Chapter XV

The bell had not ceased before McNab, slipping across, shoved me down on the low window seat, and then seating himself at the other end said quickly:

"Not a word from you, Chance. Remember, not a word, however great the temptation. If you want to say anything, put your thumb into your waistcoat pocket."

Taking the photograph out of my fingers he laid it face downwards on the small table standing close to the window seat on which we now were seated.

I nodded understanding, my eyes glued on the door. At last it opened, and the old housekeeper's voice came wheezily:

"Dr. Dunn to see you, sir."

McNab rose when his visitor had advanced to the centre of the room. But his welcome was hearty enough.

"Glad to see you, doctor."

The doctor did not seem equally glad to see McNab, and his eye travelled doubtfully to me. He clearly was trying to remember where he had seen me before. As McNab drew a chair forward he explained me.

"Mr. Chance, doctor. I think you've met already--at Ealing on Monday the 15th of January," he said casually.

While he spoke the doctor was looking me straight in the face, and I, naturally, was looking at him. Recognition of me sprang into his eyes, and then something else--something like fear.

"Sit down, doctor," McNab said pleasantly. "I'm glad you have come."

"You expected me?"

"You or another. As I said in my note to you I needed some one who could answer certain questions bearing on the night of Monday, 15th of January."

"Well, I was called in by the police on that occasion," Dr. Dunn conceded.

As he spoke McNab took up his former position beside me on the window seat. Between him and the doctor stood the little table, on the dark polished surface of which the white back of the photographic print seemed like a sheet of paper placed there for taking notes. As for our visitor it was easy to see his discomfort. Indeed, as he sat in that high backed chair fronting the window, he seemed all on edge, rather like a patient in a dentist's chair. Indeed, he made the very picture of a man visibly bracing himself up before the dentist began to pull out his teeth. A battle of wits it was going to be. I sat up at the thought.

"I am a very busy man," he said defensively.

"Of course you are," McNab replied, "after your recent--holiday was it?--your practice will have its arrears. Patients, I'm told, never take kindly to a locum, however good he may be. Still, you were wise to come; it may save you not only time but trouble later on."

"So you said in your note, which, I own, roused my curiosity," the doctor nodded, making an attempt to be at his ease.

But, quite in the dark as I was as to what McNab wanted with his visitor, it was clear enough that he had roused in this same visitor an emotion which would more correctly be called apprehension than curiosity. I found the situation tremendously exciting now. Ten minutes earlier I had misread things so badly that I had been sure the case was at a standstill. Now I had in a moment been made to realize that in my absence things had been happening; that events were moving with swiftness and momentum. For quite abruptly as I sat looking at those two men facing each other across the little table, I perceived that this meeting was a decisive moment, probably the turning point in the whole case. And the fascination of watching the two men in this moment of crisis can be imagined. Neither seemed over keen at first to come to grips, the doctor being obviously on the defensive, with McNab like a keen-eyed boxer circling round an over-cautious opponent, weighing him up and looking for an opening.

Then with unexpected suddenness McNab struck.

"And when," he asked, "did you last see Kinloch?"

The doctor's brow furrowed.

"Kinloch?" he repeated thoughtfully. "Kinloch? I seem to recall the name, but I cannot exactly--"

Like a flash McNab picked up the photograph lying on the table between them and held it out before the other man's eyes. And into those eyes there came, in swift succession, surprise, recognition, horror, dismay.

"My God!" he faltered.

McNab smiled with satisfaction.

"Thank you very much, Dr. Dunn. This, then, is quite a good likeness of the man. That was exactly what I wanted to be sure of."

Dunn looked up sharply.

"What for? Why do you want to be sure of that?" he asked.

McNab tapped the photograph in his hand.

"This man is being looked for in connection with the Ealing murder. It would be useless to furnish the press with an unrecognizable portrait."

