Part 6

“Don’t you bully me!” she cried.

“You don’t want to get into trouble, do you?” Bell frowned down at her. “You go in there and say Superintendent Bell is waiting to see Mr. Witt.”

“We haven’t got any Mr. Witt.”

“You do as you’re told.”

She went. She was gone a long time. A murmur of voices was audible. She came out again, looking flustered. “Well, what about it?” said Bell.

“I don’t know anything about it,” she said. A door slammed, a bell rang. She made a nervous exclamation and turned to answer it. Bell went first and Reggie on his heels.

In the inner room an oldish man stood smoothing his hair. He was flushed and at the sight of Bell he cried out: “But you intrude, sir.”

“Ah, here’s our old friend, Mr. Witt,” Bell smiled. “I should----”

“There is some mistake. You are wrong, sir. What is your name? Mr. Superintendent--my name is Siegel.”

“I dare say it is. Then why did you call yourself Witt?”

“I do not know what you mean.”

“I don’t forget faces. I should know you anywhere. You’re the Mr. Witt who prosecuted Dr. Horace Wilton. Come, come, the game’s up now.”

“What do you mean by that, sir?”

“Time to tell the truth,” said Reggie sweetly, “time you began to think of yourself, isn’t it? We know all about the evidence in the Wilton burglary. Why did you do it, Mr. Witt? It wasn’t safe, you know.”

“What do you want?”

“Well, where’s your friend Mr. Kuyper? We had better have him in.”

“Mr. Kuyper has gone out, sir.”

Reggie laughed. “Oh, I don’t think so. You’re not doing yourself justice. I don’t suppose you wanted to trap Dr. Wilton. You’d better consider your position. What is Mr. Kuyper’s little game with you?”

Mr. Witt looked nervously round the room. “You--you mustn’t--I mean we can’t talk here,” he said. “The girls will be listening.”

“Oh, send the girls out to tea,” said Bell.

“No. I can’t do that. I had rather come with you, Mr. Superintendent. I would rather indeed.”

“Come on then.”

Mr. Witt, who was shaking with nervous fear, caught up his hat and coat. The farther door of the room was flung open. Two pistol shots were fired. As Reggie sprang at the door it was slammed in his face and locked. Mr. Witt went down in a heap. Bell dashed through the outer office into the corridor. Reggie knelt by Mr. Witt.

“Kuyper,” Mr. Witt gasped. “Kuyper.”

“I know. I know. We’ll get him yet. Where’s he gone?”

“His yacht,” Mr. Witt gasped. “Yacht at Gravesend. He had it ready.” He groaned and writhed. He was hit in the shoulder and stomach.

Reggie did what he could for the man, and went to the telephone. He had finished demanding an ambulance when Bell came back breathless, with policemen in uniform at his heels.

“The swine,” Bell gasped. “He’s off, sir. Must have gone down the other staircase into Bull Court. We had a man there but he wouldn’t know there was anything up, he’d only follow. Pray God he don’t lose him. They lost him last night.”

“Send these girls away,” said Mr. Fortune. “Let the constables keep the door. I want to use the telephone.” And when the ambulance had come and taken Mr. Witt, happily unconscious at last, to hospital, he was still talking into the telephone. “Is that clear?” he concluded. “All right. Goodbye.” He hung up the receiver. “Come on, Bell. It’s Gravesend now. This is our busy day.”

“Gravesend?” The superintendent stared.

But it was into a teashop that Reggie plunged when they reached the street. He came out with large paper bags just as a big car turned painfully into Mawdleyn Lane. “Good man,” he smiled upon the chauffeur. “Gravesend police station. And let her out when you can.” With his mouth full he expounded to Superintendent Bell his theory of the evasion of Mr. Kuyper.

As the car drew up in Gravesend a man in plain clothes came out of the police station. “Scotland Yard, sir?” Bell pulled a card out. “Inspector’s down on the beach now. I was to take you to him.”

By the pier the inspector was waiting. He hurried up to their car. “Got him?” said Bell.

“He’s off. You didn’t give us much time. But he’s been here. A man answering to your description hired a motor yacht--cutter with auxiliary engine--six weeks ago. It was rather noticed, being an unusual time of year to start yachting. He’s been down odd times and slept aboard. He seems to have slept aboard last night. I can’t find anyone who’s seen him here to-day. But there’s a longshoreman swears he saw a Tilbury boat go alongside the _Cyrilla_--that’s his yacht--a while since, and the _Cyrilla’s_ away.”

“Have you got a fast boat ready for us?”

“At the pier head, sir. Motor launch.”

