nodded and walked up the steps. The door had flown open before he touched the bell, and a lanky man with slightly bent shoulders was outlined in the radiant glow of the electric light. It was Bolt, the divisional detective inspector, a quiet, grave man who, save on exceptional occasions, was with his staff responsible for the investigation of all crime in his district.
‘You’re the first to come, sir,’ he said in a quiet, melancholy tone. ‘It’s a terrible job, this.’
He spoke professionally. Living as they do in an atmosphere of crime, always among major and minor tragedies, C.I.D. men—official detectives prefer the term—are forced to view their work objectively, like doctors and journalists. All murders are terrible—as murders. A detective cannot allow his sympathies or sensibility to pain or grief to hamper him in his work. In Bolt’s sense the case was terrible because it was difficult to investigate; because, unless the perpetrators were discovered and arrested, discredit would be brought upon the service and glaring contents-bills declare the inefficiency of the department to the world. The C.I.D. is very jealous of its reputation.
‘Yes,’ agreed Foyle. ‘Where is the butler? He found the body, I’m told. Fetch him into some room where I can talk to him.’
The butler, a middle-aged man, nervous, white-faced and half-distracted, was brought into a little sitting-room. His eyes moved restlessly to and from the detective: his fingers were twitching uneasily.
Foyle shot one swift appraising glance at him. Then he nodded to a chair.
‘Sit down, my man,’ he said, and his voice was silky and smooth. ‘Get him a drink, Bolt. He’ll feel better after that. Now, what’s your name?—Wills?—Pull yourself together. There’s nothing to be alarmed about. Just take your own time and tell us all about it.’
There was no hint of officialdom in his manner. It was the sympathetic attitude of one friend towards another. Wills gulped down a strong mixture of brandy and soda which Bolt held out to him, and a tinge of colour returned to his pale cheeks.
‘It was awful, sir—awful,’ he said shakily. ‘Mr Grell came in shortly before ten, and left word that if a lady came to see him she was to be brought straight into his study. She drove up in a motor-car a few minutes afterwards and went up to him.’
‘What was her name? What was she like?’ interrupted Bolt. Foyle held up his hand warningly to his subordinate.
Wills quivered all over, and words forsook him for a moment. Then he went on—
‘I—I don’t know. Ivan, Mr Grell’s valet, let her in. I saw her pass through the hall. She was tall and slim, but she wore a heavy veil, so I didn’t see her face. I don’t know when she left, but I went up to the study at one o’clock to ask if anything was needed before I went to bed. I could get no answer, although I knocked loudly two or three times; so I opened the door. My God! I—’
He flung his hands over his eyes and collapsed in an infantile paroxysm of tears.
Foyle rose and touched him gently on the shoulder. ‘Yes, then?’
‘The room was only dimly lit, sir, and I could see that he was lying on the couch, rather awkwardly, his face turned from me. I thought he might have dozed off, and I went into the room and touched him on the shoulder. My hand came away wet!’ His voice rose to a scream. ‘It was blood—blood everywhere—and he with a knife in his heart.’
Foyle leaned over the table. ‘Where’s Ivan?—Russian, I suppose, by the name? He must be about the house somewhere.’
‘I haven’t seen him since he let the lady in,’ faltered the butler.
The superintendent never answered. Bolt had silently disappeared. For five minutes silence reigned in the little room. Then the door was pushed open violently and Bolt entered like a stone propelled from a catapult.
‘Ivan has gone—vanished!’ he cried.
FOYLE caressed his chin with his well-manicured hand.
‘H’m!’ he said reflectively. ‘Don’t let’s jump to conclusions too quickly, Mr Bolt. There’s a doctor here, I suppose? Take this man to him, and when he’s a bit calmer take a statement from him. I’ll leave Ivan to you. Get some of the servants to give you a description of him, and ’phone it through to Flack at the Yard. Let him send it out as an “all station” message, and get in touch with the railway stations. The chap can’t have got far. Detain on suspicion. No arrest. Hello, there’s the bell. That’s some of our people, I expect. All right, I’ll answer. You get on with that.’
He had not raised his voice in giving his directions. He was as cool and matter-of-fact as a business man giving instructions to his secretary, yet he was throwing a net round London. Within five minutes of the time Bolt had gathered his description, the private telegraph that links Scotland Yard with all the police stations of London would be setting twenty thousand men on the alert for the missing servant. The great railway stations would be watched, and every policeman and detective wherever he might be stationed would know exactly the appearance of the man wanted, from the colour of his hair and his eyes to the pattern of his socks.
Foyle opened the door to a little cluster of grave-faced men. Sir Hilary Thornton, the assistant commissioner, was there; Professor Harding, an expert retained by the authorities, and a medical man whose scientific researches in connection with the Gould poisoning case had sent a man to the gallows, and whose aid had been most important in solving many murder mysteries; Grant of the finger-print department, a wizard in all matters relating to identification; a couple of men from his department bearing cameras, and lastly the senior officer of the Criminal Investigation Department, Green, and his assistant, Waverley.
Sir Hilary drew Foyle a little aside, and they conversed in low tones. Professor Harding, with a nod to the superintendent, had gone upstairs to where the divisional surgeon and another doctor were waiting with Lomont, the secretary of the murdered man, outside the door of the room where Robert Grell lay dead.
The doctors had done no more than ascertain he was dead, and Foyle himself had purposely not gone near the room until Harding had an opportunity of making his examinations.
‘I shall take charge of this myself, if you do not mind, Sir Hilary,’ Foyle was saying. ‘Mainland is capable of looking after the routine work of the department, and in the case of a man of Mr Grell’s importance—’
‘That is what I should have suggested,’ said Sir Hilary. ‘We must get to the bottom of this at all costs. You know Mr Grell was to have been married to Lady Eileen Meredith at St Margaret’s, Westminster, this morning. It’s a bad business. Let’s see what Harding’s got to say.’
Their feet sank noiselessly into the thick carpet of the stairs as they moved towards the death-chamber. From an open doorway near the landing a flood of light issued.
‘Very handy for anyone to get away,’ commented Foyle. ‘The stairs lead direct to the hall, and there are only two rooms to pass. This carpet would deaden footsteps too.’
They entered softly. Someone had turned all the lights on in the room, and it was bathed in brilliance.
A dying fire flickered in the grate; bookcases lined
