CHAPTER XXV
MISS PHYLLIS BROWNE INTERVENES
Bruce was quite positive in his belief that Jane Harding was the paid agent of some person who wished to conceal the facts concerning Lady Dyke’s death.
Her unexpected appearance in the field at this late hour, no less than the bold rôle she adopted, proved this conclusively. But in England there was no torture-chamber to which she might be led and gradually dismembered until she confessed the truth.
So long as she adhered to the policy of pert denial she was quite safe. The law could not touch her, for the chief witness against her, Sir Charles Dyke, was obviously more than half-inclined to admit the genuineness of the letter, even in opposition to the superior judgment of his friend.
Yet it was a matter which Bruce considered ought to be made known to the police, so he sent for Mr. White and told him of the strange result of his interview with Miss Marie le Marchant.
“Dash everything!” cried the detective, when he heard the news. “I made a note sometime ago that that girl ought to be watched, but I clean forgot all about it.”
“Remember,” said Bruce, “that my discovery was the result of pure accident. My object in visiting her was to endeavor to induce her confidence with regard to Lady Dyke’s former life and habits. Indeed, I handled the business very badly.”
“I don’t see that, sir. You got hold of a very remarkable fact, and thus prevented the success of a bold move by some one which, in my case at any rate, nearly choked me off the inquiry.”
“True. Thus far, chance favored me. But I ought to have been content with the assumption. There was no need to frighten her by pressing it home.”
“Oh, from that point of view – ” began the detective.
But Bruce was merely thinking aloud – rough-shaping his ideas as they grouped themselves in his brain.
“Perhaps I am wrong there too,” he went on. “If this girl is working to instructions she would have refused to help me in any way, and she already knows that I am on the trail. There is one highly satisfactory feature in the Jane Harding adventure, Mr. White.”
“And what is that?”
“The person, or persons, responsible for Lady Dyke’s death know that the matter has not been dropped. They are inclined to think that the circle is narrowing. In some of our casts, Mr. White, we must have come so unpleasantly close to them, that they deemed it advisable to throw us off the scent by a bold effort.”
“No doubt you are right, sir, but I wish to goodness I knew when we were ‘warm,’ as I am becoming tired of the business. Every new development deepens the mystery.”
The detective’s face was as downcast as his words.
“Surely not! The more pieces of the puzzle we have to handle the less difficult should be the final task of putting them together.”
“Not when every piece is a fresh puzzle in itself.”
“Why, what has disconcerted you to-day?”
“Mrs. Hillmer.”
“What of her?”
“I have had another talk with the maid, – her companion, you know, – a girl named Dobson. It struck me that it was advisable to know more about Mrs. Hillmer than we do at present.”
Bruce made no comment, but he could not help reflecting that Corbett, the stranger from Wyoming, had entertained the same view.
“Well,” continued the detective, “I went about the affair as quietly as possible, but the maid, though willing, could not tell me much. Mrs. Hillmer, she thinks, married very young, and was badly treated by her husband. Finally, there was a rumpus, and she went on the stage, while Hillmer drank himself to death. He died a year ago, and they had been separated nearly five years. He was fairly well-to-do, but he squandered all his money in dissipation and never gave her a cent. Three years last Michaelmas she set up her present establishment at Raleigh Mansions, and there she has been ever since.”
“Then where does the money come from? It must cost her at least £2,000 a year to live.”
“That’s just what the maid can’t tell me. Her mistress led a very secluded life, and was never what you could call fast, though a very pretty woman. During this time she had only one visitor – a gentleman.”
“Ah!”
“It sounds promising, but it ends in smoke, so far as I can see.”
“Why?”
“This gentleman was a Colonel Montgomery – an old friend – though he wasn’t much turned thirty, the maid says. He interested himself a lot in Mrs. Hillmer’s affairs, looked after some investments for her, and was on very good terms with her, and nobody could whisper a word against the character of either of them. He was never there except in the afternoon. On very rare occasions he took Mrs. Hillmer, whose maid always accompanied them, to Epping Forest, or up the river, or on some such journey.”
“Go on!”
“I’m sorry, sir, but the chase is over. He’s dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. The maid doesn’t know how, or when, exactly, but one day she found her mistress crying, and when she asked her what was the matter, Mrs. Hillmer said, ‘I’ve lost my friend.’ The maid said, ‘Surely not Colonel Montgomery, madam?’ and she replied, ‘Yes.’ She quite took on about it.”
