The Rainbow Puzzle

Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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E. CHARLES VIVIAN

THE RAINBOW PUZZLE

First published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, 1938

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-12-07

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

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Chapter I. Logan
Chapter II. Ireen's Half-Day
Chapter III. Loretta
Chapter IV. Missing
Chapter V. Inspector Byrne Comes In
Chapter VI. Miss Edwards, Truculent
Chapter VII. Inspector Head Comes In
Chapter VIII. The Lie of the Land
Chapter IX. Amateur—and Professional
Chapter X. At The Feathers
Chapter XI. Not Evidence
Chapter XII. Negative Evidence
Chapter XIII. Evidence
Chapter XIV. Minus Beard
Chapter XV. Cortazzi, and Others
Chapter XVI. Enlightenment for Noel
Chapter XVII. Wilson's Alibi
Chapter XVIII. Confirmation by the Gal
Chapter XIX. Loretta Mutinous
Chapter XX. On the Face of It—
Chapter XXI. Tony!

Chapter I
Logan

The spectacled, middle-aged woman seated conveniently beside the desk for the receipt of dictation poised her pencil expectantly. The man at the desk caressed his reddish moustache as he reflected over the framing of the letter, and, as his secretary noted, also stroked his neat little pointed beard. When she had entered his service, the beard had been just such a reddish brown as the moustache: now, there were greyish streaks in it—not exactly grey, but paling to that tint. His hair was far more nearly white than the beard, but the poise of the man, the set of his lips and alertness of his gaze, bespoke undiminished energy. Aging—his actual age was fifty-five—in appearance, in force and mentality he was still young.

He frowned, began—"Dear Mr. Chalfont"—and then stopped and shook his head. "No, I think not, this time," he said. "Make it 'Dear Sir,' instead. It is to go to Chalfont, of course."

But the actual text of the letter was, evidently, a matter of some difficulty to him. Eventually he began dictating, slowly, and with many pauses, sometimes gazing at his desk, and sometimes looking up at the ceiling of the room as if for inspiration.

"Dear Sir: In reply to your letter of May 9th, I will come to Todlington the day after to-morrow as you suggest, to complete the purchase of sole rights in your screen, which you say is now perfected. Unless I wire you to the contrary, I shall arrive at Westingborough by the same train as I took for my last visit, and, if you cannot arrange to meet me there, will hire a car and drive over to Todlington. I intend to bring with me six reels of film that I have purchased for the purpose of testing the screen. They vary from travel scenes (African jungle and Arctic adventure) to ordinary Hollywood gangster and interior sets, and therefore should afford a full test of your screen when run through your projector. If I am satisfied with the result, I will exchange my cheque for £5,200 for your complete formula of manufacture, according to the terms of the agreement which both you and Mr. Wilson signed when I undertook to finance this venture.

"By way of reply to the protest in your letter of the 9th, I can only remind you that a bargain is a bargain, and both you and Mr. Wilson must abide by it. You must realize that I took a considerable risk in agreeing to finance your undertaking while the screen was yet a bare possibility, and that, until I received this last letter of yours, the £1,800 which I have already advanced to you and Mr. Wilson was no more than an unsecured liability. I cannot accede to your suggestion of a royalty, but must hold you to the agreement, which states clearly that the sole rights become mine in return for a total sum of £7,000, and prevents you from offering the invention or any similar device to any possible purchaser except myself. You have admitted that the cost of manufacture is in the neighbourhood of £200 for every screen that may be made; you must realize that I shall have all the expenses of company flotation, and that I have yet some time to wait for the return of my initial outlay of £7,000 to you and Mr. Wilson, and still longer to wait for any profit on my investment. As for your suggestion—I will not say threat—of negotiating with film distributors or anyone else for an alternative sale of the screen, I can only repeat that your bargain with me is a bargain—underline 'is', Miss Enderby—and if either you or Mr. Wilson attempts anything of the sort, I shall be compelled to obtain an injunction to prevent it. You will, I hope, realize that the advances already made to you, totalling £1,800, render our agreement binding on you, and I should have no difficulty in getting an injunction to hold you to it.

"As for your observation—quote this, Miss Enderby—'the profits from this thing will be nearer a million than a mere £7,000,' I must remind you that the possible profits are no more now than they were at the time of signing our agreement. I took the risk of what was then no more than an embryo device, and have financed you and Mr. Wilson for its development. Now that you have perfected it, I must hold you to the terms to which you both assented without hesitation, and to the signed and witnessed contract in which they are embodied."

He leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the ceiling for a minute or more, stroking his beard, and his secretary waited.

"I am, yours truly— That's all Miss Enderby. If you get it typed at once for signature, we shall be in good time for the country post. Oh, and ask Miss Edwards to ring through to my home and find out if Miss Logan is there. If so, put her through to me here."

When she had gone out he got up from his chair and paced thoughtfully up and down his comfortably-furnished room, his footfalls making no sound on the thick carpet. With his fingers interlaced behind his back he showed as well set-up and of middle height, rather slenderly built—there was no suggestion of advancing years about his figure—and with small feet and slender-fingered, delicately formed hands, these last well-kept. His dark grey suit was evidently a specimen of first-class tailoring art, and linen and accessories too bespoke one not only careful of his attire, but able to afford the best. And neither the neatly-trimmed beard that emphasized rather than masked his pugnaciously-jutting chin, nor the moustache that shaded his lips, concealed the hardness of the man, while his steel-grey eyes proclaimed it. Here, one might say at a glance, was a ruthless personality.

But, when the buzzer at the side of his desk summoned him to the telephone, all that hardness of expression and even of cast of face seemed to disappear. The little smile with which he removed the receiver was almost tender, and his voice, that had been so crisp while he dictated to his secretary, was now pleasingly gentle.

"Noel? Daddy speaking. I shall come home by the usual train to-night, so you can tell Richardson to turn the car out and meet it. But about Wednesday—your little dinner party, you remember, Peter Thorn and her brother. Yes. I shall not be back in time."

"Oh, Daddy!" the reply came back to him, "I did so want you to meet them. You don't mean I must postpone it?"

"No, no, child, nothing of the sort! Only you'll have to make it a threesome. I'm going to Westingborough that day—you remember the film screen I told you about. And since I'm paying over rather a large sum to complete the contract, I shall have to assure myself that everything is in perfect order before parting with the money."

"My dear, I've arranged it to fit in with other things. There's a train back at four-thirty, but even if I catch that I shall not get to London till seven-thirty. Then I've got to get across to Charing Cross and down to you—half-past nine or thereabouts at the earliest. And catching that four-thirty is very unlikely."

"Yes, I'll catch it if I can get through with the business in time. If not, it won't be worth while coming home, and I shall stay the night in London. But don't put your friends off. If I don't meet them then, I shall later. We'll talk it over when I get home to-night. Tell Richardson to be at Tonbridge with the car at the usual time to-night. I'm sorry about Wednesday, but it can't be helped."

"Now, Noel girl, don't sound so hurt about it. I expect I shall have plenty of opportunities of meeting Miss Thorn's brother. Yes, dear—credit me with having eyes in my head. Is he just another, or is it serious this time? Never mind—you can tell me just as much or as little as you like. I know I've got to lose you some time."

He replaced the receiver and sat down at his desk to wait. After a brief interval, Miss Enderby brought in the letter he had dictated, and he read it through carefully while she waited beside the desk. Then he took his pen and signed—"Gerard N. Logan," and looked up at her as he handed it back.

"Yes, plenty of time for the country post," he observed musingly. "Are you interested in films, Miss Enderby?"

"Why, yes, Mr. Logan," she answered in a surprised way. Apart from an occasional banality about the weather, he was not given to conversation with her that did not concern his business.

"The screen—let me see, it's over three months since I went to see them at their outlandish place and advanced the last five hundred—and they had it very nearly perfect then. Not the reds—there was still trouble with the red rays. And now, they say, they've conquered that, and the invention is perfected. It means, Miss Enderby, that any film projected on to this screen is resolved back into its natural colours. They want to call it the 'rainbow screen', and it will give you your film in the actual colours of the original scenes."

He smiled, and with the smile the hardness went out from his face, leaving it attractive and even kindly in expression.

"Flying was impossible not so long ago, Miss Enderby," he said. "Wireless communication was impossible—films themselves were impossible not long before I was born, and I can remember their first public exhibition. Do you know why things are coloured?"

"Well, they—they just are, surely," she suggested rather lamely. "I don't know why—nobody knows why, I should say."

"Wrong, Miss Enderby—quite wrong. Grass is green because it absorbs all light rays except the green, and a brick is red because it absorbs all but the red rays. A camera lens takes green and red and every other colour and translates each to a certain shade on a photographic plate or film—a certain shade, which means a certain density. These two men have worked for years at constructing a screen which will take back those rays of light on to itself, and translate them back to their original values. Give you the subjects of the photographs in their original colours. I expect you've been to see coloured films sometimes, haven't you?"

"Well, yes, but I don't care much for them—except for the silly symphonies in colour," she answered. "The others seem wrong, somehow."

"Of course they do! The colouring is artificial, and thus cannot be a perfectly natural rendering of the original. This screen—if they really have perfected it, which I shall see on Wednesday with the ordinary black and white films I'm taking for test—it will give back the colours that the camera took, natural colours with no exaggeration. But it won't work for your silly symphonies or film cartoons, for they are all drawings in the first place, and the rays the projector throws on to the screen have no natural values. Now do you know why I'm telling you all this, Miss Enderby?"

"I expect you have some good reason," she said rather dryly. "You have as a rule, for anything you tell me."

"I suppose that's true. You grasp the principle of this rainbow screen, though—if I choose to go on calling it that?"

"Well, I shall have to go into it more thoroughly later, and make sure you do understand," he said, and again he was the business machine rather than the human personality she had just glimpsed. "My reason, in this case, is publicity. I have very carefully avoided anything of the sort so far, and shall go on avoiding it till after Wednesday, but then, once I am sure the screen is perfected, publicity will begin. And I may not be here all the time, may want you to talk to press representatives and explain the principle of the thing sometimes. Possibly, even, give demonstrations on a small scale in my absence. I have an idea for an initial publicity scheme that would cost next to nothing, but I must keep it entirely to myself for the present to make it effective. Now you just think over what I've told you and remember as much of it as you can—and see that that letter goes by the country post. There's nothing else needing my attention, is there?"

"I have nothing more to say to Bertram," he said. "The man's difficulties are his own fault, and our next step is a writ against him. That is, unless he makes the payment on account I suggested by the end of this week. Why—has he been in?"

"He called while you were out at lunch," she answered. "I told him you had nothing to add to your last letter, and it was no use waiting to see you. He seemed—well, rather broken down, and said that if you pressed him by taking it to court, every other creditor of his would be down on him, and it meant ruin. But I told him he couldn't possibly see you, and he went away again."

"Quite right, Miss Enderby—I won't see the man. He went so far as to lose his temper and threaten me the last time I consented to an interview, and the last letter I wrote was my last word to him. Tell him that if he calls again before the end of the week—that letter is my last word. Just because his mother was nurse to my daughter—"

He broke off and sat thoughtful. His secretary waited, and eventually he roused himself and looked up at her.

"No, Miss Enderby," he said. "If it means bankruptcy for him, I shall rank with the other creditors, but I'm not going to throw good money after bad by helping him further, and he's got to the end of the week to begin paying what he owes. Otherwise, a writ on Monday. Is that all? Any other callers or messages?"

Very good, and I shall have nothing more for you to-day. You might turn out my agreement with Chalfont and Wilson, and I'll go over it carefully to-morrow. Ring Farrar and Co. and tell them I'd like Mr. Alfred Farrar to call here and see me at—let me see—half-past eleven. It will be as well to get him to go through the agreement with me—as a solicitor he might detect some flaw at the last minute, though he drew it up for me. Yes, half-past eleven, Miss Enderby. That's all."

She took the signed letter and went out to the smaller room in which a girl, apparently in her early twenties, but round-shouldered and tortoiseshell-spectacled, was busy over an account book at one desk. Miss Enderby seated herself at her own desk, put Logan's letter in an envelope already addressed, and threw it so that it lighted on the other girl's desk, just missing the book in which she was making entries.

"In time for the country post," she said. "That means you can carry on for another half-hour before you need post it, Alice."

They heard the door of Logan's inner room open and close, and then followed the sound of the outer door. Miss Enderby stood up, stretched her arms above her head, and yawned indecently. Alice, whom Logan always addressed as Miss Edwards if he had occasion to speak to her, pushed the account book away from her.

"Let us hope," Miss Enderby responded. "Gone, anyhow. And yet, you know, Alice, he can be quite human when he likes. He's been telling me about that screen—pictures in natural colours at last."

"It's been tried," Alice said sceptically. "Oh, hasn't it? I went to that one—what was the name of it, though? All historical, lovely costumes, velvets and satins and jewels, and all in colour. Oh, hell, but it was a nightmare! Colour films! Save us!"

"This is different," he said. "The actual, natural colours. My child, can you see our dear employer paying anyone seven thousand pounds for anything, buying a pig in a poke like that, unless it's worth seven thousand pounds? For I can't."

"Unless it's worth seventy thousand, or seven hundred thousand, you mean," Alice remarked caustically. "And I read that Mr. Wilson's letter when I filed it. Miss Enderby, I'm sorry for those two."

"You don't have to see people to be sorry for them, and I have seen Mr. Chalfont. They've been had, by him. Years of work, and all their faith in it—they believe it's worth a lot more than he's paying, and if it is they've got to sit back and watch him reap all the profit without doing a thing."

"Risk—bah! My dear, when Gerard Newton Logan takes a risk over anything to do with money, all the lions in Trafalgar Square will stand up and roar. And that poor young man, Mr. Bertram—there's another of our dear employer's victims. Yes, victims! If—"

"Alice, don't be silly! Mr. Logan financed Mr. Bertram into that business, and he simply won't go any further."

"Financed him—yes, at ten per cent interest! Iniquitous, I call it! Perfectly iniquitous! Oh, don't worry—I'm sane enough to say nothing outside this room, for I don't want to lose my job, but at times I feel like letting go about things. To think of all the money that man has, the good he could do with it if he liked, and then what he does! Bleeds people—remember the Ansendaga Company that he floated, and how he got out of the last of his holding just before the crash. Remember that poor old woman who came up here and he wouldn't see her, the one who'd paid for her shares with war loans and told you she had fifty pounds a year left to live on instead of five hundred—and it was his doing! When I think of things like that, things that go on in this office, they make me perfectly sick with rage."

"Because I can't afford to. Because bookkeeper typists like me are three a penny and sit in rows on doorsteps if there's a job going with two-thirds of the salary he pays me, and I have to help with things at home. And if I left it would still go on—someone would step in and take my place to-morrow, gladly. So I do my duty in that station of life to which it has pleased God and Mr. Logan to call me, but that doesn't prevent me from seeing that it's all wrong, and some day he'll get met with for his wickedness. I wouldn't wonder if that Mr. Bertram—he shouted when he saw Mr. Logan the last time, and I could hear what he said in here, some of it. Threats. Ugly threats."

"Which break no bones, fortunately," Miss Enderby observed. "I think you'd better seal and stamp that letter and take it to post, and if he's not back by the time you are we might close up and go. He won't come back at all if he's not back by then, and there's nothing really outstanding for us to fret about. An early evening, for once."

She put the cover on her typewriter as the girl went out with the letter, and then stood looking down at her desk.

"And yet there must be good in him, somewhere," she told herself dreamily. "That daughter of his loves him, and he loves her..."

Chapter II
Ireen's Half-Day

"The lousy swine!" said Wilson, also reading, beside Chalfont's elbow. "By the time we've cleared the overdraft and paid up everything, it won't leave us two thousand apiece."

The pair of them stood, that bright May morning, in the room in which they took their meals. Conventionalists might have called it a dining-room: these two referred to it as "the trough" if they had occasion to mention it. One other of the four ground floor rooms of their present home was furnished, as was a bedroom for each of them upstairs; the rest of the house was unused, dust-covered, unvisited. They had leased it—"The Firs, Todlington, Westingborough" was both postal and telegraphic address—at the beginning of the researches which had resulted in the creation of the rainbow screen, for it was a mile from a main road, appertained to a hamlet rather than a village, and in every respect offered them the seclusion they wanted.

Physically, they were ill-matched: Chalfont was a giant of six feet three, and Wilson had to read beside his elbow rather than over his shoulder, being of only middle height. Chalfont's yellow curls, his simply magnificent physique, and his deep blue eyes proclaimed a Norse ancestry far back—he was the true Viking type; Wilson, brown-eyed, with very dark hair and a tiny black moustache which Chalfont called a nose-mat, sparely-built and of only middle height, was modernity personified. Chalfont was careless in his attire, while Wilson was always a dapper, neat figure of a man; in reality, he was of average height and build, but he looked small beside his companion's length and breadth. And, reading Logan's letter together that Tuesday morning, they both looked and were angry men.

"Trouble is," said Wilson, "we didn't know how big this would be when we started. You remember, we both thought some other colour process would get in ahead of us, and now—if it weren't for him, we'd own the world. As it is, he's going to own it."

"She must change it," Wilson said. "We can make out on canned stuff and cold meat ourselves on her days off, but we can't give him canned and cold. And we shall have to lunch him."

"M-yes," Chalfont agreed thoughtfully. "I suppose we shall, though I'd sooner poison him, the thieving shark. We'd better see her about it before we settle to things in the lab."

He folded Logan's letter, replaced it in its envelope, and pocketed it. Then he stood looking out through the window, at the unkept, weedy wilderness of garden, and the dark lines of firs beyond from which the house took its name. He shook his head, gloomily.

"See that young, fresh green splashed on the darker stuff, this year's buds shining against the old growth," he said. "The annual miracle. I wonder where we shall be when it happens again."

"Five thousand two hundred—say a little over two thousand each after we've paid off the overdraft and cleared all the debts we must. Jim, I suggest we go on one hell of a bust by way of consolation."

"I haven't the heart for it," Chalfont said. "Remember all we promised ourselves, ease and comfort for the rest of our lives, royalties rolling in. Two thousand! Properly invested, a bit under two pounds a week, and income tax off that."

"Or one crowded year of glorious life," Wilson suggested. "You could have quite a good year on two thousand, if you really let yourself go and didn't worry about what might happen after."

"Exactly—what might happen after! You go back to winding film on a projector in some blasted picture palace, and I take a post as science master in a damned school and begin teaching stinks all over again, or more likely we both kick our heels among the unemployed! We needn't flatter ourselves that employers of any sort will rush at us."

"Inventors of the rainbow screen—we should be worth something," Wilson urged, but with little conviction in his tone.

"Worth what?" Chalfont turned from his gazing to demand raspily. "Five pounds a week each—and that's our outside value in the labour market. Either with or without less than two pounds a week, as we blue our two thousand apiece or invest it. And for that, back to slavery—employees, not our own masters any more. Nine to six—twelve to twelve for you, if you go back to winding reels. And Logan—may he rot in hell takes all we promised ourselves when we began!"

In turn Wilson stared out from the window; his companion's forecast of their future impressed him as too discouragingly real to admit of further argument. Chalfont took a step toward the table on which were spread the untidy remnants of their breakfast.

"Besides," he added very softly, "there's Loretta." He moved so that Wilson could see only his back. "I hoped—"

"I'm not sorry there's no Loretta or anyone else, in my case," Wilson said slowly. "As things are, that is. For he's got us—got us by the throat, Jim. What was that other letter you pocketed just as I came in?"

"Overdraft—a reminder from the bank that it's up to limit, and no more cheques will be honoured till something's paid in."

"They'll all begin laying eggs when you pay in five thousand two hundred in one go," Wilson prophesied. "Thank God our credit's good with the Carden tradesmen and we've plenty of booze in the house."

"And Logan takes nearly four good years of our work for that one paltry cheque and what we've already spent on the thing—"

"Jim, it's spilt milk. Like you, I'd gladly see him damned before letting him have it for that, but he's got us. If we tried to stand from under, he'd get that injunction he talks about like a shot, and with the little we've got coming we can't afford law costs."

"We might ask him again if he won't add a ten per cent royalty on profits—not on gross income from it, but on profits—when he comes here to-morrow. It would put us on velveteen, if not on velvet."

"And watch him smile!" Chalfont completed with rage in his voice. "No, we know him by now, Tony. Do we give the hell-hound lunch?"

"No help for it, that I can see. He'll want us to run his six reels through our projector, so we've got to have him here. Jim, no earthly amount of talking is going to alter things for us, and we've got to get the lab. cleaned out and ready, have everything ship-shape to get even that cheque he says he's bringing. We can interview the gal on our way out and tell her she's got to change her day off."

He moved toward the doorway and, reaching it, turned back and saw Chalfont still glooming over the breakfast table.

"Loretta," Chalfont answered without looking up. "I can't expect her to marry me, with no more than two thousand in the world and no prospects beyond it—a blasted assistant schoolmaster at the best. She's been used to... better things than that."

Wilson came back to his side. "Tell her, Jim," he advised gently. "She's good gold all through—she'll wait for you."

"D'you think I'd ask her to wait?" Chalfont demanded harshly. "I won't. I've led her up the garden about my prospects, because till I read this letter of Logan's I was leading myself up too. No! I've got to explain to her that I can't give her a tenth—at the very best, I couldn't give her a tenth of what she's been used to having—and then tell her to go. I've no right to hold her, now."

Chalfont turned on him, a savage light in his eyes, and his fists clenching and half raised. But Wilson shrank back, and at that the big man relaxed and looked ashamed of himself.

"I'm sorry, Tony," he said. "Not—not you, but the truth in what you said—it will be hell for her as well as for me when I have to tell her it's no use hoping any more. That, and the bitter injustice of things. Four good years of hoping, and now this! Logan, the granite devil! Come on"—he reached the doorway of the room in long, swift strides—"let's go and tell the gal she's got to change to another day off and cook a decent lunch to-morrow."

Wilson followed him, and they clattered over bare boards to the brick-floored kitchen at the back of the house, where Chalfont had to stoop to pass the doorway and enter. There was a roaring coal fire in an old-fashioned grimy range that showed blotches of both grease and rust; there were two chairs of the kind that were called Windsor long before the Royal family thought of annexing the title, and in one of them a not unattractive-looking maiden in her twenties sat at a cheap sort of kitchen table while she scraped carrots. Such utensils and crockery as were visible were unlovely and obviously had been purchased in the cheapest market; the big room, planned for the service of such a family as had once inhabited this house, dwarfed its poor fitments so that the table appeared as a mere small island in an ocean of space, and the chairs insults to its bareness. The girl went steadily on with her work: she did not altogether ignore Chalfont's entry, but gave him a brief questioning glance, and then dropped one carrot in a pan of water beside her and took another from the bag on the table for scraping. Wilson leaned against the doorpost, waiting.

"That's a big fire for a day like this, Higgs," Chalfont opened unwisely as he paused facing the girl.

She dropped both knife and carrot in her aproned lap to look up at him. "I gotter have a fire for your breakfast, ain't I, Mr. Chalfont?" she retorted pertly, "an' Mr. Wilson don't like cold baths, so I gotter have the boiler damper out too, ain't I? An' you want your dinner come one o'clock, don't you? I can't keep on lettin' it down an' then buildin' it up while I'm gettin' on with me work, can I?"

"Oh, well, I expect you know best," Chalfont observed placatingly. "Carry on, and we'll pay the coal bill somehow. That's not what I stopped to see you about, though. You remember that Mr. Logan who comes to see us here sometimes—the man with the little red beard?"

"He's coming again to-morrow, I'm afraid, so I wanted to ask you if you'd be so good as to change your day off—"

"Change me day off?" she repeated, interrupting him with horror in her voice. "Me? Change me day off when me aunt's comin' over to dinner atome an' me boy's takin' me out all the afternoon? I s'pose I'm a 'uman bein', Mr. Chalfont, ain't I? I have me rights, don't I? I meantersay, it is my day off, ain't it?"

"But you see, Ireen," Wilson drawled from the doorway, "we've got to feed this man, give him a decent lunch. He's used to places like the Ritz and the Carlton, and if he's not fed well we shall lose money by it—if he's put in a bad temper by a mere scratch meal. I don't even know how to boil an egg, and Chalfont couldn't cook hot water without burning it, whereas we both know you can turn him out a lunch fit for a king. Just lunch, Ireen, and you can go as soon as you've cleared the table—or leave it, if you like, as long as you stay long enough to cook and serve that one meal."

"I dessay, Mr. Wilson," she answered sourly, "but I'm entitled to my day once a month, ain't I? An' if I give it up like this just to please you—they say you give an inch people take an ell, don't they?"

"An ell of a sight more, sometimes, Ireen," he assured her, "but we'll make it up to you—take any other day you like this month, and an extra half-day as well. How's that for fair, now?"

Gazing past Chalfont at him, she smiled. "But the boy'll be so disappointed, Mr. Wilson, don't you see? I promised he should call for me atome, an' I gotter keep me promise, ain't I? I don't want to miss an afternoon out on his motor-bike, do I?"

"I said two o'clock, didn't I? An' me aunt's comin' an' we're havin' dinner at one, an' I can't miss her, can I?"

"Supposing, though, we made it worth your while as far as she's concerned, and you get your boy to call here for you at two instead of at your home?" Wilson suggested. "How would that do?"

"Oh, I dessay, Mr. Wilson. You want to bribe me to disappoint me aunt, do you? An' I'm to take it, am I?"

"Never think such a thing of me, Ireen," he drawled pleasantly. "I've never so much as seen this aunt of yours, and I wouldn't dare suggest such a thing as a bribe to you, All I had in mind was a solatium—five shillings say—for your own bitter disappointment over missing her, in addition to the extra half-day this month."

Chalfont stuck his hands in his pockets and retreated toward the doorway. Ireen, as Wilson called her, had scowled at him, but now was smiling at his smoother-tongued partner, and, thanks to Wilson rather than to himself, there was a prospect of a well-cooked meal on the morrow. The girl's impertinent familiarities always rasped him, but Wilson apparently ignored them and was able to handle her.

"Five shillings is five shillings, ain't it?" she commented. "I can have it now, can't I?"

"You mean you'll turn us out a good meal to-morrow and stay to wait at table?" Wilson asked in reply.

"I said I would, didn't I?" She put both knife and carrot on the table and stood up, dusting fragments of peel from her apron on to the floor and going to the range to push in a damper.

"No, you didn't say so," Wilson told her lazily, "but we take it you will. You're a jewel, you know, Ireen. I don't know what we should do without you. Now what do you propose for lunch to-morrow?"

"Well, now, I got two tins o' that tomato soup, an' I could 'ot that up an' serve it, couldn't I? An' maybe he'd like a nice steak an' new taters—them foreign ones, it'd have to be—an' there's a tin of the best green peas. An' then stewed rhubarb an' fresh cream he'd like, wouldn't he? I can have the five shillings now, can't I?"

"Before you go to-night—I'm going over to the village some time to-day to get cigarettes, and then I'll get change and give it to you. What have you got for lunch for us to-day, Ireen?"

"I'm makin' a stew of the last of the mutton, ain't I? With carrots an' taters in it, an' the rest of the apple tart I made yesterday—you don't want the tart 'otted up, do you, Mr. Wilson?"

"It'll be simply delicious as it is," he assured her gravely, and stood aside to make way for Chalfont to pass out, "and your menu for to-morrow is about gastronomically perfect. Thanks so much for obliging us, Ireen, and I assure you we shall never forget it."

But the final question—she always talked to them in questions, from a conviction that by so doing she asserted her independence and kept them in fear of losing her—was addressed to Wilson's back, for he followed Chalfont along the bare boards of the corridor leading to a door in rear of the house. They emerged to sight of an oblong wooden structure, a good fifty feet in length by not more than ten in width, of which the doored end faced the back of the house at about a score yards distance, while its other end was shaded by old, unpruned and aphis-riddled apple trees. The shed itself was a trim-looking building of solignum-treated weather-boarding, with a roof of tarred felt, and was the only thing bearing evidence of care and attention in all this neglected demesne. The two men stopped outside its door while Chalfont felt in his pocket for the key.

"Your remark about that fire cost us five bob, my son," Wilson remarked pensively, "and she won't economize on coals, either."

"You offered her the five bob," Chalfont pointed out. "Damn it, have I got to go back for that key? No—here it is."

"I had to offer it, after you'd put her back up," Wilson said. "A mere extra half-day wouldn't have captured her. But five bob and a spot of soft soap, which some people call diplomacy—"

"That damned girl swindles us right and left, and flaunts the proceeds in our faces," Chalfont said angrily. "Silk stockings, new shoes, and a frock that cost as much as we pay her in a fortnight!"

"As much as we think we pay her in a fortnight, you mean," Wilson amended. "Undies to match, probably. The mother is a poor widder who takes in washing—and also takes in the washed, I expect. She calls the girl Reeny, her best boy calls her Ireen as I do, and you will insist on putting her back up by calling her Higgs, which is her mother's name and, I hope, was her father's too."

"Wouldn't do," Wilson counselled gravely. "They're too scarce—we should never get another to come in at eight and stay till five, in a place like this. And in spite of her nastiness she's got brains."

"Oh, she's made a bit, no doubt. I don't know if our grocer's bill ought to average something like two pounds a week, or whether we've eaten half what we owe the butcher. Ireen does, but I don't want to lose her by asking her. At least, she does feed us."

"Canned soup, canned peas, and steaks—I could have foretold it," Chalfont said irritably. "We were right to name that room the trough."

"The hog who's going to put his feet in it to-morrow must think himself lucky to get that," Wilson observed. "No tea for him—she'll be gone by two, and he can't have tea."

"Won't want it, if we rush his reels through the projector and I rush him back to Westingborough in time for the four-thirty," Chalfont said. "He can get tea on the train—it runs a restaurant car."

"May it choke him!" Wilson prayed fervently. "May it have an accident of some sort with one casualty—Logan! Shylock Logan, coming here to-morrow for his pound of flesh. Hell take him!"

"Tony, lad, it was you who talked about spilt milk, a little while ago, and we've got to get to work. Why this sudden heat?"

"Loretta," Wilson said, and shut his lips on the word. He moved to enter the shed, since the door was now unlocked and open, but Chalfont arrested him with a hand on his shoulder.

"I've thought," he said, as he made Wilson face him, "that you—if it hadn't been for me—tell me honestly, Tony. Is it so?"

After a long pause Wilson nodded. "But I knew I hadn't a chance with her, all the while," he said. "And then there's you—you took me out from slaving at a projector all day long, Jim, and now—this end to it, with Logan handing us the pottage and walking off with our birthright hits me more for your sake and hers than my own."

"You've cared for her, all the time!" Chalfont breathed incredulously, and dropped his hand from his friend's shoulder.

"Which is why I always make myself scarce when she turns up," Wilson said. "And now, if I saw any means of smoothing the path for you two—it won't hurt me to go back to work at a fiver a week if I can get it, for I'm that class. You're not, nor is she, and—I'd have liked to see you two with a chance of real happiness before we part brass rags. See you, I mean, with enough to assure happiness for a girl like Loretta."

"Getting all het up and sentimental," Wilson retorted with obviously forced lightness. "Come on inside, Jim lad. It's time we got to work."

He led the way inside the shed, from the far end of which a full-sized film projecting apparatus, mounted on a strong tripod, faced them. Wilson stripped off his tweed coat and put it down on a bench.

"How about the engine, Jim?" he asked briskly. "We ought to run the dynamo and boost the accumulators. We shall need a lot of current for the projector and all the rest we've still got to do."

He went out again, and across to a small, brick building near one corner of the house. Presently the thudding of a petrol-engine's exhaust began, and he returned.

"Eight cans—plenty to keep it running till the vanman comes to-morrow afternoon—Wednesday is his day."

"If they let us have any more before we pay for what we've already had, that is," Wilson amended. "We might show the man Logan's cheque, of course—or write him one, since we shall have it by then."

"And now—yes, I will have a cigarette, thanks—and now what about getting to work?"

Chapter III
Loretta

SHE rode along the lane, keeping to its wide, grass-grown verge so that the horse's hoofs made no sound, when the lengthening shadows cast by the fir trees told that not more than two hours remained before sunset. Thus she came to the gateway, beyond which the weed-and grass-grown drive went on between banked glory of rhododendrons in full flower, purple and scarlet and orange and white, all splendid under the slanted rays of the late afternoon sun. The gate stood wide, and she rode on till she was within sight of the house and there reined in for a minute, sitting at gaze.

There was no sign of life about the house. Two of the ground-floor windows were curtained, and the sunrays struggled through the dusty panes of the rest to reveal bare interiors—in one room a muddle of packing cases and straw was visible. To her right as she sat was a four-year tangle of rank grass and weed that had been a tennis lawn, and all that had once been well-kept garden was now a desolation of neglect, depressing to her who had known this place when it had been tenanted by garden lovers, friends of her father and mother with whose children she had played.

No sign of life, except for smoke wavering up into the still air from some chimney at the back of the house, and the faint, steady thudding of the petrol engine exhaust. Her horse, a sixteen-hand bay, set its ears forward and pawed the weed-grown gravel restlessly, and then she dismounted and took over her reins to lead it forward, but stopped as Chalfont came round the corner of the house by the tennis lawn, clad in grey flannel trousers that were both stained and crumpled, an open-necked tennis shirt that looked very cleanly white by comparison with the trousers, and rubber-soled, white canvas shoes. They paused simultaneously, and then, as if actuated by the one impulse, went on toward each other, the big gelding following the girl so that the reins hung loosely on her arm.

There was a hunger in Chalfont's gaze as she neared him, an expression at which she smiled, happily. He knew the tall slenderness of her, the rippling dark hair so soft to his touch, the deep brown eyes with their dark, long lashes, expressive as were Wilson's own, and the full, passionate mouth that, a little opened as she neared him, revealed her little, even teeth. He knew, yet gazed as if she were a fresh revelation to his sight, until he could sweep her into his arms, hold her close, and feel her answering clasp while with closed eyes she lifted her lips to his kiss.

"Jim! Darling, I had to come and see you. A sense of something wrong, as if you were in some terrible trouble and calling me."

With her hands still on his shoulders she looked up at him questioningly, and then, as he did not speak, she nodded.

"There is something," she asserted. "I can see it. Let me put the horse away, and then you can tell me."

"But I'm all alone here, darling," he said. "It would hardly do for you to—to stable the horse. The gal always leaves at five, and Wilson's gone over to Westingborough with the car—"

"I know," she assented. "I met him just before I turned into the lane, and he stopped to tell me. And I met nobody else—only he and you know I've come here. Jim, darling, I'm going to stable the horse, and you're going to tell me what's wrong. For there is something."

Determination was expressed not only by her voice, but by the way in which she turned from him to lead the horse forward. He went on beside her until they came to a range of stabling at the back, and she led her mount into a loose box with the sureness of one familiar with the place, and then slipped off the bridle.

"Jim, I want to know, and from what I know of you it will take some dragging out. You looked as if you didn't want to tell me—whatever it is—just now. And when we leave this fellow he may make up his mind to lie down and roll, so he's better unsaddled."

He released the girths without further protest and removed the saddle, putting it up on a peg outside the box. They went out, and he closed the lower half of the door and looked at the girl.

She shook her head. "My dear, daddy and mother are in London till Friday, and except for the servants I'm alone at home, so there's nobody to question what time I get back, and I told them to leave me a cold spread and I'd help myself, when it comes to dinner. Half an hour, one hour, two—all you can spare, Jim. Mr. Wilson told me he wouldn't be back till late, but—well, I don't care. In fact, I want you all to myself, to tell me what my premonition meant."

He stood silent, gazing toward the long wooden shed. She put both hands on his arm and tried to shake him, but vainly.

"Yes," he said, slowly, even ominously, "I'd better tell you. It won't be easy, but I'd better tell you—now."

"Jim!" She faced him to put her arms round his neck, and there was fear in her voice. "What is it? What has happened?"

Reaching up, he grasped her wrists and drew them down, and, still holding them, backed a step away from her. "I've got to let you go, Loretta," he said. "It's—finished. I've got to let you go."

"Finished?" she echoed whisperingly, with utter incredulity. Then, bending toward him in spite of his hold on her wrists—"Jim, don't you care? Do you mean—I was mistaken in loving you—"

"Care?" He uttered the word harshly, almost angrily, and held her close, crushing her roughly against him in such disregard of his own strength that she could have cried out with pain. "Care? It's because I care so much, because you mean so much!"

"Jim, let me breathe—no, don't take your arms away. That's all I want—nothing else counts. Now let's be sensible for a little while, and you shall tell me what it all means, this folly of letting me go. Why, there's no other man in all the world, for me! I won't go, Jim, until you can tell me you don't love me. Can you tell me that?"

"Darling, I dream of your kisses. Now tell me what's happened, why you say this—this foolish thing. What is it, Jim?"

"It's"—he nodded toward the shed—"we've finished, Loretta, and Logan—you know I told you he was the man who financed us for the screen—Logan is coming to-morrow to hand us—our reward—"

"Then I can see it at last!" she interrupted eagerly. "You'll show me—to-day, will you? You know you promised you would."

"If you wish," he said, but without enthusiasm. "Loretta, I've got to tell you the whole of it first. I deceived you, because I deceived myself. I knew—I've known for a long while it would be a very big thing when we'd perfected it, and though we—Wilson and I—though we made a certain contract with Logan to get the money to see us through, I didn't think he'd—be what he is. You see, he was decent, up to a little while ago. When we went to him—when I proved enough to win his interest, he drew up this contract and agreed to advance us a thousand pounds for working expenses, and that was when we leased this place and brought our apparatus here, began full scale experiments. You do understand—I'm making it clear?"

"Quite clear," she answered. "And then I came riding, and we met and—I knew you were my man from the very first, Jim, just as you knew I'd be yours—your woman, though it isn't a year, yet, since you first took me in your arms and kissed me—"

He yielded to the invitation in her voice and eyes, but then held her back from himself to resume his telling.

"Yes, I've got to tell you all of it," he said. "He was decent when we went to him for more, since the thousand and all I had to put into it wasn't enough to see us through. The last time I went to him, he guaranteed us an overdraft at the bank at Westingborough, and I felt sure—Wilson did too—that since we'd spent so much time on it and produced such a thing he'd be decent all through. We were wrong."

"We've produced something that's going to be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, something that will give pictures in perfectly natural colours from the ordinary black-and-white films shown to-day," he explained, "and Logan holds us to the very letter of our contract with him, gives us a sum that will leave us less than two thousand pounds each when we are clear of debt over it—and nothing more!"

"I mean"—he paused to draw a long, audible breath—"that instead of reaping any permanent reward for our work, Logan takes everything, every penny of profit after handing over this sum which will yield us less than two thousand each clear, and I'm poorer than when I started on it, for I've sunk more than two thousand pounds in it, put in all the capital I had before we went to Logan."

"Darling, he can, and will. Legally, it isn't robbery at all, but he has a right to take the formula for the screen, make and sell it, and prevent us from having any more to do with it—prevent us from making or selling any similar device. We're not business men, you see, either of us. We were fools enough to think him a flesh and blood man, one who would give us at least a tiny share in spite of his contract that takes everything. More than that, we never fully realized how that infernal contract tied us, and would rob us when we finished. Fools, deceiving ourselves in our enthusiasm over the work—we've loved the work for its own sake, Loretta. And now—"

"And now, it seems," she said softly, "it's finished, but you've me left—if you want me. You've told me you do want me—"

"Loretta!" The interruption came sharply, harshly. "I've told you—darling, I do want you, but you're Sir Bernard Ashford's daughter, and in my position I've no right to hold you. I won't hold you, my dear. And more. Whatever it costs me, whatever becomes of me—unless something else should put me on a level from which I could claim you, and ideas like this don't come twice to a man—we've got to say goodbye today, you and I. I won't spoil the love we've known by taking you to shoddy poverty, which is what I'm facing now."

"Jim, you mean that?" she asked quietly. "This is the last time you wish to see me, and I'm to say goodbye and go?"

"Oh, darling, I have to mean it! I can't drag you down. What would your father and mother say—what would anyone you know say? You're not fit for the shoddy meannesses you'd have to endure if we married as we meant to do—the pinching and scraping—"

"Jim, don't! I'd sooner be poor with you than rich with anyone else. You prove that you don't know me when you talk like that."

"My dear," he said with grave intensity, "I've known you for two years, now, fine in instinct, with fastidiousness grained into you from childhood—such a life as you'd have to live as my wife would revolt you every day, hurt you till there was no love left, but only regret for all you'd given up. I'm not saying this easily, Loretta."

"I don't want you to say it at all, because it isn't true," she answered evenly. "You don't know me—don't understand what this last year has been to me, and how you—you mean more than all the rest."

Again he saw the invitation in her eyes and lips, but this time refused it, held back from her, and shook his head.

"Utterly final—I'm wrenching my own heart out to say it, but I know it's best for you. I mustn't consider myself."

"Very well." Her tone was curiously, steadily purposeful. "Now will you do one thing for me, since this is the end, Jim?"

"Darling, don't speak like that! I'll do anything on earth for you that's in my power, now and always."

"A little thing, my dear, an easy thing," she said. "I can stay as long as I like, to-day, so, till I go, forget this you've just said. As nearly as we both can, forget that it's goodbye, and make it just the happiness it always is for me to be with you. Will you do that?"

"Then"—she smiled up at him—"to-morrow doesn't exist and nothing exists except us two. And for a beginning—smile, Jim, let me see you smile as my man should—for a beginning I want to see the screen as you promised I should. There's plenty of time for you to show me—you always told me I should be first to see it."

"But you must, up to the very moment when I leave you, and I will too. Now let's go, and you show it me and tell me all about it. I'm so very proud of you, you know, and still, for a little while, I'm your woman. A fast hussy to remind you, aren't I? But I am!"

They went together to the long shed, and he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. Loretta looked within as it swung open.

"Rigidly," he answered. "You'll be the first person to set foot in it, except for Wilson and myself, since we began work here."

She entered, and, following her, he closed the door and locked it again. As he pocketed the key, she laughed.

"No, you'll see why," he told her, and, reaching up, unhasped what looked like an inner door which would swing all the way across the end of the shed. He swung it slowly until it backed against the locked outer door. "If I hadn't locked that door, and Wilson or anyone came and tried to open it, it might damage this," he explained.

"This," was an oblong which almost covered away the end of the shed and the locked door, reaching to within a foot of the top of the wall, and extending nearly to the bottom, a heavily-framed, scintillating area which, when Loretta looked closely at it, resolved itself into myriads of faceted, tiny brilliants, set in some background that made them emit all the shades of the rainbow as she gazed. She glanced up at Chalfont, and saw his face a ghastly white.

"Ill?" he echoed in amazement. "Oh, of course, though! I should have warned you—it's the effect of the screen—the rays from it. If you've got a mirror about you, you'll find your face looks just the same—all the colour gone out of it. The composition behind those tiny prisms absorbs colour, or rather, affects the retina so that all colour vanishes. Look down at your tie—it isn't crimson any longer, but black, you'll see. Your lips are black instead of red, and the colour in your cheeks shades them from white to grey. It was red that gave us nearly all our trouble. When we began, our first screen gave us the blue shades and mixed in the reds and yellows as black and shades of grey in the oddest way. Then we conquered the yellows, and the reds came last—we had blue and yellow when we went to Logan and got him to see the possibilities of the thing. And now—come down to the other end with me, and I'll show you what it does. There is a film in the projector, and plenty of current for light."

She went with him the length of the shed, and he paused on the way to pull down opaque blinds over the six windows, three on each side. Under one she saw a big porcelain-lined sink with taps and draining board, and shelves to either side containing jars and bottles and racks of test-tubes. Under another was a dynamo-driven lathe evidently used for metal-working, under another a carpenter's bench with tools, and there was a squat thing which she did not recognize as an electric furnace, and a blacksmith's anvil, and, nearest the end at which the projector stood on its tripod, a big, baize-covered table on which stood a microscope and other instruments of shining brass and crystal of which she could not even guess the use. Chalfont paused before drawing down the last of the blinds.

"We fitted it all ourselves," he said, "and it cost the best part of a thousand pounds, from first to last. I suppose we may get a hundred for the lot, when we come to sell out. But it was good fun, as long as we kept hope of what the end would mean for us."

"Ah, you mustn't remind me, darling! This has got to be—no to-morrow and what it means, till you go. And then—"

"I've not gone yet, my dear. I've not begun to go. Yes, draw it down. All... quite dark! Your arms—your lips, my dear!"

A little breathless, she drew back from him, and the very faint light that still filtered in showed him her eyes shining. "Jim, you can't let me go," she said tremulously. "I won't go!"

"But you must, Loretta. I won't spoil your life, I tell you. I know past any doubt that I should spoil it by marrying you, and—"

"Wait!" she broke in. "You promised to forget that, till I bid you goodbye. Now show me how the screen works, as you promised. I remember you said—first to see it as I'm first in your thoughts."

He went to the projector and clicked a switch, and then another. "I have to wind," he said. "It's just an old-fashioned hand projector, not electrically operated. But—" He drew back the slide that masked the lens, and Loretta stood back beside him as its rays shot the length of the shed and impinged on the screen.

