"You'll hear worse in another second if you really annoy me," said Furneaux. "Heretofore no one seems to have troubled to inform you what a special sort of idiot you are. Though your last words to your father were a threat that you were inclined to shoot him and your precious self, when you saw him lying dead you thought of nothing but your own wretched follies, and bolted off to Hendon Road, Battersea, instead of remaining here and trying to help the police.
"When I tell you your gun is missing you yelp about your brother's animosity. Before your father is laid in his grave you threaten to upset the household because your brother acts as its master. Why shouldn't he? Are you fitted to take the reins or share his responsibility? If you were at your right job, Robert Fenley, you'd be carrying bricks and mortar in a hod; for you haven't brains enough to lay a brick or use a trowel."
The victim of this outburst thought that the little detective had gone mad, though the reference to Hendon Road had startled him, and a scared expression had come into his eyes.
"Look here——" he began, but Furneaux checked him again instantly.
"I've looked at you long enough to sum you up as a sulky puppy," he said. "If you had any sort of gumption you would realize that you occupy a singularly precarious position. Were it not for the lucky accident that my colleague and I were on the spot this morning it is more than likely that the county police would have arrested you at sight. Don't give us any more trouble, or you'll be left to stew in your own juice. I have warned you, once and for all. If you care to swallow your spleen and amend your manners, I shall try to believe you are more idiot than knave. At present I am doubtful which way the balance tips."
Furneaux stalked off rapidly, leaving the other to fume with indignation as he followed. With his almost uncanny gift of imaginative reasoning, the Jersey man had guessed the purport of Fenley's talk with Sylvia in the garden. He had watched the two from a window of the dining-room, and had read correctly the girl's ill-concealed scorn, not quite devoid of dread, as revealed by face and gesture. To make sure, he waylaid her in the hall while she was hurrying to her own apartments. Then he sauntered after Robert Fenley, and only bided his time to empty upon him the vials of his wrath.
He had taken the oaf's measure with a nice exactitude. To trounce him without frightening him also was only inviting a complaint to the Commissioner, but Furneaux was well aware that the longer Robert Fenley's dull brain dwelt on the significance of that address in Battersea being known to the police, the less ready would he be to stir a hornets' nest into activity by showing his resentment. Obviously, Furneaux's methods were not those advocated in the Police Manual. Any other man who practiced them would risk dismissal, but the "Little 'Un" of the Yard was a law unto himself.
Meanwhile, he was hurrying after the "Big 'Un," (such, it will be recalled, were the respective nicknames Furneaux and Winter had received in the Department) who had alighted from the car, and was listening to Hilton Fenley berating a servant for having permitted Trenholme to make known his presence to Miss Manning. The man, however, protested that he had done nothing of the sort. Miss Sylvia had been called to the lodge telephone, and the footman's acquaintance with the facts went no farther. Smothering his annoyance as best he could, Fenley rang up Mrs. Bates and asked for particulars. When the woman explained what had happened, he rejoined Winter in the hall, paying no heed to Furneaux, who was entering at the moment.
"That artist fellow who was trespassing in the park this morning—if nothing worse is proved against him—must have a superb cheek," he said angrily. "He actually had the impertinence to ask Miss Manning to meet him, no doubt offering some plausible yarn as an excuse. I hope you'll test his story thoroughly, Mr. Winter. At the least, he should be forced to say what he was doing in these grounds at such an unusual hour."
"He is putting himself right with Miss Manning now," broke in Furneaux.