Part 8

In the hall of the Ferns Reggie Fortune stood still to listen. That muffled tapping was the only sound in the house. It came from below. He went down dark stairs into the kitchen. No one was there. The sound came from behind a doorway in the corner. He flung it open and looked down into the blackness of a cellar. He struck a light and saw a bundle lying on the ground, a bundle from which stuck out two feet that tapped at the cellar steps. He brought it up to the kitchen. It was a woman with her head and body in a sack. When he had cut her loose he saw the dark face of the woman of the shop and the flat. She sprang at him and grasped his arms.

“Who are you?” she cried. “Where is Lord Tetherdown?”

“My name is Fortune, madame. And yours?”

“I am Melitta Jacob. What is that to you? Where have you put Lord Tetherdown?”

“I am looking for him.”

“You! Is he not here? Oh, you shall pay for it, you and those others.”

But Reggie was already running upstairs. One room and another he tried in vain and at last at the top of the house found a locked door. The key was in the lock. Inside on a pallet bed, but clothed, lay a little man with some days’ beard. The woman thrust Reggie away and flung herself down by the bedside and gathered the man to her bosom moaning over him. “My lord, my lord.”

“Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie Fortune. “Now, Miss Jacob, please,” he put his hand on her shoulder.

“He is mine,” she said fiercely.

“Well, just now he’s mine. I’m a doctor.”

“Oh, is he not dead?” she cried.

“Not exactly,” said Reggie Fortune. “Not yet.” He took the body from quivering arms.

“What is it, then?”

“He is drugged, and I should say starved. If you----” a heavy footstep drew near. She sprang up ready for battle, and in the doorway fell upon Superintendent Bell.

“Easy, easy,” he received her on his large chest and made sure of her wrists. “Mr. Fortune--just got in by the window--what about this?”

“That’s all right,” Reggie mumbled from the bed. “Send me Sam.”

“Coming, sir.” Sam ran in. “Those fellows didn’t do a getaway. They’re outed. Car smash. Both killed. Some smash.”

“Brandy, meat juice, ammonia,” murmured Mr. Fortune, who was writing, “and that. Hurry.”

“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Bell detached himself from Melitta Jacob. He took off his hat and tiptoed to the bed. “Have they done for him, sir,” he muttered.

Mr. Fortune was again busy over the senseless body. One of its hands was clenched. He opened the fingers gently, and drew out a greenish lump painted with a zigzag pattern in red. “The magic stone,” he said. “A charm against death. Well, well.”

* * * * *

On his lawn which slopes to the weir stream Reggie Fortune lay in a deck chair, and a syringa, waxen white, shed its fragrance about him. He opened his eyes to see the jaunty form of the Hon. Sidney Lomas tripping towards him. “Stout fellow,” he murmured. “That’s cider cup. There was ice in it once,” and he shut his eyes again.

“I infer that the patient is out of your hands.”

“They’re going for their honeymoon to Nigeria.”

“Good Gad,” said Lomas.

“Collecting, you see. The objects of art of the noble savage. She’s rather a dear.”

“I should have thought he’d done enough collecting. Does he understand yet what happened?”

“Oh, he’s quite lucid. Seems to think it’s all very natural.”

“Does he though?”

“Only he’s rather annoyed with brother George. He thinks brother George had no right to object to his marrying. That’s what started it, you see. Brother George came round to borrow his usual hundred or so and found him with the magnificent Melitta. It occurred to brother George that if Tetherdown was going to marry, something had to be done about it. And then I suppose brother George consulted the late Jerdan.” Mr. Fortune opened his eyes, and raised himself. “By the way, who was Jerdan? I saw you hushed up the inquest as a motor smash.”

“Bell thinks he was the doctor who bolted out of the Antony case.”

“Oh, ah. Yes, there was some brains in that. I rather thought the late Jerdan had experience. I wonder what happened to his private patients at the Ferns. Creepy house. I say, was it Jerdan or his man who threw the fit at the Museum?”

“Jerdan himself, by the description.”