“Good work,” Reggie smiled. And they hurried on board.

“What’s the job, sir?” The captain of the launch touched his cap.

“Dig out after the _Cyrilla_. You know her, don’t you?”

“I do so. But I reckon she ain’t in sight. What’s the course?”

“Down stream. She’ll be making for the Dutch coast. Are you good for a long run?”

“Surely. And I reckon it will be a long run. She’s fast, is _Cyrilla_. Wind her up, Jim,” and the launch began to throb through the water.

Mr. Fortune retired under the hood and lit his pipe, and Bell followed him. “He’s smart, isn’t he, sir, our Mr. Kuyper? His yacht at Gravesend and he comes down by Tilbury. That’s neat work.”

“Don’t rub it in, Bell. I know I ought to have thought of Tilbury.”

Bell stared at him. “Good Lord, Mr. Fortune, I’m not blaming you, sir.”

“I am,” said Reggie. “It’s an untidy case, Bell. Well, well. I wonder if I’ve missed anything more?”

“I don’t know what you’ve missed, sir. I know I wouldn’t like to be on the run if you were after me.”

Reggie looked at the large, man with a gleam of amusement. “It would be rather joyful, Bell,” he chuckled, and was solemn again. “No. I am not happy. _Je n’ai pas de courage_. I want Mr. Kuyper.”

It was a grey day. The Essex flats lay dim and sombre. The heights on the southern shore were blurred. Yet they could see far out to the Nore. An east wind was whipping the flood tide into tiny waves, through which the launch clove, making, after the manner of her kind, a great show of speed, leaving the tramps that chunked outward bound as though they lay at anchor.

“Do you see her yet?” Reggie asked the captain.

“Maybe that’s her,” he pointed to a dim line on the horizon beyond the lightship, a sailless mast, if it was anything. “Maybe not.” He spat over the side.

“Are you gaining on her?”

“I reckon we’re coming up, sir.”

“What’s that thing doing?” Reggie pointed to a long low black craft near the Nore.

“Destroyer, sir. Engines stopped.”

“Run down to her, will you? How does one address the Navy, Bell? I feel shy. Ask him if he’s the duty destroyer of the Nore Command, will you?”

“Good Lord, sir,” said Bell.

The captain of the launch hailed. “Duty destroyer, sir?”

“Aye, aye. Scotland Yard launch? Come alongside.”

“Thank God for the Navy, as the soldier said,” Mr. Fortune murmured. “Perhaps it will be warmer on board her.”

“I say, sir, did you order a destroyer out?”

“Oh, I asked Lomas to turn out the Navy. I thought we might want ’em.”

Superintendent Bell gazed at him. “And you say you forget things,” he said. “Witt’s shot and all in a minute you have all this in your head.”

They climbed a most unpleasant ladder. A young lieutenant received them. “You gentlemen got a job of work for us?”

“A motor yacht, cutter rig, name _Cyrilla_, left Gravesend an hour or two ago, probably making for the Dutch coast. There’s a man on board that’s badly wanted.”

“Can do,” the lieutenant smiled and ran up to the bridge. “Starboard five. Half ahead both.” He spoke into a voice pipe. “You’d better come up here,” he called to them. “We’ll whack her up as we go.”

The destroyer began to quiver gently to the purr of the turbines. Reggie cowered under the wind screen. The speed grew and grew and the destroyer sat down on her stern and on either side white waves rushed from the high sharp bow. “Who is your friend on the yacht?” the lieutenant smiled.

“His last is attempted murder. But that was only this morning.”

“You fellows don’t lose much time,” said the lieutenant with more respect. “You seem to want him bad.”

“I could bear to see him,” said Reggie. “He interests me as a medical man.”

“Medical?” the lieutenant stared at him.

“Quite a lot of crime is medical,” said Reggie.

The lieutenant gave it up and again asked for more speed and began to use his binoculars. “There’s a cutter rig,” he pointed at something invisible. “Not under sail. Laying a course for Flushing. That’s good enough, what?”

The destroyer came up fast. A white hull was revealed to the naked eye. The lieutenant spoke to his signalman and flags fluttered above the bridge. “Not answered. D’ye think your friend’ll put up a scrap?”

“I dare say he will, if his crew will stand for it.”

“Praise God,” said the lieutenant. “Will they have any arms?”

“Pistols, likely,” said Bell.

“Well! She is _Cyrilla_.” He picked up a megaphone and roared through it. “The cutter! _Cyrilla!_ Stop your engine!”

