A QUESTION OF PRINCIPLE
"If any one calls, I am out," cried Claude to his factotum, as he
crossed the entrance-hall of his well-appointed flat, and flung open the
door of his library.
"The guv'nor's in a tantrum," observed Smith to his wife, and he settled
himself to renew the perusal of Grand National training reports. He had
just noticed the interesting fact that last year's winner had "jumped in
for the last mile" in a gallop given to a rank outsider, when the
electric bell upset his calculations.
"My master is out," he said, as he opened the door to find Mr. White
standing on the mat.
He was about to close the door again, but the detective planted his foot
against the jamb.
"Your master is not out," he answered. "I saw him come in a minute
since. Tell him Mr. White wants to see him."
Smith's dignity was superb. "My master may be hin," he cried, "but 'e
told me to say 'e was hout to callers." The aspirates supplied emphasis.
"Tell him what I say at once," and Mr. White gave him his best
"accessory-after-the-crime" glance.
"I don't see why I should," snarled Smith, but the squabble ended when
Bruce's voice was heard--
"Show him in, Smith, but admit nobody else."
With an air of armed neutrality Smith ushered the representative of
Scotland Yard into the library.
"You're not looking very well, sir," said White, his round eyes fixed on
Bruce with all their power.
"Was it to ask about my health that you came?"
"No, sir, not exactly. But I haven't seen you for quite a while, and as
we are both interested in the same matter I thought I would look you up
and compare notes."
Bruce was annoyed by the interruption. He wanted to think, not to be
bothered by official theories. He looked hard at Mr. White, wondering
whether he should tell him all he knew and wash his own hands clear of
the investigation in future. But there was a second picture before his
eyes. He saw Phyllis Browne's face, not as it was that day at the Tir
aux Pigeons, but with the light of happiness in it, with the joyousness
of requited and undisturbed love, with the glow reflected from dancing
waves, and the tremulous smile of innocent pleasure.
It was hard to believe that such a woman could place her heartfelt trust
in a man who was possibly a cold-blooded murderer. Such a combination
was unnatural and horrible. Already Bruce was beginning to doubt the
evidence of his analytical senses.
Mr. White meanwhile flattered himself by the thought that the other was
trying to read his thoughts by looking at him fixedly.
"I have been away from home," said Bruce at last. "I had occasion to go
to the South of France."
"I thought so. I was sure of it. How do you manage always to get ahead
of us?" Mr. White was enthusiastic in his admiring divination.
"You have heard about Sydney H. Corbett?" said the barrister, still
keeping that inscrutable, calculating gaze upon the policeman.
"Yes. I am on his track. We may be slow, but we are sure in Scotland
Yard. May I ask what luck you have had, sir?"
"In what respect?"
"As if you didn't go to Monte Carlo to find Corbett yourself! Really,
Mr. Bruce, the scent is too hot this time. You might as well give a
'View halloa' if you have seen him."
"Seen Sydney H. Corbett, you mean?"
"That is the gentleman."
For an instant Mensmore's future trembled in the balance. Bruce almost
framed the words which would have led to his immediate arrest at the
next port touched by the _White Heather_. But the memory of Phyllis
Browne, of her agony, of the fearful scandal that must fly through
Society on the Riviera, restrained him. There was no hurry. He must have
time to think.
"I certainly went to Monte Carlo to discover the identity of that
interesting personage, but I came back, Mr. White, as wise as I went.
The only trace I found of him was an undelivered letter awaiting him at
the Hotel du Cercle."
"A letter! Wasn't he there?" Mr. White's face, notwithstanding its
official decorum, betrayed its disappointment. This was an unlooked-for
check.
"He had been there. Other letters came for him earlier, and he had
received them."
"But the hotel people--"
"Did not know him. In fact, there cannot be the slightest doubt that Mr.
Corbett concealed his identity at Monte Carlo under another name."
"It doesn't matter much," growled the detective. "We will nab him all
the same, if he had fifty names."
"Possibly. But it is wonderful how a man may be under your very nose,
and yet you may miss him."
