Chapter 25

WHEN he got out of the house he looked round for some sign of a watcher. He knew exactly where a police observer was likely to post himself, but there was no sign of detectives, and later, when he passed a uniformed policeman on the corner of the street, and gave him a casual good night, the man, recognising him, made no reference, which he certainly would have done, to surveillance.

Peter's car had been taken to a public garage, and on showing his card he was instantly led to the machine, which stood in the centre of the courtyard and was then in the process of being washed. With the aid of a hand-lamp he made a complete search of the interior, a process facilitated by the fact that the cleaners had already gone through and dusted the upholstery. He was the chief of the cleaning gang.

"No, sir, there was nothing inside except a couple of cigarette ends."

"Eh?" Bourke turned on him sharply. "I suppose they couldn't be recovered?"

The man nodded.

"Yes; they're in the vacuum bag."

The bag was unhooked and emptied. One of the cigarette ends had become unravelled in the process of vacuum cleaning, but the other was intact. The cigarette had been smoked half-way down. Through a holder, decided Bourke. He wrapped the cigarette in paper and put it carefully in his pocket.

Amidst the grey dust which had been emitted from the vacuum he saw a little speck of white, and, brushing the debris away gently with his forefinger, he saw a tiny white pellet.

"What other cars have been cleaned with this vacuum?"

"That's the first, sir," the foreman was in haste to tell him. "All the dust you see on that sheet came out of this car. We always use a fresh bag for every car, and the dust is examined in case anything has been lost. We've often found loose pearls that way, and once we had a diamond ring that a lady dropped."

Bourke opened the package containing the cigarette and added the pellet.

"Nothing else found?"

The gang master said no, but one of his hands rather sheepishly admitted that he had found three cigarettes on the seat, and excused his tiny larceny by their apparent worthlessness. He had them in his pocket. Bourke took them in his hand and examined them; they were, as he had expected, the same brand as those that were packed in the silver box. These he put in his cigar case, and, there being nothing else to learn of the car, he went to the unusual expense of a taxicab and drove back to Scotland Yard. Here he sought the chief of a certain department and handed over to him the silver cigarette case.

"There are half a dozen finger-prints on this," he said. "I want them brought up and the photographs to be on my desk at twelve to-morrow. One copy is to go to the Records Department for identification and report."

He took out the half-smoked cigarette, found a little test tube in a cupboard of his room, and dropped it in, corking the top.

"That is for chemical analysis."

He had separated the pellet from the cigarette, and this he placed in another sheet of paper.

"I want a chemical examination of this. I rather think it is hyoscin."

These discoveries from the car were beyond his expectations. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would make such a haul, and it was a very jubilant Bourke who knocked at the door of 903, Harley Street.

The footman was not inclined to admit him.

"The doctor has gone to bed, sir," he said, "and Mrs. Cheyne Wells is abroad."

"Tell Dr. Wells that Superintendent Bourke wishes to see him."

He was left alone in the hall while the footman went upstairs. When he came down again Donald Wells followed him, and, except that he wore a flowered silk dressing-gown he was fully dressed.

"I was just going to bed, Bourke. Did you want to see me particularly? I've rather a headache to-night."

"Everybody will have a headache in the morning unless I'm greatly mistaken," said Bourke cheerfully. "I mean everybody except me. Poor old Peter Clifton and Mrs. Clifton and Moses Rouper---possibly you, doctor."

Cheyne Wells opened the door and ushered his visitor into his study, switching on the light as he did so. He walked to a little table, touched a spring, and the top opened, revealing a well-stocked cellarette.

"What will you drink?"

"Water," said Bourke tersely. "I'm like the native in Kipling's poem---when it comes to slaughter I do my job on water."

Wells laughed, pouring a little whisky into a tumbler and filling it from a hissing siphon.

"Whom are you slaughtering to-night?"

"That's what I want to know. I'm not quite sure of his identity, but it's only a matter of days before I put him just where the dogs can't bite him. I had a talk with Sowlby on the phone---the solicitors who are acting in this Longford Manor case."

He proceeded, rather tediously Donald thought, to set forth, a rather uninteresting conversation. Then suddenly Bourke said:

"I suppose you know the old lawyer has been murdered---shot dead in his study at ten o'clock to-night?"