“Yes. Useful thing, medical training. Well, Jerdan saw he could get at Tetherdown through his hobby. He came with tales of anthropological treasures for sale. The old boy didn’t bite at first. Jerdan couldn’t hit on anything he wanted. But he found out at last what he did want. Hence the fit in the Museum. That night Jerdan turned up with the Borneo stone and told Tetherdown a friend of his had some more of the kind. Tetherdown fell for that. He went off to the Ferns with Jerdan. The last thing he remembers is sitting down in the back room to look at the stone. They chloroformed him, I think, there was lots of stuff in the place. Then they kept him under morphia and starved him. I suppose the notion was to dump his dead body somewhere so that the fact of his death could be established and George inherit. There could be no clear evidence of murder. Tetherdown is eccentric. It would look as if he had gone off his head and wandered about till he died of exhaustion. That was the late Jerdan’s idea. Melitta always thought George was a bad egg. He didn’t like her, you see, and he showed it. When Tetherdown vanished she went off to George one time. He laughed at her, which was his error. She put on that nurse’s rig for a disguise and watched his rooms. When I rattled him and he rang up Jerdan, Jerdan came to the flat and she followed him back to the Ferns and asked for Tetherdown. Jolly awkward for Jerdan with me knocking at the door. He was crude with her, but I don’t know that I blame him. An able fellow. Pity, pity. Yes. What happened to brother George?”

“Bolted. We haven’t a trace of him. Which is just as well, for there’s no evidence. Jerdan left no papers. George could have laughed at us if he had the nerve.”

Reggie Fortune chuckled. “I never liked George. I rang him up that night: ‘Mr. George Coppett? The Ferns speaking. It’s all out’ and I rang off. I thought George would quit. George will be worrying quite a lot. So that’s that.”

“Yes, you have your uses, Fortune,” said Lomas. “I’ve noticed it before.”

Reggie Fortune fumbled in his pocket and drew out the magic stone. “Tetherdown said he would like me to have it. Cut him to the heart to give it up, poor old boy. Told me it saved his life.” He smiled. “I don’t care for its methods, myself. Better put it back in a glass case, Lomas.”

“What did Melitta give you?”

“Melitta is rather a dear,” said Mr. Fortune.

CASE V

THE SNOWBALL BURGLARY

A TELEGRAM was brought to Mr. Fortune. It announced that the woman whom his ingenuity convicted of the Winstanton murder had confessed it in prison just after the Home Secretary decided not to hang her. Mr. Fortune sighed satisfaction and took his hostess in to dinner.

He was staying in a Devonshire country house for mental repairs. This is not much like him, for save on visits of duty country houses seldom receive him. The conversation of the county, he complains, is too great a strain upon his intellect. Also, he has no interest in killing creatures, except professionally. But the output of crime had been large that winter and the task of keeping Scotland Yard straight, laborious; and he sought relief with Colonel Beach at Cranston Regis. For Tom Beach, once in the first flight of hunting men, having married a young wife, put central heat and electric light into a remote Tudor manor house, and retired there to grow iris and poultry. Neither poultry nor young wives allured Reggie Fortune, but gardens he loves, and his own iris were not satisfying him.

So he sat by Alice Beach at her table, and while her talk flowed on like the brook in the poem, while he wondered why men marry, since their bachelor dinners are better eating, surveyed with mild eyes her and her guests. Tom Beach had probably been unable to help marrying her, she was so pink and white and round, her eyes so shy and innocent. She was one of those women who make it instantly clear to men that they exist to be married, and Tom Beach has always done his duty. “But she’s not such a fool as she looks,” Reggie had pronounced.

With pity if not sympathy he glanced down the table at Tom Beach, that large, red, honest man who sat doing his best between dignity and impudence, dignity in the awful person of Mrs. Faulks and the mighty pretty impudence of his wife’s sister, Sally Winslow. Mrs. Faulks has been described as one who could never be caught bending, or a model of the art of the corset. She is spare, she is straight; and few have seen her exhibit interest in anything but other people’s incomes, which she always distrusts. A correct woman, but for a habit of wearing too many jewels.

What she was doing in Tom Beach’s genial house was plain enough. Her son had brought her to inspect Sally Winslow, as a man brings a vet to the horse he fancies. But it was not plain why Alexander Faulks fancied Sally Winslow. Imagine a bulldog after a butterfly. But bulldogs have a sense of humour. Sally Winslow is a wisp of a creature who has no respect for anyone, even herself. Under her bright bobbed hair, indeed, is the daintiest colour; but when some fellow said she had the face of a fairy, a woman suggested the face of a fairy’s maid. She listened to Alexander’s heavy talk and watched him in a fearful fascination, but sometimes she shot a glance across the table where a little man with a curly head and a roguish eye was eating his dinner demurely. His worst enemies never said that Captain Bunny Cosdon’s manners were bad.

Now you know them all. When they made up a four for bridge, upon which Mrs. Faulks always insists, it was inevitable that Reggie Fortune should stand out, for his simple mind declines to grasp the principles of cards. Alexander Faulks in his masterful way directed Sally to the table; and scared, but submissive, she sat down and giggled nervously. Reggie found himself left to his hostess and Captain Cosdon. They seemed determined to entertain him and he sighed and listened.

