the American Embassy speaks. Where’s that report, Bell?”
Superintendent Bell, with an apologetic smile, for he always liked
Mr. Fortune, read out: “James L. Beeton is a well-known and opulent
citizen now travelling in Europe for his health. Present address not
known.”
“For his health, mark you,” Lomas added.
“Yes. There is some good intelligence work in this business. But not
at Scotland Yard.”
“He is very harsh with us, Bell. I fear he has had a bad day. The
marbles ran badly for him. My dear Fortune, I always told you there
was nothing in it.”
“You did,” said Reggie grimly. “I’ll forgive you, but I won’t promise
to forget. Do you know Lord Tetherdown?”
“The little rag bag who collects rags and bones? He has been a joke
this ten years.”
“Lord Tetherdown is a very wealthy man,” said Superintendent Bell
with respect.
“Yes. He’s gone. Now Lomas, stemming your cheery wit, apply your mind
to this. Yesterday morning a rare specimen was stolen from the
British Museum. Yesterday evening Lord Tetherdown, who collects such
things, who hasn’t got that particular thing and would pay through
the nose to get it, was called on by a man about a curio. Lord
Tetherdown went out and vanished.”
“My dear fellow!” Lomas put up his eyeglass. “I admire your
imagination. But what is it you want me to believe? That Tetherdown
arranged for this accursed stone to be stolen?”
“I doubt that,” said Reggie thoughtfully.
“So do I. He’s a meek shy little man. Well then, did the thief try to
sell it to Tetherdown? Why should that make Tetherdown run away?”
“It might decoy him away.”
Lomas stared at him, apparently trying to believe that he was real.
“My dear fellow!” he protested. “Oh, my dear fellow! This is
fantastic. Why should anyone suddenly decoy little Tetherdown? He
never made an enemy. He would have nothing on him to steal. It’s an
old joke that he don’t carry the worth of a shilling. He has lived in
that hovel with his two old fogeys of servants for years and
sometimes he goes off mysteriously and the fellows in his club only
notice he has been away when he blows in again.”
“You’re a born policeman, Lomas,” Reggie sighed. “You’re so
commonplace.”
“Quite, quite,” said Lomas heartily. “Now tell me. You’ve been to
Tetherdown’s place. Did his servants say they were surprised he had
gone off?”
“The old dame said he often went off on a sudden,” Reggie admitted,
and Lomas laughed. “Well, what about it? You won’t do anything?”
“My dear Fortune, I’m only a policeman, as you say. I can’t act
without some reason.”
“Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie. “Reasons! Good night. Sleep sound.”
In comfortable moments since he has been heard to confess that Lomas
was perfectly right, that there was nothing which the police could
have done, but he is apt to diverge into an argument that policemen
are creatures whose function in the world is to shut the stable door
after the horse is stolen. A pet theory of his.
He went to the most solemn of his clubs and having soothed his
feelings with muffins, turned up Lord Tetherdown in the peerage. The
house of Tetherdown took little space. John William Bishop Coppett
was the seventh baron, but his ancestors were not distinguished and
the family was dwindling. John William Lord Tetherdown had no male
kin alive but his heir, who was his half-brother, the Hon. George
Bishop Coppett. The Hon. George seemed from his clubs to be a
sportsman. Mr. Fortune meditated.
On his way home he called upon the Hon. George, whose taste in
dwellings and servants was different from his half-brother’s. Mr.
Coppett had a flat in a vast, new and gorgeous block. His door was
opened by a young man who used a good tailor and was very wide awake.
But Mr. Coppett, like Lord Tetherdown, was not at home. His man,
looking more knowing than ever, did not think it would be of any use
to call again. Oh, no, sir, Mr. Coppett was not out of town: he would
certainly be back that night: but (something like a wink flickered on
the young man’s face) too late to see anyone. If the gentleman would
ring up in the morning--not too early--Reggie Fortune said that it
didn’t much matter.
He went off to dine with her whom he describes as his friskier
sister: the one who married a bishop. It made him sleep sound.