During the next few minutes neither man spoke. Bruce smiled cynically
at the thought that he was actually shielding Lady Alice's probable
slayer from the minions of the law. He marvelled at himself for his
irresolution. Nevertheless, he would wait. Mensmore could not escape him
now. Perhaps the business might be managed without the dramatic features
which would accompany an immediate arrest. And there were some things
that required explanation. If his Monte Carlo acquaintance really killed
Lady Dyke, then he was the strangest criminal whom Bruce had ever
encountered during the course of his varied career.
The policeman misinterpreted his expression.
"You can't laugh at us this time, Mr. Bruce," he cried. "Scotland Yard
and yourself evolved the same theory, eh? And we can't fly off to the
South of France as readily as you."
"Your skill is profound, no doubt. Indeed, I wonder at it, considering
the mysterious way in which the missing man left his address at the
post-office."
The other reddened. "That was simple enough, I know; but we were on his
track before that."
"By watching me when I visited his sister."
"You saw me outside the Jollity Theatre, then?"
"Of course. What did you expect?"
Mr. White recovered his placidity. "There's no use quarrelling about
it," he laughed. "I did get that wrinkle from you. But how on earth were
we to know what to do, when there were seventy-one flats occupied by
respectable people, and one closed for months, the caretaker told us."
"I hope you have ceased your surveillance so far as I am concerned."
"Honor bright, sir. I won't do it again. Besides, we must lay hands on
Corbett sooner or later."
"What steps are you taking?"
"The Monte Carlo police are making inquiries. They have his description.
It has also gone to America."
"Why America?"
"Because he spent some time there. He only returned from the States
early last year. His sister has not seen him for years, and a rare old
row they had when he turned up. He had not much money, so she helped
him, and he settled down for a time in the same mansions as herself."
"Who told you all this?"
"Mrs. Hillmer, and a precious lot of trouble she gave me. She is a
clever woman that."
"It was rather too bad to pester her about it, poor lady."
"I only followed your lead, sir."
This was so true that Claude changed the conversation.
"What sort of man is Corbett? Have you his description?"
"Yes. Here it is." Mr. White produced a copy of the _Police Gazette_, a
publication never seen by the public, but of a large circulation among
the police of the United Kingdom. The details were fairly accurate as to
Mensmore's personal appearance, but there was no photograph. Oddly
enough, Bruce was pleased on noting this serious deficiency.
"You did not secure his picture?"
"No. Mrs. Hillmer declared that she had not a single photograph of her
brother in her possession."
"Did she--tell you his real name?" the barrister had almost said, but he
deflected the question. "Did she give you any hint as to a possible
cause for this apparently unnecessary crime?"
"Not a word."
"Then you did not mention Lady Dyke to her?"
"No. Sir Charles has always implored me to keep his wife's name out of
my inquiries until it became absolutely impossible to conceal it in view
of a public prosecution. He wants to know definitely when that time
comes."
"Why?"
The detective did not reply for a moment. When he spoke he leaned
forward and subdued his voice. "I am as sure as I am sitting here, sir,
that Sir Charles will not live if any disgrace should come to be
attached to his wife's memory."
"Do you mean that he will kill himself?"
"I do. He has changed a great deal since this affair happened. He is not
the same man. He appears to be always mooning about her. And people say
that they were not so devoted to one another when she was alive."
Again did the barrister switch off their talk from an unpleasant topic.
"This description of Corbett is not much use," he said. "It applies to
every athletic young Englishman of good physique and gentlemanly
appearance."
"Quite true. I don't depend on that for his arrest, but it will be
valuable for identification. 'Blue eyes, light brown hair, fresh, clear
complexion, well-modelled nose and chin.' Some of these things can be
changed by tricks, but not all. For instance, there would be no use in
smoking a man with black eyes and irregular features."
"'Smoking' him?"
"Oh, that's our way of putting it. Following him, it means."
"Suppose the French police don't succeed in catching him?"
"We will get him at Raleigh Mansions. He is sure to think that Lady
Dyke's fate has never been determined, and he will return when the
inquiry has blown over, to all appearance."
"You have quite made up your mind, then, that Sydney H. Corbett is the
murderer?"
"It looks uncommonly like it. At any rate, he knows something about it.
