A BREAKFAST PROPOSAL
A thin white mist overhung the park and shrouded the deserted
stretch of Rotten Row, and the one or two riders who had come out at
this early hour for their constitutional merely served to emphasize
the desolation of the place.
One of these horsemen was Sir John Hason, Chief Commissioner of
Police, who made it a practice to ride before breakfast, and he
neither expected nor invited company. He was, therefore, surprised and
a little annoyed when a horseman came up from behind him and, checking
his mount to a walk, fell in by Sir John’s side.
“Hallo, Larry,” said John Hason in surprise. “This is an unexpected
apparition! I thought you were a ghost.”
“I shall be that, too, one of these fine mornings,” said Larry,
“unless I’m jolly careful. I knew you would be riding, so I hired a
hack from the local livery stable and came out. Besides,” he said, “I
want a change of air and I want to talk outside the stultifying
atmosphere of your office.”
“Anything new?” asked Sir John.
“There was an attempt at assassination last night, but that’s so usual
that I hate reporting it as a novelty,” said Larry, and told the story
of the two-o’clock visitation.
“It’s the queerest case I’ve ever heard about,” said Sir John Hason
thoughtfully. “Not a day passes but somebody new comes in. You still
attach importance to the charwoman?”
Larry nodded.
“You know London better than I, John,” he said, for between him and
his old schoolmate there was no formality on such occasions as this.
“Who is Judd?”
“Oh, Judd!” laughed the Commissioner. “I don’t think you need worry
your head about him. He is a man of some standing in the City, though
I seem to have heard that his brother was rather a waster. The Judds
practically own all the shares in the Greenwich Insurance Company. It
is not a very big concern, but it has successfully resisted every
attempt on the part of the insurance trusts and the big companies to
absorb it. That shows character which I admire. They inherited the
shares from their father and built up what looked to be a very shaky
concern into a fairly prosperous business.”
“I was looking at the board of directors last night,” said Larry. “It
is in the Stock Exchange year-book. I sat up after everybody had gone
to bed and tried to puzzle things out. Do you know that John Dearborn
is a director of that company?”
“Dearborn the dramatist?” asked Hason quickly. “No, I did not know. Of
course, the directors in a company like that,” he smiled, “are merely
the nominees of Judd. Judd is a very good fellow, I am told, and
spends a lot of money in charity. He practically supports the Home
which Dearborn is running. He may have been given an ornamental
directorship in order to bring in a little money to his institute.”
“I thought of that, too,” nodded Larry. “Who is Walters?”
“Never heard of him,” said John Hason.
“He’s another director of the Company, and also an ornamental person,
I should imagine. And Cremley? Ernest John Cremley, of Wimbledon.”
“He is most certainly an ornamental person,” said the Commissioner. “I
know him slightly, a man with very little brains and an insatiable
appetite for cards. Why do you ask?”
“Because these two men are also directors of the Macready Theatre
Syndicate,” said Larry quietly. “Judd’s name does not appear, but
there is another strange name, which is probably a nominee of his.”
“Where are we getting to?” asked the Commissioner.
“We’re getting here,” said Larry, reining in his horse and bringing it
round so that he stood side by side and facing his chief, “that Judd
controls the theatre where Dearborn’s plays are produced. So there is
some association between Judd and the superintendent of the Blind
Mission in Paddington.”
Sir John digested this fact before he spoke.
“I don’t see that there is anything particularly blameworthy about
that,” he said; “after all, Dearborn is only the victim of Blind Jake,
and from what you told me in your report last night, Judd is the
victim of nobody except our friend Flash Fred. I can well understand
why the doctor wanted to save his brother’s name,” he went on. “Judd
adored that younger brother of his, thought he was the finest fellow
in the world. I have never seen a case where brothers entertained such
affection one for the other. The week David Judd died the doctor shut
himself up and would not see anybody. What the----!”
The Commissioner’s note of startled surprise was justified, for Larry
had suddenly brought round his horse and was riding furiously across
the park, taking no small risk from the low railings he leapt.
He had seen a figure, unmistakably tall, muffled to the chin in a
pea-jacket, slouching along the path that led to one of the gates of
the park.
The man heard the gallop of hoofs and ran as straight and as swift as
a deer, gained the gates and ran out into the street. The gate was too
small for Larry to ride his horse through, and he flung himself off
and, leaving his mount to his own devices, he ran out into the street.
He saw no more than a car pull away from the kerb and move rapidly
eastward.
He looked around for a cab, but there was none in sight, and with a
shrug he came back, found his horse, mounted and trotted slowly back
to where Sir John was sitting.
“Where the devil did you go?” asked Sir John.
“I saw a gentleman I am most anxious to meet,” said Larry a little
breathlessly. “One Blind Jake, who was taking his morning
constitutional in the park, with his car waiting to pick him up like a
perfect gentleman. If I had had a gun I would have given Tarling
another Daffodil Mystery to solve. I should have been glad to find
flowers for Blind Jake!”