“Go on,” Charles begged. “This gets interesting.”
“Who so well able to protect a criminal—for a consideration, of course—as the detective—the detective, I mean, who is a free lance and bound to no one? Who so capable of studying the situation and advising exactly as to the best means of averting suspicion? Who could be in a better position for safely disposing of the booty?”
The taxicab stopped outside Mr. Felix Main’s office. The latter descended and waved his guest hospitably forward.
“Will you come upstairs and chat for half an hour?” he invited.
Charles hesitated for a moment, whilst the other paid the driver. Then he crossed the pavement and followed him through the portals of his unassuming office.
CHAPTER XIX
The first pheasant shoot took place at Glenlitten during the following week, and tragedy for the time passed into the background. The sport was good, and it was almost twilight when their host marshalled his guests to their places for the last beat.
“I’m awfully sorry to bring you fellows up to the home coverts so early in the season,” he apologised, as he indicated to Sir Richard the last vacant paper-marked stick in the drive. “Fact of it is, McPherson, my gardener, has been worrying me day after day about the cocks running in from these woods to the kitchen gardens. I suppose they must do a lot of damage. Anyway, he’s a good chap, and I had to promise we’d try to drive ‘em back to the middle. That’s why we’re taking the beat this way.”
“Shooting hens up here, Andrew?” Sir Richard enquired.
“Shoot any damned thing you like, if it’s worth shooting. There’s no particular reason to spare the hens—last season’s, of course—if they fly well. I’m afraid you’ll find the drive a bit narrow for the rabbits, but don’t let ‘em off if you get a chance.”
“Where will you be?” Haslam asked, from his place on the next seat.
“Out in the park. There goes the whistle. It’s a shortish beat, but a bit thick.”
The usual tapping of trees and crashing of the undergrowth ensued, and the very frequent blowing of the whistle proved that McPherson’s complaint was not altogether unjustified. About three quarters of the way through the beat there was a sudden pause. One of the men called for Robson, the head keeper. There was a short discussion. Then the line came on again. When Robson finally appeared in the drive, he was carrying something in his hand, at the sight of which Sir Richard gave a little start. Andrew, who was walking in from the park, quickened his pace.
“What have you got there, Robson?” he demanded. “It’s some sort of a firearm, sir—a revolver seemingly. One of the beaters kicked his foot against it underneath the big laurel.”
Sir Richard and his host both examined it carefully. Haslam leaned over their shoulders. The two former exchanged quick glances.
“Within twenty yards of where your saintlike burglar parked his car!” Andrew exclaimed.
Sir Richard broke open the revolver and dropped it afterwards into his pocket. He turned to the keeper.
“Robson,” he enjoined, “can you take me to the exact spot where you found this? You had better come too, Andrew, and you, Haslam. I should suggest every one else goes back to the house.”
They made their way into the wood. The beater who had found the revolver indicated the bush from underneath which he had picked it up. Sir Richard went down on his hands and knees, adjusted his glasses, and made a careful examination. The undergrowth was all broken down and trampled upon. He rose presently with a sigh.
“What a pity!” he muttered. “Where’s the beater gone who found it?”
The awkward-looking youth who had conducted them to the place stepped forward. Sir Richard held the weapon out to him.
“You say that you trod upon this?” he enquired.
“Aye, sir,” the boy replied.
“Then it was out of sight?”
“Well, I didn’t see it, sir, till I stubbed my foot agin it. I was watching an old cock running ahead.”
“You couldn’t tell whether it seemed to have fallen there accidentally or to have been hidden.”
The question was beyond its auditor. He shook his head in vague fashion.
“I just kicked it, sir,” he repeated. “It was underneath one of the boughs.”
Sir Richard examined the weapon closely.
“It isn’t so rusty as I should have expected, after lying out of doors for a month,” he remarked thoughtfully. “Pretty well sheltered there, I suppose, and there hasn’t been much rain. Let’s go back to where Drayton left the car.”
They found the exact spot. Sir Richard held the revolver by the muzzle and jerked it towards the laurel bush. It fell within a few feet of the place where it had been discovered. They recovered it and started up for the house together.
“It doesn’t look well for your man, Dick, I’m afraid,” Andrew observed.
“On the face of it,” the lawyer admitted, “it is the worst thing that could have happened—the worst thing in two ways,” he went on, as he paused and handed his gun to one of the under keepers. “It shows either that he wasn’t telling the truth and that he was carrying a gun, or—”
“Or what?”
“Or that the real criminal is a low-minded brute who means to stick at nothing to save his own skin,” the lawyer concluded.
“You don’t think that it may have been planted there?”
“It is within the possibilities,” was the dry response. “What we have to do now, of course, is to see if there is any way of identifying the weapon.”
“You realise, of course,” Andrew warned his companion, as they neared the house and turned round towards the back avenue leading to the gun-room, “that since the revolver was found by my men and on my property, I shall be compelled to hand it over to Scotland Yard. I can’t allow you, for instance, who are defending the accused man, to keep it and either produce it or not, as it suits you.”
“I quite understand that, Andrew,” Sir Richard acquiesced gravely. “Sometimes you seem a little mistaken about my aims and activities. My object is to see that justice is done. I believe in Drayton. I mean to use every effort I possess to secure his acquittal, but I don’t intend to conceal anything which the other side have a right to know.”
“Kick off your boots here,” Andrew invited, as they stepped into the stone-flagged hall. “Miller is there with the slippers. We’ll go to my den and have a drink.”
Félice stole into her husband’s room whilst he was dressing for dinner that evening. He dismissed his servant at once and made her comfortable in an easy-chair while he brushed his hair.
“Andrew,” she asked, “what is it they are saying about a revolver which was found in the Home Wood?”
“Quite true,” he answered. “The beaters found one near where your friend Max Drayton’s car was parked.”
“Will that not be very bad for the man?” she ventured anxiously.
“Very