"When did she die?"

"Six or seven months ago ..."

"Did Jeekes know about it?"

"Jeekes? Do you mean Parrish's secretary?

"It's funny your asking that. As a matter of fact, it was through Jeekes that I heard the lady was dead. I was in Le Hagen's office one day when Jeekes came in, and Le Hagen told me Jeekes had come to pay in a cheque for the cost of the funeral and the transport of the body to France."

"This was six or seven months ago, you say? I take it, then, that any allowance that Parrish was in the habit of making to this woman has ceased?"

"I tell you the lady is dead!"

"Then what would you say if I informed you that Mr. Jeekes had declared that these payments were still going on ..."

Robin shrugged his shoulders.

"I should say he was lying ..."

"I agree. But why?"

"Whom did he tell this to?"

"Miss Trevert!"

"Miss Trevert?"

Robin repeated the name in amazement.

"I don't understand," he said. "Why on earth should Jeekes blacken his employer's character to Miss Trevert? What conceivable motive could he have had? Did she tell you this?"

"No," said Manderton; "I heard him tell her myself."

"Do you mean to tell me," protested Robin, growing more and more puzzled, "that Jeekes told Miss Trevert this offensive and deliberate lie in your presence!"

"Well," remarked Mr. Manderton slowly, "I don't know about his saying this in my presence exactly. But I heard him tell her for all that. Walls have ears, you know—particularly if the door is ajar!"

He looked shrewdly at Robin, then dropped his eyes to the floor.

"He also told her that Le Hagen and you were in business relations ..."

Robin sat up at this.

"Ah!" he said shortly. "I see what you're getting at now. Our friend has been trying to set Miss Trevert against me, eh? But why? I don't even know this man Jeekes except to have nodded 'Good-morning' to him a few times. Why on earth should he of all men go out of his way to slander me to Miss Trevert, to throw suspicion ..."

He broke off short and looked at the detective.

Mr. Manderton caressed his big black moustache.

"Yes," he repeated suavely, "you were saying 'to cast suspicion' ..."

The eyes of the two men met. Then the detective leaned back in his chair and, blowing a cloud of smoke from his lips, said:

"Mr. Greve, you've been thinking ahead of me on this case. What you've told me so far I've checked. And you're right. Dead right. And since you're, in a manner of speaking, one of the parties interested in getting things cleared up, I'd like you to tell me just simply what idea you've formed about it ..."

"Gladly," answered the barrister. "And to start with let me tell you that the case stinks of blackmail ..."

"Steady on," interposed the detective. "I thought so, too, at first. I've been into all that. Mr. Parrish made a clean break with the last of his lady friends about two months since; and, as far as our investigations go, there has been no blackmail in connection with any of his women pals. Vine Street knows all about Master Parrish. There were complaints about some of his little parties up in town. But I don't believe there's a woman in this case ..."

"I didn't say there was," retorted Robin. "The blackmail is probably being levied from Holland. A threat of violence was finally carried into effect on Saturday evening between 5 and 5.15 P.M. by some one conversant with the lie of the land at Harkings. This individual, armed with an automatic Browning of the same calibre as Mr. Parrish's, shot at Parrish through the open window of the library and killed him—probably in self-defence, after Parrish had had a shot at him ..."

"Steady there, whoa!" said Mr. Manderton in a jocular way clearly expressive of his incredulity; "there was only one shot ..."

"There were two," was Robin's dispassionate reply. "Though maybe only one was heard. Parrish had a Maxim silencer on his gun ..."

Mr. Manderton was now thoroughly alert.

"How did you find that out?" he asked.

"Jay, Parrish's man, came forward and volunteered this evidence ..."

"He said nothing about it when I questioned him," grumbled the detective.

Robin laughed.

"You're a terror to the confirmed criminal, they tell me, Manderton," he said, "but you obviously don't understand that complicated mechanism known as the domestic servant. No servant at Harkings will voluntarily tell you anything ..."

Mr. Manderton, who had stood up, shook his big frame impatiently.

"Explain the rest of your theories," he said harshly. "What's all this about blackmail being levied from Holland?"

Then Robin Greve told him of the letters written on the slatey-blue paper and of their effect upon Parrish, and of the letter headed, "Elias van der Spyck & Co., General Importers, Rotterdam," which had lain on the desk in the library when Parrish's dead body had been found.

Manderton nodded gloomily.

"It was there right enough," he remarked. "I saw it. A letter about steel shipments and the dockers' strike, wasn't it? As there seemed nothing to it, I left it with the other papers for Jeekes, the secretary chap. But what evidence is there that this was blackmail?"

"This," said Robin, and showed the detective the sheet of blue paper with its series of slits. "Manderton," he said, "these letters written on this blue paper were in code, I feel sure. Why should not this be the key? You see it bears a date—'Nov. 25.' May it not refer to that letter? I found it by Parrish's body on the carpet in the library. I would have given it to you at Harkings, but I shoved it in my pocket and forgot all about it until I was in the train coming up to town this morning."