If not, why did he bolt to France two days after the crime? Why has he
concealed his identity? Why does he take pains to receive his
correspondence in the manner he has adopted? And, by Jove! suppose he
isn't in Monte Carlo at all, but in London all the time!"
The inspector glowed with his sudden inspiration, but Bruce kept him to
the lower level of realities.
"Corbett is, or was, in Monte Carlo. Of that you may be sure. He, and
none other, got the letters sent to the Hotel du Cercle. I cannot for
the life of me imagine why he did not take the last one. But let us look
at what we know. Lady Dyke, we will say, went to Corbett's chambers,
secretly and of her own accord. That may be taken as fairly established.
Thence there is a blank in our intelligence until she appears as a
hardly recognizable corpse, stuffed by hands beneath an old drain-pipe
in the Thames at Putney. How do you fill up that gap, Mr. White?"
"Simply enough. Corbett, or some other person, persuaded her to
voluntarily accompany him to Putney. She was killed there, and not in
London. It would be almost a matter of impossibility for any man to have
conveyed her lifeless body from Raleigh Mansions to Putney without
attracting some notice. One man could _not_ do it. Several might, but it
is madness to imagine that a number of people would join together for
the purpose of killing this poor lady."
"The seemingly impossible is often accomplished."
"Do you really believe, then, that she met her death in London?"
"I have quite an open mind on the question."
"You forget that she had resolved early that day to visit her sister at
Richmond, and Putney is on the direct road. What more reasonable than to
assume--"
"Beware of assumptions! You are assuming all the time that Corbett was a
principal in her murder."
"Very well, Mr. Bruce. Then I ask you straight out if you don't agree
with me?"
"I do not."
This declaration astounded the barrister himself. Often the mere
utterance of one's thoughts is a surprise. Speech seems to stiffen the
wavering outlines of reflection, and the new creation may differ
essentially from its embryo. It was so with Bruce in this instance.
Ever since Mr. White's arrival had aroused him from the positive stupor
caused by the stock-broker's unwitting revelation, Claude Bruce had been
slowly but definitely deciding that Mensmore did not kill Lady Dyke. He
had seen him, unprepared, facing death as preferable to dishonor. At
such moments a man's soul is laid bare. With the shadow of a crime upon
his conscience Mensmore's actions could not have been so genuine and
straightforward as they undoubtedly were.
Mensmore, of course, might in some way be bound up with the mystery
surrounding Lady Dyke's movements. His very utterance in Bruce's room
at the Hotel du Cercle implied as much. That was another matter. It
would receive his (Bruce's) most earnest attention. But the major
hypothesis, so quickly jumped at by the police, needed much more
substantiation than it had yet obtained.
That it was plausible was demonstrated by the barrister's readiness to
adopt it at the outset. Even now that his impulse to fasten the crime on
Mensmore had weakened he wondered at his eagerness to defend him.
The detective was even more surprised.
"I don't see how you can take that view," he cried. "Corbett's behavior
is, to say the least, unaccountable. If he is an innocent man, then he
must be a foolish one. Besides, why should he necessarily be innocent?
This is the first gleam of light we have had in a very dark business,
and I mean to follow it up."
The vindictive emphasis of his tone showed that the detective was
annoyed at the other's impassive attitude. He even went so far as to
dimly evolve a theory that the barrister wished to throw him off
Corbett's trail on account of his sympathy for Mrs. Hillmer, but Claude
rapidly dispelled this notion.
"You are here, I suppose, to ask my advice in pursuance of our
understanding that we are working together in the matter, as it were?"
he said.
"Well, something of the kind, sir."
"Then I recommend that we see the inside of that closed flat in Raleigh
Mansions at the earliest moment."
"Do you mean by a search warrant?"
"Certainly not. Do you want the whole neighborhood to know of it? You
have probably heard of locks being picked before to-day. You and I, and
none other, must have a quiet look around the place without anyone
being the wiser."
Mr. White hesitated, but the prospect was attractive. "I think I can
manage it," he said, smiling reflectively. "Will six this evening suit?"
"Admirably."
"Then I will call for you."
After a parting glance at Smith, who returned it, nose in air, the
inspector ran down the stairs, murmuring, "Blest if I can understand Mr.
Bruce. But this is a good move. We may learn something."