“I’ve often thought he was too clever by half. But, damme, I don’t remember thinking he was uncanny before.”
“I have noticed it,” said Bell diffidently, “in a manner of speaking. Of course he does know a lot, does Mr. Fortune, a rare lot of stuff. But that’s natural, as were. What upsets you is the sort of way he feels men. It’s as if he had senses you haven’t got. Very strange the way he knows men.”
Phase V.—The Reply
Their admiration for Reggie Fortune received a shock the next day. It came by telephone. Just after his late and lazy breakfast, Reggie was rung up from Scotland Yard. Bell spoke. Mr. Lomas thought that Mr. Fortune would like to know that Sandford had gone down to Mr. Kimball’s place. Reggie answered, “Oh, Peter!” In a quarter of an hour he was in Lomas’s room asking for confirmation. There was no doubt. The detective watching Sandford’s chambers had followed him to Victoria, and heard him take a ticket to Alwynstow, Kimball’s place, and was gone with him.
“So that’s the next move,” said Lomas, “and if you can tell me what it means I shall be obliged to you.”
Reggie dropped his hand on the table. “Not a guess,” he said. “How can a man guess? We don’t even know how much they know, or whether one knows what the other knows. I could fancy Sandford—what’s the use?
“‘So runs my dream. But what am I?
An infant crying in the night,
An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry.’