Pointer smoothed his crisp hair which always looked as though it would curl if it dared. Then he pressed a bell. Could Mr. Ward come to his room at once? Apparently Mr. Ward could, for in another moment there appeared in the door a vision to delight a tailor's eye. Ward, sartorially speaking, was It, even in a royal group. His quaint pen-name adorned many a weekly paper. Always up-to-date, invariably correct in all his reports, for two hours of every week-day Ward occupied a small room in one wing next to the Assistant Commissioner's.
"About Julian Clifford—not his literary side, I suppose? Just so. A description of his appearance? Especially of his face?"
Ward gave a very good pen-picture of the great man, after which he repeated briefly what Pointer already knew about Clifford's family.
"Present wife had intended to become a Pusey Sister. Changed her mind and took to divining rods and crystal balls instead. Is on the committees of all the spook societies. People say she's a wonderful clairvoyante. But then they always do say that if the person concerned talks enough to enough people. She usually carries a crystal ball around with her in her bag."
"Supposing," Pointer began, lighting his pipe—that beloved pipe of his which he always denied himself while on the scene of a crime—it might blot out other scents. "Supposing, Mr. Ward, that Julian Clifford had suddenly disappeared from his circle, where would you look for him first?"
"I hardly know. Clifford does this sort of thing every now and then, you know, when he wants some new material for a book. But he always returns to the surface within a week or a month."
"But supposing you had reason to think that something had happened to him—that something was wrong with his disappearance this time?"
"Good God!" Ward's light manner dropped from him. "You don't mean to tell me, Chief Inspector, that anything serious has happened to Julian Clifford?"
Pointer nodded. "I do." He did not insult Scotland Yard, nor Ward, by asking him to regard that as confidential. Everything that was said within these walls was always confidential to the men considered sufficiently trustworthy to be consulted there.
"You mean that he's—dead?" Ward asked in a hushed voice. "You think there's been foul play?" He spoke in the tone of a man who asks a monstrous question.
"I'm sorry to say that I'm sure of it. And so, I want you to think whether you've ever heard any talk, any hint, anything that could explain his murder." Pointer gave the few terrible facts. Ward felt that headless body as an additional horror.
"Incredible!" he murmured. "No I know nothing whatever that can explain this crime. It must have been the work of a maniac."
"He was a wealthy man, I always understood?" Pointer asked.
"A very wealthy man apart from his literary work. And a quite sufficiently wealthy man apart from his private fortune."
"Who are the inmates of his household, not counting servants, do you know?" was the next question.
Ward had often been the guest of the Cliffords.
"All of them beyond suspicion. First there's Adrian Hobbs. He's Mrs. Clifford's cousin, and acts as Clifford's literary agent. Clever chap. Thoroughly good business man. Really he's wasted in his present surroundings. Hobbs ought to 've started life with half a crown and a huckster's barrow."
"Straightforward?"
"Perfectly, I should say. That is—eh, well—of course, he's a good business man, as I told you."
Both smiled.
"What's he like to look at?"
"Big, powerful build. Heavyweight." Ward described Hobbs' looks. "Then there's Clifford's regular secretary. A poor fellow who lost his memory during the war. Blown up once too often. Just at the end too. Hard lines, eh? Name of Newman. Clifford ran across him at a base hospital, and gave him a try. He's very good indeed, I believe."
Again, at Pointer's request, he gave a snapshot of the secretary's appearance. Slim, but very strong, he thought him.
"How do these two men and Mrs. Clifford get on? You say they both live with the Cliffords?"
"She bores her cousin, Hobbs, stiff. And I think she secretly bores Newman too. Though he's a chap of whom it's very difficult to know what he thinks."
"Were the Cliffords attached to each other?"
"As far as I know, very much so. But of course—there's that talk about Mrs. Orr, the Merry Widow."
"Widow? Grass or sod, as the Americans say."
Ward laughed. "Oh, a genuine widow. As though you hadn't heard of the beautiful Mrs. Orr. As beautiful and far swifter than the latest eight-cylinder. Julian Clifford is supposed to be—was supposed to be—putting her in his next novel. All I know is he's been haunting her society lately. In season and out of season."
"And what does Mrs. Clifford say to the hauntings? Hasn't she tried to lay the spirit?"
"Mrs. Clifford is quite unperturbed, apparently. She goes on smiling her faint smiles and dreaming her dreams, and hearing her voices and seeing her visions in her crystal. She's one of the few women who haven't begun to cold-shoulder Mrs. Orr of late. Rather the other way."
"More friendly than usual?"
"I saw them driving in the park together only last Friday. Never saw that before."
Pointer hurried off. It was one o'clock. Gossip, even very relevant gossip, must wait until he knew whether it were really wanted or not.
CHAPTER 3
AN elderly-looking, round-shouldered man, whose stoop took from his real height, walked up to the gates of Thornbush half an hour later.
Pointer had looked out the hours of postal deliveries. He had timed himself so as to be on the drive when a postman overtook him. He turned.
"Any letters for me—Marbury?" he asked pleasantly. "And I'll take on any for the household at the same time."
The postman thanked him, told him there were none for him, and handed him four for the house.
Though Pointer looked a typical civil servant from his neatly-trimmed beard to his neatly-adjusted spats, he knocked at the front door with the four letters—three for Julian Clifford, Esq., and one for Mrs. Clifford—in his pocket. He might re-post them after the briefest of delays—or he might not.
"I telephoned to Mr. Clifford just now, and was told that he is not at his home." The very way in which Pointer felt for his card-case suggested near sight and a certain precise fussiness.
"Mr. Clifford is away, sir. But will you see Mr. Hobbs? Mr. Hobbs said he particularly wanted to see you, sir." The butler led the caller into a room near by. A young man rose civilly.
"Mr. Marbury? From the Home Office?"
"I called to inquire why Mr. Clifford failed to keep an appointment he had this morning with the Home Secretary. Can I see him a moment? The matter is connected with the Metropolitan Special Constabulary Reserve, and is very urgent. We are drawing up our lists."
Hobbs seemed puzzled. "Did Mr. Clifford have an appointment? I think there's some mistake."
"Exactly!" Pointer broke in. "I'm sure there is. Kindly let me know where I can reach him on the 'phone."
Hobbs stroked his smooth black hair. Then he stroked his smooth blue chin.
The Chief Inspector was by nature and training a remarkably astute reader of faces, but he was looking at one now which—like his own—hid completely the character behind it. Like himself, Adrian Hobbs looked about thirty, more or less. Like himself, too, he suggested an out-of-door man. Like himself, Hobbs was exceedingly neat in appearance. From his