She saw a dark blue car with shining aluminium wings travelling along a country road. Against the brilliant green of a hawthorn hedge white may-blossom shone out vividly, and ever and again she saw the darker green of oak trees, pale fluttering of silver birch branches, and sheen of poplar foliage, all set against the bue sky of mid-spring in which tiny, fleecy, pinkish-white clouds hung. Then the car passed a dark green gate and drew up before an old house of mellowed red brick, and the drooping yellow pyramids of laburnum and mauve of flowering lilac showed among the foliage in which the house was set. So natural and perfect were all these colours that the scene appeared quite real; a blue-uniformed chauffeur got down from the car and held its door while a fashionably-dressed girl in a frock of delicate bluish-grey got out and went to the house door.

"Their faces don't look natural, though all the rest does," she said. "The flesh tints, I mean, and the girl's lips were orange."

"Studio make-up," he explained. "It's terribly ugly stuff, and that screen gives its correct values. But all the rest is right—as those faces are, really. You see them as the camera took them."

"That's a film studio set," he explained. "You see the colours are very crude—they build sets for their black-and-white values, not for natural colour effects. Wait, though—it comes back to outdoors, and there's some lovely scenery in it. This is a reel from an English film, and most of the outdoor scenes are mid-Surrey at its best."

The reel of film ran out, and he slid the shutter across in front of the lens and switched off. "Well, what do you think of it?" he asked, seeing the vague outline of her face upturned to his.

"Not like a film picture at all," she answered. "It looked as if one could walk into those scenes and be part of them, as if they were quite real, not pictures. I've seen coloured films before, of course, but the colouring was always too vivid—wrong. This is not—it's life itself. And—Jim! I've such faith in the man who could do it that this is not goodbye for us—such love for him that I won't go or let him go. You'll do things as big, if not bigger, and I shall always be proud of you as I am now. I won't make this the end."

"But you will," he insisted. "The thought of you waiting, years, perhaps, and the best of your life passing while I try to make a place fit for you—Loretta, that man's hardness—Logan's—his greed that robs Wilson and me of any share at all in the results of this has spoilt me for trying to equal it with anything else. We've put in four good years and more, and—it's no use talking, darling. Our ways divide from to-day—tonight, it will be before you get away."

He went to the nearest window and clicked up its blind. The sun had set, though it was still full daylight. Loretta came beside him.

"We'll go out." He moved toward the door, and she followed him. "But I can't offer you dinner, I'm afraid. I—I didn't expect you to come to-day, you see, so—well, there's nothing."

"Bread and butter and sardines," he stated as he swung back the screen. He hasped it back, took out his key, and opened the door. "Yes, that fresh air is welcome—the projector made this place hot."

"I'm going to have bread and butter and sardines," Loretta announced calmly as she stepped outside. "You can't send me away hungry."

"The gal will have left everything ready," he remarked as they walked toward the house. There's only to make the tea."

"Well,"—he reflected over it—"because she is, I suppose. The name grew on her, somehow. What about your horse, Loretta?"

"He had a feed just before I started. I'll give him some water, before you saddle him for me to go back."

"No, I'll do it, there's a bucket standing by the tap just outside the stables. While you make the tea."

He stood back from the house doorway for her to enter first, but she half-turned from it and shook her head.

"No. He knows me, you see, and you can be getting the tea ready for us. What is it, Jim—why are you looking at me like that?"

He stood watching while she went to the tap outside the stables and set the bucket to fill. Then he went within and found a kettle placed on top of the kitchen range, and a tray containing all that was necessary for a meal of sardines and bread and butter for two. He moved the kettle directly over the banked fire that the daily girl had left, and began winding off the top of the sardine tin, but the flimsy wire opener broke almost at once. He had just found a tin-opener when Loretta entered the kitchen, limping slightly.

"These riding boots. They're no good for walking, and I expect I've got a blister. But what is the trough?"

"We call it that—it's where the gal lays our meals. I'll take the tray in, and you'll come with me and stay there till you go. If those boots give you blisters, you mustn't walk about any more."

"Then—that kettle is nearly boiling—I'll wait till you've made the tea, and then we can take everything in at once. Jim, it's wonderful, being here with you like this. Just us two."

"Wrong, my dear. Something to remember—something to keep, and thus worth while. See it like that, Jim, the sweet intimacy of it, as if—as if we really belonged, and you weren't making it goodbye. Oh, Jim, you can't care as I do for you, or you wouldn't do it!"

"Darling,"—he held her close—"it's because I care so much, more for you than for myself. I won't drag you down, won't let you share the sort of life I shall have to face. And you told me, when—when I still thought the rainbow screen would mean fortune—you told me you'd come to me with nothing, because everything there is goes to your soldier brother at your father's death—"

When, each carrying a tray, they went to the room in front of the house, there was still a little light in the western sky toward which the window faced. Loretta put down her tray on the table.

"We won't have lights yet," she suggested. "I love a scrap meal like this. Who's that coming along the drive?"

"Only the postman," he answered. "No, don't light up, or he might see you. He'll just drop whatever it is through the slot, and go."

He went out, his footsteps sounding hollowly on the bare boards of the unfurnished entrance hall. Loretta, standing by the window, drew a long breath that had in it a suggestion of suspense, and then smiled. For into her view came a horse—her horse—unbridled and unsaddled, steadily walking along the drive toward the entrance gate. She heard the front door open, heard Chalfont's sudden exclamation as he sighted the animal, and then he too came into her field of vision, running. The horse broke into a trot as he neared it, trying to head it off, and the trot became a gallop. It disappeared on the curve between the banks of rhododendrons, and then Chalfont disappeared, running his hardest. Then, quite calmly, Loretta went to the front door, where the postman stood staring open-mouthed along the drive.

"It's only my horse, Adams," she remarked coolly, and he spun about with his mouth even more widely opened to stare at her. "It will go straight home, and I don't know how far Mr. Chalfont will go. What have you? Oh, yes, a registered letter. I'll sign for it."

In silence he handed her a receipt slip and a pencil, and she signed and handed them back. "Now"—she produced a shilling from her breeches pocket—"I want you to do something for me, Adams. Sir Bernard and my mother are away with the car, Mr. Wilson has gone to Westingborough with the car that belongs here, and I'm here alone with Mr. Chalfont. There is no telephone here. I want you to ring the Hall as soon as you get to a telephone, and ask for Merridew, our groom. You know him, of course?"

"Yes, I thought so. Tell him to catch the horse and stable it when it gets back. Then tell him I am alone here with Mr. Chalfont, and if I am not back at the Hall by eleven o'clock, he is to saddle the horse, and lead it here so that I can ride home."

"But make sure you remember the message properly. To catch the horse, wait till eleven o'clock, and then if I am not home saddle it and one for himself and lead it here. And do not forget to tell him I am alone here with Mr. Chalfont, because Mr. Wilson is away with their car. He may get back before eleven, you see."

"The inn at Todlington, you mean. Yes, that will do. Thank you very much, Adams. And—here's another shilling for your trouble."

"Thanks, miss, thanks. I'll make sure Merridew gets your message all right. You're alone here with Mr. Chalfont, and he's to catch the horse and start back with it if you're not home by eleven."

She closed the door on him and went back to the dining-room. There, standing before the window, she waited and saw the rhododendron blossoms shining like stars in the failing light—in some way the richness of their colouring reminded her of the picture Chalfont had wound off for her as it had appeared on the rainbow screen. But the blossoms were scarcely visible in the gathering darkness when at last Chalfont appeared round the curve of the drive. He was still breathing heavily as he entered the room and came to her by the window.

"I passed Adams," he said, "and he told me—you'd signed for a registered letter. Loretta, why did you? It could have waited till he comes here in the morning. It'll be all over the village to-morrow, your being here with me. And somebody is sure to know that Wilson is over at Westingborough with the car."

"I expect so," she said composedly. "And you didn't catch Joyous Errand—my horse?"

"When I got to the end of the lane, I could hear his hoofs on the main road—he was still going at a gallop."

"I'll cut the bread and butter," she answered. "I'm so hungry that I could hardly wait till you got back."

"But, my dear, you can't stay, now! When that horse gets back without you—and Adams knows you're here! Think what it means—your good name. Alone here at night with me."

"It was for that I left the stable door open," she said coolly. She went to the table and seated herself before the tea tray. "I think you'd better switch on the light, Jim, while we eat."

"But—Loretta—you don't seem to understand," he urged desperately. "My dear, don't you see? You simply can't!"

"No, I know, Jim." She poured a cup of tea. "It's rather stewed, I'm afraid, but never mind. Jim, I told Adams to ring the Hall and get Merridew—he's going to ring up from The Feathers at Todlington. He's to tell Merridew that I'm alone here with you, and if I'm not home by eleven Merridew is to saddle two horses and lead one here for me to ride back. In case Mr. Wilson is not back from Westingborough with your car by then. Do switch on the light, dear."

"It's done, Jim, beyond undoing, and Adams was just a lucky accident to help me to do it thoroughly." She pushed back the chair and stood up, facing him with the table between them. "I won't go—I won't spoil our two lives because of your quixotic foolishness! If you're going to be poor, I'll be poor with you. If you're going to starve, I'll starve with you! Jim, I'm twenty-five, but no man ever wakened me till you came. When you first took me in your arms you wakened every atom of passion there is in me, turned me from girl to woman—your woman! You didn't know, perhaps, but I've no shame in telling you, because I know you love me, you big fool! I won't go—I've burnt my boats so that it doesn't matter if I do go back home this minute—but I'm not going. So there! Now will you switch on the light before the tea goes quite cold? I'd do it myself, but my heel is blistered and walking's painful for me."

For minutes, perhaps, they faced each other across the table. The light had so far failed that Chalfont could see only the white oval of the girl's face, with her eyes mere points of darkness and her lips a line—he could not see their quivering. Then she stepped aside from the table and went to the door.

"I was not going to turn on the light," she answered, and paused, grasping the door handle as he faced toward her.

"Going—to walk home," she said. "I made my throw, and I've lost. Cheapened myself because I believed your love was as strong as my own. I see, now—you don't care—don't want me."

He moved toward her, but the door slammed between them. He heard her footfalls in the bare hall, heard the outer door open and close, and stood until she appeared, a slight figure in the dimness of fast-falling night, receding limpingly along the drive toward the gate. He watched through the window until she was nearly out of sight, and then threw open the wide casement and stepped out. In the shadow of the rhododendron hedges he reached her side, and as she looked round caught her up in his arms and held her against his breast.

"Want you? Darling, I know now I could never let you go. You've shamed me into knowing it." He turned back, carrying her toward the house. "I'll make a career and make you proud of me—by God, I'll make Logan see the injustice of his infernal bargain, and then there'll be no need for us to wait for each other!"

He put her down to open the door, but paused before turning the handle, faced toward her.

"Jim"—she put her hands on his shoulders and reached up, so that her face was close to his own—"the tea will be cold, and you'll have to make some more. I wanted you to come after me like that—I hoped you would. And now—when daddy gets back, I shall tell him."

The door swung wide, and she saw the black darkness of the hallway as he took her up in his arms again to carry her within.

He could feel, as well as hear her laughter as she lay in his arms. "To-morrow, Jim? Oh, my dear, why ask such a question?"

"There are all the formalities—I'll find out about them to-morrow. A fortnight from to-day, if it can be done?"

He put her down on her feet in the room they had left, and, after he had switched on the light, turned to her, waiting for her answer. She returned his gaze gravely, steadily.

"It's because I want to know how soon you can belong to me completely, Loretta," he said. "Because, after tonight, everyone for miles round will know and talk—I'm thinking for you, dear."

"Jim, if that's the only reason for your asking, you can make me belong to you completely tonight, take me now—"

"Loretta! Do you know what you're saying? Spoil all the perfection of it, soil you and make me hate myself—"

"Ah, my dear, that's what I wanted to know! That's why I said it. To make sure your love is like that. Listen, Jim! A month—four weeks exactly from today. Shall it be?"

"I promise," he said as his arms went round her, "and God help Logan, now, if he tries to hold us to that infernal contract!"

Chapter IV
Missing

"IT seems a pity to have lights yet, but I suppose we must," Noel Logan said. "It's such a cloudy evening."

"And even beauty must bow to the inevitable," Richard Thorn observed as he smiled at her. "Shall I—er—switch?"

"Please—the one beside the fireplace, and don't pay insincere compliments, Mr. Thorn. Also don't accuse me of fishing, because I never fish with worms."

The other girl in the room gurgled laughter. "Oh, Dick, even your rhinoceros hide must feel that one!" she exclaimed.

He depressed the switch, and the shaded bracket lights on each side of the mantel cast a softly-glowing semi-circle of radiance on the three. Then, facing about, a tall, personable figure in his dinner kit, he gazed unamiably at the last speaker.

"If you hadn't been the means of my meeting Miss Logan, I should regret that I ever had a sister," he said. "Thick skin is a family characteristic, so you won't feel that one. And I didn't mean that you must bow to the inevitable, let me tell you."

"We try," Thorn answered for them both. "Try each other, I mean. Peter is a born trier—my gift for it is acquired."

"Why is she Peter? I never thought to ask before, and she was Margaret at school. Peter is a boy's name."

"Being utterly indelicate, Miss Logan, may I remind you yours is too? I've never heard it as a girl's name before."

"Haven't you? I was born on Christmas Day, and the name commemorates it. Most unlucky—I only get one set of presents in a year."

A servant, entering the room, went to the girl and held out a salver toward her. She took the telegram, opened and glanced at it, and then looked up at the maid.

"No reply, Mathews. It's—oh, wait, though! Tell Richardson Mr. Logan will arrive by the eight-fifty, and he must meet it with the car, please. I expect—yes, he will have had dinner."

She studied the telegram as she sat, and Richard Thorn studied her. Small, slight, and fragile, even ethereal in appearance, she had faced him across a tennis net that afternoon and given evidence of strength and staying power that utterly belied her looks. Her golden hair had reddish tints in it, her nose was too long and her mouth too large, but, looking at her dark-lashed, violet-blue eyes, he saw beauty enough to render his compliment no insincerity. Looking up suddenly, she caught his gaze and smiled at him.

"It says, catching the four-thirty from Westingborough," she said, "and yet it says too that it was handed in at Westingborough at four-forty. Oh, I see, though! He got somebody to send it for him."

"Westingborough, eh?" Thorn observed. "That's where the Forrest case happened—the one that made Inspector Head famous—"

"Noel," his sister broke in, "if he's not choked or something he'll bore us to death. Give him a good, fruity murder, and he'll play for days. Dick, for heaven's sake don't start on your pet obsession!"

"Now we'll all choke ourselves," Noel observed as she rose from her chair, "but I wish daddy had been able to get back in time to dine with us. No—no ceremony—we'll all go in in a heap."

"Is it too altogether indelicate to ask why Westingborough?" Thorn asked as he took the seat she indicated for him at the dining-table.

"Not in the least," she answered. "Two men took a derelict house near there to perfect an invention. My father provided the money for their experiments, and now he's bought the invention—they have completed it, and he went there to-day to make the purchase."

"Then they're a lucky pair," Thorn asserted. "Most inventors either get their ideas stolen, or else can't find a market for them, let alone somebody to find the money while they make their experiments. But why a derelict house? Why not a cottage with roses round the door—or an attic in Whitechapel, for that matter?"

"I believe they were able to get the place very cheaply, since it had been standing empty a long while, and they wanted plenty of space."

"Cat.. Oh, I see! How utterly absurd you are! It's a device to show films in their natural colours—my father told me a little about it. Not colouring the films, but making them give out the colours the camera photographed into them—or on them. It's too technical for me to understand properly, but my father says he believes it will give really perfect results, really natural colours."

"There have been several colour processes, all failures," he remarked. "What are the names of these two men, do you know?"

She shook her head. "I know nothing about them," she answered. "When my father gets here, he'll tell you, if you ask him. And as for failures, he's far too clever to provide money for a thing unless he believes it will be a success—and I've never known him wrong yet."

There was a hint of reproof in that final statement, Thorn felt. Justifiable reproof, he realized, as he thought of the luxury and perfect taste displayed in this home of Logan's. He and his sister came of good, upper-middle-class stock, and, orphans now though they were both in their twenties, might be considered and might consider themselves comfortably circumstanced. But his sister had told him, and he was beginning to realize for himself, that Logan was not merely comfortably circumstanced, but rich. Little things that Noel had let drop—not with any ostentation, but as if it were natural to command every resource at will—had shown him that she thought in terms of wealth, rather than of mere competency. And yet—he grasped and held on to the realization—she was quite unspoiled. Logan had done his best to spoil her, but had failed. She was—adorable!

"Two pennies for them!" she offered, as he silently waved away the maid who offered him fish.

She shook her head. "Too deep for me," she said. "Do you mean you were trying to prevent yourself from going to sleep by not counting sheep? You looked so meditative, I mean."

"No—wool-gathering. I might have gathered a whole woolsack if it hadn't been for the sound of Peter gobbling soup."

"Try the fish," Thorn advised calmly. "You'll find it much quieter. Miss Logan, you're right—your father doesn't interest himself in failures—don't mind Peter, she's being her natural self. And if you say it means natural colours, I'm tremendously interested in the idea. As you say, your father does not go in for failures—"

"Well, we're both here," Thorn remarked coolly. "Why—Miss Logan,—what's wrong?" He leaned forward, and almost rose from his chair, for he saw her put her elbows on the table to prop her chin in her hands, while she stared across the table at the empty seat that her father would have occupied, had he been here. The colour drained out from her face, leaving it terribly white, and her eyes dilated as she stared—but it seemed to Thorn that her gaze went far beyond the empty chair, beyond the confines of this room. His sister got up suddenly, and hurried to her, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders.

"Noel!" she bade imperatively. "What do you see? Tell me! What do you see? Tell me at once, Noel! What is it? What do you see?"

With a long, shivering breath Noel Logan relaxed from her rigidity, dropped her arms from the table, and, turning her head, gazed up at the girl who stood over her.

"Nothing. Nothing, Peter," she said, and forced the words out as if speech were difficult. "Nothing, I tell you. He'll be here by nine or a little after. Oh"—she roused herself to normality—"I'm just being a fool. Wait! He must be here by nine. The telegram said so. Oh, do go on with your dinners, and do forgive me for being so silly. Peter, go back and get on with your dinner. It's nothing."

"Westingborough, I believe, is about three hours the other side of London," Thorn observed as his sister seated herself again, "and trains have a way of being late at times. Did the telegram say definitely he would be here at nine?"

"No—it said he was catching the four-thirty from Westingborough, and he told me yesterday that if he could finish his business with these men and catch it he would be able to get home by nine. I wanted him to manage it, to meet you and Peter."

A normal colour was coming back into her cheeks, but she made the explanation in a strained, tense way, as if she had to force herself back from her fit of—terror, Thorn would have called it.

"Oh, no!" she answered. "There is another train, which would get him here at a quarter to ten, and then the last one, but if he has to catch that it will be half-past eleven before he gets here."

"Well, Maggie won't catch cold on the way home if we leave at midnight," he remarked. "That is, if you can bear our society till—"

"Don't call me Maggie!" his sister interrupted sharply. "You know I loathe it, and I believe that's why you do it."

"You're quite right, darling," he assured her, "and the way you rise for it every time would turn a trout green with envy."

"It's too late to put that question to our respected parents, and nobody else can tell you," he said.

Mathews entered the room and went to Noel. "There's somebody asking for you on the telephone, miss," she said. "A Mr. Bertram."

"Asking for me?" Noel looked up in surprise. "I don't know anyone of that name. Bertram?"

"Yes, miss. He asked for Mr. Logan, first, and when I told him Mr. Logan wasn't here he asked if he could speak to you. From London."

She went out, and the maid followed her. Thorn looked at his sister across the table after Noel had gone and the door had closed.

"A sort of—well, second sight, I think," she answered. "She had a fit of the same kind once at school when one of the girls was drowned bathing—one she was very fond of. It may have been a coincidence, of course—the drowning, I mean. But she was just like that, white and rigid for a little while."

"Not a very pleasant gift to have," he commented thoughtfully, "but you played up to me well to give her a chance to get over it. Our natural propensity for squabbling comes in handy sometimes."

He nodded. "Have been ever since we met in Lausanne," he owned. "I wonder what the father is like, and whether he'll like me?"

"All I know about him is that he idolizes her, and she thinks him the best man in the world," she said. "And since Noel thinks enough of you to ask you here to meet him, you needn't fear—here she is."

Noel, seating herself at the table again, frowned thoughtfully until she caught Peter Thorn's inquiring glance.

"Some odd sort of person who wants to see my father, and spoke of coming down here to see me," she said. "He sounded very excited and rather incoherent, and talked about ruin staring him in the face and could I persuade my father to save him—I couldn't make it all out, quite. He said they turned him away from the office, and he was desperate, which was why he rang here at this time of night."

"This time of night," he explained. "It's not such an unreasonable time to ring and ask for information. I mean, not as if he rang up at two in the morning, or anything of that sort."

"It's the journalistic instinct," Peter put in. "If ever anything happens, Dick always looks at his watch—I noticed it when I was driving and ran over a dog. That is, the bumper knocked the dog aside. It wasn't badly hurt. But he looked at his watch and said—'eleven-thirty a.m.' I could have killed him."

"It's as much hobby as work," he assured her, "and one of these days I shall get another post. Has Peter told you I had one once? Because I had, and it was sheer misfortune I lost it."

"It was. I wanted to see the editor one day, and there was a mean, miserable-looking little scarecrow of a man standing just outside his door lighting a cigar. He blew a whole cloud of smoke into my face, and I asked him what the blankety-blank he meant by it and told him exactly what I thought of him. I didn't see the editor."

He shook his head. "The smoker was the proprietor of the paper," he explained. "I became unemployed, instantly. You see, I'd told him he had the manners of a pig and wasn't worth kicking, and it's next to impossible to explain away remarks of that sort. I didn't try."

With his sister seconding him at need, he kept up a flow of reminiscences throughout the meal, and over coffee in the drawing-room to which they went after, and, for some part of the time, succeeded in diverting Noel Logan from the manifest unease that he observed in her. But, as the clock in the drawing-room at which she glanced from time to time indicated that nine o'clock was near, he found it difficult to hold her attention, and after the clock had struck she held up her hand for silence and herself sat listening.

After another ten minutes of almost silent tension she went to a bell-push and pressed it. Mathews appeared in answer to the summons.

"Take away the coffee cups," Noel bade. "Richardson is not back yet, is he, Mathews?"

"The train from Westingborough was late, I expect," Peter suggested as the maid went out. "There's nothing to worry about, Noel."

"I wish I knew. Oh, I wish I knew! I know it's silly of me, but I saw him so clearly. You know, Peter, just as I saw Rosamond after she was drowned. Saw him sitting in his chair facing me—"

She broke off as Peter's arm went round her shoulders, and lifted her hands to cover her face, as if to shut out what she had seen.

"Noel, darling, you mustn't!" Peter told her. "I'm sure there's nothing wrong—how could there be? The train from the north was late, and he couldn't get across London in time to catch this one."

Noel dropped her hands. "I'm sorry," she said, "but I saw—is there no way of finding out? I can't help it—I'm afraid for him."

"Why—yes, of course. You mean you'll—" She broke off, gazing anxiously at him.

"I know something has happened, Peter," Noel said. "You see, if he had missed the train that would get him here at nine, he would have rung through from London to make sure the car was waiting for the next one, and to tell me he was on his way. The telegram proves that he caught the four-thirty from Westingborough."

"He may have tried to ring when that man you went out to speak to was using the line," Peter suggested. "Line engaged, you know."

With no more suggestions to offer, Peter kept silence until her brother returned. Noel's eyes questioned him, silently, anxiously.

"The four-thirty from Westingborough reached London on time," he said. "I expect something delayed your father in London, Miss Logan."

"But, don't you see, he'd have wired again in that case?" Noel urged impatiently. "Because, if he didn't catch it, he would stay in London for the night, and he wouldn't do that without letting me know. So he must have caught that train, unless—" She broke off.

"It's—yes, I have it." She produced it from her handbag and handed it to him. He took it out from its envelope and unfolded it.

"Handed in at Westingborough at four-forty," he read off. "Catching four-thirty from Westingborough. Yes. When this was sent, he'd caught that train, obviously. Detained in London, for some reason."

"It might be something that didn't give him time to let you know," Thorn pointed out. "Was he bringing anything valuable with him?"

"Yes—in a way, that is. He told me, if everything were all right, he could bring back the complete formula or whatever it is for this film screen. It would be papers, nothing else, I think."

"But immensely valuable papers," Thorn suggested. "Quite probably he went to some day and night safe deposit, or even to his own office, to lock them away in safety before coming on here."

"But even then he'd have let me know," Noel insisted. "If he'd gone to the office, he had only to lift the telephone receiver and ring me. I tell you, he'd never willingly keep me in suspense like this! You can't explain it away! I'm sorry, Mr. Thorn—I'm not doubting you, but afraid for him. He's my daddy, you see."

"Well, this next train, you said," he remarked. "It gets him here at a quarter to ten, and it's just on that now—"

He broke off as the faint purring of a car in movement sounded to them from somewhere outside the house.

But the purring of the car went on, gradually diminishing in volume until it had quite faded out, as if the car had approached the front of the house and then receded from it. Noel went to the bell-push again and pressed it, while the other two waited in silence.

"Mathews," she said when the maid appeared, "tell Richardson to come to me here at once. Not to wait for anything—at once."

"You see"—Noel spoke to Thorn—"if he had been in the car, Richardson would have stopped at the front door. And he didn't."

"A hundred things might have prevented him without any happening to give you cause for fear," he urged.

Mathews opened the door again while the three stood silent. "Richardson is here, miss," she announced. The chauffeur, a weedy-looking being, in spite of his uniform, entered and stood some three paces inside the room. Noel faced him.

"No, miss. I waited on the platform. Do you want me to meet the eleven-fifteen, miss, or shall I put the car away?"

"No, don't put it away. You must meet that train, and if he does not come by it, come here and tell me instantly. Instantly, you understand?"

"That's all, Richardson. Except—you're absolutely sure you didn't miss him at the station by any chance?"

"Absolutely, miss. Besides, even if he got off the platform without my seeing him, he'd have seen the car. But I'm quite positive he didn't get out of either of those two trains."

"Then you must meet the eleven-fifteen, and come here and tell me at once if he doesn't come by it. I shall be waiting here."

He went out, closing the door on himself. Noel returned to the fireplace, before which the other two stood, and made as if to seat herself in an armchair, but then drew back from it.

"Nearly two hours," she said in little more than a whisper, as if she spoke to herself. "How can I bring myself to wait?"

"By believing the end of the waiting will bring your father back to you, Miss Logan," Thorn said gently. She gazed full at him. "But I don't believe it," she said.

"I wonder—do you wish us to go?" he asked. "I can see how terribly anxious you are, and perhaps our being here—I mean, don't hesitate to tell us if you'd rather be alone over this—"

"No!" she broke in. "No—oh, no! Please stay, if—if you can bear with me. To be alone would be too terrible, like this."

"As you wish," he said, "and if there is anything I could do for you, any suggestion you'd like to make for me to carry out—"

She shook her head. "I can only wait. I wonder—must you go back to-night—you, too, Peter? Couldn't you stay here till the morning, in case—I might need somebody then. I don't know, but could you stay? I'd be so glad if you would, both of you."

"Of course we will, if you wish it," Thorn answered for them both. "Eh, Peter? There's nothing to drag you back to town, is there?"

"There is never anything to drag me anywhere," she said, "and I think it wouldn't be right of us to leave Noel alone if—if Mr. Logan does not get back to-night. Yes, of course we'll stay, Noel."

They waited—it was waiting and nothing else, now, with not even pretence at ignoring the anxiety that consumed the girl. If either Thorn or Peter spoke to her she tried to concentrate her attention on what they said, but all the time she was listening for some sound from without the room—the telephone, perhaps, or sound of some vehicle outside. She seated herself a dozen times, and a dozen times sprang up to pace restlessly, or draw aside a curtain and look out into the night. At long last they heard the car go off, and after the sound of its passing had died out, she seated herself again and tried to keep still. Thorn saw her fingers twitching and quivering on the arm of the chair, and she herself noted it when she saw the direction of his gaze, and tried to smile at him—a piteous effort.

Peter knelt beside her. "Noel, dear," she said softly, "even if he doesn't come back to-night, you have nothing to fear. As Dick said some time ago, a hundred things may have happened to stop him, quite apart from any—any danger or harm coming to him—"

"Oh, but I know what the end will be!" It was only a whisper, but with it Noel interrupted the attempt at comforting her. "Peter, I saw him, at dinner. Not—not quite real, shadowy, and only for a moment, but enough to tell me. It's no use trying to persuade myself any more, for I know. Alive, he will not come back to me."

"But—but I know," she insisted. "Listen—that's Richardson coming back. I can hear the car—can't you?"

But, listening in the silence that followed her words, neither Thorn nor his sister could hear anything for nearly a minute. Perhaps the girl's terrible anxiety over her father gave her an unnatural keenness of hearing for the time, and perhaps, knowing that the car was due back now, she imagined the sound. At last they heard it too, a whisper that crescendoed to the purr of mechanism, and then it ceased outside the front of the house instead of passing on.

"There!" Thorn exclaimed. "He did come by that train, as I felt sure he would. Else, the chauffeur would have gone straight round to the back, as he did before, instead of stopping at the—"

But there he broke off, for Noel was outside the room, running toward the front door. Peter and her brother reached the drawing-room doorway in time to see her swing the heavy outer door open, and face the chauffeur who stood on the step, alone.

"I stopped to tell you before putting the car away, miss," the man said. "Mr. Logan didn't come by the eleven-fifteen."

Almost without breathing, brother and sister waited. Then they heard the girl's voice reply: "Thank you, Richardson. Good night."

She closed the door on him, turned the key in its lock and shot a bolt. Then, turning, she approached Thorn and his sister, and motioned them into the drawing-room. Following them, she faced Thorn. He could see that all her tense anxiety had gone now: there was about her an air of certainty—the certainty of one who no longer hopes.

"Will you find him for me, Mr. Thorn?" she asked. "You won't find him living, I know, but still—will you do that for me?"

"No!" she interposed, knowing what he would say. "You see, I—I know! You will not find him living. That was why he came to me at dinner—I could see him though neither you nor Peter knew he was there. I saw him and knew then, though I tried to persuade myself till—till Richardson came back again without him. You will not find him living, I tell you, but will you find him for me?"

"If—if you are right, which I don't believe, I won't rest till I do find him," he said. "I promise you that."

"Thank you. Then I'll come to the office with you in the morning. They may know there—his secretary may be able to tell us how to begin. Something—those two men at Westingborough—"

"But he left Westingborough," Thorn broke in. "The telegram—he left there at four-thirty for London."

"Did he?" she asked. "He did not send that telegram himself, remember. Did he leave Westingborough by that train, Mr. Thorn?"

"Terribly cold, your hands," he said. "Miss Logan, will you try and get some sleep, please? Rest, in any case?"

She inclined her head in assent. "I will—try," she said slowly. "And I'm going to trust you to find him. Peter,"—she withdrew her hands from his hold and turned to his sister—"I must—must keep hold on myself, so that I can face what is to come. Rest—yes, rest. If I can rest. You see I—he loved me."

Then, without speaking, Peter took her arm and led her out from the room. Thorn, gazing after them, shook his head.

A quarter of an hour later, his sister returned alone, and he got out from an armchair to face her.

"Then you'd better go back to her and make her get into bed," he said. "Her hands were like ice. Peter, do you think—?" He did not end it, but his tone told her the rest of the question.

"Yes," she answered. "She was the same when Rosamond Ainslie was drowned. They—they come to her after death. People she has loved, I mean. Don't be practical and tell me it can't happen, Dick."

"I won't," he promised. "Then—but it must be possible to find him, somehow. Theft of those papers he was bringing from Westingborough... I wonder!"

Chapter V
Inspector Byrne Comes In

"IT looks to me, Miss Logan, as if we ought to get the police in on this," Dick Thorn remarked as he put down a letter on Logan's desk and turned to address the girl.

She sat in one of the big armchairs in Logan's own panelled and luxuriously-furnished room at his office. It was a third-floor suite in a West End square, comprising a small waiting-room on one side of the narrow entrance hall, a room opposite in which Miss Enderby and Miss Edwards worked, and, at the inner end of the hall, this room to which she had come with Thorn, to ascertain as a beginning that Logan had had an appointment at eleven, but had not appeared at the office at all that morning. Then, in reply to a query from Thorn, the secretary had brought him two letters and silently handed them over. Having read them he made his suggestion of getting in the police. The girl looked up at him as he half sat, half leaned against the edge of the flat-topped, massive mahogany desk. Since this room looked out on mews at the back of the building, Logan had had stained glass windows put in along the rear wall, and the coloured light falling on her as she sat emphasized her appearance of fragility. All her agitation of the night before had disappeared: she was gravely purposeful as she looked up at him, as if she knew what the end of this quest must be. He gathered from her expression, before she spoke, that the idea of making a police matter of Logan's absence did not appeal to her.

"Yes, but"—he took up the two letters Miss Enderby had brought in to him, after Noel had told her that Thorn had carte blanche as far as finding Logan was concerned—"each of these, from an entirely different quarter, is definitely threatening. Believe that I won't relax my own efforts for a moment—I'm unemployed, as I told you, and can put my whole time in trying to help you, but if you're right, and I know you're certain that you are, it must come to the police in the end. If I, as an amateur, start making inquiries and confusing trails for them, it's going to make things far more difficult."

"I see," she said slowly. "I thought you meant—well, just handing it all over to them. And they're—inhuman, aren't they?"

"The reverse," he assured her confidently. "And with these letters, I feel you ought to have their resources at your service. Will you believe I want to do the very best for you? To help, really?"

A smile that lasted a fraction of a second both rewarded and cheered him. "I do believe it," she said.

With that permission, he turned to the desk telephone, removed the receiver, and listened. "Through to exchange," he asked, as Miss Edwards spoke from the outer room. Then he dialled, and waited.

Then: "Oh, it is you, Inspector? Thorn speaking—Richard Thorn who used to be on the Daily Shout—you remember me, surely? Yes. Oh, so-so—eating three meals a day, you know. Yes. No, I haven't rung you to ask about your health. Do you happen to know the name Logan—Gerard Newton Logan? I'm speaking from his office, which I believe is in your jurisdiction, or whatever you call it. Yes. What?"

Glancing at the girl as he listened to Byrne's reply, he saw the distaste for his apparent flippancy in her expression. He put his hand over the transmitter to speak to her.

"Miss Logan, I want to enlist this man—just one second, Inspector—I want to enlist him fully, get him keen on the search, if he's free to undertake it. That's why I'm talking to him as I am. There, Inspector?"

He spoke into the transmitter again. "Yes—I've got Miss Logan here with me in her father's office, and I stopped to speak to her. Mr. Logan is missing, and she suspects foul play."

"I don't know," Thorn said to the transmitter. "Mr. Logan went to Westingborough yesterday—yes, Westingborough—to conclude an important deal, and either did or did not leave there by the four-thirty train with very valuable documents. Since then nothing has been heard of him. He had an appointment—an urgent appointment—here at his office at eleven, and he should have been home by nine o'clock last night. There's no sign of him, no news of him—what?"

"I know—oh, I know!" he said. "Look here, Inspector, I've just read two letters here in this office—Mr. Logan's secretary handed them to me, and either of them might mean murder. I've told Miss Logan, on the strength of these letters, that it's a police affair. Are you too busy to take it up—must I go over to Scotland Yard?"

"You can? Good! Come round to Mr. Logan's office, and I'll be here waiting to hand you the dope. Yes, I know it's American, but—look here! He's got to be found, before the suspense drives Miss Logan mad. If it's money, she'll pay. I want you to do your very best."

"Yes, waiting till you get here. Everything I can get in the way of particulars shall be waiting for you. Yes—good-bye."

He replaced the receiver. "One of the cleverest," he said. "Was it wrong to pledge your credit like that?"

She shook her head. "Anything, to make certainty certain," she answered. "Because—it is certainty for me, already."

He moved to stand beside her. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that," he said. "Because your father is what he is, it's possible to get Byrne to move, though apart from these letters we've nothing to induce him to move. And even now your father may walk in."

But, before he could reply, Miss Enderby opened the door and looked in. "Could I speak to you, Miss Logan?" she asked.

Thorn considered the unattractive, gaunt-looking spinster as she closed the door and advanced into the room: Logan must have chosen her for her efficiency, he decided, for no other qualities were apparent. She gave him a hostile glance, and addressed Noel.

"I've just thought of something," she said. "The other day—Monday, it was—Mr. Logan dictated a letter to a Mr. Chalfont at Westingborough, and then told me about the screen he was buying outright from Mr. Chalfont and Mr. Wilson. He told me he had avoided publicity so far, but now, if it were really perfect, he meant to launch a publicity scheme. And this is what has just occurred to me about it. He told me he wanted me to talk to press representatives, and even give demonstrations, because he might not be here. I wonder, Miss Logan, whether you remember that a writer—I can't remember his name for the minute, because it was some years ago—but he got wonderful publicity through disappearing for a few days, just as Mr. Logan seems to have disappeared? I don't know, but it seems to me—"

She broke off, glancing momentarily at Thorn, then back at Noel. He nodded repeatedly, as if in approval of the suggestion.

"Miss Enderby," Noel said, "he would have let me know. He would not leave me in suspense, whatever his plans might be."

"But don't you see"—Thorn put in—"if he let anyone at all know, even you, a scheme like that would be spoilt? And with you anxious about him, trying every way you know to find him—including calling in the police as we are doing, he becomes a nine days' wonder, and this screen gets all the publicity he needs at no cost at all."

"I don't believe it," Noel said. "He cares—he cared too much for me to give me a moment's anxiety. He would not do it."

There was a long silence, in which Thorn began to understand that Noel had revealed to him only one side of her father's character, and now this very unattractive-looking woman seemed to regard her employer as a totally different personality from the one his daughter knew.

"Did he give you any hint of this publicity scheme, Miss Enderby? I mean, have you any idea of its nature?" he asked.

"No," she answered. "He said he must keep it entirely to himself to make it effective. And on Tuesday he had me in here for nearly an hour, describing the screen to me and telling me, if he found everything right when he got to Westingborough yesterday, to pass on all he had told me to press representatives when they called here."

"Which looks as if there were something in your idea," Thorn observed. "You know, Miss Logan, it has been done, as Miss Enderby says. A complete disappearance with the details of a discovery or invention like this would put it in every newspaper in the country. He couldn't devise a better plan for getting publicity. Practically free, too."

Noel shook her head. "You forget what I saw last night," she said. "Thank you for telling me this, Miss Enderby."

Miss Enderby, hearing her dismissal in that final sentence, went out. After a pause Noel looked up at Thorn, questioningly.

Reluctantly, he took the two letters from the desk and handed them to her, standing beside her while she read, and reading too. The one she perused first was quite short, but she had to puzzle over its ill-inscribed, barely legible sentences: Thorn gave her no help, for he knew that, if she were right about her father's disappearance, such a letter as this would pain her terribly.

I wonder why God lets men like you live. When I came to you, it was because of what my mother had told me about being nurse to your daughter, and what a wonderful father you were, how kind and considerate you were to everybody. You advanced me the money to start this business, and I agreed to repay you on the terms you made me sign.

I told you, when I could not pay the last instalment due, that my baby son had just died and my wife is terribly ill. Now you say in your letter that I must pay as agreed, or else you will have to take the usual steps to recover the money. There is still £182 8s. owing to you, but I have other debts as well. If your other steps mean a writ, it will be the end of everything for me, bankruptcy and ruin. I cannot pay at present, even £10. I am terribly worried about my wife. You do not need £180, and can afford to wait till I am able to pay. If you will not, if you insist on ruining me while my wife is ill like this, you may find that a man driven to desperation is dangerous.

Noel looked up. "The man who rang me up at home last night," she said. "I remember, now—his mother had married a man named Bertram before she came to be my nurse, but I never knew she had a son, and since she was just 'Nanny' to me I didn't connect this man with her last night. But—it isn't true. My daddy wouldn't do that to him."

"We don't know the circumstances," Thorn pointed out. "This man may be a confidence trickster, and your father found out that he was trying to evade payment. You can't judge without knowing."

She handed the letter back to him, and read the other he had handed to her. Again, though he knew the contents of both letters, Thorn read with her as he stood beside her chair.

On behalf of myself, and of my colleague, Chalfont. Our final experiments have solved the problem of the red shades, and after altering the angles of the prism facets we are now satisfied that the screen gives back perfectly natural colours for the three primaries and any and all combinations of them. The principal factor, however, remains as before—the composition of the paste in which the prisms are set. Now, given the formula for this paste, and the correct faceting of the prisms, construction of the screens in quantity becomes a purely mechanical affair. That is to say, it is ready for commercial exploitation.

Legally, according to our agreement with you, we are entitled to the sum of £5,200 in addition to the advances you have already made us while we were working on the screen, and you are entitled to take over the screen and leave us out in the cold. After talking it over, Chalfont and I have decided that I should write and put our case to you. Before we approached you, Chalfont had already sunk all the capital he possessed in experiments. We have used up the advances, £1,800 in all, which you have made, and now, with his share of your final payment, Chalfont will be no better off than when he began work on it. Legally, as I say, we are not entitled to a penny beyond this £5,200, and know it well, but I am putting our case on moral rather than on legal grounds.

Perfected as it now is, the screen is a thing every film exhibitor will not merely want, but must have, once it is put on the market. The profits, as doubtless you know, will be enormous. We estimate the cost of production in quantity at something under £200 per screen, while, since it is practically indestructible, a retail price of £500 is not any too much to ask. Now we suggest that, after you have paid flotation expenses and all the rest in connection with putting it on the market, you should allow us, say, ten per cent of your net profits—call it a royalty, if you choose. We cannot enforce such a request, and can only rely on your sense of fairness and our own moral right to some reward for the years of patient work we have put into perfecting this thing. Further to that, if you refuse to consider the idea of letting us have some small share in the profits of our work, it might be possible for us to interest the magnates of the film world. As you know, we have taken out no patents whatever; the composition of the paste and even the angling of the prisms is our secret. That of the prisms is easy enough to discover, but not in a thousand years could the actual order of ingredients which compose the paste, or their proportions or the method of mixing, be discovered by analysis or in any other way. By our contract, we are forced to sell you this secret—but are we?

For myself, I care little—the world is wide and there is plenty in it. But with Chalfont it is different. His was the brain that conceived this idea, and I have merely seconded him through all these years of work that we have put into the thing. With him, a real reward for what he has done is an actual need, which is why I am putting our case before you like this. And, is one tenth of your profits too much for us to ask? You are not a poor man, dependent on this or on any one thing for your well-being, as we well know, and the very fact that we would be content with a mere tenth of actual profit should be evidence to you that the remaining nine-tenths will be enough to satisfy even you.

I trust that in common fairness you will see your way to accede to this request. If so, we are ready to hand over to you the formulæ and particulars of manufacture any day you may suggest, but, since bringing the completed screen to London would be a costly business, we suggest that you should see and approve it here, bringing any films you choose as tests of its efficiency, as long as they are photographic and not cartoons. And, in order to avoid trouble, I would warn you not to refuse what we are reasonably asking, as a moral obligation that the value of our invention places on you.

"I wonder, did he do what they ask?" Noel questioned as she looked up from this letter. "I expect he did, knowing him as I do."

"There's probably an answer to that letter somewhere in the office," Thorn said. "And again, you don't know the real circumstances of this any more than of the other case. This man admits that he and his partner made a bargain and have no legal right."

But, though he spoke thus to her, he was beginning to wonder what sort of man Logan had been. Both these letters, especially in their concluding sentences, hinted at him as a Shylock waiting eagerly and with sharpened knife to cut off his pound of flesh.

"Miss Enderby would know," she said. "Will you ask her? About the replies, I mean—tell her I wish to see them."

But Miss Enderby herself saved Thorn from that unwanted task. A preliminary knock, and she appeared in the doorway of the room.

"A gent—a man," she began and amended, "says Mr. Thorn asked him to call. Inspector Burns, he told me to tell you."

"Oh, come in, Inspector," Thorn called, and the owner of the voice entered with apparent leisureliness—but Miss Enderby almost jumped aside to make way for him. Noel saw a tall, slenderly-built man with dark, soulful eyes, one who looked as if he had forgotten how to smile if he had ever known the secret of it. He was well and inconspicuously dressed in a brown lounge suit, and looked less like a detective inspector than a poet seeking for a subject, she thought.

"Inspector Byrne, Miss Logan," Thorn introduced. "Inspector, I told you on the 'phone what's wrong. Can you handle it yourself?"

"I can look into it for you," Byrne answered cautiously. "These disappearances—many people disappear, and reappear, and nine-tenths of the cases justify no more than a circulation of description and ordinary routine work. What are the circumstances, in this case?"

"I think, in view of all you have told me, I'll handle this myself," Byrne said nearly an hour later. By that time, he had impressed Noel with his quiet, kindly efficiency and thoroughness, and had virtually proved to her that Thorn had been right in refusing to assume all the responsibility of the search. "Not that I share your fears, Miss Logan. There may be something in his secretary's suggestion of a publicity device, or he may be lying in some hospital after an accident—if it had been death you would have heard before now, but he might be keeping the fact of injury from you for a a day or so. There are hundreds of possibilities, all short of your fear."

He shook his head. "I wish you wouldn't say that," he said. "It seems to me that the first step is to find out if he actually caught that four-thirty train from Westingborough, and then to trace him on—if he did catch it, of course. I'll get in touch with my cousin, Inspector Head, at Westingborough, and get him to inquire."

