“Keys,” answered the inspector. “We found no keys on him—not even a latch-key. Yet he must have let himself in here, and I understand from the caretaker that he must have unlocked this door after he’d entered by the outer one.”
Barthorpe made no immediate answer beyond a murmur of perplexity.
“Strange,” he said after a pause, during which he bent over the open drawer. “However, that’s one of the things to be gone into. Close that drawer, lock it up, and for the present keep the key yourself—you and I will examine the contents later. Now for these immediate inquiries. Mr. Selwood, will you please telephone at once to Portman Square and tell Kitteridge to send Mountain, the coachman, here—instantly. Tell Kitteridge to come with him. Inspector, will you see to this arrangement we spoke of, and also tell the caretaker that we shall want him presently? Now I will go to my cousin.”
He strode off, still alert, composed, almost bustling in his demeanour, to the waiting-room in which they had left Peggie—a moment later, Selwood, following him down the corridor, saw him enter and close the door. And Selwood cursed himself for a fool for hating to think that these two should be closeted together, for disliking the notion that Barthorpe Herapath was Peggie Wynne’s cousin—and now, probably, her guardian protector. For during those three weeks in which he had been Jacob Herapath’s secretary, Selwood had seen a good deal of his employer’s niece, and he was already well over the verge of falling in love with her, and was furious with himself for daring to think of a girl who was surely one of the richest heiresses in London. He was angry with himself, too, for disliking Barthorpe, for he was inclined to cultivate common-sense, and common-sense coldly reminded him that he did not know Barthorpe Herapath well enough to either like or dislike him.
Half an hour passed—affairs suggestive of the tragedy of the night went on in the Herapath Estate Office. Two women in the garb of professional nurses came quietly, and passed into the room where Herapath lay dead. A man arrayed in dismal black came after them, summoned by the police who were busy at the telephone as soon as Selwood had finished with it. Selwood himself, having summoned Kitteridge and Mountain, hung about, waiting. He heard the police talking in undertones of clues and theories, and of a coroner’s inquest, and the like; now and then he looked curiously at Mr. Tertius, who had taken a seat in the hall and was apparently wrapped in meditation. And still Barthorpe Herapath remained closeted with Peggie Wynne.
A taxi drove up and deposited the butler and the coachman at the door. Selwood motioned them inside.
“Mr. Barthorpe Herapath wants both of you,” he said curtly. “I suppose he will ask for you presently.”
Kitteridge let out an anxious inquiry.
“The master, sir?” he exclaimed. “Is——”
“Good heavens!” muttered Selwood. “I—of course, you don’t know. Mr. Herapath is dead.”