Chapter SIXTEEN

Mr. Surefoot Smith was one of those individuals who never seem to do any work. He was to be seen at odd hours of the day, and sometimes in odd places of the West End. It seemed that he was able to dispense with sleep, for you were as likely to meet him at four o'clock in the morning as at four o'clock in the afternoon.

He had a villa at Streatham.

"He is the type of man," Dick Allenby once described him, "who was foreordained to live with a married sister."

In addition, he had a room in Panton Street, Haymarket, and not the more fashionable part of Panton Street either. In all probability this was his real home, though the Streatham villa was not such a myth as his colleagues chose to imagine it.

Thieves knew him and respected him; the aristocrats of the underworld, who were his special prey, avoided him with great care, but not always with conspicuous success. He was the terror of the little card-sharping gangs; confidence men hated him, for he had put more of their kind in prison than any two officers of Scotland Yard. He had hanged three men, and bitterly regretted that a fourth had escaped the gallows through the lunacy of a sentimental jury.

His pleasures were few. Beer was more of a necessity than a dissipation; for how can one sneer at a man who consumes large quantities of malted liquor necessary for his well-being and happiness, and find anything commendable in the physical wreck who seeks, through copious potions of Vichy water, to combat the excesses of his youth?

In the privacy of his Panton Street room, he worked out his problems in a way peculiar to himself. He invariably wrote on white blotting-paper with a pencil, and seldom employed any other medium except when he was called upon to furnish a conventional report to his superiors. He invariably covered both sides of his blotting-paper with writing which nobody but he could read. It was a shorthand invented thirty years ago by a freakish schoolmaster, and the only man who had ever learned it thoroughly was Surefoot Smith. He had not only learned it, but improved upon it. It was his boast that no human being could decode anything he ever wrote; many had had the opportunity and tried, for after Mr. Smith had finished with his blotting-paper it was passed on to junior officers for a more proper use.

He worked out Leo Moran's movements chronologically so far as they could be traced. One portion of the day previous to the murder had been clearly marked. Moran had broadcast a lecture on banking and economics. Surefoot Smith smiled at a whimsical thought. He would not die without honour, if he was the detective who brought about the execution of the first broadcaster.

After his lecture he had gone to the Sheridan Theatre; thence to Dick Allenby's flat. After that, home, where he had found a letter--Surefoot Smith conceded him the truth of this--which sent him in search of Mary Lane.

What had he been doing on the morning of the murder? Possibly the accountant had called him up and told him that his leave was not granted. Mr. Accountant Smith had not said as much, but then between bank employés there was a certain freemasonry, and one didn't expect, or was a fool if one did, that they would tell everything about their comrades, even if they were comrades suspected of forgery and murder.

Surefoot Smith allowed also the element of self-preservation to enter into the accountant's evidence. He himself might not be free from blame; the success of the forgery might be due in not a little measure to his own negligence. Everybody had something to hide--and possibly the accountant was no exception.

One thing was certain; the aeroplane had been ordered at a moment's notice. That was not the method by which Moran intended leaving the country.

What was the stock to the transfer of which he had been so anxious to get Mary Lane's signature? Without a very long and careful search it was unlikely that that question would be answered.

Jerry Dornford's disappearance presented a problem of its own. His manservant in Half Moon Street said he was not worrying; Mr. Dornford often went away for days together, but where, the man could not say, because Mr. Dornford was not apparently of a confiding nature. If the servant guessed, he guessed uncharitably. Here was a man also without money, and almost without friends. He had one or two who had country houses, but enquiries of these had produced no result. The servant remembered the names and addresses of a lady or two, but these could throw no light upon the mystery.

Dornford owned an estate in Berkshire. Part of it was farm land, which produced enough income to pay the interest on the mortgage; and if the mortgagees did not foreclose it was because a sale would bring only a portion of the money which had been advanced. There had been a house on the property, but this had been sold to a local golf club many years before, and all that remained of Gerald Dornford's possessions were about three hundred acres of pine and heather.

Here was a man who certainly could not afford two or three addresses.