Thus the case of the magic stone was left to ferment for some fifteen
hours. For which Mr. Fortune has been heard to blame himself and the
conjugal bliss of bishops.
Over a devilled sole at breakfast--nature demanded piquant food--his
mind again became active. He rang for his car. Sam, his admirable
chauffeur, was told that he preferred to drive himself, which is
always in him a sign of mental excitement. “Country work, sir?” Sam
asked anxiously, for he holds that only on Salisbury Plain should Mr.
Fortune be allowed to drive. Mr. Fortune shook his head, and Sam
swallowed and they came down upon Oxford Street like the wolf on the
fold. The big car was inserted, a camel into the eye of a needle,
into the alleyway where Lord Tetherdown’s house lurks.
Again the old woman in the overall was brought to the door. She
recognized Reggie Fortune and liked him less than ever. “There’s no
answer,” she cried. “The master’s not back.”
“Really?”
“You heard what I said.”
“He’s not let you know when he’s coming back?”
“No, he hasn’t, nor I’ve no call to tell you if he had. You and your
curios!” The door slammed.
Reggie went back to his car. When it stopped again in a shabby street
by Covent Garden, Sam allowed himself to cough, his one protest from
first to last: a devoted fellow. Reggie Fortune surveyed the shop of
Demetrius Jacob, which displayed in its dirty window shelves sparsely
covered with bad imitations of old pewter. Reggie frowned at it,
looked at the name again and went in. The place was like a lumber
room. He saw nothing but damaged furniture which had never been good
and little of that until he found out that the dusty thing on which
he was standing was an exquisite Chinese carpet. Nobody was in the
shop, nobody came, though the opening door had rung a bell. He made
it ring again and still had to wait. Then there swept through the
place a woman, a big woman and handsome in her dark oriental way. She
did not see Reggie, she was too hurried or too angry, if her flush
and her frown were anger. She banged the door and was gone.
Reggie rapped on a rickety desk. After a moment an old man shuffled
into the shop, made something like a salaam and said: “You want,
Yes?” Not so old after all, Reggie decided on a second glance. He
shuffled because his slippers were falling off, he was bent because
he cringed, his yellow face was keen and healthy and his eyes bright
under black brows, but certainly a queer figure in that tight frock
coat which came nearly to his heels, and his stiff green skull cap.
“Mr. Jacob?” Reggie said.
“I am Demetrius Jacob,” he pronounced it in the Greek way.
“Well, I am interested in savage religions and cults you know, and
I’m told you are the man for me.” Mr. Jacob again made salaam. “What
I’m after just now is charms and amulets.” He paused and suddenly
rapped out: “Have you got anything from Borneo?”
Demetrius Jacob showed no surprise or any other emotion. “Borneo? Oh,
yes, I t’ink,” he smiled. “Beautiful t’ings.” He shuffled to a
cupboard and brought out a tray which contained two skulls and a
necklace of human teeth.
Reggie Fortune was supercilious. He demanded amulets, stone amulets
and in particular a stone amulet like a cigar with zigzag painting.
Demetrius Jacob shook his head. “I not ’ave ’im,” he said sadly. “Not
from Borneo. I ’ave beautiful _galets colorés_ from France, yes, and
Russia. But not the east. I never see ’im from the east but in the
Museum.”
Reggie Fortune went away thinking that it took a clever fellow to be
as guileless as that.
The car plunged through Piccadilly again to the flat of the Hon.
George Coppett. Mr. Coppett’s man received him with a smile which was
almost a leer. “I’ll see, sir,” he took Reggie’s card. “I’m afraid
Mr. Coppett’s partic’larly busy.” As Reggie was ushered in he heard a
bell ring and a woman’s voice high and angry, “Oh, yes, I will go.
But I do not believe you, not one word.” A door was flung open and
across the hall swept the big woman of Demetrius Jacob’s shop. Reggie
looked into the crown of his hat. She stopped short and stared hard
at him. Either she did not recognize him or did not care who he was.
