“Well, my club is in Carlton House Terrace, but I don’t want to meet people I know. The Savoy isn’t much better—”
“There’s a nice little pub up here,” Grant said, and swung the car round. “Very quiet at this time. Cool, too.”
As they turned the corner Grant caught sight of the news-sellers’ posters. CLAY FUNERAL: UNPRECEDENTED SCENES. TEN WOMEN FAINT. LONDON’S FAREWELL TO CLAY. And (the Sentinel) CLAY’S LAST AUDIENCE.
Grant’s foot came down on the accelerator.
“It was unbelievably ghastly,” said the man beside him, quietly.
“Yes, I can imagine.”
“Those women. I think the end of our greatness as a race must be very near. We came through the war well, but perhaps the effort was too great. It left us—epileptic. Great shocks do, sometimes.” He was silent a moment, evidently seeing it all again in his mind’s eye. “I’ve seen machine guns turned on troops in the open—in China—and rebelled against the slaughter. But I would have seen that sub-human mass of hysteria riddled this morning with more joy than I can describe to you. Not because it was—Chris, but because they made me ashamed of being human, of belonging to the same species.”
“I had hoped that at that early hour there would be very little demonstration. I know the police were counting on that.”
“We counted on it too. That is why we chose that hour. Now that I’ve seen with my own eyes, I know that nothing could have prevented it. The people are insane.”
He paused, and gave an unamused laugh. “She never did like people much. It was because she found people—disappointing that she left her money as she did. Her fans this morning have vindicated her judgment.”
The bar was all that Grant had promised, cool, quiet, and undemanding. No one took any notice of Champneis. Of the six men present three nodded to Grant and three looked wary. Champneis, observant even in his pain, said: “Where do you go when you want to be unrecognized?” and Grant smiled. “I’ve not found a place yet,” he admitted. “I landed in Labrador from a friend’s yacht once, and the man in the village store said, ‘You wear your moustache shorter now, Sergeant.’ After that I gave up expecting.”
They talked of Labrador for a little, and then of Galeria, where Champneis had spent the last few months.
“I used to think Asia primitive, and some of the Indian tribes of South America, but the east of Europe has them all beaten. Except for the towns, Galeria is still in the primeval dark.”
“I see they’ve mislaid their spectacular patriot,” Grant said.
“Rimnik? Yes. He’ll turn up again when his party is ready. That’s the way they run the benighted country.”
“How many parties are there?”
“About ten, I think, not counting subdivisions. There are at least twenty races in that boiling pot of a country, all of them clamouring for self-government, and all of them medieval in their outlook. It’s a fascinating place. You should go there some day. The capital is their shop-window—as nearly a replica of every other capital as they can make it. Opera, trams, electric light, imposing railway station, cinemas—but twenty miles into the country you’ll find bride-barter. Girls set in rows with their dowry at their feet, waiting to go to the highest bidder. I’ve seen an old country woman led raving mad out of a lift in one of the town buildings. She thought she was the victim of witchcraft. They had to take her to the asylum. Graft in the town and superstition in the country—and yet a place of infinite promise.”
Grant let him talk, glad that for even a few minutes he might be able to forget the horror of the morning. His own thoughts were not in Galeria but in Westover. So he had done it, that good-looking emotionalist! He had screwed a ranch and five thousand out of his hostess and then made sure that he would not have to wait for it. Grant’s own inclination to like the boy died an instant death. From now on Robert Tisdall would be no more to him than the bluebottle he swatted on the windowpane, a nuisance to be exterminated as quickly and with as little fuss as possible. If, away in the depths, he was sorry that the pleasant person who was the surface Tisdall did not exist, his main and overwhelming emotion was relief that the business was going to be cleared up so easily. There was little doubt of the result of the conference. They had evidence enough. And they would have more before it came to a trial.
Barker, his Superintendent, agreed with him, and so did the Commissioner. It was a clear enough case. The man is broke, homeless, and at his wit’s end. He is picked up by a rich woman at the psychological moment. Four days later a will is made in his favour. On the following morning very early, the woman goes to swim. He follows her ten minutes later. When her body is found he has disappeared. He reappears with an unbelievable tale about stealing the car and bringing it back. A black button is found twisted in the dead woman’s hair. The man’s dark coat is missing. He says it was stolen two days before. But a man identifies him as wearing it that morning.
Yes, it was a good enough case. The opportunity, the motive, the clue.
The only person to protest against the issue of the warrant was, strangely enough, Edward Champneis.
“It’s too pat, don’t you think?” he said. “I mean, would any man in his senses commit the murder the very next morning?”
“You forget, Lord Edward,” Barker said, “that but for the merest chance there would be no question of murder at all.”
“And moreover, time was precious to him,” Grant pointed out. “There were only a few days left. The tenancy of the cottage expired at the end of the month. He knew that. She might not go bathing again. The weather might break, or she might be seized with a desire to go inland. More especially she might not go swimming in the early morning again. It was an ideal setting: a lonely beach in the very early morning, with the mist just rising. Too perfect a chance to let go to waste.”
Yes, it was a good case. Edward Champneis went back to the house in Regent’s Park which he had inherited with the Bremer fortune, and which between his peregrinations he called home. And Grant went down to Westover with a warrant in his pocket.
9
If there was one thing Toselli hated more than another it was the police. All his life he had been no poor hater, Toselli. As commis he had hated the maître d’hôtel, as maître d’hôtel he had hated the management, as the management he hated many things: the chef, wet weather, his wife, the head porter’s moustache, clients who demanded to see him at breakfast time—oh, many things! But more than all he hated the police. They were bad for business and bad for the digestion. It stopped his digestive juices flowing just to see one of them walk in through the glass doors. It was bad enough to remember his annual bill for New Year “presents” to the local officers—thirty bottles of Scotch, thirty of gin, two dozen champagne, and six of liqueur brandy it had come to last year—but to suffer the invasion of officers not so far “looked after,” and therefore callous to the brittle delicacy of hotel well-being—well, it was more than Toselli’s abundant flesh and high-pressured blood could stand.
That is why he smiled so sweetly upon Grant—all his life Toselli’s smile had been stretched across his rage, like a tight-rope spanning a chasm—and gave him one of the second-best cigars. Inspector Grant wanted to interview the new waiter, did he? But certainly! This was the waiter’s hour off—between lunch and afternoon tea—but he should be sent for immediately.
“Stop!” said Grant. “You say the man is off duty? Do you know where he will be?”
“Very probably in his room. Waiters like to take the weight off their feet for a little, you understand.”
“I’d like to see him there.”
“But