The bullet had not been found, though the turf had been taken up, to the distress of the park authorities, and the ground sifted to the depth of a foot. There was a possibility that it might have passed at such an angle that it fell into the canal or against the opposite bank. It all depended on what angle the shot had been fired. If Surefoot Smith's first theory held ground and the old man had been killed by a bullet fired from a rifle on the upper floor of Parkview Terrace, the bullet should have been found within a few feet of where the chair had stood. If it had been fired from Dornford's car, it could hardly have passed through his body and reached the canal.

He was in constant touch with Binny, but the chair-man could give no further information. He had not heard the whiz of the bullet as it passed him, not even heard its impact, and offered here a perfectly reasonable excuse, that the noise of Dornford's car would, had it coincided with the shot, have deadened all other sound.

It was four o'clock on a Saturday afternoon, and Surefoot Smith, who had spent most of the night on his feet, found himself dozing in his chair, a practice which for some reason he regarded as evidence of approaching senility. He got up, washed his face in the bathroom wash-basin, and went out into the Haymarket, not very certain as to the way he should take or in what direction he should continue his investigations.

He crossed Piccadilly Circus and was standing aimlessly watching a traffic block at the corner of Shaftesbury Avenue, when somebody bumped into him. His unconscious assailant was moving on with a muttered apology when Surefoot crooked his finger in his overcoat.

"What's the matter with you, Mike?"

There was reason for his surprise.

In twenty-four hours the appearance of Mike Hennessey had changed. The big face had grown flabby; heavy pouches were under his eyes; his unshaven face was a sickly yellow. Was it Surefoot's fancy, or did he turn a shade whiter at the sight of him?

"Hullo!" he stammered. "Well ... now ... isn't that curious, meeting you?"

"What's the matter, Mike?" asked Surefoot.

It was his habit to suspect criminal intentions in the most innocent of men, and his very question was accusative.

"Eh? Nothing. I'm sort of walking about in a dream today ... that play coming off and everything."

"I've been phoning you all the morning. Where have you been?"

Mike started.

"'Phoning me, Mr. Smith--Surefoot, old boy? I have been out of town. What did you want me for?"

"You weren't at your lodgings, you weren't at the theatre. Why were you keeping out of the way?"

Mike tried to speak, swallowed something, then, huskily:

"Let's go and have a drink somewhere. I've got a lot on my mind, Surefoot, a terrible lot."

There was a brasserie in a side street near the Circus, where beer could not be legally supplied until six o'clock. Nevertheless they made for this spot and the head waiter bustled up with a smile.

"Do you want to have a little private talk, Mr. Smith? You don't need to sit out here; the place is like a morgue. Come into the manager's office."

The manager's office was not a manager's office at all, except by courtesy. It was a very small private room.

"I'll bring you some tea, Mr. Smith. You'll have coffee, won't you, Mr. Hennessey?"

Hennessey, sitting with his eyes shut, nodded.

"What is on your mind?" asked Smith bluntly. "Washington Wirth?"

The closed eyes opened and stared at him.

"Eh? Yes." He blinked at his questioner. "I think ... well, he won't be in the theatrical business any more, and naturally that's worrying me, because he's been a good friend of mine."

He seemed to find a difficulty, not only in speaking, but in breathing. His chest puffed up and down, and then:

"Is that what you wanted to see me about?" he asked jerkily.

"That was just what I wanted to see you about. He was a friend of yours?"

"A patron," said Mr. Hennessey quickly. "I looked after him when he was in town. I didn't know very much about him except that he had a lot of stuff--money, I mean."

"And you didn't ask him where he got it, Mike?"

"Naturally," said Hennessey, avoiding his eyes.

The head waiter came at that moment with a tray which contained two large bottles of beer, a bottle of gin, cracked ice, and a siphon.

"Tea," he said formally, put it down, and left them.

Surefoot Smith was in no sense depressed as he broke the law.

"Now come across, Mike," he said, not unkindly. "I want to hear just who is this fellow Wirth."

Mike licked his dry lips.

"I'd like to know where I am first," he said, doggedly. "Not that I could tell you anything, Surefoot--not anything for certain. What's my position? Suppose I thought he was somebody else, and said: 'Listen--you either help me, or I'm going to ask questions.'"

"Yes, suppose you blackmailed him?" interrupted Smith brutally.

Mike winced at this.

