suppose the young lady was in a carriage and surrounded by a crowd? It would be an odd thing if you figured in the photograph," laughed Winter.
"There have been more unlikely coincidences, but my early sight of the remarkable woman who was killed in this room last night explains my intense desire to track her murderer before Clarke had time to baffle my efforts. It forms, too, a sort of excuse for my departure from official routine. Of course, I would have reported myself this evening, but, up to the present, I have been working hard to try and dispel the fog of motive that blocks the way."
"You have heard of Rupert Osborne, then?"
Furneaux was certainly not the man whom Winter was accustomed to meet at other times. Usually quick as lightning to grasp or discard a point, to-night he appeared to experience no little difficulty in focusing his attention on the topic of the moment. The mention of Rupert Osborne's name did not evoke the characteristically vigorous repudiation that Winter looked for. Instead, there was a marked pause, and, when the reply came, it was with an effort.
"Yes. I suppose Clarke wants to arrest him?"
"He has thought of it!"
"But Osborne's movements last night are so clearly defined?"
"So one would imagine, but Clarke still doubts."
"Why?"
Winter told of the taxicab driver, and the significant journey taken by his fare. Furneaux shook his head.
"Strange, if true," he said; "why should Osborne kill the woman he meant to marry?"
"She may have jilted him."
"No, oh, no. It was – it must have been – the aim of her life to secure a rich husband. She was beautiful, but cold – she had the eye that weighs and measures. Have you ever seen the Monna Lisa in the Louvre?"
Winter did not answer, conscious of a subtle suspicion that Furneaux really knew far more of the inner history of this tragedy than had appeared hitherto. Clarke, in his own peculiar way, was absurdly secretive, but that Furneaux should want to remain silent was certainly baffling.
"By the way," said Winter with seeming irrelevance, "if you were in Brighton and Kenterstone yesterday afternoon and evening, you had not much time to spare in London?"
"No."
"Then the station-sergeant at Finchley Road was mistaken in thinking that he saw you in that locality about six o'clock – 'jumping on to a 'bus' was his precise description of your movements."
"I was there at that time."
"How did you manage it? St. John's Wood is far away from either Victoria or Charing Cross, and I suppose you reached Kenterstone by way of Charing Cross?"
"I returned from Brighton at three o'clock, and did not visit Sir Peter Holt until half-past nine at Kenterstone. Had I disturbed him before dinner the consequence might have been serious for her ladyship. Besides, I wished to avoid the local police at Kenterstone."
Both men smiled constrainedly. There was a barrier between them, and Furneaux, apparently, was not inclined to remove it; as for Winter, he could not conquer the impression that, thus far, their conversation was of a nature that might be looked for between a police official and a reluctant witness – assuredly not between colleagues who were also on the best of terms as comrades. Furneaux was obviously on guard, controlling his face, his words, his very gestures. That so outspoken a man should deem it necessary to adopt such a rôle with his close friend was annoying, but long years of forced self-repression had taught Winter the wisdom of throttling back utterances which might be regretted afterwards. Indeed, he tried valiantly to repair the fast-widening breach.
"Have a cigar," he said, proffering a well-filled case. "Suppose we just sit down and go through the affair from A to Z. Much of our alphabet is missing, but we may be able to guess a few additional letters."
Furneaux smiled again. This time there was the faintest ripple of amusement in his eyes.
"Now, you know how you hate to see me maltreat a good Havana," he protested.
"This time I forgive you before the offense – anything to jolt you into your usual rut. Why, man alive, here have I been hunting you all day, yet no sooner are you engaged on the very job for which I wanted you, than I find myself cross-examining you as though – as though you had committed some flagrant error."
The Chief Inspector did not often flounder in his speech as he had done twice that night. He was about to say "as though I suspected you of killing Rose de Bercy yourself"; but his brain generally worked in front of his voice, and he realized that the hypothesis would have sounded absurd, almost insane.
Furneaux took the cigar. He did not light it, but deliberately crushed the wrapper between thumb and forefinger, and then smelled it with the air of one who dallies with a full-scented rose, passing it to and fro under his nostrils. Winter, meantime, was darting several small rings of smoke through one wide and slowly dissipating circle, both being now seated, Winter's bulk, genially aggressive, well thrust forward – but Furneaux, small, compact, a bundle of nerves under rigid control, was sunk back into the depths of a large and deep-seated chair, and seemed to shirk the new task imposed on his powers of endurance. Winter was so conscious of this singularly unexpected behavior on his friend's part that his conscience smote him.
"I say, old man," he said, "you look thoroughly done up. I hardly realized that you had been hard at work all day. Have you eaten anything?"
"Had all I wanted," said Furneaux, thawing a little under this solicitude.
"Perhaps you didn't want enough. Come, own up. Have you dined?"
"No – I was not hungry."
"Where did you lunch?"
"I ate a good breakfast."
Winter sprang to his feet again.
"By Jove!" he cried, "this affair seems to have taken hold of you – I meant to send for the hall-porter and the French maid – Pauline is her name, I think; she ought to be able to throw some light on her mistress's earlier life – but we can leave all that till to-morrow. Come to my club. A cutlet and a glass of wine will make a new man of you."
Furneaux rose at once. Anyone might have believed that he was glad to postpone the proposed examination of the servants.
"That will be splendid," he said with an air of relief that compared markedly with his reticent mood of the past few minutes. "The mere mention of food has given me an appetite. I suppose I am fagged out, or as near it as I have ever been. Moreover, I can tell you everything that any person in these Mansions knows of what took place here between six and eight o'clock last night – a good deal more, by the way, than Clarke has found out, though he scored a point over that stone. Where is it? – in the office, you said. I should like to see it – in the morning."
"You will see more than that. Clarke has arranged to meet the taxicab driver at ten o'clock. He meant to confront him with Rupert Osborne, but we must manage things differently. Of course the man's testimony may be important. Alibi or no alibi, it will be awkward for Osborne if a credible witness swears that he was in this locality for nearly a quarter of an hour about the very time that this poor young lady was killed."
Furneaux, holding the broken cigar under his nose, offered no comment, but, as they entered the hall, he said, glancing at its quaint decoration:
"If