Mr. Manderton took the sheet of paper, turned it over, and held it up to the light. Then, without comment, he put it away in the pocket of his jacket.

"If Parrish killed himself," Robin went on earnestly, "that letter drove him to it. If, on the other hand, he was murdered, may not that letter have contained a warning?"

"I should prefer to suspend judgment until we've seen the letter, Mr. Greve," said the detective bluntly. "We must get it from Jeekes. In the meantime, what makes you think that the murderer (to follow up your theory) was conversant with the lay of the land at Harkings?"

"Because," answered Robin, "the murderer left no tracks on the grass or flower-beds. He stuck to the hard gravel path throughout. That path, which runs from the drive through the rosery to the gravel path round the house just under the library window, is precious hard to find in the dark, especially where it leaves the drive, as at the outset it is a mere thread between the rhododendron bushes. And, as I know from experience, unless you are acquainted with the turns in the path, it is very easy to get off it in the dark, especially in the rosery, and go blundering on to the flower-beds. And I'll tell you something else about the murderer. He—or she—was of small stature—not much above five foot six in height. The upward diagonal course of the bullet through Parrish's heart shows that ..."

Mr. Manderton shook his head dubiously.

"Very ingenious," he commented. "But you go rather fast, Mr. Greve. We must test your theory link by link. There may be an explanation for Jeekes's apparently inexplicable lie to the young lady. Let's see him and hear what he says. The grounds at Harkings must be searched for this second bullet, if second bullet there is, the mark on the tree examined by an expert. And since two bullets argue two pistols in this case, let us see what result we get from our enquiries as to where Mr. Parrish bought his pistol. He may have had two pistols ..."

"If Parrish used a silencer," remarked Robin, quite undisconcerted by the other's lack of enthusiasm, "and my theory that two shots were fired is correct, there must have been two reports, a loud one and a muffled one. Miss Trevert heard one report, as we know. Did she hear a second?"

"She said nothing about it," remarked the detective.

"She was probably asked nothing about it. But we can get this point cleared up at once. There's the telephone. Ring up Harkings and ask her now."

"Why not?" said Mr. Manderton and moved to the telephone.

There is little delay on the long-distance lines on a Sunday evening, and the call to Harkins came through almost at once. Bude answered the telephone at Harkings. Manderton asked for Miss Trevert. The butler replied that Miss Trevert was no longer at Harkings. She had gone to the Continent for a few days.

This plain statement, retailed in the fortissimo voice which Bude reserved for use on the telephone, produced a remarkable effect on the detective. He grew red in the face.

"What's that?" he cried assertively. "Gone to the Continent? I should have been told about this. Why wasn't I informed? What part of the Continent has she gone to?"

Mr. Manderton's questions, rapped out with a rasping vigour that recalled a machine-gun firing, brought Robin to his feet in an instant. He crossed over to the desk on which the telephone stood.

Manderton placed one big palm over the transmitter and turned to Robin.

"She's gone to the Continent and left no address," he said quickly.

"Ask him if Lady Margaret is there," suggested Robin.

Mr. Manderton spoke into the telephone again. Lady Margaret had gone to bed, Bude answered, and her ladyship was much put out by Miss Trevert gallivanting off like that by herself with only a scribbled note left to say that she had gone.

Had Bude got the note?

No, Mr. Manderton, sir, he had not. But Lady Margaret had shown it to him. It had simply stated that Miss Trevert had gone off to the Continent and would be back in a few days.

Again the detective turned to Robin at his elbow.

"These country bumpkins!" he said savagely. "I must go to the Yard and get Humphries on the 'phone. He may have telegraphed me about it. You stay here and I'll ring you later if there's any news. What do you make of it, Mr. Greve?"

"It beats me," was Robin's rueful comment. "And what about the inquest? It's for Tuesday, isn't it? Miss Trevert will have to give evidence, I take it?..."

"Oh," said Mr. Manderton, picking up his hat and speaking in an offhand way, "I'm getting that adjourned for a week!"

"The inquest adjourned! Why?"

There was a twinkle in the detective's eye as he replied.

"I thought, maybe, I might get further evidence ..."

Robin caught the expression and smiled.

"And when did you come to this decision, may I ask?"

"After our little experiment in the garden this morning," was the detective's prompt reply.

Robin looked at him fixedly.

"But, see here," he said, "apparently it was to the deductions you formed from the result of that experiment that I owe the attentions of your colleagues who have been hanging round the house all day. And yet you now come to me and invite my assistance. Mr. Manderton, I don't get it at all!"

"Mr. Greve," replied the detective, "Miss Trevert tried to shield you. That made me suspicious. You tried to force my investigations into an entirely new path. That deepened my suspicions. I believed it to be my duty to ascertain your movements after leaving Harkings. But then I heard Jeekes make an apparently gratuitously false statement to Miss Trevert with an implication against you. That, to some extent, cleared you in my eyes. I say 'to some extent' because I will not deny that I thought I might be taking a risk in coming to you like this. You see I am frank!..."

