rubbing it in before young Hollyer, but, as a matter of fact, every single man carries the life of any other man—only one, mind you—in his hands, do what you will.”
“Provided he doesn’t bungle,” acquiesced Carrados.
“Quite so.”
“And also that he is absolutely reckless of the consequences.”
“Of course.”
“Two rather large provisos. Creake is obviously susceptible to both. Have you seen him?”
“No. As I told you, I put a man on to report his habits in town. Then, two days ago, as the case seemed to promise some interest—for he certainly is deeply involved with the typist, Max, and the thing might take a sensational turn any time—I went down to Mulling Common myself. Although the house is lonely it is on the electric tram route. You know the sort of market garden rurality that about a dozen miles out of London offers—alternate bricks and cabbages. It was easy enough to get to know about Creake locally. He mixes with no one there, goes into town at irregular times but generally every day, and is reputed to be devilish hard to get money out of. Finally I made the acquaintance of an old fellow who used to do a day’s gardening at Brookbend occasionally. He has a cottage and a garden of his own with a greenhouse, and the business cost me the price of a pound of tomatoes.”
“Was it—a profitable investment?”
“As tomatoes, yes; as information, no. The old fellow had the fatal disadvantage from our point of view of labouring under a grievance. A few weeks ago Creake told him that he would not require him again as he was going to do his own gardening in future.”
“That is something, Louis.”
“If only Creake was going to poison his wife with hyoscyamine and bury her, instead of blowing her up with a dynamite cartridge and claiming that it came in among the coal.”
“True, true. Still——”
“However, the chatty old soul had a simple explanation for everything that Creake did. Creake was mad. He had even seen him flying a kite in his garden where it was bound to get wrecked among the trees. ‘A lad of ten would have known better,’ he declared. And certainly the kite did get wrecked, for I saw it hanging over the road myself. But that a sane man should spend his time ‘playing with a toy’ was beyond him.”
“A good many men have been flying kites of various kinds lately,” said Carrados. “Is he interested in aviation?”
“I dare say. He appears to have some knowledge of scientific subjects. Now what do you want me to do, Max?”
“Will you do it?”
“Implicitly—subject to the usual reservations.”
“Keep your man on Creake in town and let me have his reports after you have seen them. Lunch with me here now. ‘Phone up to your office that you are detained on unpleasant business and then give the deserving Parkinson an afternoon off by looking after me while we take a motor run round Mulling Common. If we have time we might go on to Brighton, feed at the ‘Ship,’ and come back in the cool.”
“Amiable and thrice lucky mortal,” sighed Mr Carlyle, his glance wandering round the room.
But, as it happened, Brighton did not figure in that day’s itinerary. It had been Carrados’s intention merely to pass Brookbend Cottage on this occasion, relying on his highly developed faculties, aided by Mr Carlyle’s description, to inform him of the surroundings. A hundred yards before they reached the house he had given an order to his chauffeur to drop into the lowest speed and they were leisurely drawing past when a discovery by Mr Carlyle modified their plans.
“By Jupiter!” that gentleman suddenly exclaimed, “there’s a board up, Max. The place is to be let.”
Carrados picked up the tube again. A couple of sentences passed and the car stopped by the roadside, a score of paces past the limit of the garden. Mr Carlyle took out his notebook and wrote down the address of a firm of house agents.
“You might raise the bonnet and have a look at the engines, Harris,” said Carrados. “We want to be occupied here for a few minutes.”
“This is sudden; Hollyer knew nothing of their leaving,” remarked Mr Carlyle.
“Probably not for three months yet. All the same, Louis, we will go on to the agents and get a card to view, whether we use it to-day or not.”
A thick hedge, in its summer dress effectively screening the house beyond from public view, lay between the garden and the road. Above the hedge showed an occasional shrub; at the corner nearest to the car a chestnut flourished. The wooden gate, once white; which they had passed, was grimed and rickety. The road itself was still the unpretentious country lane that the advent of the electric car had found it. When Carrados had taken in these details there seemed little else to notice. He was on the point of giving Harris the order to go on when his ear caught a trivial sound.
“Someone is coming out of the house, Louis,” he warned his friend. “It may be Hollyer, but he ought to have gone by this time.”
“I don’t hear anyone,” replied the other, but as he spoke a door banged noisily and Mr Carlyle slipped into another seat and ensconced himself behind a copy of The Globe.
“Creake himself,” he whispered across the car, as a man appeared at the gate. “Hollyer was right; he is hardly changed. Waiting for a car, I suppose.”
But a car very soon swung past them from the direction in which Mr Creake was looking and it did not interest him. For a minute or two longer he continued to look expectantly along the road. Then he walked slowly up the drive back to the house.
“We will give him five or ten minutes,” decided Carrados. “Harris is behaving very naturally.”
Before even the shorter period had run out they were repaid. A telegraph-boy cycled leisurely along the road, and, leaving his machine at the gate, went up to the cottage. Evidently there was no reply, for in less than a minute he was trundling past them back again. Round the bend an approaching tram clanged its bell noisily, and, quickened by the warning sound, Mr Creake again appeared, this time with a small portmanteau in his hand. With a backward glance he hurried on towards the next stopping-place, and, boarding the car as it slackened down, he was carried out of their knowledge.
“Very convenient of Mr Creake,” remarked Carrados, with quiet satisfaction. “We will now get the order and go over the house in his absence. It might be useful to have a look at the wire as well.”
“It might, Max,” acquiesced Mr Carlyle a little dryly. “But if it is, as it probably is, in Creake’s pocket, how do you propose to get it?”
“By going to the post office, Louis.”
“Quite so. Have you ever tried to see a copy of a telegram addressed to someone else?”
“I don’t think I have ever had occasion yet,” admitted Carrados. “Have you?”
“In one or two cases I have perhaps been an accessory to the act. It is generally a matter either of extreme delicacy or considerable expenditure.”
“Then
