H. C. Bailey

“ The inspector was visibly startled. For Superintendent Bell was near the summit of the Criminal Investigation Department. “Any objection? No? How nice of you. . . .” He conferred with the telephone, and at length: “Dr. Fortune. Yes. Oh, is that you, Bell? So glad. I wish you’d come along here, Normanhurst, Westhampton. One of my patients murdered. No, not by me. Quite unusual case. Yes, it is the Birdie Bolton case. The inspector in charge is such a good, kind man. Sweet face he has. You’ll come right on? So glad.” Reggie put down the receiver and smiled upon the puzzled inspector. ”

“ There’s something we don’t know, Lomas, old thing. I dare say it’s crazy enough. I’ll bet you my favourite shirt it’s something the ordinary sane man feels.”
“If we are to go looking for something crazy which sane men feel!” said Lomas.
“Speakin’ broadly, all the human emotions,” said Reggie. “Didn’t you ever hate a man because he married a girl who was pretty? Don’t be so godlike.”
“They weren’t either of them married, sir,” said Bell, in grave surprise. ”

“ When at last he was shown into the studio he met signs of storm. Geoffrey was flushed and visibly in the sulkiest of tempers, his wife pale and tired.
“Well, what is it now?” Geoffrey growled.
His wife smiled. “Mr. Fortune? That is so kind. If you would please sit down. Some tea, yes?”
And Reggie was saying to himself. “Oh, my aunt! She isn’t a woman, she’s a child.” For Lucia Charlecote was so frail, of such a simplicity, that she looked rather like an angel in one of the primitive Italian pictures than a woman.
“Shut up, Lucia,” Geoffrey growled. “What do you want here, Mr. Fortune? ”

“ My dear chap, you mustn’t mind my saying so, but you do preach a good deal over this case.”
“I had noticed the same thing myself,” said Superintendent Bell, and they both looked curiously at Reggie.
“Why am I so moral? Because the thing’s so damned immoral,” said Reggie vehemently. “What’s most crime? Human. Human greed, human lust, human hostility. But this is diabolical. Sheer evil for evil’s sake. Lomas, I’ll swear, when we have it all out, we’ll find that it still looks unreasonable, futile, pure passion for wrong.”
“Meaning Mr. Kimball mad. You do come back to that, sir,” Bell said. ”

“ Reggie stood up and gave himself a full glass of soda water. “The extraordinary efficiency of the assassin,” he said carefully. “Lomas, old dear, observe the extraordinary efficiency of the assassin. Mr. S. Charlecote comes out of his son’s house. A few yards from the door somebody kills him so quickly, so neatly, that he don’t make one sound. And then this extraordinarily efficient assassin leaves his dagger for you to find.” ”

“ Just as he was putting on his coat, Sam arrived with a photograph of Sir Albert, and Reggie sat down to it. A plump man of middle height, rather loudly dressed; a long, heavy face, rather like a horse’s, but with protruding eyes—commonplace enough. It was only the expression which made Reggie examine the fellow more closely. Under the photographic smirk was a look of insolence and conceit of singular force. The man who owned that would never allow any creature a right against him. ”

“ Now, is there anything new?”
“Oh, go to the devil!”
“Geoffrey!” Lucia, standing behind him, touched his shoulder. “Mr. Fortune is very kind. He desires to help us,” and she smiled and nodded at Reggie.
“Oh, hold your tongue, baby. Mr. Fortune’s a damned tricky policeman, and he can take his tricks to another market.”
“But you are impossible!” Lucia cried. “Mr. Fortune, you see what I have to live with. This great bear!” She rumpled Geoffrey’s hair, and he made an exclamation of disgust and dashed her hand away. “But yes, Mr. Fortune, there is something new. ”

“ Alice Ducher! . . . Oh, Peter! A soubrette from the Variétés in a blameless English girls’ school! Ye stately homes of England! Give me air!”
He took from his pocket the Hottentot Venus and contemplated her severely. “I don’t know which of you is worse, darling,” he said. “You or Mlle Ducher. What are you at, anyway? Lord, I wouldn’t have thought she had anything to do with palæolithic dolls! What’s the connection, darling?” The Hottentot Venus was naturally silent.
Reggie sighed and put her away, and began to contemplate the beauties of nature. ”

“ Bell insisted. “What might you have in your mind, sir? Mr. Kimball’s generally reckoned uncommon practical.”
“He isn’t ordinary mad,” said Reggie. “He don’t think he’s Julius Cæsar or a poached egg. He don’t go out without his trousers. He don’t see red and go it blind. But there is something queer in him. I doubt if they’re physical, these perversions. Call it a disease of the soul.”
“Ah, well, his soul,” said Bell gravely. “I judge he’s not a Christian man.”
“I wish I did know his creed,” said Reggie, with equal gravity. “It would be very instructive.”
Lomas tapped his pencil impatiently. ”