The smile had left Greve's face and he looked rather grim.

"You're pretty deep, aren't you?" was his brief comment.



CHAPTER XX

THE CODE KING

Major Euan MacTavish was packing. A heavy and well-worn leather portmanteau, much adorned with foreign luggage labels, stood in the centre of the floor. From a litter of objects piled up on a side table the Major was transferring to it various brown-paper packages which he checked by a list in his hand.

The Major always packed for himself. He packed with the neatness and rapidity derived from long experience of travel. As a matter of fact, he could not afford a manservant any more than he could allow himself quarters more luxurious than the rather grimy bedroom in Bury Street which housed him during his transient appearances in town. The remuneration doled out by the Foreign Office to the quiet and unobtrusive gentlemen known as King's messengers is, in point of fact, out of all proportion to the prestige and glamour surrounding the silver greyhound badge, an example of which was tucked away in a pocket of the Major's blue serge jacket hanging over the back of a chair.

"Let's see," said the Major, addressing a large brown-paper covered package standing in the corner of the room, "you're the bird-cage for Lady Sylvia at The Hague. Two pounds of candles for Mrs. Harry Deepdale at Berlin; the razor blades for Sir Archibald at Prague; the Teddy bear for Marjorie; polo-balls for the Hussars at Constantinople—there! I think that's the lot! Hullo, hullo, who the devil's that?"

With a groaning of wires a jangling bell tinkled through the hall (the Major's bedroom was on the ground floor). Sims, the aged ex-butler, who, with his wife, "did for" his lodgers in more ways than one, was out and the single servant-maid had her Sunday off. Euan MacTavish glanced at his wrist watch. It showed the hour to be ten minutes past nine. A flowered silk smoking-coat over his evening clothes and a briar pipe in his mouth, he went out into the hall and opened the front door.

It was a drenching night. The lamps from a taxi which throbbed dully in the street outside the house threw a gleaming band of light on the shining pavement. At the door stood a taxi-driver.

"There's a lady asking for Major MacTavish," he said, pointing at the cab. The Major stepped across to the cab and opened the door.

"Oh, Euan," said a girl's voice, "how lucky I am to catch you!"

"Why, Mary," exclaimed the Major, "what on earth brings you round to me on a night like this? I only came up from the country this afternoon and I'm off for Constantinople in the morning!"

"Euan," said Mary Trevert, "I want to talk to you. Where can we talk?"

The Major raised his eyebrows. He was a little man with grizzled hair and finely cut, rather sharp features.

"Well," he remarked, "there's not a soul in the house, and I've only got a bedroom here. Though we're cousins, Mary, my dear, I don't know that you ought to...."

"You're a silly old-fashioned old dear," exclaimed the girl, "and I'm coming in. No, I'll keep the cab. We shall want it!"

"All right," said the Major, helping her to alight. "I tell you what. We'll go into Harry Prankhurst's sitting-room. He's away for the week-end, anyway!"

He took Mary Trevert into a room off the hall and switched on the electric light. Then for the first time he saw how pale she looked.

"My dear," he said, "I know what an awful shock you've had...."

"You've heard about it?"

"I saw it in the Sunday papers. I was going to write to you."

"Euan," the girl began in a nervous, hasty way, "I have to go to Holland at once. There is not a moment to lose. I want you to help me get my passport viseed."

"But, my dear girl," exclaimed the Major, aghast, "you can't go to Holland like this alone. Does your mother know about it?"

The girl shook her head.

"It's no good trying to stop me, Euan," she declared. "I mean to go, anyway. As a matter of fact, Mother doesn't know. I merely left word that I had gone to the Continent for a few days. Nobody knows about Holland except you. And if you won't help me I suppose I shall have to go to Harry Tadworth at the Foreign Office. I came to you first because he's always so stuffy ..."

Euan MacTavish pushed the girl into a chair and gave her a cigarette. He lit it for her and took one himself. His pipe had vanished into his pocket.

"Of course, I'll help you," he said. "Now, tell me all about it!"

"Before ... this happened I had promised Hartley Parrish to marry him," began the girl. "The doctors say his nerves were wrong. I don't believe a word of it. He was full of the joy of life. He was very fond of me. He was always talking of what we should do when we were married. He never would have killed himself without some tremendously powerful motive. Even then I can't believe it possible ..."

She made a little nervous gesture.

"After he ... did it," she went on, "I found this letter on his desk. It came to him from Holland. I mean to see the people who wrote it and discover if they can throw any light on ... on ... the affair ..."

She had taken from her muff a letter, folded in four, written on paper of a curious dark slatey-blue colour.

"Won't you show me the letter?"

"You promise to say nothing about it to any one?"

He nodded.

"Of course."

Without a word the girl gave him the letter. With slow deliberation he unfolded it. The letter was typewritten and headed: "Elias van der Spyck & Co. General Importers, Rotterdam."

This was the letter:

ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & CO. GENERAL IMPORTERS ROTTERDAM Rotterdam 25th Nov.

