The Seven Dials Mystery (Superintendent Battle 2)

“Yes.”

“In your pumps too,” said Lady Coote, “instead of putting thick shoes on. What would you do without me to look after you?”

She shook her head sadly.

“I think, Maria, if you don’t mind leaving us—we have still a lot to discuss.”

“I know, dear, I’m just going.”

Lady Coote withdrew, carrying the empty medicine glass as though it were a goblet out of which she had just administered a death potion.

“Well, Battle,” said George Lomax, “it all seems clear enough. Yes, perfectly clear. The man fires a shot, disabling Mr. Thesiger, flings away the weapon, runs along the terrace and down the gravel path.”

“Where he ought to have been caught by my men,” put in Battle.

“Your men, if I may say so, Battle, seem to have been singularly remiss. They didn’t see Miss Wade come in. If they could miss her coming in, they could easily miss the thief going out.”

Superintendent Battle opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Jimmy Thesiger looked at him curiously. He would have given a lot to know just what was in Superintendent Battle’s mind.

“Must have been a champion runner,” was all the Scotland Yard man contented himself with saying.

“How do you mean, Battle?”

“Just what I say, Mr. Lomax. I was round the corner of the terrace myself not fifty seconds after the shot was fired. And for a man to run all that distance towards me and get round the corner of the path before I appeared round the side of the house—well, as I say, he must have been a champion runner.”

“I am at a loss to understand you, Battle. You have some idea of your own which I have not yet—er—grasped. You say the man did not go across the lawn, and now you hint—What exactly do you hint? That the man did not go down the path? Then in your opinion—er—where did he go?”

For answer, Superintendent Battle jerked an eloquent thumb upwards.

“Eh?” said George.

The Superintendent jerked harder than ever. George raised his head and looked at the ceiling.

“Up there,” said Battle. “Up the ivy again.”

“Nonsense, Superintendent. What you are suggesting is impossible.”

“Not at all impossible, sir. He’d done it once. He could do it twice.”

“I don’t mean impossible in that sense. But if the man wanted to escape, he’d never bolt back into the house.”

“Safest place for him, Mr. Lomax.”

“But Mr. O’Rourke’s door was still locked on the inside when we came to him.”

“And how did you get to him? Through Sir Stanley’s room. That’s the way our man went. Lady Eileen tells me she saw the door knob of Mr. O’Rourke’s room move. That was when our friend was up there the first time. I suspect the key was under Mr. O’Rourke’s pillow. But his exit is clear enough the second time—through the communicating door and through Sir Stanley’s room, which, of course, was empty. Like everyone else, Sir Stanley is rushing downstairs to the library. Our man’s got a clear course.”

“And where did he go then?”

Superintendent Battle shrugged his burly shoulders and became evasive.

“Plenty of ways open. Into an empty room on the other side of the house and down the ivy again—out through a side door—or, just possibly, if it was an inside job, he—well, stayed in the house.”

George looked at him in shocked surprise.

“Really, Battle, I should—I should feel it very deeply if one of my servants—er—I have the most perfect reliance on them—it would distress me very much to have to suspect—”

“Nobody’s asking you to suspect anyone, Mr. Lomax. I’m just putting all the possibilities before you. The servants may be all right—probably are.”

“You have disturbed me,” said George. “You have disturbed me greatly.”

His eyes appeared more protuberant than ever.

To distract him, Jimmy poked delicately at a curious blackened object on the table.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“That’s exhibit Z,” said Battle. “The last of our little lot. It is, or rather it has been, a glove.”

He picked it up, the charred relic, and manipulated it with pride.

“Where did you find it?” asked Sir Oswald.

Battle jerked his head over his shoulder.

“In the grate—nearly burnt, but not quite. Queer looks as though it had been chewed by a dog.”

“It might possibly be Miss Wade’s,” suggested Jimmy. “She has several dogs.”

The Superintendent shook his head.

“This isn’t a lady’s glove—no, not even the large kind of loose glove ladies wear nowadays. Put it on, sir, a moment.”

He adjusted the blackened object over Jimmy’s hand.

“You see—it’s large even for you.”

“Do you attach importance to this discovery?” inquired Sir Oswald coldly.

“You never know, Sir Oswald, what’s going to be important or what isn’t.”

There was a sharp tap at the door and Bundle entered.

“I’m so sorry,” she said apologetically. “But Father has just rung up. He says I must come home because everybody is worrying him.”

She paused.

“Yes, my dear Eileen?” said George encouragingly, perceiving that there was more to come.

“I wouldn’t have interrupted you—only that I thought it might perhaps have something to do with all this. You see, what has upset Father is that one of our footmen is missing. He went out last night and hasn’t come back.”

“What is the man’s name?” It was Sir Oswald who took up the cross-examination.

“John Bauer.”

“An Englishman?”

“I believe he calls himself a Swiss—but I think he’s a German. He speaks English perfectly, though.”

“Ah!” Sir Oswald drew in his breath with a long, satisfied hiss. “And he has been at Chimneys—how long?”

“Just under a month.”

Sir Oswald turned to the other two.

“Here is our missing man. You know, Loma

x, as well as I do, that several foreign Governments are after the thing. I remember the man now perfectly—tall, well-drilled fellow. Came about a fortnight before we left. A clever move. Any new servants here would be closely scrutinized, but at Chimneys, five miles away—” He did not finish the sentence.

“You think the plan was laid so long beforehand?”

“Why not? There are millions in that formula, Lomax. Doubtless Bauer hoped to get access to my private papers at Chimneys, and to learn something of forthcoming arrangements from them. It seems likely that he may have had an accomplice in this house—someone who put him wise to the lie of the land and who saw to the doping of O’Rourke. But Bauer was the man Miss Wade saw climbing down the ivy—the big, powerful man.”

He turned to Superintendent Battle.

“Bauer was your man, Superintendent. And, somehow or other, you let him slip through your fingers.”

Twenty-four

BUNDLE WONDERS

There was no doubt that Superintendent Battle was taken aback. He fingered his chin thoughtfully.

“Sir Oswald is right, Battle,” said George. “This is the man. Any hope of catching him?”

“There may be, sir. It certainly looks—well, suspicious. Of course the man may turn up again—at Chimneys, I mean.”

“Do you think it likely?”

“No, it isn’t,” confessed Battle. “Yes, it certainly looks as though Bauer were the man. But I can’t quite see how he got in and out of these grounds unobserved.”

“I have already told you my opinion of the men you posted,” said George. “Hopelessly inefficient—I don’t mean to blame you, Superintendent, but—” His pause was eloquent.

“Ah, well,” said Battle lightly, “my shoulders are broad.”

He shook his head and sighed.

“I must get to the telephone at once. Excuse me, gentlemen. I’m sorry, Mr. Lomax—I feel I’ve rather bungled this business, But it’s been puzzling, more puzzling than you know.”

He strode hurriedly from the room.

“Come into the garden,” said Bundle to Jimmy. “I want to talk to you.”

They went out together through the window. Jimmy stared down at the lawn, frowning.