Sir Julian Freke, after giving his evidence, had caught the eye of the Duchess, and now came over and greeted her.
"I haven't seen you for an age," said that lady. "How are you?"
"Hard at work," said the specialist. "Just got my new book out. This kind of thing wastes time. Have you seen Lady Levy yet?"
"No, poor dear," said the Duchess. "I only came up this morning, for this. Mrs. Thipps is staying with me–one of Peter's eccentricities, you know. Poor Christine! I must run round and see her. This is Mr. Parker," she added, "who is investigating that case."
"Oh," said Sir Julian, and paused. "Do you know," he said in a low voice to Parker, "I am very glad to meet you. Have you seen Lady Levy yet?"
"I saw her this morning."
"Did she ask you to go on with the inquiry?"
"Yes," said Parker; "she thinks," he added, "that Sir Reuben may be detained in the hands of some financial rival or that perhaps some scoundrels are holding him to ransom."
"And is that your opinion?" asked Sir Julian.
"I think it very likely," said Parker, frankly.
Sir Julian hesitated again.
"I wish you would walk back with me when this is over," he said.
"I should be delighted," said Parker.
At this moment the jury returned and took their places, and there was a little rustle and hush. The Coroner addressed the foreman and enquired if they were agreed upon their verdict.
"We are agreed, Mr. Coroner, that deceased died of the effects of a blow upon the spine, but how that injury was inflicted we consider that there is not sufficient evidence to show."
Mr. Parker and Sir Julian Freke walked up the road together.
"I had absolutely no idea until I saw Lady Levy this morning," said the doctor, "that there was any idea of connecting this matter with the disappearance of Sir Reuben. The suggestion was perfectly monstrous, and could only have grown up in the mind of that ridiculous police officer. If I had had any idea what was in his mind I could have disabused him and avoided all this."
"I did my best to do so," said Parker, "as soon as I was called in to the Levy case–"
"Who called you in, if I may ask?" enquired Sir Julian.
"Well, the household first of all, and then Sir Reuben's uncle, Mr. Levy of Portman Square, wrote to me to go on with the investigation."
"And now Lady Levy has confirmed those instructions?"
"Certainly," said Parker in some surprise.
Sir Julian was silent for a little time.
"I'm afraid I was the first person to put the idea into Sugg's head," said Parker, rather penitently. "When Sir Reuben disappeared, my first step, almost, was to hunt up all the street accidents and suicides and so on that had turned up during the day, and I went down to see this Battersea Park body as a matter of routine. Of course, I saw that the thing was ridiculous as soon as I got there, but Sugg froze on to the idea–and it's true there was a good deal of resemblance between the dead man and the portraits I've seen of Sir Reuben."
"A strong superficial likeness," said Sir Julian. "The upper part of the face is a not uncommon type, and as Sir Reuben wore a heavy beard and there was no opportunity of comparing the mouths and chins, I can understand the idea occurring to anybody. But only to be dismissed at once. I am sorry," he added, "as the whole matter has been painful to Lady Levy. You may know, Mr. Parker, that I am an old, though I should not call myself an intimate, friend of the Levys."
"I understood something of the sort."
"Yes. When I was a young man I–in short, Mr. Parker, I hoped once to marry Lady Levy." (Mr. Parker gave the usual sympathetic groan.) "I have never married, as you know," pursued Sir Julian. "We have remained good friends. I have always done what I could to spare her pain."
"Believe me, Sir Julian," said Parker, "that I sympathize very much with you and with Lady Levy, and that I did all I could to disabuse Inspector Sugg of this notion. Unhappily, the coincidence of Sir Reuben's being seen that evening in the Battersea Park Road–"
"Ah, yes," said Sir Julian. "Dear me, here we are at home. Perhaps you would come in for a moment, Mr. Parker, and have tea or a whisky-and-soda or something."
Parker promptly accepted this invitation, feeling that there were other things to be said.
The two men stepped into a square, finely furnished hall with a fireplace on the same side as the door, and a staircase opposite. The dining-room door stood open on their right, and as Sir Julian rang the bell a man-servant appeared at the far end of the hall.
"What will you take?" asked the doctor.
"After that dreadfully cold place," said Parker, "what I really want is gallons of hot tea, if you, as a nerve specialist, can bear the thought of it.''
"Provided you allow of a judicious blend of China with it," replied Sir Julian in the same tone, "I have no objection to make. Tea in the library at once," he added to the servant, and led the way upstairs.
"I don't use the downstairs rooms much, except the dining-room," he explained, as he ushered his guest into a small but cheerful library on the first floor. "This room leads out of my bedroom and is more convenient. I only live part of my time here, but it's very handy for my research work at the hospital. That's what I do there, mostly. It's a fatal thing for a theorist, Mr. Parker, to let the practical work get behindhand. Dissection is the basis of all good theory and all correct diagnosis. One must keep one's hand and eye in training. This place is far more important to me than Harley Street, and some day I shall abandon my consulting practice altogether and settle down here to cut up my subjects and write my books in peace. So many things in this life are a waste of time, Mr. Parker."