Codes A.B.C. Liebler's

Personal Dear Mr. Parrish,

Your favor of even date to hand and contents noted. The last delivery of steel was to time but we have had warning from the railway authorities that labour troubles at the docks are likely to delay future consignments. If you don't mind we should prefer to settle the question of future delivery by Nov. 27 as we have a board meeting on the 30th inst. While we fully appreciate your own difficulties with labour at home, you will understand that this is a question which we cannot afford to adjourn sine die.

Yours faithfully, pro ELIAS VAN DER SPYCK & CO.

The signature was illegible.

Euan MacTavish folded the letter again and handed it back to Mary.

"That doesn't take me any farther," he said. "What do the police think of it?"

"They haven't seen it," was the girl's reply. "I took it without them knowing. I mean to make my own investigations about this ..."

"But, my dear Mary," exclaimed the little Major in a shocked voice, "you can't do things that way! Don't you see you may be hindering the course of justice? The police may attach the greatest importance to this letter ..."

"You're quite right," retorted the girl, "they do!"

"Then why have you kept it from them?"

Mary Trevert dropped her eyes and a little band of crimson flushed into her cheeks.

"Because," she commenced, "because ... well, because they are trying to implicate a friend of mine ..."

The Major took the girl's hand.

"Mary," he said, "I've known you all your life. I've knocked about a good bit and know something of the world, I believe. Suppose you tell me all about it ..."

Mary Trevert hesitated. Then she said, her hands nervously toying with her muff:

"We believe that Robin Greve—you know whom I mean—had a conversation with Hartley just before he ... he shot himself. That very afternoon Robin had asked me to marry him, but I told him about my engagement. He said some awful things about Hartley and rushed away. Ten minutes later Hartley Parrish committed suicide. And there was some one talking to him in the library. Bude, the butler, heard the voices. This afternoon I went down to the library alone ... to see if I could discover anything likely to throw any light on poor Hartley's death. This was the only letter I could find. It was tucked away between two letter-trays. One tray fitted into the other, and this letter had slipped between. It seems to have been overlooked both by Mr. Parrish's secretary and the police ..."

"But I confess," argued the Major, "that I don't see how this letter, which appears to be a very ordinary business communication, implicates anybody at all. Why shouldn't the police see it?..."

"Because," said Mary, "directly after discovering it I found Bruce Wright, who used to be one of Mr. Parrish's private secretaries, hiding behind the curtains in the library. Now, Bruce Wright is a great friend of Robin Greve's, and I immediately suspected that Robin had sent him to Harkings, particularly as ..."

"As what?..."

"As he practically admitted to me, that he had come for a letter written on slatey-blue official-looking paper."

The girl held up the letter from Rotterdam.

"All this," the girl continued, "made me think that this letter must have had something to do with Hartley's death ..."

"Surely an additional reason for giving it to the police!..."

Mary Trevert set her mouth in an obstinate line.

"No!" she affirmed uncompromisingly. "The police believe that, as the result of a scene between Hartley and Robin, Hartley killed himself. Until I've found out for certain whether this letter implicates Robin or not, I sha'n't give it to the police ..."

"But, if Greve really had nothing to do with this shocking tragedy, the police can very easily clear him. Surely they are the best judges of his guilt ..."

Again a touch of warm colour suffused the girl's cheeks. Euan MacTavish remarked it and looked at her wistfully.

"Well, well," he observed gently, "perhaps they're not, after all!"

The girl looked up at him.

"Euan, dear," she said impulsively, "I knew you'd understand. Robin and Hartley may have had a row, but it was nothing worse. Robin is incapable of having threatened—blackmailed—Hartley, as the police seem to imagine. I am greatly upset by it all; I can't see things clear at all; but I'm determined not to give the police a weapon like this to use against Robin until I know whether it is sharp or blunt, until I have found out what bearing, if any, this letter had on Hartley Parrish's death ..."

Euan MacTavish leant back in his chair and said nothing. He finished his cigarette, pitched the butt into the fender, and turned to Mary. He asked her to let him see the letter again. Once more he read it over. Then, handing it back to her, he said:

"It's all so simple-looking that there may well be something behind it. But, if you do go to Holland, how are you going to set about your enquiries?"

"That's where you can help me, Euan, dear," answered the girl. "I want to find somebody at Rotterdam who will help me to make some confidential enquiries about this firm. Do you know any one? An Englishman would be best, of course ..."

But Euan MacTavish was halfway to the door.

"Wait there," he commanded, "till I telephone the one man in the world who can help us."

He vanished into the hall where Mary heard him at the instrument.

"We are going round to the Albany," he said, "to see my friend, Ernest Dulkinghorn, of the War Office. He can help us if any one can. But, Mary, you must promise me one thing before we go ... you must agree to do what old Ernest tells you. You needn't be afraid. He is the most unconventional of men, capable of even approving this madcap scheme of yours!"

"I agree," said Mary, "but how you waste time, Euan! We could have been at the Albany by this time!"