“ But the Archduke was very pleased to see him, effusive in offering a chair, and so forth. Reggie was not gratified. “I must have nurses, sir,” he announced. “I should like another opinion.”
“You see!” the Archduchess cried. “It is as I told you. This boy!”
“The Archduchess is naturally anxious,” the Archduke apologized. “By all means nurses. But another opinion—you must have confidence in yourself, my good friend.”
“I have. But I want Sir Lawson Hunter to see the case.”
The Archduke shrugged. “It is serious then, Dr. Fortune? We do not wish a great noise. ”

“ Lomas started up. Reggie reached out and began to feel Kimball’s pulse.
“Don’t do that,” said Kimball sharply, and dragged his hand away. “Good Lord, man, I’m not ill! No, thanks, Lomas, nothing, nothing. I never touch spirits. I’ll be all right in a moment. But it does rather knock me over to find I’ve got to believe it was Sandford.” He struggled out of his chair, walked to the window, and flung it up and dabbed at his forehead. He stood there a moment in the raw air, took a pinch of snuff, and turned on them vigorously. “There’s no doubt about this evidence, eh? We can’t get away from it?” ”

“ Reggie was worried—a rare state for him—and he took himself to his least sociable club. He was sitting there, glowering at a scientific American paper, when the voice of Lomas addressed him.
“Care killed a cat, Reginald. Why so blue?”
Reggie sat up. “Life is real, life is earnest, Lomas. And the grave is not the goal. That’s because of our filthy profession, which is always bothering the corpses. Come away. I am worried. I am going to worry you.”
As they walked in St. James’s Park, Reggie told him of the queer talk in the studio. “I want comfort, Lomas, old thing,” he concluded. ”

“ Fortune, what, what a tea! I leave all my reputation behind me. Men hate to see women eat, don’t they? But do men always make teas like this?”
“I’ve a simple mind. I live the simple life.”
She looked at him fairly. “You said simple. Do you know how I feel? I feel as if I hadn’t a secret left all my own,” and she swept away. He was a long time gone letting her out.
“And that’s that,” Reggie said when he came back.
“Really?” Lomas was dim behind cigar smoke. ”

“ He was more at his ease with the world than a man has a right to be at thirty-five.
It is presumed that he had never wanted anything which he had not got. Old Dr. Fortune possessed a small fortune and a rich practice, and Reggie enjoyed the proceeds and proposed to inherit both. The practice lay in that pleasant outer suburb of London called Westhampton, a region of commons and a large park, sacred to the well-to-do, and still boasting one or two houses inhabited by what auctioneers call the nobility. ”

“ Victor Lunt, called for the prosecution, made a good impression. He looked harassed and in ill-health, affected as a good brother should be by a brother’s death. But he had command of himself, proved that he had brains as well as the heart displayed by his dull eye and flabby face, he was lucid and to the point. He showed no malice against Cranford. Cranford had called on him on the morning of the murder, complained bitterly of his treatment by Sir Albert Lunt, used violent language about Sir Albert, demanded to know where Sir Albert was, and gone away. ”

“ The shares then went to a vast price.
“All the usual nauseating features of a Stock Exchange boom,” said Reggie.
“No. This is founded on fact,” said Lomas. “That’s the distinguishing feature. It was worked on the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Whoever started the game had exact and precise information. They only touched those companies which the Government meant to take over; they knew everything and they knew it right. Somebody of the inner circle gave the plan away.”
“‘Politics is a cursed profession,’” said Reggie. ”

“ Bell. The rain won’t hurt you.”
“I don’t wonder you want a blow. Poor chap! As ugly a mess as ever I saw.”
“I suppose I’m afraid,” said Reggie slowly. “It’s unusual and annoying. I suppose the only thing that does make you afraid is what’s mad. Not the altogether crazy—that’s only a nuisance-but what’s damned clever and yet mad. An able fellow with a mania on one point. I suppose that’s what the devil is, Bell.”
“Good Lord, sir,” said Superintendent Bell.
“What I want is muffins,” said Reggie—“several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I’ll feel safe.” ”

“ Reggie sauntered into the garden.
Normanhurst, as you know, is a low, spreading house of a comfortable Victorian dowdiness. There are—don’t count the attics—only two storeys. It is old enough to be quite covered with climbing plants—ivy on the north, roses and a wistaria on the other sides. Birdie Bolton’s bedroom and boudoir looked to the south, and were on the ground floor. On the north of the house is the approach from the high road, a curling drive through a shrubbery. Birdie Bolton’s rooms looked out upon a rose-bed and a big lawn. ”