Dead silence followed. The doctor seemed to be slowly considering the consequences which would follow the publication of the photograph. Indeed, I was myself engaged in thinking how I could induce McNab to give the picture to the _Record_ as a first day's exclusive. Then Dunn in his turn picked up the print after fumbling over the attempt once or twice.

"He's--he's altered considerably since this was taken," he said. "I doubt if he could be identified by this."

"You recognized him quickly enough," McNab reminded him.

"Quite; but I remembered him like this, you see."

A frown darkened McNab's face.

"Blindness can't make all that difference," he said aggressively.

"Ah--so you know that too--that he was blind? Well, blindness alters a man's face very much. That perhaps you did not know. A sighted person's face is continually altering, reflecting, as it were, the varied emotional impressions of what the eye sees from one moment to another. But when the eyes see nothing, the face muscles cease to be flexible, and the face becomes still, rigid, the man's whole expression in fact is altered, even the shape of his face becomes different."

The doctor appeared to gain confidence now that he was speaking on a matter in his own line of business. When McNab remained silent, and seemed to be pondering over what he had just heard, Dunn bent forward and in his turn tapped the photographic print on the table.

"You can do what you like about publishing this of course, but I can assure you that if you set a photo of the blind Kinloch beside this one you would yourself refuse to believe that both were pictures of the same man."

Thus were the tables turned on McNab. He sat looking at Kinloch's photograph with grave eyes. His features could not have been more set and wooden if he himself had been blind. At last he looked up.

"In that case," he said, "I'm compelled to a course I wished to avoid. I must force you to tell us where this man is now hiding."

The other shook his head with decision.

"I can't do that."

"You mean you will not."

"No; I mean just what I say. You see I had the foresight to anticipate that such a moment as this might come. So I refused to hear his plans."

"His plans?"

The doctor crossed his legs and sat back at his ease.

"Yes. It must be clear to you I can't be forced to tell what I don't know."

"Quite. But I have a notion, doctor, that it would be useful if you would tell what you do know."

The rueful sigh which accompanied this brought a smile to Dr. Dunn's face. He certainly looked top dog now, and his attitude and manner showed he was quite conscious of the fact. He leant easily, almost condescendingly, forward towards McNab.

"I'll tell you this much at once," he said confidentially. "Don't waste your time on Kinloch. In the first place I have a conviction you will not find him--he seemed absolutely sure about that. And in the next place he'd be no use to you if you did find him, for he is innocent of all complicity in the murder; and though present when the murder was committed, he was blind and saw nothing--nothing that would help you."

McNab's eyebrows lifted in incredulity.

"Yet he doesn't want to be found?"

"He does not--more's the pity. But that makes no difference in the fact. Do you think I'd be taking a hand in this if he were guilty?"

Dunn spoke sharply with some heat. To the question so earnestly put McNab did not reply.

"Yet he does not want to be found," he repeated.

"Looks black, I admit." The doctor hesitated.

"Unaccountable, if he's innocent," McNab commented, incredulity in every syllable.

"You think so? But what if there is a woman in the affair?"

McNab looked up quickly, as if the suggestion had startled him.

"Ah--a woman? Well, that might make a difference in the way one has to interpret Kinloch's present action." He paused before adding: "But we have no evidence, not a shred of evidence of any woman being connected with the affair."

Here I ostentatiously thrust my thumb into the pocket; for I wanted to remind McNab of the wedge-shaped splinter of glass found in the room. But he took no notice of me. Indeed, as I told him afterwards, I might as well have put it in my mouth. And as the doctor sat silent McNab resumed consideringly, "Yes, if I knew there was a woman in it I could understand Kinloch's action. I might, indeed, be ready to agree with you as to his innocence, for I've observed that when a man does a thing of exceptional silliness there's usually a woman behind him--if you can see her."

Dr. Dunn tapped the table emphatically.

"There _is_ a woman here, a very clever one. You can take my word for that. Indeed, you'll have to take my word for it, for I doubt if you or any one else will ever get a glimpse at her."

"Go on, please," McNab said, rising to his feet in his restlessness.