“Had the maid no idea as to the date of this interesting occurrence?”
“Only a vague one. Sometime in the autumn or before Christmas. By Jove, yes; it escaped me at the time, but she said that soon after the Colonel’s death another gentleman called and took her mistress out to dinner. I was so busy thinking about the colonel that I slipped the significance of that statement. It must have been you, Mr. Bruce.”
“So it seems.”
The barrister’s active brain was already assimilating this new information. If a woman like Mrs. Hillmer had lost a dear and valuable friend – one who practically formed the horizon of her life – she would certainly have worn mourning for him. It was a singular coincidence that Mrs. Hillmer “lost” Colonel Montgomery about the same time that Lady Dyke disappeared. Detective and maid alike had drawn a false inference from Mrs. Hillmer’s words.
“We must find Colonel Montgomery,” he said, after a slight pause.
“Find him!”
“Yes.”
“I hope neither of us is going his way for some time to come, Mr. Bruce,” laughed the policeman.
“White, I shall never cure you from jumping at conclusions. Upon your present evidence Colonel Montgomery is no more dead than you are.”
“But the maid said – ”
“I don’t care if fifty maids said. There are many more ways of ‘losing’ a friend than by death. Pass me the Army List, on that bookshelf behind you there.”
A brief reference to the index, and Bruce said:
“I thought so. There is no Colonel Montgomery. There are several captains and lieutenants, and a Major-General who has commanded a small island in the Pacific for the last five years, but not a single colonel. White, you have blundered into eminence in your profession.”
“I’m glad to hear it, even as you put it, Mr. Bruce. But I don’t see – ”
“I know you don’t. If you did, a popular novelist would write your life and style you the English Lecocq. Mrs. Hillmer ‘lost’ the gallant colonel at the same time that the world ‘lost’ Lady Dyke. Find the first, and I am much mistaken if we do not learn all about the second.”
“Now I wonder if you are right.”
The detective’s eyes sparkled with animation. It was the first real clue he had hit upon, and Bruce’s method of complimenting him on the fact did not disconcert him.
“Of course I am right. You have done so well with the maid that I leave her in your hands. Try the coachman and the cook. But keep me informed of your progress.”
White rushed off elated. So persistent was he in striving to elucidate this new problem that he paid no heed during some days to the side-light furnished by Jane Harding and her exceedingly curious powers as a letter-writer.
Bruce purposely left the inquiry to the policeman.
He realized intuitively that the disappearance of Lady Dyke would soon be explained, but he shrank from subjecting Mrs. Hillmer to further questioning.
His abstinence was rewarded later in the week, for Mensmore came to see him. The young man wore an expression of settled melancholy which surprised the barrister greatly.
“Have you prevailed on your sister to take us into her confidence?” he said, when Mensmore was ensconced in a chair in his cosy sitting-room.
“No. She is more fixed than ever in her resolve to take the whole blame on herself.”
“Surely this mistaken idea can be shaken?”
“I fear not.”
“And you also share it?”
“I do. Bear with us, Bruce. This is a terrible business. It has broken me up utterly.”
“Nonsense. You are in no way concerned save to shield your sister, and no one credits her wild statements regarding her complicity in this crime.”
“Look here, my dear fellow, I have come to ask you if this investigation cannot be allowed to rest. It means a lot of misery that you cannot foretell or prevent. Knowing what I do, I cannot believe that Lady Dyke was murdered.”
“Knowing what I do, I cannot accept any other conclusion. A worthy and estimable lady leaves her home suddenly, without the slightest imaginary cause, and she is found in the Thames with a piece of iron driven into her brain, while the medical evidence is clear that death was not due to drowning. What other inference can be drawn than that she was foully done to death?”
“Heaven help me, I cannot tell. Yet I appeal to you to let matters rest where they are if it is possible.”
“It is not possible. I cannot control the police. I am merely a private agent acting on my own responsibility and on behalf of Lady Dyke’s relatives.”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Bruce. I am not asking this thing on account of my sister or myself.”
“On whose account, then?”
Mensmore did not answer for a moment. He looked mournfully into the fire for inspiration.
“Perhaps I had better tell you,” he said, “that I have broken off my engagement with Miss Browne.”
The other jumped from his chair.