In a first-floor oak-panelled suite at the Albany, overlooking the covered walk that runs from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens, they found an excessively fair, loose-limbed man whose air of rather helpless timidity was heightened by a pair of large tortoise-shell spectacles. He appeared excessively embarrassed at the sight of MacTavish's extremely good-looking companion.

"You never told me you were bringing a lady, Euan," he said reproachfully, "or I should have attempted to have made myself more presentable."

He looked down at his old flannel suit and made an apologetic gesture which took in the table littered with books and papers and the sofa on which lay a number of heavy tomes with marked slips sticking out between the pages.

"I am working at a code," he explained.

"Ernest here," said MacTavish, turning to Mary, "is the code king. Your pals in the Intelligence tell me, Ernest, that you've never been beaten by a code ..."

The fair man laughed nervously.

"They've been pullin' your leg, Euan," he said.

"Don't you believe him, Mary," retorted her cousin. "This is the man who probably did more than any one man to beat the Boche. Whenever the brother Hun changed his code, Brother Ernest was called in and he produced a key in one, two, three!..."

"What rot you talk, Euan!" said Dulkinghorn. "Working out a code is a combination of mathematics, perseverance, and inspiration with a good slice of luck thrown in! But isn't Miss Trevert going to sit down?"

He cleared the sofa with a sweep of his arm which sent the books flying on to the floor.

"Ernest," said MacTavish, "I want you to give Miss Trevert here a letter to some reliable fellow in Rotterdam who can assist her in making a few enquiries of a very delicate nature!"

"What sort of enquiries?" asked Dulkinghorn bluntly.

"About a firm called Elias van der Spyck," replied Euan.

"Of Rotterdam?" enquired the other sharply.

"That's right! Do you know them?"

"I've heard the name. They do a big business. But hadn't Miss Trevert better tell her story herself?"

Mary told him of the death of Hartley Parrish and of the letter she had found upon his desk. She said nothing of the part played by Robin Greve.

"Hmph!" said Dulkinghorn. "You think it might be blackmail, eh? Well, well, it might be. Have you got this letter about you? Hand it over and let's have a look at it."

His nervous manner had vanished. His face seemed to take on a much keener expression. He took the letter from Mary and read it through. Then he crossed the room to a wall cupboard which he unlocked with a key on a chain, produced a small tray on which stood a number of small bottles, some paint-brushes and pens, and several little open dishes such as are used for developing photographs. He bore the tray to the table, cleared a space on a corner by knocking a pile of books and papers on the floor, and set it down.

"Just poke the fire!" he said to Euan.

From a drawer in the table he produced a board on which he pinned down the letter with a drawing-pin at each corner. Then he dipped a paint-brush into one of the bottles and carefully painted the whole surface of the sheet with some invisible fluid.

"So!" he said, "we'll leave that to dry and see if we can find out any little secrets, eh? That little tray'll do the trick if there's any monkey business to this letter of yours, Miss Trevert. That'll do the trick, eh, what?"

He paced the room as he talked, not waiting for an answer, but running on as though he were soliloquizing. Presently he turned and swooped down on the board.

"Nothing," he ejaculated. "Now for the acids!"

With a little piece of sponge he carefully wiped the surface of the letter and painted it again with a substance from another bottle.

"Just hold that to the fire, would you, Euan?" he said, and gave MacTavish the board. He resumed his pacing, but this time he hummed in the most unmelodious voice imaginable:

She was bright as a butterfly, as fair as a queen, Was pretty little Polly Perkins, of Paddington Green.

"It's dry!"

MacTavish's voice broke in upon the pacing and the discordant song.

"Well?"

Dulkinghorn snapped out the question.

"No result!" said Euan. He handed him the board.

Dulkinghorn cast a glance at it, swiftly removed the letter, held it for an instant up to the electric light, fingered the paper for a moment, and handed the letter back to Mary.

"If it's code," he said, "it's a conventional code and that always beats the expert ... at first. Go to Rotterdam and call on my friend, Mr. William Schulz. I'll give you a letter for him and he'll place himself entirely at your disposition. Euan will take you over. Holland is on your beat, ain't it, Euan? When do you go next?"

"To-morrow," said the King's Messenger. "The boat train leaves Liverpool Street at ten o'clock."

"You'll want a passport," said Dulkinghorn, turning to the girl. "You've got it there? Good. Leave it with me. You shall have it back properly viseed by nine o'clock to-morrow morning. Where are you stayin'? Almond's Hotel. Good. I'll send the letter for Mr. William Schulz with it!"

"But," Euan interjected mildly, after making several ineffectual efforts to stem the torrent of speech, "do you really think that Miss Trevert will be well advised to risk this trip to Holland alone? Hadn't the police better take the matter in hand?"

"Police be damned!" replied Dulkinghorn heartily. "Miss Trevert will be better than a dozen heavy-handed, heavy-footed plain-clothes men. When you get to Rotterdam, Miss Trevert, you trot along and call on William Schulz. He'll see you through."