"It wasn't blackmail. I wasn't sure--do you get my meaning? I was putting up a bluff. I wanted to see how far he'd go." And then suddenly he broke down and covered his face with his big, diamond-ringed hands, and began to sob. "Oh, my God! It's awful!" he moaned.

Other men would have been embarrassed; Surefoot Smith was merely interested. He laid his hand on the other's arm.

"Are you in on the murder? That's the question?"

Mike's hands dropped with a crash on to the marble-topped table. His ludicrous, tear-stained face was a picture of bewilderment.

"Murder...? What do you mean--murder?" He almost squeaked the question.

"The murder of Hervey Lyne. Didn't you know?"

The man did not answer; he was petrified with terror.

"Lyne ... murdered!" He croaked the words.

It was amazing to believe that he was the one man in London who did not know that a mysterious murder had been committed in Regent's Park on the previous day, because the newspapers were full of it. Yet Surefoot felt that this was a fact.

"Murdered ... old Lyne murdered? My God! You don't mean that?"

"Of course I mean it. What do you think--that I'm trying to make you laugh?"

Mike Hennessey was silent; speech was frozen in him. He could only sit regarding the detective with round eyes from which all expression had died. Mike had a weakness for weeping, but he also had an unsuspected strength of will. When he spoke at last his voice was completely under control.

"That's shocking. I didn't read the newspapers this morning."

"It was in last night's," said Surefoot.

The other shook his head.

"I haven't read a newspaper since Thursday morning," he said. "Old Lyne! He was Miss Lane's guardian, wasn't he?"

He was fighting for time--time to get the last weakness in him crushed, and to build himself the reserve that would prevent his collapse.

"No, I've read nothing about it. It's curious how you miss things in newspapers, isn't it? I've been so worried over this theatrical business that I've practically taken no interest in anything else in the world."

"What work did you do for Wirth?"

Surefoot's voice was cold. He had dropped his boy-friend manner, was even without interest in the unopened bottle of beer.

"Did you draw money from the bank on his behalf?"

Mike nodded.

"Yes, I've done that for him--big sums of money. Gone to his bank and met him afterwards by appointment."

"Where?" sharply.

"At various places--railway stations; the Kellner Hotel mostly. He generally drew a big sum when he had his parties, and I used to hand it over to him before the guests came. He said he was a merchant in the Midlands, but to tell you the truth, Surefoot, I've always had my doubts about that. Still, he didn't look a crook, and some of the queerest mugs are rolling in money. Why shouldn't he have been? He's not the first jay that put up money for a theatrical production, and not the last, please God!"

"Which bank did you draw it from?"

Mike told him. It corresponded with the information which Surefoot already had.

"He generally gave me a letter to take to the bank manager, asking him to cash the cheque. I've been to Birmingham and Bristol and----"

"That's all right." Smith leaned heavily on the table. "Who was he--Washington Wirth?"

Mike shook his head.

"Honestly I don't know. If I die this minute I don't know. I got in touch with him after my last bankruptcy proceedings had appeared in the newspapers. He wrote to me and said how sorry he was that a clever man like me had got into trouble, and offered to finance me."

"A written note?"

"Typewritten. I've got the letter in my diggings somewhere. He asked me to meet him at the Kellner. That was before the parties started, when he had a smaller suite. I went. The only thing I knew about him was that he wore a wig and that he wasn't what he appeared to be; but I've never pried into his business----"

"That's a lie," said Surefoot. "You just told me that you blackmailed him."

"I didn't really. I put a bluff up on him. I knew he wasn't what he pretended to be; I had to guess what he really was."

He was lying: of that Surefoot Smith was perfectly certain.

"Does it occur to you that you're in rather a tight place if this man is ever arrested? I have reason to believe that he has misappropriated money, the property of the late Hervey Lyne, and I have also reason to believe that he killed the old man--and that's murder. You don't want to be mixed up in murder, Mike, do you?"

Michael Hennessey's face was contorted with anguish. He was almost incoherent when he spoke.

"I'd help you if I could, Mr. Smith--but how can I? I don't know the man--I swear I don't know the man!"

Smith peered into his face.

"Do you know anything about Moran?"

The big mouth dropped.

"The banker?" he stammered.

"Do you know anything about the faked balance sheet which was sent by accident to Miss Lyne?"

For a second Surefoot thought the man was going to faint.