So he says. He is emphatic that he did not go to sleep. But the study of the events of that evening which afterwards became necessary, makes it clear that a long time passed before Alice Beach was saying the first thing that he remembers. “Did you ever know a perfect crime, Mr. Fortune?”

Mr. Fortune then sat up, as he records, and took notice.

Captain Cosdon burst out laughing, and departed, humming a stave of “Meet me to-night in Dreamland.”

Mr. Fortune gazed at his hostess. He had not supposed that she could say anything so sensible. “Most crimes are perfect,” he said.

“But how horrible! I should hate to be murdered and know there wasn’t a clue who did it.”

“Oh, there’ll be a clue all right,” Reggie assured her.

“Are you sure? And will you promise to catch my murderer, Mr. Fortune?”

“Well, you know,” he considered her round amiable face, “if you were murdered it would be a case of art for art’s sake. That’s very rare. I was speakin’ scientifically. A perfect crime is a complete series of cause and effect. Where you have that, there’s always a clue, there is always evidence, and when you get to work on it the unknown quantities come out. Yes. Most crimes are perfect. But you must allow for chance. Sometimes the criminal is an idiot. That’s a nuisance. Sometimes he has a streak of luck and the crime is damaged before we find it, something has been washed out, a bit of it has been lost. It’s the imperfect crimes that give trouble.”

“But how fascinating!”

“Oh, Lord, no,” said Mr. Fortune.

The bridge-players were getting up. Sally Winslow was announcing that she had lost all but honour. Mrs. Faulks wore a ruthless smile. Sally went off to bed.

“Oh, Mrs. Faulks,” her sister cried, “do come! Mr. Fortune is lecturing on crime.”

“Really. How very interesting,” said Mrs. Faulks, and transfixed Reggie with an icy stare.

“The perfect criminal in one lesson,” Alice Beach laughed. “I feel a frightful character already. All you want is luck, you know. Or else Mr. Fortune catches you every time.”

“I say, you know, Alice,” her husband protested.

A scream rang out. Alice stopped laughing. The little company looked at each other. “Where was that?” Tom Beach muttered.

“Not in the house, Colonel,” Faulks said. “Certainly not in the house.”

Tom Beach was making for the window when all the lights went out.

Alice gave a cry. The shrill voice of Mrs. Faulks arose to say, “Really!” Colonel Beach could be heard swearing. “Don’t let us get excited,” said Faulks. Reggie Fortune struck a match.

“Excited be damned,” said Tom Beach, and rang the bell.

Reggie Fortune, holding his match aloft, made for the door and opened it. The hall was dark, too.

“Oh, Lord, it’s the main fuse blown out!” Tom Beach groaned.

“Or something has happened in your little power station,” said Reggie Fortune cheerfully, and his host snorted. For the electricity at Cranston Regis comes from turbines on the stream which used to fill the Tudor fish-ponds, and Colonel Beach loves his machinery like a mother.

He shouted to the butler to bring candles, and out of the dark the voice of the butler was heard apologizing. He roared to the chauffeur, who was his engineer, to put in a new fuse. “It’s not the fuse, Colonel,” came a startled voice, “there’s no juice.”

Colonel Beach swore the more. “Run down to the powerhouse, confound you. Where the devil are those candles?”

The butler was very sorry, sir, the butler was coming, sir.

“Really!” said Mrs. Faulks in the dark, for Reggie had grown tired of striking matches. “Most inconvenient.” So in the dark they waited. . .

And again they heard a scream. It was certainly in the house this time, it came from upstairs, it was in the voice of Sally Winslow. Reggie Fortune felt some one bump against him, and knew by the weight it was Faulks. Reggie struck another match, and saw him vanish into the darkness above as he called, “Miss Winslow, Miss Winslow!”

There was the sound of a scuffle and a thud. Colonel Beach stormed upstairs. A placid voice spoke out of the dark at Reggie’s ear, “I say, what’s up with the jolly old house?” The butler arrived quivering with a candle in each hand and a bodyguard of candle-bearing satellites, and showed him the smiling face of Captain Cosdon.

From above Colonel Beach roared for lights. “The C.O. sounds peeved,” said Captain Cosdon. “Someone’s for it, what?”

They took the butler’s candles and ran up, discovering with the light Mr. Faulks holding his face together. “Hallo, hallo! Dirty work at the crossroads, what? Why---- Sally! Good God!”