Mr. Parker assented to this.
"Very often," said Sir Julian, "the only time I get for any research work–necessitating as it does the keenest observation and the faculties at their acutest–has to be at night, after a long day's work and by artificial light, which, magnificent as the lighting of the dissecting room here is, is always more trying to the eyes than daylight. Doubtless your own work has to be carried on under even more trying conditions."
"Yes, sometimes," said Parker; "but then you see," he added, "the conditions are, so to speak, part of the work."
"Quite so, quite so," said Sir Julian; "you mean that the burglar, for example, does not demonstrate his methods in the light of day, or plant the perfect footmark in the middle of a damp patch of sand for you to analyze."
"Not as a rule," said the detective, "but I have no doubt many of your diseases work quite as insidiously as any burglar."
"They do, they do," said Sir Julian, laughing, "and it is my pride, as it is yours, to track them down for the good of society. The neuroses, you know, are particularly clever criminals–they break out into as many disguises as–"
"As Leon Kestrel, the Master-Mummer," suggested Parker, who read railway-stall detective stories on the principle of the 'busman's holiday.
"No doubt," said Sir Julian, who did not, "and they cover up their tracks wonderfully. But when you can really investigate, Mr. Parker, and break up the dead, or for preference the living body with the scalpel, you always find the footmarks–the little trail of ruin or disorder left by madness or disease or drink or any other similar pest. But the difficulty is to trace them back, merely by observing the surface symptoms–the hysteria, crime, religion, fear, shyness, conscience, or whatever it may be; just as you observe a theft or a murder and look for the footsteps of the criminal, so I observe a fit of hysterics or an outburst of piety and hunt for the little mechanical irritation which has produced it."
"You regard all these things as physical?"
"Undoubtedly. I am not ignorant of the rise of another school of thought, Mr. Parker, but its exponents are mostly charlatans or self-deceivers. 'Sie haben sich so weit darin eingeheimnisst' that, like Sludge the Medium, they are beginning to believe their own nonsense. I should like to have the exploring of some of their brains, Mr. Parker; I would show you the little faults a
nd landslips in the cells–the misfiring and short-circuiting of the nerves, which produce these notions and these books. At least," he added, gazing sombrely at his guest, "at least, if I could not quite show you to-day, I shall be able to do so to-morrow–or in a year's time–or before I die."
He sat for some minutes gazing into the fire, while the red light played upon his tawny beard and struck out answering gleams from his compelling eyes.
Parker drank tea in silence, watching him. On the whole, however, he remained but little interested in the causes of nervous phenomena, and his mind strayed to Lord Peter, coping with the redoubtable Crimplesham down in Salisbury. Lord Peter had wanted him to come: that meant, either that Crimplesham was proving recalcitrant or that a clue wanted following. But Bunter had said that to-morrow would do, and it was just as well. After all the Battersea affair was not Parker's case; he had already wasted valuable time attending an inconclusive inquest, and he really ought to get on with his legitimate work. There was still Levy's secretary to see and the little matter of the Peruvian Oil to be looked into. He looked at his watch.
"I am very much afraid–if you will excuse me–" he murmured.
Sir Julian came back with a start to the consideration of actuality.
"Your work calls you?" he said smiling. "Well, I can understand that. I won't keep you. But I wanted to say something to you in connection with your present inquiry–only I hardly know–I hardly like–"
Parker sat down again, and banished every indication of hurry from his face and attitude.
"I shall be very grateful for any help you can give me," he said.
"I'm afraid it's more in the nature of hindrance," said Sir Julian, with a short laugh. "It's a case of destroying a clue for you, and a breach of professional confidence on my side. But since–accidentally–a certain amount has come out, perhaps the whole had better do so."
Mr. Parker made the encouraging noise which, among laymen, supplies the place of the priest's insinuating, "Yes, my son?"
"Sir Reuben Levy's visit on Monday night was to me," said Sir Julian.
"Yes?" said Mr. Parker, without expression.
"He found cause for certain grave suspicions concerning his health," said Sir Julian, slowly, as though weighing how much he could in honour disclose to a stranger. "He came to me, in preference to his own medical man, as he was particularly anxious that the matter should be kept from his wife. As I told you, he knew me fairly well, and Lady Levy had consulted me about a nervous disorder in the summer."
"Did he make an appointment with you?" asked Parker.
"I beg your pardon," said the other, absently.
"Did he make an appointment?"
"An appointment? Oh, no! He turned up suddenly in the evening after dinner when I wasn't expecting him. I took him up here and examined him, and he left me somewhere about ten o'clock, I should think."
"May I ask what was the result of your examination?"
"Why do you want to know?"
"It might illuminate–well, conjecture as to his subsequent conduct," said Parker, cautiously. This story seemed to have little coherence with the rest of the business, and he wondered whether coincidence was alone responsible for Sir Reuben's disappearance on the same night that he visited the doctor.