"No--nothing; I know Moran--I know Wirth too."

He stopped, was silent a little while.

"Suppose I found him--Wirth--what's my position then?"

Surefoot stood up.

"Your position is just the same whether you find him or whether we find him," he said roughly. "You don't seem to know what you've let yourself in for, Mike Hennessey. Here's a man been murdered--two men have been murdered--probably by the same hand. Tickler was killed for knowing too much. It might be safer for you if I put you inside."

A smile dawned on Mike's face.

"Am I a child?" he asked. He had got back his old poise. "How did I get out of the gutter--by taking notice of threats? Don't worry about me, Surefoot."

"There's a lot more I've got to say to you," interrupted the detective, "but just wait here till I telephone."

A momentary look of alarm came to the man's face.

"Don't worry; I'm not going to pinch you. I shouldn't want any assistance to do that."

There was a telephone booth in the outer room, and he called Scotland Yard urgently.

"Chief Inspector Smith speaking. I want two of the best men on duty to pick me up at Bellini's. I'm with Mike Hennessey, the theatrical man. He's to be under observation day and night from now onwards, and no mistakes must be made. Do you hear?"

They heard and obeyed. A quarter of an hour later, when they strolled out through the narrow side street to Piccadilly Circus, two young men followed them, and when Mike called a cab and drove off, a second cab carried the watchers.

Mike Hennessey was not at the theatre when the curtain rang down finally on _Cliffs of Fate_, and although the termination of this drama meant a search for new work, there was not one of the cast who did not breathe a sigh of relief when the muffled strains of the National Anthem came through the thick curtains.

Dick was reading the evening newspaper when Mary came into the dressing-room. The story of the Lyne murder was splashed over the front page; it included an interview with Binny and a talk with the park-keeper.

"I knew Mr. Lyne very well by sight," said James Hawkins, who had
been a park-keeper for twenty-three years. "He always came into the
gardens in the afternoon, and generally had a little nap before he
was taken home. I've spoken a word or two with him, but he was not
a gentleman who encouraged conversation. Mostly his attendant, Mr.
Binny, used to sit and read to him. I saw Mr. Binny reading that
afternoon, and went up to him and said: 'What's the good of your
wasting your breath? The guv'nor's asleep.' Little did I think that
he was dead! This is the second murder that we've had in the park
in thirty-five years...."

Dick put down the paper when the girl came in, and prepared to make himself scarce.

"Sit down. I'm not going to change yet; I'm tired."

"Well, have you found your man?" he asked flippantly.

She did not smile.

"I think so," she said.

"Have you read the account?"

"I've read it--every ghastly line of it."

"Well," he challenged her, "is it Binny or the park-keeper?" And then, realising that flippancy was in the circumstances a little callous, he apologised.

"I don't know how it is, but I can discuss this murder as though it were of somebody I'd never heard of. The poor old man loathed me, and I'm sure if he could only have made up his mind as to who else would have taken better care of his fortune than I, he would have left the money to him like a shot! By the way, Binny has a theory of his own. I had a talk with him today. He favours Jerry Dornford; mainly, I think, because he doesn't like Jerry."

"Has Mr. Smith told you all the clues he has?" she asked.

She had evidently paid no attention to Binny's theory.

"No, I can't say that he has. He's rather stuffy when it comes to his own business."

"Do you think he would tell me?"

He looked at her in amazement.

"My dear Mary----" he began.

"Don't 'dear Mary' me, or I shall be very rude to you," she said. "Do you think he would?"

She was quite serious and he changed his tone.

"If he thought you could help him I'm sure he would," he said. "He has promised to call here tonight and tell me the latest developments. Would you like me to ask him?"

"I'll ask him myself," she said.

Surefoot arrived very late and very ruffled. He was entitled to his annoyance, for at half-past seven that night a penitent young detective had called him on the 'phone and had confessed failure.

"You missed him?" roared Smith. "Two of you? What's the matter with you?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but he must have known he was being tailed, and he dodged through the Piccadilly Tube. I'd just turned my head and he was gone----"

"Turned your what?" sneered Surefoot. "All right; scour London and pick him up. You know his address. He's got to be found."

He came to the Sheridan, full of bitterness about the new generation of detectives.

"They expect everything to be done for them. They rely on science instead of their eyesight," he fumed.