On the floor of the passage Sally Winslow lay like a child asleep, one frail bare arm flung up above her head.

“Look at that. Fortune,” Tom Beach cried. “Damned scoundrels!”

“Hold the candle,” said Reggie Fortune; but as he knelt beside her the electric light came on again.

“Great Jimmy!” Captain Cosdon exclaimed. “Who did that?”

“Don’t play the fool, Bunny,” Tom Beach growled. “What have they done to her, Fortune?”

Reggie’s plump, capable hands were moving upon the girl delicately. “Knocked her out,” he said, and stared down at her, and rubbed his chin.

“Who? What? How?” Cosdon cried. “Hallo, Faulks, what’s your trouble? Who hit you?”

“How on earth should I know,” Faulks mumbled, still feeling his face as he peered at the girl. “When Miss Winslow screamed, I ran up. It was dark, of course. Some men caught hold of me. I struck out and they set on me. I was knocked down. I wish you would look at my eye, Fortune.”

Reggie was looking at Sally, whose face had begun to twitch.

“Your eye will be a merry colour to-morrow,” Cosdon assured him. “But who hit Sally?”

“It was the fellows who set upon me, I suppose, of course; they were attacking her when I rescued her.”

“Stout fellow,” said Cosdon. “How many were there?”

“Quite a number. Quite. How can I possibly tell? It was dark. Quite a number.”

Sally tried to sneeze and failed, opened her eyes and murmured, “The light, the light.” She saw the men about her and began to laugh hysterically.

“Good God, the scoundrels may be in the house still,” cried Tom Beach. “Come on, Cosdon.”

“I should say so,” said Captain Cosdon, but he lingered over Sally. “All right now?” he asked anxiously.

“Oh, Bunny,” she choked in her laughter. “Yes, yes, I’m all right. Oh, Mr. Fortune, what is it? Oh, poor Mr. Faulks, what has happened?”

“Just so,” said Reggie. He picked her up and walked off with her to her bedroom.

“Oh, you are strong,” she said, not coquetting, but in honest surprise, like a child.

Reggie laughed. “There’s nothing of you,” and he laid her down on her bed. “Well, what about it?”

“I feel all muzzy.”

“That’ll pass off,” said Reggie cheerfully. “Do you know what hit you?”

“No. Isn’t it horrid? It was all dark, you know. There’s no end of a bruise,” she felt behind her ear and made a face.

“I know, I know,” Reggie murmured sympathetically. “And how did it all begin?”

“Why, I came up to bed, Mr. Fortune--heavens, there may be a man in here now!” she raised herself.

“Yes, we’d better clear that up,” said Reggie, and looked under the bed and opened the wardrobe and thrust into her dresses and turned back to her. “No luck, Miss Winslow.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she sank down again. “You see, I came up and put the light on, of course, and there was a man at the window there. Then I screamed.”

“The first scream,” Reggie murmured.

“And then the lights went out. I ran away and tumbled over that chair and then out into the passage. I kept bumping into things and it was horrid. And then--oh, somebody caught hold of me and I screamed----”

“The second scream,” Reggie murmured.

“I was sort of flung about. There were men there fighting in the dark. Horrid. Hitting all round me, you know. And then--oh, well, I suppose I stopped one, didn’t I?”

There was a tap at the door. “May I come in, doctor?” said Alice Beach.

“Oh, Alice, have they caught anyone?”

“Not a creature. Isn’t it awful? Oh, Sally, you poor darling,” her sister embraced her. “What a shame! Is it bad?”

“I’m all muddled. And jolly sore.”

“My dear! It is too bad it should be you. Oh, Mr. Fortune, what did happen?”

“Some fellow knocked her out. She’ll be all right in the morning. But keep her quiet and get her off to sleep.” He went to the window. It was open and the curtains blowing in the wind. He looked out. A ladder stood against the wall. “And that’s that. Yes. Put her to bed, Mrs. Beach.”

Outside in the passage he found Captain Cosdon waiting. “I say, Fortune, is she much hurt?”

“She’s taken a good hard knock. She’s not made for it. But she’ll be all right.”

“Sally! Oh damn,” said Cosdon.

“Did you catch anybody?”

“Napoo. All clear. The Colonel’s going round to see if they got away with anything. And Faulks wants you to look at his poor eye.”

“Nothing of yours gone?”

Cosdon laughed. “No. But I’m not exactly the burglar’s friend, don’t you know? My family jewels wouldn’t please the haughty crook. I say, it’s a queer stunt. Ever been in one like it?”

“I don’t think it went according to plan,” said Reggie Fortune.

