Part 2

“In the middle of the road. And I found him dead in the gutter.”

“It’s quaint what the criminal don’t think of. I’m surprised every time. Did you find anything here?”

Reggie held out his match. “There were two more like that by the other man.”

Lomas turned it over. “Belgian make. You buy them all over the Continent, don’t you know.”

“The Archduchess carries them.”

“Now, that’s very interesting. If you don’t mind I’ll walk up to the house with you.” Upon the way he praised the beauties of nature and the quality of the morning air.

As they came to the door of Boldrewood a big car passed them with the Archduchess driving alone. Lomas put up his eyeglass. “She’s not overcome with grief, what?”

“Not quite.”

“Might be bravado, don’t you know.”

“I don’t know.”

“It takes some of them that way,” Lomas said pensively. He turned on the steps of the house and looked after the car as it wound in and out among the beeches. “Striking woman. Yes. I’ll come up to your room, if you don’t mind.”

“I thought you wanted to say something,” Reggie said.

Lomas did not answer till they were upstairs. “Well, no. Not to say anything,” he resumed, and lit a cigarette. “I want another opinion, as you fellows say. Sir Lawson Hunter has made up his mind.”

“Oh, he always does that.”

Lomas lifted an eyebrow. “Well, look at it. Somebody in a car laid for our Archduke. The other poor devil was cut down by mistake. And the somebody had nerve enough to go on. That’s striking. The Archduchess comes of pretty wild stock. In love or out of love she wouldn’t stick at a trifle. You find her matches by each body. You find a hatpin in the Archduke. That’s a blunder, what? Yes, but it’s a woman’s blunder. She finds he isn’t quite dead after all her trouble, she is desperate, and--_voilà_.” He made a gesture of stabbing.

“So you’ve made up your mind too, Mr. Lomas?”

Lomas blew smoke rings. “I’m wasting your time, doctor. I want to know--has it occurred to you--the Archduchess and the Archduke Leopold--working it together? If she’s fallen in love with Leopold. That straightens it out, don’t you know.”

“Guess again,” Reggie said.

Lomas lit another cigarette. “Well, that’s what I want to know. You saw them together just after the crime.” He lifted an eyebrow.

“Nothing doing,” said Reggie.

“I’m afraid so. I’m afraid so. It’s a disturbing case, doctor. Nothing doing, as you say. If I had all the evidence in my hands, I expect there’s no one I could touch. You can’t indict royalty. The Archduke’s smash--well, let’s say it’s all in the family. But this poor devil they killed! Who’s to pay for him? These royal dagoes come over and run amuck on an English road, and I can’t touch them. Disheartening, what? That’s the trouble, doctor.”

Reggie nodded and, as his breakfast made its appearance, Lomas rose to go. He would not have even coffee. “Better get busy, don’t you know. We must see if we can put the fear of God into them. If they’ll go scurrying back to Bohemia it’s the best way out.” He skipped off, his jauntiness put on again like a coat.

Reggie was standing at the window with his after-breakfast pipe when the Archduchess brought her car back. She was very pale in spite of the morning air, and her face had grown haggard. “Something’ll snap,” Reggie was saying to himself, when a voice behind him said aloud, “Nice car, sir.” He jumped round and saw standing at his elbow the insignificant little companion of Mr. Lomas. “After all, there’s nothing like an English car,” said the little man.

“Oh. You’ve noticed that?” Reggie said. “You do notice something, then?”

“Of course we aren’t gifted, sir. But we’re professional. Something in that, don’t you think? Yes, sir, as you say: we have noticed something. It was a foreign car, and foreign tyres did the trick last night. And the Archduchess drives English. And yet--did you know we had the other half of the hatpin? I picked it up last night.” He held out a scrap of steel with a big head of wrought silver. “German work, they tell me.”

“Viennese,” Reggie said.

“You know everything, sir. Such a convenience. But Vienna being quite near Bohemia, as I’ve heard--looks awkward, don’t it?”

“Is that what you came to say?”

“Not wholly, sir. No. I am Superintendent Bell. Mr. Lomas sent me to you. He considered you might find it convenient to have some one in the house who could keep an eye open.”

“Very kind of Mr. Lomas.”

There was a tap at the door. The Archduke Leopold’s valet appeared. The Archduke Leopold was much surprised that Dr. Fortune had not brought him news of the patient. The Archduke Leopold desired that Dr. Fortune would come to him immediately.

“Really?” Reggie said. “Dr. Fortune’s compliments to the Archduke, and he is much occupied. He can give the Archduke a few moments.”

