was too much for him— “and very wisely, very wisely.” He shook his head with drunken gravity. “As a man of the world,” he went on, “you bein’ one an’ me bein’ another, it only remains to fix a meeting between self an’ client — your client — an’ I can give him a few tips.”
“That,” said T.B., “is precisely my desire.” He had ever the happy knack of dealing satisfactorily with drunken men. “Now let us review the position.”
“First of all,” said Mr. Moss firmly, “who are these people?” He indicated Elk and the detective. “If they’re friends of yours, ole feller, say the word,” and his gesture was generous, “friends of yours? Right!” Once more he became the man of affairs.
“Let us get to the bottom of the matter,” said T.B. “Firstly, you wish to see Sir George Calliper?”
The young man, leaning against some happily-placed railings, nodded several times.
“Although,” T.B. went on, shaking his head reprovingly, “you are not exactly—”
“A bottle of fizz — a couple, nothing to cloud the mind,” said the young man airily. “I’ve never been drunk in me life.”
“It seems to me that I have heard that remark before,” said T.B., “but that’s beside the matter; you were talking about a man called Hyatt who bowled Silinski.”
The young man pulled himself erect.
“In a sense I was,” he said with dignity, “in a sense I wasn’t; and now I must be toddling.”
T.B. saw the sudden suspicion that came t him. “What do you know about the barrage?” he asked abruptly.
The man started back, sobered.
“Nothing,” he said harshly. “I know nothing. I know you, though, Mr. Bloomin’ Smith, and you ain’t goin’ to pump me. Here, I’m going.”
He pushed T.B. aside. Elk would have stopped him but for a look from his chief.
“Let him go,” he said. “I have a feeling that—”
The young man was crossing St. James’s Street, and disappeared for a moment in the gloom between the street lamps. T.B. waited a time for him to reappear, but he did not come into sight.
“That’s rum,” murmured Elk, “he couldn’t have gone into Sir George’s; his house is on the other side of the street — hello, there he is!”
A man appeared momentarily in the rays of the lamp they were watching, and walked rapidly away.
“That isn’t him,” said T.B., puzzled, “he’s too tall; it must be somebody from one of the houses. Let us stroll along and see what has become of Mr. Moss.”
The little party crossed the street. The thoroughfare was deserted now, save for the disappearing figure of the tall gentleman.
The black patch where Moss had disappeared was the entrance of the mews.
“He must have mistaken this for a thoroughfare,” said T.B. “We’ll probably find him asleep in a corner somewhere.” He took a little electric lamp from his pocket and shot a white beam into the darkness.
“I don’t see him anywhere,” he said, and walked into the mews.
“There he is!” said Elk suddenly.
The man was lying flat on his back, his eyes wide open, one arm moving feebly.
“Drunk!” said T.B., and leaned over him. Then he saw the blood and the wound in the man’s throat.
“Murder! by the Lord!” he cried.
He was not dead, but even as the sound of Elk’s running feet grew fainter, T.B. knew that this was a case beyond the power of the divisional surgeon. The man tried to speak, and the detective bent his head to listen. “Can’t tell you all,” the poor wreck whispered, “get Hyatt or the man on the Eiffel Tower — they know. His sister’s got the book — Hyatt’s sister — down in Falmouth — you’ll find N.H.C. I don’t know who they are, but you’ll find them.” He muttered a little incoherently, and T.B. strained his ears, but heard nothing. “N.H.C,” he repeated under his breath, and remembered the handkerchief.
The man on the ground spoke again— “The Admiralty — they could fix it for you.”
Then he died.
IX. Hyatt
“Get Hyatt or the man on the Eiffel Tower!”
It sounded like the raving of a dying man, and T.B. shook his head as he walked back to his chambers in the early hours of the morning.
“Hyatt — the man on the Eiffel Tower — the Wady Barrage — the mysterious bears — what connection was there one with another”
“I want a private room,” he informed the proprietor, who came to meet him, with a bow.
“I’m ver’ sorry, Mr. Smith, but I have not—”
“But you have three,” said T.B. indignantly.
“I offer a thousand regrets,” said the distressed restaurateur; “they are engaged. If you had only—”
“But, name of dog! name of a sacred pipe!” expostulated T.B. unscrupulously. Was it not possible to pretend that there had been a mistake; that one room had already been engaged?
“Impossible, m’sieur! In No. 1 we have no less a person than the Premier of SouthWest Australia, who is being dined by his fellow-colonists; in No. 2 a family party of Lord Redlands; in No. 3 — ah! in No. 3—”
“Ah, in No. 3!” repeated T.B. cunningly, and the proprietor dropped his voice to a whisper.
“La Belle Espagna!” he murmured. He named the great Spanish dancer with relish. “She, and her fiance’s friend, eh?”
“Her fiancé’s?” I didn’t know—”
“It is a secret “ he looked round as if he were fearful of eavesdroppers, “but it is said that La Belle Espagna is to be married to a rich admirer.”
“Name?” asked T.B. carelessly.
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders.
“I do not inquire the name of my patrons,” he said, “but I understand that it is to be the young Lord Carleby.”
The name told T.B. nothing.
“Well,” he said easily, “I will take a table in the restaurant. I do not wish to interrupt a tête-à-tête.”
“Oh, it is not Carleby tonight,”
