“That’s a good one!” Young Morrow looked his 304 self-disgust. “Hire operatives on your staff, sir, and then have to set others to tail them, and see that they don’t get into trouble! Heavens, what an idiot I am! I’ve found out one thing, though, from those cryptograms”––he pointed to the cipher notes on the desk. “Music’s a cinch! I can read it already, and I’m going to start in and learn how to play on something or other, the first chance I get! There’s a fellow next door to Mrs. Quinlan’s with a clarinet––” He paused, and his face sobered as he added: “But I forgot! I sha’n’t be there any more.”
Before Blaine could speak, there was a knock upon the door, and Marsh entered with hurried circumspection. There was a look of latent, shocked importance upon his usually impassive face, and he carried in his hand a newspaper which was still damp from the press.
“I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought you would want to know at once. There’s been a murder! Paddington, the private detective, was found in the Rhododendron Alley, just off the Mall in the park, stabbed to the heart!”
Henry Blaine took the paper and spread it out upon the desk before him, as Guy Morrow, with a soft, low whistle, turned away. The “extra” imparted little more than the secretary’s announcement had done. There was no known motive for the crime, no clue to the murderer. When found, the man had been dead for some hours.
“Well, sir,” observed Guy at last, when the secretary had withdrawn, “one by one they’re getting away from us––and by the same route. First Rockamore, now Paddington!”
Blaine looked up with a grim smile.
“Putting a woman wise to anything is like lighting a 305 faulty time-fuse: you never can tell when you’re going to get your own fingers blown off! But tell me something, Guy. What was that tune you whistled a moment ago, when Marsh came in with the news? It had a vaguely familiar ring.”
“Oh, that?” asked the operative, with a sheepishly guileless air. “It was just a bit from an English musical comedy of two or three years back, I think. It’s got a silly-sounding name––something like ‘There’s a Boat Sails on Saturday––’”
Blaine’s wry smile broadened to a grin of genuine appreciation, and rising, he clapped the young man heartily on the shoulder.
“Right you are, Guy! And it won’t be our job to search the sailing lists. You may not always be able to see what lies under your nose, but your perspective is not bad. Hell has only one fury worse than a woman scorned, that I know of, and that is a woman fooled! We’ll let it go at that!”