But Dunn seemed alarmed by the other's eagerness. He shook his head.

"Perhaps I've said too much already. I've a duty to Kinloch, you know."

"Oh, so that's the way of it?" McNab cried, stopping short. "And isn't it odd that so many of you should find it their duty to stand between a criminal and justice! Here are you, doctor, sheltering Kinloch, while Kinloch is sheltering this woman, and the woman is sheltering the actual murderer." He looked Dunn quizzically up and down. "I trust, doctor, you don't encounter so many barriers between yourself and a necessary surgical operation--so many barriers erected by friends of the patient--as you are now helping to erect between the hangman and _his_ operation on this man's neck."

Dunn, flushing up to the eyes, rose with a sharp indrawn breath. At first my thought was that he was going to resent McNab's gibe about the hangman. But regaining self-control he said, referring to McNab's burst of anger:

"At least, sir, you make it easy for me to perceive I have not said too much."

The stiffly uttered words restored McNab's good humour.

"Oh," he replied as the doctor picked up his hat, "you have said quite enough to be going on with. You have cleared up the situation wonderfully. You do not think so? Well, let me assure you that within a week I expect to lay my hands first on Kinloch, then on the lady, and finally on the man behind her."

"In consequence of what _I_ have said?" the other asked, staring.

"Almost entirely."

After a moment's cogitation Dunn shook his head with evident relief.

"No," he said. "That's impossible."

"And to prove to you that I believe you when you say you do not know where Kinloch is I'm going to tell you how I'll do it," McNab resumed. "You recognize it would be a dangerous thing to tell you if I thought you were in touch with Kinloch, don't you?" And when Dunn nodded assent McNab continued: "Very well, here's the proof I believed you when you assured me you did not now know where he was. This is how I will find him. I have only to co-ordinate the facts within our knowledge, group them in sequence and make the necessary deductions." From the manner of his speech and the protracted way in which he approached his point McNab must have been aiming at Dunn's nerve. He had stepped close up to the doctor too, so that now the men stood face to face. The doctor's eyes narrowed as McNab's forefinger touched him on the chest masterfully.

"Your practice at Ealing was in the hands of a locum for three weeks. You left hurriedly on the 3rd of April. Your patients did not know you were going. Will you tell us where you went and let me verify? No? Then I say you went to see him. Up to shortly before you left you had been paying frequent visits to a firm in Chancery Lane who were advertising for Kinloch. It was a good notion to keep on advertising for him after you knew where he was. The ruse served for a time. But your sudden departure and prolonged absence let me comprehend the trick." McNab nodded. "You tell me you have never seen the woman, and I suppose I may take it you are still less likely to have seen the man? Good. It was on or about the 3rd of April you found him. But the murder at Ealing had taken place on the 15th of January. Where had Kinloch been in the interval between that date and the day on which you reached him? In hiding somewhere alone? In hiding, yes; but not alone. In such circumstances a blind man must have had some one to look after him--some one who was in the secret. That would be either the man or the woman, if not both. I conclude it was the woman; and I will tell you why presently. But you found Kinloch alone when you arrived on the scene, therefore the place, wherever it was, where you found your friend, was _not_ the place where he had been so long concealed. Am I not right? You won't admit it?" McNab laughed.

"But I will go further. I will hazard the guess, doctor, that whoever brought Kinloch to the place you found him--and some one must have taken him--dumped him down there and vanished in a mighty big hurry. Ah, I see from your face I'm right. Of course they did! It was hardly safe to risk being seen by people with eyes who could supply a description. Not so would they waste the mighty stroke of luck that had come when the only witness to the crime turned out to be a blind man. Everything done subsequent to the murder proves that they knew how to take full advantage of his blindness."

McNab touched the motionless Dunn again.

"Doctor, did Kinloch tell you where he had lived before you met?"

"He did not."