She hurried on and the door banged behind her.
The Hon. George Coppett was a little man who walked like a bird.
“Damn it, damn it,” he piped, jumping about, “what the devil are you
at, Brown?” He stared at Mr. Fortune, and Brown gave him Mr.
Fortune’s card. “Hallo, don’t know you, do I? I’m in the devil of a
hurry.”
“I think you had better see me, Mr. Coppett,” said Reggie. Mr.
Coppett swore again and bade him come in.
Mr. Coppett gave himself some whisky. “I say, women are the devil,”
he said as he wiped his mouth. “Have one?” he nodded to the decanter.
“No? Well, what’s your trouble, Mr.--Mr. Fortune?”
“I am anxious to have some news of Lord Tetherdown.”
“Well, why don’t you ask him?” Mr. Coppett laughed.
“He’s not to be found.”
“What, gone off again, has he? Lord, he’s always at it. My dear chap,
he’s simply potty about his curios. I don’t know the first thing
about them, but it beats me how a fellow can fall for that old junk.
One of the best and all that don’t you know, but it’s a mania with
him. He’s always running off after some queer bit of tripe.”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Search me,” Mr. Coppett laughed. “My dear chap, he don’t tell me his
little game. Old Martha might know.”
“She doesn’t.”
Mr. Coppett laughed again. “He always was a close old thing. He just
pushes off, don’t you know, on any old scent. And after a bit he
blows in again.”
“Then--you don’t know--when you’ll see him again?” Reggie said slowly.
“Give you my word I don’t,” Mr. Coppett cried. “Sorry, sorry.”
“So am I,” said Reggie. “Good morning, Mr. Coppett.”
Mr. Coppett did not try to keep him. But he was hardly beyond the
outer door of the flat when he heard Mr. Coppett say, “Hallo, hallo!”
He turned. The door was still shut. Mr. Coppett was using the
telephone. He heard “Millfield, double three” something and could not
hear anything more. Millfield, as you know, is a quiet middle-class
suburb. Mr. Fortune went down stairs pensively.
Pensive he was still when he entered Scotland Yard and sought Lomas’s
room. “Well, how goes the quest for the holy stone?” Lomas put up his
eyeglass. “My dear Fortune, you’re the knight of the rueful
countenance.”
“You’re confused, Lomas. Don’t do it,” Reggie complained. “You’re not
subtle at Scotland Yard, but hang it, you might be clear.”
“What can we do for you?”
“One of your largest cigars,” Reggie mumbled and took it. “Yes. What
can you do? I wonder.” He looked at Lomas with a baleful eye. “Who
lives at Millfield? Speaking more precisely who lives at Millfield
double three something?” Lomas suggested that it was a large order.
“It is,” Reggie agreed gloomily, “it’s a nasty large order.” And he
described his morning’s work. “There you are. The further you go the
queerer.”
“Quite, quite,” Lomas nodded. “But what’s your theory, Fortune?”
“The workin’ hypothesis is that there’s dirty work doin’ when a magic
stone gets stolen and the man who wants the magic stone vanishes on
the same day: which is confirmed when a female connected with a chap
who knows all about magic stones is found colloguin’ with the
vanished man’s heir: and further supported when that heir being
rattled runs to telephone to the chaste shades of Millfield--the last
place for a sporting blood like him to keep his pals. I ask you, who
lives at Millfield double three something?”
Lomas shifted his papers. “George Coppett stands to gain by
Tetherdown’s death, of course,” he said. “And the only man so far as
we know. But he’s not badly off, he’s well known, there’s never been
anything against him. Why should he suddenly plan to do away with his
brother? All your story might be explained in a dozen ways. There’s
not an ounce of evidence, Fortune.”
“You like your evidence after the murder. I know that. My God, Lomas,
I’m afraid.”
“My dear fellow!” Lomas was startled. “This isn’t like you.”
“Oh, many thanks. I don’t like men dying, that’s all. Professional
prejudice. I’m a doctor, you see. What the devil are we talking for?