Then, to indicate without any possibility of misunderstanding, that his work had been interrupted long enough, Dulkinghorn got up, and, opening the sitting-room door, led the way into the hall. As he stood with his hand on the latch of the front door, Mary Trevert asked him:

"Is this Mr. Schulz an Englishman?"

"I'll let you into a secret," answered Bulkinghorn; "he was. But he isn't now! No, no, I can't say anything more. You must work it out for yourself. But I will give you a piece of advice. The less you say about Mr. William Schulz and about your private affairs generally when you are on the other side, the better it will be for you! Good-night—and good luck!"

Euan MacTavish escorted Mary to Almond's Hotel.

"I'm very much afraid," he said to her as they walked along, "that you're butting that pretty head of yours into a wasps' nest, Mary!"

"Nonsense!" retorted the girl decisively; "I can take care of myself!"

"If I consent to let you go off like this," said Euan, "it is only on one condition ... you must tell Lady Margaret where you are going ..."

"That'll spoil everything," answered Mary, pouting; "Mother will want to come with me!"

"No, she won't," urged her cousin, "not if I tell her. She'll worry herself to death, Mary, if she doesn't know what has become of you. You'd better let me ring her up from the club and tell her you're running over to Rotterdam for a few days. Look here, I'll tell her you're going with me. She'll be perfectly happy if she thinks I'm to be with you ..."

On that Mary surrendered.

"Have it your own way," she said.

"I'll pick you up here at a quarter-past nine in the morning," said Euan as he bade the girl good-night at her hotel, "then we'll run down to the F.O. and collect my bags and go on to the station!"

"Euan," the girl asked as she gave him her hand, "who is this man Schulz, do you think?"

The King's messenger leant over and whispered:

"Secret Service!"

"Secret Service!"

The girl repeated the words in a hushed voice.

"Then Mr. Dulkinghorn ... is he ... that too?"

Euan nodded shortly.

"One of their leadin' lights!" he answered.

"But, Euan,"—the girl was very serious now,—"what has the Secret Service to do with Hartley Parrish's clients in Holland?"

The King's messenger laid a lean finger along his nose.

"Ah!" he said, "what? That's what is beginning to interest me!"



CHAPTER XXI

A WORD WITH MR. JEEKES

Life is like a kaleidoscope, that ingenious toy which was the delight of the Victorian nursery. Like the glass fragments in its slide, different in colour and shape, men's lives lie about without seeming connection; then Fate gives the instrument a shake, and behold! the fragments slide into position and form an intricate mosaic....

Mark how Fate proceeded on the wet and raw Sunday evening when Bruce Wright, at the instance of Mr. Manderton, quitted Robin Greve's chambers in the Temple, leaving his friend and the detective alone together. To tell the truth, Bruce Wright was in no mood for facing the provincial gloom of a wet Sunday evening in London, nor did he find alluring the prospect of a suburban supper-party at the quiet house where he lived with his widowed mother and sisters in South Kensington. So, in an irresolute, unsettled frame of mind, he let himself drift down the Strand unable to bring himself to go home or, indeed, to form any plan.

He crossed Trafalgar Square, a nocturne in yellow and black—lights reflected yellow in pavements shining dark with wet—and by and by found himself in Pall Mall. Here it was that Fate took a hand. At this moment it administered a preliminary jog to the kaleidoscope and brought the fragment labelled Bruce Wright into immediate proximity with the piece entitled Albert Edward Jeekes.

As Bruce Wright came along Pall Mall, he saw Mr. Jeekes standing on the steps of his club. The little secretary appeared to be lost in thought, his chin thrust down on the crutch-handle of the umbrella he clutched to himself. So absorbed was he in his meditations that he did not observe Bruce Wright stop and regard him. It was not until our young man had touched him on the arm that he looked up with a start.

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, "if it isn't young Wright!"

Now the sight of Jeekes had put a great idea into the head of our young friend. He had been more chagrined than he had let it appear to Robin Greve at his failure to recover the missing letter from the library at Harkings. To obtain the letter—or, at any rate, a copy of it—from Jeekes and to hand it to Robin Greve would, thought Bruce, restore his prestige as an amateur detective, at any rate in his own eyes. Moreover, a chat with Jeekes over the whole affair seemed a Heaven-sent exit from the impasse of boredom into which he had drifted this wet Sunday evening.

"How are you, Mr. Jeekes?" said Bruce briskly. ("Mr." Jeekes was the form of address always accorded to the principal secretary in the Hartley Parrish establishment and Bruce resumed it instinctively.) "I was anxious to see you. I called in at the club this afternoon. Did you get my message?"

The little secretary blinked at him through his pince-nez.

"There have been so many messages about this shocking affair that really I forget ..."

He sighed heavily.

"Couldn't I come in and have a yarn now?"

Bruce spoke cajolingly. But Mr. Jeekes wrinkled his brow fussily.

There was so much to do; he had had a long day; if Wright would excuse him ...