"Here's a detective for you."

Dick indicated the girl, and to his surprise Surefoot showed no sign of impatience.

"I should say she's got more sense in her little finger than those--gentlemen have in their big, useless bodies."

He looked at her thoughtfully.

"I'm going to ask you something, Mr. Smith," she said. "Would you tell me all you know about this case? I think I may help you."

Again Dick Allenby was amazed that the big man made no jest of the offer. He looked at her owlishly, opened his big mouth, closed it again, rubbed his head (going through his repertory, noted Dick mentally).

"Why shouldn't you?" he said at last. "Do you want him to know?" He jerked his head towards Dick.

She hesitated.

"If you don't mind. If you do we'll turn him out."

She was dressed for the street by the time the detective had arrived, and suggested that they should go to her flat. They went up in the lift together. Her flat was the last in the corridor. She went ahead of them, and stood stock still, showing an alarmed face to the two men.

The door was wide open!

"Did your servant leave it open?" asked Smith.

Surefoot pointed to the lock; the marks of a powerful jemmy showed where the door had been forced. The lock itself was hanging on one screw.

He went ahead, switched on the lights, without result.

"It's been turned off at the fuse box. Where is it?"

She indicated the position, and after a little fumbling there was a click, and light showed along the short passage.

"He fastened the door after he got in, but couldn't fasten it when he left."

Smith picked up two small wooden wedges from the floor.

He went out again into the corridor, the end of which was formed by a half wood, half glass door leading to the fire escape. He tried this, and, as he expected, found it open. A flight of iron stairs led into the darkness below. He sent for the lift-man, who could give no information at all. On a Saturday night most of the people who lived in the flats, he said, were in the country, where they spent their week-ends, and there had been no strange visitors that he could remember.

Surefoot went ahead down the passage into the flat, saw a door wide open, and entered Mary's bedroom. It was a scene of indescribable confusion; every drawer of every bureau had been taken out and emptied on the bed and roughly sorted. They found the same in the dining-room, where the little secretaire desk, which she had locked before she went out, had been broken and its contents piled on to the table.

Mary gazed with dismay upon the scene of destruction, but was agreeably surprised when she found that a small box which had been in her desk drawer, and which had been wrenched open, still contained the articles of jewellery she had left there. They were valued at something over two hundred pounds, she told the detective.

"Then what on earth did they come for?" she asked.

On further inspection Smith found that even the waste bin in the kitchen had been turned bottom upward and sorted over. One valuable clue he discovered: a small kitchen clock had evidently been knocked off the dresser and had stopped at eleven-fifteen.

"Less than an hour ago--phew!" Surefoot whistled softly. "In a devil of a hurry, too. Now tell me who knows this place--I mean, who has been here before? Forget all your girl friends, but tell me the men."

She could enumerate them very briefly.

"Mike Hennessey has been here, has he? Often? I've seen all the rooms, haven't I?"

"Except the bathroom," she said.

He opened the door of this well-appointed little apartment, switched on the light, and went in. The intruder had been here too; the wash-basin was half-filled with discoloured water.

"Hullo! What's that?"

Smith's eyes narrowed.

Level with the wash-basin, and a little to the right of it, the enamelled walls of the bathroom bore a red smear. The detective touched it; it was still moist. He looked at the tessellated floor. There was nothing, but on the edge of the white bath the smear occurred again.

Behind the door was a clothes hook, and here also there was a trace of red.

"He came in here first," said Surefoot slowly. "He had to wash his hands, and, turning on the tap, his sleeve brushed the wall. There was blood on it; he didn't notice this. He took his coat off and threw it on the edge of the bath. Then he changed his mind and hung it up."

"Blood?"

Mary stared at the gruesome stain.

"Do you think he hurt himself getting in?"

"No, we should have seen it on the floor or in the passage. Besides, the glass door of the corridor wasn't broken--I wonder where he got it?"

Surefoot considered all the possibilities in the shortest space of time.

"It beats me," he said.

Surefoot Smith went into the kitchen to re-examine the clock. He was no believer in coincidences, had seen the stopped clock too often featured in works of fiction to believe implicitly the story it told. But his inspection removed all doubt; the clock had not stopped, but was still ticking; the jolt had merely thrown the pin connecting the hands from its gear, and no clever clue-maker could have done that.