“ Reggie murmured. “The Civil Service frightens me. I have a brother-in-law in the Treasury. Sometimes he lets me dine with him. Meditations among the Tombs for Reginald. No. It isn’t much in my way. I want passion and gore. But you intrigue me, Lomas, you do indeed. I would know more of H. Kimball and Secretary Sandford. They worry me.”
“My God, they worry me,” said Lomas heartily.
“They are too good to be true. I wonder if there’s any other nigger in the wood pile?” ”

“ Reggie sighed. “It’s a painful subject. A disgusting subject. Same like what we make our living by. They are among the criminals of animal life. Real bad eggs. A sad world, Lomas, old thing. Let’s forget all about crime.”
They did. For an hour and a half. At the end of which Lomas said dreamily, “You’re a remarkable fellow, Fortune. I don’t know how you can retain any brain. You do yourself so well. Yes, most seductive habit of life. I meant to say something when I came. What was it? I believe you have talked of everything else in creation. Ah, yes, did you ever hear of the Kimball case? ”

“ Fortune,” said the Prince feebly. “Oh! If you could do something to stop this neuralgic pain in my arm——”
In fact, Reggie had a difficult time with him, which you may think was only fair. It was very late before His Highness (who took a morbid interest in his limbs) could be got to sleep; very late—or early—before Reggie went to bed, but all the while the Giulia was steaming back to Tormouth, and when Reggie came on deck again “pink and beautiful”, as he remarked to his mirror, thanks to a razor and linen of Spoleto’s, the brown Tormouth headlands loomed through the morning haze. ”

“ She rushed at Reggie. “It’s the Lunt case.”
“Now what in wonder have you to do with the Lunt case?”
Nurse Dauntsey blushed. “I’m engaged, Mr. Fortune,” she said.
“Well, he’s a very lucky man. And I hope you’re a lucky girl.”
“Oh, I am,” said Nurse Dauntsey, with conviction. “He has been arrested. They say he murdered Sir Albert Lunt. Mr. Fortune, you will help us?”
“Who in creation is the lucky man?”
“His name is Vernon Cranford. He’s a mining engineer. Oh, he’s been everywhere. He’s a born explorer, you know. ”

“ His Highness overflowed with gratitude. He did not know how to thank Mr. Fortune—what to offer him.
“If I might have this little lady, sir.” Reggie took up the Hottentot Venus. “It would be a pleasant memento of an interesting adventure.” And so he went off with the Hottentot Venus in his pocket. He hurried on deck to the uneasy Lomas. “You were right, Lomas. You are always right. We have no locus standi. And where’s that shore boat?” They embarked hurriedly and rowed away from the royal house of Ragusa. “In heaven,” said Reggie, “there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage. ”

“ Even the great criminal, he runs in a groove, he keeps to one kind of crime. The same dodge for the son that he used for the father. Then either he lost track of the mother or he preferred to hurt her through the son. He was an epicure in his little pleasures. The son came along. I dare say Kimball took that department because the son was in it. And then he was ready to smash everything for the sake of his hate—damage his own career, do a filthy murder, die himself, if he could torture his sister’s child. Yes. The devil is with power, Lomas. ”

“ I think my sex leaves that to young men, Mr. Fortune.”
“Women are so revoltin’ nowadays,” Reggie murmured. “I wonder—you have no new woman in the flock? No bold, bad rebel?” The face of Miss Lomas answered him. “I thought so. We must have the second solution. Somebody wanted somebody’s photograph.”
“But why? Why should one girl want to steal photographs of the other girls? It’s nonsensical.”
“Oh, it’s all nonsense,” Reggie agreed cheerfully. “It’s gibberish till we find the key. But here’s one odd thing for certain, the Hottentot Venus. I expect to find a lot more before we’ve done.” ”

“ Charlecote. So sorry.” Reggie extricated himself from her offers of tea, and slid away.
But he was annoyed. Against his will, the opinion of Dr. Newton forced itself into his mind. “An odd strain in Geoffrey, as it were something abnormal or thrawn, a certain violence of temperament.” It was so. Confound the oily old family doctor. Why did Geoffrey want to give up the money? Mere quixotry? A passionate desire to clear himself from the ill-fame of profiting by the old man’s death? Probably, oh, probably. But there was a feeling called remorse found in human nature. ”

“ There’s lots of purpose here. This is damned cold, calculating crime. That kind of mad. Some fellow’s got an object that makes it worth while to him to do any beastliness. That’s the worst kind of mad, Bell. Not homicidal mania—that only makes a man a beast. What’s here is the sort of thing that makes a man a devil.”
“You’re going a bit beyond me, sir. It’s a bloody murder, and that’s all I want.”
“Yes, that’s our job,” said Reggie thoughtfully. Together they went off to Montmorency House. ”