The Posters
Jack did not find him a pleasant travelling companion; the inspector
had brought with him a whole bundle of newspapers, in each of which he
read religiously the comments upon the Crimson Circle. His host saw
what he was reading, and was astonished that the man, phlegmatic as he
was, could find any pleasure in the uncomplimentary references to
himself which filled the journals. He said as much.
The inspector put down a paper on his knees, and took off his
steel-rimmed pince-nez.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Criticism never did anybody any harm; it is
only when a man knows he is wrong that this kind of stuff irritates
him. As I happen to know I am right, it doesn’t matter to me what they
say.”
“You really think you are right? In what respect?” asked Jack
curiously, but here Parr was not offering any information.
They arrived at the little station and drove the three miles which
separated the line from the big gaunt house which had been James
Beardmore’s delight.
Jack’s butler, who had come down to superintend arrangements for his
master’s comfort, handed a telegram to Inspector Parr almost as soon
as he put his foot across the threshold.
Parr looked at the face of the envelope and then at the back.
“How long has this been here?”
“It arrived about five minutes ago; a cyclist messenger brought it up
from the village,” he said.
The inspector tore open the envelope and extracted the form. It was
signed “Derrick Yale,” and read:
“_Come back to London at once; most important development._”
Without a word he handed the message to the young man.
“Of course you’ll go. It’s rather a nuisance; there isn’t a train
until nine o’clock,” said Jack, who was disappointed at the prospect
of losing his companion.
“I’m not going,” said Parr calmly. “Nothing in the wide world would
make me take another train journey to-night. It must wait.”
This attitude toward the summons did not somehow go with Jack’s
perception of the inspector’s character. He was, if the truth be told,
secretly disappointed, although he was glad enough that Parr would
share his first night in the house, every corner, every room of which,
seemed to have its own especial ghost.
Parr looked at the telegram again.
“He must have sent this within half-an-hour of our leaving the
station,” he said. “You have a telephone, haven’t you?”
Jack nodded, and Parr put through a long distance call. It was a
quarter of an hour before the tinkle of the bell announced that he had
been connected.
Jack heard his voice in the hall, and presently the detective came in.
“As I thought,” he said, “the wire was a fake. I’ve just been on to
friend Yale.”
“And did you guess it was a fake?”
Mr. Parr nodded.
“I’m getting almost as good a guesser as Yale,” said the detective
good-humouredly.
He spent the evening initiating the young man into the mysteries of
picquet, of which Parr was a past-master. There is probably no more
fascinating card game for two in the world than this, and so
pleasantly was the evening passed, that it was with a shock that Jack
looked at the clock and found it was midnight.
The room to which the inspector was shown was that which had been
occupied by James Beardmore in his lifetime. It was a roomy apartment,
lofty and expansive. There were three long windows, and at night the
room, as the rest of the house, was lighted by means of an
acetylene-gas plant which James Beardmore had installed.
“Where are you sleeping, by the way?” he said as he paused at the
entrance of his room, after saying good-night.
“I’m in the next room,” said Jack, and Parr nodded, closed the door,
locking it behind him.
He heard Jack’s door shut, and proceeded to divest himself of part of
his clothing. He made no attempt to undress, but taking from his
battered suit-case an old silk dressing-gown, he wrapped it about him,
turned out the light and, walking to the windows, pulled up the three
blinds.
The night was fairly light; there was sufficient to enable him to find
his way back to the bed, on which he lay, pulling the eiderdown over
him. There is a method by which the worst cases of insomnia-haunted
patients may obtain sleep, though it is one which I believe is very
little known. It is to attempt deliberately to keep one’s eyes open in
the dark.
Mr. Parr succeeded only by turning on his side and staring out of the
nearest window, which he had opened a little.
Towards morning he rose suddenly and stepped noiselessly towards the
nearest window; he had heard a faint whirr of sound, a noise which a
smoothly-running motor-car makes, but now there was a profound
silence. He went to the washstand, and rubbed his face with cold
water, drying it leisurely. Then he walked back to the window, pulled
up a chair and sat so that he commanded whatever view there was of the
avenue leading to the front of the house.
He had to wait nearly half an hour before he saw a dark figure steal
from the shadow of the trees, only to disappear again in a deeper
shadow. He momentarily glimpsed it again as it passed out of his range
of vision into the shadow of the house itself.
The inspector moved softly from the room and, crossing the landing,
went down the stairs. The main door of the house was bolted and
locked, and it was some time before he could open it. When he stepped
out into the night there was nobody in sight. He crept stealthily
along the path which ran parallel with the house, but found no
intruder, and he had reached the main entrance again when he heard the
sound of the motor fading gradually--the midnight visitor had gone.
He closed and bolted the door and went back to his room. This visit
puzzled him. It was clear that the man, whoever he was, had not seen
Parr, nor could he have been certain that he was under observation. He
must have come and gone almost immediately.