"Because he did not himself know. It would be some remote place, to lessen the chance of accident, or of his finding out where he was, until he had been worked upon sufficiently, and won over, to keep his mouth shut. That part of the business would be left to the woman, eh? And she didn't need to be even personally attractive in this case. She might be even hideous, for a siren tongue would be enough here! Anyhow, her blandishments did succeed."

Dunn seemed surprised by McNab's conclusion.

"I do not follow you there," he demurred.

"But you have so far agreed?"

"I say nothing about that."

"Quite. Your lips are sealed, are they not, by a promise to your friend? Still, you did say something about his having plans."

"I told you I had refused to hear them."

"Ah, but think how significant it is that he should have plans at all. Plans are simply means to some end. And, though you may be ignorant of the means he meant to adopt, you may yet be quite cognizant of the end at which he aimed. Indeed, it is not unlikely that you refused to hear the plans simply because you disliked the end towards which they were directed."

Whether this was meant for a shot in the dark or no I could not tell, but I saw Dunn shift uneasily and look away.

"I thought," he said evasively, "you were going to tell me how you proposed to lay your hands on Kinloch."

"Patience! That is the point we have almost reached."

McNab seemed in no hurry. He kept us waiting while he took out his cigarette-case and selected a cigarette carefully, as if it had been a cigar. For myself, though I was free from the doctor's very manifest disquiet, I at least shared in his impatience.

After a whiff or two McNab picked up Kinloch's photograph and looked at it narrowly.

"Here, then," he said, "we have a young gentleman with plans in his head. Plans to what end? I ask myself. Not for the arrest of the murderer certainly. For in that case the quickest way would be to put himself in touch with the police and tell what he knows. This he had not done--a neglect which, by the way, will count heavily against him if the police get their hands on him. So directly, at least, his plans do not centre on the man. Yet they ought to, for you, doctor, assured me he was innocent of all complicity in the crime. You were even indignant about it. And as I look at this photograph I appreciate your heat. It is a good face, frank, open, honest, the face of one whose every instinct and impulse should put him on the side of justice. What, then, has occurred to pervert his natural instincts and inhibit the reaction such a man must show to such a crime as the Ealing murder? I can think of two causes. Either this man afterwards became demoralized by his war experiences so that this photograph, taken before he left for France, no longer truly represents him, either that, or he has become infatuated and morally blinded by some woman. Both war and women are forces which can and do demoralize men."

I think McNab at this point laid down the photograph of Kinloch at which he had been again looking, for he ceased speaking; but my eyes were all the time on Dunn. I could see his emotion fire under McNab's words. His hands became clenched.

"The question is," McNab resumed, "which was it in this case--war or a woman?"

"A woman," Dunn burst out. "Yes, a woman, by God, infatuated by her--yes."

"Then his plans undoubtedly centred on finding her again. Take that as settled. The question now arises: how is he to find her? Mark his handicaps. He never saw her, and we may safely assume she did not supply him with her name and address when she left him. And she left him at a place which was not that where she had lived with him and where there must necessarily be some one who could supply information about her."

"Far, far from there," Dunn whispered uncontrollably.

"That you cannot know," McNab asserted provocatively.

"Can't I? You forget Kinloch could judge distance from the time spent on the journey."

"But they might have been travelling in a circle, covering the same ground again and again for the express purpose of deceiving him."

Dunn hesitated, obviously tempted to refute McNab's confident assertion, yet afraid to risk more words.

"Well," he said at length, "there was one point Kinloch knew they did not pass twice."

McNab shook his head.

"A blind man couldn't possibly tell that," he said with decision.

"Couldn't he indeed?" Dunn broke out in impatient derision. "You think so? But if blind he is not deaf, all his other senses are unimpaired. Could he not, for example, tell that he once, and once only, went down a long hill with a sharp right-hand turn before passing through a village at the end of which he heard the sea close on the left side, so close that the spray came into the car, the noise of the surf on a shingle beach mingling with the notes of a bugle high up on his right? And couldn't he tell from feeling the sun on his left cheek that the sea was to the south?"