The valet, having the appearance of a man who has never been so surprised in his life, retired.

“It’s a gift,” Superintendent Bell murmured. “It’s a gift, you know. I never could handle the nobs.”

Reggie began to get together some odds and ends: a bottle full of tiny white tablets, a graduated glass, a jug of water, a hypodermic syringe. “You’d better clear out, you know,” he said to Superintendent Bell.

“Will he come?”

“He’ll come all right,” Reggie said, and took off his coat. When he turned, Superintendent Bell had vanished.

“Just setting the stage, sir?” said a voice from behind the curtain.

“Confound your impertinence,” Reggie growled. “Here----”

But the Archduke came in. He was now a decoration in a russet brown. “You are very mysterious, Dr. Fortune,” he complained. “I expect more frankness, sir.”

“My patient is my first consideration, sir.”

“I desire that you will consider my anxieties. Well, sir, how is my brother?”

“You may give yourself every hope of his recovery, sir.”

The Archduke looked round for a chair and was some time in finding one. “This is very good news,” he said slowly, and slowly smiled. “_Mon Dieu_, doctor, it seems too good to be true! Last night you told me to fear the worst.”

“Last night--was last night, sir,” Reggie said. “This morning we begin to see our way. All the symptoms are good. I believe that in a few hours the patient will be able to speak.”

“To speak? But the concussion? It was so dangerous. But this is bewildering, doctor.”

“Most fortunate, sir. You might talk of the hand of Providence. Well, we shall see what we shall see. He may be able to tell you something of how it all happened. You’ll pardon me, I’m anxious to prepare the injection.” He dropped a tablet in the glass and poured in water. “Fact is, this ought to make all the difference. Wonderful things drugs, sir. A taste of strychnine--one of these little fellows--and a man has another try at living. Two or three of ’em--just specks, aren’t they?--sudden death. Excuse me a moment. I must take a look at the patient.”

He was gone some time.

When he came back the Archduke was still there. “All goes well, doctor?”

“I begin to think so.”

“I must not delay you. My dear doctor! If only your hopes are realized. What happiness!” He slid out of the room.

Reggie went to the table and picked up the glass of strychnine solution. From behind the curtain Superintendent Bell rushed out and caught his arm. “Don’t use it, sir,” he said hoarsely. Superintendent Bell was flushed.

“Don’t be an ass,” said Reggie. He put the glass down, took up the bottle of tablets, turned them out on a sheet of paper, and began to count them.

“Good Lord!” said Superintendent Bell. “You laid for him, did you? What a plant!”

“You know, you’re an impertinence,” Reggie said, and went on counting.

“I’ll get on to Mr. Lomas, sir,” said the Superintendent humbly.

“Don’t you telephone or I’ll scrag you.”

“Telephone? Not me. I say, sir, you’re some doctor.” He fled.

Reggie finished his counting and whistled. “He did himself proud,” said he. “The blighter!” He shot the tablets back into their bottle, found another bottle and poured into it the solution, and locked both away. “Number one,” he said, with satisfaction. “Now for number two.” He went off to his patient and spent a placid half-hour chatting with the day nurse on dancing in musical comedy. But it was hardly half an hour before the Archduchess tapped at the door.

Reggie opened it. “This way, if you please, madame.” He led the way to his room. “I have something to say.” She stood before him, fierce, defiant, and utterly wretched. “I can promise you that the Archduke will recover consciousness.”

She caught at her breast. “He--he will live?” It was the most piteous cry he had ever heard.

“He will live, madame!”

She trembled, swayed, and fell. Reggie grasped at her, took her in his arms, and put her in a chair and waited frowning. . . . She panted a little and began to smile. Then faintly, softly, “No, no. No more now. Ah, dearest.” It was in her own language. She opened heavy eyes. “What is it?”

“The Archduke has spoken, madame. He said--your name.”

Then she began to cry and, holding out both hands to Reggie, “Let me go to him--please--please.”

“Not now. Not yet. He must have no emotions. You will go to your room and sleep.”

“You--you are a boy.” She laughed through her tears, and thrust her hands into Reggie’s.

“I beg your pardon, madame,” Reggie said stiffly. The creature was absurdly adorable.

“You? Oh--Englishman.” It was made plain to him that he was expected to kiss her hand. He did it like an Englishman. Then the other was put to his lips.

He cleared his embarrassed throat. “I must insist, madame, you will say nothing of this to any one. It’s necessary the household should suppose the Archduke still in danger.”

“Why?” A spasm crossed her face. “You are afraid of Leopold!”

“And you, madame?” Reggie said.