"My country cousin, I call him," Byrne said mournfully. "But he's fairly efficient, and should be able to let me know some time to-day whether Mr. Logan caught that train or no. So if you'll leave it to me, Miss Logan, and you too, Mr. Thorn—"

"I don't see why you should," Byrne answered. "Do you mean you want to do the gifted amateur stunt, and begin making inquiries? Because, if you do, I should strongly advise you to stay where you are."

"I won't do a thing—without telling Inspector Head I'm going to do it, and taking his verdict on it," Thorn promised. "It's that I want to meet him, for one thing, and for another that I believe the solution of Mr. Logan's disappearance is there. You've read that letter Wilson wrote him, Inspector. I'm not saying anything against Wilson—he seems a decent sort, by the way he writes, though on the angry side—and I'm not saying anything against his friend Chalfont either. But it looks to me that Mr. Logan either left or did not leave Westingborough yesterday afternoon with a secret worth tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of pounds in his possession, and—well, you see the inference. I'm prepared to promise you that, if I act at all, it will be with the approval of Inspector Head."

"That sounds safe," Byrne admitted cautiously. "I'll give you a card to him, and tell him about you when I talk to him. If Mr. Logan caught that train, of course, you're wasting your time."

"Not if I meet your cousin," Thorn dissented. "I've always wanted to meet him, ever since that Forrest case of his."/p>

"Well, if you'll forgive me, I'll get to work here," Byrne suggested. "Miss Logan, don't worry, and forget that premonition of yours, or whatever you choose to call it, as soon as you can. With a secret like that on him, Mr. Logan may be alive and well somewhere, but kidnapped until thieves can take advantage of it—and you have to remember that criminals, if this is a criminal business, will do anything short of killing. They stop at that, for murder means the rope, and they know it, while mere theft means another chance later on even if they do get caught. As I said before, there are possibilities without end, and you've no justification for fearing the worst."

"It is not fear, Mr. Byrne," she said. "If it were that and no more, I should not have been so willing to let Mr. Thorn send for you so soon—I'd have waited to see if he came back. It is more than mere fear—I—I can't explain it, but I know."

"Then I'm going on trusting that you know wrong," Byrne answered rather bluntly. "Now I'm going to interview the employees here and get all I can from them—that is, after I've used this telephone for a trunk call to Westingborough. And if you'll forgive me, Miss Logan—"

He did not end the sentence, but the request was plain enough. The girl turned to Thorn.

"If I have lunch and then start, I can get there today," he answered. "Peter can amuse herself as she likes—I'll get the car out and drive down. It may be necessary, in the country."

"Or else go by train, if you don't wish to take me in the car," she said. "To trace him to London, if he caught that train—to find out what happened if he didn't."

She brushed it aside with a gesture. "I can buy all I need," she said. "Don't you wish me to come to Westingborough?"

"Then—we'll lunch together, and you shall get your car, and take me with you. To end it—to make certainty certain."

"Trunks?" Byrne said to the telephone. "I want police, Westingborough. Yes, police, Westingborough. What? This number? Half a second, it's on the dial."

Thorn heard him give the number as, with his hand on Noel's arm, he himself went out from the room.

Chapter VI
Miss Edwards, Truculent

"NOW, Miss Enderby, I should like to see the agreement Mr. Logan made with these two men about that screen, if you have it here."

Byrne, settling himself at Logan's desk in the comfortable swivel chair, rubbed his ear meditatively as the secretary went to the safe in one corner of the big room, unlocked and opened it, and took out a foolscap envelope. He had had the telephone receiver pressed against that ear for the best part of twenty minutes while he talked to Westingborough police, and especially to his cousin, Jeremy Head.

Now, he took the envelope from the woman, withdrew and unfolded the document it contained, and read, while she stood beside the desk with her fingers interlaced before her and disapproval of him, and apparently of everything to do with this investigation, expressed in every line of her hard, thin face. Eventually Byrne looked up at her.

She shook her head. "It was drafted by Mr. Alfred Farrar, Mr. Logan's solicitor," she said, "and approved by Mr. Logan, of course."

Byrne leaned back in Logan's chair and gazed up at her. "What's your grudge against me, Miss Enderby?" he asked quietly.

"Then why this attitude of yours—disapproval, hostility—call it what you like? It's very evident, whatever you choose to call it."

"Merely that all this fuss and fright about Mr. Logan being missing is absurd," she answered coolly. "As I told you, he's doing it for publicity, and by calling you in Miss Logan is just playing into his hand, intentionally or otherwise. Why, he hasn't been missing twenty-four hours, yet! Utterly absurd, I call it."

"You may be right," Byrne said thoughtfully, and with no animus against her. "On the other hand, you may be wrong. Mr. Logan is missing, apparently with documents or whatever they are which he himself considers worth seven thousand pounds purchase price, and these two inventors, or discoverers, or whatever you choose to call them, think are worth far more than that, evidently. There is a chance that publicity has nothing whatever to do with his disappearance, and you have owned that he was due here and you expected him at eleven this morning, while I gather that Miss Logan was certain he would be at his home last night. If—if—it's foul play, the sooner inquiries are begun the better. On what I've seen so far, I prefer to make inquiries."

"This agreement—there's a sentence in it I don't like. Listen here." He took up the document and read: "'The sum of seven thousand pounds sterling, paid by me, Gerard Newton Logan, to James Morton Chalfont and Anthony Aylward Wilson'—yes, now listen to this—'the said James Morton Chalfont and Anthony Aylward Wilson agree that all rights in this invention, herein termed the rainbow screen, shall be vested solely and unconditionally in me and in no other person or persons whatsoever, and that they will not construct or cause to be constructed, or furnish to any other person or persons...' Never mind the rest, though. Do you see anything peculiar in that, Miss Enderby?"

"Only that, if you take it with the rest of the agreement, it ties them hand and foot," she answered. "He always tied people hand and foot, though. That was why Wilson wrote the letter he did."

"Not that," Byrne persisted. "Listen again—'vested solely and unconditionally in me and in no other person or persons.' Nothing in it about heirs, administrators, executors, or assigns, as the phrase goes, and I think—I'm not sure, but I think—his heirs couldn't enforce this agreement in law. If these two inventors think that too, they have only to get rid of him to be seven thousand pounds up before they begin to reap the profits of their invention."

He could see that the point was a novel one, to her, and that she was impressed by it. "Do you think we ought to stop his cheque?" she asked. "You know, I told you he took with him a cheque for five thousand two hundred pounds, to sign and hand to them if he were satisfied with the screen. Ought we—shall I tell the bank to stop payment?"

He shook his head. "If he turns up, and everything is in order, what sort of fool will you look if you do stop it?" he asked in reply. "Personally, I don't think he is alive, but I can prove nothing, and so far have nothing to justify me in assuming his death. And I gather a sum like that doesn't mean as much to him as to most people."

"Very well, then. If you stop the cheque, and these two are responsible for his disappearance, you'll only put them on their guard against inquiries. Let it go through—if he signed and paid it."

He displayed no resentment at the acid scepticism of her question, but gazed at her soulfully, mournfully. "Not a nice character, was he, taking him all round?" he suggested. "This other letter—this man Bertram. And I remember that Ansendaga affair, and how he managed to make thousands by unloading worthless shares on a confiding public—"

"Is she part of your inquiries?" she asked ironically, as he sat thoughtful without concluding his sentence.

"The telephone," he answered indirectly and pensively, "is one of the curses of modern civilization, but it has its uses. If I told you all the strings I pulled before asking you to come in here, you'd be surprised. Now I want photographs of Mr. Logan—good photographs, if possible. I suppose you can tell me where to get them?"

"Alice—Miss Edwards, that is, has charge of them." She reached over and pressed a button on the desk, and Byrne heard a buzzer sound outside the room. "I'll ask her to get them for you."

"Oh, Miss Edwards—the two Press photos of Mr. Logan—how many copies will you want, though, Mr. Burns. I don't know if—"

"Byrne!" he interrupted, rather sharply. "I'm not plural. I think—yes, three of each for the present, Miss Edwards."

The girl withdrew, and since she left the door open they could hear her opening and closing a filing cabinet in the other room. Byrne gazed at the telephone, and then looked at his wrist watch.

"He said, probably an hour," he observed. "That is to say, I wish to sit here forty minutes longer, Miss Enderby."

"Precisely. At the end of that time, I hope to know whether Mr. Logan did or did not catch the four-thirty from Westingborough yesterday afternoon. In either case, I shall need the photographs."

Miss Edwards brought in half a dozen unmounted half-plate prints, which she handed to him. He looked up at her, appraising her.

"Thanks," he said. "Don't go, if you can spare a few minutes, Miss Edwards. I should like a few words with you."

He examined the prints. One was a head-and-shoulders studio portrait, and the other, evidently a snapshot enlargement, showed Logan standing before some skeleton iron framework, wearing a light overcoat and soft felt hat. Byrne held up a copy of this print.

"Very good," she answered. He brought the film of that back from Roumania—it's an oil derrick he's standing against. He went there to see a trial boring on some new fields last year."

"Fairly recent, then," Byrne observed. "Yes, I'll take both of them—three of each. Yes." He gazed up at the girl, and as she looked into his eyes she wondered what made him so sad. "What do you think of this business, Miss Edwards?" he asked gravely.

"Well, that's a difficult one, of course. Still, points of view, you know. As instance, you know these men, Chalfont and Wilson, I expect. What's your point of view concerning them?"

"I've seen Mr. Chalfont, when he came here," she answered. "Why, you don't suspect them of murdering him, do you?"

"In—yes, thirty-five minutes, now, I expect to hear that Mr. Logan bade them good-bye at Todlington and caught his train back to London, so I can't possibly suspect them," he answered calmly. "That is, unless they travelled with him, which is unlikely. And you've seen Mr. Chalfont, eh? How did he impress you—did you like him?"

"He struck me as—well, a bit hasty and impatient," she answered, "but I did like him, the little I saw of him. Clever, I thought."

"Do you agree with that—er—diagnosis, Miss Enderby?" Byrne asked, transferring his attention to her for the time.

She shook her head. "I was away with influenza when he called," she answered. "Miss Edwards would only show him in here to Mr. Logan, so I don't see that her impressions of him can amount to much."

"I've got eyes in my head, haven't I?" Miss Edwards demanded, with a wrathful stare at the older woman.

"Oh, I'm fed-up, I am!" the girl declared. "Given notice, and now mixed up in a murder case! It's enough to feed anyone up."

"Well, we're getting on," he observed. "Who committed the murder? You'll save me time and trouble if you'll tell me."

"How should I know? He's vanished, and dozens of people would be glad of the chance to put an end to his life. Merciless, selfish—"

"Miss Edwards!" Miss Enderby broke in harshly. "I will not stand here and hear you talk like that. In common decency, common loyalty to the man who is still your employer, even though you are under notice to leave at the end of the month—"

"Common rot!" the girl interrupted in turn. "If he's dead, he's well dead! That poor man Bertram, almost mad when he came here——"

"No, I won't," Miss Edwards retorted sullenly. "Yes, though I will. Whoever killed him, if anyone did, rid the world of a parasitic pest, and I wouldn't say a word to get them punished for it. The hard-faced swine! And his daughter thinks him an angel from heaven!"

"A devil! A soulless, merciless devil! One god in his life—money. I've served him faithfully for five years, and at the end he turns on me and says: 'You can go at the end of the month, Miss Edwards.' Just that, with a freezing stare that told me I needn't ask why, as if I were some piece of refuse that he moved out of his sight. I hope he's dead, and I hope whoever killed him isn't found."

"For instance," Byrne said, "this man Bertram, almost mad when he came here. When did he come here, can you tell me, Miss Edwards?"

"But I can tell you," Miss Enderby put in. "It was yesterday morning, and—yes, I told him it was useless for him to think of seeing Mr. Logan, because Mr. Logan was going straight home and not coming back here. And he asked me—" She broke off, doubtfully.

"Asked me whether he could possibly get in touch with Mr. Logan at his home," she continued, "and I told him I thought not, because Mr. Logan would come off the seven twenty-eight at Euston and would be entertaining visitors at home. I told him he'd better leave it till to-day, and I'd get Mr. Logan to see him if I could. To-day, that is."

Again Byrne looked at his watch. "And he—this Bertram—he has not turned up here to-day?" he asked.

"But"—he looked at Miss Edwards—"you think he was not the only possibility, I gather? Others might—well, seek revenge?"

"Dozens," she answered. "I'll tell you—no, leave me alone, Miss Enderby! I will tell him! He's always made his daughter believe he's a perfect saint, and whenever he makes one of his iniquitous agreements, it's always to benefit him and no other person or persons whatsoever. That's the wording, always. And I heard him tell Mr. Farrar, his solicitor, that he wanted all those agreements to lapse at his death. He didn't want her—his daughter—to know how he battened on usury, piled up wealth for her by getting his victims down. Oh, God help anyone who comes to Gerard Logan for finance! A man-trap, not a man! I've seen a lot in five years."

"A financier in excelsis, eh?" Byrne suggested. "And this—er—this rainbow screen,"—he glanced at the agreement still lying on the desk—"have you any idea of the value he placed on it?"

"Miss Edwards!" Miss Enderby broke in heatedly, "you're a disloyal, dishonourable, loose-tongued rotter! Yes—rotter!"

"Ha! Do you think I care what you say?" Miss Edwards retorted. "Value—that agreement?" She addressed Byrne again. "I heard him tell Mr. Farrar that he estimated his profits would be anything between half a million and a million pounds, because every cinema in the world would want it, if those two men have really got it right."

"The firm is in the telephone book—Farrar, Farrar and Co., Chancery Lane," Miss Enderby said. "I don't know if you realize, Miss Edwards, that Mr. Logan may walk in here any minute, and if he does you won't stay in this office another second, I warn you."

"I don't intend to, when I feel like going out," Miss Edwards said defiantly. "He won't come back now—it's too near on lunch time, and I feel sure he won't come back at all. Someone of his victims has done him in—and good luck to them! I've heard of another job, and I'm going after it this afternoon—and if I get it you won't see me again. Oh, I've posted up everything, and I should only have to sit and twiddle my thumbs if I didn't take two hours off, and even Shylock Logan would have given me the two hours to look for another post, so you needn't think you're going to dock my pay! You're nothing but a time-serving old cow, anyhow, and I—"

"Huh! It looks to me as if Mr. Byrne is in charge here now. Get out yourself, if you feel like it. I'll stay as long as I like!"

"I am not in charge," Byrne said gently. "I'm merely waiting here for a telephone call, and quite grateful to you two ladies for entertaining me till it comes through, as well as for useful information. By the way, Miss Edwards, where were you last night?"

"Where—where was I last night?" She echoed the question stammeringly, gazing at him in a way that proved her utterly taken aback.

"Streatham. Well, I live in London myself. I mean, as an address it's more comprehensive than particular. Never mind, though. If you went straight home, you'd be there by, say, seven, wouldn't you?"

"I see. Then one or other, or both of them, would be able to say what time you got home last night, wouldn't they?"

He shook his head. "You are the first and so far the only person who has used that word," he said. "Miss Enderby here firmly believes Mr. Logan is still alive, and I have no proof that she is not right. What makes you so sure he has been murdered, Miss Edwards?"

"Ah! Well, I have no means of making you talk. Left here at six—Miss Enderby, perhaps you will let me have Miss Edwards's address before I leave here? You might get it now, in fact."

"Gladly," said Miss Enderby, with a note of vicious satisfaction. She went out on the errand, and Byrne looked at the girl, gravely.

"Not if you tortured me! Go on thinking I murdered him. I'm glad—glad you do think it. But not another word do I say."

There was a strength of defiance in the reply that set him thinking. She had left this office at six; Logan, if he had caught his train, had arrived in London an hour and a half later. On the face of it, that she should risk killing him anywhere between the two London termini he ought to have used was absurd: she was not the type from which murderers are developed. Yet, by her manner, she knew something, and he felt certain that she had not gone home, had not been at home at the time that Logan should have arrived in London from Westingborough.

Miss Enderby, returning, put down before him a sheet of paper on which she had written the address. Then she gazed at the girl with something like triumph in her expression.

"There's over a fortnight before my notice expires," Miss Edwards remarked vindictively. "I'll make this office hell for you, till then."

"Unless you get dragged off to prison first," Miss Enderby retorted. "Or unless I get you thrown out when Mr. Logan comes back."

But the girl bit off the rest of the sentence with a glance at Byrne that told her regret for an indiscretion.

"She can't be both," Byrne pointed out gravely, "but you're both rather given to zoology when you do let fly, it seems. Does Miss Logan often come to the office, Miss Enderby?"

"I think this is the third time since she left school—in about five years, that is," she answered. "It may be the fourth."

"He and his sister went to dinner with Miss Logan last night," Miss Edwards put in. "I heard that on the telephone."

"Indeed!" Byrne commented interestedly. "Would that be in London—is Mr. Logan's home in London, I mean?"

"No, in Kent," she pursued. "At Pensham—Pensham Manor, it's called, and it's near Tonbridge. He rings her up every day."

"Yes." Miss Enderby took up the story. "The mother died at her birth. An aunt lived with them up to two years ago, and since her death Miss Logan manages things there—keeps house for her father."

He listened to a long monologue, occasionally interjecting an "'Ah!" or " Oh!" or "Umm!" Then—"Noticeably tall, was he?"

"I see. Well, now, look here! Miss Logan is coming down there with a young man named Thorn. I gave him my card as introduction to you. Just this—I want you to keep him down there. No—no, man! Not detain him or anything of that sort, but see if you can interest him to keep him from coming back yet awhile. What? Yes, exactly. On what you tell me, I don't want him or any other amateur snooping round at this end."

He listened again, and the voice at the other end rumbled indistinctly to the two women standing by the desk.

"You've got it, Jerry," he said at last. "Thanks—now I can get busy. It's conclusive enough, I think. Yes—good-bye."

"This man Chalfont," he said, "is six feet two or three, very well built, with curly yellow hair. Is that correct?"

"And Mr. Logan has a reddish torpedo of a beard—yes, I know he has. Right. He caught the four-thirty yesterday, and Chalfont sent a telegram for him. Now"—he rose to his feet—"I think I'll take a run down to Streatham."

"I hope you get killed in a bus smash on the way," Miss Edwards said spitefully, after a momentary pause in which she realized his object in taking such a journey.

"Ah, but I'm going by train—it's quicker," he retorted gently. "I'll ring you at intervals, Miss Enderby, to find out if you get news of Mr. Logan at this end. Oh, and I'll take that man Bertram's address with me, please. I might look him up on my way back."

Chapter VII
Inspector Head Comes In

OBESE, fierce-eyed, and with the collar of his uniform jacket unhooked—the bulging solidity of his neck suggested that hooking the collar might be difficult, if not dangerous—Superintendent Wadden looked up as Inspector Head, cool and comfortable in a suit of pinstripe dark blue flannel, entered his office at Westingborough police station and approached the Superintendent's desk.

"It is warm, for May," Head agreed. "I've just been talking to my cousin, Byrne—you remember him, I expect? He rang me from London to give me particulars of a missing man—"

"London," Wadden interposed, "ought to look after its own troubles—we get enough here without their worrying us. And missing men are as plentiful as a millionaire's poor relations, if not more so."

"Quite so, Chief, but this man may be missing from here," Head told him. "That's why Byrne rang me, to get me to inquire."

"Uh-huh! Well, in that case, I s'pose you'd better inquire. Where—how—what sort of inquiry? Does he want you to go haring all over the place between here and London, because if—"

"No, no!" Head stopped the irritable conjecture. "Simply to find out if this man caught the four-thirty from here yesterday afternoon. A simple inquiry at the railway station, and another at the bank, to ascertain whether this man—Logan, his name is—completed a deal."

"It sounds innocent enough," Wadden said reflectively, "and we're slack for the present. All right—go ahead, and if you're talking to Byrne again give him my regards. Stout feller, Byrne."

He resumed his study of the morning paper as Head went out, for, as he had observed, they were slack as far as work was concerned. Except for a fairly heavy crop of motoring offences and the inevitable drunk-and-disorderlies, the inhabitants of Westingborough and its surrounding district were law-abiding, for the time. Reading, and unfastening the two top buttons of his tunic for greater ease, Wadden blew a gust at his paper that made the sheets rattle, for he had come on a paragraph which told of increased facilities for the import of foreign tomatoes, with consequent disadvantage to the home product.

While he read, and blew his disapproval after the manner of some fat men, Head interviewed the stationmaster at the railway station and explained his errand. The stationmaster consulted a list.

"Tom will be able to tell you," he said eventually. "I'll get him to have a talk to you. Todlington—that's Carden, of course."

There was no need for further explanation. A branch line, leaving the main at Westingborough, meandered off into the country, with Carden and Todlington served by one station about eight miles distant from the junction. Since the advent of a 'bus service, few passengers used the line: farm produce and fertilizers from and for the rich agricultural district it served were its chief sources of revenue, in these days. But this stranger from London might have travelled by it: Tom—everybody knew him as Tom—would know.

He appeared, a sturdily-built, middle-aged, rather short man with a walrus moustache and a rich sense of the humorous aspect of life in his eyes. He greeted Head respectfully, and listened to his query.

"Yes, sir, I know this Mr. Chalfont by sight, but not the other one—the one you say is Mr. Wilson. My brother Bill'd know 'em both, I expect. He's postman, over at Todlin'ton."

"This other man, from London—I expect he'd be a complete stranger to you, Tom—is supposed to have come to visit these two at Todlington yesterday. You were on duty in the morning, I understand, and at the barrier in the afternoon when the four-thirty went out. Probably he was booked through to Carden, and changed here for the local."

Tom shook his head. "I don't think so, sir, because Mr. Chalfont met the twelve-twenty down. Now this man you're asking about, sir—was he about middle height, with a sort of reddish beard—whiskers, you might say, only short and pointed? A gentleman, by the way he was dressed? Very smart, I mean—like a Londoner?"

"That's the man, sir. Mr. Chalfont met him at the barrier off the twelve-twenty—you can't miss Mr. Chalfont if he happens to be about, because of his size—must be six foot three or four, I'd say. He met this gent with the pointed red beard, and I heard him say he'd got the car waitin'. There wasn't more'n a dozen passengers come off the twelve-twenty yesterday. Yes—wait a bit. He says—Mr. Chalfont, I mean—'Mornin', Mr.—' now what was the name? 'Mr.'—yes, Logan, that was it, and he'd got the car waitin'. Would that be—?"

"Yes, sir, this man with the beard—Mr. Logan—he went back by that. On the return half of a first, booked for London. The train was in when they got here, an' this Mr. Logan was runnin' till he got to the barrier. I says—'two minutes yet before she goes, sir,' an' he didn't run, after that—Mr. Chalfont hadn't had to run at all, with his long legs. They shook hands, and Mr. Chalfont says—'Well, goodbye,' and didn't go on the platform. This Mr. Logan got in a first compartment somewhere about the middle of the train, the coach next to the restaurant car. Mr. Chalfont stood by the barrier till the train went out, and sort of waved goodbye when it began to move."

Head considered it. "That four-thirty—is it nonstop to London, could you tell me, Tom?"

"No, though it's only ten minutes slower than nonstop," Tom answered without hesitation. "Crandon, Tring, Watford, an' London, arrivin' at seven twenty-eight. Next good train is just two hours later."

At the post office, where Head called next, a very superior platinum blonde condescended to inform him that she had taken in a telegram addressed "Logan, Pensham Manor, Kent" and signed Logan. It had been handed in at four-forty by a very tall, fair-haired man, dressed in shabby grey flannels and bareheaded, whom she did not know but would recognize again if she saw him. At Head's request, she produced the form on which the message had been written in pencil.

He left her, and went on to the bank, where, since he had been of service not long since, getting an interview with Egerton, the manager, presented no difficulties. Egerton offered a chair and a cigarette.

"Thanks," and Head accepted a light. "A man named Chalfont, or one named Wilson, of Todlington—or possibly both of them, bank here with you, I believe, Mr. Egerton."

"Has either of them paid in a cheque drawn by a Mr. Gerard Logan for something like five thousand pounds since yesterday?" Head asked.

"Now that's odd," Egerton said. "I've had a police inquiry from London this morning about that cheque, as well as a wire authorizing clearance. But customers' accounts are strictly confidential, you know, Mr. Head. I'm not supposed to give particulars."

"Just for once, Mr. Egerton, I want you to make an exception," Head insisted. "This Mr. Logan appears to be missing somewhere between here and London since yesterday afternoon. I conclude, since you had a wire authorizing clearance, that the cheque has been paid in. But—wait a bit, though! This is too quick to be true, surely."

"No. Mr. Chalfont called here to see me yesterday morning—about twelve o'clock, it would be—and told me he hoped to have the cheque by half-past four in the afternoon—to be here with it at a little after half-past four. He asked me, as a favour, to take it in then, and wanted to know how soon he could get clearance—in strict confidence, I can tell you that the joint account in his and Mr. Wilson's name was overdrawn up to the limit of their guarantee, and I'd warned them not to draw any more cheques till it had been put in order. I told him I would post the cheque off as soon as he handed it in, and get telegraphic clearance. Mr. Gerard Logan signed their guarantee for an overdraft, so I had no difficulty about the signature on the cheque. I mean, with that signature it was worth while to get telegraphic clearance for them. I think they were rather hard up till they got this. In any case, four cheques on their account have come in from local tradesmen this morning. They're nice chaps, but erratic."

"Well, that's all, I think, Mr. Egerton," and Head rose to go. "I wish all my investigations gave me as little trouble as this promises to do. I merely wanted to know if they got the money."

"Yes, but after catching the four-thirty for London, it appears," Head answered. "Which takes inquiry for him out of my range, I hope and believe. Good morning, and many thanks for your help."

Back at the police station, he telephoned the result of his inquiries to Byrne in Logan's London office, and, learning that Miss Logan and a young man named Thorn would probably descend on him some time during the afternoon, promised to find or invent some form of wild-goose chase that would keep Thorn busy for a time. Then Wadden, hearing his voice as he talked to London, entered his room and stood, in shirt-sleeves now and perspiring visibly, until the receiver clicked back on its rest and Head sat back from the telephone.

"You remember Charteris' place at Todlington—The Firs, it's called?" Head asked in reply. "Where Charteris used to live, I mean?"

Wadden shook his head. "I know—soil's no good round there for tomato-growing," he said. "Big house—gardens all gone to waste. The sort of place that was all right as long as people could keep a dozen servants or thereabouts, but nobody wants 'em in these days. I remember the place. Wonder what became of Charteris and all his family? But what's The Firs got to do with this screen?"

"A film screen," Head explained. "Two men leased The Firs to work there in quiet, it seems, and they've invented a colour screen for films and got this man Logan to pay five thousand two hundred pounds for the rights of the invention, and since they've got their money and Logan went back from here to London by the four-thirty yesterday, I can begin to lose interest in them and in him too."

"Now you can begin at the beginning and tell me the whole story," Wadden bade as he seated himself. "I refuse to do any more work of any sort to-day, and since you've finished with this you needn't. It isn't often we get a spot of peace like this, and your placid voice trickling into my ears till it's time to eat will make me feel cheerful. Story of a screen, and a missing man, and a pair of budding Edisons. I'm waiting—don't leave anything out."

"Ah-humm!" he grunted thoughtfully, minutes later. "Doped, I'd say. Doped in that train by somebody who knew he had the secret of this screen with him—unless, of course, he's leading a double life and went off on one hell of a binge when he got to London, and hasn't finished sleeping it off yet."

"If you don't like my solution of the mystery, at least you needn't crab it by impossible questions like that," Wadden retorted. "My lad, just remember that he travelled out of our district, and then pat yourself on the back and shake hands with yourself. The inventor chaps have got their cheque and started paying out on it, which means they are happy. One of 'em waved a graceful adieu to the city gent who handed over the cheque, and he travelled out of our territory—for which we're grateful to him. If a—whatdyecallem?—yes, a helicopter—if a helicopter aeroplane travelled alongside the train and yanked him out like a winkle on the end of a pin, it's nothing to do with us, and—but wait a minute! Enter romance—roo-oomance! Beautiful damsel, sorrowing over missing father, escorted by gallant youth—by what you say they should get here in the gloaming. D'you know, Head, I'm feeling positively light-hearted? I was afraid this was another case, and a case with the weather like this would be painful. Just on lunch time, too. If we drifted up to the Black Lion, d'you think they'd turn two lagers off the ice for us?"

"We're not quite clear yet," Head cautioned him. "Remember, this man Logan is missing, and since his missingness began—as far as we know, that is—from the station here, we may be dragged in yet."

"Put the gallant youth on to it—by what you say he sounds like the prize amateur detective. Put him on to investigating when he gets here with the beauteous damsel—and meanwhile, what about those lagers? I'll buy 'em, as a thank-offering for getting out of a case."

Smiling, Head went to a stand in the corner of the room and took down his hat. "Chief, you're incurable," he said.

"No, merely thirsty. Phoo! It is warm to-day. Just half a minute while I struggle into my jacket—you might come and give me a hand with it, though. I'm not what you'd call slim, but when I've resigned and settled to growing tomatoes under glass, I'll get more exercise. Phooo-oo-o! Come on—I'll buy 'em."

The house in Clapham at which Byrne gazed ruminatively before he went to the door was one of those pre-war, all-built-to-standard, lower middle class habitations, and, looking up and down the street—it was described as an avenue, but had no right to the title—he mentally damned it as soul-destroying. When he ascended the three steps to the brick portico in which the front door—like all the other front doors in the street—was set, he saw three bell pushes, the lowest of which was labelled—"Edwards." He pressed it, and in course of time the door opened to reveal a faded-looking woman somewhere in her sixties. She gave him an uninterested glance and shook her head.

"No vacuum cleaners, no instalment stuff of any sort," she said, as if she were used to saying it. "We don't want anything."

A gleam of interest showed in her eyes, then. "Is it about the new job?" she asked. "Because, if it is, she's at her office—I can give you the address, if you'll wait a minute—"

"Don't trouble, thanks," he interrupted. "Just an inquiry or two about her. You are Mrs. Edwards, I expect?"

"Yes, but you'll have to see her if it's references, or anything of that sort. I don't know why you've come here at all, this time of day. She's working all day, not at home till the evening."

"And not always then, of course," he observed, as if reflecting over it. "For instance, if I'd come here yesterday evening—"

There was invitation in the pause, and in his gaze at her. She shook her head gravely.

"Well, she was late back last night, but it isn't usual with her," she said. "Generally, she's home here by a little before seven."

"Instead of—what time was it when she got back last night?" he asked. "I mean, as a guide, in case I should look her up to-night."

"It wasn't more than half-past nine," she answered. "About half-past nine, I should think. Saturday nights they both go to the pictures as a rule, but you wouldn't be calling Saturday, I expect?"

"I would not be calling Saturday," he agreed. "No—I think I'll look her up at the office, thanks. If it were half-past nine again before she got back to-night, now—well, you see, don't you?"

"But it won't be, if you care to call this evening," she urged, rather eagerly. "I know she's terribly anxious to get this new job, and she told me she wouldn't be late again like that without letting me know. I'll tell her you called—what name shall I say?"

"Oh, don't trouble about it, Mrs. Edwards," he answered placatingly. "Since she hasn't left her present post yet, I'll probably call in at Mr. Logan's office and see her there—I know where it is, so you needn't trouble about the address. Good afternoon, thanks."

He backed down the steps and away so suddenly that she had no time to question his decision, and, once clear of the road, headed for the Underground, musing as he walked. Without suspecting Alice Edwards of being responsible for Logan's disappearance, he had an idea that she knew more than she had told him. She might be no more than a red herring lying across the trail he wanted to uncover, but in his experience red herrings were worth tracking down until they proclaimed themselves as such, if only for the sake of clearing the real line of scent.

Back at Piccadilly Circus, he spared time to ring Miss Enderby and ascertain that Logan had not appeared or given any sign of life, and then went on his way to Fulham on the top deck of a bus, where he brooded over Miss Logan's certainty of her father's death, and questioned whether to accept or disregard such an apparently causeless conviction, as long as his journey lasted. He would have been more inclined to admit the existence of a spiritual link between the girl and her father if Logan had been a different type of man: such a one, Byrne reasoned, was too ruthlessly material for this feeling on his daughter's part to have any basis in the sympathy that might bind two attuned personalities. If he could have credited Logan with any sign of other than hard materialism in his nature, he himself was broad enough of outlook to admit the possibility of such intimate communion between the two as would give her a psychic consciousness of her father's fate, but, with a soulless usurer like this man—no! Thus it seemed to him: the girl was over-sensitive, perhaps verging on the hysteric. And yet, quite apart from her and her belief, Byrne had to admit to himself that Logan probably was dead. There was, of course, a chance that Miss Enderby's theory of a publicity campaign was the correct one: the best way to get proof of this consisted in keeping the news of Logan's disappearance from the Press. If he were alive and hopeful of getting free publicity out of his disappearance, but got none, he would soon reappear. Yet, if he were dead, murdered, keeping the Press out of it might benefit his murderers.

A puzzling affair, and one over which Byrne had come to no conclusion when he got down from the bus and walked along North Avenue, a second-rate thoroughfare with more than its fair share of newsagents and tobacconists, fried fish shops, and cycle dealers. Since it was Thursday afternoon, the last-named were closed, and the others, Byrne decided, might just as well have been, for no patrons were in evidence. He reached and paused before number forty, the frontage of which consisted of three plate-glass panels between brilliant scarlet pillars, a scarlet door at one side, and over the top of the window the legend, 'RADIO PALACE. EVERYTHING ELECTRICAL.' One eight-guinea wireless set occupied the middle of the window, and the rate of purchase by weekly instalments was stated; it was flanked by rows of cheap electric light bulbs, wireless valves of different types, a couple of loud-speakers and various parts of wireless sets, the whole thrown up in relief by a backing of vivid orange muslin which had been yet more vivid before dust settled in its folds.

The door was locked, but there was a bell-push to which Byrne gave a steady pressure; half a dozen grimy children, emblematic of the status of this district, ceased playing on the pavement to see what would happen, and a frowsy woman looked out from a second-floor window across the road. Byrne rang the bell a second time, and somebody thumped heavily down a bare staircase. The door swung open, and a tall, shirt-sleeved man blocked the entrance and stared at this caller in questioning silence.

"Inquiries? Then—you'd better go to the post office, or somewhere like that, I should think," Bertram said civilly but coldly. "My wife is very ill upstairs—as a matter of fact, we've had to have a nurse in the house for her, and—" He began closing the door.

Byrne's foot prevented its complete closing. "Inquiries about a telephone call to Pensham Manor last night, Mr. Bertram," he said.

Bertram looked down at the foot acting as a doorstop, and then up again at Byrne's face. One of the grimy children watching the interview from the pavement said: "I reckon she ain't dead yet," and at that Bertram winced visibly and stood back from the door.

"Perhaps you'd better come inside, whoever you are," he said. "Who—who sent you? Who are you? What do you want to know?"

"Are you on the telephone here?" Byrne asked in reply, and stepped inside the shop. Bertram closed the door before answering.

"Did you make that call to Pensham Manor from here?" Byrne persisted, ignoring the other's questions.

"Look here, who are you?" Bertram demanded, with sudden exasperation. "What the devil do you mean by this? Who are you?"

Instead of replying, Byrne held out a card between his finger and thumb. Staring at it, Bertram drew a sharp, audible breath.

"It is. Where were you at eight-fifteen last night, when you put that telephone call through to Pensham Manor?"

"No. For the present, Mr. Bertram, I'm merely making a few inquiries, nothing more. So far, you're not simplifying things for me."

"Is it—are you on behalf of Logan?" Bertram's expression hardened as he put the question, and his eyes narrowed.

"No. She's not the hounding type, I think. And now I've answered enough of your questions, Mr. Bertram, and want you to answer mine. About last night, and where you were when you made that call. I can trace its origin and find out for myself, if you don't tell me, but being in the neighbourhood—well, merely saving myself time by coming to you and asking you. From where did you send it?"

"And you knew Mr. Logan was arriving at Euston at seven-thirty—seven-twenty-eight, to be exact—and would cross London to Charing Cross on his way home last night. Coincidence, Mr. Bertram?"

Bertram nodded. "I don't know what all this is about," he said, and rubbed his forehead in a dazed way. "I don't know what you want or why you want it. I went out last night—there was a girl came here from his office to ask if my wife was any better, and she was—she was kind. She brought some flowers. I'd been in the shop and upstairs all day, and I thought when she came I'd go out and get some air. It'd be about seven, then, and when I got out I remembered he was coming to Euston by that train. And suddenly I thought—I'd tried to see him at the office, but he wouldn't see me. I thought I'd see him and beg him to hold his hand for a little while—just a little while! You see"—he turned away—"my wife's dying—I know she can't live many days. And that, and the doctor and the nurse, all coming so soon after the birth of the child that died too—that's why I'm behind with paying him, all the expense. I'd made a good little business of it and everything was going well before the baby was born, and since then—I don't want them to sell me up till after—not while she's alive. And so, when he didn't turn up last night, I rang his daughter. I don't know what I said to her—I was nearly mad with the worry of things. What do you want to know—what more?"

"Are you quite sure Mr. Logan did not arrive at Euston by the seven twenty-eight last night?" Byrne asked.

"Sure? Of course I'm sure! You can't mistake him when you see him, and I waited till everybody was off the platform. His secretary told me he'd be on that train—told me to get rid of me out of his office, to stop me from hanging round there in the hope of seeing him. Maybe she lied—maybe he told her to tell me that lie. I don't know. Maybe his daughter lied when she said he wasn't at Pensham."

"No," Byrne said. "She told you the truth. And you're quite sure you didn't see Mr. Logan anywhere last night?"

"I'd have known him if I had. It's as well I didn't, perhaps. As well for him, I mean. Because I might have done him injury if he'd refused me mercy to my face. I was near on mad, last night."

"If I—if anyone—could get you time to pay—how much time do you ask?" Byrne inquired after a pause.

"Ask him for a month," Bertram begged eagerly. "A month from now—I've got instalment payments coming in. Just a month's grace."

Byrne backed toward the door. "When—if I see his daughter again, I'll mention it to her," he said. "Thanks for what you've told me, Mr. Bertram—"

"But it'll have to be this week," Bertram interrupted. "He's threatening, if I don't pay this week—" He broke off.

"Leave it to me. I don't think you'll be troubled. Now I'll get along—I've a good deal to do to-day. Goodbye, Mr. Bertram."

He went his way, convinced that neither this man nor the girl from the office who had brought flowers for the sick woman was concerned in Logan's disappearance. She had wanted to conceal her absence from her home in order to keep back her knowledge that Bertram had not been at his home at the time Logan should have arrived at Euston and crossed London, but to Byrne, used as he was to judging suspects, the man's whole attitude was eloquent of innocence. He could be dismissed from the case.

Somewhere between Westingborough and London, apparently, lay the key to the mystery of Logan's disappearance. At some time between four-thirty and seven twenty-eight on the Wednesday evening—Byrne took a bus to Euston.

Chapter VIII
The Lie of the Land

CERTAIN special properties in the waters of the little River Idleburn were responsible, originally, for raising Westingborough from the status of a small agricultural centre to its present position as a thriving town of some fourteen thousand inhabitants. It was discovered that these waters facilitated and improved the dyeing of fine fabrics, and thus Neville-dyed products became famous, and the town became mainly industrial in character and grew to its present dimensions. Closely analogous, on a larger scale, is the reputation of West-of-England serges and Burton beers and ales: modern research and syntheses have gone far beyond these initial discoveries, but the industries, firmly established, persist. In the case of Westingborough, the town extends its tentacles into the surrounding country, and goes on growing, taking more and more of the rising ground on each side of the river valley, which, however, outside the radius of industrial influences, is still agricultural and pastoral in character.

To the west, boundary on that side of the Idleburn drainage basin, the long ridge of which Condor Hill is the highest point runs roughly north and south, and, cut off from the earliest rays of the morning sun by the mass of the hill, Carden village nestles under its western slope, south-west from Westingborough and some eight or nine miles distant from the town. In earlier times, the main London Road followed the river valley so as to miss Carden, but a new road, cut over the northern shoulder of Condor Hill, now descends in such a way that the widened village street is taken in, and the old coach road farther southward is no more than a little-used, tree-shaded lane. The new road winds up and down the height, its gradient eased by a sixty-foot cutting at the summit; on the Carden side, enough of a small plateau has been taken in, macadamized, and railed at its edge to form a parking place beside the road; every summer week-end, the number of visitors parking there to survey the beauty of the valley in which Carden is set is such as to attract at least a couple of ice-cream barrows and a perambulating mineral-water-and-bun trader both for Saturday afternoon and Sunday, and, during the week, some half-dozen or more cars and motor-cycle combinations may be found halted there at any reasonable hour.

There, at Noel Logan's suggestion, Richard Thorn swerved his small saloon off the road late on Thursday afternoon, and came to a standstill within a few feet of the concrete-bedded railings which guarded the edge of the level, beyond which the brilliant greens of spring foliage showed in the valley far beneath them, thin lines of smoke wavered up into the still air from Carden chimneys, and in the middle and far distances villages and isolated homesteads were dotted among the perspective-dwindled quadrangles of corn land and meadow. Viewing it all for the first time, Thorn appreciated its quiet beauty, but guessed from the girl's long silence and abstraction that she had not asked him to stop here merely to survey the scenery.

"We have come too far," she said. "I thought, at the foot of the hill, that this road might wind round to the left, but it goes on over the top of the hill, you see. We have come too far."

"On the other hand," Thorn pointed out, "Westingborough is about seven miles ahead, and this being the main road it will take us there."

"But he went to Todlington," she persisted, "and when we came through that village street before coming up this hill, I saw a narrow turning off to the left with a signpost marked Todlington."

"Quite so—I saw it," Thorn assented. "But we've got to go to Westingborough first. I promised Byrne I'd be guided by what this Inspector Head says, and I must see him before I do anything."

The problem had already occurred to him. It was one thing to promise to find Logan for her, and quite another when it came to deciding how to set about finding him, especially when it came to keeping within the lines laid down by a possibly unsympathetic police inspector. Thorn had a premonition that, as a mere amateur butting in on professionals, he could expect no warm welcome from Inspector Head.

"Get the general lie of the land, first," he said after a pause. "Trace him to the last point at which he was seen—though I expect the police have already done that. Keep my eyes and ears open, pick up any information I can, and collate my findings. And you—"

"I don't know quite why we came here, now," she confessed. "That Inspector Byrne seemed to approve when you suggested it, and I thought then—it seemed different from what it does here. It was a sudden impulse, that of coming here with you, and all the way I've been realizing what it will look like, what people who know me will think of my running off alone with you. I ought not to have—"

Ignoring the invitation to go on their way, she gazed out through the near side window of the car, into the middle distance beyond Carden roofs. "Over there—it lies over there," she said. "You see—it looks like heath land, and there are fir trees. Somewhere among those trees was where he went—where those two men are that he went to see. Their place is called The Firs, you remember, and the signpost for Todlington that I saw at the foot of the hill points in that direction. I want to know—wait!" Turning her head, she looked past him toward the cutting into which the road to Westingborough wound. Then she opened the near side door and got out from the car. "This girl will know," she added. "She must belong somewhere near here."

Thorn saw a dark-haired girl, mounted on a high-withered, big bay horse, emerge at a walking pace from the curve of the cutting, and as she approached Noel moved toward the road with upraised hand. The rider laid her reins on the horse's neck and swerved it at the gesture, drawing it to a halt and gazing down at the slight, fair-haired girl who had signalled her. Observing her as he sat in the car, Thorn gathered from the expression of her dark eyes that she was little pleased at this summons. He heard her cool, satiric query: "Well?"

"Could you tell me where Todlington is from here?" Noel asked. "I think it must be that small village on this side of the fir trees—or larches, or whatever they are, over there." She indicated the direction with a momentary gesture, and again looked up at the rider.

Watching, Thorn saw sudden colour flood the dark girl's cheeks. "Yes," she answered, less coolly. "I know of such a place."

"We are trying to trace somebody, a Mr. Logan, who went there yesterday," Noel said, and Thorn moved to get out from the car and stop her indiscretions, but then arrested his movement. The harm, if harm there were in what she might say, was done, now.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" the other girl asked imperiously. She glanced across at Thorn, and then back at Noel.

"I see. Then I am afraid you must make your inquiries of somebody else, Miss Logan. I have no inclination to help you or anyone related to Mr. Logan, even if I were in a position to do so."

She gave Thorn another glance as if to say that she included him in the statement, and then wheeled her horse away from the astounded girl beside her, and walked it sedately on its way down the hill. Noel gazed after her, took a couple of steps as if to follow her, but then checked and came back to the car.

Thorn nodded. "A friend of those two men," he suggested. "You read Wilson's letter—she has some interest there. A relation, perhaps. Miss Logan, I want to advise you. Don't be quite so frank, next time. We might have learned more if you hadn't told her the object of our coming here—hadn't mentioned your father's name."

Noel got back to her seat in the car. "It sounded as if she hated him," she said. "I think—since you say we must go to Westingborough first, we had better go on. There is something—"

Backing on to the road, Thorn let her brood. He realized that she had to face a bitter awakening as to her father's real character, sooner or later—if, indeed, it had not already begun. Over that, he knew, he could give her little aid: Logan had posed to her—rather, as far as she was concerned had been—kindly, indulgent, a man whom she could admire as well as love; his affection for her and care of her had been utterly antithetical to all his relations with other people, and now, through her glimpses of those others, she had to undergo disillusionment, perhaps lose her love for him. And she must face it alone: in facing it, perhaps, she might more easily overcome the grief of her loss—if Logan were indeed dead as she believed.

