knew him,” said Sir Philip slowly. From his manner it seemed as though he were more interested in his designs than in his subject. “At least, I knew as much about him as he cared for anyone to know. It wasn’t difficult. He had only one topic of conversation. With men, at least. I’ve been given to understand that his conversation with women was apt to be more intimate. And that was himself.”
With infinite care he drew a line joining two triangles apex to apex. He contemplated the result with evident satisfaction, then looked up, and continued more briskly. “He loved to talk about himself and his achievements, up to a point. You can guess the sort of thing. The contrast between what he was and what he became. You couldn’t help admiring the fellow as you listened, however much you disliked him. He was an able man in his own way, Hampton, there’s no getting away from that. An able man, and a strong man, with that innate ruthlessness which makes for success. You know how he started life, of course?”
“Pretty low down in the social scale, from all I’ve heard,” replied the Commissioner.
“His father worked in a mill somewhere up north. A very decent and respectable chap, I believe. Quite a different type from Comstock. Saved and scraped with only one object in view, to make a gentleman out of that scapegrace son of his. It’s a mercy he never lived to know how completely his efforts failed. Anyhow, he sent the lad to Blackminster Grammar School. Lord knows what sort of a figure he must have cut when he first went there. But he was head of the school before he left.”
“No lack of brains, even then, apparently,” remarked the Commissioner.
“No lack of brains, or of determination. But then comes a gap. Comstock disappears from sight—conversationally, I mean—after that. Nobody has ever heard him mention the intervening years. The rungs of the ladder are hidden from us. He reappears in a blaze of glory as Lord Comstock, reputed millionaire, and owner of heaven knows how many disreputable rags. Ambitious, too. Life’s work not yet accomplished, and all that sort of thing. And now you say he’s lying dead at that country place of his, Hursley Lodge. I’ve never seen it. Male visitors were not made welcome there, I’ve always understood.”
“Welcome or not, there were quite a crowd of them there this morning,” remarked the Commissioner grimly. “Only quite a small house, too.”
Sir Philip nodded. His reminiscent mood passed suddenly. “All right, bring them in,” he said. “Your own people first. The police, I mean. This chap who was called in first. I’ll leave you to get the story out of them.”
The Commissioner opened the door which led into the Private Secretary’s room beyond. He looked round sharply, hoping to see the truculent figure of the Assistant Commissioner among the group which stood there, nervous and ill at ease. A frown expressed his disappointment. He beckoned sharply to three men, standing by. In single file they followed him into Sir Philip’s presence.
Hampton introduced them curtly. “Chief Constable Shawford, Superintendent Churchill, sir. Both of the Yard. This is Superintendent Easton, of the local police.” Sir Philip glanced at the men in turn, nodded at each but said nothing beyond a curt “sit down,” addressed to them all in general. They obeyed—the lower the rank, the greater the distance maintained from the Home Secretary. The Commissioner at first occupied a large arm-chair touching the desk, but as the interview went on he ceased to have a regular station—he would sit one minute, stand the next, lean on the big desk, and almost promise (so it seemed to the inexperienced Easton) to whisk away the Home Secretary and occupy his chair. Sir Philip, picking up his pencil again, drew with more deliberation than skill, a large circle upon his blotting-paper.
“Easton’s district includes Hursley Lodge, sir,” the Commissioner began, without further preface. “He was at the police-station when a call was received that Lord Comstock had been found dead in his study. This was at 1.7 this afternoon.”
Sir Philip glanced at the clock on his desk. It was then 2.35 p.m.
“He drove at once to Hursley Lodge, and was received by Lord Comstock’s secretary, Mr. Mills, who took him straight up to the study. His story will be more easy to follow, sir, if you keep this plan in front of you.”
He placed a neatly-drawn diagram on the desk, and Sir Philip studied it curiously. “Where did this come from?” he asked.
“Easton brought it with him from Hursley Lodge, sir,” replied the Commissioner, with a touch of impatience. He was anxious to get on with the facts.
Sir Philip looked up, and for the first time Easton appeared to him as an individual. He was tall, with a soldierly moustache and bearing, but obviously unnerved by the distinguished company in which he found himself; the Home Secretary’s glance had somehow brought him to his feet, and under his gaze he shifted from one foot to the other, and with difficulty suppressed an almost irresistible inclination to salute.
“Pretty smart of you to get hold of a plan like this, Easton,” said Sir Philip encouragingly. “Where did you find it?”
“Mr. Mills gave it to me, sir—the secretary,” replied Easton. Something in Sir Philip’s manner seemed to have put him quite at his ease. During the rest of the interview he addressed himself to him exclusively, as though some mysterious bond of sympathy had been established between them. He even took a couple of paces towards the Home Secretary’s desk.
“Mr. Mills gave it to you, did he?” said the Home Secretary. “Where did he get it from? People don’t as a rule have plans of their houses ready to hand like that.”
“It’s a rough tracing of a plan of the drains, really, sir,” Easton explained gravely, “with the drains left out and a few other things put in. Mr. Mills told me that a new system of drainage had recently been put in at Hursley Lodge, and the builder left a plan behind in case any alterations were required.”
“I see. Very well, Easton. Tell me what you found when you got into the study.”
“It was a large room, sir, with a big bow-window on the south side. The frames were of the casement type, and were all wide open. There was very little furniture in the room, sir. A row of bookcases round the walls, and half a dozen chairs standing in front of them. One of them had been overturned, and was lying close inside the door leading into the hall. There were two other doors, sir. One led into the drawing-room, and was disguised as a bookcase. The bookcase swung open with the door, if you understand me, sir.”
Sir Philip nodded. “And the third door?” he asked.
“That was a double door, sir, leading into the room which Mr. Mills used, and which he called the office. At the farther end of the room was a heavy desk, standing close to the window. Behind this desk, and between it and the window, lay the body of Lord Comstock. His lordship lay on his right side, with his knees drawn up towards his chin. I could see at once that he was dead, sir.”
“And did you discover as promptly what had killed him?”
“There was a very small bullet-wound in his left temple, sir. So small that I thought at first it was a stab with some round weapon like a thick hat-pin.”
“What made you alter your opinion, Easton?”
“When I looked on the desk, sir, I found this,” replied Easton simply. He put his hand in his pocket, and produced something wrapped carefully in a handkerchief. He opened this out, and disclosed a miniature revolver, which he laid on the edge of the Home Secretary’s desk. At the sight of it, Chief Constable Shawford made a sound as though about to speak. But a sharp glance from the Commissioner silenced him before he could
