“He was a very headstrong man.”
“And he died.”
“Yes,”—a pause—“he died.”
Fanks looked at the man who sat opposite to him.
“Dr. Essley attended him.”
“I believe he did.”
“And he died.”
Black leant over the desk. “What do you mean?” he asked. “What are you suggesting about my friend, Dr. Essley?”
“Nothing, except that Providence has been of some assistance to you,” said Fanks. “The record of your success is a record of death—you sent Essley to see me once.”
“You were ill.”
“I was,” said Fanks grimly, “and I was also troubling you a little.” He flicked the ash from his cigar to the carpet. “Black, I’m going to resign all my directorships on your companies.”
The other man laughed unpleasantly.
“You can laugh, but it isn’t healthy, Black. I’ve no use for money that is bought at too heavy a price.”
“My dear man, you can resign,” said Colonel Black, “but might I ask if your extraordinary suspicions are shared by anybody else?”
Fanks shook his head.
“Not at present,” he said.
They looked at one another for the space of half a minute, which was a very long time.
“I want to clear right out,” Fanks continued. “I reckon my holdings are worth £150,000—you can buy them.”
“You amaze me,” said Black harshly.
He opened a drawer of his desk and took out a little green bottle and a feather. “Poor Essley,” he smiled, “wandering about Spain seeking the secrets of Moorish perfumery—he would go off his head if he knew what you thought of him.”
“I’d sooner he went off his head than that I should go off the earth,” said Fanks stolidly. “What have you got there?”
Black unstoppered the bottle and dipped in the feather. He withdrew it and held it close to his nose.
“What is it?” asked Fanks curiously. For answer, Black held up the feather for the man to smell.
“I can smell nothing,” said Fanks. Tilting the end quickly downwards. Black drew it across the lips of the other. “Here …” cried Fanks, and went limply to the ground.
“Constable Fellowe!”
Frank Fellowe was leaving the charge-room when he heard the snappy tones of the desk-sergeant calling him.
“Yes, sergeant?” he said, with a note of inquiry in his voice. He knew that there was something unpleasant coming. Sergeant Gurden seldom took any opportunity of speaking to him, except in admonishment. The sergeant was a wizen-faced man, with an ugly trick of showing his teeth when he was annoyed, and no greater contrast could be imagined than that which was afforded by the tall, straight-backed young man in the constable’s uniform, standing before the desk, and the shrunken figure that sat on the stool behind.
Sergeant Gurden had a dead-white face, which a scrubby black moustache went to emphasize. In spite of the fact that he was a man of good physical development, his clothing hung upon him awkwardly, and indeed the station- sergeant was awkward in more ways than one. Now he looked at Fellowe, showing his teeth. “I have had another complaint about you,” he said, “and if this is repeated it will be a matter for the Commissioner.”
The constable nodded his head respectfully. “I am very sorry, sergeant,” he said, “but what is the complaint?”
“You know as well as I do,” snarled the other; “you have been annoying Colonel Black again.”
A faint smile passed across Fellowe’s lips. He knew something of the solicitude in which the sergeant held the colonel.
“What the devil are you smiling at?” snapped the sergeant. “I warn you,” he went on, “that you are getting very impertinent, and this may be a matter for the Commissioner.”
“I had no intention of being disrespectful, sergeant,” said the young man. “I am as tired of these complaints as you are, but I have told you, as I will tell the Commissioner, that Colonel Black lives in a house in Serrington Gardens and is a source of some interest to me—that is my excuse.”
“He complains that you are always watching the house,” said the sergeant, and Constable Fellowe smiled.
“That is his conscience working,” he said. “Seriously, sergeant, I happen to know that the colonel is not too friendly disposed—”
He stopped himself.
“Well?” demanded the sergeant.
“Well,” repeated Constable Fellowe, “it might be as well perhaps if I kept my thoughts to myself.”
The sergeant nodded grimly.
“If you get into trouble you will only have yourself to blame,” he warned. “Colonel Black is an influential man. He is a ratepayer. Don’t forget that, constable. The ratepayers pay your salary, find the coat for your back, feed you—you owe everything to the ratepayers.”
“On the other hand,” said the young man, “Colonel Black is a ratepayer who owes me something.”
Hitching his cape over his arm, he passed from the charge-room down the stone steps into the street without. The man on duty at the door bade him a cheery farewell.
Fellowe was an annoying young man, more annoying by reason of the important fact that his antecedents were quite unknown to his most intimate friends. He was a man of more than ordinary education, quiet, restrained, his voice gently modulated; he had all the manners and attributes of a gentleman.
He had a tiny little house in Somers Town where he lived alone, but no friend of his, calling casually, had ever the good fortune to find him at home when he was off duty. It was believed he had other interests.
What those interests were could be guessed when, with exasperating unexpectedness, he appeared in the amateur boxing championship and carried off the police prize, for Fellowe was a magnificent boxer—hard-hitting, quick, reliable, scientific.
The bad men of Somers Town were the first to discover this, and one, Grueler, who on one never-to-be-forgotten occasion had shown fight on the way to the station, testified before breathless audiences as to the skill and science of the young man.
His breezy independence had won for him many friends, but it had made him enemies too, and as he walked thoughtfully along the street leading from the station, he realized that in the sergeant he had an enemy of more than average malignity.
Why should this be? It puzzled him. After all, he was only doing his duty. That he was also exceeding his duty did not strike him as being sufficient justification for the resentment of his superior, for he had reached the enthusiastic age of life where only inaction was unpardonable. As to Black, Frank shrugged his shoulders. He could not understand it. He was not of a nature to suspect that the sergeant had any other motive than the perfectly natural desire which all blasé superiors have, to check their too impulsive subordinates.
Frank admitted to himself that he was indeed a most annoying person, and in many ways he understood the sergeant’s antagonism to himself. Dismissing the matter from his mind, he made his way to his tiny house in Croome Street and let himself into his small dining-room.
The walls were distempered, and the few articles of furniture that were within were such as are not usually met with in houses of this quality. The old print above the mantelpiece must have been worth a working-man’s annual