Who lives at Millfield double three something?”
“We might get at it,” Lomas said doubtfully and rang for
Superintendent Bell. “But it’s a needle in a bundle of hay. And if
Tetherdown was to be murdered, it’s done by now.”
“Yes, that’s comforting,” said Mr. Fortune.
Superintendent Bell brought a list of the subscribers to the
Millfield exchange and they looked over the names of those in the
thirty-fourth hundred. Most were shopkeepers and ruled out. “George
Coppett don’t buy his fish in Millfield,” said Reggie Fortune. Over
the doctors he hesitated.
“You think it’s some fellow in your own trade?” Lomas smiled. “Well,
there’s nothing like leather.”
“Brownrigg,” Reggie Fortune muttered. “I know him. 3358 Dr. Jerdan,
The Ferns, Chatham Park Road. Where’s a medical directory? 3358 Dr.
Jerdan is not in the medical directory. Ring up the divisional
inspector and ask him what he knows about Dr. Jerdan.”
There was nothing, Superintendent Bell announced, known against Dr.
Jerdan. He had been at the Ferns some time. He didn’t practise. He
was said to take in private patients.
“Come on,” said Reggie Fortune, and took the Superintendent’s arm.
“My dear Fortune,” Lomas protested. “This is a bow at a venture. We
can’t act, you know. Bell can’t appear.”
“Bell’s coming to be a policeman and appear when it’s all over. I’m
going in to Dr. Jerdan who isn’t on the register. And I don’t like
it, Lomas. Bell shall stay outside. And if I don’t come out
again--well, then you’ll have evidence, Lomas.”
Neither Reggie Fortune nor his chauffeur knew the way about in
Millfield. They sat together and Mr. Fortune with a map of London
exhorted Sam at the wheel and behind them Superintendent Bell held
tight and thought of his sins.
The car came by many streets of little drab houses to a road in which
the houses were large and detached, houses which had been rural
villas when Victoria was queen. “Now go easy,” Reggie Fortune said.
“Chatham Park Road, Bell. Quiet and respectable as the silent tomb.
My God, look at that! Stop, Sam.”
What startled him was a hospital nurse on a doorstep.
“Who is she, sir?” Bell asked.
“She’s Demetrius Jacob’s friend and George Coppett’s friend--and now
she’s Dr. Jerdan’s friend and in nurse’s rig. Keep the car back here.
Don’t frighten them.”
He jumped out and hurried on to the Ferns. “I don’t like it, young
fellow, and that’s a fact,” said Bell, and Sam nodded.
The woman had been let in. Mr. Fortune stood a moment surveying the
house which was as closely curtained as all the rest and like them
stood back with a curving drive to the door. He rang the bell, had no
answer, rang again, knocked and knocked more loudly. It sounded
thunderous in the heavy quiet of the Chatham Park Road.
At last the door was opened by a man, a lanky powerful fellow who
scowled at Mr. Fortune and said, “We ain’t deaf.”
“I have been kept waiting,” said Reggie. “Dr. Jerdan, please.”
“Not at home.”
“Oh, I think so. Dr. Jerdan will see me.”
“Don’t see anyone but by appointment.”
“Dr. Jerdan will see me. Go and tell him so.” The door was shut in
his face. After a moment or two he began knocking again. It was made
plain to all the Chatham Park Road that something was happening at
the Ferns and here and there a curtain fluttered.
Superintendent Bell got out of the car. “You stay here, son,” he
said. “Don’t stop the engine.”
But before he reached the house, the door was opened and Reggie
Fortune saw a sleek man who smiled with all his teeth. “So sorry you
have been waiting,” he purred. “I am Dr. Jerdan’s secretary. What can
I do for you?”
“Dr. Jerdan will see me.”
“Oh, no, I’m afraid not. Dr. Jerdan’s not at home.”
“Why say so?” said Reggie wearily. “Dr. Jerdan, please.”
“You had better tell me your business, sir.”
“Haven’t you guessed? Lord Tetherdown.”