From their height, as the car moved on beyond the cutting through which the road was made at its highest point, the Idleburn valley showed before and beneath them, with Westingborough red-roofed in the sunlit middle distance. Then, as they went down toward the valley, the view dwindled: a long line of beeches on the right of the road cut them off from sight of the river; from the crest of the height to westward shadows began lengthening toward them, and so they came into Westingborough, where Thorn turned left at the end of London Road, toward the middle of the town. The frontage of a hotel invited, and he drew up before it, smiling in reply to Noel's questioning look.

"You've got to stay somewhere," he observed. "This looks a fairly decent place. Duke of York, eh? Shall we see what the Duke can do?"

"I can't forget that girl on horseback," she said, as he opened the car's near side door and gave her a hand down. "The—the freezing enmity when she spoke my name—my father's name."

"For the present," he reminded her practically, "somewhere to stay is more important—we can hardly go back to-night, I think."

"I don't wish to go back yet," she said. "Since meeting the girl on horseback, I feel I want to know much more before leaving here—if those two men hated him as she does, and all else I can learn. All you can learn for me, too, if—if you still wish to help."

"To the limit, and as long as you'll let me," he answered unhesitatingly. "But first, somewhere to stay, and this looks like the principal hotel in the place. If you get a room here, I expect I can find some other hostel and book myself in for the night. Will you try?"

"No," she said, gazing at him steadily. "You will try for me—and we'll keep together, please, unless you wish to leave me alone."

"Good Lord, no!" he exclaimed. "I suggested it for your own sake, because of what might be said if I—if we both—" He broke off awkwardly. "Well, to prevent talk," he ended after a pause.

"Then we'll see about two rooms," he suggested, "and after that you can go and do all the shopping you need while I ring London and find out if there's any further news, and then look for Inspector Head. We can formulate a plan of campaign on what I learn."

He took her arm and led her into the hotel. A rather effusively obsequious man in a badly-fitting morning coat intercepted them on their way to the reception desk, which showed as closed for the time. He was, as Thorn conjectured at sight of him, the manager of the hotel.

"Rooms—one each, please," he explained. "And a car to garage. And then I want a telephone call and the way to the police station."

"The rooms are available, and the police station—you can see it a little way up on the other side of the street, from our entrance," the manager told him. "If you will both sign the register, please." He glanced at Noel's hand and saw it deficient of a wedding ring. "The telephone booth is there, just under the staircase. Baggage—have you left it in the car? If so, I'll ring for the porter."

"The lady is just going to fetch hers," Thorn said. "I'll see about mine later, after I've been to the police station."

A few minutes later, he came out from the telephone booth to Noel, who had waited to hear the result of his call in the hotel entrance.

"Miss Enderby tells me he caught the four-thirty from here yesterday, according to what Byrne has found out so far," he said. "What do you wish me to do? Take you back to London, or make inquiries here?"

"But has she heard anything beyond that?" she asked. "Caught the four-thirty—what became of him after that—where did he go?"

"She has neither seen nor heard anything of him," he answered. "All she knows is what Byrne told her, that he caught that train."

"Then"—she paused, reflecting for an interval—"I want to know, before I leave here, why that strange girl hates him as she does. I want to see those two men, or for you to see them. Inspector Byrne has not been here—he only knows what he is told, and he might be mistaken about my father having caught the four-thirty."

Thorn shook his head. "It's not likely," he dissented. "Men like him don't easily make mistakes on vital points of that sort. Still, it will do no harm if we confirm it for ourselves. I think, as a beginning, I'll go and see this Inspector Head. Probably Byrne got his information from him, and I can find out how he got it, perhaps."

"And then"—he gave her a significant look—"I shall come back to you. It's good to be with you."

Where the rhododendron banks opened out to reveal the frontage of The Firs, Loretta Ashford reined in for a minute, listening rather than using her eyes to detect some sign of human presence. The big bay, streaked, now, with sweat, stood docilely until, hearing as well as seeing nothing to denote that the man she sought was here—the petrol engine was silent, even—she urged it on again, and rode round the side of the house toward the stables. As she came in view of the long shed in which Chalfont had shown her the screen, Wilson emerged from it, closing the door behind him, and came hastily to meet her.

"Jim didn't expect you to-day," he said without preface, as he reached her side and looked up at her.

"I didn't really expect myself, Mr. Wilson," she answered, smiling down at him, "but—well, call it a pretext for riding over, if you like. I'd been up Condor Hill, and was riding down when a girl from a car stopped me. She told me her name was Logan and she was trying to trace her father. Did he come here yesterday, as Jim said he would? She had a young man with her in the car, this girl."

"Trying to trace him?" Wilson echoed in a puzzled way. "Yes, he came here, and Jim saw him off on the four-thirty—drove him to the station at Westingborough for it. He knows what our branch line is, and wanted to be driven to a main-line train. And—this was his daughter trying to trace him, you say?"

"Yes, so she told me. But I'm afraid, when she told me who she was, I rather lost my temper and told her to inquire elsewhere. She began—let me see. Yes, first she asked me if this were Todlington, and pointed over here—they had stopped the car on the show-ground at the top of Condor Hill. Then she asked if I knew a place called The Firs, and told me she and the young man—at least, she said 'we'—were trying to trace Mr. Logan, and at that I asked her her name. When she told me, I lost my temper and told her to inquire of someone else."

"Then something must have happened to Logan," Wilson said gravely. "I mean, presumably that girl's come here from London looking for him, and doesn't know he caught the four-thirty yesterday. Ergo, he didn't get home when he ought, last night or this morning, and the next thing we know she'll be here questioning us about him."

Loretta's gesture indicated that she put aside the thought of the pretext on which she had seized to come here. "Where's Jim?" she asked.

"Out, somewhere," he answered. "Cigarettes from the village emporium, I expect. You see, he'd no idea you'd be coming over to-day. Won't you dismount for a minute or two, in case he comes back? The hoss looks as if he could do with a rest, and I'd love to make you some tea if you'll let me. The gal's gone for the day, but she always leaves things handy, and it won't take me a second to make it."

"I will come in, thanks, if Jim has only gone to the village," she assented. "I can't ride the footpath, and I should miss him, going back by the road." She dismounted and took her reins over.

"Then I'll put this chap in a box and give him a drink, and shut the door on him carefully," Wilson suggested, and reached for the reins.

Loretta shook her head and laughed. "I'll attend to him while you make the tea," she said. "I promise to shut the door properly this time after I've given him a drink and taken the saddle off."

"Would it break your heart to leave that Bluebeard's chamber unlocked?" she asked mockingly.

"Not exactly, but Jim might break my neck if he found it unlocked," he answered. "It's a rigid rule we made, and—well, the screen and a few other valuables are still inside, and the door will be out of our sight while we're in the house. The odd spot of caution, you know."

He locked the shed door while she led the horse into the stables, and then, going over to the house, disappeared inside. A few minutes later, following, she found him in the kitchen.

"Let's have tea in here, to save carrying the tray," she suggested. "Then you can keep an eye on your precious shed through the window."

"No—oh, no!" he demurred. "That would give Jim another excuse for breaking my neck. No, we'll migrate to the trough and you shall sit on a decent chair and tell me all about this Miss Logan."

"The gal always leaves a fire that keeps the range hot till next morning," he observed as he took the teapot over to the range to fill it. "That's why the amount of coal we use would keep a blast furnace at work night and day all the year. Now if you'll lead the way, I'll follow with the tea-tray. What was this Miss Logan like?"

"Oh, fragile and fairy-like—rather a pretty blonde. Why? If you haven't seen her, why are you so interested in her?"

"Ages ago," he said, following her, "it was laid down as an axiom of life and conduct that gentlemen prefer blondes. And why should she be trying to trace her father here, asking about this place, when he only made a flying visit? That is to say, a brief visit?"

"I don't know," she retorted, rather impatiently. "I should have thought you would detest mention of anyone named Logan as much as I do, after what Jim told me about him and your contract with him. But of course I haven't seen Jim since he—since this Logan came here. Did he agree to give you and Jim a share of the profits, after all?"

"Logan?" he said derisively. "Miracles of that sort don't happen to people like me. No. He held us to the letter of our bargain."

"And now what, for you?" she asked after he had put the tray down and poured her a cup of tea. "Some other invention?"

"I don't know," he said slowly. "If his daughter is trying to trace him—already—it follows that he's missing. If he's missing, he may be dead. If he's dead, we may get back our rights in the screen and carry on with it, become millionaires as we thought we should."

"But he bought it from you, in spite of the injustice of it," she urged. "And she—this daughter of his would own it then."

"I think—I'm not sure, but I think the wording of his contract renders it void at his death, especially if he dies without availing himself of it," Wilson said slowly. "The point is arguable, and I'm not sure about it. Also, of course, he may turn up—it's only yesterday he was here. Did that daughter of his seem worried about him?"

"And trying to trace him—here. But since he vanished off that train, if at all, she ought to be looking for him in London, surely."

"Oh, do let's find some other subject of conversation—no, we won't, though! Here's Jim, look, just coming back."

Chalfont, hatless and coatless, dressed as she had seen him on the momentous evening when she let her horse loose, appeared against the background of rhododendron blossoms. Loretta put down her cup and went to the front door to open it, while Wilson followed.

"Oh, Jim!" he called as the door opened. "Here's a go! Logan's been and disappeared, and his daughter's down here looking for him. You'll have to smarten up a bit, my lad, if she comes here asking you about him. Miss Ashford saw her with a car and a brother or something at the top of Condor Hill—were they coming this way, Miss Ashford?"

She faced about and shook her fist at him. "You're a tactless, blundering nuisance!" she told him. "I'm opening the door for him."

"Well, don't be more than ten minutes," Wilson advised. "I'll go and finish my tea and watch yours get cold. I made her some, Jim."

He disappeared, and Chalfont looked down at the girl. "What's this about Logan's daughter, Loretta?" he asked.

She took a step back from him, hurt by his greater interest in Wilson's announcement than in greeting her as she had expected he would. "No more than he has told you," she answered coolly. "I came over to see you, not— Oh, never mind."

She faced about and went toward the room Wilson had entered. Chalfont, silent-footed in his canvas shoes, caught up with her and stopped her by a hand on her shoulder.

"I can't make myself cheap every time I come to see you," she answered bitterly. "Or rather, you make me feel that I do."

"Jim, I—oh, damn this man Logan and all his works! Meeting his daughter was no more than an excuse to come over. I'm an utter fool where you're concerned, but—but don't make me feel one, Jim. I've thought over what I did so much. You know, letting the horse go, insisting on staying, and giving Adams that message. Forcing your hand as I did, and then, away from you, feeling that perhaps you wished I'd gone as you asked, not seen you any more. Do you wish it, Jim?"

"I wish I could be sure. Quite sure. When—when you're not here to make me believe all I want to believe. I do love you, Jim."

"How much?" he asked sombrely. "What would it mean to you if I still said—go? If you had to go? How much, Loretta?"

"So much that no other man would ever mean anything to me," she answered. "I wouldn't pine away or do silly things, but—all my life I'd walk alone, if there were no you. Somewhere—quite alone."

"Well, darling,"—he held her and looked down into her eyes—"if the gods are good to us, in less than a month you won't walk alone any more, and I'll make you realize your love is no stronger than mine... Loretta—my dear! Now—tea? I'd like a cup, too."

But as, with his hand on her shoulder, she went toward "the trough", she felt a vague unease. There was a change in him, slight, undefinable, yet she perceived it as existing. Had she cheapened herself, soiled what had been a wonderful freshness and perfection of young love, by her insistence on holding to him when he would have sent her away?

For a half-hour or more they talked with Wilson, and then went out to the loose box, where Chalfont saddled the bay for her and helped her to mount after a long good-bye embrace. She looked down at him from the saddle.

"I'm not coming here again till you have been to see me," she announced. "Less than a month, remember, and you've yet to meet my daddy and mother. I shall tell them when they come back to-morrow."

He returned her gaze, gravely, and then took her hand and laid it against his cheek. "As you will, dear," he said. "And—Saturday, in the afternoon? Shall I come over then?"

As she rode toward the gate, the rhododendron blossoms appeared less brilliant to her sight. Some trick of the light, perhaps, or she imagined that their splendour was beginning to fade...

Chapter IX
Amateur—and Professional

IN addition to such fittings in the room as Thorn decided were officially provided, there was a leather upholstered armchair which looked anything but official; there was a well-filled bookcase that he felt sure was a genuine antique of some value, and, on the walls, he observed signed proofs by artists whose names he knew. A rather unusual sort of room to find in a police station, he thought—and then the door by which he had been shown in opened to admit a tall, keen-eyed, kindly-looking man, well-dressed, and no more like a police officer than the room was like a police office.

"I am. Sorry if you've had to wait. Take that chair, won't you, Mr. Thorn? You'll find it comfortable. A cigarette?"

Not at all in order, Thorn reflected as he accepted a cigarette and then a light. Far too cordial a reception for one who, as Head must know, was butting in on the quest for Logan. Head seated himself at the flat-topped desk in the middle of the room, lighted a cigarette for himself, pushed an ash-tray within Thorn's reach, and said: "Well, Mr. Thorn, I understand you're joining in the hunt."

It was a thoughtful rejoinder. "A rather precipitate hunt, isn't it? Barely a day since this Mr. Logan was last seen."

"Miss Logan—I don't know if you'd call her psychic," Thorn explained, "but she's certain her father is dead. That's why."

"Ye-es. So I understood from Byrne. But since she has hurried here with you, it appears that she's certain he died here from some cause or other, and since he left here yesterday afternoon—"

"Excuse me, Mr. Head—Inspector Head, I suppose I should say. It was I who suggested coming here, and she said at once she'd come with me. We didn't know, then, that Mr. Logan had left here."

Thorn shook his head. "I've an open mind," he answered. "If he's still alive, where is he? What's become of him?"

"There was a suggestion—Byrne put it to me on the telephone—of a publicity scheme," Head pointed out. "I know only what he has told me, of course. And I may as well tell you, since Mr. Logan left here, on the authority of the ticket collector who saw Mr. Chalfont go with him to the station and see him on to the train, that this inquiry appears to have passed out of my territory. Unless, that is, the body is found thrown from the train within my limits, if he is dead."

"Then—" Thorn began doubtfully, and paused. "This publicity scheme—I've thought that over on the drive down here from London, and don't attach much weight to the theory," he went on. "Surely, if it had been that, he would have given the publicity a start before vanishing like this. Nobody has ever heard of this screen, as far as I know, and he would have—well, organized something to go on in his absence."

"No—I've never met him. I know his daughter, and,"—he hesitated—"well, anything I can do will be for her."

"Yes, I understand. Well, Mr. Thorn, I've had another talk with Byrne—I reported to him that Mr. Logan caught the four-thirty yesterday, and he rang me again not long ago to tell me that Mr. Logan did not get to Euston by that train, as nearly as he can ascertain. Therefore, he thinks it worth while to make inquiries at the three points between here and London at which that train stops, and then to come on here and go back by the four-thirty to-morrow, when the guard who was in charge yesterday will be available again. Two guards, it seems, take turn and turn about on this train on alternate days, so seeing the man to-day is out of the question. Byrne has got photographs of Mr. Logan, and I gather both from him and from the ticket collector here that he—Logan—is a noticeable personality with that reddish beard of his. Except on old men, beards are not common ornaments nowadays, and the trail may be picked up along the line at any one of three points."

"Nothing is certain, till he's found," Head rejoined with a slight smile. "He settled his business here with Chalfont and Wilson, gave them a cheque for a fairly large amount which they went to the trouble to get telegraphically cleared—and with that, I should say, their interest in Mr. Logan ends, since the cheque was in settlement of a contract. One of them accompanied him here—drove him here to meet the train, I conclude, though I have not seen either of them to inquire. He caught it, with the return half of a first class ticket between Westingborough and Euston. Now Byrne takes on. He ascertained that tickets are not collected on the train, but at a barrier on arrival at Euston. He interviewed both ticket collectors who were on duty at that barrier last night, and showed them his portraits of Mr. Logan. Neither of them saw anyone resembling either of the portraits, and no first-class return half from Westingborough to London was among those collected. On that, Byrne assumes that Mr. Logan did not arrive at Euston by that train—and, in addition to this, he has made contact with a man who met the train in the hope of seeing Mr. Logan, and who states that he did not arrive by it."

Head smiled slightly again at the statement. "Mr. Thorn, in a case of this sort nothing is fully conclusive until Mr. Logan is found. Everything I have told you is open to question, as is everything you can tell me. We have evidence of certain things, but no proof."

"Then—supposing one of those two men went on ahead and caught that train at its next stop? Knowing Mr. Logan was on it, I mean?"

"With intent to—well, kill him, I suppose you are implying. Why this suspicion of them, Mr. Thorn?" Head asked.

"I'll tell you," Thorn said slowly. "It's—well, indirect, but—on the way here, we came over a big hill where the road runs through a cutting at the top. We stopped just short of the cutting, and a girl on a big bay horse, a girl with very dark hair and eyes, and good-looking, rode out of the cutting. Miss Logan got out of the car and asked where Todlington was from there—I could hear all they said—and the dark girl told her. Then she asked about The Firs, which you may or may not know is where these two men live. The dark girl coloured up and looked startled, and said she knew the place. Miss Logan told her we were trying to trace Mr. Logan, and as soon as she heard the name the dark girl refused any more information—to anyone of that name, I think she said—and rode off. She was on the edge of insulting about it, I could hear. And the way she coloured up as soon as The Firs was mentioned showed that she's intimate with either or both those two men."

"It sounds like Miss Ashford," Head remarked thoughtfully. "She's the only one I know who might be riding over Condor Hill alone. And yet—she's Sir Bernard Ashford's daughter, and they're—well, very exclusive, the Ashfords of Carden Hall. But who else, if not her?"

"Why should this dark girl's attitude lead you to suspect the two men?" Head asked.

"It does, that's all," Thorn insisted. "That, and a letter one of the two wrote to Mr. Logan, one that I saw. Now supposing one of them went on ahead and caught that train, found Mr. Logan alone in his compartment, and—well, the rest needs finding out."

"Kidnapping is next to out of the question," Head pointed out, "and if it had been murder on the train, what has become of the body? The permanent way of every main line in the country is too well patrolled for a body beside it to remain undiscovered as long as Mr. Logan has been missing. Still"—he paused as he remembered Byrne's request that Thorn should be kept busy at this end—"you might look into the movements of those two men—one of them, rather, if you feel like it. Chalfont, the big one of the two, couldn't have joined the train farther on, for he went to the post office and the bank here after it had left. But the other, Wilson—get evidence of his absence from home—from The Firs, that is—between four-thirty and seven-thirty yesterday, and then begin tracing him up to see what became of him during that time."

"Certainly, if you wish," Head answered. "What you don't realize, Mr. Thorn, is that at any moment I may be called to any part of a widely-scattered territory that contains over fifty thousand inhabitants, and may have to investigate any kind of case from the theft of a tin of sardines to murder. Because of that, and because I have evidence that Mr. Logan passed out of my territory altogether yesterday at four-thirty or a little after, I leave all inquiries about him to Inspector Byrne until I am officially asked or ordered to do otherwise. Or if you can produce any evidence that implicates these two men—valid evidence, not mere suspicion—I'll begin to act on it."

"I'll see if there is any, at least," he said. "Many thanks for the way you've talked to me, Mr. Head. I expected—well, a considerably cooler reception, as an interfering amateur."

"Come and see me any time you like," Head invited, rising too and offering his hand. "And—don't neglect the pubs, if you want to find out about anyone. Be patient—you can make a half-pint of bitter last a very long time, if you're careful over it. Don't try to enter into talk with the men you find there, but let them get into conversation with you, and don't lead the conversation obviously, for if you do they dry up at once, with a stranger. If there's anything to hear, you may hear it, especially between nine o'clock and closing time. The private bar, or saloon if there is one. The lads of the village might like to show off—I'd suggest you begin with the lounge bar at the Carden Arms just at the foot of that big hill you came up to-day, and keep an ear open for the name of Miss Loretta Ashford."

"If you let your trail get too cold, others may obliterate it," Head told him. "Good luck to you, Mr. Thorn."

"If I had a daughter like this one of Logan's," Wadden opened without preface, "I'd put her over my knee and use a slipper. Settling in at the Duke of York for the night with this young feller, and not even an engagement ring! And what's he thinking about to let her do it? I mean, if father turns up, he'll skin that lad. I would, if I were in Logan's shoes, and hadn't turned my toes up. What did he say?"

"He's not bad," Head answered, "and as far as the girl is concerned I think his intentions are at least moderately honourable. I've done as Byrne asked, suggested a tour of the pubs of the district with the Carden Arms for a lead-off, to keep him busy here for a while."

"He'll have to marry the girl," Wadden asserted. "That is, unless she makes a practice of this sort of thing with a whole row of 'em."

Wadden nodded. "I blew over there, and while I was talking to the manager this girl blew in with a suitcase—and she'd forgotten to pull the price ticket off it. That manager told me about 'em—he seems a gold mine for information, Head, some of it useful."

"Whaddye think I blew over for—family prayers? There are times, Head, when I don't think a lot of your intelligence. And now, if you feel like stopping here all night, I don't. While things are quiet as they are now, I'm going to make the best of it, and as soon as there's the slightest sign of trouble cropping up for us"—he took down his cap and put it on—"I'm going to hand in my resignation and settle to growing tomatoes under glass. Good night, Head."

He faced about in the doorway. "You know perfectly well that young chap is down here with Logan's daughter, and you've sent him out on a pub-crawl. He'll get back to her, if at all, positively reeking of booze, and what chance has romance got then? Tactless devil you are, Head! Why didn't you tell him to take her to the pictures? They might have found Logan under a seat when they tipped it up."

"No, you certainly didn't blow over for family prayers," Head retorted. "You're too light-hearted altogether."

He whistled blithely, and even youthfully, on his way to the entrance. Head, hearing him, decided to postpone whistling for the present: it might be Byrne's case, as Wadden had said—and again it might not. He himself did not feel quite sure about it yet.

Emerging from a telephone booth after informing Head of the results of his interviews with ticket collectors at Euston, Inspector Byrne decided to call it a day. There had been no real need for him to trunk-call Head and report the result of his investigations, but he had done it as a matter of simple courtesy. Obviously, since Logan had definitely left Westingborough, the search for him was out of the hands of the police there, and in Byrne's own. He would run down there on the morrow, calling at the three stopping places of the four-thirty on the way, and would so arrange the trip as to give himself an hour or so for talk with Head and then catch the four-thirty back and hear what the guard of the train for that day, one Andrew Giddens, had to say as to Logan's presence or absence on the Wednesday.

Thus the morrow, Byrne decided—unless, of course, Logan turned up in the meantime—and now for a quiet evening. Then, sighting an evening paper placard, he breathed a curse.

said this second poster, and then came a newspaper delivery van, bearing the "Late Night Final" while the placard on its side announced:

To describe Logan as a film magnate, Byrne knew, was patently absurd, but it would catch the public eye—and pennies. He dived back into the telephone booth—it was then about half-past five—and managed to catch Miss Enderby, about to depart for the night, as she informed him when he asked how long she would be there.

"Oh, no, you're not!" he rejoined. "You will stay there till I arrive, and so will Miss Edwards, please... I'm on my way—good-bye."

No use giving her a chance to argue about it, he reflected, as he replaced the receiver and then dropped two more pennies in the slot. Dialling again, he got through to World Press Services, an organization which, as stated by its very American originator, aimed at making a back number of Reuter's and didn't care what it spent. Byrne had himself connected with a Scot whom he knew, one Archie Mackenzie, and announced his own identity.

"Eh, laddie, I'm glad yer rang," Mackenzie told him. "Blinder Hoyle's doing the storry, and a worrd from ye'll rround it off."

"Indubitably," Byrne answered dryly. "Can you get hold of Blinder, or is he out on the story now?"

"Then get hold of him, Archie, and tell him to meet me at Logan's office in a quarter of an hour. I'll round his story off."

"It's damned good of ye, laddie, makin' work easy for us. I'll get Blinder and tell him ye'd like to see him."

Then Byrne took a taxi to Logan's office. Arriving, he found both Miss Enderby and Miss Edwards already attired for departure, and summoned them into Logan's own room, where he dropped his hat on the desk and seated himself. Miss Enderby, he noted, was quite composed: the other girl's gaze at him denoted a mixture of apprehension and defiance, and, judging by her eyes, he decided that she had been crying.

"A little matter of a Press campaign," Byrne observed, tapping the three evening papers he had bought before getting his taxi. "Miss Edwards, what part have you had in this publicity stunt."

"None whatever," she answered promptly. "Miss Enderby got on to World Press herself, and saw the man in here when he came."

"I see. Well, in that case you can go home—or take some more flowers where you took the others. That is, if this man from World Press didn't interview you or get anything from you."

"Then that lets you out, Miss Edwards—good night," Byrne said. "Yes, you can go." He waited till the girl had gone out and closed the door. Then: "Now, Miss Enderby," he said coldly, "all this newspaper guff is your doing, apparently. Publicity, eh?"

"Have you had any communication with him about it, then?" he demanded. "Since I last rang and asked if you'd heard from him, I mean?"

"No. I haven't the slightest idea where he is or what he's doing. I did this on my own initiative, knowing he will approve."

"Just this, Miss Enderby. If you are right, and Logan is concealing himself to get publicity, you have done the very thing to make him go on concealing himself—make things more difficult for me. If you are wrong, and he is a victim of foul play of any kind, you have put the people responsible for his disappearance on their guard—listen here." He read from the front page of one of his evening papers: "'Detective-Inspector Byrne, whose brilliant work in connection with the Bond Street beauty parlour poisoning case brought him into prominence, is investigating this baffling mystery, and it is understood that he—' Oh, never mind the rest of it! It means that if Logan's disappearance is the result of a criminal act, you have very carefully sent the criminals to earth, and they'll use every effort to cover up their tracks now that—thanks to you—they know the police are looking for Logan. Either way, you've doubled my difficulties."

The telephone bell rang before she could reply. Byrne removed the receiver—"I'll answer it," he told her curtly.

"Hullo! Oh, good evening, George! Not George? I'm sorry—who? You want what? No—they've all gone. This is the caretaker speaking—the office is closed. I thought it was a friend of mine. No, there won't be anyone here till the morning. I don't know anything about it. No. I just know him by sight—that's all. No, I couldn't tell you anything. Sorry—good-bye."

"That was one of the morning stunt-rags—newspapers, you call them," he said. "And you've done it. You started this!"

"That means I can get him this evening. Well, Miss Enderby, I'm going to see Mr. Alfred Farrar to-night, and get him to put a man in charge here to keep you from dropping any more bricks on my toes. A man with a wooden mouth who can put pressmen off. I'll give out all there is to be given, now, and if you're right about this publicity stunt, and your employer thinks he can make fools of the police of London and possibly seven or eight counties to serve his own ends, I'll take precious good care he gets as little publicity as possible. Somebody at the door, there." He raised his voice to a shout. "Come in!"

A carelessly-clad, tall youngster with a mop of flaxen hair, and a face that indicated his outlook on life as something in the nature of a joke, responded to the invitation. "Evening, Mr. Byrne," he said as he advanced to the desk. "Evening, Miss Enderby. Corn in Egypt for me, your actually asking me to come along and get the inside of this story. Miss Enderby gave me enough for the evening finals, but I've got to cough in more for the morning papers, and Archie told me they're sitting on his tail already." He produced a note-book and pencil. "I'm all set—what have you got for me? Picked up the trail yet?"

"Why, sure! It's the silly season, and a story like this is a godsend. It'll make a two-column feature."

"Well, then, you can take this down, and quote me. On my arrival here, I was informed by Miss Enderby that in her opinion Mr. Logan had voluntarily disappeared, in order to arouse the attention of the press and police of the country and so get free publicity for a certain film screen of which he has bought the rights. Something for nothing, in fact, which I believe is one of the principles of successful high finance. Mr. Logan, so far, has been highly successful in concealing his whereabouts, but it is very little more than twenty-four hours since he went into hiding. In order to induce him to reappear, I am forbidding Miss Enderby to make any further communications to the press—"

"I am forbidding Miss Enderby to make any further communications whatever," Byrne repeated calmly, "to—er, yes—to facilitate the reappearance of Mr. Logan, and to prevent the press and police of this city and country from being fooled any further in the interests of—well, say high finance, if you like. And that's all."

"You mean to say—?" Hoyle's pencil stopped, and he stared with dropped jaw as he realized the meaning of what he had taken down.

"Exactly," Byrne told him. "Miss Enderby informed me that she considered this a stunt of Logan's, and she got World Press Services in to work the stunt—provide free advertisement. You have that statement from me, and you'll get nothing more from her. Now what are you going to do about it."

"Kill it, of course," Hoyle answered promptly, with a vindictive look at Miss Enderby, as if he would have killed her too if he could.

"Suits me, better than being fooled for private profit," Byrne said coolly. "Also, if you put the boys off this story, Blinder, I'll see that you don't lose by it when something real comes my way."

"Oh, we launched it, and the others'll take their time from us," Hoyle assured him. "When I say kill it, I mean kill it."

"Thanks—that's all, then. Whatever happens, I'll see that World Press Services are first to know, and that you get the handling of it. Now I've got to hustle off to Lexham Gardens to see a man—you may as well come down with me. Good night, Miss Enderby."

She did not answer. As Byrne went out with Hoyle, he could see that she was very nearly weeping with rage.

Chapter X
At The Feathers

AMONG all the men she knew, Noel Logan decided as she sat in the lounge of the Duke of York—the small lounge, in which members of her sex staying in the hotel wrote letters and filled in time, not the large one in which there was a bar—with an unread paper on her lap, there was no other with whom she would have done such a thing as this. The straight honesty with which she credited Richard Thorn had permitted of her volunteering to accompany him there with no thought at all for the possible consequences of such a step, and, intent on this quest of her father, she had not realized how it might be interpreted until Thorn had suggested finding a different hotel for the night. From then onward, she was conscious that she had done a very foolish thing, for it was in the last degree unlikely that she herself could do anything toward finding Logan, and, however much she might try to shut her eyes to the fact, people would talk, and some, she knew, would attribute to her a far different motive from the real one for being here with Thorn.

Abruptly she tossed the paper aside, rose to her feet, and went out to the telephone booth in the entrance hall. Two pennies and a shilling got her the number she wanted, and, as she had hoped, Peter Thorn was at home in the flat she shared with her brother.

"Oh, Peter! It's Noel speaking. I'm in a fix, and want help," she announced. "Are you doing anything at all to-morrow?"

"I never do anything, any day," Peter answered promptly. "But I can, if it will help you. What is it, dear?"

"Well, you see, I—your brother offered to come here, and I said I'd do the journey with him. And—well, I'm here."

"Yes, I know," Noel rejoined, "and that's why I've rung you, to help me out. If you steal away first thing in the morning and come straight here, nobody need know you didn't come here with us two."

"Quite apart from me, Peter," Noel assured her, with a tinge of coolness. "He offered to help to find my father, and that's what he's doing now—went out from the hotel immediately after dinner, and won't be back till eleven or thereabouts, he told me. Your—well, inference, call it—is my own fault entirely. I didn't think, you see."

"And now you are thinking, hard," Peter suggested. "Wait—yes. I'll look out the earliest train I can get up to catch, and come down to-morrow. Westingborough—what's the name of the hotel?"

"None. You know what I saw, at dinner. I'm not expecting anything but confirmation of that. And we met a girl—but I'll tell you when you get here. Three minutes already? You will come, Peter?"

Noel repeated the last three words to herself as she replaced the receiver and went back to the small lounge. Love to Dick! Well, there was nobody else with whom she would have trusted herself like this, and it was easy to see that he...

Thus, feeling that she had done all she could to retrieve an error, she reflected while Thorn, having driven over to Carden, tried the lounge bar of the Carden Arms as Head had suggested, and found therein only two elderly men who were staying here for the fishing, as did a good many every year. He heard all the story of a forty-pound salmon which got away in a Welsh river, but when the fisher to whom the story had been addressed began on his tale of a forty-five pounder, Thorn finished his drink and went out. He got back into his car and drove slowly along the village street until he came to the narrow lane by which a signpost indicated—"Todlington 2, Barnwell 4½" when he turned off from the main road into the lane, and drove toward the sunset.

Thus, in the first of the dusk, he reached The Feathers Inn, a gaunt-looking, two-storied erection of dingy red brick with uncurtained windows, set back from the road, and shaded by a couple of tall fir trees. Thorn swerved his car off the road toward the entrance of the inn, and instantly found himself in dry, loose sand that slowed him to a walking pace, while the back wheels skidded, gripped, skidded again, and then took him on with a rush that nearly crashed him against the open doorway. Averting that mishap, he switched off his engine, got out, and entered the place. The room on the right of the doorway, he found by looking in, was untenanted; he opened the door on the left, and found himself in an atmosphere heavy with shag tobacco smoke. A counter ran across the inner end of the room, and behind it stood a heavy-jowled man in his shirt-sleeves; two youngsters were playing darts at the end by the window, and between them and the counter four men sat at little tables, each with a mug of beer before him, while two more leaned against the counter with yet more mugs. It seemed to Thorn that a hint of conversation suspended by his entry hung in the smoke-laden air, and that all regarded him with bucolic resentment, as a stranger intruding on what was almost a family gathering.

He went to the counter, gave the man behind it a civil "Good evening" which won no more than a surly nod in response, and ordered a half-pint of bitter. Then, as the man took up a small mug, and Thorn saw the size of all the other mugs in use, he amended the order.

Thorn received and paid for his pint, and turned to look across the room after taking a sip. One of the players was placing the three darts carefully on the mantel, while the other advanced toward the counter, presumably to order the drinks for which they had played.

"Lotter strangers about these parts lately," a middle-aged man at one of the tables observed, staring straight across the room and addressing his remark to nobody at all.

"Aye," said another worthy, also addressing nobody. "People do git about. Like sheep—they ha' to move i' dry weather."

Outside, while they gloomed over their mugs and Thorn waited for the next remark, a motor-cycle banged and thuttered and ended its solo with an almost human groan, and then a youngster in waterproof overalls entered, advanced to the bar, and ordered a pint. Having received it, he spoke "Evenin's" to George and Zeke and Davy and Phil, and drank. They gave him back "Evenin', Eef," and Thorn conjectured him an Ephraim on the strength of the diminutive.

"Been fishin', Eef?" George inquired, when the silence had begun to grow oppressive and Eef had ordered a second pint.

"Ar!" said Eef, "these here overalls allus pull that joke outer you, George. Reckon you been losin' at darts again, eh?"

"No, I won," said George, a statement that for some reason evoked a general laugh, in which George himself joined.

Then, to Thorn's surprise, Eef turned to him. "That your car outside, mister?" he inquired, rather timidly.

"It is," Thorn answered. "It might have been the wreck of a car if I hadn't braked in time. That sand is tricky driving."

"Not very. About seventy is the limit, and forty-five to fifty for comfort. Not built for speed, really, but for hard wear."

"Ar!" And Eef, mindful of frowns that condemned this traffic with a stranger, subsided to silence, except that he drank more beer.

"That theer owd car up at The Firs, now, that's faast," said one worthy after an æon or two of reflection.

"Useter go inter races, Brooklands an' noobery know where, I have heerd," Eef volunteered. "Big owd Vauxhall, that is, wi' valves like dinner plaates. Clatter-clatter-clatter, when that git gooin'. Parham's over at Westin'borough had it. Fifty pound was all they wanted for it, I did hear. Faastest car about heer, that is."

"I wonder whether Parham's people got their fifty pound?" one of the gathering who had not spoken before questioned solemnly.

"One of the old thirty ninety-eights, I expect," Thorn suggested. "That used to be the type that raced at Brooklands."

"Thass what that is," Eef assured him. "Datty owd thing that is, now—they don't bother about cleanin' it, them chaps up at The Firs, but I reckon they keep the runnin' parts right. Paased me, they did, laast night, on the London road atwixt Crandon an' Carden, an' I was a doin' fifty at the time. Seventy at the least, they must 'a been doin' when they flew paast me, an' p'raps it was more."

"Ar, comin' t'ords home—t'ords The Firs, I mean. Right laate, that was. I'd been to the new picture palace over't Crandon—the Elysium, they call it, a wonnerful new plaace for these parts. Wallace Beery in one picture, an' the funniest Micky you ever see—"

"Where'd ye taake her to aafter the pictures, Eef?" Zeke interrupted to inquire.

"Hard lines, Eef," one of the dart players contributed. "Next time, you taake one o' us on the back o' that owd moty-bike to look arter mother, an' then you 'ont have to taake the gal straight home."

Someone said—"Here's Bill!" and then there was a faint chorus of "'Evenin' Bill," as a smallish, humorous-faced man clumped across the bare boards to the counter and called for a pint. He gave Thorn an appraising gaze as he raked in his change, took a long draught, and said "Ar!" as he put his mug down on the counter. There was deep satisfaction in the monosyllable, and he smacked his lips audibly.

"What wi' parcels, an' registered letters, an' corns, to say nuthin' o' the weight of my advancin' years, life ain't what it used to be," he announced. "I reckon you chaps don't know what work is."

"AII right, I will," Bill took up the challenge. "There's agoin' to be a weddin'. A slap-up one too, if I know anything."

"I don't howd wi' weddin's," said an elderly, mournful-looking man. "Gimme a good funeral any day, if it's slap-up people. There's more good feelin' at a funeral. When I buried my third wife—"

He broke off, and drank from his mug, tilting it to empty it. Then he rose, advanced to the counter, and ordered another pint.

"Then you'll haf to have another weddin' afore you can have another funeral, Dave," someone pointed out.

"Marriage is a lottery," Dave responded solemnly as he went back to his seat, carrying his new pint. "Mostly blanks," he added after he had seated himself, and blown the froth off his beer.

"The weddin'," said Bill, as if he resented the lack of interest in his first announcement, "is Miss Ashford's, up at Carden Hall."

"That'll please owd Sir Bernard," a cynic observed. "Gettin' her off his hands'll maybe leave him a sixpence to rub agin the one he's got. Cost him a pretty penny from fust to laast, she have."

"She's a fine young laady, whatever you say," Eef declared stoutly. "Who's the lucky man, Bill, did you hear?"

"That big chap at The Firs," Bill answered, and braced himself in the manner of one who, having hurled a bomb, waited for the splinters to take effect.

He had his reward. Dave, about to drink again, choked over his beer. Zeke said—"Gord!" in a tone of utter awe, and the others stared, round-eyed and open-mouthed, until Eef recovered to comment.

"No less'n Merridew, up at the Hall," Bill answered confidently. "I felt just like you chaps look, but he towd me she'd towd him herself, so he knew 't'was true. Three weeks come next Tuesday, she said."

"You mean—they're goin' to be married three weeks come next Tuesday?" the member of the party called Phil asked incredulously.

"How the hem sh'd I know?" Bill retorted. "I d'liver letters at the Hall, but I don't live there. Thass what she towd Jack Merridew, an' thass what Jack Merridew towd me. More'n that, maybe some o' you remember I got Mr. Morris here to let me use his tallerfone, Tuesday night. That was to tell Merridew to take her hoss back to The Firs, where it'd got away from, an' to tell him she was alone there wi' Mr. Chalfont. Alone there wi' him, mind ye, an' Merridew wasn't to come wi' the hoss till 'leven o'clock! Sounded as if she didn't keer who knew it, too, the way she asked me to tallerfone Jack Merridew."

"Well, I go to sea in a frail basket!" he ejaculated. "Nother pint, please, Mr. Morris. Three weeks come Tuesday, too!"

"Whatter you mean by that?" Dave asked, having digested the remark while the rest were still thinking over it.

"Well," Phil said solemnly, "if Eef here hadn'ter said he seen 'em comin' back laast night in that owd car o' theirs, I'd 'a said they'd shot the moon. Yistiddy arternoon, I were ditchin' along there clost to the end o' the lane that go paast The Firs, an' Parham's man come along wi' his lorry—petrol lorry from Westin'borough, ye know. He come back arter awhile, an' he say to me, 'Seen anything o' them two gents up at The Firs?' he say. An' I say, 'Only 't the big un come along heer a little while back, an' got a red-whiskered chap i' the car wi' him.' 'N' he ast which way, 'n' I towd him Carden way, maybe for Westin'borough, but why. 'N' he ast did I know anything about 'em, an' I say, 'Precious little, an' that's enough, but why?' Then he towd me Wedn'sday was his reglar day for d'liverin' petrol theer for that owd engine they got to work the pumpin' an' lightin', an' he been along theer, but theer warn't noobery about. Said he looked all round, not missin' that long shud they got out at the back, but theer warn't noobery—not even Ireen Higgs, what they allus leave a message with to say how many cans they want. An' he reckoned they'd shot the moon on account o' all the money they owe round heer. He towd me they owed Parham's enough to frighten ye, an' since even the gal was gone he reckoned they'd shot the moon. But Eef here say he see 'em comin' back laast night."

Thorn, in his corner, silently indicated to Morris behind the bar that he wanted another pint, and mentally collated the information he had already gained with a view to passing it on to Inspector Head.

"Wonder whether they reckon to git owd Sir Bernard to pay people, arter Miss Ashford bin an' married the big 'un—if it's true she's goin' to marry him?" Zeke surmised, glancing sceptically at Bill.

"Reckon owd Sir Bernard'll have a word to say about it," Dave suggested. "Noobery don't know nuthin' about 'em, either the big 'un or the little 'un, an' ever since they took that plaace they let it go to rack an' ruin. Up to no good theer, I reckon, puttin' up that theer big shud when they got all the staables empty—"

"An' nearly all the house empty too," Phil interrupted. "Ireen Higgs towd me they live like pigs, an' even she never seen what they got inside that shud. Keep it locked all the time, they do, an' the blinds down inside the winders when they ain't in it."

"Happen they're makin' bombs, or somethin'," Dave suggested. "Got that theer shud sent down i' sections when they fust come heer, an' put it up theirselves, they did—bowted it together an' roofed it, all theirselves. An' what they got inside it noobery know."

"They must of gone somewheer yistiddy, since I see 'em comin' back i' that owd car laast night," Eef demurred, "an' Phil heer say Parham's man say they warn't theer yistiddy arternoon, none of 'em ne yet the gal Ireen neether. Though that gal she's a deep 'un, she is."

"She's Mother Higgs's daughter, ain't she?" Phil inquired, and raised a rumble of laughter with the remark. Thorn stored away the name in his mind: "Ireen" Higgs might provide information, he thought, though he wondered what her position in regard to the two men might be.

"Well, thass a rum 'un, that is," Zeke observed after another long silence. Reckon owd Sir Bernard'll have three fits an' die in the fust one, when he hear about this. Comin' back to-morrow, ain't he, Bill, him an' Laady Ashford?"

"Him? Not him!" Dave exclaimed incredulously. "I seen her a ridin' along that theer lane more'n once, but she been mighty secret about this heer. I lay noobery didn't know, till she towd Jack Merridew as Bill heer say she did. You ain't havin' us all, are ye, Bill?"

"It's the Gord's truth I'm a tellin'," Bill insisted irritably. "Jack Merridew towd me she towd him, as if she was proud of it an' wanted him an' everyone to know about it. Sorter as if she was so pleased she couldn't keep it to herself no longer, an' didn't care who knew it."

"Well, she's what? Twenty-five, must be, so she oughter know her own mind," Dave commented. "Though they never do know their own minds five minutes at a time. I berried three, so I oughter know."

"An' bein' twenty-five, owd Sir Bernard caan't stop her, if she made up her mind to marry that chap or anyone else," Zeke said.

"'Less he find out what they got in that shud, an' get 'em both jailed," Phil put in. "An' he'd do it, too, if he had a mind."

"He'll have a mind all right, when he hear about this," said George, who had contributed very little to the discussion. "Never heerd nuthin' like it in all me born days! Miss Ashford, chuckin' herself away on a chap that let a place like The Firs go to rack an' ruin all the time he been an' lived in it—"

"It'd gone to rack an' ruin afore they went there," Phil interrupted. "No, tain't that. It's what they got in that owd shud."

"Now, gentlemen, time, please," Morris broke in from behind the counter. "Better drink up quick. Gotter be punctual to-night."

With the admonition he gave a meaning glance at Thorn, standing silent by the end of the counter, as if to indicate that this stranger might endanger his licence if there were any infraction of the law. And, with the reminder, their discussion ceased: they finished their pints, looking doubtfully over their mugs at Thorn, and evidently regretting having talked so freely in his presence. For his part, he put down his empty mug and made for the door.

Entering the Duke of York after putting his car away for the night, Thorn made his way to the small lounge, where Noel had said she would await his return, and found her alone there. She held out a newspaper to him, and, taking it, he saw that it was a London evening paper, with Logan's disappearance as a front-page "splash" and "the rainbow screen" figuring as a separate headline. "Last seen at Westingborough" was also a large-type item in the headings, and there was a portrait of Logan, similar to the snapshot reproduction Byrne had secured.

"Somebody left it in here," Noel explained, "and I found it. What have you—is there any news of him?"

"Directly, very little," Thorn answered. "Only that one of the two men—Chalfont, it would be—was seen yesterday afternoon in a car with somebody who corresponds to the description of your father—a very sketchy description, only the red beard—but it seems to have been when Chalfont was driving him to the station here. Indirectly, I learned a good deal—enough to see Head again in the morning and tell him. I'd rather not—do you mind if I look at this?"