"He heard the sea?"

"Certainly, but only for about five minutes, and it was the only time he heard it. So they weren't doing circles there anyhow."

McNab sighed gently.

"A sharp fellow, Kinloch. Wish I'd got my hands on him."

Dunn shook his head.

"That wouldn't help you. They were sharp too and took care his knowledge was confined to things that did not matter. Why, he was ignorant even of the name of the village where they lived."

"Village? Nonsense. A lonely house, if you like, in its own grounds, but not a village," McNab contradicted.

"A village it was, though apparently lonely enough, shut in by gates--he knew that much--at each end, and up among hills."

McNab in his turn shook his head.

"They'd never try to conceal him in a village. Couldn't be done as you would know if you had ever lived in one. Villagers are mighty inquisitive about strangers. A blind man too, he'd be seen daily from the house opposite."

"A village it was," Dunn reiterated impatiently. "But there wasn't any house opposite. At least there was, it seems, a good half-mile of common between the houses on each side."

McNab pondered for a moment and then looked up slyly.

"You won't send me hunting for an imaginary village, doctor. It's Kinloch I'm after, as keenly as he himself is after the lady. I'm going to find him too, and with my assistance he in his turn will find her."

Dunn looked disconcerted.

"Without me," McNab went on, "he is unlikely to find her. The odds are too heavily weighed against him. He doesn't even know her name. That in itself would be enough to deter most of us from beginning the search. But when we add to this the fact that the seeker is blind--"

From Dunn there came a sharp, inarticulate little cry. The interruption appeared to take McNab by surprise. He ceased speaking and gazed thoughtfully at the doctor.

"Go on," Dunn said.

"Add to this the fact that the seeker is blind," McNab repeated, "still this other fact remains, the fact that in spite of all these handicaps he had formulated some precise plan. He had when you spoke with him some notion of how she might be found. Therefore, I conclude he knew something about the woman. Indeed, when one thinks it out, he could scarcely avoid learning something, closely associated as he was with her for a considerable time. I myself, for instance, formed the opinion that the people concerned in the murder of Mr. Ponsonby Paget belong to what is called the higher social classes. Kinloch's ear would at once enable him to tell me if I am right. Her voice, its inflection and tone, her vocabulary would proclaim her class. And, however much the woman was on her guard, she was bound to let slip many other things from which a man of even mediocre intelligence would infer much. I am not suggesting that he might learn anything so definite as her name and address; but it is exceedingly unlikely that Kinloch would not hear something about her tastes, habits, the places she liked, the cities she knew, the streets with which she was familiar, and even, being a woman, the shops she favoured. That sort of thing. Very well, now I put myself into Kinloch's shoes, and ask myself how, if similarly handicapped, I should set about the business of finding her."

McNab took what seemed to me, at least, a long time before he found an answer to this last question. He stood quite still, fronting Dr. Dunn, but, I am sure, without any consciousness now of either the doctor's presence or my own. How Dunn felt I cannot say, though he stood there almost as rigid as McNab himself. As for me I dared scarce let my breath go. For I saw that McNab meant to catch the elusive Kinloch while the latter was out in the open searching for the lady. And then, just when I was beginning to fear that McNab's imaginative insight had been set too stiff a problem, his eyes unclosed.

"There's just one way open to him," he said.

"Well?" Dunn almost whispered, his eyes dilating apprehension.

"Obviously he can't go about looking for her."

"Well?" Dunn repeated, a tremor in his voice.

"He will wait in some road or street he has heard her mention more than once, wait for her to come along. He's sitting there now, a blind man with a Braille book on his knees, reading aloud to draw attention to himself."

It was amazing to see how Dunn received this announcement. His face suddenly cleared. He laughed in an explosive way that left one in no doubt of the genuineness of his mirth. And the laugh was one of those good natured but contemptuous guffaws that hurt like a blow. I felt my face flame with anger. But McNab did not seem in the least put out.

"You don't agree with me, doctor?" he said quite calmly but with a tincture of surprise that invited a reply.