“Afraid? No, but”--she shuddered--“but he is not a man.”

“Have no anxieties, madame. I have none,” Reggie said, and opened the door. Then, “She’s a bit of a dear,” he said to himself, and rang for his lunch.

Four times that afternoon the Archduke Leopold sent to ask for news of his brother, and each time Reggie answered that the patient was much the same. “Leopold will be doin’ some thinking,” Reggie chuckled. “Happy days for Leopold.”

Towards tea-time the Hon. Stanley Lomas arrived jauntier than ever.

“Well, doctor, been enjoying yourself, what?” He shook hands heartily. “Best congratulations and all that. Sound scheme. Ve--ry sound scheme. Well, I expect you’ll be glad to be rid of Leopold, what? I conceive I can put the fear of God into him now. Free hand, don’t you know. Let’s take him on.”

It was announced to the Archduke Leopold that the Hon. Stanley Lomas of the Criminal Investigation Department desired to confer with him. The Archduke, who was drinking tea, was pleased to receive Mr. Lomas. He also received Reggie. “Dr. Fortune? You have something to tell me?”

“There is no change, sir.”

“No change yet! And you gave me such hopes this morning. These are anxious hours, Mr. Lomas.”

“I can imagine it, sir. But I hope to relieve some of your anxieties. I believe we shall discover who was responsible for last night’s outrage.”

“So! And so soon! But you are wonderful, you English police. You will sit down, Mr. Lomas.” He looked at Reggie, whose lingering naturally surprised him. “Is there anything more, Dr. Fortune?”

“Dr. Fortune is part of my evidence, sir,” said Lomas.

“Is it possible? But you interest me--you interest me exceedingly. Permit me one moment.” He slid out of the room.

Lomas turned in his chair and lifted an eyebrow at Reggie, who was settling his tie before an old Italian mirror. “Probably gone to change his clothes,” Reggie said. “He’s only worn one suit to-day.”

A footman brought in more tea-things, and a moment after the Archduke came back.

“I am all impatience, Mr. Lomas. But pray take a more comfortable chair. Dr. Fortune--I recommend the chair by the screen. Let me give you some tea.” He was all smiles.

“Have you made arrangements to leave England, sir?” Lomas said sharply.

“Mr. Lomas!”

“You have time to catch the mail to-night.”

“I hope that I do not understand you, sir. You appear insolent.”

“Oh, sir, there will be no delicacy in handling the affair. You went to Dr. Fortune’s room this morning.” The Archduke gave a glance at Reggie, who sat intent on stirring his tea. “He was preparing an injection of strychnine for his patient.”

“Hallo, what’s that?” Reggie cried, and nodded at the window. “Oh, I suppose it’s the car, Lomas. Your fellows will have found her and brought her round.”

“The car, sir?” the Archduke said, and Lomas put up his eyeglass.

“The car that did the deed.”

The Archduke slid across to the window. Lomas, too, stood up and looked out. They turned and stared at Reggie, who was sipping his tea. Lomas frowned. “There’s nothing there, Fortune.”

The Archduke smiled. “Dr. Fortune has hallucinations,” and he pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed his face, sat down, and drank his tea in gulps.

“We’ll keep to the point, if you please.” Lomas was annoyed. “Dr. Fortune told you that two of his strychnine tablets would kill a man. He went out of the room. While he was gone you dropped half a dozen tablets into the injection prepared for your brother. I have to demand, sir, that you leave England by the next boat.”

The Archduke burst out laughing. “The good Dr. Fortune! As you have seen, he has hallucinations. He hears what is not, dreams what never was. But if I were a policeman, Mr. Lomas, I should not make Dr. Fortune a witness. You become ridiculous.”

“He is not the only witness, sir. One of my men was behind the curtain.”

The Archduke poured himself out another cup of tea. “May I give you some more, Dr. Fortune? No? I fear you are malicious, my friend.” He laughed a little. “And you, sir. We sometimes find a policeman corrupt in our country. We do not permit him to trouble us.”

“You brought a German car into England, sir,” Lomas said. “Where is that car?”

“Your spies do not seem very good, Mr. Lomas. Come, sir, enough of this. I----” The Archduke started from his seat with a cry. His body was bent in a bow. A horrible grin distorted his face. He fell down and was convulsed. . . . He gasped; his pale cheeks became of a dusky blue. He writhed and lay still. . . .

“So that’s that,” Reggie said. “I wondered what he wanted with half a dozen.”

“What is it?” Lomas muttered.

“Oh, strychnine poisoning. He’s swallowed a grain or so.”

“My God! Can you do anything?”