There was some movement on the yacht’s deck. She did stop her engine or slow. A shot was heard. She started her engine again and again stopped. A man ran aft and held up his hand. The destroyer drew abeam and the lieutenant said what occurred to him of yachts which did not obey Navy signals. There was no answer. A little knot of men on the _Cyrilla_ gazed at the destroyer.

“You fellows going aboard her? Got guns? I’ll give you an armed boat’s crew.”

Behind the destroyer’s sub-lieutenant Bell and Reggie came to the yacht’s deck. “Where’s the captain? Don’t you know enough to read signals?” Thus the sub-lieutenant began.

“Where’s Mr. Kuyper?” said Bell.

“We didn’t understand your signals, sir.” The captain licked his lips. “Don’t know anything about a Mr. Kuyper. We’ve got a Mr. Hotten, a Dutch gentleman. He’s my owner, as you might say.”

“Where is he?”

“Down the engine-room. It was him fired at the engineer to make him start her up again when I ’ad stopped. I laid him out with a spanner.”

“Bring him up,” Bell said.

A slim spruce body was laid on the deck, precisely the Julius Kuyper of Tommy Owen’s description. Reggie knelt down beside him.

“He ain’t dead, is he?” said the yacht’s captain anxiously.

But the stertorous breath of Mr. Kuyper could be heard. “My only aunt,” Reggie muttered.

“What’s the matter, sir?”

“Man hasn’t got a heart. This is very unusual. Good Lord! Heart well over on the right side. Heterotaxy very marked. Quite unusual. Ah! That’s more to the point. He’s had an operation on the thyroid gland. Yes. Just so.” He smiled happily.

“What was that word you said, sir?”

“Heterotaxy? Oh, it only means he’s got his things all over on the wrong side.”

“Then I know him!” Bell cried. “I thought I knew the look of him, as old as he is now. It’s Lawton, sir, Lawton of the big bank frauds. He went off with fifty thousand or more. Before your time, but you must have heard of it. Did a clear getaway.”

“And that’s that,” said Reggie. “Now we know.”

* * * * *

Some days afterwards the Hon. Sidney Lomas called on Mr. Fortune, who was at the moment making a modest supper of devilled sole. “Did you clear it up?” he said.

“Try that champagne. It’s young but has distinction. Oh yes. Dr. Wilton quite agrees with me. A faulty thyroid gland is the root of the trouble.”

“I don’t want to hear about Mr. Kuyper Lawton’s diseases. I----”

“My dear fellow! But that is the whole case. Mr. Kuyper-Lawton is undoubtedly a man of great ability. But there was always a cachexis of the thyroid gland. This caused a certain mental instability. Unsound judgment. Violence of temper. It’s quite common.”

“Is it though?” said Lomas. “And why was he violent to poor Wilton?”

“Well, Lawton got clean away after his bank frauds, as you know----”

“I know all about Lawton. He lived on the plunder in Holland as Adrian Hotten and flourished till the war. Then he lost most of his money backing Germany to win. In the end of 1917 he went off to Russia. This year he turned up in London as Julius Kuyper, talking about Russian finance and selling Russian jewels.”

“Quite so. Well, in February he was in a motor accident in Cavendish Square. A lorry hit his car and he was thrown out and stunned. The unfortunate Wilton was passing and gave him first-aid, and discovered that his heart was on the wrong side. He came to under Wilton’s hands. I suppose Wilton showed a little too much interest. Anyhow, Mr. Kuyper saw that the malformation which would identify him with Lawton of the bank frauds was known to the young doctor. Well, he kept his head then. He was very grateful. He asked for Wilton’s card. And Wilton never heard any more of him. But Wilton was interested in this striking case of heterotaxy. He noted the number of the car, found the garage from which it was hired and went round to ask who the man was. They wouldn’t tell him, but the chauffeur, I suppose, told Mr. Kuyper the doctor was asking after him. He sent Witt to take a flat over Wilton’s and find out what Wilton was up to. I take it Mr. Kuyper was doing mighty good business in London and didn’t want to run away. He needn’t have bothered--but that’s the man all over, brilliantly ingenious and no judgment. That thyroid of his! Wilton had come to know the local detective-inspector, that poor chap who committed suicide. I’m mighty sorry for that fellow, Lomas. He was so keen against Wilton because he was afraid of not doing his duty when he liked the man--and then he found he’d blundered into giving false evidence against his friend. I don’t wonder he chose to die.”

“Conscience makes fools of us all,” said Lomas.