She seated herself to wait while he perused the account of Logan's disappearance. On what Miss Enderby had told him, Blinder Hoyle had manufactured such a "story" as news editors would approve, and had infused into it an atmosphere of sinister mystery. The man whose brilliant financial operations had more than once brought him to public notice had mysteriously vanished from a main line train, bearing with him the secret of an invention that would revolutionize the film exhibiting industry, an invention in which he had acquired sole rights, and which he was about to launch commercially. Then came the best part of a column devoted to Miss Enderby's description of the screen, followed by a further insistence on the utter mystery of Logan's disappearance, and the statement that the inevitable investigation had been undertaken by Inspector Byrne and startling developments might be expected shortly.

"Whether—" She looked full at him, hesitating over the question, and he saw the dark lines under her eyes that told of sleepless anxiety, and wondered if it had been in truth only the night before that she had expected and waited for her father's return home. "Whether he is—he was—really what I thought him? I mean, those letters I read, the way other people seem to see him. Did he keep me in a fool's paradise?"

"I—I never met him, you know," Thorn answered, after a pause that lasted too long for the reply to be other than unconvincing.

"I see," she said. "Thanks for telling me so—so tactfully. And now"—she stood up—"I think I'll go—"

But Thorn stood up too, and grasped her hands. "I want to help," he said earnestly, "and I want to spare you, shield you, Noel."

"I think I know," she said, "but there is so much—such a long way yet that I have to go, alone. Good night, Mr... good night, Dick. Since—since you called me by my name."

In her own room, she remembered that she had not told him Peter would be here to-morrow. Well, she could tell him over breakfast...

Chapter XI
Not Evidence

"COME in, Chief," Head invited. "It's nothing secret. This is Mr. Thorn, who looked in on me yesterday afternoon, you remember."

Thorn rose to his feet as Wadden entered, and Head murmured: "Superintendent Wadden, Mr. Thorn." Then Thorn uttered a pleasant greeting, but the Superintendent's rejoinder as he drew up a chair and seated himself by the end of Head's desk sounded decidedly unfriendly.

"Mr. Thorn acted on my suggestion and went investigating last night, and has just been telling me the results of his expedition," Head pursued. "He appears to have had beginner's luck, too. Was there anything special you wished to see me about, Chief?"

"No, it can keep," Wadden answered. "So you found things, Mr. Thorn? Any sign of the missing man among them?"

"I'm afraid not," Thorn answered frankly, "but I felt I ought to come and tell Mr. Head what I did find, to hear if he thought it enough to justify inquiry. And apparently he does not."

"The sum of it"—Head glanced at some pencilled hieroglyphs on his blotting pad—"doesn't really impress me. Here's what it amounts to, Chief. A youngster in The Feathers said in Mr. Thorn's hearing last night that he saw Chalfont and Wilson returning along the road from Crandon very late on Wednesday night—somewhere about midnight, it seems—and they were speeding in their car, which is a very fast one. Returning from Crandon to Todlington, of course, means coming from the direction of London. Next item—as I have them down here—Parham's man called at The Firs to deliver petrol on Wednesday afternoon, and found the place entirely deserted. It would be about the time that Chalfont drove Logan to the station here, but Wilson was absent from The Firs too. At least, Parham's man could find nobody at all about the place. They have a servant named Higgs, but she was not there either. Next, something that will interest you, Chief. Miss Loretta Ashford is marrying Chalfont within a month, according to Bill Adams, the Todlington postman, who had a long tale to tell about her being at The Firs on Tuesday evening, alone with Chalfont. Finally, the two have a mysterious shed at the back of the house there, which they always keep locked. Villagers don't appear to like them, and suggest the shed is used as a bomb factory—as they would, of course."

"They'll say anything except their prayers, and when they come to that they just whistle," Wadden observed. "Well, there appears to be nothing in all this, Mr. Thorn, as nearly as I can see."

"Especially as one of these villagers—the one named Phil, I believe you said, Mr. Thorn," Head remarked, "made it fairly clear to you that he saw Chalfont driving a red-whiskered man—who must have been Mr. Logan—away from The Firs toward Carden and Westingborough on Wednesday afternoon. I have evidence from the ticket collector here that Mr. Logan arrived with Chalfont, and caught his train."

"Which takes him clear out of our territory," Wadden added. "Not our case, Head. Besides, he may have turned up, by this time."

"Neither at home nor at his office in London," Thorn said. "I rang them both from the hotel before coming over here."

"I thought—you're not taking it up, I suppose?" Thorn asked in reply. "I mean, if I suggest doing anything, subject to Mr. Head's approval, you won't regard me as interfering, I hope?"

"Within reason we will not," Wadden assured him. "As for us, we are parking our tails in our office chairs till something comes along to lift us out. I'd hate to be called officious through going looking for trouble, and this is most decidedly not our case."

"Then—I was thinking of going over to see these two men," Thorn suggested, with a questioning glance at Head. "To—well, to see what impression of them I get, really, and also to see if there is any chance of finding out what became of Wilson on Wednesday afternoon."

"I have no objection to your seeing them, but a most decided one to your questioning either of them about their movements on Wednesday," Head answered him. "In the event of its becoming our case—"

"That is, if Wilson went up by the same train as Logan, murdered him, and chucked the body into a river as the train was going over a bridge," Wadden interposed. "Which, obviously, he didn't. Get what impressions you like, Mr. Thorn, and where you like, but don't create an atmosphere of suspicion, anywhere. There's no justification for it."

After he had bidden them both good morning and gone out, Wadden shook his head and blew gently.

"Let him alone, and he'll play for days," he observed. "There's a small spot of trouble about some sheep over at Westingborough Parva, Head. I want you to run over and see about it, if you will."

That morning, Loretta Ashford broke open an envelope addressed to her in unfamiliar handwriting, and, glancing at the signature of the letter she took out, saw Chalfont's name—he had never had occasion to write to her before. She read the letter:

"You said, before you went away, that you would tell your father and mother about us when they return home to-morrow (Friday). My dear, will you leave it to me to tell them, as soon as I am able to come and see them—and you? I'd rather you left it to me, please. But—no doubts nor fears, my own Loretta, for in less than a month, now—

"There is no possibility of getting over on Saturday, after all. I am on an experiment which I cannot leave to Wilson, and over which I have to be here to watch developments—more chemistry, which may have big results, though not as big as the screen. Can you ride over on Sunday afternoon for tea? I want you here, darling, all the time, and even if it is only for an hour I shall be glad. Please try—I shall look for you—and forgive me about Saturday. It is work that I dare not neglect.

Frowning, she read it over twice, and then refolded it and replaced it in the envelope. In less than a month, as he said, they had arranged to marry, and still he did not want her to tell her parents. She could not understand it: more hurt than puzzled, she sat thinking over him. There was a difference since the evening when she had let the horse go—was there? "All my love is yours, as am I." But...

But, even as she made that resolve, she knew it was futile. When Sunday came, she would go as he had asked, unwise though it might be.

The leather-gloved man in shirt-sleeves paused in his task of slashing at brambles in the ditch beside the road when a car drew up beside him. He recognized in the driver the stranger whom he had seen in The Feathers Inn the preceding evening, and Thorn recognized him too.

"Good morning. I wonder if you could direct me to a house about here called The Firs? Somewhere along here, I understand."

"Fust on the right, then. Narrer owd lane, that is. Straight along, an' you come to a gaate wi' a lot o' rodeodendrums inside. All grown up, that is—a reglar wilderness. Thass the plaace—you caan't miss it if you taake the fust turnin' on the right."

"Thank you very much," Thorn said, and let in his clutch to go on, while Phil passed a hand across his moist brow before continuing with his task, and reflected on the consternation he would cause among his cronies at The Feathers that evening, when he told them that the stranger of last night had gone to call at The Firs, obviously to report their gossip to the men whom it concerned. He raked his memory for his own share in the talk, and recalled his doubts about the tenants of The Firs having shot the moon. Well, if the big one of the pair came looking for him, he would hide: he might stand up to the little 'un, though.

With no trouble at all, Thorn found the gateway—the big gate which closed it had stood open so long that it was half hidden by rhododendron branches. He turned in, and drove to the gravelled forecourt, drawing up before the desolate-looking frontage of the house. When he pulled at the old-fashioned bell-handle, the loud clanging from within sounded to him more like a fire-alarm than an ordinary summons, and following on it he heard the clatter of footsteps on bare boards until the opening door revealed one whom he divined was "Ireen" Higgs, flashily dressed and looking anything but a serving maid.

"Oh! Well, they don't want no screens and no furniture of any sort, I can tell you right off. They're agoin' to leave."

"I don't want to sell them anything," he persisted. "It's their screen I want to see them about—either of them."

He handed her the card, which gave his name and the address of his flat in London. She scrutinized it as carefully as if she were the interested party over his visit, gave him another look, and nodded.

And then, she closed the door on him abruptly, leaving him to stand gazing at the blistered, peeling paint of its panelling, and doubtful as to whether to laugh or swear. After a few seconds, he went back to his car and took out the evening paper that Noel had found in the hotel lounge the evening before; with it under his arm he returned to the doorstep just as the door opened to reveal a man of slightly less than his own height, dark of hair and eyes and with a very small, black moustache. Wilson, Thorn guessed, as the man pulled the door wide.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Thorn," he said. "You ought not to have been left here like this, but our helot is rather a savage. Won't you come in? Something about a screen, she said."

"Yes," Thorn answered, stepping into the bare entrance hall as the other stood back, and rather surprised at the cordiality of his reception. "I take it you are Mr. Wilson."

"Yes," Thorn said again, and pointed to the headlines of the paper he held. "I saw this account of it, and felt interested."

Wilson, about to lead on to the room called the trough, paused to glance at the paper, and then stopped altogether.

"Would you mind if I have a look at that paper?" he asked. "I don't know how they got hold of anything about the screen."

Handing over the paper Thorn waited while the other man scanned the items relating to Logan's disappearance and the rainbow screen.

"Interesting," Wilson said at last. "We're so far out of the world here as to get no news, in a general way. And you—from London, I see. Journalist, by any chance? Because, if so—"

"Not a journalist," Thorn interposed. "It struck me—if there were any possibility of coming in on such a thing as this—"

"I don't know," Wilson said thoughtfully. "It's impossible to tell, yet—apparently Logan only disappeared on Wednesday night, by this account, and if he turns up again you couldn't—still—"

"We'll go right through," he said at last. "That is, if you are not in a hurry. It may be a mere waste of your time."

"Then we'll go out to it. My colleague is there, and naturally I should do nothing without him—not even tentatively. If you'll come through? You see we haven't furnished this place, except for just enough to fit our own needs. Or do I need to apologize?"

"Not in the least," Thorn assured him, and followed past the kitchen from which Ireen looked out at them, and across the yard at the back of the house to what was evidently the "shud" which had roused such dark suspicions in rustic minds. Of the care with which its secrets were guarded Thorn had evidence, for he observed that Wilson had to unlock the door, although his colleague Chalfont was within.

Thorn followed him inside, and he closed the door and locked it again. Chalfont advanced and loomed over them frowningly.

"Mr. Thorn, Jim—you saw his card," Wilson explained. "This is my partner Chalfont, Mr. Thorn. Says he might be financially interested, Jim—but have a look at this. Fame in a night, by the look of it."

He proffered Thorn's newspaper, and Chalfont took it after a murmured acknowledgement of the introduction, and began reading rather eagerly, Thorn thought. This big man seemed rather boorish by comparison with Wilson, who turned to Thorn to cover up his partner's discourtesy.

"Our workshop," he said. "Everything from carpentry to physics, you see. Chalfont provides the brains of the combine, and I'm the office boy. We had to put up this shed to get length enough for film projection. It was cheaper than adapting the stables, we found."

Thorn gazed along the shed, noting its varying fitments, and the projector at the far end from where he stood. He had come here with a vague suspicion in his mind—necessarily vague, since Logan had been seen to leave this place and set out to return to London—and now he found himself beginning to like Wilson instead of suspect him; there was something attractive, even winning about the man.

Wilson turned about and pointed at the side of the locked door, where, hinged to the side of the shed, the screen hung with only its back framing visible. "That's it," he said. "The only one, so far."

"I mean the principle of it," Thorn explained. "That newspaper article is vague about it. How can it originate colours?"

"It doesn't," Wilson demurred. "I suppose you know the principle of photography, the effect of light on a sensitized plate or film?"

Wilson nodded. "Varying intensities of shade, from almost clear film to the heavy shades such as are caused by red," he explained. "If you could see those shadings analysed—the differences of shading yielded by different colours are almost ultra-microscopic, in some cases—if you had them all spread out apart from each other, you'd see that there's a patterning of the particles—a different patterning for each of the three primary colours as well as a difference in density. Our idea—Chalfont's idea, in reality—was to produce a screen which should react to the patternings and differences in density so as to give back the colours that produced these effects in the photographic film. A very simple idea, you see—but it has taken years to perfect the fruit of the idea. We've worked, here."

There was satisfaction, even pride, in the last remark. Then Chalfont folded the paper he had been reading, and turned to Thorn.

An instant hostility toward the man possessed Thorn. As he felt that he could like Wilson, so he disliked this man.

"I suppose finance will be needed to make and market the screens," he said. "Mr. Wilson has just told me you have only this one, so—"

"Mine—yes," Thorn answered. "But—I've read it, if that's what you mean. All it has to say about the screen—the rainbow screen."

"Then you have also read, I expect, that a certain Mr. Logan represents the financial side," Chalfont said. "We are merely inventors."

"Why—what difference does it make to you?" Chalfont asked quickly. "Even supposing that—well, that he were dead?"

"Where do you come in—how did you get to know about this so soon?" Chalfont asked. "I mean, this is a last night's paper, and already you're here from London. As if you had inside knowledge."

"Of Logan, you mean?" Thorn questioned in reply, gazing steadily up at the big man, and making his query oddly significant.

"Of the screen," Wilson interposed again, and it seemed to Thorn that the smaller, more composed man of the two was saving some situation for the other. He wished he could have Chalfont to himself, for then, he felt, he might have learned something concerning Logan; but Wilson, watchful and ready, was there to thwart him—and yet he liked the man: there was a very likeable quality evident in him.

"One has to be quick over a thing like this," he explained. "If there is any chance at all—I don't know if there is, of course."

"Then his successors, whoever they may be—" Wilson said, and paused, with a glance at Chalfont that Thorn could not interpret.

"It might—I don't say that it will—but it might happen that way," Chalfont said after a long pause. "And, in that event, what?"

"Let's assume it," Thorn suggested, "and the what of it is up to you. Assuming that you have the right of disposing of the screen."

"I think I may say that we have, if Logan is dead," Wilson said. "There was a—a weakness, call it, in his contract with us. Yes."

"To the extent of fifteen thousand pounds," Wilson added, after waiting vainly for Thorn to speak.

"Conditional"—Chalfont took up the tale—"to our retaining control of the business of production, and a limit of fifty per cent annual interest on the investment of fifteen thousand pounds. If it does not yield fifty per cent in the first year of production—or the first two years—then that rate of interest may be made up to you as investor in subsequent years. But it is a limit."

"Confidence?" Wilson echoed. "The whole world is coming to us for it. Every cinema in existence will need it, once it is known."

"Logan is—" Chalfont began—but then his lips closed tightly, and he half turned away toward the far end of the shed. Again he turned back, and held out the folded newspaper to Thorn.

"I think you said this was yours," he remarked, in a different tone altogether. It was an attempt at casualness, but it failed.

Thorn took the paper. "Thanks," he said. "I might like to look at it again. I wonder, might I see this screen, now I am here."

"I think not, for the present," Wilson answered before Chalfont could speak. "It means a good deal of electric current, and our batteries are low at present. When this supposition becomes reality—that is, if you consider the proposition as we have put it to you worth while as an investment, after thinking it over. Sole control to remain in our hands, that is, as far as production is concerned."

"Exactly," Wilson concurred, "but with every opportunity to assure yourself that we are doing our best. You won't find us difficult."

"But there's Logan," Thorn pointed out, and watched Chalfont's face as he uttered the words. It told him nothing.

"Even so, it takes seven years to prove death if a missing person does not reappear, doesn't it?" Thorn asked.

"In some cases, I believe." It was Chalfont who took it on himself to answer. "But if we wait seven months it will be too long. This is a commercial proposition that must not be held back."

Chalfont's decided "He won't," was simultaneous with Wilson's "Refund, less our costs." And Thorn marked Chalfont's utterance most.

There it was: he had got what he had come to get—Chalfont was certain that Logan was dead! So it seemed to Thorn then, though he would have acquitted Wilson of a like certainty. Yet Chalfont had driven Logan to the station, and had not accompanied him in the train. Was he certain of the man's death? Or were they both merely hoping and believing that the rights in their invention would revert to them? The impression Chalfont had given had been so fleeting that, except for his equally fleeting conviction of Chalfont's knowledge, Thorn could not be sure. And the moment had passed, his opportunity of certainty with it.

"Meanwhile," Wilson said pleasantly, "at the risk of being insulting, Mr. Thorn, what about your credentials?"

"Well, you drop on us from the sky, as one might say, and appear to know more than we thought any outsider would know,"

"Well, if we are to treat with you—fifteen thousand, you know," Wilson persisted. "Without casting doubt on you, not everybody can find such a sum. Would you be principal, or have to raise it?"

"Principal," Thorn answered without hesitation. "As for my credentials, you need give nothing away until you are satisfied—just as for the present you decline even to show me the screen. You run no risk of any kind, that I can see."

"Quite true," Chalfont put in. "And we have your address. We can communicate with you when we are ready to start launching it."

"That will suit me," Thorn assented, understanding the observation as indicating that the interview was at an end. "You are quite sure you, and not Logan, will do the launching?"

But with that he knew as soon as he had uttered the words, he went too far. Momentarily, a gleam of anger showed in Chalfont's eyes, and Wilson's face, too, set into unfriendly lines. The silence seemed long before Wilson answered, and then he turned and gestured at the screen.

"That should have been taken away yesterday," he said, "and Logan has neither sent for it nor given any sign of life. Therefore we conclude, adding this to the fact of his disappearance—well, what would you conclude under the circumstances, Mr. Thorn?"

Thorn made a gesture which implied inability to answer the query, and Wilson moved toward the door. Chalfont inclined his head coldly.

"Quite possibly," Thorn agreed coolly, and, with no further word or attempt at handshaking, followed Wilson out from the shed.

The two went through the house to the front door, and there, on the step, Wilson offered his hand with a friendly smile.

"If it comes to anything, we shall probably meet again," he said. "I think I can promise you first chance at it. So we'll make it au revoir, and I'll write you when we're ready."

Ominous, Thorn reflected as he drove away, with Wilson watching him from the doorstep. It was not forty-eight hours since Logan had vanished, and yet these two seemed to assume that he was dead, Chalfont especially. Yet, on the result of this visit, Thorn felt it would be useless to go back to Head and try to get him to make inquiries. There was nothing in all that he had learned beyond a mere impression, one that he could not convey to Head or any other with effect. And he liked Wilson, felt that in him he had met a man of whom he wished to know more, an attractive personality.

Chapter XII
Negative Evidence

"Hungry, you old sinner. So would you be, if you'd got up as early as I did and done as much as I have."

The two shook hands warmly, and then Head sat down again at his desk, while Byrne pulled forward the armchair beside the desk, and dropped into it before taking out a cigarette-case.

Byrne put his own case back and accepted a cigarette. "Nil," he said, "unless you've had a trunk call through either from London or Pensham Manor in Kent to say that Logan's turned up. I left instructions for either of 'em to telephone you here, if he does."

"The lark was second to me, this morning," Byrne assured him. "Watford first stop, and full inquiries there. Nobody resembling Logan got off the four-thirty from here last Wednesday. Tring next stop. Same result there—that train does far more picking up than setting down at intermediate stations, I find. Crandon next stop, and there nobody at all got off. I've seen the men who were on duty at the barriers at each place, and Logan did not get off that train at any recognized stopping place, either on the way or at the end of the journey."

"Since I found you evidence that he got on it, it's up to you to find out what became of him," Head observed serenely.

"In still other words, you're too damned lazy to get up and help," Byrne suggested. "And I suppose Bulgy Wadden feels like that too?"

"In that case," Byrne said with equal placidity, "you'll have the pleasure of my society till the four-thirty goes out this afternoon, and then I can interview Andrew Giddens, which happens to be the name of the guard on that train, and find out if he wrapped Logan in brown paper and cloak-roomed him at Euston, or what have you."

"If you mean me to answer that, I'd say he shaved off the beard which made him distinctive, and walked out at Euston with the rest," Byrne said slowly. "He's got a poisonous old cow as secretary, and she let slip that he's doing this as a publicity stunt. She tried to start the stunt, but I squashed it yesterday evening, and probably by to-morrow Logan will turn up, since he finds it isn't working according to plan. Jerry, you've got to feed me, and soon, too. Where do we eat?"

"Across the road at the Duke of York, I think," Head suggested. "My wife is away for the day, or we'd eat at home. But if you feel that Logan is doing this for his own purpose, why keep on with it?"

"Primarily, because I'm not sure he's doing it for publicity. Secondly, for the same reason that you insist on keeping out of it—while I busy myself over this, I can't be put to doing anything else. There happens to be a particularly irritating forgery case that I don't want handed to me, and if I keep out of the way over this somebody else will be burdened with it. Therefore, I'm still looking for Logan."

"We'll go across," Head suggested, and, rising too, took his hat. "I expect we shall see your bright youth over there—the one you told me was coming to Sherlock this mystery. Like you, he's aching for me to take a hand in it, and inquiring round the district like anything."

"Good luck to him," Byrne said. "The girl looks worth it, and if Logan has met his just deserts, she'll be worth it, in hard cash."

"A glorified money-lender of the worst type, as nearly as I can make out," Byrne told him. "Probably you never heard of a business called Ansendaga, but he turned quite a few people into paupers over it, and I'd say a good few of them would cheerfully bump him off if they could be sure nobody was looking. Then those two who designed or invented this screen—they're hopping mad over the way he tied them down so that he could take all the profits after they'd done the donkey work, though the deal is perfectly legitimate on the face of it, and they've no right to scream. A long-headed shark, this Logan, with a gizzard in place of heart, as nearly as I can make out."

"Then still less do I feel inclined to take a hand in it," Head observed as they entered the hotel. "Do you feel like a modest one before lapping your soup, or is the hunger too urgent for that?"

"Lead on," Byrne responded. "Anything you say goes, as long as it goes straight to the inner man. If you'd got up before the milk and caught as many trains as I have to-day, you'd be more sympathetic."

They entered the big lounge and went to the long bar, where Head gave the necessary order. Quite near them, a smallish man with a little black moustache—it was no more than a clipped darkness on his upper lip—appeared to meditate over a glass of amber fluid.

"So I understand," Head answered, and noted that the man near them appeared to stiffen with interest, though he studiously averted his face. Byrne's question must have been fully audible to him. "Wadden saw them here—yes, I expect they'll be at lunch when we go in."

"Umm-m! Well, I don't know that it makes any difference. I've nothing to tell them, and probably they have nothing to tell me."

The man whom Head had observed finished the contents of his glass and went out from the lounge. With—

"Just a moment, Jerry," Head followed him to the outer doorway, and standing there, saw him enter a touring Vauxhall, narrow-bodied and noisy when he started the engine, and go off toward the London road. The car literally shot away, betraying a turn of speed well above the average, and Head returned to the bar.

"Both feet in it, Jerry," he remarked. "I may be no more than a provincial bacon-walloper, but I don't recall being guilty of a slip of that sort. Yes, both feet in it, up to the knees."

"Meaning that the man next us was Wilson, and he's hared off back to Chalfont with information you let drop by mentioning those two names in his hearing. Thorn was going to see them this morning—yes, I have it, now! They didn't know Thorn was connected with Logan, and he didn't tell them. And now by mentioning her name you've given it away."

"Umm-m!" Byrne's tone acknowledged his error. "But then—" he began, and broke off, frowning thoughtfully. "If they—Jerry, are you quite sure you don't come into this? Why should that chap nearly choke himself over a glass of beer and fly out of the place as if I'd bitten him, just because Thorn happens to be connected with Logan?"

He gave a careful glance round before he mentioned the name, but now they were well beyond hearing of any other occupant of the lounge: Wilson had been quite alone while he had stood near them.

"In that case, what did he do with Logan?" Byrne demanded. "You can't stuff a full-grown man under a seat without his getting found."

"Are they perchance in with Logan on this publicity stunt, and is he afraid I shall bust it up?" Byrne reflected aloud. "But no—they don't love him enough to back him up in that or anything else. Jerry, I've nothing to say against your suggestion of fluids, and that one went down very cheerfully, but it needs solids to back it up. Do we?"

They moved on to the dining-room, and Byrne shook his head gravely as he seated himself with Head in a window bay, remote enough from other lunchers to prevent their talk from being overheard.

"Thorn's collecting a harem," he remarked. "The golden-headed one is Miss Logan, but he's collected another, I see. Yes, waiter, I will take soup, fish, joint—everything. And a pint tankard of bitter."

"You may double that order," Head added, and the waiter left them. Then Byrne leaned across the table. "Don't look round," he bade. "By the look of it, Thorn's coming over to speak to us."

The young man approached their table, and gave Byrne a smile and nod of greeting. "Just to tell you, Mr. Head, that I went over to Todlington this morning and saw both Wilson and Chalfont."

"It seemed to me—I am not quite sure about it—it seemed to me that Chalfont is certain Mr. Logan is dead. With less than two days elapsed since his disappearance. He seemed to assume it."

Thorn shook his head. "Not so—not so definitely. But he turned out an old Vauxhall thirty-ninety-eight just after I had left there—if he didn't, I don't know where he got it from—and started to track me here. I pulled in at the top of Condor Hill and let him pass me, and after that saw no more of him, but I think he meant to trail me."

"Since I'd driven up the hill, he would know I was coming to Westingborough," Thorn pursued. "Otherwise, I should have turned to the right in Carden." He turned to Byrne. "I suppose you've no news, Inspector?" he asked. "I rang through to Mr. Logan's home and office before coming in to lunch, but neither place has anything to report."

"One moment, Mr. Thorn," Head put in. "Did you betray any interest at all in Mr. Logan or his disappearance, in talking to Wilson and Chalfont? Did you give any impression of having known him or Miss Logan?"

"None whatever," Thorn assured him. "I posed as someone interested in this screen from a financial point of view, and nothing more."

"Then don't go near them again," Head advised. "They know by this time that you and Miss Logan are staying in this hotel together—more or less together, that is. You won't be welcome if you go to see them again. Not that I impute any responsibility for Logan's disappearance to them, mind, but merely that they would hardly like you, now."

"Well!" Thorn's expression betrayed his dismay. Then he edged aside to make way for the waiter, returning with the soup plates.

Byrne gave him a soulful, melancholy stare. "I'll let you know if I have news of any kind, Mr. Thorn," he said.

The hint was obvious, and Thorn took it and went back to his own table, where both his sister and Noel Logan gave him inquiring glances.

"Nothing," he said gloomily, "except that they think I've put my foot in it. And Head seems determined to do nothing at all."

"I'm beginning to wonder whether they are," Thorn retorted, voicing his exasperation. "You'd think one of them would do something."

While Byrne, putting down his soup spoon and taking up his tankard, observed—"Skin off your nose, Jerry. It's not often I get a day off like this. Pleasant sort of life you lead, doing nothing all the time."

"On your way down here, while you were making inquiries at those various stations, I suppose you concentrated on somebody resembling Logan, didn't you?" Head asked, after he had put his tankard down.

"Naturally—what would you? I have your word for it that he got on the train here. I've two photographs of him, and used them, too."

"I'm not so sure that I'm not, now. I wonder, Terry, did it strike you to inquire if any passenger who might not have a beard like Logan's got off the train, and paid his fare because he'd lost his ticket?"

"By gosh!" And now Byrne stared, his normal expression replaced by one of amazement. "Now kick me for an idiot."

"Don't look quite so much like one," Head advised. "This is a public dining-room, remember. But if Logan thought it worth while to work this publicity stunt, he's clever enough to do the thing thoroughly. Therefore, he'd get rid of that distinctive beard and then drop off the train either at Watford or Tring—Crandon's too near here, and a stranger might be noticed, since it isn't a large place. Also, he wouldn't have time to shave properly between Westingborough and Crandon, now I come to think of it. And when he did drop off, he wouldn't hand in the return half of a first-class ticket between Westingborough and Euston—it would be too easily traced. Theory, of course—how do you like it?"

"I am not pleased with me," Byrne answered. "But—" He did not end it, but attacked his fish as if it were an enemy.

"I know," Head said. "You're seeing yourself dropping off at those stations again, and inquiring this time for a clean-shaven, middle-aged gent, or anyone at all, who turned up off that train to pay his fare because he hadn't got a ticket, and—"

"I'm seeing myself damned before I do anything of the sort!" Byrne broke in emphatically. "If he likes to play the fool like that, let him! I'm going back to report that as the likeliest explanation of how he's started his publicity stunt, and he can get on with it."

"You mean that—with Wilson bolting out of the long bar as if we'd bitten him, and Thorn's remark about their belief that Logan is dead?"

"Unless you prop Logan's corpse up at the end of this room, I mean just that," Byrne answered with decision. "I've put the press off being fooled, and now I'm putting myself off being fooled any more. Damn Logan and his advertising tricks! I'm not helping him."

"That being so," Head said calmly, "you might let me have a copy of each of those photographs of him that you say you have, and we'll both go up on the four-thirty—as far as Watford."

"Because, if he did get to London, it's your affair, and not mine. If he got off elsewhere, I want to know what became of him. Terry, the big man, Chalfont, saw him as far as the station here—and the little one with the dark moustache whom we saw in the long bar just now was missing from their place on Wednesday afternoon. You see?"

"Not on the train at all but after Logan got off it," Byrne said thoughtfully. "Followed him, and—no! That man's no killer, Jerry."

"Apart from the habitual criminal—no," Byrne agreed, and then he brooded while the waiter changed their plates. "Where did he join the train, though?" he asked when they were secure from observation again.

"Crandon?" Head made the reply an interrogation. "Or did he go one station back, so that he was in it and saw Logan come aboard? It's all the merest conjecture, Terry, and pretty badly based at that."

"M'yes," Byrne agreed again. "It's darned near as difficult to conceal a body anywhere out in the country as in a train, though not quite. We're stretching points, Jerry—are you really coming with me on the return journey? Waste of time, I think."

"I'll risk it," Head said. "And if that man with no ticket did get off, I'll see how far I can get toward finding out who got off with him. I've got Wilson's description registered in my mind."

"If you're right, Jerry, he went one station back, so as to be sure Logan would catch it. He wouldn't go forward to Crandon. But it's all too wildly improbable—Logan's doing this on his own, keeping hidden minus his beard till the agitation makes both him and the screen famous. I tell you, man, Wilson isn't that sort. On the one look at him that I got, he's a decent little bloke, incapable of a crime like that."

"We'll journey together as far as Watford," Head insisted. "I don't know how the trains back run, but at the worst our midnight train from London stops at Tring, and I can get Jeffries to meet me with the car at Crandon and fetch me back here, by wiring him."

"What's biting you?" Byrne asked abruptly. "Why this sudden interest, when you began by being so pleased it wasn't your case?"

"To assure myself that it isn't. Chalfont and Wilson were seen in their ex-racer, an old Vauxhall, making good time home along the road from Crandon—the London road, that is—on Wednesday night, and as nearly as I can gather it was near on midnight. Which looks as if Chalfont had gone Londonward to pick up Wilson, for he was here in Westingborough with that car as late as five o'clock Wednesday afternoon. If Logan got off at an intermediate station without his beard, and saved himself from giving up a Westingborough ticket by paying his fare from anywhere at all, and if another man corresponding to Wilson got off too, then I begin to be very interested indeed."

"Further inquiries—and no beard mentioned—at Euston?" Head suggested rather than asked.

"Not a hope. Two days ago, and the collectors at those barriers check thousands through. Minus the beard, Logan would be utterly inconspicuous, and they wouldn't remember him."

"Not if he paid the fare to avoid giving up a ticket with Westingborough on it? They give receipts for paid fares, surely?"

"Alternative theories," Head remarked thoughtfully. "The first, Logan is in hiding for the sake of publicity, and shaved off his beard before getting off the train and disappearing. The second, Wilson joined the train at its last stop before Westingborough, saw Logan board it here, and tracked him down when he got off—and I'm not in the least in love with this second theory. The men who invented that screen are not fools, by a long way, and it would be a fool who would commit a murder of that sort. Disposing of the body would be too difficult."

"To make certain that Wilson did not get off the train with Logan. The trail is two days old already—if I let it get any older, I shall not be able to learn anything at all, while if I inquire to-day I may."

Byrne took out a large wallet from his breast pocket, and extracted from it two unmounted, half-plate photographic prints, copies of the two he had secured from Logan's office. Head scrutinized them both.

"Yes, and the beard red—but there won't be any beard," he observed. "If there were, you'd have got some trace of him. Hair?"

"Was darker than the beard, but going grey now," Byrne answered. "Eyes, grey. Height, five feet nine, or thereabouts. Dressed on Wednesday in a dark grey suit, and carrying a fawn raincoat and a large attaché case—or small suit-case—with the initials 'G.N.L.' on its lid. Inside that case were six reels of cinematograph film and some papers, including his copy of the agreement he made with Chalfont and Wilson for the sale of their screen—"

"He took that with him," Byrne assented. "Whether he were fool enough to let those two know he had it with him is more than I can tell you. But his Miss Enderby told me she got it out for him and saw him put it in the case. There was also a cheque for five thousand two hundred pounds, unsigned when she last saw it, but signed—and no forgery, either—when it got to his bank. He signed it at The Firs after making sure that everything was in order there."

"And Chalfont paid it in at the bank here after seeing Logan off," Head concluded for him. "What sort of hat and shoes was Logan wearing when he left London to come here on Wednesday?"

"Even if they knew he had the agreement with him, they didn't do anything about it," Head surmised, after a pause for thought.

"Otherwise, you mean, he'd not have signed the cheque—or, if he did sign it, wouldn't have got aboard the train without taking measures to stop payment. No. And they seemed quite friendly at the station?"

"On the word of the ticket collector, Chalfont stood by the barrier till the train went out, and then waved a friendly good-bye."

"I don't like that," Byrne said. "It doesn't fit in with the letter those two wrote to Logan, or with his reply to them. They may have made it all up, come to terms satisfactory to all parties, when he got to them on Wednesday. Otherwise, Chalfont wouldn't have waved a friendly good-bye. He would have wished Logan in hell."

They had reached the coffee stage, and Byrne helped himself to sugar and stirred it in while he watched Thorn and the two girls with him rise from their table and leave the room.

"Oh, plenty!" Byrne concentrated on balancing his spoon on the edge of the coffee cup. "But—Jerry, if it were not for that Miss Logan who just went out with Thorn, I'd write her father off as in hiding till the excitement about his disappearance gives him the publicity he wants for this screen. But that girl is certain he's dead, certain in an uncanny sort of way that impressed me in spite of myself. I'm not so narrow-minded as to scoff at intuitions of that sort."

"Yet, on what you say of his character—" Head remarked, and left it as an implication.

"Doesn't apply to her, or his relationship with her," Byrne pointed out. "To such an extent that he determined to keep her in ignorance of his business ways, and didn't make the benefit of any of his agreements transferable to her, lest she should find out his little habits after his death. She's—what's the word yes, spirituelle. Absolutely incongruous with him, but there it is. I've talked to her."

"Forget it, Jerry! A thousand to one that man is not a killer, though I only saw him for a minute. That's my intuition, if you like to call it that."

"I will now get the bill, and pay it," Head observed. "And still, in spite of your intuition, I'll come with you as far as Tring."

"You said Watford, before," Byrne reminded him. "I've changed my mind. Tring seems to me more likely."

"Oh, that's my intuition. Let's go across again, and you can have a word with Wadden. He likes you."

Chapter XIII
Evidence

LONG-BONNETTED, narrow-bodied, high-slung and ugly by modern standards, the Vauxhall took the gradient of Condor Hill with little diminution of speed, and with a deep, purring roar that told of a throttle opened to very near its limit. But the exhaust was smokeless: Wilson himself had fitted new piston rings not a month before, and, shabby and ugly though it was, the car was still very nearly in Brooklands trim.

Nineteen out of twenty drivers, on reaching the top of the hill and emerging from the cutting to view of the country beyond the crest, either brake to slow or stop altogether because of the marvel of the landscape: Wilson was the twentieth, for he let the Vauxhall shoot forward and down and spared not a glance from the road before him for the splendour revealed. He may have glanced across to the middle distance, where the house that sheltered him and Chalfont stood invisible beyond a dark mass of firs, but, if so, it was with no realization of beauty, but a consciousness that that was his goal. He wanted to get back, to tell Chalfont that Thorn was no more nor less than Logan's agent: his normally pleasant expression had given place to grimness as he drove.

Down and down and down, the powerful engine idling, driven by the car rather than driving it, until he opened out at the foot of the long hill and shot past the Carden Arms, where Cortazzi, the proprietor of the hotel, lifted a hand in greeting to the car rather than the man, all unseen by Wilson. An abrupt swerve to the right, halfway along the village street, and he was off the main London road and in the lane leading past Carden vicarage and station to Todlington. Now he had to travel more slowly, for the winding lane was none too wide, at first: passing the station, he came to a straight stretch of road of about a mile, and again opened out to make good time.

But, from the far end of the straight, a horse came toward him, its rider leant forward, as he could discern while the horse and car neared each other. It was keeping the very middle of the road, travelling at a mad gallop, and when not a quarter of a mile remained between it and the car the rider lifted a hand, as if to bid him halt. With a scrape of skidding brakes he slowed the car, and swung it almost at right angles to the road, full in the middle to block the horse's progress. Then he waited, and saw that the animal, wide-nostrilled and with staring, mad eyes, saw the obstacle. For a moment he had an inward question: would it attempt to jump him and the car, or would it realize the leap as too much for it? The hoofs clattered on the crown of the road—it was very near him, now!—and then with a grinding, sliding rattle the animal pulled up, its flared nostrils within a yard of his face.

Loretta Ashford got down, and took her reins over. Wilson got out from the car and faced her, smiled back at her smile.

"Best thing," he said. "I'd not much time to make up my mind. But a beast in that state generally runs blind, and if I'd tried to pull into the side and let you pass he'd probably have blundered into me and killed you. If I hadn't been there, of course, he might have run to a standstill, with you none the worse. Am I forgiven?"

"You did the best thing," she answered, "and the way you pulled across to block the road was simply marvellous. To do it in the time, I mean. But—there's a lorry coming along from Carden."

Wilson got back into the car, and straightened it alongside the road. The lorry went rumbling past, and he got out again and faced Loretta. Her horse, all its madness over now, stood behind her with its head low, breathing in long gasps that alternately distended and deflated its flanks.

"He's only done this once before," she explained, "and then it was out hunting, and I managed to steer him clear of hounds and teach him he mustn't. No, it isn't my usual mount, Joyous Errand. This is the one my daddy named Morning After, but when he plays tricks like this I feel he ought to have been named Night Before. If you hadn't been in the way, I'd have held him to his gallop as far as Carden, and by that time he'd have been glad to walk. But—well, here we are."

"And—?" Wilson asked, gazing at her in a way that was almost a stare. "I'm sorry—no, I'm not, though—that I was in the way."

"Was, when I set out for Westingborough," Wilson answered. "Is yet, I expect. I've got the car, as you see. Yes, he'll be there."

For a moment—a moment too long—Wilson looked puzzled. Then he played up gallantly to Chalfont's unseen lead. "You can search me," he said. "It's his affair, all of it. I don't know anything."

For a minute or so there was silence between them, and Wilson knew that he had blundered, but could not tell how. Then she spoke again.

"I wonder—I think you're a good friend," she said. "And since you're his friend—do you mind if I speak out, though?"

"He wrote to me—I received the letter this morning," she explained, speaking with utter frankness. "I had told him, since we are to be married in less than a month, that I intended to tell my parents when they return home to-day—up to the present they do not even know that he and I have met. I told him that I should tell them, and asked him to come and see them to-morrow. Now, in this letter, he asks me not to tell them, and puts off coming to-morrow because of a new experiment. An excuse—I know now it is no more than that, through you."

"That night—it was the night before this man Logan came to see you and him, the one when I let my horse go. To force Jim's hand—I knew he cared, and it seemed to me that he was trying to break with me for my sake, making that sacrifice. So it seemed to me, and I wouldn't let him do it. Do you see? I purposely compromised myself."

"Even that night I felt I had forced him too far by doing that," she went on, "and since then I feel there has been and is a difference. In the way in which he regards me, I mean—I'm speaking very plainly indeed to you, Mr. Wilson, because I think you can tell me if I am right about this. His letter—without it, probably I should never have asked you or anyone such a thing as this, but now I do ask, and I believe you know him well enough to tell me. Is it all my imagining, or is there a difference in his regard for me—did I spoil myself that night by forcing him to hold to me instead of making me go?"

Facing her, he stood silent for so long that at last she took a pace back from him and gathered up her reins to mount the horse again. "I see," she said, with a tinge of bitterness. "You have answered me."

"No—wait!" he bade. "I was thinking—how to put it. Supposing you—when have you arranged to see him again?"

"Say nothing in reply to his asking you to come, and stay away," he repeated. "Also, when and if he talks of marriage inside a month, put it off indefinitely. You're neither of you so old that six months will make too much difference. Jim's exactly like any other man—if he realizes he's got to fight to hold you, he'll value you at something nearer your real worth. You've got to reverse the positions, not fight to hold him. Mind, I don't doubt his caring for you—he does care—but he won't realize it until he fears to lose you. Make him fear it."

"And then he'll simply let me go, as he meant me to go," she objected. "I see your reasoning, but is yours a safe course?"

"Think again," Wilson urged gravely. "If, after agreeing to marry you within less than a month from now, Jim lets you go like that—is his love worth your having? Would it bring you happiness?"

"No," she answered, after a very long pause. "But—perhaps I didn't look for happiness in the ordinary sense. I don't know. It has all been so strange—abnormal—and now this last phase—"

"He cares for you," Wilson said, as she stood silent without completing her thought in words. "I should say, he loves you."

"Certainty," he answered unhesitatingly. "But—just now, we are in a strait between two things. In a little time we may soar to prosperity, and fame as well. If that happens, you won't be sorry you waited in a way that made him realize how much you mean to him. If it does not happen, you'll be no worse off. Oh, I know, I'm counselling more patience than anyone of your temperament is likely to possess, but I do counsel it, all the same. Don't appear on Sunday, and don't explain why you don't appear. Keep him guessing until he comes looking for you to find out the reason for this absence—after all, you two have contracted yourselves to marry within a given time, and he's got to find out why you've cooled. No decent man can go without an explanation of that—and Jim is a decent man."

"Ah! There speaks the woman!" There was amused causticism in his voice. "What others will say! The very greatest thing in your two lives is to be at the mercy of what others will say! The old Athenians were wiser, and still marriage should be a secret rite, something known only to the two who marry—it would save a deal of unhappiness if that were so. Impossible, I know, but for heaven's sake, Miss Ashford, put aside all thought of what other people will say! Follow your own heart and your own good sense—and my good advice, of course!—and you stand a chance of happiness. But do not marry Jim at the time you set. Make him wait, make him worry, make him realize he's getting the best prize the world could give him—and then give it."

A faint tinge of colour had come to her cheeks, forced there by anger, when he began to speak, but, when he ceased, she was smiling and looking nearer to happiness than at any point of their talk. "I believe you are right, Mr. Wilson," she said, "and I shall take your advice. But—Sunday will be difficult. He will expect me."

"You will not appear." Gazing full into her eyes, he spoke as might a hypnotist imposing his will on a subject. "You will give him no explanation, but you will not appear. And when he next mentions the subject of marriage within the month, you will put it off. After all, you are Miss Ashford of Carden Hall, and you must make him regard and treat you as such. He's a very lucky man—make him realize it."

For answer she lifted her foot to the stirrup and mounted before he could move to her aid. "I'm late for lunch, and so are you," she said, speaking down to him from the saddle. "Thank you—friend of mine."

"It's market day at Crandon," Head explained as he stood with Byrne on Westingborough station platform. "Also, they've got a new picture palace there, the last word in sumptuousness. Also, Friday is pay day for most of these people—you'll see there are more women than men—"

"Don't give me any more reasons," Byrne interrupted. "What you really mean is that there wasn't a crowd like this when Logan turned up here from Todlington last Wednesday."

"You can ask your friend the guard about that, when the train comes in," Head responded equably. "I wasn't here at this time on Wednesday."

Byrne moved back to the barrier, where Tom Adams, ticket clipper in hand, stood, the half-smile on his face denoting amused tolerance of the human freight over which he kept ward. He looked up, expectantly.

"Did you have many passengers by this train last Wednesday—from here, I mean?" Byrne asked. "Anything like this lot to-day?"

"Oh, no, sir," Tom answered. "There wouldn't be more'n half a dozen or so altogether, any day but Friday. Wednesday—lemme see. Yes, and you're with Mr. Head, I see, so it'll be about that red-whiskered gent he was askin' about, won't it?"

