Part 31 (1/2)

”And you left my son in that murderer's clutches a minute longer than you could help?” It was a previous incarnation of Pocket's father that broke in with this.

”You must remember in the first place that I couldn't be in the least sure it was your son; in the second, if murder had been intended, murder would have been done with as little delay in his case as in the others; thirdly, that we've nothing to show that Dr. Baumgartner is an actual murderer at all, but, fourthly, that to raid his place was the way to make him one.

Poor Mullins, too, as the original Sherlock of the show, was desperately against calling in the police under any circ.u.mstances. He a.s.sured me there was no sign of bad blood about the house, until the small hours, and then he saw your son make his escape. I told him he should have collared the lad, but he lost sight of him in the night and preferred to keep an eye on that poor desperate doctor.”

Thrush treated this part of his narrative with the peculiar confidence which most counsel reserve for the less satisfactory aspects of their case. But Mr. Upton was not in a mood to press a point of grievance against anybody. And the name of Mullins reminded him that his curiosity on a very different point had not been gratified.

”Why on earth did you have Mullins run in?” he inquired, with characteristic absence of finesse.

”I'm not very proud of it,” replied Thrush. ”It didn't come off, you see.”

”But whatever could the object have been?”

”I must have a d.a.m.n-it if I'm to tell you that,” said Thrush; and the ironmaster concluded that he meant a final drink, from the action which he suited to the oath. ”It was one way that occurred to me of putting salt on the lad.”

”Tony?”

”Yes.”

”You puzzle me more and more.”

”Well, you see, I gathered that he was a particularly honourable boy, of fine sensibilities, and yet Mullins thought he had shot this man by accident and was lying low. I only thought that, if that were so, the news of an innocent man's arrest would bring him into the open as quick as anything. Mullins proving amenable to terms, and having really been within a hundred miles of both murders at the time they were committed, the rest was elementary. But what's the good of talking about it? It didn't come off.”

”It very nearly did! I can tell you that straight from Tony; he was going to give himself up yesterday morning, if he hadn't accidentally satisfied himself of his own innocence.”

Mr. Upton said more than this, but it was the explicit statement of fact that alone afforded Thrush real consolation. His spectacled eyes blinked keenly behind their flas.h.i.+ng lenses; the b.u.t.ton of a nose underneath twitched as though it scented battle once again; and the drink with the opprobrious name was suddenly put down unfinished.

”If only I could find that camera!” he cried. ”It's the touchstone of the whole thing, mark my words. If it's an accomplice who did this thing, he's got it; even if not--”

He stood silenced by a sudden thought, a gleam of light that illumined his whole flushed face.

”Mullins!” he roared. Mullins was on the spot with somewhat suspicious alacrity. ”Get the almanac, Mullins, and look up Time of High Water at London Bridge to-day!”

He himself flopped down behind the telephone to ring up the cab-office in Bolton Street. But it takes time even for a Eugene Thrush to consume all but three large whiskies and sodas; and the afternoon was already far advanced.

THE SECRET OF THE CAMERA

The camera had been placed upon a folded newspaper, for the better preservation of the hotel table-cloth. Its apertures were still choked with mud; beads of slime kept breaking out along the joints. And Phillida was still explaining to Pocket how the thing had come into her possession.

”The rain was the greatest piece of luck, though another big slice was an iron gangway to the foresh.o.r.e about a hundred yards up-stream. It was coming down so hard at the time that I couldn't see another creature out in it except myself. I don't believe a single soul saw me run down that gangway and up again; but I dropped my purse over first for an excuse if anybody did. I popped the camera under my waterproof, and carried it up to the King's Road before I could get a cab. But I never expected to find you awake and about again; next to the rain that's the best luck of all!”

”Why?”

”Because you know all about photography and I don't. Suppose he took a last photograph, and suppose that led directly to the murder!”

”That's an idea.”

”The man threw the camera into the river, but the plate would be in it still, and you could develop it!”