"I have asked you to come to see me, Mr. Nape," said the Duke, "because
I feel I owe you an apology."
The criminologist nodded stiffly.
He thought that under the circumstances the Duke might have very well
come to him, but he was not prepared to labour the point.
"We all make mistakes," said the Duke generously, "I for instance have
been mistaken in you."
Mr. Nape made another stern acknowledgment.
"I thought your methods were unconventional; I mistrusted the new type
of detective; I have been trained in the old school where the man who
murders the banker is never the burglar who robs the safe, but the good
bishop who calls for the missionary subscription; where the villain who
steals the Crown jewels is not the impecunious soldier of fortune, but
the heir apparent."
Mr. Nape stood rigidly at attention and waited. It pleased him to see
evidence of a great remorse upon the tanned young face before him, to
observe deep shadows under his eyes, and--he had not noticed them
before--a sprinkling of grey hairs at his temple. Mr. Nape drew his own
conclusions.
"Now," said the Duke with a self-depreciating wave of his hand, "I know
that the old method is obsolete, that from the first the guilty party is
the obvious--"
"Obvious to all who employ the process of elimination," corrected Mr.
Nape severely.
"Exactly," agreed the Duke. "I now know, that if you catch a man with
his hand in your pocket, you eliminate everybody whose hands do not
happen to be in your pocket, and by this process arrive at the culprit."
Mr. Nape looked a little dubious.
"My confidence in your ability being established," the Duke went on, "I
wish you to accept a commission from me."
Mr. Nape regarded him with cold suspicion.
"It isn't by any chance connected with electric bells?" he asked
sarcastically.
"Not at all."
"Or digging holes in a garden?"
The Duke shot a reproachful glance at him.
"As to that unfortunate incident," he said, "you have yourself to blame.
But for the completeness of your disguise----"
"Which you penetrated," said Roderick gloomily.
"I confess," said the Duke, with pleasing frankness, "that I spotted the
false whiskers--or was it a moustache? I said to Hank, 'Who on earth
can it be?' and Hank couldn't think of anybody. 'It's a detective,'
said Hank, 'but what detective?' We thought of everybody till Hank--you
know what a penetrating devil he is--said 'By Jove! It must be Jacko--I
mean Nape!'"
Mr. Nape looked important.
"And the commission you wish me to accept?" he asked.
"It will be necessary," said the Duke slowly, "to take you into my
confidence. I am in a deuce of a mess: I have incurred the enmity of a
great and powerful man, who has invoked the machinery of the law and
threatened me with its instrument--in fact," he said in an outburst of
candour, "brokers." Mr. Nape who had visions of something a trifle more
heroic, said "Oh."
"Not only this," the Duke went on, "but he has unscrupulously,
pertinaciously and several other words which I cannot at the moment
recall, brought to his aid the most powerful factor of all--the Press."
The Duke picked up a long newspaper cutting that lay at his side.
"Read that," he said.
Mr. Nape obeyed.
It was headed "The Duke in the Suburbs," "meaning me," said the Duke
complacently, "read on."
Mr. Nape skimmed the leading article--for such it was--rapidly:
"Titles," says Voltaire, "are of no value to posterity, the name
of a man who has achieved great deeds imposes more respect than
any or all epithets."
"He boned that out of a book of familiar quotations," explained the Duke
admiringly, "go on."
"It would seem that the English character, ever sturdy and
self-reliant, is in imminent danger of deterioration...."
"Title worship is unworthy of a great people.... Especially
foolish is the worship when the demi-god is an obscure
foreigner, whose chief asset is an overwhelming amount of self
confidence, and an absolute disregard for the amenities and
decencies of social intercourse."
"I can't quite place that last bit," said the Duke, "it is probably
employed to round off the sentence--proceed, Mr. Nape."
"With every desire to preserve intact the admirable
relationships that exist _at the present moment_ between
ourselves and our Gallic neighbours, we should be wanting in our
duty if we did not point out, and emphasize in the strongest
possible terms, the necessity for a strict observance on the
part of our foreign guests, of the laws of this land."
"That's rather involved," commented the Duke, "but I gather the sense of
the stricture--pardon me."
Mr. Nape continued.
"The English laws are just and equitable; they are the
admiration and wonder of the world. The late Baron Pollock on
one famous occasion said----"
"Skip that bit," interrupted the Duke.
"The laws affecting property are no less admirably framed. In a
noted judgment the late Lord Justice Coleridge laid down the
dictum----"
"And that bit too," said the Duke; "go on to the part that deals with
the lawless alien."
"Most difficult of all," read Mr. Nape, "is the landlord's
position when he has to deal with the alien, who, ignorant of
the law, sets the law at defiance: who opposes his puny strength
to the mighty machinery of legislation, and its accredited
instruments."
Hank, a silent and interested listener, moved uneasily in the depths of
his big chair.
He removed his cigar to ask a question.
"Is she the writ of ejection or the notice to quit?" he asked soberly.
"I gather that she's the court bailiff," said the Duke reverently.
"We would remind the person to whom these admonitions are
addressed,--in the friendliest spirit--that there is a power
behind the law. The majesty of our prestige is supported by the
might of armed force."
"That's the militia," said the Duke, "Captain Hal Tanneur of the North
Kent Fencibles! Hank, we're up against the army. We're an international
problem: you heard the reference to the friendly relations? We're the
fly in the Entente Cordiale ointment."
"And a possible _causus belli_," murmured Hank.
"And a _causus belli_," repeated the Duke impressively.
There was a silence as Mr. Nape carefully folded the cutting and placed
it on the table. A continued silence when he leant back in his chair,
with his finger-tips touching and his eyes absently fixed on the
ceiling.
"Well?" said the Duke.
Mr. Nape smiled.
The solution of the problem was simple.
"You want me to find the man who wrote that article?" he said languidly.
"It will not be particularly difficult. There are certain features
about this case which are, I admit, puzzling. The reference to Baron
Pollock and the Lord Chief Justice show me that the writer was a lawyer,
the----"
"Oh, I know who wrote the article," said the Duke cheerfully, and Mr.
Nape was disconcerted and annoyed.
Then an idea struck him and he brightened.
"I see," he said, "you want me to discover the circumstances under which
they were written. You have a secret enemy who----"
"On the contrary," said the Duke, "I know all the circumstances and I
know the name, address, age and hobbies of the enemy."
Mr. Nape's exasperation was justified under the circumstances.
"May I ask," he demanded coldly, "why I have been called in?"
"That seems fair?" The Duke appealed to Hank, and Hank nodded. "It
seems a deucedly fair question."