"I do not," Dunn declared bluntly. "A more forlorn hope I never heard of."

McNab wandered over to the table, and picking up the Kinloch photograph again looked at it thoughtfully.

"You know your man, of course. He never risked his skin in a forlorn hope, did he?"

"Oh, Lord, he did heaps of silly things," the doctor cried impatiently. "He's got enough shrapnel that went deeper than the cuticle to prove it, but that was in the war, in action. This is quite different. Why, he might sit waiting for her till the crack of doom. And even if she did happen to come that way why, do you suppose, should she take the least notice of him, even if she saw him, if she doesn't want to?"

"I don't suppose she will dare to speak with him, however much she may want to, but, after all, Kinloch will have decided his course not by what I think but by what he himself thinks. And if the woman has worked off her wiles on him, put a spell on him, as I gather is the case, sufficiently well to keep his mouth shut--if this is so then Kinloch will act under the belief that she has a tenderness for him; he will be convinced she would not pass him by without a word when she sees him sitting there."

Dr. Dunn picked up his hat as if to hide what was almost a grin of incredulity.

"It's plausible," he said, "but preposterous. No need to fear you will find my friend and drag him into this ugly business."

"No? Man, doctor, if you saw enough you might well go down on your knees now to pray that I might find him first."

McNab spoke earnestly as Dunn was moving towards the door.

"First?" he asked, turning round. "What do you mean by first?"

"Before the other man finds him," McNab nodded. "You don't seem to see that Kinloch has himself gone back into this ugly business--gone back into it after being got out of it. Why? Ah, you know I'm not so sure that Kinloch _is_ mistaken if he thinks the lady has developed a tenderness for him. That sort of thing does happen. You will know the story we in Scotland tell about the woman who went out for wool and came home shorn."

Dunn at the door shook his head.

"You're too fanciful for me. She needn't have left him if that were true," he said, offering McNab his hand.

"There were probably a dozen good reasons why she had to leave him. And mark this"--McNab held on to the other's hand--"perhaps to her the strongest reason of all was that she saw herself beginning to care for him."... McNab hesitated for a breath or two. "You seem to care something for him yourself, doctor, if one may judge by all you have done and said. Very well, that ought to help you to believe in the possibility that another may do the like."

Dr. Dunn left, forgetful of my presence in the room. At any rate he didn't trouble to say good-bye to me. When McNab returned after letting him out he threw himself as if exhausted into the big, low Minty chair.

"You didn't get much change out of him," I said.

"Did I give him anything to change?"

"No. On the contrary you seemed to succeed in taking something from him."

"What was that?"

"A load off his mind."

McNab, not at all stung by my sarcasm, crossed his outstretched legs and lay back with a prodigious yawn.

"That was one of the things I wanted to remove," he said. "But it wasn't the only thing I got."

This took me aback. I had to consider for a moment.

"Then you were just bluffing as to how you meant to get your hands on this fellow Kinloch?"

He sat up with a jerk.

"You don't think he thought that?"

"Heavens, no! He's quite a simple soul. He took it for gospel truth."

He sank back in relief.

"So it was, Chance, gospel truth. I intend to work the West End for Kinloch to-morrow, and I expect to find him exactly as I described. But what puzzles me most is why Dunn laughed as he did when he heard my scheme. A little amusement I could understand. But he was almost mirthful. Why? I want to think it all out alone. All he said, Chance, and all he didn't say. But above all I want to apprehend why Dr. Peter Dunn thought my scheme so very amusing. But come round here to-morrow about noon; I shall have the machinery in motion by then. And tell Matheson I shall be keeping you busy all day."

So, though there were many questions I wanted to put, I left him alone with the question he had put to himself, about Dunn's laugh, which he found strange. Even clever men, I'm told, have their stupid moments. Anyhow I was sure this was one of Francis McNab's moments of dulness; for a more wild-cat scheme by which to discover a missing man I had never heard.