On Cheyne Wells's face was an expression of horror.

"Radlow---murdered? Good God!"

"Did I say Radlow?"

Bourke's voice was hard as steel.

For a moment Donald Wells was incapable of answer.

"Did I say Radlow?" asked Bourke again. "I was talking about Sowlby, wasn't I? He's a lawyer, he's an old man: why should you think I had suddenly switched to Radlow? You don't know him, anyway."

Donald Wells recovered himself.

"I knew him---Peter's lawyer, wasn't he? Peter had been talking about him for days, as a matter of fact. I wondered what had become of the old man: I haven't seen him for years---that's queer that I should think you were talking about Radlow, but I'm almost psychic."

Bourke did not answer him; his steely eyes were fixed upon the doctor's. When he did speak it was slowly and impressively.

"Radlow was shot dead in his study to-night by an unknown man, who, however, was seen by a neighbour---the man who lives next door went out in the garden to collect his dog, and saw the murderer leaving the room after the shooting."

His voice was steady, almost monotonous; he gave no pause or excuse for interruption.

"That often happens in murder cases, doctor---the most unlikely weakness pops in. Who'd suppose, on a wet, wretched night like that, a respectable citizen of Sydenham would be poking round his garden looking for a pup? And he saw the man, was able to describe him to me, and I've come to arrest----"

The man before him was stiff with terror.

"----any idle rumour that might be floating round that Peter Clifton was at Sydenham."

Only then, by sheer will power, did Donald Wells drop his eyes. The tumbler he lifted to his lips was shaking, but in his quick-witted way he found an excuse for his agitation.

"Radlow---good God!" he murmured as he drained the glass at a gulp. "Terrible business, eh?"

"Where did you leave Peter?"

"I left him---at Longford Manor," said Wells. "He was coming on after: he said he had an engagement. He was seeing somebody in town. I have an idea that he was seeing Radlow."

Bourke pursed his lips thoughtfully.

"That was his idea. I happened to be outside his flat in Carlton House Terrace about ten minutes to ten when he came home. Never saw a man look sicker than poor old Peter Clifton. You've got it right, doctor---he was going down to see Radlow, but I persuaded him to go to bed. I went down and saw Radlow---alone. When I say 'alone,'" he added carefully, "I mean I took Mrs. Clifton with me, but she got so worried about Peter looking so sick that she went back home in a taxi. I found Radlow half an hour after he'd been killed, and I couldn't help feeling how terribly awkward it would have been for Peter if he'd been seen around Radlow's house somewhere in the region of ten o'clock."

Cheyne Wells did not answer; his eyes were still examining the carpet. Presently he raised them.

"Who do you think killed Radlow?" he asked quietly.

"That's going to be easy to discover, as soon as we find the pistol. They're going to make a search of the grounds to-morrow. Not that they'll find anything. First-class murderers do not leave their weapons behind, except in story-books---or unless they want to plant the murder on to somebody else. I've known that to be done once or twice. And odd cigarette boxes to make sure that even pudden-headed policemen like me shouldn't have any doubt that the murderer was Peter."

Now that he had Donald Wells's eyes, he held them. Donald did not flinch.

"It sounds more like a detective story than Scotland Yard," he said with a smile. "Now what do you want me to do for you, Bourke?"

"You're a doctor." Bourke looked up at the ceiling reflectively. "And I'd like to get from you a good antidote to hyoscin and morphine. Administered subcutaneously—that's a lovely word!"

The eyes seemed to fall with a click and transfixed Donald, but not a muscle of the doctor's face moved.

"That sounds remarkably like what ignorant people call 'twilight sleep'" he said.

Bourke nodded.

"I'm an ignorant man and that's what I call it too," he said.

Donald shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know what antidote you want. No injurious effects follow if it is properly administered----"

"By a duly qualified medical man," murmured Bourke "The rum thing is, I have found the hyoscin but missed the morphine---a tiny little pellet. It must have been in the bottom of the car, but the vacuum cleaner fished it out. I've asked them to look for a little brown pellet about the same size, but I don't suppose they'll be successful. Duly qualified medical men are not quite so careless as to drop two pellets!"