my birds’-egg collection.”
“But not necessarily a childhood quarrel,” Grant said. “She must have known him much later.”
“Bundle would be the person to ask. She dressed my wife from her early days in New York. But is it important? After all, the fellow was being dismissed with a shilling.”
“It’s important because it is the first sign of real enmity I have discovered among Miss Clay’s relationships. One never knows what it might lead us to.”
“The Inspector may not think it so important when he has seen this,” Erskine said. “This, which I will give you to read, is the surprise I spoke of.”
So the surprise had not been one of those in the will.
Grant took the paper from the lawyer’s dry, slightly trembling hand. It was a sheet of the shiny, thick, cream-coloured note-paper to be obtained in village shops all over England, and on it was a letter from Christine Clay to her lawyer. The letter was headed “Briars, Medley, Kent,” and contained instructions for a codicil to her will. She left her ranch in California, with all stock and implements, together with the sum of five thousand pounds, to one Robert Stannaway, late of Yeoman’s Row, London.
“That,” said the lawyer, “was written on Wednesday, as you see. And on Thursday morning—” He broke off, expressively.
“Is it legal?” Grant asked.
“I should not like to contest it. It is entirely handwritten and properly signed with her full name. The signature is witnessed by Margaret Pitts. The provision is perfectly clear, and the style eminently sane.”
“No chance of a forgery?”
“Not the slightest. I know Lady Edward’s hand very well—you will observe that it is peculiar and not easy to reproduce—and moreover I am very well acquainted with her style, which would be still more difficult to imitate.”
“Well!” Grant read the letter again, hardly believing in its existence. “That alters everything. I must get back to Scotland Yard. This will probably mean an arrest before night.” He stood up.
“I’ll come with you,” Champneis said.
“Very good, sir,” Grant agreed automatically. “If I may, I’ll telephone first to make sure that the Superintendent will be there.”
And as he picked up the receiver, the looker-on in him said: Harmer was right. We do treat people variously. If the husband had been an insurance agent in Brixton, we wouldn’t take it for granted that he could horn in on a Yard conference!
“Is Superintendent Barker in the Yard, do you know? . . . Oh . . . At half past? That’s in about twenty minutes. Well, tell him that Inspector Grant has important information and wants a conference straight away. Yes, the Commissioner, too, if he’s there.”
He hung up.
“Thank you for helping us so greatly,” he said, taking farewell of Erskine. “And by the way, if you unearth the brother, I should be glad to know.”
And he and Champneis went down the dark, narrow stairs and out into the hot sunshine.
“Do you think,” Champneis asked, pausing with one hand on the door of Grant’s car, “there would be time for a drink. I feel the need of some stiffening. It’s been a—a trying morning.”
“Yes, certainly. It won’t take us longer than ten minutes along the Embankment. Where would you like to go?”
“Well, my club is in Carlton House Terrace, but I don’t want to meet people I know. The Savoy isn’t much better—”
“There’s a nice little pub up here,” Grant said, and swung the car round. “Very quiet at this time. Cool, too.”
As they turned the corner Grant caught sight of the news-sellers’ posters. CLAY FUNERAL: UNPRECEDENTED SCENES. TEN WOMEN FAINT. LONDON’S FAREWELL TO CLAY. And (the Sentinel) CLAY’S LAST AUDIENCE.
Grant’s foot came down on the accelerator.
“It was unbelievably ghastly,” said the man beside him, quietly.
“Yes, I can imagine.”
“Those women. I think the end of our greatness as a race must be very near. We came through the war well, but perhaps the effort was too great. It left us—epileptic. Great shocks do, sometimes.” He was silent a moment, evidently seeing it all again in his mind’s eye. “I’ve seen machine guns turned on troops in the open—in China—and rebelled against the slaughter. But I would have seen that sub-human mass of hysteria riddled this morning with more joy than I can describe to you. Not because it was—Chris, but because they made me ashamed of being human, of belonging to the same species.”
“I had hoped that at that early hour there would be very little demonstration. I know the police were counting on that.”
“We counted on it too. That is why we chose that hour. Now that I’ve seen with my own eyes, I know that nothing could have prevented it. The people are insane.”
He paused, and gave an unamused laugh. “She never did like people much. It was because she found people—disappointing that she left her money as she did. Her fans this morning have vindicated her judgment.”
The bar was all that Grant had promised, cool, quiet, and undemanding. No one took any notice of Champneis. Of the six men present three nodded to Grant and three looked wary. Champneis, observant even in his pain, said: “Where do you go when you want to be unrecognized?” and Grant smiled. “I’ve not found a place yet,” he admitted. “I landed in Labrador from a friend’s yacht once, and the man in the village store said, ‘You wear your moustache shorter now, Sergeant.’ After that I gave up expecting.”
They talked of Labrador for a little, and then of Galeria, where Champneis had spent the last few months.
“I used to think Asia primitive, and some of the Indian tribes of South America, but the east of Europe has them all beaten. Except for the towns, Galeria is still in the primeval dark.”
“I see they’ve mislaid their spectacular patriot,” Grant said.
“Rimnik? Yes. He’ll turn up again when his party is ready. That’s the way they run the benighted country.”
“How many parties are there?”
“About ten, I think, not counting subdivisions. There are at least twenty races in that boiling pot of a country, all of them clamouring for self-government, and all of them medieval in their outlook. It’s a fascinating place. You should go there some day. The capital is their shop-window—as nearly a replica of every other capital as they can make it. Opera, trams, electric light, imposing railway station, cinemas—but twenty miles into the country you’ll find bride-barter. Girls set in rows with their dowry at their feet, waiting to go to the highest bidder. I’ve seen an old country woman led raving mad out of a lift in one of the town buildings. She thought she was the victim of witchcraft. They had to take her to the asylum. Graft in the town and superstition in the country—and yet a place of infinite promise.”
Grant let him talk, glad that for even a few minutes he might be able to forget