“What the dickens do you mean?” he cried.
“Exactly what I have said. When we met on Monday night, I did not mention that Sir William and Lady Browne and their daughter travelled back to England with us. On Tuesday I saw Phyllis. In view of the shadow thrown on me by this frightful charge I thought it my duty to release her from any ties. If my sister has to figure in a court of law as a principal, or accomplice, in a murder case – and possibly myself with her – I could not consent to associate my poor Phyllis’s name with mine. So I took the plunge.”
“You are a beastly idiot,” shouted Bruce. “If I had the power I would give you six months’ hard labor this moment. Who ever threatened to put you or your sister in the dock?”
“You have done your best that way, you know.”
“I? – I have shielded you throughout!”
“I feel that. But your admission shows that I am right. Shielded us from what? From arrest by the police, of course.”
“But why take this precipitate action? What has Lady Dyke’s death to do with your marriage to Miss Browne?”
“That’s it, Bruce. I cannot explain. I must endure silently.”
“Did you give her any reason for your absurd resolution?”
“Yes. I could have no secrets from her.”
“Did you inflict all this wretched story on a woman you loved and hoped to marry?”
“You may be as bitter as you like. That is my idea of square dealing, at any rate. What other pretext could I invite for – for giving her up?”
Mensmore found it hard to utter the words. In his heart Bruce pitied him, though he raged at this lamentable issue of the only bright passage in the whole story of death and intrigue.
“And what did Miss Browne say?”
“Oh, she just pooh-poohed the affair, and pretended to laugh at me, though she was crying all the time.”
“A nice kettle of fish you have made of it,” growled the barrister. “You help your sister in her folly of silence and then proceed to give effect to it by ruining your own happiness and that of your affianced wife. Have you seen Miss Browne since?”
“No.”
His visitor was so utterly disconsolate that Bruce was at a loss to know how to deal with him. He felt that if Mensmore would but speak regarding Mrs. Hillmer’s strange delusion, and the cause of it, all these difficulties and disasters would disappear. He resolved to try a direct attack.
“Have you ever heard of a Colonel Montgomery?” he said suddenly, bending his searching gaze on the other’s downcast face.
The effect was electrical. Mensmore was so taken back that he was spellbound. He looked at Claude, the picture of astonishment, before he stammered:
“I – you – who told you about him?”
“He was your sister’s friend, adviser, and confidant,” was the stern reply. “He it is who, in some mysterious way, is bound up with Lady Dyke’s disappearance.”
Mensmore rose excitedly.
“I cannot discuss the matter with you,” he cried. “I have given my sacred promise, and no matter what the cost may be I will not break my word.”
“I do not press you. But may I see Mrs. Hillmer again? When she is calmer I might reason with her.”
The other placed his hand on Bruce’s shoulder, and his voice was very impressive, though shaken by strong emotion:
“Believe me,” he said, “it is better that you should not see her. It will be useless. She is leaving London, not to avoid consequences, but to get away from painful memories. Her departure will be quite open, and her place of residence known to any one who cares to inquire. One thing she is immovable in. She will never reveal to a living soul what she knows of Lady Dyke’s death. She would rather suffer any punishment at the hands of the law.”
“Don’t you understand that this man, Montgomery, is now known to the police. Sooner or later he will be found and asked to explain any connection he may have had with the crime. Why not accomplish quietly that which will perforce be done through the uncompromising channels of Scotland Yard?”
“Your reasoning appears to be good, but – ”
“But folly must prevail?”
“Put it that way if you like.”
“So this wretched imbroglio may cost you the love of a charming and devoted girl?”
“Heaven help me, it may – probably will.”
“I swear to you,” cried the barrister, who was unusually excited, “that I will tear the heart out of this mystery before the week expires.”
Mensmore bowed silently and would have left the room, but Smith entered. In their distraction they had not heard the bell ring. Smith handed a card to his master. Instantly Bruce controlled himself. His admiration for the dramatic sequence of events overcame his eagerness as an actor. It was with an appreciative smile that he said, without the slightest reference to Mensmore:
“Show the lady in.”
Mensmore was passing out, but the sight of the visitor drove him back as though he had been struck. It was Phyllis Browne.
Her recognition of him was a bright smile. She advanced to Bruce, saying pleasantly:
“I am glad to meet you, though the manner of my call is somewhat unconventional. I heard much of you from Bertie in the Riviera, and more since my return to town.”