Mary had followed him into the kitchen, and watched him silently whilst he was making the examination.

"Now will you tell me?" she said quietly.

Surefoot Smith gaped at her.

"About----?"

"You said you would tell me what you have discovered about Mr. Lyne's murder."

He perched himself on the edge of the kitchen table, and briefly told her all he knew.

To say that Dick Allenby was surprised was to put it mildly. He regarded every Scotland Yard detective as reticence personified. Surefoot Smith was notoriously "dumb," and here he was talking freely to the girl, and, if he showed any embarrassment at all, it was the presence of Dick himself which provoked the inhibition.

Mary Lane sat, her hands clasped in her lap, her brow knitted.

"Got anything?" asked Surefoot anxiously.

And then he must have caught a glimpse of the astonishment in Dick Allenby's face, for he scowled at him.

"You think I'm being foolish, Mr. Allenby? Get the idea out of your mind; I never am. Every woman has just the kind of mind that every detective should have and hasn't. No science in it--not that I mean to be disrespectful, Miss Lane--just plain common-sense. Got it?"

He addressed the girl again. She shook her head.

"Not quite," she said. "I know why they burgled my flat, of course."

Surefoot Smith nodded.

"But you can't quite understand how they came to think it was here?"

Dick interrupted.

"May I be very dense," he asked politely, "and enquire what this is all about? Didn't know what was here?"

"The bank statement," said Mary, without looking up, and again Smith nodded, a broad grin on his face.

"I guess that is what they came for, but I can't understand how they knew."

Surefoot chuckled.

"I am the clever fellow that gave it away," he said. "I told Mike Hennessey this afternoon that a bank statement had been sent to you. I didn't tell him that it was in my pocket, and I could have saved him a lot of time and trouble. It's a great pity."

He ran his hand irritably through his hair and slid off the table.

"Those bloodstains now--they look bad," he said, and loafed out of the room with the other two behind him into the bathroom. "That's his sleeve--that's his hand, but too blurred to get a print. The man who came here wasn't hurt, and probably wasn't aware that he was bloodstained. Look at the top of that tap."

He pointed; there was a distinct smear of blood on the white-enamelled word "hot" on one of the taps.

Surefoot Smith took out his pocket torch and began to examine the passage-way. It gave him nothing in the shape of clues; but when he went outside the fireproof door, and inspected the door itself, he found two new traces of blood, one on the iron railings and one just below the glass panel of the door.

"I'll use your 'phone," he said, and a few minutes later was talking volubly to Scotland Yard.

Every railway station was to be watched; Dover, Harwich, Folkestone, and Southampton were to be warned.

"Not that he'll attempt to get out of the country. It's curious how seldom they do," he explained to the girl.

His offer to send up a man to be on guard outside the door she refused immediately, but he insisted, and in such a tone that she knew it would be a waste of time on her part to press her objection.

On his way home he called at old Lyne's house to interview Binny. That worthy man was in bed when he knocked, and showed considerable and quite understandable reluctance to open the door. No police had been left on the premises; Surefoot had been content to remove all documents to Scotland Yard for a closer scrutiny, and he sealed up the bedroom and the study.

Binny led him down to the kitchen, poked together the dying remnants of the small fire and dropped wood on it, for the night was a little chilly.

"I wondered who it was knocking--it brought me heart up into me mouth," he apologised, as he ushered the visitor into the tiny room. "I suppose, Mr. Smith"--his voice was very anxious--"the old gentleman didn't leave me anything? I heard you'd found the will--mind you, I'm not going to be disappointed if he didn't. He wasn't the kind of man who worried very much about servants; he used to say he hated having them about the place. Still, you never know----"

"I haven't read the will thoroughly," said Surefoot, "but I don't seem to remember finding your name very prominently displayed."

Binny sighed.

"It's been the dream of my life that somebody would die and leave me a million," he said pathetically. "I was a good servant to him--cooked his food, made his bed, did everything for him."

The detective pushed over a carton of cheap cigarettes, and, still sighing, Binny selected one and lit it.

"There's one way you can help me, I think," said Smith. "Do you remember Mr. Moran coming here?"

Binny nodded.

"Do you know what he came about?"

The servant hesitated a moment.

