Ambrotox and Limping Dick Part 44

The lift came down, and the escorting constable sidled up and entered it after them.

As they left it, the discreet guide keeping well ahead in the gloomy corridor, Caldegard whispered:

"Then it's even worse for you than I thought, Randal. You're a good man, and I'm an ill-tempered old one."

"We shall have news, and her, soon--and something else," said Randal.

"What?" asked Caldegard.

"I thought you'd forgotten it! Ambrotox, of course. I'll tell her, Caldegard. I once heard a man tell his wife, after she'd been chattering to him for twenty minutes, that he'd forgotten to light his pipe all the time she'd been talking. She said it was the best compliment she'd ever had. I shall tell Amaryllis how you forgot Ambrotox."

Superintendent Finucane felt his spirits rise at the sight of the urbane barrister, and received even the dishevelled person of the lost lady's father with a measure of cordiality. He showed his visitors d.i.c.k's two scrawled messages, and explained how he had acted upon their information.

Caldegard complained: d.i.c.k should have telegraphed, should have gone himself to the police in the neighbourhood.

"From what I have heard of him, Mr. Richard Bellamy is the kind that seizes on a big chance, and doesn't lose it by running after smaller ones," said Finucane. "If he has played against time and wins, they call him a genius."

"_Will_ he succeed?" asked Caldegard.

"I am inclined to think he will bring your daughter back," replied Finucane. "But I don't advise you to be too hopeful about the drug."

"Oh, d.a.m.n the drug!" interjected Caldegard.

"He has appreciated his job," explained the superintendent. "He's not after side issues. He isn't even out to catch a man who's committed a crime--only to prevent a crime being committed."

"Has he prevented it--tell me that?" cried Caldegard.

And, as if in answer, the bell of Finucane's telephone jarred the nerves of all three men.

While he listened to the one-sided interview between the superintendent and the instrument on his table, Caldegard's control was in danger of breaking down altogether.

"Hold the line," said Finucane at last. "Dr. Caldegard, can you describe the dress Miss Caldegard was wearing when she disappeared?"

"I dined in town," began the father, his face like white paper.

"My brother and I," said Randal, "dined with Miss Caldegard. She wore a dinner-gown--silk--darkish green, which showed, when she moved, the crimson threads it was interwoven with."

"And her shoes?" asked Finucane.

Bellamy shook his head; it was Caldegard, now steady as a rock, who answered:

"With that frock, my daughter always wore green-bronze shoes and green stockings."

Finucane turned again to the telephone. After saying that Miss Caldegard had worn green silk shot with red, and green evening slippers, he listened for a time which kept his guests in torture of suspense. Then, "I'm here all night. But sc.r.a.pe the county with a tooth-comb," he said, and hung up the receiver. Swinging his chair round, he faced the two men, and spoke with gravity.

"Millsborough got my information about eight-thirty p.m. By nine every available man was out on the hunt, to round up all Melchard's places, and to go through all the riverside dens and harbour slums. The county police, horse and foot, under the chief constable, were all over the place. Martingale--that's the man I've just been talking to--rushed a strong party of the Millsborough force out to 'The Myrtles' in cars.

House deserted, except a fellow lying in bed, groaning. In the back kitchen a woman's frock had been burned. Unconsumed fragments were found--green silk shot with red. Upstairs, in a bedroom, pair of lady's shoes--s.h.i.+ny green leather."

Caldegard rose from his seat, opened his mouth to speak, and sat down again.

In relation to merely normal death the abandoned garment carries an intimate cruelty which will unexpectedly break down control proof against direct attack.

But to hear, in these surroundings, of his daughter's little green shoes, and to remember how, the first time she had worn them, she had flourished at him from her low chair that pretty foot and reckless green stocking, and to catch himself now foolishly wondering where the green stockings themselves would be found, brought poor Caldegard to an embittered weakness which he fought only in vague desire neither to break into cursing nor decline upon weak tears.

The great man of science had not attracted the superintendent of the Criminal Investigation Department; but the father grunting savagely: "Oh, d.a.m.n the drug!" was another man. And Finucane, by no means himself convinced that the worst must be argued from these fragments of evidence, yet found himself at a loss for encouraging words. Pity, however, forced him to the effort, and he would have spoken, had not Randal Bellamy touched him on the arm.

"Not now," he said. "You can't wash that picture from his mind. There'll be more news coming."

With a tap on the door, it came.

To the superintendent's consent there entered a police sergeant.

"There's a gentleman wishes to see you, sir. Says he can't keep awake another ten minutes. Has important evidence, and a person he wishes to introduce to you. Name o' Bellamy."

"Oh, h.e.l.l!" said Randal, in a voice like his brother's, "fetch him up."

The sergeant took no notice, but kept his gaze on the superintendent.

Finucane's eyes twinkled. "Fetch him up," he said.

"To save time, sir, he's standing outside."

"Fetch him in," said Finucane.

The sergeant moved himself three inches.

"Superintendent Finucane will see you, sir," he said; and made room for the entrance of d.i.c.k Bellamy, holding by the arm, and both supporting and guiding the wavering steps of Alban Melchard.

CHAPTER XXVI.

PRISONER AND ESCORT.

d.i.c.k presented to the expectant three the same disreputable and truculent aspect which had so deeply offended Charles of Mayfair--an aspect so extraordinary as to strike speechless for a moment even the three so deeply interested in his advent.

"That chair with arms," said d.i.c.k to the sergeant, "or he'll fall off."

The sergeant brought it, and d.i.c.k pushed the still tipsy wretch, a bundle of false elegance deflowered, into its embrace.

Then Randal, with beaming face, caught his brother by the shoulders.

"You grisly scallywag!" he cried.

Finucane had risen, turning his own chair for the new-comer.

"Sit down, sir," he said.