He suitably expressed his delight at this apparition. Mensmore, not knowing what to do, stood awkwardly at the other end of the room.
Neither of the others paid the least heed to him.
“Of course I had a definite object in coming to see you, Mr. Bruce,” went on the young lady. “I have been coolly told that, because somebody killed somebody else some months ago, a young gentlemen who asked me to be his wife, is not only not going to marry me but intends to spend the rest of his life in Central Africa or China – anywhere in fact but where I may be.”
“A most unwise resolve,” said the barrister.
“So I thought. You appear to hold the key to the situation; and, as it is an easy matter to trace you through the Directory, here I am. My people think I am skating at St. James’s.”
“Well, Miss Browne,” said Claude, “I am neither judge nor jury nor counsel for the prosecution, but there is the culprit. I hand him over to you.”
“Yes; but that goose didn’t kill anybody, did he?”
“No.”
“And I am sure his sister did not; from what little I saw of her she would not hurt a fly.”
“Quite true.”
“Then why don’t you find the man who caused all the mischief – and – and – lock him up at least, so that he cannot go on injuring people?”
Miss Phyllis was very brave and self-confident at the outset. Now she was on the verge of tears, for Mensmore’s saddened face and depressed manner unnerved her more than his passionate words at their last interview.
“You ask me a straight question,” replied Bruce, though his eyes were fixed on Mensmore, “and I will give you a straight answer. I will find the man who killed Lady Dyke. As you say, it is time his capacity for doing injury to others should be limited. Before many days have passed Mr. Mensmore will come to you and beg your pardon for his hasty and quite unwarranted resolve.”
“Do you hear that, Bertie?” cried the girl. “Didn’t I tell you so?”
Mensmore came forward to her side of the table.
“I need not wait, Phil, dear,” he said simply. “I ask your pardon now. This business is in the hands of Providence. I was foolish to think that anything I could do would stave off the inevitable.”
“And if you have – to go – to China – you w-will take me with you?”
Bruce looked out of the window, whistled, and said loudly, addressing a beautiful lady in short skirts who figured in a poster across the way:
“Let me ring for some tea. All this talk makes one dry.”
CHAPTER XXVI
LADY HELEN MONTGOMERY’S SON
When the young people had gone – Mensmore ill at ease, though tremuously happy that Phyllis had so demonstrated her trust in him, Phyllis herself radiantly confident in the barrister’s powers to set everything right – Bruce devoted himself to the task of determining a new line for his energies.
The first step was self-evident. He must ascertain if the Dykes knew a Colonel Montgomery.
He drove to the Club frequented by Sir Charles, but the baronet was not there, so he went to Wensley House.
Sir Charles was at home, in his accustomed nook by the library fire. He looked ill and low-spirited. The temporary animation he had displayed during the past few weeks was gone. If anything, he was more listless than at any time since his wife’s death.
“Well, Claude,” he said wearily, “anything to report?”
“Yes, a good deal.”
“What is it?”
“I want to ask you something. Did you ever know a Colonel Montgomery, or was your wife acquainted with any one of that name to your knowledge?”
“I do not think she was. Had she ever met such a man I should probably have heard of him. Who was he?”
The baronet’s low state rendered his words careless and indefinite, but his friend did not wish to bother him unduly.
“The police have discovered,” he said, “that Mrs. Hillmer formed a close intimacy with some one whom she designated by that name and rank, though I have failed to trace any British officer who answers to his description. He disappeared, or died, as some people put it, about the same time as your wife.”
“Is it not known what became of him, then?”
“No.”
“Won’t Mrs. Hillmer tell you?”
“She absolutely refuses to give any help, whatever.”
“On what ground?”
“That is best known to herself. My theory is that a man she loves is implicated in the affair, and she is prepared to go to any lengths to shield him.”
“Ah!”
Sir Charles bent over and poked the fire viciously. Then he murmured: “Women are queer creatures, Bruce. We men never understand them until too late. My wife and I did not to all appearance care a jot for one another while she lived. Yet I now realize that she loved me, and I would give the little remaining span of existence, dear as life is, to see her once more.”
This was a morbid subject; the younger man tried to switch him off it.