He came down and found Faulks with an eye dwindling behind a bruise of many colours, arguing with an agitated butler that the house must contain arnica. Before he could give the attention which Mr. Faulks imperiously demanded, the parade voice of the Colonel rang through the house. “Fortune, come up here!”

Tom Beach stood in the study where he writes the biographies of his poultry and his iris. There also are kept the cups, medals and other silver with which shows reward their beauty. “Look at that!” he cried, with a tragic gesture. The black pedestals of the cups, the velvet cases of the medals stood empty.

“Great Jimmy!” said Captain Cosdon in awe.

“Well, that’s very thorough,” said Reggie. “And the next thing, please.”

Colonel Beach said it was a damned outrage. He also supposed that the fellows had stripped the whole place. And he bounced out.

Reggie went to his own room. He had nothing which could be stolen but his brushes, and they were not gone. He looked out of the window. In the cold March moonlight he saw two men moving hither and thither, and recognized one for his chauffeur and factotum Sam, and shouted.

“Nothing doing, sir,” Sam called back. “Clean getaway.”

Reggie went downstairs to the smoking-room. He was stretched in a chair consuming soda-water and a large cigar when there broke upon him in a wave of chattering Tom Beach and Alice and Captain Cosdon.

“Oh, Mr. Fortune, is this a perfect crime?” Alice laughed.

Reggie shook his head. “I’m afraid it had an accident in its youth. The crime that took the wrong turning.”

“How do you mean, Fortune?” Tom Beach frowned. “It’s deuced awkward.”

“Awkward is the word,” Reggie agreed. “What’s gone, Colonel?”

“Well, there’s my pots, you know. And Alice has lost a set of cameos she had in her dressing-room.”

“Pigs!” said Alice with conviction.

“And Mrs. Faulks says they’ve taken that big ruby brooch she was wearing before dinner. You know it.”

“It’s one of the things I could bear not to know,” Reggie murmured. “Nothing else?”

“She says she doesn’t know, she’s too upset to be sure. I say, Fortune, this is a jolly business for me.”

“My dear chap!”

“She’s gone to bed fuming. Faulks is in a sweet state too.”

“What’s he lost?”

“Only his eye,” Cosdon chuckled.

“That’s the lot, then? Nice little bag, but rather on the small side. Yes, it didn’t go according to plan.”

“Oh, Mr. Fortune, what are you going to do?”

“Do?” said Reggie reproachfully. “I? Where’s the nearest policeman?”

“Why, here,” Alice pointed at him.

“Cranston Abbas,” said Tom Beach, “and he’s only a yokel. Village constable, don’t you know.”

“Yes, you are rather remote, Colonel. What is there about you that brings the wily cracksman down here?”

“Mrs. Faulks!” Alice cried. “That woman must travel with a jeweller’s shop. There’s a chance for you, Mr. Fortune. Get her rubies back and you’ll win her heart.”

“Jewelled in fifteen holes. I’d be afraid of burglars. Mrs. Beach, you’re frivolous, and the Colonel’s going to burst into tears. Will anyone tell me what did happen? We were all in the drawing-room--no. Where were you, Cosdon?”

“Writing letters here, old thing.”

“Quite so. And the servants?”

“All in the servants’ hall at supper!” Colonel Beach said. “They are all right.”

“Quite. Miss Winslow went upstairs and saw a man at her window. There’s a ladder at it. She screamed and the lights went out. Why?”

“The rascals got at the powerhouse. Baker found the main switch off.”

“Then they knew their way about here. Have you sacked any servant lately? Had any strange workman in the place? No? Yet the intelligence work was very sound. Well, in the darkness Miss Winslow tumbled out into the passage and was grabbed and screamed, and the brave Faulks ran upstairs and took a black eye, and Miss Winslow took the count, and when we arrived there wasn’t a burglar in sight. Yes, there was some luck about.”

“Not for Sally,” said her sister.

“No,” said Reggie thoughtfully. “No, but there was a lot of luck going.” He surveyed them through his cigar smoke with a bland smile.

“What do you think I ought to do, Fortune?” said Tom Beach.

“Go to bed,” said Reggie. “What’s the time? Time runs on, doesn’t it? Yes, go to bed.”

“Oh, but, Mr. Fortune, you are disappointing,” Alice Beach cried.

“I am. I notice it every day. It’s my only vice.”

“I do think you might be interested!”

“A poor crime, but her own,” Captain Cosdon chuckled. “It’s no good, Mrs. Beach. It don’t appeal to the master mind.”

“You know, Fortune, it’s devilish awkward,” the Colonel protested.