"There was a couple o' ladies—looked as if they might be the sort that work in shops," Tom answered, frowning slightly in the effort of recollection. "Mr. Denham, the architect here—no, it'd be Tuesday when he caught this train. Come back the same evening from Crandon, he did. Wednesday—Wednesday—" He broke off to clip tickets for an elderly woman with a convoy of three small children, and turned to Byrne again. "Two gentlemen I'd put down as farmers, strangers to me. Elderlyish, they were, booked for London, both of 'em. And the red-whiskered gent that come in with the big man—that was all, I think."

"Thanks." And Byrne returned to where Head waited, just as the train came in, and the throng of local passengers surged forward to the edge of the platform. But both Byrne and Head stood back.

The guard, a middle-aged man with an air of sedate efficiency, descended to the platform, and Byrne stopped him as he walked forward from his van at the rear end of the train.

"Ah! I was told you'd pick up the train here and want to talk to me, and maybe I can tell you something that'll help, but—are you going beyond Crandon, sir? Because I'll be rather busy till then."

"I'm going all the way," Byrne answered. "Inspector Head will probably leave the train at Tring. All right, Giddens—we'll be in the coach behind the restaurant car, and expect to see you after Crandon."

He went his way, and Byrne found an empty first-class compartment midway of the coach behind the restaurant car. He settled himself in a corner with his back to the engine as the train began to move, and Head took the seat facing him.

"If Giddens excesses us, I'll pay," Byrne promised. "We want him to ourselves, when he does come along."

He sat silent and thoughtful, looking out from the window, while the train rumbled over the river bridge and gathered speed along the Idleburn valley. To their right, Condor Hill showed plainly; on the left were the placid waters of the river, with tree-clad slopes rising beyond. Head lighted a cigarette after Byrne had refused one.

"Something that will help," Byrne sounded meditative. "Jerry, what sort of fish do you get out of this river?"

"Pike—particularly hefty pike, and the roach run to a good size," Head answered. "Trout, but not many of them. Still, I've tickled a few trout in my time along these marshes. In school holidays."

"You're a hard case," Byrne observed, and turned to gazing again at the scenery—and then they rumbled through a brief length of tunnel and came to a stop at Crandon, where half the occupants of the train, apparently, got out and made for the barrier. And, as nearly as Byrne could tell, not a single passenger joined the train here.

"If there were no more traffic than this on Wednesday—inward traffic, I mean—you'll have very little difficulty in finding out whether Wilson got aboard here," Byrne remarked as the train moved on.

"He didn't," Head said decidedly. "If he joined it at all, it was one station behind Westingborough—Giddens can tell us which is the preceding stop, for I didn't trouble to look it out. If he joined the train at all, it would be so that he could see Logan come aboard."

"No—he might risk it, knowing Chalfont would see that Logan came aboard at Westingborough," Head surmised. "But here is Giddens."

The guard slid back the door of their compartment and entered from the corridor. Now, gents, I'm at your service for a bit," he said cheerfully. "Ask me what you like, and I'll tell you all I know."

Byrne produced his two photographs. "That man," he said. "The beard he's wearing is red, and I think he had an attaché case—a leather case with initials on it. Dressed in dark grey, and was somewhere in this coach—this same compartment, possibly."

"Yes, it'd be this compartment—I remember him quite well," Giddens assented. "Initials on the case were a G. and an N. and an L. I remember that too—the case is in the lost property office at Euston."

Chapter XIV
Minus Beard

"IN the—?" Momentarily Byrne let his amazement appear, and Head, too, betrayed his deep interest in the guard's statement. Then: "Here, Giddens, sit down and tell us more. He left that case—"

"Why not begin at the beginning?" Head interposed. "First of all, what's your last stop before Westingborough on this train, Giddens?"

"Isn't one, sir," Giddens answered. "That is, she runs straight from her starting point, sixty miles in an hour and five minutes."

"I'm not supposed to sit down, sir, but I will," Giddens observed, and acted on his own words. "Yes, I opened the door for him. There was a big gent seeing him off, and he stopped at the barrier. Very tall man, curly yellow hair and no hat—untidy-looking, he was. Shabby sort of flannel suit he was wearing. The man with the beard chucked his case up on the rack, over where you're sitting, sir,"—he addressed this to Byrne—"and it'd be either this compartment of the coach or the one next it—forward of it, because this is a composite coach, and the one behind is a third. I saw him take that seat and turn to look out of the window, across the six-foot-way to the other side of the station, and then I went about my business and didn't see him again."

"I do, sir. After I'd signalled the train out from Westingborough and got aboard, I went along to the forward van, because that's the one where I make up my reports and all the rest of it. Then I got down to signal it out from Crandon, and as nearly as I know nobody left it there, and only two people got on—looked like a honeymoon couple, I thought. Loverish, anyhow—thirds. I saw 'em again at Euston when they got out, and she looked a bit tousled. I was watching the passengers off, because I'd got the case, then, and was looking for the red-bearded gent to hand it to him. But after I opened the door for him and saw him put the case up on the rack, I didn't see him again at all."

"Well, not at first I didn't. You see, it's an hour and fifty minutes from Crandon to Tring, which is why I've got time to come and tell you gents about him now. After we'd left Crandon, I came down along the train from the forward van, inspecting tickets, just as I'm doing now, and when I got to this compartment I saw the case up on the rack and him not there, and I said to myself he's gone along to the lavatory compartment at the end of the coach. And sure enough when I got to it the lock was turned to 'Engaged', so I just passed on, reckoning to pick up his ticket later. I went right down to the back and came along again, and still that door said 'Engaged', and still he wasn't in his compartment. Right, says I to myself. I'll keep an eye out for you to see if you drop off at Tring, him being easily to be recognized with that red beard, and if you don't get off there I'll come along again and punch you—the ticket, that is—before Watford. So I kept a bright look-out at Tring, and he didn't get off. I thought at first he did, because there was a suit just like his, and a hat too, and the overcoat over the man's arm, but no beard. I didn't see his face properly, but enough of it to know there was no beard."

"Because he'd got his hand up to his moustache, sort of stroking it as he went along away from the train. But there was no beard."

"Stroking both beard and moustache was a habit with Logan," Byrne remarked for Head's benefit.

"And"—he addressed Giddens again—"could you see what sort of moustache it was? Colour and size?"

"Fairly big, and either brownish or yellowish, I'd say," Giddens answered. "Mind you, sir, that's only a sort of impression, though. I had my eye open for the bearded bloke, and didn't take much notice of the man without a chin-ornament, though he was dressed rather the same."

"Well, yes, I suppose it was," Giddens assented thoughtfully. "Yes, but of course he didn't look the same man without the beard."

"I flagged the train out—we were dead on time—I flagged the train out and got aboard, nearly down at the back van—yes, it'd be the coach next to the van. Then I came along up forward along the corridors, and that lavatory door was turned to 'Vacant' when I passed it. There wasn't more than half a dozen in this coach altogether—when I say this coach, sir, I mean the one corresponding to it, the one next behind the restaurant car. And he wasn't in his compartment, and there wasn't anyone else in it, but the case was still up on the rack. That's funny, says I to myself, you can't have anything worth much in that case, or else you'd take more care of it. Anyone might have gone in there and skinned everything out of it, and you none the wiser. We gets to Watford, and out I hops to keep my eyes open for him. And never a sign of him, nor nobody in the least like him. So, after I'd flagged us out on the last lap, I hops aboard this coach, and there's the empty compartment with the case on the rack, just the same as before. There's a lavatory compartment at each end of the coach, as I expect you gents know, but both of 'em had the door lock at 'Vacant', so he wasn't in either. Then I took the case down off the rack, and took it along with me to the van at the front end of the train, because if I hadn't anyone might have seen it and gone in there and got it when we got to Euston."

"Meaning to hand it to him when he went off the platform from the train," Byrne suggested.

"Eggsactly, sir. That was my idea. I stood there while the baggage was being piled out of the van, by the porters, and I held that case so the G. and the N. and the L. on the lid was plain for everybody to see, but did he come for it? Believe me, he did not, nor there wasn't anybody like him, nor even dressed like him, let alone the beard, got off the train there. So as soon as I'd checked in and finished, I takes the case along to the lost property myself. 'Arthur,' I says, 'you'd better have a look at what's inside here before I go off, so's we can both testify to the contents, because it ain't locked.' That was so, too—all you'd got to do was to slide the two catches, and open she comes. So we both had a look inside, and there was six flat tin cases with cinema films in 'em, and a document—agreement, it was, between them initials on the lid—I forget his two first names, but the surname was Logan, and an address in Kent. Pensham—yes, Pensham, it was. And the agreement was between this Logan and two more men named Wilson and something else, but I don't remember the other name now—"

"Oh, written! All legal like, and a red stamp in the corner. I didn't read past the names, reckoned it wasn't my business. 'There, Arthur,' I says, 'that's the bloke that left it, when he got out, but don't ask me where he got out, because as far as I know he never did get out. But you know where to send it to get the reward, anyhow.'"

"Oh, yes, it was signed all right, because Arthur opened it up and looked to the end to see. And witnessed, too. The signatures were all scrawly and difficult, except the name Wilson, and the witness—I remember her name all right. Frances Enderby, it was, and written as clear as if she'd just left school and passed out top, too. Then I came away and left it to Arthur. The company'll communicate with this Logan at Pensham in due course, I reckon."

"Lord love you, sir, that's nothing, in a way of speaking," Giddens told him. "I've had a motor bike, and a case of meat pies, and a sewing machine, and a cage of white mice left on my hands before now. They'll leave anything. The only thing I've never had left on my hands is a baby, though I've heard of that being done more than once, and I s'pose it'll happen to me before I take my pension."

"Now for another man," Byrne said, "on this same train that same day. Do you remember a man about the same height as Logan, with a small moustache, dark or even black, and probably quite well-dressed? Either getting on the train at the start of its journey or at any other station? I can't tell you how he would be dressed, because I don't know."

Giddens smiled. "That's a pretty wide description, sir," he said. "It might cover nearly any dark gent, as long as he wasn't too tall. No, I can't remember anyone like that. There might have been, of course, and again there might not, but I don't think there was."

Giddens pondered it, and shook his head. "No. The only one about that height and build was him with the ginger moustache, which might have been the gent with the beard if he'd had a beard, which he hadn't. Gingery moustache, brown at the most, but you couldn't call it dark, and you wouldn't call it small, neither. Well grown, I'd say it was."

"Logan, minus beard, got out at Tring," Byrne asserted, to Head more than to the guard. "He shaved if off in the lavatory compartment after the train left Crandon, and dodged out by the end door of the coach at Tring. Kept his hand up to his face in the hope of covering the absence of the beard from anyone on the train who saw him."

"But why?" Head demanded. "If he wanted to be lost, why cover away the absence of the beard from people who didn't know him—why advertise the fact that it was Logan getting off the train? Still more, and this looks insuperable to me, why leave that agreement behind? Giddens, were there any other papers in that case when you examined it?"

"Look here, man, would he leave that agreement behind if he left the train of his own free will? Since the guard here says it was signed and witnessed, it was far too valuable a thing for him to leave for anyone to find—and possibly destroy for the sake of stealing the case."

"It might have been left as the white mice and meat pies were left," Byrne suggested. "Sheer absentmindedness."

"No. Since you ask me, I can't. But I agree with you it wasn't left as the babies were, out of sheer cussedness. It was worth too much for that. So we conclude he did not leave the train of his own free will. Someone yanked him out through the window with a hook."

"Well, if you'll excuse me, gentlemen?" Giddens said, and rose to his feet. "Unless there's more you want to ask me, I've got a lot to do."

"Thank you very much for the time you've already spared us," Byrne answered. "If there are any other points I think you might be able to clear for us, I suppose I could see you at Euston?"

"Yes, sir, or come along the train to the forward van. Passengers ain't supposed to come into the van, but this is different. I hope this red-bearded gent ain't been doing anything serious."

"So serious, that if I catch him alive I'll flay him for making a fool of me like this," Byrne promised solemnly.

"I think now, that you will not catch him alive," Head remarked, after the guard had left them to themselves in the compartment.

"No, I suppose I won't," Byrne agreed reflectively. "Do you know, Jerry, he didn't look at our tickets? Thirds, in a first compartment."

"Wilson—no, Wilson wouldn't have left that agreement behind either, though," Head reflected aloud. "If he'd been responsible for Logan's disappearance, he'd have taken darned good care to get hold of the agreement and destroy it. It was Logan's only hold over them."

"Wait a bit—wait a bit!" Byrne spoke with the air of one who makes a discovery. "Wilson wouldn't have left it, as you say, but Logan might. He just might—only just, I know, but still he might. Get out of your head that Wilson was on the train, and then why shouldn't Logan leave it behind? It was of no value to anyone but him, and a thousand to one it would fall into the hands of railway officials—so he would reason—and since his address at Pensham was on it they would return it to him eventually. Don't you see? To heighten the mystery of his disappearance, because we should say he couldn't possibly be such a fool as to leave a thing like that behind. Jerry, I'll scrag that devil when he does turn up! I'll commit mayhem on him."

"If he does turn up, you mean," Head cautioned. "By the look of things, he left the train at Tring. He also left his beard in the lavatory compartment, and his case on the rack, but took his moustache with him in situ, as they call it. I also will leave the train at Tring."

"Merely to make inquiries about that moustache from the man who collects tickets, and to find out if this passenger had a ticket or no. After I've communicated the result of my inquiries to you, I think I retire gracefully from the case and leave you to find Logan or not, just as you like. For it seems to me that Wilson was not on the train, and it's your meat. London isn't in my district, you know."

"Oh ha!" Byrne gibed. "What about Wilson and Chalfont haring back to their place in their car at midnight on Wednesday?"

"They'd been to the pictures, at Crandon," Head responded placidly. "It's a marvellous new cinema there, and the programmes—"

"Ah, to hell with the programmes!" Byrne interrupted disgustedly. "And the cinema! And Logan! I do hate being fooled!"

"Well, so long, Terry—glad to have had the chance of a talk with you. And you're sure you won't come and hear the result of my inquiry here and then catch the next on to Euston?"

"I will not. You'll find ginger moustache hadn't a ticket, and paid his fare, so you should get a good enough description of him to fix him as Logan. So long, old son—ring me through in the morning."

He gestured a cheery response to Giddens's salute as he made his way toward the barrier, where some dozen or more passengers were already filing through and giving up their tickets. Head waited till the last of them had passed out, turning to watch the train begin moving and to answer Byrne's farewell wave from his compartment. Then he approached the barrier, where the young, ginger-moustached collector held out his hand for the ticket. Head yielded it up, but did not pass out.

"Were you on duty here on Wednesday evening, by any chance?" he asked. "At this same time, I mean?"

Silently, Head produced a card from his pocket, and held it out for scrutiny. The man gazed at it, and then up at his questioner.

"I'm sorry, sir," he explained frankly. "You see, there was an aged lady here threatened to report me for insolence because I didn't carry a time table of the whole system and the Irish railways as well in my head. She wanted to know if she could make Londonderry from Belfast and then go on to Cork, and how long it'd take her and what were the customs regulations between North Ireland and the Free State, and she said she'd report me for not knowing—ignorance and insolence, it was. But if I can help you in any way, sir—" and he looked the rest of the sentence, with no hostility at all. "I thought you might be a relation of hers, or something of that sort," he explained further. "She was Wednesday afternoon, but I haven't heard any more about it yet."

"I'd hate to be a relation of hers," Head assured him. "No, I'm not going to ask about anything outside this station. Now think back to the arrival of this same train on Wednesday evening. Have you got that? Passengers arriving here, and you collecting their tickets?"

"Carry on, sir. Middle-sized man, ginger moustache. That the one? Grey suit, grey hat, trilby. Neat-looking bloke, well dressed."

"What made you think I wanted him?" Head inquired, with an air of being tremendously impressed by the collector's perspicacity.

"Aha! Well, to tell you the truth, he was the one that stuck in my mind top side up, as you might say, and I chanced it."

"Well, I always say this here detective work is nothing but common sense and chancing it occasionally," the collector observed. "I read packs of mystery stories, and most of 'em's just tosh. Put a hair of a bloke's eyelid under the microscope, and you can tell how long he was in South America, or look at the way a jam tart was bitten and you've got the clue to the missing will—all tommy-rot, that sort of stuff. No, I guess real detection is plain slogging, and not much of a different job to mine, when you size it all up. Patience and keeping both eyes open, and most likely a natural gift for putting things together and reading 'em all into one. That's about it, ain't it?"

"A very good definition," Head agreed. "But now, about your middle-sized man with the ginger moustache. Elderly, or getting elderly. In the early fifties, say, but still spry and active. Does that fit him?"

"More or less. Fiftyish, was he? Not that I looked very close. He might have been—might have been sixtyish, but I'd have said fortyish. Hard to tell, though. It's the top thatch that tells, and he had his hat on. But—and this is why I chanced him on you, sir—he hadn't got his ticket on him. Lost it, he said, and made no bones about paying the fare here from Crandon. I rather jibbed, since he might have come from further back, but he offered his name and address, and then I let him go on paying the Crandon fare."

"It's all the same," Head assured him. "Neither name nor address would have been real, so we should have been no farther forward. A neat-looking man, well-dressed in grey, you say?"

"A darkish sort of suit, but grey. Yes, grey. Dark grey. And I can tell you another thing about that, sir. He looked as if that suit grew up with him. I've paid as much as three pound ten for a best suit, but I never had one fitted me like that did him. There was what the French call a Johnny say quaw about it, if you know what I mean."

"A Johnny say quaw—means, I dunno what it is exactly, but he's got it. He'd got it, with that suit. Sat on him like an extra skin, it did. I notice things like that, when I see 'em. Mind, I don't say I see 'em every time. But when I do, I take notice."

"Probably you don't miss much," Head said tactfully. "And now, his voice? Can you remember what it was like?"

"Hoarsish, sort of. Lord, I might have thought of it! Disguised, of course. But then, I only thought of him losing his ticket, not that he was anything—well, that you'd be looking for him. Naturally. The law says a man's innocent till he's proved guilty, don't it? And whether he was smash-and-grab or plain murder, it wasn't for me to suspect him when he offered to pay his fare, was it, now?"

"Ah! Now you're reckoning me a full-blown detective, sir, which I ain't. I didn't say hoarse, but hoarsish. Rather low and quiet, not high pitched. Not even naturally high pitched, but low down—more like a drum than a fife. And his eyes and hair—well, I didn't take that much notice. Darkish, that's all I could say, just by a glance. Maybe his hair was grey under that hat, and maybe it was ginger or brown or black, and maybe his eyes were grey or blue or brown or even black. I know it wasn't too light when I was writing the receipt for his fare—it'd come over a bit cloudy—and he took the receipt and didn't even say thanks, but buzzed off out as if he was in a hurry. No baggage—not even a walking stick. But—ginger moustache and grey suit, and I wouldn't swear to anything more than that. Sorry, but I daren't."

"I dunno. I really don't know. You'd think you wouldn't miss a thing like that, but maybe he had and maybe he hadn't. I can't swear."

"Well, I think that's all, then. Except—would you know this man if you saw him again?"

"I think I would, sir, but I can't be dead sure. On a job like this, we see so many, you know. I believe I would, but I'm not sure."

"Many thanks for the help you've given me. One thing more. The next train down, stopping at Westingborough—or at Crandon."

"Next for Westingborough"—the collector looked up at the station clock—"in twenty-three minutes exactly, over on the other side. It doesn't stop at Crandon though—you'd have to wait two hours and a quarter—no, two hours and eighteen minutes—to get one for Crandon."

"Near enough—many thanks. Good night." And Head walked on out from the station. Twenty-three minutes was enough for his purpose.

He found a telephone box in a hotel, and dialled TRU. When the trunk operator answered, he asked for Carden 75, and got his connection almost instantly, recognizing the voice at the other end.

"Inspector Head speaking, Sergeant Plender. I want any information you can give me about a narrow, high-powered Vauxhall car, blue body and aluminium bonnet, on Wednesday afternoon or evening. Owned by Chalfont—yes, Mr. Chalfont—and Wilson of The Firs, Todlington. Probably driven on Wednesday afternoon by Mr. Chalfont, a very tall man with curly yellow hair and no hat on it. Have you got that, so far?"

"Well, any time after noon on Wednesday. Where was the car, who was driving it, which way was he headed—any time between noon and midnight on Wednesday. Also—and I don't think you'll be able to get anything on this, but you might try—also particulars of the whereabouts of Mr. Wilson of The Firs between noon and midnight of Wednesday. Full particulars as to where seen and where going. Have you got that?"

Plender repeated back the instructions, and got Head's confirmation of his repetition. Then Head came out from the telephone box and went back to the station to catch that train to Westingborough. He had done all that he could, now, to prove to Byrne that this was not his case.

Chapter XV
Cortazzi, and Others

"SO, on the whole, you had a pleasant afternoon off," Wadden observed at the conclusion of Head's recital of his doings, "and Logan got off the train at Tring, and now Byrne can finish what there is of it. Or not, just as he likes. Nice chap, Byrne—I like him."

"What I don't like is Logan leaving that case on the rack with an important document like that in it. I can't see a man of his character forgetting it—that is, as Byrne described his character to me."

"Some long while ago," Wadden said meditatively, "there was a feller came to sell me an infallible memory system. You bought his book and studied it—it was in twelve lessons, I remember—and after that you never forgot anything. He told me he knew it was perfect, because he'd tried it himself, and he did his damndest to sell me that book. But I held out against him, and he went away sorrowful. It was a first-rate umbrella, and I suppose he hadn't the nerve to come back for it. I used it for years when I turned out in mufti for anything."

"I dunno. Why worry? If he chose to disguise himself and get off the train at Tring without that infernal beard, it's his own affair, surely. And if that girl over at the Duke of York—that daughter of his—hadn't kicked up all this fuss, nobody would have been worried."

A knock sounded on the door, and Wadden shouted: "Come in!" and blew his disgust at being wanted thus early in the day. But Sergeant Plender entered in response to his bidding, and dispelled his fears.

"I had to come over this morning, Mr. Head," Plender explained, "so I thought I'd report direct on what you asked me on the telephone last night, and Jeffries told me you were in here with Mr. Wadden. About that old Vauxhall car belonging to the two men at The Firs over at Todlington. I didn't see anything of it myself, but I had a word with Constable Sprott this morning about it, and he saw it, Wednesday afternoon."

"Nobody, to begin with," Plender told him. "Sprott came along Carden Street toward the foot of Condor Hill, he told me, about a quarter to half-past five on Wednesday, and the car was standing out in front of the Carden Arms. It stopped there, apparently, till something after seven—at least, Sprott says he'd have seen it if it had been driven away either toward London or Todlington before then, because he was out in the street most of the time. Then, at something after seven—he's not sure of the exact time, but it was after seven—the big one of the two men, the one with curly yellow hair who goes about without a hat, he passed Sprott in the car, going toward London at a fearful lick. It was lucky for him the street was clear at the time, Sprott says."

"No—went straight along the London road, toward Crandon. He may have been only going there, of course, and as far as his pace is concerned, they both drive as if the day of judgment was just behind 'em, as you might say. And neither Sprott nor I saw it come back."

"No," Head said, very thoughtfully. "It came back at somewhere about midnight, and both men were in it then. Past seven when Chalfont left the Carden Arms in it, you say. Then he was at the Carden Arms, to Sprott's knowledge, for the best part of two hours."

"Unless he parked the car outside while he went somewhere else," Plender agreed, "and Sprott didn't see him anywhere else. Oh, and you asked about the other one, Mr. Wilson. No trace of him between noon and midnight of Wednesday, as far as I can make out."

"Nothing much, sir. Sprott told me he had a talk to Bill Adams, the Todlington postman, who's a rare old gossip and told him that the two at The Firs get a lot of parcels. Heavy parcels containing chemicals, according to Adams—he doesn't like the trouble of delivering 'em, I gather. And they have a daily girl to do their housework—Ireen Higgs, her name is. According to Bill Adams, she makes a good thing of her job, and dresses according—silks and satins, as Bill put it when he was gossiping to Sprott. Of course, it is only gossip," he ended apologetically, "but you never know what may be useful."

"Except for a yarn that Bill Adams got hold of somehow, to the effect that Miss Ashford of Carden Hall is going to marry the big man, Chalfont, almost at once, but that's too ridiculous altogether."

"Maybe," Head observed, "but when you come to what women will do—well! And the habits of these two men at The Firs—do you know anything about them? What they do, whom they know—anything?"

"They appear to keep absolutely to themselves, sir," Plender answered. "Don't seem to know anyone about here or go anywhere. But about that rumour of Bill Adams's—I expect you know Miss Ashford goes riding all over the place out of the hunting season. She's been seen riding along the lane that goes past The Firs several times lately, and I expect that's how the rumour started. Village folk like something to talk about. I'll see about inquiring more particularly if you wish, sir."

"Not worth it," Wadden grunted, speaking for the first time since the sergeant's entry. "It's indirect, Plender—nothing to do with us."

"By the nine o'clock bus from Carden, sir," Plender answered, and evinced a momentary surprise at the question.

"I know your view, Chief," Head said, interpreting the look. "Perhaps it is nothing to do with us. Perhaps Wilson had merely gone over to Crandon for something or other, and Chalfont went there to fetch him back—but if so, what were they doing till near on midnight?"

"The puzzle of it irritates me," Head said, and let his irritation appear in his voice. "Logan shaving off his beard I can understand, but not his leaving that case in the train. Where was Wilson on Wednesday—did he get away early and go back to the starting point of that train, to be on it when Logan joined it? He didn't join it at Crandon, we know with a fair amount of certainty, and apparently Logan got out of it at Tring, which is the next stop. Chief, I'm going to make some more inquiries over this, just to satisfy myself, and not because I have any definite suspicion of Wilson or Chalfont or anyone else. And now, before I go over to Carden with Plender—"

"Wait a bit," Wadden counselled. "Did you ring Byrne and tell him the result of your inquiries at Tring?"

"Well, naturally—it was the first thing I did on arrival here this morning. I'd promised him I would."

"He said he'd keep Logan out of the papers if it were the last act of his life. He's hopping mad at the man. Now I've just thought of something, Chief—a line of inquiry here, perhaps. See you again before I start for Carden—ask Plender to wait if he gets back before I do."

He went out and, retrieving his hat from his own room, made his way out from the police station and along the street until he came to Parham's garage, the principal one in the district. There he asked for the foreman, who appeared with very little delay.

"I want to know—you deliver petrol by lorry at Todlington on Wednesdays, I understand," Head began on him. Is it possible for me to see the man who went out with that lorry last Wednesday?"

"Why, yes, sir, if he's not gone out yet. Pillinger, it'll be. If you'll wait a second, I'll see if he's on the premises."

After an interval of many seconds, Pillinger appeared, a trifle nervous over being summoned to an interview with a police inspector. But his nervousness vanished with Head's first question.

"You were delivering petrol at The Firs, Todlington, last Wednesday afternoon, I understand. Whom did you see there?"

"I oughter delivered it, but didn't, sir," Pillinger answered. "I had to call again next day, because Wednesday there was nobody at all about the place, and I didn't know how much they'd want, ne nothing."

"A good deal more'n that, sir. Drove in—there's plenty of room to turn a lorry in the yard in front of the house—an' went to the front door to start with. They got a bell like a fire alarm, one o' the old-fashioned sort you pull, an' in a general way the gal Ireen comes along to tell me how many cans they want. I give her about five minutes, last Wednesday, an' she didn't answer my ringin'. So then I went round to the back—I allus take the cans round there an' put 'em in one o' the stables, which ain't used, now. So I went round, as I say, an' the back of the house was all locked up, an' so was the stable where they keep their petrol cans, Nobody about at all. Then I went to that long wooden shed at the back of the house, but that was all locked up too, because I tried the door, an' all the blinds was down over the winders, both sides. It's got six winders—"

"Not a bit, sir—the gal Ireen told me they guard that shed as if they made gold in it, and don't never let nobody go inside, an' keep the blinds down more'n half the time so she shan't see what they're doin' inside there. Told me she got hold of a key when they were both out one day, about a year ago, it'd be, an' managed to see inside. But she couldn't find anything but a lot of tools an' things, an' a stink you could cut chunks out of, an' she dasn't draw up the blinds to see what all the tools an' things was for, lest they should find out she'd been in there if she touched anything at all. But there wasn't a soul about the place last Wednesday afternoon."

"Somewhere between four an' five, it'd be—I'd only one more call to make, after that. Say about a quarter to five."

"Did you see anything at all of either Mr. Chalfont or Mr. Wilson anywhere on Wednesday afternoon, either before or after calling there?"

"Thanks, Pillinger. You needn't mention this inquiry of mine to anyone. Rumours are plentiful enough without that."

Reflecting that the promise, if taken literally, left Pillinger as free to talk as before, Head set off back toward the police station, but then, remembering another avenue of inquiry, turned in at the Duke of York. Since the bar was not yet open, the big lounge was empty except for a man engaged in polishing glasses and arranging them on the counter, but in the smaller room at the back he found the two girls whom he had seen in the dining-room with Thorn the day before. The smaller, golden-haired one rose at his entry and approached him.

"Oh, yes. I am Miss Logan, as perhaps you know, and that is his sister, Miss Thorn, over there. Have you any news of—of my father?"

"None. I merely wanted to ask Mr. Thorn not to leave here without seeing me. I might have a few questions to ask him."

"Now? Because, if so, I'll find him for you," she offered. "We shall not be leaving till to-morrow morning, unless—unless—"

"Not alive—I know he will not reappear alive," she said with utter, grave certainty. "Unless that is found, somewhere."

"Well"—he did his best to ignore her conviction of Logan's death—"I should like to see Mr. Thorn some time this afternoon—I haven't time to ask him all I want to know just now. Can you tell him that for me, Miss Logan, or ought I to see him myself?"

"I'll tell him for you," she promised. "He shall be waiting for you this afternoon. What time shall I say?"

"Oh, somewhere about five, I think. And—Miss Logan—on something I learned yesterday evening, you'd better get that morbid idea out of your head. No, I'm not going to put it more plainly, except to say that apart from one point which I should like to clear up, and can't at present, I am prepared to say that your father was alive and well—and had shaved off his beard, by the way—as late as seven o'clock on Wednesday evening. Therefore you've no business to feel morbid about him."

She shook her head. "It was later than that when he appeared to me," she said. "His wraith—call it what you will. Oh, I don't expect you to understand! But I know! And I'll give Mr. Thorn your message for five o'clock this afternoon. You shall see him then."

A very intense young lady, Head reflected, as he left the hotel, and not in the least the type one would expect as daughter of such a father—for Byrne had detailed his impressions of Logan's character very fully. With that as food for thought, Head turned out his two-seater, and set out with Plender for Carden. Irritation over being beaten by a problem, and nothing else, actuated him then. He had small chance of finding Logan, but at least he could clear Chalfont and Wilson of complicity in the man's disappearance—and then Byrne could do what he liked. Nothing, if Byrne's telephonic remarks earlier in the morning went for anything: his view was that Logan could go to the devil, and he—Byrne—would take care that the press took no notice whatever of him on the way. Free advertising at the expense of the police! Damn the man, damn the screen—damn everything!

Giulio Cortazzi, proprietor of the Carden Arms had taken out papers of naturalization years before, and was very proud of the fact that as a British subject he had a vote, but still he used his hands as much as his voice in conversation, and when excited grew rather unintelligible. He greeted Head very warmly: with rather fragmentary knowledge of what the law could do to him as a hotel proprietor, he believed in conciliating the police in every possible way, and, short of serving drinks in prohibited hours, would do anything for Head.

"I theenk I do not see you for vairy long time, Mr. 'Ead. Now what you laike? Zere is a beautiful lager on ze ice zis warm day. Yes-no?"

"An excellent suggestion, Cortazzi," Head assented. "I'll have one, thanks. And how are things with you here?"

Cortazzi turned and beckoned to his waiter at the far end of the lounge, which served as both entrance hall and smoking room for the hotel. He faced Head again to answer, after ordering the lager.

"Oh, things is quaiet, Mr. 'Ead. Eet ees ze season for ze feeshing, but not so zey come to feesh in zeir 'undreds an' fill me up to ze roof. I 'ave per'aps—yes, ten people in ze 'ouse. Nex' month, four taime so many. Owgoost, fool. Quaite fool crowded. So eet go. An' 'ere is ze lager, wiz ze nebule on ze glass, he is so cold."

Head took the glass from the tray, and a sip convinced him that the drink was indeed iced. Cortazzi nodded approval.

"Quite so," Head agreed. "Cortazzi, I want you to tell me about a car. A shabby old blue and aluminium car that was standing in your forecourt on Wednesday afternoon—or evening. Between five and seven, I understand. Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Oh yaas!" Cortazzi assented, almost eagerly. "He belong to a beeg man, a no'-at man what come inside ze lounge to wait for 'is friend zat was to come 'ere. So 'e tell me, an' 'e 'ave several dreenks while 'e wait for 'is friend. 'Is name was Chow—Chowl—'ow you say?"

"Zat was 'im. Beeg man, curly 'air all yellow. 'E tell me per'aps 'is friend come 'ere for 'im, an' per'aps 'e reeng an' ask for 'im. So 'e wait till 'eet ees nearly dinner time, an' 'is friend do not come. But somebody ring ze telephone, an' I answer it myself, an' zey ask if zis Mister Chowl-how-you-call -'im is 'ere, an' I tell zem to 'old on an' I fetch 'im, an' 'e speak, an' zen 'e go off as if somebody set ze dogs on 'im."

"'E go like zat"—Cortazzi gestured speed with both hands—"in ze car outside—wooof! Zat way." He pointed toward Crandon.

"I speak 'im first. Zen I call Mister Chowl-how-you-say. 'E take ze message for 'imself. Zen 'e go, laike I tell you."

"Me? No. I do not ask 'im, an' 'e do not tell me. I call Mister—ze beeg man, an' he talk at ze telephone. Not me talk."

"Some, but eet was not much. 'E do not say much. 'E say—'Yes, ze Carden Arms. Zen 'e say yes an' no an' I know an' no an' yes, but no more, not any names nor 'ow you theenk I know what 'e talk about. An' then 'e go laike I tell you, in ze car. Laike 'ell."

"Yaas—after seven. Because 'e was not gone five minute when ze first gong for dinner go too. Ten minute past seven, per'aps."

"Thanks, Cortazzi. First-rate stuff, this lager. You certainly know how to serve a good summer drink."

Having finished the lager, and received an assurance from Cortazzi that there should be an "especial" lunch if he could get back for it, Head drove along Carden Street—the village consisted of no more than that one street and some side lanes—until he came to Murdoch's Stores, which housed the village post-office and telephone exchange as well as a miscellaneous stock of groceries, draperies, and ironmongery. Two girls, as he knew, managed the post office business and small telephone exchange: he had made the acquaintance of one of them over another case on which he had been engaged here, and, seeing her now behind the wire-grilled counter, greeted her and received a smiling response.

"A small matter in which you can help me, I believe, Miss Portman," he explained. "A call was put through to the Carden Arms last Wednesday at about seven in the evening. I don't know if it were local or toll or trunk, only that it was put through there. Do you think you could find out for me where it originated?"

"I can try, Mr. Head. If it were local, I can do nothing. We're on the dial here now, you know, and the system automatically records local calls for charging purposes, but doesn't record their origins. I could trace either toll or trunk, though."

"Certainly, Mr. Head. Received at the Carden Arms at about seven last Wednesday. I'm afraid it will take some time, though."

"An hour, possibly. Could you call back then, or shall I get in touch with you—ring you somewhere and let you know?"

He pondered for a few seconds. He might be able to return here in an hour, but on the other hand the investigations on which he had determined might take much longer. And he wanted to be sure of this information, for the call Chalfont had received might mean much.

"Miss Willis was on the switchboard on Wednesday afternoon and evening," the girl volunteered, "and she's away to-day. Otherwise, I might have been able to let you know without waiting."

"Well, would you be so good as to ring through to Westingborough police station when you get it, and leave it there as a message for me, Miss Portman? Just your own name, and that of the place whence this call originated—could you do that for me?"

"Yes, of course I will. It will probably be waiting for you when you get back to Westingborough. That is, unless it was a local call. In that case, I can't help you."

"I don't think it was local. Many thanks, Miss Portman—good morning. I know you'll do your best."

Chapter XVI
Enlightenment for Noel

MISS EDWARDS, returning from the Vestibule by which one gained access to Logan's office, put down a card on Miss Enderby's desk. The two of them had the office to themselves that Saturday morning, for Byrne's threat to Miss Enderby of a man in the office to restrain her publicity propensities had not materialized: Farrar, the solicitor, had warned her in accordance with Byrne's request to do nothing and reveal nothing until she had instructions either from Logan, or from himself as executor, and, glumly, she had promised to hold her hand.

The card announced its owner as one Cyrus Y. Bettleace, representing the Worldbeater Film Screen Corporation of Utica, U.S.A. Miss Enderby pondered over it for a brief while: there was no harm in seeing the man: she could not see that she would be contravening Farrar's instructions by passing on the description of the rainbow screen to him.

"I'll see him in Mr. Logan's own room, Miss Edwards. Show him in there while I tidy my hair, please."

Miss Edwards went out to the vestibule. "Come in, please, Mr. Battleaxe," she invited, and opened the door of Logan's room.

Remarking that she was a smart kid, but ought to get some windows for her glims if she couldn't translate a John Henry better'n tha-at, he complied, and presently Miss Enderby followed him into Logan's room. Then, while Miss Edwards sat congratulating herself on the fact that there was no work to do and Saturday was only a half-day, she heard the outer door open again, and went out to the vestibule to see Bertram, who indicated the door of Logan's room with a pointing finger.

She shook her head. "No, and no word from him," she answered. "How is Mrs. Bertram?"

"It's about her I'm here," he said. "There's a chance of saving her. The doctor fetched a specialist to see her this morning—"

"She's gone off for operation, and I'm going along to the hospital this afternoon," he continued. "But you see, Miss Edwards, if he does what he said, there won't be any home for her to come back to. It's for her I want him to give me time—I don't care a thing about myself. He's given me till Monday to find the money, and I can't do it. If only I could find him and beg him for time!"

And then, in time to hear Bertram's last sentence, Inspector Byrne entered the vestibule. Bertram literally spun about to face him.

"Inspector!" His tone was eager, hopeful. "Did you—did you ask Miss Logan about me, as you said you would?"

Byrne shook his head gravely. "I've not seen her with a chance to ask her," he answered, while inwardly, as he saw the man's strained, eager expression, he blamed himself for the omission. "Any news of Mr. Logan this morning, Miss Edwards?" he asked, turning to her.

"Couldn't you get at Miss Logan somehow and ask her for me?" Bertram pleaded. "You see, there's a chance of saving my wife, and I want to keep the home together for her. Time—that's all I want."

Miss Edwards put her hand on his arm. "Leave it to me, Mr. Bertram," she said. "Unless she's like him, I know what to say to her."

"Meanwhile, that's not my reason for coming here," Byrne interposed. "Miss Enderby—is she here this morning, Miss Edwards?"

"In there." She nodded at Logan's door. "With a man named Battleaxe"—she perverted the name wilfully—"about the screen, I think. At least, he's something to do with cinema screens, from America."

Byrne frowned as he realized that Logan's publicity scheme was bearing fruit. And, if an American got busy on it, he might arouse enough interest in some section of the press to cause Logan to keep in hiding—might attempt to organize a search which would give Logan the advertisement that he wanted and that Byrne was determined he should not get.

"Against orders, if it is about that," he said. "I distinctly told Farrar, and trusted to him—"

Without ending the sentence, he strode forward, and opened Logan's door, revealing Miss Enderby seated in the financier's own chair and the American facing her across the desk as she detailed the particulars of the rainbow screen from the notes before her. Both she and her auditor gazed across at Byrne in the doorway.

"Sa-ay, whassort of game is this you're playin'?" the American demanded wrathfully. "I ca-an't make clam chowder of your John Henry, because it ain't been handed to me, but if you'll slip me a pasteboard I'll try my damndest, funny guy. Whaddye wa-ant, anyhow?"

Miss Edwards grasped Bertram's sleeve, drew him into the room in which she and Miss Enderby worked, and closed the door. "It must have been an inspiration of mine," she observed as she removed the telephone receiver and dialled TRU. "They ought to go on quarrelling for about ten minutes, now, or at least long enough for me to get Miss Logan and tell her enough."

She gave the number of the Duke of York at Westingborough—both she and Miss Enderby had instructions to ask for Miss Logan there if they had any news of the missing man to communicate—and thus it happened that Noel received a summons to the telephone not long after she had promised Head that Thorn should be available at five in the afternoon. Hope came back to her momentarily as she put the receiver to her ear, but her conviction of Logan's death extinguished it even before Miss Edwards spoke—with Bertram beside her listening.

"Is that Miss Logan? Oh, Alice Edwards speaking, Miss Logan, from your father's office. Mr. Bertram has called here—"

"No, Miss Logan, not a word. But Mr. Bertram—he wrote to your father—I don't know if you know anything about it, though?"

"About a debt—yes." Noel recollected the letter she had read. "Well, what is it? Why are you ringing me?"

"Because—I know Mr. Farrar is in charge till Mr. Logan comes back, Miss Logan, but he'd have to do what you tell him. You see, there's a chance of saving Mrs. Bertram's life, and Mr. Bertram wants to keep his home together for her when she comes out of hospital—doesn't want it to be sold up because of this debt. He will pay it if he's given time. I'm certain he'll pay it—it was her illness and the baby dying that got him into difficulties, not his fault, really. Mr. Logan threatened to start proceedings on Monday, but if you could speak to Mr. Farrar, or to Mr. Logan if he comes back before Monday—"

"Know? Of course he knew, Miss Logan! But that wouldn't make any difference to him. But I thought you'd be different, which is why I've rung you. You see, I've been to see the Bertrams, and taken her flowers, and so I know myself it's just bad luck and he's not to blame."

"No, but I can give you his telephone number," Miss Edwards answered hopefully. "You'd get him at his office up to one o'clock."

Miss Edwards gave it from memory, since she knew it well, and, as she waited for reply, bestowed on Bertram a most unseemly but joyous wink. Then she stiffened to listen to Noel's voice.

"Thank you, Miss Edwards. Tell Mr. Bertram no action will be taken against him till I myself have seen him, on Monday or perhaps to-morrow. Oh, give me his address, please, in case I want to call to-morrow."

Replacing the receiver after she had given the address, Miss Edwards looked up and saw Miss Enderby standing in the doorway.

"Thank heaven you go at the end of the month! You'd go this minute, if I had my way. Impudent, useless, mannerless—"

"Now think hard and take a long breath. Mr. Bertram, I do hope they're right and she'll get well again. Don't take any notice of that—it makes those noises when it gets excited. But you've nothing to worry about—she's coming to see you to-morrow or Monday——"

"You?" Miss Edwards giggled at the idea. "Oh, no! We haven't sunk as low as that yet, have we, Mr. Bertram?"

Byrne, on his way out from Logan's room, saw Miss Enderby making clawing movements with her fingers. Bettleace, following him, observed it too.

"Sa-ay," he said, "is that what you English mean when you talk about bein' up to scratch? Wal, I hope it keeps fine for her."

"Hardly," Byrne responded. He crooked a finger at Miss Edwards. "These are what we call amenities. Now, Miss Edwards," as she came forward at his summons, "if you can suspend the war for a minute or two, just come in here—" he backed toward Logan's room again. "I've got a question that you may or may not be able to answer."

She followed him into the room and, after closing the door, he turned and saw her attitude as that of a naughty schoolgirl, with her fingers interlaced before her and her eyes cast down.

"We are not impressed," he remarked sourly. "Moreover, I don't care two hoots in a blast furnace if you two do fly at each other, except to hope you win, if it happens. But now I want to know, if you can tell me. Does Mr. Logan, to your knowledge, know or correspond with anyone in or near Tring, in Hertfordshire?"

She looked her surprise at the question. "Not that I know of," she answered. "Miss Enderby might know."

"And might also try to baulk me by keeping it dark," he retorted acidly. "I've asked her, and she says no—but she'd as lief as not lie in Logan's interests, to me. You feel differently, I believe?"

"Sacked," she said. "Thank heaven I've got another place to go to, and needn't fret about references from here!"

"Well, about this question of mine. Have you ever heard Tring mentioned in this office, or seen the name on an envelope, or anywhere else? Heard it spoken on the telephone, or come across it at all?"

"Places near it—anywhere in Hertfordshire or the northern home counties," he insisted. "King's Langley, Berkhamstead, Princes Risborough, Amersham, Dunstable, Bedford, Luton, Hertford, Hatfield—" But then he stopped, knowing well that, if Logan had left his train at Tring, he might have gone to some obscure village or crossed England in order to conceal himself. Miss Edwards shook her head again.

"He lives in Kent," she said. "I expect you know that, though. And all the business he does here is mainly with London people. I don't remember ever seeing any of those places on an address."

"Then up to the end of the month I'm going to rely on you to let me know if you hear anything at all of him. You know where to find me, and you can take the order from me over any bidding or forbidding that Miss Enderby may give you. Can I trust you for that?"

"You can, Mr. Byrne," she responded with fervour. "Anything that means getting my own back on a pestilential cat like her, I'll do with pleasure. I'll let you know the minute I hear anything."