“It is almost clear to me,” he said, “that Colonel Montgomery’s name was assumed. Few people realize the use of the alias made in modern life. I have a notion that the custom among otherwise honorable people has arisen from the publicity given to the fact that Royal and other distinguished personages frequently choose to conceal their identity under less known territorial titles.”
“The idea is ingenious. We are all slaves to fashion.”
“However that may be, it should not be a difficult task to lay hands on the gentleman should he be still living.”
“Suppose you succeed. How can you connect him with my wife’s death?”
“At this moment I am unable to say. But the cabman might be of some use.”
“The cabman. What cabman?”
“Did I omit that? I ought to have told you that I have found the driver of the four-wheeler in which your poor wife was taken, dead or insensible, from Sloane Square to Putney.”
“What an extraordinary thing!”
“What is?”
“That you should have forgotten to inform me of such a striking fact.”
“Not so. Now that I recollect, I have not had the opportunity. It was impossible to discuss anything else but that forged letter on the last two occasions we met, and it was only a few hours prior to your visit on Monday that I got the cabman’s story fully. By the way, do you now see any reason why Jane Harding should have tried to deceive you in such a manner?”
The barrister perceived that Sir Charles was nervous and irritable, so he deemed it a needless strain to enlarge on the history of his discovery of Foxey.
“I am tired of letters, and plots, and mysteries. My life is resolving into one huge note of interrogation. Soon the great question of eternity will dominate all others.”
Dyke’s mood unfitted him for sustained conversation. Bruce could but pity him, and hope that time would calm his fevered brain, and soothe the unrest that shed this gloom over him.
“Really,” said Claude, after a long interval, during which both men sought inspiration from the dancing flames in the fireplace, “really this is too bad of you, Dyke. You showed a marked improvement for a little space, and now you are letting yourself slip back into a state of lonely and unoccupied moping again.”
“My thoughts find me both occupation and company,” was the despondent reply.
“There is nothing for it,” continued Bruce cheerfully, “but a tour round the world. You must start immediately. A complete change of scene and surroundings will soon pull you back to a normal state of mind and health.”
“I have been thinking of a long journey for some time past.”
The barrister glanced sharply at his friend. The double entente was not lost on him. Dyke was in a depressed and nervous condition. The uncertainty regarding his wife’s fate was harassing him unduly and it was with a twinge of conscience that Bruce reflected upon his own eagerness to pursue a quest which, by very reason of its indefiniteness, attracted him as an intellectual pursuit.
“Look here,” he cried, on the spur of the moment, “I have long desired to see the Canadian Pacific route. Will you arrange to start West with me a fortnight hence? We can return when the spirit moves us.”
“We will see. We will see. To-day I feel unable to decide anything.”
“Yes, I know, but the mere fact that you take the resolution will serve to reanimate you.”
“It is very good of you, Claude, to trouble so about me. Had you asked me earlier I might have gone straight away. But let it rest for a little while. When I have recovered my spirits somewhat I will come to you to ask you to sail next day, or something of the sort.”
Beyond this, the other could not move him.
There was one link in the chain of evidence that would be irrefragable if discovered. Was this “Colonel Montgomery” in any way connected with the house at Putney where the murderer had disposed of the body? If this could be established, the unknown visitor to Raleigh Mansions would experience a good deal of difficulty in clearing himself of suspicion. Bruce was certain that, once the “Colonel” was traced, much would come to light explanatory of Mrs. Hillmer’s, and her brother’s, dread lest his identity should be discovered.
An inquiry addressed to the house agents to whom possible tenants were referred elicited the information that the present owner, a lady, was prepared to let the house annually or on a lease. They enclosed an order to view, which Bruce retained in case he should happen to need it.
A second letter gave him the address of the lady’s solicitors, Messrs. Small & Sharp, Lincoln’s Inn.
He called on them as a possible tenant, with a desire to purchase the property outright if his proposal could be entertained.
Mr. Sharp, the partner who dealt with the estate, became very suave when the suggestion reached his ears.
“You will understand, Mr. Bruce, that your request requires some consideration. The rent my client asks is comparatively low, because the house is old-fashioned, but the splendid riparian position of the property, a free-hold acre on the banks of the Thames at Putney, gives it a highly increased future value. Any figure you may have based on a rental calculation would therefore – ”
“Not meet the case at all,” said the barrister, repressing a smile at the familiar opening move in the game of bargaining.
“Precisely.”
“May I ask who the present owner is?”