"As a matter of fact," explained Bruce with an eye on his man, "I wanted to see you particularly about a letter ..."

"Some other time ... to-morrow ..."

"Written on dark-blue paper ... you know, one of those letters H.P. made all the fuss about."

Mr. Jeekes took his pince-nez from his nose, gave the glasses a hasty rub with his pocket-handkerchief, and replaced them. He slanted a long narrow look at the young man.

Then, "What letter do you mean?" he asked composedly.

"A letter which lay on H.P.'s desk in the library at Harkings when they found the body ..."

"There was a letter there then ...?"

"Haven't you got it?"

Jeekes shook his head.

"Come inside for a minute and tell me about this," he said.

He led Bruce into the vast smoking-room of the club. They took seats in a distant corner near the blazing fire. The room was practically deserted.

Now, Mr. Jeekes's excessive carefulness about money had been a long-standing joke amongst his assistants when Bruce Wright had belonged to Hartley Parrish's secretarial staff. Thrift had become with him more than a habit. It was a positive obsession. It revealed itself in such petty meannesses as a perpetual cadging for matches or small change and a careful abstention from any offer of hospitality. Never in the whole course of his service had Bruce Wright heard of Mr. Jeekes taking anybody out to lunch or extending any of the usual hospitalities of life. He was not a little surprised, therefore, to hear Jeekes ask him what he would take.

Bruce said he would take some coffee.

"Have a liqueur? Have a cigar?" said Jeekes, turning to Bruce from the somnolent waiter who had answered the bell.

There was a strange eagerness, a sort of over-done cordiality, in the invitation which contrasted so strongly with the secretary's habits that Robin felt dimly suspicious. He suddenly formed the idea that Mr. Jeekes wanted to pump him. He refused the liqueur, but accepted a cigar. Jeekes waited until they had been served and the waiter had withdrawn silently into the dim vastness of the great room before he spoke.

"Now, then, young Wright," he said, "what's this about a letter? Tell me from the beginning ..."

Bruce told him of the letter from Elias van der Spyck & Co. which Robin had seen upon the desk in the library at Harkings, of his (Bruce's) journey down to Harkings that afternoon and of his failure to find the letter.

"But why do you assume that I've got it?"

There was an air of forced joviality about Mr. Jeekes as he put the question which did not in the least, as he undoubtedly intended it should, disguise his eagerness. On the contrary, it lent his rather undistinguished features an expression of cunning which can only be described as knavish. Bruce Wright, who, as will already have been seen, was a young man with all his wits about him, did not fail to remark it. The result was that he hastily revised an intention half-formed in his mind of taking Jeekes a little way into his confidence regarding Robin Greve's doubts and suspicions about Hartley Parrish's death.

But he answered the secretary's question readily enough.

"Because Miss Trevert told me you went to the library immediately you arrived at Harkings last night. I consequently assumed that you must have taken away the letter seen by Robin Greve ..."

Mr. Jeekes drew in his breath with a sucking sound. It was a little trick of his when about to speak.

"So you saw Miss Trevert at Harkings, eh?"

Bruce laughed.

"I did," he said. "We had quite a dramatic meeting, too—it was like a scene from a film!"

And, with a little good-humoured exaggeration, he gave Mr. Jeekes a description of his encounter with Mary. And lest it should seem that young Wright was allowing Mr. Jeekes to pump him, it should be stated that Bruce was well aware of one of the secretary's most notable characteristics, a common failing, be it remarked, of the small-minded, and that was an overpowering suspicion of anything resembling a leading question. In order, therefore, to gain his confidence, he willingly satisfied the other's curiosity regarding his visit to Harkings hoping thereby to extract some information as to the whereabouts of the letter on the slatey-blue paper.

"There was no letter of this description on the desk, you say, when you and Miss Trevert looked?" asked Jeekes when Bruce had finished his story.

"Nothing but circulars and bills," Bruce replied.

Mr. Jeekes leaned forward and drank off his coffee with a swift movement. Then he said carelessly:

"From what you tell me, Miss Trevert would have been perhaps a minute alone in the room without your seeing her?"

Bruce agreed with a nod.

Adjusting his pince-nez on his nose the secretary rose to his feet.

"Very glad to have seen you again, Wright," he said, thrusting out a limp hand; "must run off now—mass of work to get through ..."

Then Bruce risked his leading question.

"If you haven't got this letter," he observed, "what has become of it? Obviously the police are not likely to have taken it because they know nothing of its significance ..."

"Quite, quite," answered Mr. Jeekes absently, but without replying to the young man's question.

"Why," asked Bruce boldly, "did old H.P. make such a mystery about these letters on the slatey-blue paper, Mr. Jeekes?"

The secretary wrinkled up his thin lips and sharp nose into a cunning smile.

"When you get to be my age, young Wright," he made answer, "you will understand that every man has a private side to his life. And, if you have learnt your job properly, you will also know that a private secretary's first duty is to mind his own business. About this letter now—it's the first I've heard of it. Take my advice and don't bother your head about it. If it exists ..."