As he went his way from the office, Byrne half-doubted whether Logan would have faked this disappearance in order to gain publicity, but the doubt was only momentary: for he remembered how very nearly the affair had flared to front-page prominence in the newspapers—only his own prompt action had scotched it, and, if Logan could remain in hiding for another week or so, it might yet blaze up as a Press topic. Well, he himself would report the case as closed: it was not worth while to set the police of half a dozen counties searching for a man who wanted to hide himself, as long as the man in question remained unharmed. The reporter, Blinder Hoyle, had evidently said enough to his superiors to prevent them from pursuing the hunt, and, since they had originated it, no other agency was likely to touch it. One thing remained to be done: Byrne took a taxi to Euston, remembering his promise to Head.

His inquiry at the terminus yielded the information that no passenger arriving by the 7.28 on Wednesday evening had been deficient of a ticket and therefore compelled to pay the fare, while Head had already told him of the ticketless passenger at Tring. The conclusion was obvious: he could report the case closed, forget it, and turn to some other case—perhaps have a nice, quiet week-end before being detailed to scotch somebody's criminal activities.

Mr. Alfred Farrar, solicitor, replaced his telephone receiver and gently nodded approval of himself, having promised Miss Logan that no action should be taken against Leonard Bertram until he, Farrar, had received further instructions either from her or her father. Although he had had instructions from Logan to begin proceedings in the usual way on Monday—and with Logan the usual way meant the most drastic way—he could justify himself to Logan, if and when the financier turned up, by referring him to his daughter. If, on the other hand, Logan did not reappear, that daughter was residuary legatee as far as his estate was concerned, and antagonizing her now by refusing her request would be the height of folly.

In Farrar's view, Logan would not reappear. Some one of his many victims had caught and made an end of him, and, if it had been done cleverly enough, he would never be traced or heard of again. If that were so, it was in the highest degree necessary to comply with Miss Logan's requests, and Bertram's liability was a very small thing indeed.

In the Duke of York at Westingborough, Noel Logan also replaced a telephone receiver, and made her way back to the small lounge, where Peter Thorn awaited her return. She looked down at her friend.

"Not yet. He's only in the garage, though, making some sort of adjustment or something—he loves playing with the insides of a car, and does nearly everything himself when it needs doctoring. I'll tell him you want him, if you like."

"I want him to drive me—" Noel began, and broke off as Thorn entered the lounge. She turned to him. "Dick, I don't want to wait till after lunch to go out. I want you to drive me to see those two men at Todlington, now. I want to see them before we go back to-morrow."

"But"—Thorn recollected Head's advice, or possibly command, not to go near those two men again—"I'm afraid it wouldn't do," he concluded, rather lamely. "I—you see, I should only get myself in trouble with the police. I—they—Inspector Head doesn't wish—"

"Besides," he added, "we know now that your father left here after finishing with them on Wednesday, that they have nothing to do with—"

Again she left it incomplete. Peter got up from her chair and went out from the room, divining that Noel wanted only one auditor.

"Anything I can tell you, I will," Thorn offered. "Anything I can do, even this if you insist on it. I think you know."

"Yes, but—let's sit down." She seated herself, and waited till he had taken a chair near her. "My daddy as I knew him, and now this man Bertram—his child dead and his wife ill, and my daddy going to ruin him for the sake of—what was it—a hundred and eighty pounds. Something like that. And the letter one of those two men wrote. I knew nothing, thought nothing—he was always perfect to me, always kind and considerate—you see, it means the whole world gone to pieces for me. If I can't go on believing in my daddy, I can't believe in anything. I should get the truth of his dealings with those two men from them, see what other men really think of him—know more surely what he is—what he was—in reality. I've been a child too long."

"If you went there, you'd get a badly biassed view," Thorn pointed out after only a brief pause for reflection. "That is, if either of those two would reveal anything at all to your father's daughter. His dealings with them were what any man in his position might have had. They made a bargain with him, and got the worst of it, and that happens every day in business dealings. Legally, he was in the right—"

"Dick, don't quibble about legal aspects. Legally, he could ruin this man Bertram, I understand, but that doesn't make it right that he should. Tell me honestly—if you had made this contract with those two men, would you have acted as my father did? Honestly, now?"

"You read their letter, and his in answer to it." She made the reply an accusation, almost. "Rigid—the letter of the law. I can't understand how he kept that side of himself from me as he did. Dick, I feel ten years older than I was that night when we waited for him to come back, when I... saw him at the end of the table, and knew. Another thing, that girl I questioned at the top of the hill, the one who was riding. Her contempt for my name, hatred of it, even, as soon as she heard me speak it. Why? What had he done to her, or to somebody who meant enough to her to give her that resentment? Were there two of him, that I knew one man and all these other people see him as somebody altogether different—somebody hateful?"

"He loved you, Noel," Thorn said, making no further attempt at defending her father. "Listen!" He reached out and took her hand. "Remember him as you knew him, until he comes back. Then ask him, make him tell you all that you want to know, and hear his side. Remember that all he has done, probably, was done for you, with you in mind—say that he faced and fought the world for you, and had no other human interest at all. I believe you'll find that's the explanation."

"Then keep him in mind as you knew him, and tell yourself you knew the real man and these others did not," he urged.

"Would you have done things to bring such letters as those two we read in his office?" she demanded. "The truth, now?"

He shook his head. "No man can judge another's actions without knowing everything," he answered. "Fortunately—or unfortunately—for me, I began life with a competence, and have never felt the need to fight others to increase it. So I cannot answer that question. In his place, with you as incentive, I might have done many things."

"Such as being utterly ruthless, cruel to a man in trouble—so much so that that Miss Edwards at his office could tell me, a little while ago, that Bertram's baby dying and his wife ill would make no difference to my father—no difference! So you mean that you—you!—could have been like that, acted like that?"

"Noel!" He shook at the hand he held, a gesture of remonstrance, and spoke as if to chide her. "You're not yourself—you have not been yourself since you and I and Peter left the dining-room at Pensham that night. You're guessing—you don't know the full circumstances of any of these things—and you're accusing one who, by your own showing, has been to you the best father any girl ever had. Stop it!"

"Since you wish it, I won't go and see these men," she said. "To-morrow morning, we'll go back, and I want you to stop on the way so that I can see this man Bertram. To repair, if possible—"

Again she smiled, and gazed full at him. "Taking upon yourself to order my life?" she asked.

"Why?" Smiling no longer, she still gazed full at him as she uttered the monosyllable.

"Because I love you, Noel," he answered steadily. "I should not have told you yet, perhaps, but—"

"I'm glad you did. Some time, soon, I'll tell you why. But the gong for lunch sounded quite ten minutes ago, and Peter's waiting for us, I expect. So, Dick dear—shall we go and look for her?"

Chapter XVII
Wilson's Alibi

IN the stillness and sunlit warmth of the May noon, when Head descended from his car before The Firs, the house looked as forsaken and desolate as if man had fled from it years since, and left those faded, dusty curtains in the one window that showed other than utterly bare, as not worth the trouble of taking away. And, sensitive as he was at times to the atmosphere which mere bricks and mortar can radiate, Head felt the lonely stillness of this house as an ominous thing. A little cloud passed before the sun and spoilt the noonday brilliance as he stood gazing at the shabby frontage, at the blistered paint of the woodwork and crumbled, unpointed mortar between the dulled red bricks; even the faint hum of bees seemed to decrease, and the silence had the quality of a threat—of something brooding, waiting. Something that belonged to darkness rather than day, an evil done or threatening.

Fancy, of course! Antithesis to his brief imagining, Head thought of Superintendent Wadden, blowing a gust of ridicule at any such impracticalities, but even that thought—fat old Wadden who saw Elysium as unending rows of tomatoes growing under glass—could not dispel the impression that the neglected house and its wilderness of grounds had given him. He went to the front door and pulled at the bell-knob: a knell tolled somewhere inside as the little cloud passed from before the sun and the edges of shadows sharpened again. Toll-toll-toll! It was like St. Sepulchre's bell in old time, when the gibbet stood before Newgate and the jeering crowds waited to see another soul swung out on its journey. A bell that Head, had he owned it, would have pulled down, leaving the rusty knocker on the door to announce arrivals.

But it served its purpose. A clatter of footfalls within preceded the door's opening. Then Head was aware of a vision, worse than the impression that the house had given him. There was a blouse of peach-coloured silk, a brief length of hedge-sparrow blue skirt, smoke-coloured silk stockings, and lizard-skin shoes, the whole topped by a face rouged as well as powdered, and the mouth anointed with that kind of lipstick which produces the effect of raw salmon flesh. Hazel eyes, under plucked and pencilled eyebrows, regarded him inimically.

"The gentlemen are at lunch," said Ireen, with just such an air as Horatius might have affected if he had had a word with Lars Porsena.

"Then take them that," Head rejoined, thrusting a card at her, and far less impressed by her than he had been by the empty desolation the house had first displayed. "Tell them I'll wait till they've finished."

As when Thorn had handed her a card, she read all that was on it, and then grew rather limp. "I—I'm sorry," she half-gasped. "I'll tell 'em, if you'll wait a bit, Mr. Head."

But she slammed the door on him while she went to tell them, all the same. When it opened again, Head beheld a smallish man with the ghost of a black moustache, and attractive brown eyes in which a smile nearly, but not quite, grew to full size. He pulled the door wide.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Head," he said. "Do come in. You see, she's the best we can get in this district, and we're mortal feared of losing her and having to starve." He stood back as Head entered the bare entrance hall. "I don't know if you've had lunch, but if not, I'll make her do you a chop. Chop and 'tatoes—she's cooked far more 'tatoes than we can finish. How's that? And bottled beer to sink it."

"Thanks very much, but I've had lunch," Head answered. Though he liked the man and the form of his welcome, he had come here to make inquiries into an affair in which both Wilson—as he guessed this man was named—and Chalfont might be involved to their detriment, and thus jesuitically used yesterday's lunch as an excuse for not eating with them. "Just an inquiry—there's no hurry, though. Don't let me keep you from your meal, Mr.—"

"Wilson. We've finished, though. Do come through to the trough—we call it that, our eating-room. Come along and tell us what we can do for you. It's about this mysterious disappearance of Logan, eh?"

By the time he had ceased speaking, they had reached a doorway beyond which a big man loomed, standing beside a table on which were the remnants of a meal. Wilson gestured at him and spoke again before Head could confirm his surmise respecting the object of this visit.

"How d'you do?" Chalfont said formally. "Do sit down, won't you?" He indicated an armchair. "And what can we do for you, Mr. Head?"

"Nothing, probably," Head answered. "I expect you heard Mr. Wilson guess the reason for my calling here—the disappearance of this man Logan. It appears that his object in coming here was to visit you, and appears, too, that you were the last person to see him before he vanished. The last, that is, to whom he talked, since he was seen on the train."

"Then possibly he let fall some indication of his intentions after leaving you—as to where he meant to go, or what he meant to do. It's unlikely, I know, but at the same time I thought it would be worth my while to make the inquiry. His daughter is at Westingborough at present, and very much distressed over his disappearance."

Chalfont considered it, and shook his head gravely. "No, I don't think he gave us any indication—did he, Tony?" He appealed to Wilson.

"No, nothing that I remember." In turn Wilson shook his head. Then he took out a cigarette case and offered it opened to Head, who took a cigarette and in return gave Wilson a light.

"It was a purely business visit," Chalfont said. "In fact we had no great reason to like—" He broke off and began again: "—no inclination to discuss anything but business with Mr. Logan."

"We gave him lunch because we couldn't help ourselves," Wilson supplemented. "After that, we finished running some reels of film off on our projector for his benefit—he brought half a dozen of them, and we did two for him before lunch. Then he paid us and said he'd send for the screen—probably you've heard something about that screen we perfected—said he'd send for it the next day. But he didn't."

"Oh, no!" Wilson dissented. "That screen is no more than a specimen. He took the formulæ for manufacture, which was the basis of our deal with him. Jim here drove him over to Westingborough in time to catch the four-thirty up. Since he caught it, we naturally conclude he went to London, and now comes this news of his disappearance. That, by the way, we got in detail from a man named Thorn—if that is his real name. He called here to see us, posing as an outsider interested in the screen in a financial way, but I learned since that he's with Logan's daughter at Westingborough—a man talking to you in the long bar of the Duke of York dropped that piece of information yesterday, by the way. To put that plainly, Thorn came here as nothing more nor less than a spy, under false pretences, and I don't like him over much for it. As if he suspected us of causing Logan's disappearance."

"Which, of course, is absurd," Chalfont added. "Nobody can suppose that he came back here after I'd seen him off from Westingborough. Wait a bit! He did say he must make sure of catching that train."

"Yes, something about getting home the same night." Wilson took up the tale again. "He lives somewhere in Kent—the address is on the agreement he made with us. We've got a copy, if you'd like to see it."

"Well, I'm afraid that's all we can tell you," Wilson remarked reflectively. "Isn't it, Jim?" He appealed to Chalfont.

"I can't think of anything else," the big man agreed. "Won't you sit down and try a glass of our beer, Mr. Head? Unless you're in a hurry to get away, that is. Or a whisky and soda?"

"Nothing, thanks," Head answered, and did not sit down. But he made no move to go, either. Was it his imagination, or was this story the two men told just a shade too circumstantial—as if it had been prepared and rehearsed for his benefit? Yet he could find no real cause for such an impression. Wilson appeared frankly desirous of helping to solve this mystery, and Chalfont, though less friendly in his attitude, was at least hospitable, and open in his statements.

"Well, judging by the evening paper that man Thorn brought with him to justify his appearance here, it certainly is a puzzle," Wilson observed. "You'd think a man with a red beard would be too conspicuous to get lost. You don't see a red beard every day."

"No, I went for a walk—hadn't been off the premises for some time, and felt I wanted to stretch my legs," Wilson explained frankly. "I told Jim he might look for me at the Carden Arms, though with the car he'd probably get there first and have to wait for me, but when I did get out I made a longer walk of it, took the footpath through the woods and went over to Crandon. It's no distance to the Carden Arms, and I felt I wanted a lot of exercise."

Wilson shook his head. "All my movements, eh?" he queried with a smile. "As a matter of fact, I did not—it's nine miles from here to Crandon, and though I like long walks eighteen is a bit too much for me. So I rang through to the Carden Arms, and fortunately Jim hadn't left. He came over to Crandon and joined me with the car. What time would it be when we got back here, Jim?"

"And that's the whole story of me," Wilson concluded. "What do you think of our aboriginal habitat, Mr. Head? Very aboriginal, isn't it? I get a feeling that the place is haunted, sometimes, but the ghost hasn't appeared to either of us, yet. And the gal doesn't know any legends, because I asked her—that's our helot, the brilliant being who slammed the door in your face while she came to tell us you'd called. She's more brilliant than ever, to-day—got a date for the evening, I expect. The colour scheme is her own idea entirely."

"Yes, I always do when I begin thinking of our gal." He gave Head an engaging smile and, advancing to the table, stubbed out his cigarette butt on a used plate. "Jim alleges that my chatter gets on his nerves sometimes, Mr. Head, but I tell him it keeps him sane. Our nearest neighbour is a good half-mile away, and if one of us weren't talkative the solitude would be just pestilential. And the gal is a joy, an everlasting joy, something unique and perfect."

Head, inclined to bid them good-bye and go, hesitated. There was a slick ease about the story they had told—especially was there an ultra-smoothness in Wilson's account of his doings on Wednesday afternoon and evening—that wakened a vague question in the Inspector's mind. Yet what cause for question could there be, since Logan had gone his way, and without the car Wilson could not have overtaken the train that bore him from Westingborough? Wilson had been here to lunch on Wednesday, and therefore could not have gone sixty miles back to get aboard that train at its starting point—but had he been here to lunch? There was only his and Chalfont's word for it, and his presence would not have been necessary. Chalfont might have transacted their business with Logan, taken the cheque, and then driven Logan off to Westingborough. The gal, as they called her, might afford confirmation or denial of Wilson's presence, if Head could get her to herself. With that end in view, he put another question.

"Oh, Lord!" And Wilson laughed. "No, we're strictly moral—she is, on the premises, though I'm not going bail for what happens in her spare time. We're not early risers, either of us, in a general way, and she turns up in time to get the breakfast—by the way, she banks up the kitchen fire before she goes, to save herself the trouble of lighting it in the morning, and so we use enough coal to keep a blast furnace working overtime, or thereabouts. She says it's so that we shall have hot bath water when we want it. I've suggested a change of diet a few times, but she's always just ordered the chops or steaks or whatever it is, and so the old frying pan comes out once more. Sometimes I feel I can never look a chop squarely in the eye again, but they turn up. Oh, they turn up! And punctually at ten minutes to five, unless it's her half-day or day off, she starts banking up the kitchen fire. Punctually at five you can see those silk legs twinkling till they vanish in the distance, and next morning we can have hot baths and wonder whether she's ordered in another ton of coals since the beginning of the week. And if I saw anything but four eggs and four rashers of bacon waiting for us for breakfast to-morrow morning, the shock would be too much for me. But if we irritated her and she left, we'd never get another. The village is a mile and a half away, and her sort are scarce and jobs plentiful. We daren't say a thing."

"Which has nothing to do with your inquiry, has it, Mr. Head?" Chalfont inquired rather acidly. "Not interested, eh?"

"On the contrary, quite interested," Head dissented politely. He had got what he wanted, Ireen's time of leaving the place.

"Don't be so damned snooty, Jim," Wilson put in. "We don't get a visitor every year—that infernal sneak Thorn doesn't count. Now I suggest, Mr. Head, if you're interested in such things, that we show you round our workshop. You'll appreciate my generosity when I tell you that not a soul has ever been allowed in it since we put it up, and we pull down the blinds and keep the door locked when we're not in it, and lock ourselves in as well as out to prevent anyone—any unauthorized person, as they put it in printed notices—from butting in on us. The secret of the age—care to have a look round? If you have time, that is. I won't be in the least offended if you say you've got to rush off!"

"No, I'm not in a hurry," Head answered, "and from what I've heard of this screen of yours—if I could see that in action too..."

"Decidedly!" Wilson sounded enthusiastic over it. "Plenty of juice in the accumulators for a run—we make our own current, I must tell you, and we put the wind up Parham's people when we first came here by changing the old engine and dynamo for lighting to a set with four times the output, and a transformer for the electric furnace. It was a bad investment, that electric furnace—we haven't used it more than three times, and the kitchen range would have done all we wanted, with the gal's stoking. But there it is. Come along—I'll show you the invention of the age—the rainbow screen. Perfect colour reproduction from an ordinary black and white film."

He was talking quickly, the words seeming to tumble on each other as if he would not allow a pause: at first, he had displayed courtesy, and with it an almost impish cheerfulness, but for some reason or other he was growing excited. Now, paused by the doorway to let Head precede him from the room, he turned back to Chalfont.

"Snooty old devil!" Wilson said, and laughed—but the signs of elation, or whatever it had been that had changed his manner, died out. "Never mind, Mr. Head, I can show you the works. We'll leave him. Yes, straight through by the back door—the shed is in what used to be an orchard, well away from the house for the sake of the stinks we raise in it at times. Or did, while we were compounding pastes for the screen and otherwise experimenting with different compounds."

They went out, and crossed from the back door of the house to the long shed, which Wilson unlocked, gesturing Head to enter. Since all the blinds were down, the interior was a vague indistinctness until Wilson, entering, clicked up the nearest blind before closing and again locking the door. "I have to do that, because I'm going to swing the screen across," he explained, and Head watched while he unhasped the big, heavy frame on the side wall and swung it across the end of the building, so that the many-faceted front of the screen was visible.

And now, with the screen reflecting back the light from the one unshaded window, Head saw Wilson's face a ghastly white, robbed of its normal expression, since even the lips were changed, and appearing different even in contour. Wilson picked up a hand mirror and bade him look at his own face, and with a start he saw that he too was a black and white caricature of himself.

"It eats colour, turns it to black and white shades, just as it gives colour back for black and white," Wilson remarked. "Wait a bit, and I'll pull up the other blinds to show you round. Chalfont will have it that this ghastly effect is on the retina of the eye, but I don't see what difference that makes." He went along toward the other end of the shed, and Head followed him. "Here"—he snapped up another blind—"is where we make our stinks—and since we were such fools as to leave the floor in front of it uncovered, we had to put in new planking less than a month ago. I'll put oilcloth or something over it in front of the sink, if we do any more work in here."

Pausing in front of the porcelain-lined sink, Head saw that an area of flooring, about ten feet by six in extent, was of newer planks than the rest. Over the sink was a galvanized tank, and Wilson pointed up at it and then at the shining chromium taps.

"Another of our defects," he said. "We have to fill that chap a bucket at a time, because we've never had the sense to run piping from the house supply. In fact, the chemical section is the worst—that's rather a nice lathe, if you know anything about those things. The driving dynamo is only a third horsepower. And over there"—he pointed again—"is where we simply wasted money, the electric furnace. A tiny thing—Chalfont insisted that we ought to have one, though. Carpentry here, when we need to do any"—he indicated the fitted bench—"and down at the end there, that baize-covered table with the microscope on it, is what we call the physics department. Thorough, eh?"

"Very," Head assented. He turned to gaze through a window at an open drain leading from the side of the shed to a ditch at the far side of the orchard. It was cut as a deep V in the sandy earth, and its sides were plastered with a bluish clay at intervals of its length. The contrasting colour and texture of the different earths were plainly visible. "But that open drain, isn't it—well, insanitary?" he asked.

"If you saw the stuff that goes down it from this sink when we're working so as to need the drain, you'd know that no microbe has an earthly chance of life within a mile of it," Wilson said. "Besides, I take a spade and scrape it clean occasionally, if it gets scummy. You can see I've gone fairly deep in places, with the subsoil clay showing on the sides. No, it's sanitary enough. Now I'll turn on the current for the projector—it's got a reel of film in ready, I know, and then we'll haul down the blinds again and give you a private view of the screen that's going to make a revolution in the film industry."

He reached out to a brass, vulcanite-handled switch, one of a row of three on the wall, and closed it. Then he gave an exclamation of dismay as a sputtering flash blazed and faded, quite near the end of a glass shelf beside the sink. He opened the switch again.

"Ripped it," he said disgustedly. "That's a main fuse gone, and luckily it went quietly. The stuff in that glass jar on the shelf would develop fifteen hundred degrees centigrade if it caught alight. It's the first fuse we've ever had go—but I must move that jar when I've done the necessary repairs, just in case another goes."

He went back to the fuse-box and opened it, and then turned to Head. "I'm afraid we shall have to postpone the show," he said. "I'm sorry, but that box has got to be disconnected and taken down, and I can't run the projector for you without juice."

"I'll take the will for the deed," Head answered. "It's very good of you to show me round as you have done. Some other time, perhaps,"

"Yes, if you can get over again. Any time—I'm almost sure to be here. You just ask the gal to fetch me—not Chalfont, he's gone all peculiar lately, since he fell in love. It's a pity."

"His falling in love?" Head asked with a tinge of amusement, but remembering the rumour he had heard of Miss Ashford and this man.

"Ye-es," Wilson said. Standing gazing at the open fuse-box, he appeared suddenly meditative. "There's nothing on earth I wouldn't do for old Jim, and I'd grown into the habit of considering ours a permanent partnership when this came along. Not that I blame him—or her. But it leaves me no place—a man can have friends or a woman, but not both. I'm—but that's just mooning. I'm sorry—I'd have liked to show you what our screen can do."

Returning to the end of the shed by which they had entered, he swung the screen back against the side wall again, hasped it securely, and then opened the door before coming down the side of the shed to draw down the blinds. "It's a ritual, keeping 'em down when we're not inside," he observed. "The gal might say she'd seen all sorts of things if we left 'em up, and village gossip can be the very devil. I believe we're credited with nefarious practices as it is."

He locked the door, and then led the way through the house. The door of the room in which they had left Chalfont was closed, and he paused outside it and faced Head.

"Well, I'm sorry I couldn't show you how the screen works—and over being unable to help you about Logan too. In fact, you must regard us as a thoroughly ineffectual pair."

When he had got into his car and set the engine running, he looked back and saw Wilson framed in the front doorway of the house. For a fraction of a second his face appeared to be distorted in a fearsome sort of grin—possibly, Head thought, the way in which light and shade blended in the doorway caused the effect—and then he was smiling cheerfully as he raised a hand in parting salutation. Answering the gesture by lifting his own hand, Head let in his clutch and moved away.

Chapter XVIII
Confirmation by the Gal

AT the junction of the lane and main road Head disengaged gear on his return journey from The Firs, and, with the engine ticking, sat awhile in thought. Had Wilson been at lunch at home on Wednesday with Logan, or had he got away in time to be on the train when Logan joined it at Westingborough? For, if not, there was evidence that he had not boarded it at Crandon, and evidence too—not conclusive, but fairly weighty—that Logan had left it, minus his beard, at Tring. It was barely possible, but in the last degree unlikely, that Wilson would have risked getting aboard at Westingborough in order to track down the financier. If his story of having been present at lunch were true, then Byrne's conclusion was almost certainly correct, and Logan had shaved off his beard and gone into hiding for his own purposes. For, as far as Wilson's absence from The Firs after Logan had left was concerned, he could not have caught up with the train to track Logan away from the station at Tring, even with a racing car at his disposal.

Thus Head saw it then, and, reflecting over it, felt that there was something fishy about Wilson's account of his movements. The man had been frank—too frank, really. He had had three days in which to rehearse and perfect his story, and it was perfect! He was an attractive little chap—Head would even go so far as to consider him a nice little chap, but the more one thought about him the more it appeared that he was keeping something back. Which did not mean, of course, that he was definitely guilty of Logan's disappearance: he was, as Byrne had so decidedly asserted, not the killer type. There was more potentiality of that sort about Chalfont, but, since he had been seen to drive Logan to the station and proved to be in Westingborough for a good half-hour after the train had gone out—and then at the Carden Arms until past seven o'clock—it was little use considering him.

That telephone call: if, as Wilson had said, it had originated from Crandon, it would count as a local call and Miss Portman would be unable to trace it. Well, by the clock on the dash, it was not too late to get back to the Carden Arms for lunch. A puzzling business, this; an irritating business. And, for the next step, the girl Higgs must be interviewed: she would be able to state whether Wilson had been present at lunch time with Logan, and therefore not on the train when it arrived at Westingborough. And she ceased work at five o'clock.

Yes, lunch at the Carden Arms. Head drove back there, and after an excellent lunch rang up Wadden at Westingborough, and announced his own present whereabouts. Wadden reported that Thorn had been over to the police station, inquiring why Head wanted him.

"Tell him I don't think I do want him now, if he looks in again," Head said. "It was merely to get an amplification of the local gossip he heard the other night, but I don't need it. I want to wait over here till five o'clock, and then hold an interview, unless you have anything there for which you need me. You haven't, I hope?"

"Unless somebody gets busy, things here are as dead as the Liberal Party," Wadden responded. "But what about that chap Thorn? He said you wanted him to be on hand for you at five o'clock."

"Well, you might send him a message to say I won't trouble him. Oh, and now I think of it, have you had a telephone message for me from Carden exchange, about a call received here last Wednesday?"

"I see. Then it was a local call, and she didn't trouble to ring through. All right, Chief. I expect to be back about six."

Head went out to his car and drove back to Todlington, where he made a call at The Feathers Inn. Morris, the licensee, wakened from an afternoon nap to open the door to him, and informed him in reply to his inquiry that Mother Higgs lived at the fourth cottage along the road, which, Morris added, was easily identified by the vast quantity of rhubarb growing in her front garden.

With that information Head drove on for another half-mile or thereabouts, and drew up at the cottage. He saw a very forest of rhubarb in the untidy oblong beyond which the cottage faced the road. There were also a few gooseberry bushes, very anæmic-looking, and sundry scraggy fowls were having dust-baths under the great green leaves of the rhubarb. A knock at the cottage door evoked a small, elderly, beady-eyed woman who regarded him hostilely.

"If it's about the mangle, me daughter don't get her pay till to-day, so you'll have to call again on Monday," she opened on him.

"Not about the mangle, Mrs. Higgs," he told her. "I am a police inspector from Westingborough, and I want to see your daughter."

She leaned against the doorpost, and her face went chalk white. "Lawks!" she whispered. "I told her they'd ketch 'er. But she done it all, mister. I swear I never put 'er up to it."

"Quite possibly." Mystified by her sudden terror, he assumed a frigidly non-committal air. "But you'd better tell me the truth about it," he added, with a glimmering idea of what that truth would be.

"Mister," she pleaded, "I did tell 'er it wouldn't do to alter the figures in the butcher's book—they'd be sure to find it out. But young Alf was be'ind with the payments on his moty-bike, an' 'e takes 'er out on it, y'see. An' it was 'im that altered the receipts, not 'er at all. An' 'e 'ad most o' the money, I'll swear in court."

"Now you can give me Alf's full name and address," Head urged sternly, producing a note-book and pencil as he spoke.

"It's Alfred Topper—'e delivers for Mr. Beeston, the butcher," she answered. "Mr. Beeston over at Carden, it is. Alf lives there, too. Mister, you won't be too 'ard on 'er, will you? She's a good gal to me, an' if she got in trouble I don't know what I'd do, because the 'ens don't lay now, an' the little bit o' washin' I get to do ain't enough to keep me—an' they didn't say nuthin' about the grozieries, did they? Because it's only been a little bit o' tea an' sugar sometimes!"

"The groceries," Head assured her, "will be taken into account with the rest. The evidence is incontrovertible. What times does she get back to-day? I want to see her the moment she arrives."

"It'll be half after five," she said. "Oh, lawks! To think it's gotter come to this! An' 'er such a good daughter to me."

He gave her an accusing look. "Half-past five, Mrs. Higgs? When she leaves The Firs punctually at five? Are you sure?"

She had recovered from the initial shock of facing a police inspector, and, Head divined, was hoping for a chance of a word with her daughter before he could interview the girl, who could walk the distance from The Firs in ten minutes, easily enough. He decided to let her think that he believed her.

"Tell her, when she gets back here to-night, to expect a call from me before six," he bade. "She is not to go out, or leave here, and you had better be here too. You understand? I expect to find her here."

"Mister, I'll 'ave 'er here for you if it's the last act I ever do," she promised earnestly. "Young Alf is acomin' to take 'er out on the moty-bike about 'alf-past seven, but I promise you she'll be 'ere till then. An', mister,"—she made it an earnest plea—"if I keep 'er 'ere so's you can ketch 'er, you won't send me to prison, will you?"

"I can make no promises for either of you," he answered. "I'll hear what she has to say, first, and be here well before six."

With that as a final warning, he left her still propping up the doorpost, and drove back to Carden. Sergeant Plender, he found, was busy in his garden, it being Saturday afternoon.

"You might look in on Beeston, the butcher here," Head advised. "Tell him a man in his employ, Alfred Topper, has been falsifying accounts at The Firs at Todlington and using the money to pay instalments on his motor cycle. There's no hurry—don't take action till after five o'clock to-day. That's a nice-looking lot of asparagus."

"No, thanks—I'm on my way to Crandon, and won't rob you. Deal gently with Topper, and believe all he says about a girl named Higgs."

"Ah! I've heard about her," Plender observed. "I'll take it up right away—at five o'clock that is. And you're sure I can't cut you a bunch out of that bed, sir? It wouldn't take a minute."

"Bribery and corruption, Plender. If I don't get off at once, I shall not get back to the Higgs domicile by five. And that's why I don't want you to make any move before five—I want a talk with that girl on an entirely different subject. If Beeston chooses to take action, you can have this case all to yourself, and needn't mention me."

And, leaving the sergeant to continue earthing up potatoes, Head made for his car and drove over to Crandon, where he stopped at the police station and asked for Inspector Smith, who appeared, rubbing sleepy eyes and biting off the end of a yawn—Saturday afternoon!

"Sorry to disturb you," Head greeted him. "I want to see any man who happened to be on duty here in your town last Wednesday. One able to identify a car that appeared here between seven and eight, and may have stopped here till eleven or later. An open car, four-seater Vauxhall, used to be a racer, blue and aluminium. Sorry, as I said."

"Oh, Lord!" And Smith yawned again. "Saturday afternoon, too! That'll be—let me see! Adams, he's on now in the High Street—and Harris—he's off. Saturday afternoon. Yes, Wednesday. Wait a bit, and I'll get you Harris. He's on the 'phone. And he'll curse, unless he's out. I'll send a man to replace Adams and tell him he's wanted. And how's things over at Westingborough? Had any murders lately?"

"All right. Saturday afternoon too! We are a law-abidin' community here in Crandon, let me tell you, and if you park your criminals on us on Wednesday evenin's, you do it at your peril. What was it—smash-an'-grab, or knock down an' don't stop? Or kidnappin'?"

"So far"—Head followed into Inspector Smith's room, and watched him remove a telephone receiver and begin dialling—"it looks as if a butcher's boy wanted a cheap motorcycle, but I'm not sure."

"Well, a butcher's boy's life is not a happy one—happy one," Smith chanted, and listened for the reply to his call.

"'T's all right," he announced, after speaking into the transmitter and listening to the reply. "Now, if you'll be patient, I'll get Adams along, and you can talk to both of 'em. Saturday afternoon! You sure have got a nerve. Sit tight—I'll send a man to relieve Adams."

He produced cigarettes after sending his relief man, and sat, yawning at intervals, until a smart young man appeared and stood to attention. Then Inspector Smith indicated his visitor.

"Harris,"—he wakened to official crispness—"Inspector Head wants to know something about a car and a motorcycle and a butcher's boy, on Wednesday evening. You were on duty then in the High Street—he'll tell you the rest. Adams should be along in a minute, Head."

"Never mind the butcher's boy and the motorcycle, Harris," Head bade. "A car—a noisy old car, but a fast one. Blue body, aluminium bonnet, black wings, a shabby old Vauxhall, driven by a big man with curly yellow hair, and probably without a hat. Between about seven-fifteen and midnight on Wednesday evening. Did you see it here?"

"No, sir," Harris answered without hesitation. "I don't think I saw an open car the whole evening, and certainly not that one."

"Fairly final," Head observed. "Nor a big man with curly yellow hair, independently of the car—at one of the hotels, for instance?"

"No, sir. If you mean that Mr. Chalfont, I know him by sight, and I certainly haven't seen anything of him this week."

"That's all, thanks," Head said. "Sorry to have dragged you here for nothing, since it's your afternoon off."

Then Adams entered, and Head repeated his query. Helmet in hand, the man scratched his head and cogitated over the problem.

"Wednesday night, sir—let me see. Yes, it would be Wednesday. I'd say about half-past seven, or maybe a bit before that. Not later than half-past, anyhow. Coming in on the Carden road—I was in the market place at the time. Big man, yellow curls, and no hat, driving fast. Alone in the car—very narrow blue body, it had, and an aluminium bonnet—yes. Went through the market place, past the new cinema, and straight on along the London road. That be the one, sir?"

"I couldn't say, sir. He either went straight out of the town along the London road, or else turned in to park in the yard of the George or the Blue Boar—they're both out of sight from where I was when he passed me. I can make inquiries if you like, sir."

"No—I'll inquire at those two hotels myself. But you might ask if anyone saw that car, with either one or two men in it, at any time after eleven o'clock on Wednesday night. It either left here or passed through here on its way to Todlington, I understand, and I should be glad to have that confirmed. If you hear anything at all, you can get me by telephone at Westingborough at—yes, say about two-thirty tomorrow afternoon. I shall look in at the police station there at about that time, and you might ring through then, whether you hear anything of this car on its return journey or no."

"Very good, sir, I'll ring through then," Adams promised, "though I doubt if I'll get any news of it. Wednesday's a long while back for people to remember a particular car. It was the man without a hat driving it that made me remember it—else, I probably wouldn't."

"Well, somebody else might have noticed it for the same reason," Head pointed out. "See what you can find—if anything. And you're sure the big man had nobody with him when you saw him?"

Declining to satisfy Inspector Smith's curiosity about the butcher's boy and the motorcycle, Head went off to the George and Blue Boar hotels in turn, but in both cases his quest was vain. Then, since it was already getting on for five o'clock, he turned his car about and drove back to Todlington. He found a gateway which would conceal the car within a hundred yards of Mrs. Higgs's cottage, and, parking there, got out to wait for "Ireen", whom he intended to interview before her mother could warn her of the discovery of her peculations.

He saw her advancing after a little while, the peach-coloured blouse and pale blue skirt rendering her a beacon against the dark green of the roadside hedge. Her figure slanted to counterpoise the weight of an American-cloth bag that she bore, and she walked slowly, as if her burden were all that she could manage. Head met her at the gateway of the rhubarb patch, and saw her go pale under her rouge.

"We will examine the contents of the bag inside the house, I think," he observed, and opened the gate. "I'll follow you in."

She stood still, her mouth widely opened as she stared at him, until he made an imperative gesture toward the open door of her cottage.

"Inside, I said," he bade sharply, and at that she turned and scurried along the path in a frightened way, with him following.

She led him into the front room. The chairs were horsehair covered, and there was a sofa to match; a centre table, covered by a crimson baize cloth, bore a dish of wax fruit under a glass shade, and on the wall facing the door were oleographs of Queen Victoria and King Edward the Seventh, with, between them, a "God Bless Our Home" in an oxford frame—the oleographs were framed in bird's-eye maple. And before the terrible mirror-and-fretwork overmantel were mugs, a present from Margate and eke from Blackpool, and another glass shade protecting a stuffed kingfisher. The room, low-ceilinged and small-windowed, had the stuffiness of disuse: it was a survival from Victorian days, a holy of holies opened and used only for weddings and funerals.

The girl turned to him in momentary defiance, but wilted under his direct, accusing gaze. "Who—who told yer?" she asked, whisperingly.

"It was that Chalfont, the sneak! I know it was!" she broke out. "Mr. Wilson, he wouldn't never do such a thing." She lifted the heavy bag on to the table as her mother appeared in the doorway, and stood paused with her mouth wide open and her hands half-lifted as if in invocation. Reluctantly, slowly, Ireen dipped into the bag and brought out a newspaper-wrapped package; the wrapping fell open as she put it down and disclosed a rolled rib of beef, skewered and tied and ready for cooking. "It was give me, that was," she alleged sullenly.

"By Alfred Topper," Head observed quietly. "Yes, I expect he's on his way to a cell by this time. Now the rest—you've a good deal more to come out of that bag yet."

She dipped again, and produced a half-pound package of tea—a label proclaimed it as from Murdoch's Stores, Carden. A two-pound package of lump sugar and a dozen packet of matches followed it on to the faded crimson cloth, and then came two tins of salmon and two pots of jam. A tongue in a glass container completed the contents of the bag, and Ireen surveyed her haul with tears rolling down her cheeks.

She complied, and behind Head Mrs. Higgs emitted a long, shuddering gasp of dismay. There, she implied by the noise, went the Sunday joint.

"Now," he said to the girl, "what did you bring away from The Firs last Wednesday? Don't attempt to lie about it—what did you take?"

"Nuthin'—I swear I took nuthin'," she declared earnestly. "It was to of been me day off, but because the gentleman was comin' from London Mr. Wilson asked me to stay an' cook the lunch, an' I didn't bring nuthin' away that day. I swear it!"

"He couldn't of seen me," she answered. "Him an' the gentleman from London went into that shed, an' they was still in there when I come away. It was Mr. Wilson hisself told me I could go directly after lunch, an' I neenter stay to wash up. But he went into that shed with the other two, the gentleman from London an' Mr. Chalfont, so he couldn't see me go ne yet know when I went. But I didn't take a thing."

He had got from her what he wanted: Wilson, having been present at lunch that day, could not have been on the train waiting for Logan to join it. Head felt rather relieved in thinking, as Byrne had said, that Wilson was not a killer, for he had liked the man.

Here, though, was the problem of Ireen and her thefts: it was anti-climax supreme, to set to the task of tracing a man whom his daughter believed had been murdered, and end up, not merely without finding a sign of him, but faced with the petty pilfering of a servant girl. A ludicrous finish to the case. He faced her sternly.

"Straight back to The Firs with that bag of things," he ordered. "See Mr. Wilson,"—he would not order her to confront Chalfont—"hand him all you have in that bag, and make full confession of all your thefts. All of them, mind! Start off—straight back."

"Very good, then. You spend to-night and tomorrow night in a cell, and come before the magistrates on Monday morning. Come along. I'll handcuff you in my car, and take you over to Westingborough."

"I'll tell Mr. Wilson everything," she promised. "Please—please let me do that, an' don't take me to jail! I will tell him."

He watched her out from the cottage, and followed her to the garden gate. As she reached it she broke into loud boo-hoos, and went sobbing along the road to the end of the lane that led to The Firs. The boo-hoo-ing was still audible as Head went to his car and started up: watching, he saw that she looked back as if in hope of a reprieve of some sort, and then went on again. He followed in first gear, so as not to overtake her, and proceeded at a walking pace as far as the end of the lane. She was trudging along it slowly, he saw, and since she looked round again as if to ascertain whether he were following, he stopped the car and sat at gaze until she disappeared beyond a bend. Then he went on again, and in Carden Street pulled up to speak to Sergeant Plender, who, apparently, had just left the butcher's shop.

The sergeant shook his head. "He doesn't want to prosecute, Mr. Head," he said. "Says boys are scarce, and Topper's a willing lad, and it's not him that's been swindled. Wants to keep the boy on."

"Well, if he won't prosecute, he won't. Look here—you go along to The Firs on Monday morning and ask for Mr. Wilson. Call at Mrs. Higgs's cottage first, and if her daughter Irene—Ireen, they call her—is there' take her along with you. Make the girl confess to defrauding Wilson and Chalfont both through orders at Beeston's and at Murdoch's stores, and if Wilson won't take action, I'm pretty certain Chalfont will, by what I've seen of him. They've been swindled, beyond doubt."

Back at her cottage, Mrs. Higgs stood at the garden gate awaiting her daughter's return. The tears rolled slowly down the old woman's cheeks, but not on account of Ireen: she was mourning the loss of that four pound joint of beef and the groceries that had accompanied it in the shiny black bag, and her lips moved ever and again in a whispered lament as she wept.

Chapter XIX
Loretta Mutinous

A DAPPER, tall, precise man was Sir Bernard Ashford, with deeply set grey eyes, a purplish beak of a nose, white hair, and a nearly-white moustache—nicotine coloured it slightly—of which every hair appeared correctly trained. He appeared at dinner on Saturday evening in the gloomy, panelled dining-room at Carden Hall, said grace, and then faced his wife from the end of the table in silence for almost the whole of the meal. Much of the silver on the table was Jacobean, and none of it was later than the Queen Anne period, while the antique cut glass would have inspired a collector with frenzied longing—but the meal itself bespoke the utmost economy. There was a son in the Indian Army who absorbed most of Sir Bernard's dwindled income, and here at home the baronet and his wife pinched and scraped, maintaining an empty, even hungry state for the sake of the boy. Loretta's future was a minor consideration: after the manner of some elderly parents, Sir Bernard and his wife could not get out of the way of regarding her as a child, although she was then twenty-five.

But, seated between her father and mother that evening, Loretta more than once caught him regarding her in a frowning, thoughtful fashion, as if he had some new idea about her. When, at the end of the rather unsatisfactory meal—for Loretta had a healthy appetite and helpings had been minute—she rose to follow her mother for coffee in the drawing-room as usual, Sir Bernard broke his silence.

"As you like, Daddy." And she waited while he opened the dining-room door for his wife, closed it, and returned to the table to seat himself again. The request was not merely unusual, but unique: she knew him better than to question his reason, and so waited, silent as was he, until the elderly maid had served coffee and left them alone. Then Sir Bernard emitted a preliminary "Hrrrm!" and opened on her.

"I find it slightly surprising, Loretta, not to say annoying, that I should learn of your approaching marriage through the medium of a groom—of Merridew, in fact. Your imminent marriage, I understand."

The candles on the old table, and their reflections in its mirroring polish, gave just enough light to reveal the colour that flooded her face and neck as she heard him. She met his gaze steadily.

"You should have been told, by the man I am marrying, to-day," she answered, and her tone was just as clear and precise as his own. "I am sorry. He was prevented at the last minute from calling."

"Then I am to take this—er—this stable gossip, which I overheard quite by chance when I went round to look at the horses, as correct?" he inquired, with just such frozen politeness as he might have displayed in speaking to a stranger—or an inferior.

"May I inquire who is the—er—the fortunate man?" He sounded still more frosty. "In the course of their discussion, neither Merridew nor the stable boy mentioned his name, and possibly you will appreciate the fact that I could not ask them."

"Since you have chosen to ignore both your mother and me in these plans of yours," he responded coldly, "I do not see that you can complain of our attitude. I realize that you are of age, and therefore free to marry whom you choose, but in accepting this as your home common courtesy, surely, is due from you to us. It ought not to be necessary for me to learn from a stable boy's gossip of what my generation, at least, still regards as an important step in life—in my own daughter's life! Possibly you consider it too trivial—"

"One moment," he interrupted in turn. "You have not yet answered my question as to who this man is that you intend marrying."

"His name is Chalfont," she answered coldly, angered, now, by his attitude, and determined to plead with him no more.

"Chalfont," he repeated, with a satirically thoughtful inflection. "I am afraid the name conveys nothing to me. Er—able to maintain you in comfort, I hope—or does he expect you to maintain him?"

"A natural question," he retorted dissentingly. "Surely, having maintained you for twenty-five years"—he too rose to his feet, since she did not seat herself again—"I am entitled to know whether the man you intend to marry is in a position to support you, and, I think, to know something of his birth and antecedents. I may say that you have gone your own way since leaving school, and have shown little or no regard for our position in the county. Whether you have considered it in determining on this step is something I have yet to learn."