Reggie shrugged. “He’s as dead as the table.” . . .

After a while, “Well! It’s a way out,” Lomas said. “But I can’t understand the fellow.”

“Oh, I don’t understand it all,” Reggie admitted. “He was out to kill his brother. That meant being Emperor. But why kill him now more than before? And the Archduchess. She is straight enough, I know. But just how she was to this fellow I don’t see.”

“There’s not much in that,” Lomas said. “Maurice couldn’t stand the Court, and it was common talk he meant to resign the succession. While he was quiet over here in England Leopold felt safe. But lately they tell me Maurice has been making up his mind to go back. Duty to his country, don’t you know? The Archduchess was strong against it. She hates all the business of royalty. But Maurice is a resolute sort of fellow even with a woman. Leopold came over to see what he could do. I suppose he set the Archduchess on to make Maurice give up the idea and stay quiet. They worked together--or that’s the notion at the Bohemian Embassy. She’s a gipsy, what, but she’s straight. She is not in this. It wasn’t her car. Well, when Leopold found there was nothing doing he set about the murder. He was a bad egg, don’t you know? There was a woman in Rome--they kicked him out there. But it was a sound scheme. He had it all straight--except the wrong tyres on his car. Good touch, the hatpin. Seemed like a woman in a rage. He knew a lot about women--one kind of woman.”

There was a tap at the door. The two walked forward.

“Sir Lawson Hunter, sir.” The footman tried in vain to see the Archduke.

“Yes, bring him up,” Reggie said.

Sir Lawson bustled in. “New case for you, sir.” The two men moved apart and Sir Lawson saw the body.

“Poisoned himself. Taken strychnine,” Lomas said.

“Oh, don’t bias him,” said Reggie. “He doesn’t like that.”

“Good Gad!” Sir Lawson’s eyes bulged.

“Yes, that beats me, Fortune.” Lomas waved his hand at the body. “I would have sworn he hadn’t the pluck.”

“Oh, he hadn’t. He meant it for me. I changed the cups.”

“You----” Lomas stared at him. “That was when you heard the car!”

“That was why I heard the car.”

“And you let him take the dose!”

“Yes. Seemed fair. You see, I picked up that poor fellow he smashed last night.”

“Good Gad!” said Sir Lawson.

The footman was again at the door. Dr. Fortune was wanted at the telephone. “There’s one here, isn’t there? Put me through.” The footman, hardly able to speak at the sight of the dead Archduke, retired gulping.

The bell rang. Reggie took up the receiver. “Yes. Yes. At once,” and he put it down. “I must be going. Serious case. Mrs. Jones’s little girl may have German measles.”

CASE II

THE SLEEPING COMPANION

Birdie screamed like a sea-gull and leapt on to the stage. The audience rumbled the usual applause, and Dr. Reginald Fortune put up his opera-glasses. He considered himself a connoisseur in the art of music halls, and Birdie Bolton was unique and bizarre. She was no longer young, and had never been pretty. A helmet of black hair, a gaunt face which never smiled, a body as lean as a boy’s, which sometimes slouched and sometimes jerked--such were her charms. She wore nothing much above the waist but diamonds, and below it barbaric flounces in a maze of colour. She began to sing in a voice wildly unfit for the strange creature she looked--a small, sweet voice--and what she sang was a simple ditty about her true love forsaking her. And then she went mad. There was a shrieking chorus--can you imagine a steam whistle playing rag-time?--and a dance of weird, wild vehemence. The lean body was contorted a dozen ways at once, the long white arms whirled and stabbed. She seemed to be a dozen women fighting, and each of them a prodigy of force. It was not a pretty dance, but it had meaning.

Birdie sank down panting on her crazy rainbow flounces and nodded at the audience which thundered at her.

Dr. Reginald Fortune shut up his opera-glasses. “She’s a bit of a wonder, you know,” he said to the naval lieutenant who was his companion.

“It’s a wild bird,” the lieutenant agreed, and as the rest of the revue was merely frocks and the absence of frocks they went off to supper.

In the morning, which was Sunday, Birdie Bolton came to see Dr. Reginald Fortune. It was her remarkable creed that she could not live in a noise, and so for years she had owned a house in the still rural suburb of Westhampton where Reggie and his father practised. The elder Dr. Fortune at first looked after her, but when Reggie came on the scene Miss Bolton, declaring with her usual frankness that she liked her doctors young, turned herself over to him.

By daylight Miss Bolton dressed, and even overdressed, the part of a brisk British spinster. She was very tailor-made and severely tweedy, and thus looked leaner than ever. But her eyes retained a gleam of devilment.

