This House to Let

by William Le Queux

The luggage which had been left at Victoria Station on the fatal day was, of course, seized by the police. They searched it thoroughly in the hope that they would find something useful to them in the shape of letters or memoranda.

Of letters there were only two, brief ones from Iris Deane, in which she expressed her determination of sticking out for her ten thousand pounds. As we know, in the end she gave way and accepted seven.

But they did find one priceless thing, and that was a diary, bound in red leather, a small volume as to the size of the page, but very bulky. It had evidently been the dead man's habit to keep a fairly close record of his doings, for it was numbered, and contained entries from some date in May 1919 up to July 3rd, the day before he left the hotel, and announced to the manager that he intended to take a late train to Brighton.

For the twentieth time since he had discovered this important piece of evidence, Mr. Bryant sat in his room at Scotland Yard, reading and re-reading the entries which he knew almost by heart.

With the entries, before the visit to London, Bryant had no concern. They recorded trifling events which had no reference to the tragedy at Cathcart Square. There was, of course, allusion to the letter from Roderick which had so startled his family, the letter announcing his engagement to the chorus girl, Iris Deane, and his fixed resolve to make her his wife. There was a note of a family council, in which the elder brother was deputed to approach the young woman herself, with the object of buying her off.

There were a few records of his first days in London, after a long absence, his visits to his clubs, his meeting with old pre-war acquaintances, his first interview with Iris Deane, the difficulty of arranging further interviews either at his hotel or her flat, owing to the fear of Roddie popping in unexpectedly.

Then came the whimsical record of his strolling round Kensington, halting opposite the house with the board announcing that it was to be let furnished, his interview with the accommodating caretaker who, in return for a very handsome douceur, gave him a duplicate key to enter the house at any time he liked. He had casually mentioned to Miles that his name was Sanderson.

The Major seemed childishly pleased over what he considered a very astute move, especially the giving of another name. Here in this quiet backwater of the world, for so it would seem to a man of his wealth and position, he could continue his negotiations with the somewhat obstinate Iris. In the portion of the diary concerned with the grasping and frivolous young chorus-girl, Bryant was not greatly interested. He had learned this already from Iris Deane, whom he had interviewed a few times, and Reginald Davis.

He turned from the bulky little volume, the pages of which were covered with the Major's small, rather methodical handwriting, to a slenderer book lying beside him. Into this had been copied all the extracts bearing on the relations between the dead man and Mrs. Spencer, otherwise Stella Keane, otherwise Norah Burton.

The first entry recorded the dinner-party at Carlton House Terrace, when he had been struck by the remarkable likeness of his friend's wife to the pretty adventuress at Blankfield, who had driven his old friend, Jack Pomfret, to his death; his endeavours to startle her by allusions to that garrison town.