"But it does exist," broke in Bruce quickly. "Mr. Greve saw it and read it himself ..."

Mr. Jeekes laughed drily.

"Don't you forget, young Wright," he said, jerking his chin towards the youngster in a confidential sort of way, "don't you forget that Mr. Greve is anxious to find a plausible motive for Mr. Parrish's suicide. People are talking, you understand! That's all I've got to say! Just you think it over ..."

Bruce Wright bristled up hotly at this.

"I don't see you have any reason to try and impugn Greve's motive for wishing to get at the bottom of this mysterious affair ..."

Mr. Jeekes affected to be engrossed in the manicuring of his nails. Very intently he rubbed the nails of one hand against the palm of the other.

"No mystery!" he said decisively with a shake of the head: "no mystery whatsoever about it, young Wright, except what the amateur detectives will try and make it out to be. Or has Mr. Greve discovered a mystery already?"

The question came out artfully. But in the quick glance which accompanied it, there was an intent watchfulness which startled Bruce accustomed as he was to the mild and unemotional ways of the little secretary.

"Not that I know of," said Bruce. "Greve is only puzzled like all of us that H.P. should have done a thing like this!"

Mr. Jeekes was perfectly impassive again.

"The nerves, young Wright! The nerves!" he said impressively. "Harley Street, not Mr. Greve, will supply the motive to this sad affair, believe me!"

With that he accompanied the young man to the door of the club and from the vestibule watched him sally forth into the rain of Pall Mall.

Then Mr. Jeekes turned to the hall porter.

"Please get me Stevenish one-three-seven," he said, "it's a trunk call. Don't let them put you off with 'No reply.' It's Harkings, and they are expecting me to ring them. I shall be in the writing room."

When, twenty minutes later, Mr. Jeekes emerged from the trunk call telephone box in the club vestibule, his mouth was drooping at the corners and his hands trembled curiously. He stood for an instant in thought tapping his foot on the marble floor of the deserted hall dimly lit by a single electric bulb burning over the hall porter's box. Then he went back to the writing-room and returned with a yellow telegram form.

"Send a boy down to Charing Cross with that at once, please," he said to the night porter.

Fate which had brought Bruce Wright face to face with Mr. Jeekes gave the kaleidoscope another jerk that night. As Bruce Wright entered the Tube Station at Dover Street to go home to South Kensington, it occurred to him that he would ring up Robin Greve at his chambers in the Temple and give him an outline of his (Bruce's) talk with Jeekes. Bruce went to the public callbox in the station, but the rhythmic "Zoom-er! Zoom-er! Zoom-er!" which announces that a number is engaged was all the satisfaction he got. The prospect of waiting about the draughty station exit did not appeal to him, so he decided to go home and telephone Robin, as originally arranged, in the morning.

Just about the time that he made this resolve, Robin in his rooms in the Temple was hanging up the receiver of his telephone with a dazed expression in his eyes. Mr. Manderton had rung him up with a piece of intelligence which fairly bewildered him. It bewildered Mr. Manderton also, as the detective was frank enough to acknowledge.

Mary Trevert had gone to Rotterdam for a few days in company with her cousin, Major Euan MacTavish. Mr. Manderton had received this astonishing information by telephone from Harkings a few minutes before.

"It bothers me properly, Mr. Greve, sir," the detective had added.

"There's only one thing for it, Manderton," Robin had said; "I'll have to go after her ..."

"The very thing I was about to suggest myself, Mr. Greve. You're unofficial-like and can be more helpful than if we detailed one of our own people from the Yard. And with the investigation in its present stage I don't reely feel justified in going off on a wild-goose chase myself. There are several important enquiries going forward now, notably as to where Mr. Parrish bought his pistol. But we certainly ought to find out what takes Miss Trevert careering off to Rotterdam in this way ..."

"It seems almost incredible," Robin had said, "but it looks to me as though Miss Trevert must have found out something about the letter ..."

"Or found it herself ..."

"By Jove! She was in the library when Bruce Wright was there. This settles it, Manderton. I must go!"

"Then," said the detective, "I'm going to entrust you with that slotted sheet of paper again. For I have an idea, Mr. Greve, that you may get a glimpse of that letter before I do. I'll send a messenger round with it at once."

Then a difficulty arose. Manderton had not got the girl's address. They had no address at Harkings. Nor did he know what train Miss Trevert had taken. She might have gone by the 9 P.M. that night. Had Mr. Greve got a passport? Yes, Robin had a passport, but it was not viseed for Holland. That meant he could not leave until the following evening. Then Robin had a "brain wave."

"There's an air service to Rotterdam!" he exclaimed. "It doesn't leave till noon. A pal of mine went across by it only last week. That will leave me time to get my passport stamped at the Dutch Consulate, to catch the air mail, and be in Rotterdam by tea-time! And, Manderton, I shall go to the Grand Hotel. That's where my friend stopped. Wire me there if there's any news ..."