“You gave us a great show last night,” Reggie said.

“Were you in front?” said Miss Bolton, and made a face. “Oh, Lord! Sorry. I was rotten.”

Reggie understood that his professional interest was required.

“What’s the trouble?” he said cheerfully.

“That’s your show,” said Miss Bolton. “Put me through it.”

The conversation then became confidential and dull upon the usual themes of a medical examination. At last, “Well, you know, we don’t get to anything,” Reggie said. “This is all quite good and normal. What’s making you anxious?”

“Dreams,” said Miss Bolton. “Why do I have dreams? I never dreamed in my life till now.”

“What sort of dreams?”

“Oh, any old sort. Bally rot. One night it was a motor-bus chivvying me on the stage. One night May”--May Weston was her companion--“May would keep parrots in the bathroom. Then I hear a noise and wake up and there isn’t any noise.”

“Do you have this every night?”

“Snakes! Not much. Now and again. But I say, doc, it’s not fair. I don’t drink and I don’t drug. But I’ll be seeing pink rats if this goes on.”

“Is there anything worrying you just now?”

Was it possible that Miss Bolton blushed? Reggie could not be sure. “You’re a bright boy, doc. Be good!” She shook hands and gripped like a man. The big emerald she always wore ground into his fingers. “Birdie, the strong girl. Bye-bye,” she laughed.

On the next morning Reggie was just out of his bath when he was told that Miss Bolton’s housekeeper had rung up. Miss Bolton had had an accident and would he go at once. “Tell Sam,” said Reggie, and jumped into his trousers. Samuel Baker, a young taxi-driver whose omniscient impudence had persuaded Reggie to enlist him as chauffeur and factotum, had the car round and some sandwiches inside it by the time Reggie was downstairs. Neither he nor Reggie lost time.

Normanhurst, Miss Bolton’s house, stands by itself in an acre or so of garden, and is in the mid-Victorian or amorphous style. As Reggie jumped out of the car, the housekeeper opened the door. She was a brisk, buxom woman; she looked, and perhaps was, just what a housekeeper ought to be.

“What’s wrong, Mrs. Betts?” Reggie said.

“It’s very serious, sir. This way, please.” She led the way to Birdie Bolton’s boudoir, stopped, took a key from her apron pocket, and unlocked the door.

“Hallo!” Reggie said.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have a shock, sir,” said Mrs. Betts, and opened the door for him.

Reggie went in. The sunlight flooded Birdie Bolton’s face, which was white. She lay on a sofa. She was in evening dress. There was an open wound in one side of her throat, and from it a red line lay across her bare shoulder, down her arm, to a purple stain on the carpet.

Reggie went across the room in two strides and bent over her. She had been dead for hours.

“Who found her, Mrs. Betts?”

“The upper housemaid, sir. She’s been having hysterics ever since.”

“Bah! Was the room just like this?”

“No, sir. Miss Weston was asleep in that chair.”

“What?” Reggie stared. The mistress murdered and the companion placidly asleep by her side--perhaps that would not have startled his calm mind. But he knew May Weston, and had written her off as a dull, simple creature--a cushion of a girl.

“Miss Weston was asleep in that chair,” the housekeeper repeated. “I saw her myself. I came in, sir, when Amelia--when the housemaid screamed. Miss Weston was in evening dress too. She didn’t wake at the screaming either--just stirred. I went to her and shook her, and ‘Miss Weston,’ I said, ‘whatever’s this?’ I said, and she woke up and looked round her, sort of heavy, and she saw Miss Bolton lying there and the blood, and she screamed out, ‘I did it--oh, I did it,’ and she looked at me very queer and she fainted.” Mrs. Betts stopped and stared at Reggie, waiting for him to express horror.

“So what did you do with her?” said Reggie. Mrs. Betts swallowed. “I had her carried to her room. Dr. Fortune,” she said with dignity. “I am told she’s come to and been crying.”

“Well, that’s natural, anyway,” said Reggie.

“Natural, indeed!” Mrs. Betts tossed her head.

“And what did you do next, Mrs. Betts?”

“I had nothing touched, sir. I locked up the room. And I telephoned to you and the police.”

“I’m sure you behaved admirably, Mrs. Betts,” Reggie murmured.

Mrs. Betts was appeased. “I could hardly bear it, sir. Such a sweet, good mistress as she was. A perfect lady with all her little ways, as you know, sir. And that Miss Weston! So soft and quiet as she seemed. I don’t mind saying, sir, I felt as if I was stone. Oh!” She shuddered and shook. “Vicious, I call it.”