“Yes. Yes. Poor beggar. And no wonder Wilton was bitter against him. Well, Kuyper decided that Wilton with his curiosity and his friend in the police wasn’t safe at large. First they tried to ship him out of the country and he wouldn’t go. So they put up the burglary. I suppose Witt or Witt’s friend the sham Dutch journalist is a Hun. That accounts for the Rauch-tabak and the German keys.”

“Lawton-Kuyper has done a lot of business with Germany himself.”

“Yes. He ought to have been on the great General Staff. The right type of mind. One of our native Prussians. An able man--a very able man. If his thyroid had been healthy!”

CASE IV

THE MAGIC STONE

A NIGHTINGALE began to sing in the limes. Mr. Fortune smiled through his cigar smoke at the moon and slid lower into his chair. In the silver light his garden was a wonderland. He could see fairies dancing on the lawn. The fine odour of the cigar was glorified by the mingled fragrance of the night, the spicy scent of the lime flowers borne on a wind which came from the river over meadowsweet and hay. The music of the nightingale was heard through the soft murmur of the weir stream.

The head of the Criminal Investigation Department was arguing that the case of the Town Clerk of Barchester offered an example of the abuse of the simple poisons in married life.

Mr. Reginald Fortune, though his chief adviser, said no word.

The head of the Criminal Investigation Department came at last to an end. “That’s the case, then.” He stood up and knocked over his coffee cup: a tinkling clatter, a profound silence and then only the murmur of the water. The nightingale was gone. “Well, Fortune?”

Mr. Fortune sighed and raised himself. “Dear me, Lomas,” he said sadly, “why don’t you find something to do?”

The Hon. Sidney Lomas suffered from a sense of wrong and said so. It was a difficult and complex case and had given him much anxiety and he wanted Fortune’s advice and----

“She did him in all right,” said Reggie Fortune succinctly, “and you’ll never find a jury to hang her. Why don’t you bring me something interesting?”

Lomas then complained of him, pointing out that a policeman’s life was not a happy one, that he did not arrange or even choose the crimes of his country. “Interesting? Good Gad, do you suppose I am interested in this female Bluebeard? I know my job’s not interesting. Work’s work.”

“And eggs is eggs. You have no soul, Lomas.” Reggie Fortune stood up. “Come and have a drink.” He led the way from the dim veranda into his study and switched on the light. “Now that,” he pointed to a pale purple fluid, “that is a romantic liqueur: it feels just like a ghost story: I brought it back from the Pyrenees.”

“Whisky,” said Lomas morosely.

“My dear chap, are we down-hearted?”

“You should go to Scotland Yard, Fortune.” Lomas clung to his grievance. “Perhaps you would find it interesting. What do you think they brought me this afternoon? Some poor devil had an epileptic fit in the British Museum.”

“Well, well”--Reggie Fortune sipped his purple liqueur--“the British Museum has made me feel queer. But not epileptic. On the contrary. Sprightly fellow. This is a nice story. Go on Lomas.”

“That’s all,” Lomas snapped. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

“Then why Scotland Yard? You’re not an hospital for nervous diseases. Or are you, Lomas?”

“I wonder,” said Lomas bitterly. “Why Scotland Yard? Just so. Why? Because they’ve lost an infernal pebble in the fray. And will I find it for them please? Most interesting case.”

Reggie Fortune took another cigar and composed himself for comfort. “Begin at the beginning,” he advised, “and relate all facts without passion or recrimination.”

“There are no facts, confound you. It was in the Ethnological Gallery of the British Museum--where nobody ever goes. Some fellow did go and had a fit. He broke one of the glass cases in his convulsions. They picked him up and he came round. He was very apologetic, left them a fiver to pay for the glass and an address in New York. He was an American doing Europe and just off to France with his family. When they looked over the case afterwards they found one of the stones in it was gone. The epilept couldn’t have taken it, poor devil. Anybody who was in the gallery might have pocketed it in the confusion. Most likely a child. The thing is only a pebble with some paint on it. A pundit from the Museum came to me with his hair on end and wanted me to sift London for it. I asked him what it was worth and he couldn’t tell me. Only an anthropologist would want the thing, he said. It seems an acquired taste. I haven’t acquired it. I told him this was my busy day.”

Reggie Fortune smiled benignly. “But this is art,” he said. “This is alluring, Lomas. Have you cabled to New York?”

“Have I----?” Lomas stopped his whisky on the way to his mouth. “No, Fortune, I have not cabled New York. Nor have I sent for the military. The British Museum is still without a garrison.”

“Well, you know, this gentleman with the fit may be a collector.”

“Oh, Lord, no. It was a real fit. No deception. They had a doctor to him.”

