“If you mean have we arrested Deacon, sir, we have not. He doesn’t know anything about us having found the prints of his fingers. And I’m afraid I must ask you, sir, officially, to say nothing to him about what I’ve told you. You see, this is one of those cases where contrary to the general rule we should like the coroner’s jury to pass a verdict against our man and then arrest him. I’m having him watched until the inquest to-morrow, and we’ll nab him after.” Out came the watch again; a look of horror crossed its owner’s face. “I must really get off now, sir. I’m terrible late as it is. Got to report up at the Yard. Good-day, sir, I’ll see you to-morrow if you’re still here. And thank you for your help. It was you and what you said in your study about it being an ‘insider,’ so to speak, that put me on the right track, though I did take your other view at first. Now I see—as I’ve done in the past, sir—that you generally know.”
Anthony concealed a smile at this attempt to gild the pill. “So I put you on the right track, did I?” he said softly. “Or the wrong, my friend; or the wrong! I don’t like it. I don’t like it a little bit. It’s too rule-of-thumb. The Profligate Secretary, the Missing Bank-Notes, the Finger-printed Blunt Instrument! It’s not even a good shilling shocker. It’s too damnation ordinary, that’s what it is!”
If Boyd heard him he gave no sign, but hurried back to the waiting car.
Anthony watched it out of sight. He communed with himself. No, he didn’t like it. And where did She come in? And why, in the name of a name, had she said: “Who shot him?” when the poor devil had had his head battered in?
“That rather lets her out as regards the actual bashing,” he said, half-aloud. “That’s a comfort, anyhow. But it’s perplexing, very perplexing. ‘Do I sleep, do I dream, or is Visions about?’ I think, yes, I think a little talk with the murderous secretary would do me good—always remembering the official injunction not to tell him he’s going to be hanged soon.”
2
Archibald Basil Travers Deacon—his parents have much to answer for—was in the drawing-room. He sprawled in an easy-chair beside the open windows. A book lay face-downwards upon his knees.
Anthony, entering softly, had difficulty in persuading himself that this was the man he sought. He had expected the conventional private secretary; he found a man in the late twenties with the face of a battered but pleasant prize-fighter, the eyes of a lawyer, and the body of Heracles.
Anthony coughed. The secretary heaved himself to his feet. The process took a long time. The unfolding complete, he looked down upon Anthony’s six feet from a height superior by five inches. He stretched out a hand and engulfed Anthony’s. A tremendous smile split his face.
He boomed softly: “You must be Gethryn. Heard a lot about you. So you’re here disguised as a bloodhound, what? Stout fellah!”