"I don't know, sir. But I have an idea it had something to do with his balance. Mr. Lyne was a very curious old gentleman; he never wanted to see anybody, and when he did he was always a bit unpleasant to 'em."

"Was he unpleasant to Mr. Moran?"

Binny hesitated.

"Well, I don't want to tell tales out of school, Mr. Smith, but from what I heard he did snap a bit at him."

"You listened, eh?"

Binny smiled and shook his head.

"You didn't have to listen, sir." He pointed to the ceiling. "The study's above here. You can't hear what people are saying, but if a gentleman raises his voice as Mr. Lyne did, you can hear him."

"You know Moran?"

Binny nodded.

"Do you know him very well?"

"Very well, sir. I was servant----"

"I remember, yes."

Surefoot Smith bit his lower lip thoughtfully.

"Did he speak to you after his interview with the old man?"

Again Binny hesitated.

"I don't want to get anybody into trouble----"

"The trouble with you, Binny, is that you can't say 'yes' or 'no.' Did you see him?"

"Yes, sir, I did." Binny was evidently nettled. "I was taking in a letter that had come by post as he went out. And now, Mr. Smith, I'll tell you the truth. He said a queer thing to me--he asked me not to mention the fact that he'd been, and slipped me a quid. Now I've told you all I know. I thought it was funny--but, bless your heart, he wasn't the first man to ask me not to mention the fact that they'd called on Mr. Lyne."

"I suppose not."

On a little table near the wall was a small paper parcel, loosely wrapped. Surefoot Smith was blessed with a keen sense of smell; he could disentangle the most conflicting and elusive odours. But putty was not one of them; it had a pungent, and, to Surefoot Smith, an unpleasant aroma. He pointed to the parcel.

"Putty?"

Binny looked at him in surprise.

"Yes, sir."

"Have you been mending windows?" Surefoot looked up.

"No, sir, that was done by a glazier. I broke the scullery window this morning. I didn't like to call anybody in, so I did it myself."

"The trouble in this house is that you're always having windows broken," said Surefoot Smith. "Why didn't you report to the police the attempt to break into this house----Oh, I remember, Mr. Lyne didn't want it."

When he went outside he made a more careful examination of the premises in the darkness than he had ever done by daylight. He went to the trouble of going to the back of the house, along the narrow mews, and here he saw how easy it was for a burglar to obtain admission. The back of the house was not protected, as most of its fellows were, by a garage block, and the door and window were approachable for anybody who could either scale the wall or force the door into the back courtyard. Was it a coincidence that this attempt had been made to gain admission into Lyne's house on the night of----?

Surefoot Smith frowned. It must have been the night that Tickler was murdered. Was there any connection between the two events?

He went back to Scotland Yard to receive reports, and found that his enquiries had produced no result. Berlin could tell him no more about Leo Moran, and there was absolutely no news at all of Gerald Dornford.

He opened the safe in a corner of his little room, took out the glove and the silver key, and laid them on the table. That key puzzled him. Was there any special reason why its owner should have gone to the trouble of painting it so elaborately and yet so carelessly? Any plater would have made a better job of it.

The glove told him nothing. He took from the big drawer of his desk a large sheet of virgin blotting-paper and began to work out again the sum of his problem.

Tickler had been killed; old Lyne had been killed, possibly by the same hand, though there was nothing to connect the two murders. Leo Moran was, to all intents and purposes, a fugitive from justice, a man against whom could be made out a prima facie charge of felony. His disappearance had coincided, not only with the death of Lyne, but with the discovery that Lyne's bank account had been heavily milked.

Was he in Berlin at all? Somebody was very much interested in the recovery of the bank statement, had gone to the trouble of burgling Mary Lane's flat to recover it--who? One man at any rate knew, or thought he knew, that the statement was at Mary's flat, and that man was Michael Hennessey.

Mike's conduct that afternoon had been consistent with guilty knowledge. He knew, at any rate, who was Washington Wirth. The gentleman called Washington Wirth was a murderer, possibly a murderer twice over.

In disjointed sentences Surefoot wrote down his conclusions as they were reached; crossed out one and substituted another; elaborated some simple proposition in his mysterious shorthand, only to cross through the wriggly lines and begin all over again. He made a little circle that represented Mary, another for Dick Allenby, another for Gerald Dornford, a fourth for Leo Moran. At the bottom of the page he put a fifth circle for Lyne. How were they connected? What was the association between the four top circles and the fifth?

