Fred M. White

“ The criminal specialist Brownsden looked around accordingly. Ramsay's dining-room in Upper Quadrant, Brighton, was an artistic one. It had evidently been furnished by a scholar and a man of taste. There was a marvellously carved oak sideboard, then a Queen Anne bookcase; a fireplace carved by Grindley Gibbons himself; the electric lights were demurely shaded, only the flowers looked faded. The artistic reticence of it all struck the proper, soothing, refining chord. ”

“ Ramsay said almost fiercely. "Gathered together bit by bit, pieced like some perfect old mosaic. It has been the one delight in a hard and gloomy life. All the house is the same. And the name of Dr. Alfred Ramsay is becoming known. Then it is all kicked away by a sudden and unexpected tragedy. Sit down."
Brownsden sat down obediently in a Cromwellian chair upholstered in speaking tapestry. It was his cue to get the other to talk. ”

“ Don't you think that it is a serious omission not to call in the police?"
"Well, yes," Ramsay said slowly, as if the words were being dragged from him. "Of course, I thought of that. A man like myself, who knows nobody, and who could not give anything very satisfactory in the way of a personal reference.... But seeing that the crime is a day old——"
"What does that matter?" Brownsden asked somewhat impatiently. "Of course, your hands are clean enough; one has only to look at the radiation of your eye-pupils to see that. ”

“ Brighton was a large place, and the neighbours would not be too inquisitive; it was possible to live in Brighton for years and never know the name of your next-door tenants. There was only one thing that really troubled Ramsay—had those people by any chance got an inkling of his past? Or was it merely coincidence?
Brownsden came down by the last train, apparently satisfied with his day's work.
"It's all right," he said. "I am delighted. If the police have only kept their discovery as to the coining-plant to themselves, everything will work out splendidly. ”

“ Swann was of opinion that a cab had better be called, and the stuff carried away. He took his own departure a little later, with the suggestion that nothing further could be done to-night. He carefully locked up the study and sealed it. He hinted that there was a deeper mystery here than met the eye; he would come again in the morning. Ramsay closed the door behind him and then staggered like a drunken man into the dining-room. With a shaking hand he poured himself out some brandy.
"There is more here than meets the eye," Brownsden quoted from Swann significantly. ”

“ It was a case of a motor accident. The gentleman had been driving his own car and in some way had come to grief. There was no wound to be seen, nothing to account for the deathlike trance in which the patient lay. Ramsay had forgotten his own troubles for the moment. He would be very pleased to see the patient at once.
The patient lay like a corpse on the bed—to all appearance he was dead. Ramsay's examination was thorough. He turned with a half-smile to the house-surgeon.
"No operation is necessary at all," he said. "There is nothing at all the matter with the brain. ”

“ When we tried the so-called counterfeit coins, they rang true. What does that mean?"
Brownsden smiled as he took another cigarette.
"They are true," he said. "They are made from genuine silver. It is possible to melt silver and yet get cent. for cent. profit on it over the counter. Gold can be treated the same way. The coins we found were not quite finished—they had not been sweated to give them the appearance of having been in circulation. See how simple it all is."
"Ah, yes," Ramsay said. ”

“ Here we have three brand new coins taken from the poor creature's hand, the bloom of the mould is still on them. Three perfect half-crowns with the head of Queen Victoria upon them. New coins fresh from the Mint, with the late Queen's head on them, and dated 1899! ”

“ He had been called by a grocer close by, who had been requested to send a cab from the rank near him by telephone from Upper Quadrant.
"I presume you went to the station?" Brownsden asked.
"No, I didn't, sir; I didn't go nowhere. I put two bags and a case that looked like one of them typewriters a-top of the cab, and I waited for the gentleman to come out. I hadn't any notion then what I was wanted for. Just as the gentleman got on the step, with his rug over his arm, a motor comes up—regular swagger affair——"
"Stop a minute," Brownsden asked. "Did she look like a racer? ”

“ If you take my advice, you will not stir out of the house all day, because I may have to telephone or telegraph you. And don't forget that you are entirely in my hands."
"I could not wish for a more capable man," Ramsay said gratefully.
It was nearly five before the telephone rang out in the startled house, and by instinct Ramsay seemed to know that Brownsden was calling him from London. Brownsden's voice was low and clear, but there was a certain pleased ring about it that the listener liked. ”

“ There is no such thing as honour amongst thieves. But you, personally, gave me a pretty clue when you spoke of the man in the hospital with the different-coloured eyes who had had a spill from a motor. Your tenant had eyes of two colours he had gone off hot foot in a motor. ”

“ He reached out a hand and touched his companion, who immediately sat up.
"They're moving," he whispered. "Get as near to the door as you can, and switch on the light when I give the signal. I knew they would come to-night."
There was a sound of metal in the yard presently, and then the two watchers smiled. Then the gleam of a lantern flashed out, and a heavy footstep came into the room. ”

“ Your tenant departed in a breakneck hurry. Let us assume for the sake of argument that there was some pressing need for this. He either forgets something in his hurry, and somebody else who comes along is after the same thing. He tries to persuade your old housekeeper Gannett to part with that something, and she refuses. Hence the crime."
Ramsay nodded in a vague, unconcerned kind of way. Already Brownsden was on the way to the telephone that hung in a distant corner.
"The police," he explained tentatively. "There must be no hesitation any longer. ”

“ Ramsay replied that the case was not nearly so bad as it looked. His further services would hardly be required. He was more interested in the fact that the patient's one eye was a blue and the other brown than anything else. Brownsden smiled behind his cigarette.
"Different-coloured eyes, with largish red veins in the whites?" he suggested. "Ah! you need not be surprised. I have made eyes my study as much as anything else, and 1 have noticed that that peculiarity is common when the eyes are of different colour. Now you had better go to bed. ”

“ Brownsden, eh?" the second watcher said cheerfully. "No need to ask if you know me—Inspector Wallis, of Scotland Yard, at your service. I wondered what had become of you, Joe. And you, too, Pattison. So Joe had the best of you, and you had made up your mind to murder him. Afraid of him, ain't you, Joe?"
The man addressed as Joe said something to the effect that his soi-disant colleague was a most murderous ruffian. The other burst out into imprecations.
"I'd have done it, too!" he cried. "Who found all the money? Who got that plant made? Nothing like it has ever been seen before. ”

“ Brownsden called down the long wire. "I was quite right to turn my attention in the direction of your late tenant, Ramsay. The address that your letters went to was merely a place where communications may be addressed at a penny each, and where they are called for. The American Legation has known nobody by the name of Walters. The apparent puzzle that you met him there is quite easy. American subject can see Ambassador by waiting enough in the anteroom ”

“ Therefore it was only fair to assume that here was the man we wanted. Wallis compared my suspicions, and told me that he was looking for a man with different eyes, and he proceeded to tell me the history of the fellow he called Joe.
"When I heard by the telephone that Mr. 'Joe' had left the hospital, I felt pretty certain that he would try and get that plant back. But you were in the way. That is why you were arrested, and bail for a preposterous amount fixed. I arranged to bail you out very late at night, so that not a soul outside the police-station should know. Therefore to Mr. ”