Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926
- Автор: Bailey H. C., Bechdolt Jack
- Год: 1926
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Red Star News Company
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 18, No. 3, September 18, 1926». Краткое содержание книги:
“Mrs. Brase was very short with her. Said he had gone to London on business. Brase has a brother somewhere near, ex-army man, little place of his own, breeds Pekingese, that sort of fellow. The rector’s wife set him on to call. Mrs. Brase was very short with him, too.
“Told him Julian had gone off for a holiday and left no address. The brother thought it over for a day or two and then came to the county police and said it was queer. The rector’s wife seems to have stirred him up. The chief constable didn’t think much of it, but he put some men on and they found out that nobody had seen Julian go away.
“You know what a country station is. The local magnate gets noticed. Julian wasn’t. And the Brase chauffeur swore he didn’t go in one of his own cars. Then the chief constable began to sit up and take notice. He asked me what to do about it. I said, have the lady seen by an inspector and shaken up. So an inspector called, and Mrs. Brase told him her husband had gone to the devil and turned him out. The inspector thought her peevish.”
“Not one of our good liars,” said Mr. Fortune sadly. “He was ill. He had gone to London. He had gone on a holiday. He had gone to the devil.”
“Quite feminine,” Lomas smiled. “Quite conjugal. They’ve had a row and the lady didn’t want it known.”
“Yes. Yes. Does it seem to you that explains anything? When was the missing husband missed?”
“My dear fellow!” Lomas looked at him with sympathy. “I told you, you know. A week ago. When they were due to dine at the rectory and Mrs. Brase said he was ill.”
“I know you told me,” said Mr. Fortune, a little petulant, a little shrill. “I mean when was he last seen? Who saw him?”
“Oh, I haven’t gone into it,” Lomas waved it away. “It’s no matter.”
Mr. Fortune sat up. “He’s reported missing when he has an outside engagement. He’s said to be gone and no one saw him go. But it’s no matter.”
“My dear fellow! He had legs when last heard of. He could have walked to Kingford or Highbury — say, four miles and both busy stations. He might have picked up a car on the road. We know nothing about it.”
“That’s what I’m pointing out, Lomas.”
“Yes, I see. Quite. But, my dear Reginald, why so earnest? We’re not taking it up, you know. I only told you to amuse you. You mustn’t let it bother your head.”
“Don’t soothe me,” Mr. Fortune cried. “I’m not an invalid.”
“Of course not,” Lomis smiled at him with paternal affection. “In the pink. Extremely pink, to be frank. Well, when we have anything you shall hear all about it. I must really be going, you know.”
Of which he had no intention, but as he did intend he made Reggie Fortune’s hospitable conscience smart and he was persuaded to dine and sleep and was promised one of Elise’s supremes and some Montrachet of nobility.
II
The dinner was all that Mr. Fortune’s fancy painted, but afterward as they sat on either side a fire of old apple wood Lomas was called to the telephone. He came back humming a love song of musical comedy. Mr. Fortune looked at him reproachfully. “You said I should hear when you had anything, Lomas,” he complained.
“Confound you,” Lomas frowned — and laughed. “Well, it is something. Mrs. Brase has bolted.”
“Well, well,” said Reggie Fortune.
“She went off by the London train today. When the police heard of it she was clear away. No trace the London end. They went up to Brase Hall. She had told the servants she was never coming back. That’s all.”
“And very interestin’, too,” Reggie murmured and reached for a cigar.
“No,” said Lomas with decision. “You’ve had quite enough. Go to bed and sleep, Reginald. It isn’t your case.”
“Oh, I shall sleep all right,” said Mr. Fortune. “You really are soothing, you know.”
Though Lomas has an European fame for late rising, Reggie Fortune was later next morning. He appeared dreamy and benign, as Lomas drew to the end of breakfast, praised the beauties of nature, and gave a lecture on sausages with an excursus on the right kind of marmalade to eat after them.
It was at this point that the telephone asked for Lomas again.
When he was done with it he found Reggie extended peaceful with a large cigar. “May I ring for my car?” he said, and did so.
“Are you taking up the case, Lomas?” Reggie smiled.
An official solemnity rebuked him. “Julian Brase has been found,” Lomas announced. “This morning his body was found in his own park. The county police have asked for our assistance. Of course this alters the whole case.”
“Dear Lomas,” Reggie chuckled. “Has he been moved?”
“I told them to touch nothing. I am going over at once. I’ve telephoned for Bell.”
“Me, too,” said Reggie Fortune, and rolled out of his chair.
The car bore them away by the road at the foot of the downs.
“I feel rather criminal, Reginald,” Lomas apologized. “I wish I hadn’t mentioned the case to you.”
“I wouldn’t be out of it for the world.”
“You’re really not yourself, you know. It’s not like you to be so keen.”
“It’s not like your usual cases, Lomas.”
“Isn’t it?” said Lomas gloomily.
“Well, look at it. He was missing a week ago. His wife bolted yesterday. He was found this morning. Not quite normal crime, Lomas, old thing. Very odd sequence.”
“We don’t know that it is a crime.”
“No. No. Slight flavor of the late Dr. Crippen upside down. But nothing definite. No base imitation.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I wonder,” Reggie murmured. “I wonder.”
“You thought there was something queer last night.”
Reggie chuckled. “Aha! The mysterious, sinister figure of the rector’s wife.”
Lomas, with some heat, declined to know what he meant.
Where the downs break into a cluster of hills, Brase Hall stands gray in a hollow and takes the valley and one sheltering hill for its park. The car turned in at a gate guarded by two stone bears of the Brase arms and one policeman.
The latter stopped them, saluted Lomas’s name, said the inspector was waiting for them and they must turn off the drive and take the track up the hill and they could not miss him. “Very efficient, Reginald,” Lomas smiled. But Reggie only grunted in reply.
The lower slopes of the park bore mighty trees of beech and ash, but when they turned and climbed the track led over bare turf. On the wind-swept breast of the hill nothing moved, the turf bore no marks, but that of the old gray track by which they climbed and another coming to meet it on a long slant from the blue smoke where a village nestled.
They came in sight of the circle of stunted beech that marked the summit. There stood two cars and some men.
One of them hurried forward. “Mr. Lomas, sir? I’m Inspector Warnham,” he was bullnecked and brisk. “Only waiting for you to move him.”
“Quite right. This is Mr. Fortune, inspector, our medical expert.”
“I’ve got a doctor here, sir. He says it’s quite a clear case. Man was shot in the head.”
“Sounds conclusive,” Reggie murmured.
The inspector nodded. “Yes, sir. Pretty clear. You’d like to speak to Dr. Harcourt? Here we are.”
Dr. Harcourt, a voluble fellow, could tell Mr. Fortune all about it in a sentence and took twenty, but they came to the body at last.
Julian Brase lay on his face in the ring of beech trees, a slight body in brown tweed on the brown leaves. He might have been asleep but for his stiffness, but for the dark stain which came from his head down his face and neck. Reggie knelt beside him and looked long, moved his cap and the head bent closer, while above him Dr. Harcourt discoursed, telling him what he should see with growing impatience.