“A client’s?”
“A very depressed and agitated client — feel.”
T.B.’s fingers touched the little handkerchief; it was still quite damp. He nodded.
“The rosebud?”
“Did you notice our austere banker’s buttonhole?”
“Not particularly — but I remember no flowers.”
“No,” agreed Van Ingen, “there were no flowers. I noticed particularly that his buttonhole was sewn, and yet—”
“And yet?”
“Hidden in one of those drawers was a bunch of these roses. I saw them when he was getting your balance-sheet.”
“H’m!” T.B. tapped the table impatiently.
“So, you see,” Van Ingen went on, “we have an interest in this lady client of his, who comes after office hours, weeps copiously, and leaves a bunch of rosebuds as a souvenir of her visit. It may have been a client, of course.”
“And the roses may have been security for an overdraft,” said the ironic T.B. “What do you make of the handkerchief?”
It was an exquisite little thing of the most delicate cambric. Along one hem, in letters minutely embroidered in flowing script, there ran a line of writing. T.B. took up a magnifying glass and read it.
“‘Que dieu te garde,’” he read, “and a little monogram — a gift of some sort, I gather. As far as I can see, the lettering is ‘ N.H.C.’ — and what that means, Heaven knows! I’m afraid that, beyond intruding to an unjustifiable extent into the private affairs of our banker, we get no further. Well, Jones?”
With a knock at the door, an officer had entered.
“Sir George has returned to his house. We have just received a telephone message from one of our men.”
“What has he been doing tonight — Sir George?”
“He dined at home; went to his club and returned; he does not go out again.” T.B. nodded.
“Watch the house and report,” he said. The man saluted and left.
T.B. turned again to the contemplation of the handkerchief.
“If I were one of those funny detectives, Mr. Van Ingen, who live in books,” he said sadly, “I could weave quite an interesting theory from this.” He held the handkerchief to his nose and smelt it.
“The scent is ‘Simpatico,’ therefore the owner must have lived in Spain; the workmanship is Parisian, therefore—” He threw the flimsy thing from him with a laugh. “This takes us no nearer to the Wady Barrage, my friend — no nearer to the mysterious millionaires who ‘bear’ the shares of worthy brewers. Let us go out into the open, and ask Heaven to drop a clue at our feet.” The two men turned their steps towards Whitehall, and were halfway to Trafalgar Square when a panting constable overtook them.
“There is a message from the man watching Sir George Calliper’s house, sir,” he said; “ — he wants you to go there at once.”
“What is wrong?” asked T.B. quickly.
“A drunken man, sir, so far as I could understand.”
“A what?”
T.B.’s eyebrows rose, and he smiled incredulously.
“A drunken man,” repeated the man; “he’s made two attempts to see Sir George—”
“Hail that cab,” said T.B. “We’ll drive round and see this extraordinary person.”
A drunken man is not usually a problem so difficult that it is necessary to requisition the services of an Assistant-Commissioner. This much T.B. pointed out to the detective who awaited him at the corner of St. James’s Square.
“But this man is different,” said the officer; “he’s well dressed; he has plenty of money — he gave the cab-driver a sovereign — and he talks.”
“Nothing remarkable in that, dear lad,” said T.B. reproachfully; “we all talk.”
“But he talks business, sir,” persisted the officer; “boasts that he’s got Bronte’s bank in his pocket.”
“The devil he does!” T.B.’s eyebrows had a trick of rising. “Did he say anything else?”
“The second time he came,” said the detective, “the butler pushed him down the steps, and that seemed to annoy him — he talked pretty freely then, called Sir George all the names he could lay his tongue to, and finished up by saying that he could ruin him.”
T.B. nodded.
“And Sir George? He could not, of course, hear this unpleasant conversation? He would be out of earshot.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the plainclothes man, “but that’s where you’re mistaken. I distinctly saw Sir George through the half-opened door. He was standing behind his servant.”
“It’s a pity—” began T.B., when the detective pointed along the street in the direction of the Square.
“There he is, sir,” he whispered; “he’s coming again.”
Along the pavement, a little unsteadily, a young man walked. In the brilliant light of a street lamp T.B. saw that he was well dressed in a glaring way. The Assistant-Commissioner waited until the newcomer reached the next lamp; then walked to meet him.
A young man, expensively garbed, red of face, and flashily jewelled — at a distance T.B. classified him as one of the more offensive type of nouveau riche. The stranger would have passed on his way, but T.B. stepped in front of him.
“Excuse me, Mr. “He stopped with an incredulous gasp. “Mr. Moss!” he said wonderingly. “Mr. Lewis Moss, some time of Tokenhouse Yard, company promoter.”
“Here, stash it, Mr. Smith,” begged the young man. He stood unsteadily, and in his eye was defiance. “Drop all that — reformed — me. Look ‘ere” — he lurched forward and caught T.B. by the lapel of his coat, and his breath was reminiscent of a distillery—” if you knew what I know, ah!”
The “ah!” was triumph in a word.
“If you knew what 1 know,” continued Mr. Moss, with relish; “but you don’t. You fellers at your game think you know toot, as Count Poltavo says; but you don’t.” He wagged his head wisely.
T.B. waited.
“I’m goin’ to see Calliper,” Mr. Moss went on, with gross familiarity, “an’ what I’ve got to say to him is worth millions — millions, I tell you. An’ when Calliper says to me, ‘ Mr. Moss, I thank you! ‘ and has done the right thing, I’ll come to you — see?”
“I see,” said T.B., “but you mustn’t annoy Sir George any more tonight.”
“Look here, Smith,” Mr. Moss went off at a tangent, “you want to know how I got acquainted with Count Poltavo — well, I’ll tell you. There’s a feller named Hyatt that I used to do a bit of business with. Quiet young feller who got marvellous tips — made a lot o’ money, he did, all because he bowled out Poltavo — see?”
He stopped short, for it evidently dawned upon him that he was talking too much.
“He sent you, eh?” Mr. Moss jerked the point of a gold-mounted stick in the direction of Sir George’s house. “Come down off his high ‘orse “ — the third “h” was too much for him— “and very wisely, very wisely.” He shook his head with drunken gravity. “As a man of the world,” he went on, “you bein’ one an’ me bein’ another, it only remains to fix a meeting between self