The master criminal

by G. Sidney Paternoster

It was the fact that he had been unable to secure the proof he desired that constituted Inspector Kenly's third and greatest grievance. Everything seemed to be going wrong with him. He had been so certain that he would be able to provide good and sufficient reasons to his wife for getting rid of the detested lodger that, when he found that he was unable to do so, he began to doubt whether his instincts were playing him false.

Thus brooding he turned into Melpomene Road. Several yards before him was an elderly man wearing a clerical collar with an overcoat threadbare at the seams, a little black bag in his hand, and a Bible under his arm, and slightly dragging one foot after him as he walked.

"Non-conformist parson," commented the Inspector to himself. The stranger was looking each side of him as he passed up the street, but, on reaching Woodbine Cottage he paused, lifted the latch of the gate and, entering, made his way to the front door.

"A visitor for the lodger," commented the Inspector, and he passed by his own door to the end of the road. When he returned, the non-conformist parson had disappeared. The Inspector let himself quietly into the house with his latchkey. An opportunity was afforded him of learning something concerning the lodger which he determined not to neglect. He said nothing to Mrs. Kenly as to his intention, for his suspicion that the tenant of the first floor front was, to use his own expressive phrase, "on the crook," might not prove capable of demonstration. He merely said that he had business that evening, and could only remain in the house a few minutes. So Mrs. Kenly popped the tea in the teapot forthwith, dished up the haddock, which had been simmering over the pan on the kitchen fire, and directed all her attention to supplying her husband's requirements. While thus engaged the lodger's bell rang, but she paid no heed to the summons until she had seen that the Inspector's needs were all provided for.

"I expect Mr. Jessel wants a cup of tea for his visitor," she remarked, when the bell tinkled a second time.

"So he has begun to have callers at last, has he?" remarked the Inspector.

"It's the first time since he come to live with us, a month ago last Tuesday," replied Mrs. Kenly, "and a nice-spoken old clergyman, too. I always thought as he was a most respectable young man, and now I'm sure of it." She bustled off to answer the bell, in the absence of the youthful maid of all work, who had been sent out with the two young Kenlys to picnic on the Common.

Inspector Kenly said nothing. When Mrs. Kenly returned and prepared a tray with two cups on it, he chatted about indifferent things. He finished his tea leisurely. "I'll just have a rinse before I go out again," he remarked to his wife. He closed the door of the little sitting-room behind him, and mounted the stairs. When occasion required, Inspector Kenly, in spite of his six feet of muscular manhood, could be as light-footed as any cat, and not a stair creaked as he mounted them to his own bedroom, the door of which was opposite that of the room in which the lodger was entertaining his guest. In his own doorway he paused and listened. He could hear a murmur of voices, that was all. Stay! His trained ear caught the sound of a name twice repeated, "Guy Hora." It meant nothing to him, but he noted it instinctively. The voices dropped to a murmur again, and the Inspector returned downstairs, and, after lighting his pipe and telling his wife that he did not expect to be very late home, he slipped out of the back door and made his way leisurely to the end of the street.

His meal had put him in a much more contented frame of mind, and, as he puffed away at his pipe, he smiled at the thought that he should be engaged in keeping observation on his own house. It reminded him of his early days in the detective force, and he remembered how often he had waited hours without anything rewarding his patience. This time his patience was not severely tried. He had not finished his first pipeful of tobacco when his lodger's visitor made his appearance, and passing along the street took a turning which led to the nearest railway station.

Inspector Kenly walked briskly in the same direction, but by another route. It was slightly longer than the one Lynton Hora had taken, but Kenly was there first. He was on the platform before Hora, and was in the guard's brake almost as soon as the train came into the platform. He observed that his lodger's visitor carefully scanned the carriages as they passed him and entered an empty first-class compartment. "Hard up parsons don't usually travel first-class," commented Inspector Kenly to himself.