“Certainly, the lady’s name is Small. In fact, she is my partner’s wife. Her father, the late Rev. Septimus Childe, purchased the estate some years ago, largely because the house suited his requirements as the head of a successful private school.”
“Has the estate changed hands frequently then?”
“Oh, dear, no. Indeed, it is well understood that the Rev. Mr. Childe acquired it more as a friendly transaction than otherwise. The estate is a portion of the separate estate of the late Lady Helen Montgomery, who married Sir William Dyke, father of the present baronet, who perhaps – good gracious, my dear sir, what is the matter?”
Had Bruce been a woman he must have fainted.
As it was, the shock of the intelligence nearly paralyzed him. Sir Charles Dyke! – Montgomery! – The house at Putney the property of his mother! What new terror did not this frightful combination suggest?
Why did his friend conceal from him these most important facts? Why did he pretend ignorance not only of the locality but of his mother’s maiden name? Like lightning the remembrance flashed through Bruce’s troubled brain that he had only heard of the earlier Lady Dyke as a daughter of the Earl of Tilbury. A suspicion – profoundly horrible, yet convincing – was slowly mastering him, and every second brought further proof not only of its reasonableness, but of its ghastly and inflexible certainty.
Again the lawyer’s voice reached his ears, dully and thin, as though it penetrated through a wall.
“Surely, you feel ill? Let me get you some brandy.”
“No – no,” murmured the barrister. “It is but a momentary faintness. I – I think I will go out into the fresh air. Are you – quite sure – that Mr. Childe bought the property from Lady Helen Montgomery’s trustees?”
“Quite sure. If you wait even a few moments I will show you the title-deeds.”
“No, thank you. I will call again. Pray excuse me.”
Somehow Bruce crossed the quiet square of the Inn, and plunged into the turmoil of the street. Amid the bustle of Holborn he had a curious sensation of safety. The fiend so suddenly installed in his consciousness was less busy here suggesting strange and maddening thoughts.
Why – why – why – fifty questions beat incessantly against the barrier of agonized negation he strove to set up, but the noise of traffic made the attack confused. Each incautious bump against a passer-by silenced a demand, each heavy crunch of a ’bus on the gravel-strewed roadway temporarily silenced a doubt.
He was so unmanned that he felt almost on the verge of tears. He absolutely dared not attempt to reason out the fearful alternative which had so fiercely thrust itself upon him.
At last he became vaguely aware that people were staring at him. Fearful lest some acquaintance should recognize and accost him he hailed a hansom and drove to Victoria Street.
All the way the heavy beat of the horse’s feet served to distract his thoughts. He forced himself to count the quick paces, and tried hard to accommodate the numerals of two or more syllables to the rapidity of the animal’s trot. He failed in this, but in the failure found relief.
Nevertheless, though the horse was willing and the driver eager to oblige a fare who gave a “good” address, the time seemed interminable until the cab stopped in front of his door.
Once arrived there, he slowly ascended the stairs to his own flat, told Smith to pay the cabman half-a-crown and to admit no one, and threw himself into a chair.
At last he was face to face with the troublous demon who possessed him in Lincoln’s Inn, struggled with him through the crowd, and travelled with him in the hansom. Phyllis Browne should have her answer sooner than he had expected.
The man who murdered Lady Dyke was her own husband.
“Oh, heavens!” moaned Bruce, as he swayed restlessly to and fro in his chair, “is it possible?”
He sat there for hours. Smith entered, turned on the lights and suggested tea, but received an impatient dismissal.
After another long interval Smith appeared again, to announce that Mr. White had called.
“Did you not say I was out?” said Claude, his hollow tones and haggard air startling his faithful servitor considerably.
“Yes, sir – oh yes, sir. But that’s no use with Mr. White. ’E said as ’ow ’e were sure you were in.”
“Ask him to oblige me by coming again – to-morrow. I am very ill. I really cannot see him.”
Smith left the room only to return and say: “Mr. White says, sir, ’is business is of the hutmost himportance. ’E can’t leave it; and ’e says you will be very sorry afterwards if you don’t see ’im now.”
“Oh, so be it,” cried Bruce, turning to a spirit-stand to seek sustenance in a stiff glass of brandy. “Send him in.”
Quite awed by circumstances, Smith admitted the detective and closed the door upon the two men, who stood looking at each other without a word of greeting or explanation.