it.” Then, in a more serious tone: “Is my – my—”
“Your nothing,” interrupted Peter. “The blackguard was married – married to Lila. I think I must have gone daft, but I didn’t realise this woman was planted in my house for a purpose. That type of girl wouldn’t come at the wages she did if she had been genuine. Barney was always suspicious of her, by the way.”
“Have you seen Johnny?” the girl asked Craig.
“No, I haven’t seen him,” said Craig carefully. “I thought of calling on him pretty soon.”
Then it came to her in a flash, and she gasped.
“You don’t think Johnny shot this man? You can’t think that?”
“Of course he didn’t shoot him,” said Peter loudly. “It is a ridiculous idea. But you’ll understand that Mr. Craig has to make inquiries in all sorts of unlikely quarters. You haven’t been able to get hold of Johnny tonight?”
A glance passed between them, and Peter groaned.
“What a fool! What a fool!” he said. “Oh, my God, what a fool!”
“Father, Johnny hasn’t done this? It isn’t true, Mr. Craig. Johnny wouldn’t shoot a man. Did anybody see him? How was he shot?”
“He was shot in the back.”
“Then it wasn’t Johnny,” she said. “He couldn’t shoot a man in the back!”
“I think, young lady,” said Craig with a little smile, “that you’d better go to bed and dream about butterflies. You’ve had a perfect hell of a day, if you’ll excuse my language. Say the firm word to her, Peter. Who’s that?” He turned his head, listening.
“Barney,” said Peter. “He has a distressing habit of wearing slippers. You can hear him miles away. He’s opening the door to somebody – one of your people, perhaps. Or he’s taking your chauffeur a drink. Barney has an enormous admiration for chauffeurs. They represent mechanical genius to him.”
The girl was calmer now.
“I have too much to thank God for to-day, for this terrible thing to be true,” she said in a low voice. “Mr. Craig, there is a mistake, I’m sure. Johnny couldn’t have committed such a crime. It was somebody else – one of Jeffrey Legge’s associates, somebody who hated him. He told me once that lots of people hated him, and I thought he was joking; he seemed so nice, so considerate. Daddy, I was mad to go through that, even to make you happy.”
Peter Kane nodded.
“If you were mad, I was criminal, girlie,” he said. “There was only one man in the world for you—”
The door opened slowly, and Barney sidled in. “Johnny to see you folks,” he said, and pulled the door wider.
John Gray was standing in the passage, and his eyes fell upon Craig with a look of quiet amusement.
Chapter XVII
In another second the girl was in his arms, clinging to him, weeping convulsively on his shoulder, her face against his, her clasped hands about his neck.
Craig could only look, wondering and fearing. Johnny would not have walked into the net unwarned. Barney would have told him that he was there. What amazed Craig, as the fact slowly dawned upon him, was that Johnny was still in evening dress. He took a step toward him, and gently Johnny disengaged the girl from his arms.
“I’ll like to see the right cuff of your shirt, Johnny,” said Craig.
Without a word. Gray held up his arm, and the inspector scrutinised the spotless linen, for spotless it was. No sign of a stain was visible.
“Either somebody’s doing some tall lying, or you’re being extraordinarily clever, Johnny. I’ll see that other cuff if I may.”
The second scrutiny produced no tangible result.
“Didn’t you go home and change tonight?”
“No, I haven’t been near my flat,” he said.
Craig was staggered.
“But your man said that you came in, changed, took a suitcase and went away.”
“Then Parker has been drinking,” was the calm reply “I have been enjoying the unusual experience of dining with the detective officer who was responsible for my holiday in Devonshire.”
Craig took a step back.
“With Inspector Flaherty?” he asked.
Johnny nodded.
“With the good Inspector Flaherty. We have been exchanging confidences about our mutual acquaintances.”
“But who was it went to your flat?” asked the bewildered Craig.
“My double. I’ve always contended that I have a double,” said Johnny serenely.
He stood in the centre of the astounded group. Into Marney’s heart had crept a wild hope.
“Johnny,” she said, “was it this man who committed the crime for which you were punished?”
To her disappointment he shook his head.
“No, I am the gentleman who was arrested and sent to Dartmoor – my double stops short of these unpleasant experiences, and I can’t say that I blame him.”
“But do you mean to say that he deceived your servant?”
“Apparently,” said Johnny, turning again to the detective who had asked the question.
“I take your word, of course, Johnny, as an individual.”
Johnny chuckled.
“I like the pretty distinction. As an official, you want corroboration. Very well, that is not hard to get. If you take me back to Flaherty, he will support all I have told you.”
Peter and the detective had the good taste to allow him to take leave of the girl without the embarrassment of their presence.
“It beats me – utterly beats me. Have you ever heard of this before, Peter?”
“That Johnny had a double? No, I can’t say that I have.”
“He may have invented the story for the sake of the girl. But there is the fact: he’s in evening dress, whilst his servant distinctly described him as wearing a grey tweed suit. There is no mark of blood on his cuff, and I’m perfectly certain that Stevens wouldn’t have tried to get Johnny in bad. He is very fond of the boy. Of course, he may be spinning this yarn for the sake
