The Grell Mystery Part 6

"Mr. Foyle?" she asked hesitatingly.

He bowed and wheeled a big arm-chair near his desk.

"Yes. Won't you sit down, Lady Eileen? You have just missed one of our men. I sent him round to break the news to you. I need not tell you that we recognise how you must feel in these terrible circ.u.mstances. We shall trouble you as little as possible after you have answered a few questions."

He was studying her shrewdly while he spoke, and her strange composure struck him at once. Even to her he had decided to say nothing of the ident.i.ty of the murdered man. That could wait until he had had a better opportunity to judge her.

She sat down and rested her chin on one slim, gloved hand, her elbow on the desk.

"That's very good of you," she said formally. And then broke direct into her mission. "Have you found out anything, Mr. Foyle?"

"It's rather early to say anything yet," he hedged. "Our inquiries are not completed."

"There is no need for further inquiry. I can tell you who the murderer is."

Superintendent Foyle coughed and idly s.h.i.+fted a piece of paper over the notes on his blotting-pad. His face was inscrutable. She could not tell whether her statement had startled him or not. For all the change in his expression she might have merely remarked that the weather was fine. Had it been any one else he would have said that before the day was out he expected a dozen or more people to tell him that they knew the murderer--and that in each case the selection would be different. As it was he merely said with polite interest--

"Ah, that will save us a great deal of trouble. Who is it?"

"He is--I believe him to be Sir Ralph Fairfield."

The superintendent's eyelids flickered curiously; otherwise he gave no sign of the quickening of his interest. He was a judge of men, and although Fairfield had rebuffed him he did not believe him to be a murderer. Still, one never knew. Those who kill are not cast in one mould. If Sir Ralph had slain Goldenburg in mistake for Grell, and Lady Eileen knew there must be a motive--for that motive he had to look no further than the beautiful, unsmiling face before him.

"You realise that you are making a very grave accusation, Lady Eileen?"

he said. "What reason should there be?"

She spoke rapidly, steadily, and he did not interrupt her. His pen rushed swiftly across the paper, taking down her words. They would presently be neatly typed and added to the book. When she paused, he replaced the pen tidily in its rack.

"This is what it comes to--that at eleven o'clock Sir Ralph said Mr.

Grell was with him. You say that you had refused an offer of marriage from Sir Ralph, and think that he murdered Mr. Grell from jealousy. I may say that, though we know Sir Ralph was at his club for dinner and at eleven o'clock, we can find neither servants nor members who can say for certain that he was there at the time the murder was committed."

She caught her breath. "Then it was he!" she exclaimed eagerly. "Bob had not another enemy in the world. You will arrest him."

"Not yet," Foyle retorted, and noted that her face fell. "All this is only suspicion. We must have proof to satisfy a jury before we can do anything with a man in Sir Ralph's position. And now, if you don't mind, I should like to put a few other questions to you."

When she left after half an hour, Foyle threw back his head with a jerk.

"A pleasant girl," he commented. "Seems wonderfully anxious to have Fairfield hanged. I suppose she was really infatuated with Grell. You never know how women are going to take things. I wonder if I can get a set of his finger-prints. That ought to settle the matter one way or the other, so far as he is concerned. But it won't clear up what Goldenburg was doing in Grell's place. I'll have to fix that somehow."

CHAPTER IX

The overmastering energy of Heldon Foyle was at once the envy and despair of his subordinates. There was a story that once he went without sleep for a week while unravelling the mystery of the robbery of the Countess of Enver's pearls. That was probably exaggerated, but he certainly spent no unnecessary time for rest or food when work was toward--and he saw also that his staff were urged to the limits of human endurance.

Having spent four hours sleeping in his clothes, he deemed that he had paid full courtesy to nature. He unlocked a drawer, picked out a deadly little automatic pistol, and dropped it into his jacket pocket. He rarely went armed, and had never fired a shot in his life save at a target. But on certain occasions a pistol was useful to "back a bluff."

And on the mission he had in mind he might need something. He felt in his breast-pocket to make certain that the enlarged photograph of the finger-prints found on the dagger were there, and sallied forth into the dusk.

In his own mind he had definitely decided on the immediately important points in the inquiry. There was Ivan, the missing servant, to be found, as also the Princess Petrovska. The police of a dozen countries were keeping a look-out for them. Then there was the knife with its quaint, horizontal hilt of ivory. Rigorous inquiry had failed to elicit its place of origin, yet so strange a weapon once seen would infallibly be recognised again. Finally, there was the question of Sir Ralph Fairfield.