"Very well," she said. "I have known him over eighteen months. He is a Marlborough and Cambridge man, and a genius as well. I asked him to come and tell you himself that we are marrying, and he will do so—would have done so to-day, if he had been able."

"I see." He inclined his head, as coldly as ever. "Marlborough, Cambridge, and a genius. And you have maintained an acquaintance—a friendship—with him for eighteen months, and not seen fit to introduce him either to your mother or to me, nor even to mention him. One can hardly consider such concealment accidental—unless, of course, the man is abroad, or in some other way inaccessible. Even then—"

He paused, and gazed steadily, accusingly, at her. The shades on the candles left her face in a dimness that concealed her expression.

"Ah!" He affected interest, but she recognized it as bitter satire. "Is he a tall man, rather er, well—rather careless about the cleanliness of his trousers, and indifferent to convention in the matter of wearing hats? If so, I think I have seen him—I believe he has been pointed out to me as a mysterious character—"

"Why must you be so bitterly unfair?" she interrupted. "Must everyone conform to your standards? There is nothing mysterious about him, and since you adopt this attitude, I'll tell you simply and finally that I'm going to marry him, and ask nothing of you from the day I go to him. If you wish, I'll go and live at the Carden Arms on Monday, and stay there till we're married. Since you appear to grudge having maintained me for twenty-five years—because it meant less for Bernard, of course!—I don't see why you should go on maintaining me after to-morrow. I can use my own small income to maintain myself."

"Fortunately, that income is tied up in a way that will prevent the gentleman with the soiled trousers from squandering it and rendering you quite destitute," Sir Bernard observed coolly. "And after that remark about your brother, and your expressed determination to marry this man independently of my wishes, perhaps it would be as well if you took a room at the Carden Arms—or anywhere you choose, until you assume the name of—of—er—the gentleman without a hat."

"I'd go to-night, if it were possible," she fired back. "As it isn't, I'll have meals in my own room till Monday, and keep to it till then. But I tell you you're bitterly, terribly unfair to me. Good-bye, Father."

She went out, and up to her room. Her mother would come to her soon, she felt sure, and would understand when all the story had been told. And after Chalfont had been recognized as the inventor of the wonderful rainbow screen—but then she realized that her father never went to see a film: to him, the cinema was a mere pandering to the tastes of the lower orders: he was not merely Victorian, but almost an eighteenth-century survival, impregnably entrenched in prejudices belonging to a past age. A fanatic, in some ways.

Loretta waited in her room, long past the time at which she usually went to bed, but her mother did not appear. Sir Bernard had forbidden any communication whatever with his daughter, and Lady Ashford had never dared to disobey him since their marriage. Whatever her own wishes may have been, she dared not disobey him now.

Hearing sounds from the back of the house, Wilson got up from the dining-table at The Firs, where with Chalfont he was enjoying a simple meal of canned salmon, real cucumber, bread and butter and beer.

"It's the gal back for something," he announced. "Nobody else has got a back door key, and she's come back for something."

"Well, it doesn't need two of us," Chalfont observed, and went on eating. "That is, if it really is the gal."

Wilson went out, and found Ireen leaning against the wall just outside the kitchen door. There was enough light left from the end of day to show her face clearly as she gazed at him, and he saw that her very amateur make-up was streaked by tears, and that she held in her hand the black and shiny bag which she alleged she used for the conveyance of "me overalls." Tears welled to her eyes and rolled down the furrows in her cheeks as she gazed at him, and she made the—"Goop-goop" sound by which children signify that they have sobbed to the point of breathlessness and inability to sob any more.

"'E said—goop—the pleeceman what come 'ere to-day—goop-goop-goop—'e said I'd got to come an' tell you—tell you—Boo-hoo!" She burst into another volley of sobs, and Chalfont looked out from the doorway of the trough, saw that it was indeed the gal, and went back to the table to resume eating. Wilson put a hand on the girl's shoulder, and picked up the bag she had dropped when she began crying.

"You mean the police inspector?" he asked. "Well, stop that noise and come in here and tell me about it." He impelled her into the kitchen, and, following, put the bag on the table. "Do you mean"—there was a tinge of harshness in his voice—"he's been questioning you about us—about Mr. Chalfont and me?"

"Nun-no," she got out, quelling her sobs. "About—about tha-a-at! Them!" She pointed at the bag. "I'd gotter tell you."

Then she put her hands over her face and sobbed very bitterly indeed. Puzzled, Wilson took up the bag by its lower corners and inverted it over the table. The rolled rib of beef appeared with its wrappings falling open, and the rest of the provisions followed it. The glass pot of tongue rolled, and in spite of Wilson's effort at catching it dropped to the floor, where it broke and became a mere pinky mess.

"Police, provisions, purloined property," Wilson observed gravely. "Look here, Ireen! Stop that blasted row and recite the agony. That looks a nice piece of beef to me, and I don't believe we've tasted roast beef since we came here. You've been bilking us, eh?"

Since he spoke quite cheerfully, she dropped her hands to look at him, and took heart.

"'E sus-said I'd go-got to tell you ev-everything," she stuttered, her voice shaky after much sobbing. "Abub-bout 'ow Alf's been a robbin' of you to pay for 'is moty-bike, which 'e took me out on, an' 'ow Mr. Murdoch's book's been altered, an'— Ooooh, I carn't! I caaarn't!"

"Now look here, Ireen!" Wilson adjured kindly. "'We're most of us liars, an' 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest is as rank as can be'—but probably you don't know your Kipling. It's a fact, though. And there's another of his—'Steal in measure—there's measure in all things made'. That's King Hal and the shipwrights, which is Greek to you. What it means is that all these things will go down to our accounts with Beeston and Murdoch, and you'll eat like hell. Is that it? Stop making that noise, and tell me. Is that what the large police inspector caught you at? Because, if so, bless him! Is it?"

"Well, don't tell any more. I knew you were thieving, and so did Chalfont. Let this be a lesson to you—and if we don't do anything about it, you're safe. Steal in measure, in future—that is, don't make the grocer's bill more than thirty shillings a week, and if you must have a joint like that, cook us one too. We're reasonable men, both of us, and willing to forgive you if—here, did that police inspector ask you anything about us, though?"

The sudden harshness in his voice stopped her bleating sobs. She gazed at him, unable to believe her good luck, and a little frightened.

"No, Mr. Wilson. Nuthin' about you. It was that bag. 'E made me empty it in front of 'im, an' made me come back to tell you—"

"All right," he interrupted. "Don't worry about it. But since that joint of beef apparently belongs to us, you can put it in the safe and cook it for us to-morrow. I see the game, now. You can get away with the odd spot of tea and sugar and a pot of jam—I loathe jam, and it wasn't tactful of you, Ireen. You can get away with that, but if you think you're going to have roast beef for Sunday and put us off with chops or sausage and mash, there's going to be a revolution. And next week we're going to have haddock for breakfast, and kippers, and sausages—blast the eternal eggs and bacon! You get that? You're going to feed us like Christians, because there's a police inspector in the offing, ready to gobble you up. You get that?"

"For this once. But for the future, steal in measure. That means, take your average of perquisites. How the hell this police inspector got on to your peculations is more than I can tell, but bless him, all the same. Now are you going to be a good girl, and turn up on time in the morning, and feed us properly, and not thieve with such blasted blatancy, and wash your face and don't look so much like a tart?"

She stayed to put the joint in the meat safe, in readiness for cooking on the morrow, and determined to shell some peas to go with it, since he was such a nice gentleman. Then she gathered up the rest of her spoils and departed, with even the remnants of the tongue scraped off the floor and put back in the shiny black bag.

Having spent the afternoon in shirt sleeves, superintendent Wadden took down his tunic from the peg in the corner of his room at the police station, and had just managed to get into it when Head walked in on him. The Superintendent took down his cap, and put it on.

"I wouldn't call it uproarious," Head answered. "Have you had any messages for me—anything at all?"

"Not a thing. I was going home for the afternoon, but I got interested in some catalogues. There's an idea, I see, for sectional greenhouses—like those bookcases you build up a bit at a time. And when I do retire and start growing tomatoes under glass, it looks as if that's the system I ought to adopt. Start with one section, and expand."

"Yes." Head's gaze travelled over the Superintendent's figure. "Expand. The greenhouses, of course," he added hastily.

"Young feller," Wadden said frostily, "I let you run out and play for the whole afternoon, and you come back and josh me!"

"I wouldn't dream of such a thing, Chief," Head assured him with hurried earnestness. "Oh, did you tell Thorn I don't want him now?"

"Well, how the devil was I to know? I ask you what you've done with your afternoon, and all you can say is that it wasn't uproarious. If you haven't found him, what are you going to do about it?"

"Drop it, after to-morrow, and let him appear again when he feels like it," Head answered. "I've seen those two men at Todlington—and incidentally caught their servant girl at a pretty piece of thieving from them, though whether she'll be punished for it is more than I can tell. I've been over to Crandon and checked up on one part of their story, and the girl checked another part without knowing it. I was inclined to suspect the story at first, and—half a minute, Chief. Do you mind if I use your telephone for a call?"

"Up to you," Wadden said, and nodded at the instrument. He seated himself as Head spun the dial once and asked for Carden exchange.

"I want to speak to Miss Portman, please," Head asked, when the connection had been made for him. "Inspector Head, tell her."

"I'm sorry, Miss Portman is not here," a feminine voice answered. "Can I do anything for you?"

"She had a message that her father had had a stroke, and got leave to go and see him. We expect her back in the morning."

He replaced the receiver, reflecting that Miss Portman had told him she could give him no assistance over local calls, and Wilson had said that he had telephoned the Carden Arms from Crandon, which would be a local call. The girl, perturbed over her father's sudden illness, had not troubled to ring through to give merely negative information, and, in any case, he could ring her on the morrow. Asking this other girl for the information he wanted would involve remaining here another hour or more—and, if Miss Portman had had anything to tell him, she would have left a message, he felt certain.

"From Crandon, I believe, in which case it can't be traced," Head answered. "Half a minute—one more inquiry before I go."

He dialled trunks, and called Pensham Manor. There, somebody who announced herself as the housekeeper informed him that they had heard nothing of Mr. Logan, nor of Miss Logan, who also had disappeared and had rung through once, but had given no indication of her whereabouts. Thereupon Head gave the information of Miss Logan's presence in Westingborough, and with it the telephone number of the Duke of York in case the housekeeper wanted to get in touch with the girl.

"I see what it is," Wadden observed as Head replaced the receiver again, "that young feller Thorn has been doing the calling through when they wanted to ask if Logan had turned up at home, and hadn't the sense to say Miss Logan was with him—or perhaps he didn't want to give away that she's staying here with him—and so they took him for us. Well, Head, it's only four days since he went into hiding, even now."

"Byrne's given it up in disgust," Head observed thoughtfully. "Our two suspects are as good as cleared. It's not an ordinary case."

"Is any case an ordinary case?" Wadden inquired. "It's the abnormal that keeps us busy, isn't it? I know what you mean, though—you can't even assume crime cheerfully, when it's fifty-fifty that the man is waiting for you to assume it and help his little scheme along by making a fuss about him—and probably laughing at you. And ten to one he'd have planned his hiding place in advance and taken darned good care to make it a good one. Let's go home, young feller."

He rose to his feet, and waited for Head to precede him out from the room. Following, he locked the door, and joined Head in the front doorway of the police station.

"In no hurry, eh?" he asked, as Head stood still, gazing across the road instead of making way for the Superintendent to pass through.

"Take a glance across the road—the Duke of York doorway," Head invited, and stepped outside for Wadden to come abreast of him.

Thorn's car stood before the hotel entrance, and its owner stood beside it. As they watched, Noel Logan descended to the pavement, and Thorn took both her hands and gazed down at her—they could see his lips move in speech, but were too far off to hear his words.

"Well," Wadden said—softly, for him, "you were young yourself once, weren't you? Come along, laddie! My old lady told me she'd have steak and onions for dinner for me to-night, and I'm hungry."

He set off, and Head went with him. Back inside the police station Sergeant Wells removed a telephone receiver and listened.

"Sorry, miss—he's just gone. I can take a message for him if you like, or he'll be in here about two-thirty to-morrow, if not before. Or I might just catch him now, if you care to hold on."

A brief silence before she replied indicated that she was deliberating over the alternatives he offered. Then:

"No, don't trouble, thanks. I'll ring through at two-thirty to-morrow. And I won't leave a message. It may have been a personal inquiry."

Chapter XX
On the Face of It—

AT a little past two o'clock on Sunday afternoon Head walked into the charge room of the police station and, having trodden softly in the corridor and opened the door of the room suddenly, caught Sergeant Wells and Jeffries of the station staff, who usually acted as chauffeur when the big saloon was turned out, playing bezique. The cards vanished inside Wells's desk as by magic, but he could not get rid of the score cards quite soon enough, and the pair looked like schoolboys caught up an apple tree and still eating.

"Well, you'd better carry on. It's better than going to sleep, if there's no work that needs doing. Anything to report, Wells?"

"Only that a Miss Portman rang through for you last night just after you'd gone, sir. She wouldn't leave any message, but said she'd ring through again at two-thirty to-day. I told her you'd be in then."

"And it's nearly that now. Well, put her through to my room, when she does ring. I shall be here till about four o'clock."

"We'd better wash that hand out and start afresh, Jeffries," he suggested. "He's decent about things like that. If it had been the Supe., now, he'd have blown the cards all over the floor before he started to tell us our case histories and previous convictions. But—" He reached for the telephone since the bell had begun ringing. "Yes? Inspector Head? Oh, yes—yes. Half a minute—I'll put you through."

Head took off the receiver on his extension instrument when Wells rang his bell, and announced himself.

"Constable Adams speaking, Mr. Head, from Crandon. About that car, the one you asked me to inquire about yesterday afternoon."

"Oh, yes," Head said, with only faint interest—he had decided to follow Byrne's example and let Logan remain hidden as long as he liked. "What have you learned about it, Adams?"

"From the commissionaire on the door of our new picture palace, the Elysium, sir," Adams half-intoned, and Head inferred that the man was reading from notes he had made. "On Wednesday night, at about eleven-thirty, this commissionaire turned off the last of the lights outside the cinema, and went home. He gives the time as eleven-thirty or later, as he has to get out of his uniform and leave it at the picture palace, not go home in it. He lives in a cottage along the London road, just outside the town, and he had just reached his cottage when an open car, driven by a hatless man with yellow curls, shot past him toward the town—that is coming from the London direction. He thinks it was a blue car, but is not sure. He was walking on his left-hand side of the road, so the driver of the car was nearest to him, but he's quite certain there was another man in the car. He reckoned it was travelling at a good fifty miles an hour, and the road was quite clear for it, but it was in the thirty-mile limit. Side lamps only alight, he says."

"Coming from London toward the town—that is, toward Carden and Todlington?" Head suggested.

"That's it, sir. I should have seen it myself, but I was watching a man who seemed to be acting suspiciously round at the back of the cinema palace. I thought he might be meaning to break in."

"Not as nearly as I can make out, sir. Of course, others must have seen it as it went through, but I haven't come across any of 'em yet. The cinema closes down before eleven, and after the people have come out and gone home, our streets are pretty quiet—deserted, you might say, except for an odd straggler or two. And Wednesday night is a good way back, now—people don't trouble to remember."

"All right—thanks very much, Adams. And your commissionaire's name, in case I should need his statement as evidence for anything?"

So they had not stayed in Crandon, he reflected as he hung up. On the London side of the town, returning toward it at fifty miles an hour by this man's estimate. The time tallied, roughly, with that given by Eef in the bar of The Feathers, when he had talked and Thorn had listened, and Eef, too, had noted the high speed at which they had travelled. Could it be that they had—"

"Helen Portman speaking, Mr. Head, from Carden exchange. I'm so sorry about yesterday, and do hope it hasn't inconvenienced you. Not more than two minutes after you had gone out—I was just going to make your inquiry, as a matter of fact—not two minutes after, a message came through for me to say that my father had had a stroke, and I was wanted at home at once. And in the shock and anxiety of it, I have to confess that I quite forgot to ask my colleague here to put your inquiry through and let you know the result. I am really sorry, Mr. Head."

"Don't let it worry you too much," he answered. "How is your father, may I ask? Getting over it, I hope?"

"Well, I'm very sorry to hear that, Miss Portman. And my inquiry? I believe now it was a local call, from Crandon, and in that case—"

"Well, the one you wish to know about may have been, but there was a trunk call for the Carden Arms, at eight minutes past seven on Wednesday evening, and put in at the George Hotel at Tring."

The receiver clattered from Head's hand on to his desk. Then he picked it up again and once more put it to his ear.

"I'm sorry, Miss Portman. Dropped the receiver—clumsy of me. Where did you say that call originated?"

"Was it the only trunk call for the Carden Arms between, say, half-past six and half-past seven, do you know?"

Depressing the receiver rest to disconnect, he released it again and bade Sergeant Wells get Superintendent Wadden on the line if he were at home. And presently the Superintendent's voice sounded to him.

"Here, what the hell do you want—Sunday afternoon? The old lady and me are just off out in the car—our car. Whaddye want?"

"Oh, the hell you have! Well, tell him to go home and don't be such a blasted ass next time. You don't need me for that."

"Chief, I can't tell him that. I found him yesterday, and didn't realize it. He never caught that train—never left The Firs on Wednesday afternoon. I want warrants, men—want you here—"

"Phoooo!" Wadden blew a fierce gust into his transmitter. "D'you mean he's dead? If so, why don't you say so, man?"

"Dead, and buried. I can't talk it out on the telephone. Come over here, Chief—we ought to act quickly, and I want warrants."

"And this," Wadden said bitterly, "is what happens when I plan to take a nice Sunday afternoon run with the old lady in the car—our car! All right, and damn you! I'll be there. Phoo-oo-oo-o!"

And, as Head received auricular evidence, he slammed his receiver back on its rest. Then Head went and looked in on the bezique players.

"You'd better get the saloon out, Jeffries," he said. "Wells, I shall want two men in addition to Jeffries. Turn them out for me."

Well within ten minutes Wadden appeared, resplendently attired in preparation for his Sunday afternoon outing with the old lady. He was wearing white flannel trousers, yellow shoes and fawn socks, a blue blazer with flat brass buttons—it was a trifle tight, and emphasized his girth—and a soft-collared shirt, and as he entered the office he fanned himself with a panama hat and blew fiercely at Head.

"Your name's mud with the old lady, henceforth and for ever," he announced. "When she's finished skinning me, she's coming after you. Now what's it all about? What's this about finding Logan yesterday?"

"Arising out of that telephone call to Chalfont at the Carden Arms, Chief," Head said. "I've been a fool—the worst sort of fool. When Tom Adams told me he saw that red-bearded man arrive at the station with Chalfont on Wednesday afternoon, I took it as good enough."

"Well, wasn't it?" Wadden asked, serious now, since he understood from Head's tone that here was something of more importance than his Sunday afternoon's outing. "Tom wouldn't lie to you, man, surely?"

"Since it hasn't occurred to you even yet, Chief, I can partly acquit myself for not seeing it. The man whom Chalfont drove to the station on Wednesday afternoon was Wilson—Wilson in Logan's clothes and with Logan's beard, gummed on or fixed on somehow. You see, Tom Adams had had no more than a glimpse of Logan when he came off the train and Chalfont met him to take him to Todlington. All that stuck in his mind was the red beard and a general impression of the way Logan was dressed. Wilson is about the same height and build—they shaved off Logan's beard and moustache, and Wilson gummed them on. He shed the beard in the train, but kept the moustache for a time, lest he should be recognized and described as himself. He went to the George Hotel at Tring and rang Chalfont at the Carden Arms, and Chalfont set off for Tring at once to pick him up and take him home to The Firs—and they came back through Crandon at near on midnight—Chalfont was alone in the car when he went Londonward through Crandon, and had Wilson with him when he came back. I'd so placidly accepted Logan's presence in that train that it never occurred to me to question whether Wilson might not have impersonated him. Which, as I see now, he did."

"Buried under the floor of that shed at Todlington," Head answered. "Oh, but I'm a fool—a damned fool! Wilson pointed out to me the oblong of new planking in front of their sink, and explained it with such perfect naturalness—and of course they killed Logan in that shed, and took up the original planking to bury him there! Now—warrants. I've told Jeffries to turn out the saloon, and asked for two more men."

"Right, you're certain. But will anyone else be? Not warrants, man, but a warrant. A search warrant. Then, if you're right, you can claim those two without any more warrants, so don't ask for 'em. Never make unnecessary trouble. Here—Chalfont and Wilson, The Firs, Todlington, isn't it? I'll fill out your warrant for you, and Carden Hall is your nearest point to get it signed on the way—Sir Bernard Ashford is your man for the job. The house and all buildings and ground appertaining thereto. Better jam some tools in the saloon to rip up that floor and do your digging for the corpse. Search warrant—yes—we haven't had occasion to use one for years. And if you're right you'll want Bennett there to examine the corpse—it'll be over four days old already, remember. D'you feel sure enough to take him?"

"Then ring Bennett and get him to go over—but don't let him get there ahead of you while you're seeing Sir Bernard about the warrant. You see about getting him and the tools, and I'll find one and fill it out for you. D'ye want me over there with you?"

"Right. I'll stay here, in case I'm wanted. Troubles never come singly, and anything may happen before you get back. Oh, what about identification? Nobody here can identify him, you know, especially if he's short of that beard, as you believe."

"Not believe, Chief—know. That Miss Enderby had better come here first thing to-morrow—she'll be able to do it, and it's not the sort of thing we need put on a girl like his daughter—"

"All right—leave that to me. I'll see what I can do about getting hold of Byrne as soon as I'm sure of your solution, and then he can push her off first thing in the morning. And that's all, I think. You see about Bennett and the tools you'll want there—I'll do the rest."

Sir Bernard Ashford, seated in his library at Carden Hall with Head facing him, caressed his neat moustache thoughtfully.

"This is an amazing story, Inspector," he said. "And especially—that point about the agreement being left in the train. Surely, if your theory were correct, the man Wilson would have appropriated that agreement—and destroyed it?"

"He counted on diverting suspicion by leaving it there, Sir Bernard," Head replied. "Logan would never have left it, but with Logan dead it becomes negligible. It was for that very reason—that nobody would think him such a fool as to leave it—that he left it."

"I see your reasoning. But still, all you have to go on, really, is a telephone call from Tring to the Carden Arms on Wednesday evening, a call made by someone whom you have not troubled to identify. On that and nothing else, as I understand it, you ask me to sign this warrant?"

"A search warrant only, Sir Bernard. If I'm wrong, the onus is on me, and the damages, if any, will fall on me. But I am not wrong."

"Well, you shall have the opportunity of proving it." Sir Bernard took out his fountain pen and signed the warrant. "Perhaps," he added, as he handed it over, "you will be so good as to let me know the result of this search, at the earliest possible moment?"

"If you wish, I will call here as soon as—as soon as the two men concerned are safely under lock and key," Head offered.

"Yes, do—it is more satisfactory than telephoning. I—er—I ask it because I have grave doubts as to your procedure, Inspector. A mere telephone call by an unidentified person—"

But that, Head realized as he remembered the rumours concerning Loretta and Chalfont, was not the baronet's real reason for this request. He folded the warrant and put it away.

"I will let you know at the earliest possible moment, Sir Bernard," he promised, "but in my own mind I am quite certain."

When the police saloon, with Jeffries at the wheel and two men in addition to Head inside, had gone on its way down the drive from the Hall, Sir Bernard went slowly up the stairs and paused outside his daughter's room—not the one in which she slept, but another which was still known as "the play room". He had had time for thought, perhaps for regret over his own harshness, since the preceding evening: now, as he stood in momentary irresolution before the closed door, he remembered Loretta as a child, wilful and perverse even then, but always lovable—and loved!

A quaint little toddler with big brown eyes, and fat little hands that clutched his fingers; a long-legged girl who could sit on a horse as if part of it, always in the first half-dozen in the hunting field: perhaps, in his intense determination that his son should have every advantage, he had neglected her in these later years, had failed to give her the advantages due to her. His wife had pointed out that for Loretta's sake they ought to entertain sometimes, but he had counted the cost and insisted that they could not afford it, for every penny spent meant less for Bernard when he should come to rule here. In thinking of her as child and girl he had forgotten for too long that she was a woman, and now—this! He knocked on the door.

Still silent, she stood back, and he entered. She closed the door and faced him, her brown eyes coldly questioning his errand.

"I am afraid," he said, and paused, finding his mission more difficult than he had thought. "I think—you may have to face a great shock, Loretta, if—what you told me last night—what I had already learned when I spoke to you about—about this man—"

"But surely it is all settled," she interrupted his halting speech rather contemptuously, "and I am to leave here to-morrow. Why should you trouble about any shocks that may be in store for me?"

"Because you are my daughter," he answered, more steadily. "Inspector Head has just been here—the detective-inspector from Westingborough—has just been here and taken away a search warrant, on suspicion that the two men at The Firs are implicated in—responsible for the disappearance—death—of another man. One named Logan."

She backed a step away from him, and then another—unsteady paces. And, as he saw the sudden horror in her expression, he realized that Head had been right in asking him to sign the warrant. It was momentary—it was, in reality, her sudden understanding of why Chalfont had written to ask her to conceal everything from her parents, and with it she knew the reason for the change she had sensed in him. It passed, and her father saw her as determined, resolute over some purpose.

"You have not said that you don't believe this of him," he pointed out. "If you do believe it, Loretta—"

"Then all the more surely, I must go to him," she insisted. "If it had been you—if you had been accused of the worst crime on earth, I should be with you to face it. How much more when he is accused!"

He inclined his head. "Of course, you are quite right," he said. "I—I am proud of you now, Loretta, and I hope—I hope you may yet be able to bring this man here to meet me, if—if you will forget my expressions last night. And—if not—come back to your mother and me."

"Oh, Daddy!" She stepped forward and kissed him. "That's you as I love you! But I mustn't wait—I must go."

Within five minutes, she sat at the wheel as the car sped along the drive, and from a window of the Hall Sir Bernard and his wife watched.

"My dear, we have invited it," her husband said gravely, "and I have been more to blame than you. In future we must be more careful of her, give her more—send her away to recover from this—"

"Loyalty takes her there to-day," he answered. "I saw her eyes when I told her. Not that she can do anything—probably they will not even let her see the man. But—a gallant gesture, and whatever he may have done, I would not have stopped her if I could."

Chapter XXI
Tony!

WITH only a slight abatement of its speed, the big police saloon swerved in through the gateway of The Firs and along between the banked masses of rhododendron still in flower, and Jeffries braked it to a standstill within half a dozen yards of the desolate-looking frontage of the house. Head, first out, signed to his two men.

"You wait here and fetch Doctor Bennett round to the back when he arrives, Jeffries," he said. "With me, you two."

He went to the front door, the two uniformed men following him. With his hand on the knob of the bellpull, he paused before ringing: from within sounded a tremendous clatter of footfalls on bare boards, as of somebody descending the staircase at breakneck speed. A thunderous crash announced that whoever had come down had made a flying leap of the last of the stairs, and then the sound receded toward the back of the house as Head jerked the bellpull and set off the clangorous tolling he had heard before. But the clattering, hurrying footfalls ceased: there sounded the slam of a heavy door flung open or closed—it might have crashed against its lintel or against a wall—and then a shout, imperative, but with a note of fear in it:

"Out at the back of the house," Head said. "Come on—we'll go round. And if they show signs of resisting, go for them."

He led the way, and they came to the rear corner of the house, a point whence they could see the long shed and all the outbuildings. There in utter, shocked amazement they halted momentarily, and again heard the shout—agony in it, now:

Chalfont, hatless as always and in his shirt-sleeves, stood before the closed door of the shed, and from about halfway along its length smoke was pouring, with the afternoon's light breeze driving it away from the house. Massy black clouds of it drove away among the old apple trees, and again Chalfont shouted. Then, as Head moved forward, the big man backed away from the shed door until he had a run of a dozen paces or less, and with a leap charged forward. All his weight and all his great strength went into the impact on the door, and it gave before him and fell inward. He blundered into the bellying volume of black smoke that thrust out and curled back along the sides of the shed, and as Head and his two men approached there came out with the smoke a bladdery gout of reddish flame.

Midway along the roof there was a sudden crackling roar like a miniature eruption from a volcano: a shower of sparks went skyward, and following them a sudden pillar of flame appeared and thickened. By this time Head and his men were before the open doorway, looking into a crackling, roaring furnace, and Head himself remembered Wilson's telling him of a jar on the shelf near the fuse box, a jar which the contents would develop fifteen hundred degrees centigrade of heat. Thermite, or something of that nature. And Chalfont had gone to his death: it was impossible to get near that doorway now. Wilson, too, must be somewhere in that hell. Chalfont had called him, gone inside in a valiant, hopeless attempt at rescuing him.

"The bravest deed I have ever seen," Head said, with a note of sharp reproof. "It was to save—here—look!"

He moved quickly toward the doorway, shading his eyes from the heat with his lifted arm, for a blackened figure came staggering, half-running out, holding something clasped closely in its arms, as if by the very hold the bearer would protect his burden against what he himself had faced. A giant of a man, hairless, horrible to see, with his scant clothing on fire in half a dozen places—he fell at Head's feet, and dropped that which he had carried as he fell—it had been another man, that burden of his, but now it was no more than almost naked and half-roasted flesh.

Flames licked out toward the men as they lifted first one and then the other of these figures away, and the burning shed roared and shouted over its own destruction, crackling, crumpling, burning now like so much paper. Head saw Doctor Bennett beside him, bending over the smaller of the two still figures.

"Still living!" There was incredulity in the exclamation, as if Chalfont had no right to be alive after what he had done and endured. The doctor looked up at Head. "Get him into the house. Oil—olive oil—any oil! And cotton wool—find a bed for him, if there is one in the house. Come on—lift him, you two! Hurry! Head, have you got a first-aid case in that car of yours? Bring my bag—the one in my car! We'll get him inside and find him a bed."

Sounds guided Head when, returning from the cars, he entered the house by the back door, bearing both the first-aid case and the doctor's bag. He made his way up the staircase toward the source of the sounds, and saw Bennett applying oil from a bottle that he or one of the men, had found somewhere. He opened the first-aid case and took out a blue-wrapped roll of medicated cotton wool, and the doctor snatched it from him, tore away the wrapping, and began applying the wool.

"More bandages," he ordered, without ceasing at his task. "All the bandages there are. Look in my bag—you'll find more cotton wool there. Hurry, man! It's his only chance."

He was methodical in spite of his urgency, and in an incredibly brief time he had Chalfont stripped, the dressings bandaged on his injuries, and the man himself in bed, a hairless, scorched, unconscious travesty of what Head had known. Then, with his finger on Chalfont's pulse, the doctor looked up at Head and shook his own head.

"Useless, really, I'm afraid," he said. "They die of shock when they're as badly burned as this. I don't see any hope for him. You'd better let your men see about that dead one—cover him away decently."

"Yes," Head assented. "Williams, bring in the body and find something to cover it—you go with him, Jeffries. All three of you had better go. And then—but see about that first, though."

From the window of the bedroom he could see that the fire was already dying down outside. The creosoted wood of the shed, and all that it had contained, were now no more than a tumbled, unrecognizable mass from which more of flame than of smoke flickered up and wavered away from the house as the breeze caressed it. A fortunate thing, that breeze, for without it the house and outbuildings might have been destroyed as well as the shed. Beyond the long line of wreckage that the fire had caused, the foliage of the apple trees appeared brown and shrivelled by the intense heat. Then Head turned to the doctor.

Bennett shook his head. "He must have immense vitality to be still alive," he answered. "But recover—no, I'd say, burned as he is. Out of the question, as nearly as I can tell. It wouldn't be the slightest use trying to move him, or doing more than I have done."

"Not all of it," Head said. "The other—Wilson, his name is—must have been in the shed when it caught fire. I was in there with him the other day when a fuse blew, and I expect the same thing happened again to-day, but this time it must have blown with enough force to upset some very inflammable stuff they had in there. Probably Wilson was overcome by fumes or smoke. The shed was well alight when we saw this man—Chalfont—crash down the door and go in to attempt a rescue. Go in where you would have said he couldn't go—couldn't live for thirty seconds, let alone long enough to bring his friend out as he did. It was a magnificent attempt, about as brave a thing as I've ever seen. Plunging into an absolute hell, with no care whatever for himself. And now do you think he'll recover consciousness?"

"Probably, for a little while, just at the end. I'm not sure. But you said there was already a body here for me to examine, didn't you?"

"There is—under the floor of that shed. But—well, best as it is, probably. For both of them, at least."

"I was thinking," Head answered slowly. "Thinking aloud. If I'd started for home five minutes later last night, I should have received a certain telephone message to the police station then instead of to-day, and got here in time to find those two men alive and well, while now—"

"Yes." Bennett nodded in grave understanding. "And because of the body you want me to examine, it's better for them that they should not be alive and well. You know, you're not the perfect police inspector, Head. Because this chap happens to have a fine courage, you're putting what's best for him before your case."

"Quite possibly. But then, it hasn't been an ordinary case. Isn't he"—he pointed at the bed—"I'm sure he moved."

"Yes." Bennett turned toward the bandaged man. "As I thought it would be. You're all right, old chap,"—he addressed Chalfont—"but rather badly scorched. Nothing to worry about—if you can hear me."

"Tony!" The voice was not recognizable as Chalfont's, as Head knew it, but was more of a croak than a human voice. "Water—Tony!"

Bennett pointed at a carafe and glass on the washstand, close by where Head was standing. "Yes, we'll get you a drink," he said, as Head filled the glass. "Here you are." And, lifting Chalfont's head, took the glass and held it to the man's lips. "There—is that better?"

"Now I remember." He spoke more clearly, but it was still as much croak as voice. "Tony—dead. He was dead, wasn't he?"

"I'm afraid he was," Bennett admitted. "But you made a brave effort, a splendid effort. And you're not, you know."

"I got him out," Chalfont croaked again. "Too late. Dead. Who is it talking to me? I can't see—who are you?"

"Doctor? I can't see you. The flame—blinded me. And Tony—dead! I knew when I took him up, but—Tony did more for me. Stood by me—risked all for me. Greater love hath no man... no man—"

His voice trailed down to little more than a whisper. Bennett shook his head gravely and felt for the pulse again. Then Head knelt beside the bed, his face close to Chalfont's, and spoke; the man was dying, he knew, but those last sentences had revealed much of the way in which another man had died—so much, that he wanted to know more.

"Who is that, Doctor?" Chalfont roused to ask, and with the question he seemed to grow alive again, speaking more clearly than before.

"It is the police inspector who came to see you the other day," Head answered for himself. "Now tell me—did you or Wilson kill Logan when he came here on Wednesday? Which of you two killed him?"

"I killed him. Tony was innocent of it, and tried—tried to save me from—from discovery. From the consequences. I—I took Logan by the throat and shook him, and then he was dead. I didn't expect him to be dead. I didn't mean to kill him. Then—"

He ceased speaking, and lay very still. Head waited, kneeling beside him. Then he spoke again, but in no more than a whisper.

"Loretta—she's here. I heard her. Doctor, is it Sunday afternoon? Because I'm blind, and I asked her to come here on Sunday afternoon. Blinded by that fire—Loretta. Oh, God!"

Head heard agony in that final exclamation as he rose to his feet and stood back from the bedside.

"Yes, it's Sunday afternoon," Bennett said, and, glancing at Head, he tapped his forehead to signify that the dying man's mind was wandering. They could hear nothing to justify the assertion that Loretta was anywhere near the place. Except for their voices and Chalfont's, there was no sound to indicate other presences; the men on the floor below had finished bringing in and covering Wilson's body and were silent.

"Her voice—Loretta—" Chalfont whispered again. He tried to raise himself, but fell back limply as Bennett moved to help or hinder him. "Yes, her voice. It'd call me back from hell!"

Then they heard her. Light, swift footfalls on the bare stairs, and she was in the room. Bennett, moving to place himself between her and the bed, half lifted his hand in a gesture of forbidding, but she looked full at him, and with no word from her he knew he could do nothing. She passed him, and knelt as Head had knelt.

"Oh, Loretta!" They heard Chalfont's faint whisper, and yet she had spoken no word to reveal her identity. "Darling, I can't see you—blinded—perhaps I shall see again soon. I know—I knew your footstep when I heard it. I wish—perhaps I shall see again soon."

"Yes, Jim, darling." Her voice was quite steady. "You will see again soon, I know, and I shall be here. With you, always. Doctor,"—momentarily she glanced up at Bennett—"can you do anything more for him? Is there—can you make him see?"

"Then—" She pointed toward the door, imperatively. Her gaze went to Head, as if she included him in the command—it was no less.

Both Bennett and Head went out, and stood paused, facing each other at the head of the staircase. They could hear Loretta's voice, but not her words. It was a soft, caressing murmur, interrupted by Chalfont's whispering croak, and then going on, tenderly, lovingly.

"I'll wait up here," Bennett said, in too low a tone for his words to reach to Loretta's hearing. "He can't last long. She's trained V.A.D., and knows a bit about sick nursing. Best to leave them, eh?"

He went on down, and saw his three men standing outside the back door of the house, gazing at the long ridge of smoking ash and cindery wreckage that marked where the shed had stood, less than an hour before. For a little while he thought of the screen—the rainbow screen which Wilson had taken him to see, and would have shown him in working if it had not been for the blown fuse. Would the secret of it die with these two men? They still held the formula—everything connected with it, apparently, and both were beyond imparting their knowledge, Chalfont scarcely less so than Wilson. Then Jeffries spoke:

"That Miss Ashford, sir. Short of laying hands on her, there was no stopping her. She began by asking me what had happened, and I told her. Then she just went on in—there was no stopping her."

"No," Head answered. "I know, and it's better that she should be with him, perhaps. But now, if you take a look round, you'll find buckets somewhere, and there's a standpipe and tap over by that stable wall. Get your coats off, get the buckets, and quench that stuff about a third of the way along on the right-hand side till you find a porcelain sink. Get the tools out of the saloon and clear away all the rubbish round the sink, and you'll find a man has been buried under what was the floor of the shed. Dig him up. Doctor Bennett is waiting to examine the body. It will probably take you some time, but it's got to be done."

The three of them moved away to carry out his orders, and he went inside the house again. Looking in at the open doorway of the kitchen he saw used dinner plates, an empty vegetable dish, and another dish under a wire gauze cover, on the table. Round this covered dish the flies buzzed vainly, and on it Head could discern through the gauze a portion of a joint of meat, cooked now, but he was almost certain he had seen that joint in an uncooked state the day before, when Treen had emptied her shiny black bag at his bidding. Wilson had had real roast beef for his last meal, and, it being Sunday afternoon, the girl had left the remains of the food on this table, and had left the place without washing up. Then, hearing footsteps, Head looked along the hallway.

He moved toward the staircase, and saw Loretta descending stumblingly, holding on to the baluster rail, as if, like Chalfont, she were blind. But then she saw him, and drew herself up to face him. Her brown eyes were tearless, her face very white—there was little colour about her lips, even, as Head noted. Momentarily she swayed as if about to fall, but recovered herself again to face him.

"I am very sorry, Miss Ashford," Head said sincerely. "My men ought not to have let you in."

"Thank them for me that they did. And you—I know all of it. He told me before he died. It is—it is quite the best way."

Then, abruptly, she turned her back on him and went to the front door. He took one step toward going to open it for her, but then halted. She would not thank him, he knew, for such a service. He saw her open the door and go out, leaving it swung wide. She passed the police saloon and Bennett's car, and, entering the third car standing in the forecourt, started the engine and drove away. And, waiting while Bennett slowly descended the stairs, Head thought over the strange way in which Loretta had told him that Chalfont was dead.

On the top of the heap of earth that the men had dug out were lumps of bluish, soapy clay, like that with which the sides of the drain that had led from the shed to the orchard ditch were plastered. Glancing toward the ditch, Head knew now how Wilson—or Chalfont—had disposed of the surplus earth after burying Logan's body under the flooring of the shed. It was easy to reconstruct the tragedy, with Chalfont's final confession of how he had killed Logan.

Quarrelled, probably in the shed, after Logan had seen and been satisfied with the screen. Yes, after, for he had signed and handed over the cheque that he had brought with him. The pair of them had probably urged him to let them share to a greater extent in the profits from their invention, and he had flatly refused, held them to their bargain as in the letter which had defined his views on the point. Then Chalfont had altogether lost his temper, taken Logan by the throat and shaken him, and had been suddenly aware that the man was dead. At once the two of them had concocted the scheme by which Wilson, of nearly the same build as Logan, had impersonated the dead man boarding the afternoon train for London, and that night, after Chalfont had fetched Wilson back from Tring, they had buried the body under the flooring of the shed. And, although it was almost certain that Chalfont had not intended to kill Logan, their subsequent actions would have incurred a verdict of guilty against both men on the charge of murder, if the fire had not prevented their being brought to trial.

The sun had set when Jeffries and Williams took the body into the house for Bennett to make his examination. It was unclothed, except for vest and pants, and there was a reddish stubble on the chin and upper lip; the beard and moustache had been clipped off for Wilson to wear as part of his impersonation, and, since they had had none too much time, the clipping had been hastily done, evidently. Marks on the throat went to show the tremendous strength with which Chalfont had gripped it; Bennett found no other mark of violence on the body.

"A most unsatisfactory case for you, Head," he observed at the end of his examination.

"You forget—such an end as this saves all the expense of a trial," Head pointed out. "I don't know. Apart from missing that telephone message from Miss Portman last night—whether I could have—"

He did not end it, but stood thoughtful while Bennett drew a sheet over the body. Out in front of the house Jeffries sat waiting with the engine of the saloon running, but, for the moment, Head did not move.

He thought of Noel Logan getting down from Thorn's car outside the Duke of York, and Thorn taking both her hands and holding them while he gazed at her; of Loretta Ashford, who had told him that Chalfont could see again, now. Of the rainbow screen, a secret that somebody else must re-discover, now, since it had died with these two men. Of Wilson, who had—so it seemed then to Head—striven so loyally and unselfishly to shield his friend, and of Chalfont crashing in the door of the burning shed to charge into hell, vainly as valiantly. They had gone on for judgment, and it was well. Better than that men should have had the task of judging them

"Whether you could have—?" Bennett asked for the conclusion of the sentence, after waiting vainly for it.

"Nothing, Doctor," Head answered him, and moved toward the waiting car. "Except—God's mercy on them all!"

"Amen to that," Bennett said. "By what you told me, and by what I've seen as well, it was a magnificently brave attempt he made."

THE END

E. CHARLES VIVIAN

THE RAINBOW PUZZLE

First published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, 1938

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-12-07

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I
Logan

Chapter II
Ireen's Half-Day

Chapter III
Loretta

Chapter IV
Missing

Chapter V
Inspector Byrne Comes In

*

Chapter VI
Miss Edwards, Truculent

Chapter VII
Inspector Head Comes In

*

Chapter VIII
The Lie of the Land

*

Chapter IX
Amateur—and Professional

*

Chapter X
At The Feathers

*

Chapter XI
Not Evidence

*

Chapter XII
Negative Evidence

Chapter XIII
Evidence

*

Chapter XIV
Minus Beard

Chapter XV
Cortazzi, and Others

*

Chapter XVI
Enlightenment for Noel

*

Chapter XVII
Wilson's Alibi

Chapter XVIII
Confirmation by the Gal

Chapter XIX
Loretta Mutinous

*

*

Chapter XX
On the Face of It—

*

Chapter XXI
Tony!

*

THE END

E. CHARLES VIVIAN

THE RAINBOW PUZZLE

First published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, 1938 This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024 Version Date: 2024-12-07 Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright. Click here for more books by this author

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter I Logan

Chapter II Ireen's Half-Day

Chapter III Loretta

Chapter IV Missing

Chapter V Inspector Byrne Comes In

*

Chapter VI Miss Edwards, Truculent

Chapter VII Inspector Head Comes In

*

Chapter VIII The Lie of the Land

*

Chapter IX Amateur—and Professional

*

Chapter X At The Feathers

*

Chapter XI Not Evidence

*

Chapter XII Negative Evidence

Chapter XIII Evidence

*

Chapter XIV Minus Beard

Chapter XV Cortazzi, and Others

*

Chapter XVI Enlightenment for Noel

*

Chapter XVII Wilson's Alibi

Chapter XVIII Confirmation by the Gal

Chapter XIX Loretta Mutinous

*

*

Chapter XX On the Face of It—

*

Chapter XXI Tony!

*

THE END

First published by Ward, Lock & Co., London, 1938

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2024
Version Date: 2024-12-07

Produced by Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

Click here for more books by this author

Chapter I
Logan

Chapter II
Ireen's Half-Day

Chapter III
Loretta

Chapter IV
Missing

Chapter V
Inspector Byrne Comes In

Chapter VI
Miss Edwards, Truculent

Chapter VII
Inspector Head Comes In

Chapter VIII
The Lie of the Land

Chapter IX
Amateur—and Professional

Chapter X
At The Feathers

Chapter XI
Not Evidence

Chapter XII
Negative Evidence

Chapter XIII
Evidence

Chapter XIV
Minus Beard

Chapter XV
Cortazzi, and Others

Chapter XVI
Enlightenment for Noel

Chapter XVII
Wilson's Alibi

Chapter XVIII
Confirmation by the Gal

Chapter XIX
Loretta Mutinous

Chapter XX
On the Face of It—

Chapter XXI
Tony!