Between them he placed a larger O that stood for Michael Hennessey. Michael touched Washington Wirth, he touched Mary Lane, and possibly Moran. He crossed out this last conclusion and started again.

Gerald Dornford touched Dick Allenby; he could draw a straight line from Dick Allenby to the murdered man--a line that missed all and any intermediary.

He got tired after a while, threw down the pencil, and sat back with a groan. He was reaching for the key when the light went out. There was nothing very startling and nothing very unexpected about that: the bulb had been burning yellow for two or three days, and obviously required replacement. Surefoot Smith, in his lordly way, had demanded a fresh globe, and the storekeeper, in his more lordly way, had ignored the request. Without warning, the bulb had ceased to function.

Surefoot was rising to his feet to reach for the bell when something he saw stopped him dead. In the darkness the key was glowing like green fire. He saw the handle and every ward of it. And now he understood why it had such an odd colour--it had been treated with luminous paint.

He picked it up and turned it over. The under side was dull and hardly showed, for it had not absorbed the rays of the lamp.

Surefoot went out into the corridor and summoned an officer, and a little later a bulb was discovered and fixed. He examined the key now with greater interest, jotting down notes upon his already over-crowded blotting sheet.

He was beginning to see daylight, but only dimly. Then the telephone bell buzzed; he took it up, and, going to the officer on duty at the door, called him.

"If you see Mr. Allenby, send him up."

He looked at his watch; it was twenty-minutes past twelve, and he could only wonder what had brought Dick to Scotland Yard at such an hour. Possibly his gun had been recovered.

"I wondered if you were here," said Dick, as he came into the office and closed the door behind him. "I should have telephoned, but I was scared they wouldn't put me through to you."

"What's the trouble?" asked Surefoot curiously.

Dick smiled.

"There isn't any real trouble; only I've been--or rather, Mary has been--called up by Hennessey's housekeeper for information about the gentleman."

"Hasn't he come home?" asked Smith quickly.

"He wasn't expected home," said Dick. "The lady called up from Waterloo Station; she's been there since nine with a couple of Mike's trunks. He was leaving for the Continent by the Havre train, and had arranged for her to be there to meet him with his baggage. She waited till nearly twelve, got worried, and apparently called up several people who knew Michael, amongst them Mary. Fortunately, I was just leaving the flat when the woman telephoned."

"Have you been to his house?"

Dick shook his head.

"It wasn't necessary," he said. "He had a furnished flat in Doughty Street; he paid his rent and closed up the place tonight. Obviously he was making a getaway in rather a hurry. He didn't start packing till this afternoon."

"After he'd seen me," said Surefoot. He scratched his chin. "That's queer. I can quite understand his wanting to get away--as a matter of fact, he wouldn't have got any farther than Southampton; I had already notified the ports."

"You would have arrested him?" asked Dick, in amazement.

"There's no question of arrest, my friend," said Surefoot wearily. "It isn't necessary to arrest everybody you want to stop going out of England. Their passports can be out of order, the visa can be on the wrong page, the stamp can be upside down--there are a dozen ways of keeping the money in the country."

"Did Hennessey know this?"

Surefoot did not answer immediately.

"I can't understand it," he said slowly. "Of course he didn't know. That wouldn't have prevented him catching the train."

There was a knock at the door, and a pleasant looking man, whom Dick recognised as a chief inspector, came in.

"The Buckinghamshire police have got a case after your own heart, Surefoot," he said. "A regular American gang murder."

Surefoot became instantly alert.

"A gang murder, eh? What kind?"

"They call 'em ride murders, don't they? Somebody has taken this poor devil for a ride, shot him at close quarters, and thrown him out on to the sidewalk."

"Where was this?"

"On the Colnbrook by-pass, this side of Slough. A big car passed, picked up the man lying across the footpath with its lights, and reported to the police. He couldn't have been dead more than half an hour when the police got to him."

"What is his description?" asked Surefoot.

"A big made man of forty-five," said the other, "wearing a green tie----"

"That was the tie that Mike Hennessey was wearing this afternoon!"