The evening papers had seized avidly on a mystery after their own heart, and glaring contents-bills told of "Millionaire Murdered on Wedding Eve.

Strange Mystery." But Foyle had already seen the papers. He held straight on for the Albany.

"Was Sir Ralph Fairfield in?" The question was superfluous, for he had already seen Chief Detective-Inspector Green standing outside apparently much interested in an evening paper. And Green would not have been there unless Sir Ralph were about.

Foyle was received coldly by the baronet, and his quick eyes noted a half-empty decanter on the table. Fairfield was palpably nervous and ill at ease. He was plainly distrustful of his visitor's purpose. The detective was apologetic and good-humoured.

"I have come to apologise for my rudeness at Grosvenor Gardens," he began. "I was worried, and you were, of course, upset. Now we are both more calm, I come to ask you if you would like to add anything to what you said. Of course, you'll be called to give evidence at the inquest, and it would make it easier for you as well as for us if we knew what you were going to say."

Fairfield shrugged his shoulders. "I have told you all you will learn from me," he said quickly. "I suppose you've seen Lady Eileen Meredith."

"No." The lie was prompt, but the superintendent salved his conscience with the thought that it was a necessary one. "I don't know that she can tell us anything of value."

An expression of relief flitted over the face of Grell's friend. After all, it was something to have the worst postponed. A man may face swift danger with debonair courage, may be undaunted by perils or emergencies of sport, of travel, of everyday life. But few innocent men can believe that a net is slowly closing round them which will end in the obloquy of the Central Criminal Court, or in a shameful death, without feeling something of the terror of the hunted. "The terror of the law" is very real in such cases. Fairfield was no coward, but his nerves had begun to go under the strain of the suspense. It would have been different had he been able to do anything--to find relief in action. But he had to remain pa.s.sively impotent.

"Well," he said, "I expect you're very busy, Mr. Foyle. I don't want to keep you."

The detective received the snub with an amiable smile. "I won't force my company on you, Sir Ralph. If you will just dictate to me a description of the string of pearls that Grell showed you, I will go. Can you let me have a pen and some paper?"

Ungraciously enough Fairfield flung open a small inlaid writing-desk, and Foyle took down the description as though he really needed it. As he finished he held out the pen to Fairfield.

"Will you sign that, please? No, here."

Their hands were almost touching. Foyle half rose and stumbled clumsily, clutching the other's wrist to save himself. The baronet's hand and fingers were pressed down heavily on the still wet writing. The detective recovered his balance and apologised profusely, at the same time picking up the sheet of paper.

"I don't know how I came to do that. I am very sorry. It's smudged the paper a bit, but that won't matter. It's still readable. Good-bye, Sir Ralph."

So admirably had the accident been contrived that even Fairfield never suspected that it was anything but genuine. In a public telephone-box, a few hundred yards away, Heldon Foyle was examining the half-sheet of notepaper side by side with the photograph of the finger-prints on the dagger. A telephone-box is admirably constructed for the private examination of doc.u.ments if one's back is towards the door and one is bent over the directory. Line by line Foyle traced "laterals," "lakes,"

and "accidentals," calling to his aid a magnifying gla.s.s from his waistcoat pocket.

When he emerged he was rubbing his chin vigorously. The prints were totally different. Sir Ralph Fairfield was not the murderer of the man so astoundingly like Robert Grell.

CHAPTER X

The evidence of the finger-prints was entirely negative. Though Foyle believed that Fairfield was innocent, he never permitted himself to be swayed by his opinions into neglecting a possibility. It was still possible that the baronet might have been concerned in the crime even though they were some one else's prints on the dagger. At any rate Fairfield was suppressing something. It could do no harm to continue the watch that had been set upon him. So Foyle left Green and his companion to continue their un.o.btrusive vigil.

To justify his stay in the box--for he was artist enough to do things thoroughly even though it might be unnecessary--he lifted the receiver and put a call through to Scotland Yard.

"This is Foyle speaking," he said when at last he had got the man he asked for. "Is there anything fresh for me?"

"Nothing important, sir, except that Blake has found a curiosity dealer who says that the knife is one that must have come from South America.

It is, he says, an unusual sort of Mexican dagger."