“Lord who?” said the sleek man without a check. “I don’t know
anything about Lord Tetherdown.”
“But then you’re only Dr. Jerdan’s secretary,” Reggie murmured.
Something of respect was to be seen in the pale eyes that studied
him, and, after a long stare, “I’ll see what I can do. Come in, sir.
What’s your name?” He thrust his head forward like an animal
snapping, but still he smiled.
“Fortune. Reginald Fortune.”
“This way.” The sleek man led him down a bare hall and showed him
into a room at the back. “Do sit down, Mr. Fortune. But I’m afraid
you won’t see Dr. Jerdan.” He slid out. Reggie heard the key turn in
the lock. He glanced at the window. That was barred.
“Quite so,” said Reggie. “Now how long will Bell wait?”
He took his stand so that he would be behind the door if it were
opened, and listened. There was a scurry of feet and some other
sound. The feet fell silent, the other sound became a steady tapping.
“Good God, are they nailing him down?” he muttered, took up a chair
and dashed it at the lock again and again. As he broke out he heard
the beat of a motor engine.
Superintendent Bell drawing near saw a car with two men up come out
of the coach-house of the Ferns. He ran into the road and stood in
its way. It drove straight at him, gathering speed. He made a jump
for the footboard, and being a heavy man missed. The car shot by.
The respectability of Chatham Park Road then heard such a stream of
swearing as never had flowed that way. For Sam has a mother’s love of
his best car. But he was heroic. He swung its long body out across
the road, swearing, but nevertheless. The fugitives from the Ferns
took a chance which was no chance. Their car mounted the pavement,
hit a gate-post and crashed.
Superintendent Bell arrived to find Sam backing his own car to the
kerb while he looked complacently at its shining sides. “Not a
scratch, praise God,” he said.
Superintendent Bell pulled up. “You’re a wonder, you are,” he said,
and gazed at the ruins. The smashed car was on its side in a jumble
of twisted iron and bricks. The driver was underneath. They could not
move him. There were reasons why that did not matter to him. “He’s
got his,” said Sam. “Where’s the other? There were two of them.”
The other lay half hidden in a laurel hedge. He had been flung out,
he had broken the railings with his head, he had broken the stone
below, but his head was a gruesome shape.
In the hall of the Ferns Reggie Fortune stood still to listen. That
muffled tapping was the only sound in the house. It came from below.
He went down dark stairs into the kitchen. No one was there. The
sound came from behind a doorway in the corner. He flung it open and
looked down into the blackness of a cellar. He struck a light and saw
a bundle lying on the ground, a bundle from which stuck out two feet
that tapped at the cellar steps. He brought it up to the kitchen. It
was a woman with her head and body in a sack. When he had cut her
loose he saw the dark face of the woman of the shop and the flat. She
sprang at him and grasped his arms.
“Who are you?” she cried. “Where is Lord Tetherdown?”
“My name is Fortune, madame. And yours?”
“I am Melitta Jacob. What is that to you? Where have you put Lord
Tetherdown?”
“I am looking for him.”
“You! Is he not here? Oh, you shall pay for it, you and those others.”
But Reggie was already running upstairs. One room and another he
tried in vain and at last at the top of the house found a locked
door. The key was in the lock. Inside on a pallet bed, but clothed,
lay a little man with some days’ beard. The woman thrust Reggie away
and flung herself down by the bedside and gathered the man to her
bosom moaning over him. “My lord, my lord.”
“Oh, my aunt!” said Reggie Fortune. “Now, Miss Jacob, please,” he put
his hand on her shoulder.
“He is mine,” she said fiercely.
“Well, just now he’s mine. I’m a doctor.”
“Oh, is he not dead?” she cried.
“Not exactly,” said Reggie Fortune. “Not yet.” He took the body from
quivering arms.
“What is it, then?”
“He is drugged, and I should say starved. If you----” a heavy
footstep drew near. She sprang up ready for battle, and in the
doorway fell upon Superintendent Bell.
