has been crying, and I’ll bet it wasn’t our friend the banker.”
12. Murder
“I’ve got two men on to Sir George,” said T.B. to Van Ingen. They were at the Yard. “I’ve given them instructions not to leave him day or night. Now, the question is, how will the ‘ bears ‘ discover the fatal day the barrage is to be handed over to the guileless Fellaheen?”
“Through the Egyptian Government?” suggested Van Ingen.
“That I doubt. It seems a simple proposition, but the issues are so important that you may be sure our mysterious friends will not strike until they are absolutely certain. In the meantime—”
He unlocked the safe and took out a book.
This, too, was fastened by two locks. He opened it, laid it down, and began writing on a sheet of paper, carefully, laboriously checking the result.
*
That night the gentleman who is responsible for the good order of Egypt received a telegram which ran:
PREMIUM FELLOW COLLECT WADY BARRAGE MERIDIAN TAINTED INOCULATE WEARY SULPHUR.
There was a great deal more written in the same interesting style. When the Egyptian Chief of Police unlocked his book to decode the message, he was humming a little tune that he had heard the band playing outside Shepheard’s Hotel. Long before he had finished decoding the message, his humming stopped.
Ten minutes later the wires were humming, and a battalion of infantry was hastily entrained from Khartoum.
Having despatched the wire, T.B. turned to the young man, who was sitting solemnly regarding a small gossamer handkerchief and a crushed rosebud that lay on the table.
“Well?” demanded T.B. Smith, leaning over the table, “what do you make of ‘em?”
“They are not Sir George’s,” replied Van Ingen, with a grin.
“So much I gather,” said T.B.”
“A client’s?”
“A very depressed and agitated client — feel.”
T.B.’s fingers touched the little handkerchief; it was still quite damp. He nodded.
“The rosebud?”
“Did you notice our austere banker’s buttonhole?”
“Not particularly — but I remember no flowers.”
“No,” agreed Van Ingen, “there were no flowers. I noticed particularly that his buttonhole was sewn, and yet—”
“And yet?”
“Hidden in one of those drawers was a bunch of these roses. I saw them when he was getting your balance-sheet.”
“H’m!” T.B. tapped the table impatiently.
“So, you see,” Van Ingen went on, “we have an interest in this lady client of his, who comes after office hours, weeps copiously, and leaves a bunch of rosebuds as a souvenir of her visit. It may have been a client, of course.”
“And the roses may have been security for an overdraft,” said the ironic T.B. “What do you make of the handkerchief?”
It was an exquisite little thing of the most delicate cambric. Along one hem, in letters minutely embroidered in flowing script, there ran a line of writing. T.B. took up a magnifying glass and read it.
“‘Que dieu te garde,’” he read, “and a little monogram — a gift of some sort, I gather. As far as I can see, the lettering is ‘ N.H.C.’ — and what that means, Heaven knows! I’m afraid that, beyond intruding to an unjustifiable extent into the private affairs of our banker, we get no further. Well, Jones?”
With a knock at the door, an officer had entered.
“Sir George has returned to his house. We have just received a telephone message from one of our men.”
“What has he been doing tonight — Sir George?”
“He dined at home; went to his club and returned; he does not go out again.” T.B. nodded.
“Watch the house and report,” he said. The man saluted and left.
T.B. turned again to the contemplation of the handkerchief.
“If I were one of those funny detectives, Mr. Van Ingen, who live in books,” he said sadly, “I could weave quite an interesting theory from this.” He held the handkerchief to his nose and smelt it.
“The scent is ‘Simpatico,’ therefore the owner must have lived in Spain; the workmanship is Parisian, therefore—” He threw the flimsy thing from him with a laugh. “This takes us no nearer to the Wady Barrage, my friend — no nearer to the mysterious millionaires who ‘bear’ the shares of worthy brewers. Let us go out into the open, and ask Heaven to drop a clue at our feet.” The two men turned their steps towards Whitehall, and were halfway to Trafalgar Square when a panting constable overtook them.
“There is a message from the man watching Sir George Calliper’s house, sir,” he said; “ — he wants you to go there at once.”
“What is wrong?” asked T.B. quickly.
“A drunken man, sir, so far as I could understand.”
“A what?”
T.B.’s eyebrows rose, and he smiled incredulously.
“A drunken man,” repeated the man; “he’s made two attempts to see Sir George—”
“Hail that cab,” said T.B. “We’ll drive round and see this extraordinary person.”
A drunken man is not usually a problem so difficult that it is necessary to requisition the services of an Assistant-Commissioner. This much T.B. pointed out to the detective who awaited him at the corner of St. James’s Square.
“But this man is different,” said the officer; “he’s well dressed; he has plenty of money — he gave the cab-driver a sovereign — and he talks.”
“Nothing remarkable in that, dear lad,” said T.B. reproachfully; “we all talk.”
“But he talks business, sir,” persisted the officer; “boasts that he’s got Bronte’s bank in his pocket.”
“The devil he does!” T.B.’s eyebrows had a trick of rising. “Did he say anything else?”
“The second time he came,” said the detective, “the butler pushed him down the steps, and that seemed to annoy him — he talked pretty freely then, called Sir George all the names he could lay his tongue to,