"I see," said Sir Julian. "Yes. Well, I will tell you in confidence that I saw grave grounds of suspicion, but as yet, no absolute certainty of mischief."
"Thank you. Sir Reuben left you at ten o'clock?"
"Then or thereabouts. I did not at first mention the matter as it was so very much Sir Reuben's wish to keep his visit to me secret, and there was no question of accident in the street or anything of that kind, since he reached home safely at midnight."
"Quite so," said Parker.
"It would have been, and is, a breach of confidence," said Sir Julian, "and I only tell you now because Sir Reuben was accidentally seen, and because I would rather tell you in private than have you ferreting round here and questioning my servants, Mr. Parker. You will excuse my frankness."
"Certainly," said Parker. "I hold no brief for the pleasantness of my profession, Sir Julian. I am very much obliged to you for telling me this. I might otherwise have wasted valuable time following up a false trail."
"I am sure I need not ask you, in your turn, to respect this confidence," said the doctor. "To publish the matter abroad could only harm Sir Reuben and pain his wife, besides placing me in no favourable light with my patients."
"I promise to keep the thing to myself," said Parker, "except of course," he added hastily, "that I must inform my colleague."
"You have a colleague in the case?"
"I have."
"What sort of person is he?"
"He will be perfectly discreet, Sir Julian."
"Is he a police officer?"
"You need not be afraid of your confidence getting into the records at Scotland Yard."
"I see that you know how to be discreet, Mr. Parker."
"We also have our professional etiquette, Sir Julian."
On returning to Great Ormond Street, Mr. Parker found a wire awaiting him, which said: "Do not trouble to come. All well. Returning to-morrow. Wimsey."
VII
On returning to the flat just before lunch-time on the following morning, after a few confirmatory researches in Balham and the neighbourhood of Victoria Station, Lord Peter was greeted at the door by Mr. Bunter (who had gone straight home from Waterloo) with a telephone message and a severe and nursemaid-like eye.
"Lady Swaffham rang up, my lord, and said she hoped your lordship had not forgotten you were lunching with her."
"I have forgotten, Bunter, and I mean to forget. I trust you told her I had succumbed to lethargic encephalitis suddenly, no flowers by request."
"Lady Swaffham said, my lord, she was counting on you. She met the Duchess of Denver yesterday–"
"If my sister-in-law's there I won't go, that's flat," said Lord Peter.
"I beg your pardon, my lord, the elder Duchess."
"What's she doing in town?"
"I imagine she came up for the inquest, my lord."
"Oh, yes–we missed that, Bunter."
"Yes, my lord. Her Grace is lunching with Lady Swaffham."
"Bunter, I can't. I can't, really. Say I'm in bed with whooping cough, and ask my mother to come round after lunch."
"Very well, my lord. Mrs. Tommy Frayle will be at Lady Swaffham's, my lord, and Mr. Milligan–"
"Mr. Who?"
"Mr. John P. Milligan, my lord, and–"
"Good God, Bunter, why didn't you say so before? Have I time to get there before he does? All right. I'm off. With a taxi I can just–"
"Not in those trousers, my lord," said Mr. Bunter, blocking the way to the door with deferential firmness.
"Oh, Bunter," pleaded his lordship, "do let me–just this once. You don't know how important it is."
"Not on any account, my lord. It would be as much as my place is worth."
"The trousers are all right, Bunter."
"Not for Lady Swaffham's, my lord. Besides, your lordship forgets the man that ran against you with a milk can at Salisbury."
And Mr. Bunter laid an accusing finger on a slight stain of grease showing across the light cloth.
"I wish to God I'd never let you grow into a privileged family retainer, Bunter," said Lord Peter, bitterly, dashing his walking-stick into the umbrella-stand. "You've no conception of the mistakes my mother may be making."
Mr. Bunter smiled grimly and led his victim away.
When an immaculate Lord Peter was ushered, rather late for lunch, into Lady Swaffham's drawing-room, the Dowager Duchess of Denver was seated on a sofa, plunged in intimate conversation with Mr. John P. Milligan of Chicago.
"I'm vurry pleased to meet you, Duchess," had been that financier's opening remark, "to thank you for your exceedingly kind invitation. I assure you it's a compliment I deeply appreciate."
The Duchess beamed at him, while c
onducting a rapid rally of all her intellectual forces.
"Do come and sit down and talk to me, Mr. Milligan," she said. "I do so love talking to you great business men–let me see, is it a railway king you are or something about puss-in-the-corner–at least, I don't mean that exactly, but that game one used to play with cards, all about wheat and oats, and there was a bull and a bear, too–or was it a horse?–no, a bear, because I remember one always had to try and get rid of it and it used to get so dreadfully crumpled and torn, poor thing, always being handed about, one got to recognize it, and then one had to buy a new pack–so foolish it must seem to you, knowing the real thing, and dreadfully noisy, but really excellent for breaking the ice with rather stiff people who didn't know each other–I'm quite sorry it's gone out."