“Easy, easy,” he received her on his large chest and made sure of her
wrists. “Mr. Fortune--just got in by the window--what about this?”
“That’s all right,” Reggie mumbled from the bed. “Send me Sam.”
“Coming, sir.” Sam ran in. “Those fellows didn’t do a getaway.
They’re outed. Car smash. Both killed. Some smash.”
“Brandy, meat juice, ammonia,” murmured Mr. Fortune, who was writing,
“and that. Hurry.”
“Beg pardon, ma’am,” Bell detached himself from Melitta Jacob. He
took off his hat and tiptoed to the bed. “Have they done for him,
sir,” he muttered.
Mr. Fortune was again busy over the senseless body. One of its hands
was clenched. He opened the fingers gently, and drew out a greenish
lump painted with a zigzag pattern in red. “The magic stone,” he
said. “A charm against death. Well, well.”
* * * * *
On his lawn which slopes to the weir stream Reggie Fortune lay in a
deck chair, and a syringa, waxen white, shed its fragrance about him.
He opened his eyes to see the jaunty form of the Hon. Sidney Lomas
tripping towards him. “Stout fellow,” he murmured. “That’s cider cup.
There was ice in it once,” and he shut his eyes again.
“I infer that the patient is out of your hands.”
“They’re going for their honeymoon to Nigeria.”
“Good Gad,” said Lomas.
“Collecting, you see. The objects of art of the noble savage. She’s
rather a dear.”
“I should have thought he’d done enough collecting. Does he
understand yet what happened?”
“Oh, he’s quite lucid. Seems to think it’s all very natural.”
“Does he though?”
“Only he’s rather annoyed with brother George. He thinks brother
George had no right to object to his marrying. That’s what started
it, you see. Brother George came round to borrow his usual hundred or
so and found him with the magnificent Melitta. It occurred to brother
George that if Tetherdown was going to marry, something had to be
done about it. And then I suppose brother George consulted the late
Jerdan.” Mr. Fortune opened his eyes, and raised himself. “By the
way, who was Jerdan? I saw you hushed up the inquest as a motor
smash.”
“Bell thinks he was the doctor who bolted out of the Antony case.”
“Oh, ah. Yes, there was some brains in that. I rather thought the
late Jerdan had experience. I wonder what happened to his private
patients at the Ferns. Creepy house. I say, was it Jerdan or his man
who threw the fit at the Museum?”
“Jerdan himself, by the description.”
“Yes. Useful thing, medical training. Well, Jerdan saw he could get
at Tetherdown through his hobby. He came with tales of
anthropological treasures for sale. The old boy didn’t bite at first.
Jerdan couldn’t hit on anything he wanted. But he found out at last
what he did want. Hence the fit in the Museum. That night Jerdan
turned up with the Borneo stone and told Tetherdown a friend of his
had some more of the kind. Tetherdown fell for that. He went off to
the Ferns with Jerdan. The last thing he remembers is sitting down in
the back room to look at the stone. They chloroformed him, I think,
there was lots of stuff in the place. Then they kept him under
morphia and starved him. I suppose the notion was to dump his dead
body somewhere so that the fact of his death could be established and
George inherit. There could be no clear evidence of murder.
Tetherdown is eccentric. It would look as if he had gone off his head
and wandered about till he died of exhaustion. That was the late
Jerdan’s idea. Melitta always thought George was a bad egg. He didn’t
like her, you see, and he showed it. When Tetherdown vanished she
went off to George one time. He laughed at her, which was his error.
She put on that nurse’s rig for a disguise and watched his rooms.
When I rattled him and he rang up Jerdan, Jerdan came to the flat and
she followed him back to the Ferns and asked for Tetherdown. Jolly
awkward for Jerdan with me knocking at the door. He was crude with
her, but I don’t know that I blame him. An able fellow. Pity, pity.
Yes. What happened to brother George?”
“Bolted. We haven’t a trace of him. Which is just as well, for
there’s no evidence. Jerdan left no papers. George could have laughed
at us if he had the nerve.”