It was not until he came down to breakfast in the morning that the
mystery of the visitation was revealed.
Jack was standing before the fire reading a crumpled paper which
looked as if it had been posted up and torn. It was the size of a
small poster and hand-printed. Before he saw its contents, Parr knew
that it was a message from the Crimson Circle.
“What do you think of this?” asked Jack, looking round as the
detective came in. “We found half a dozen of these posters pasted or
tacked on to the trees of the drive, and this one was stuck up under
my window!”
The detective read:
“_Your father’s debt is still unpaid. It will remain unpaid if you
persuade your friends Derrick Yale and Parr to cease their activity._”
Underneath was written in smaller characters, and evidently added as
an afterthought:
“_We shall make no further demands upon private individuals._”
“So he was bill-posting,” said Parr thoughtfully. “I wondered why he
came and left so early.”
“Did you see him?” asked Jack in surprise.
“I just glimpsed him. In fact, I knew he would call, though I expected
a more startling consequence,” said the detective.
He sat through breakfast without saying a word, except to answer the
questions that Jack put to him, and then only in the briefest fashion,
and it was not until they were walking across the meadows that Parr
asked:
“I wonder if he knows you’re fond of Thalia Drummond?”
Jack went red.
“Why do you ask that?” he said a little anxiously. “You don’t think
they will take their vengeance on Thalia, do you?”
“If it would serve his purpose, he would wipe out Thalia Drummond like
that.” The detective snapped his fingers.
He put an end to further conversation by stopping and turning about in
his tracks.
“This will do,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to go to the station gate--the way Marl came to
the house that morning?”
Parr shook his head.
“No, I wished to be sure how he approached the house. Can you point
out the spot where he suddenly became so agitated?”
“Why, of course,” said Jack readily, but wondering what it was all
about. “It was much nearer the house; in fact, I can give you the
exact spot, because I particularly remember his stepping aside from
the path and ruining a young rose tree on which he put his foot. There
is the tree--or one the gardener has put in its place.”
He pointed, and Parr nodded his large head several times.
“This is very important,” he said. He walked to where the ruined tree
had been. “I knew he was lying,” he said half to himself. “You cannot
see the terrace from here at all. Marl told me that he saw your father
standing on the terrace at the very moment he had his seizure, and my
first impression was that it was the sight of your father which was
responsible for his scare.”
He gave Jack details of the conversation he had had with Felix Marl
before his death.
“I could have corrected that,” said Jack. “My father was in the
library all the morning, and he did not come out of the house until we
were ascending the steps of the terrace.”
Parr, note-book in hand, was making a rough sketch. On his left front
was the solid block of Sedgwood House, immediately before him were the
gardens, enclosed by light iron railings to prevent the cattle
straying on to the flower beds, and broken by the gate through which
Marl must have passed. On the right was a patch of bushes, in the
midst of which showed the gay top of a garden umbrella.
“Dad was very fond of the shrubbery,” explained Jack. “We get high
winds here even on the warmest days, and the shrubbery affords
shelter. Dad used to sit there for hours reading.”
Parr was slowly turning on his heel, taking in every detail of the
view. Presently he nodded.
“I think I have seen all there is to be seen,” he said.
As they were walking back to the house he reverted to the midnight
bill-poster, and to Jack’s surprise:
“That was the only false move that the Crimson Circle have made, and I
think it was very much an afterthought. That was not their original
intention, I’ll swear.”
He sat down on the steps of the terrace and stared out over the
landscape. Jack could not but think that a more uninspiring figure
than Mr. Parr he had never met. His lack of inches, his rotundity, his
large placid face, did not somehow fit in with Jack’s conception of a
shrewd criminal investigator.
“I’ve got it,” said Parr at last. “My first idea was right. He was
coming down to blackmail you for the money your father did not pay. On
his way he conceived this new idea, which is hinted at in the
postscript of his message. He has decided upon some big coup, so that
the reference to myself and Yale may be genuine; and he really does
want us out of the game, though he’d be a fool if he did not know that
the likelihood of his wishes being fulfilled in that respect are
pretty remote. Let me see the poster again.”
Jack brought it and the inspector spread it upon the pavement of the
terrace.
“Yes, this has been written in a hurry; probably written in his car,
and it is a substitute for the poster he originally intended.” He
rubbed his chin impatiently. “Now, what is the new scheme?”
He was to learn almost immediately, for the butler came hurrying out
to say that the telephone bell had been ringing in Jack’s study for
five minutes.
“It is you they want,” said Jack, handing the receiver to the
detective.
Mr. Parr took the instrument in his hands, and recognised immediately
Colonel Morton’s voice.
“Come back to London at once, Parr; you are to attend a meeting of the
Cabinet this afternoon.”
Mr. Parr put down the receiver, and a smile spread over his big face.
“What is it?” asked Jack.
“I’m joining the Cabinet,” said Mr. Parr, and laughed as Jack had
never seen him laugh before.