Reggie Fortune was much affected. “There speaks the great heart of the people. The doctor always knows! I love your simple faith, Lomas. It cheers me. But I’m a doctor myself. My dear chap, has no one ever murmured into the innocence of Scotland Yard that a fit can be faked?”

“I dare say I am credulous,” said Lomas. “But I draw the line somewhere. If you ask me to believe that a fellow shammed epilepsy, cut himself and spent a fiver to pick up a pebble, I draw it there.”

“That’s the worst of credulity. It’s always sceptical in the wrong place. What was this pebble like?”

Lomas reached for a writing-pad and drew the likeness of a fat cigar, upon which parallel to each other were two zigzag lines. “A greenish bit of stone, with those marks in red. That’s the Museum man’s description. If it had been old, which it isn’t, it would have been a _galet coloré_. And if it had come from Australia, which it didn’t, it would have been a chu-chu something----”

“Churinga.”

“That’s the word. The pundit from the Museum says it came from Borneo. They don’t know what the marks mean, but the thing is a sort of mascot in Borneo: a high-class insurance policy. The fellow who holds it can’t die. So the simple Bornese don’t part with their pebbles easily. There isn’t another known in Europe. That’s where it hurts the Museum pundit. He says it’s priceless. I told him marbles were selling thirty a penny. Nice round marbles, all colours.”

“Yes. You have no soul, Lomas.”

“I dare say. I’m busy.”

“With toxic spouses!” said Reggie reproachfully. “Green, was it? Green quartz, I suppose, or perhaps jade with the pattern in oxide of iron.”

“And I expect some child has swopped it for a green apple.”

“Lomas dear,” Mr. Fortune expostulated, “this is romance. Ten thousand years ago the cave men in France painted these patterns on stones. And still in Borneo there’s men making them for magic. Big magic. A charm against death. And some bright lad comes down to Bloomsbury and throws a fit to steal one. My hat, he’s the heir of all the ages! I could bear to meet this epilept.”

“I couldn’t,” said Lomas. “I have to meet quite enough of the weak-minded officially.”

But Reggie Fortune was deaf to satire. “A magic stone,” he murmured happily.

“Oh, take the case by all means,” said Lomas. “I’m glad I’ve brought you something that really interests you. Let me know when you find the pebble,” and announcing that he had a day’s work to do on the morrow, he went with an air of injury to bed.

It was an enemy (a K.C. after a long and vain cross-examination) who said that Mr. Fortune has a larger mass of useless knowledge than any man in England. Mr. Fortune has been heard to explain his eminence in the application of science to crime by explaining that he knows nothing thoroughly but a little of everything, thus preserving an open mind. This may account for his instant conviction that there was something for him in the matter of the magic stone. Or will you prefer to believe with Superintendent Bell that he has some singular faculty for feeling other men’s minds at work, a sort of sixth sense? This is mystical, and no one is less of a mystic than Reggie Fortune.

To the extreme discomfort of Lomas he filled the time which their car took in reaching London with a lecture on the case. He found that three explanations were possible. The stone might have been stolen by some one who believed in its magical power, or by some one who coveted it for a collection, or by some one who meant to sell it to a collector.

“Why stop?” Lomas yawned. “It might have been snapped up by a kleptomaniac or an ostrich or a lunatic. Or perhaps some chap wanted to crack a nut. Or a winkle. Does one crack winkles?”

Reggie went on seriously. He thought it unlikely that the thing was stolen as a charm.

“Oh, don’t lose heart,” said Lomas. “Why not put it down to a brave from Borneo? The original owner comes over in his war paint to claim his long lost magic stone. Malay runs amuck in Museum. That would go well in the papers. Very plausible too. Compare the mysterious Indians who are always hunting down their temple jewels in novels.”

“Lomas, you have a futile mind. Of course some fellow might want it for an amulet. It’s not only savages who believe in charms. How many men carried a mascot through the war? But your epileptic friend with the New York address don’t suggest this simple faith. I suspect a collector.”

“Well, I’ll believe anything of collectors,” Lomas admitted. “They collect heads in Borneo, don’t they? I know a fellow who collects shoes. Scalps or stamps or press-cuttings, it’s all very sad.”

“I want you to cable to New York and verify this epilept. Which I do not think. I’m going to look about for him here.”

“My dear Fortune!” Lomas sat up and put up an eyeglass to examine him. “Are you well? This is zeal. But what exactly are you looking for?”

“That’s what I want to find out,” said Reggie, and having left Lomas at Scotland Yard made a round of calls.