This House to Let

family."

  Davis hung his head in a shame-faced fashion. "I have to admit it, sir.It's no use attempting to deny it, when Carrie gave me away like that."

  "I have no desire to pry into your past, except so far as it helps me inmy present quest. But I expect, in your time, you have associated witha few undesirable characters." Reginald Davis admitted the fact quitefrankly.

  "Now, of course, it is only just a chance. But did you ever come acrossa man named George Burton, and a young woman who passed as his sister?My first knowledge of them is that they ran a gambling-saloon in Paris,she a good-looking girl, acting as decoy. Then he quitted thecard-sharping game and went in for more criminal pursuits."

  "I did know them, sir. If I tell you what I do know, am I lettingmyself in for anything?" queried Mr Davis cautiously. "You see, sincethat awful thing happened, I have turned over a new leaf. Nobody couldtempt me to go the least bit on the crook."

  "Make your mind quite easy, Davis. We have nothing against you. Youknow that, or you would have hardly dared to come to life again."

  "Well, sir, I did know George Burton pretty intimately at one time,after he left Paris. He was in the forgery business and he tried todrag me in, but I was clever enough to keep out of it. They used, inhis own set, to call him `George the Penman.'"

  "Good," said Bryant; "and what did you know about the girl?"

  "Not very much, sir. She passed as his sister, but one or two of hispals believed her to be his wife, although there was no evidence of it."

  "Did you ever learn anything of her origin?"

  "Well, one chap who seemed to know more about them than their otherpals, told me that she was by way of being a lady, the illegitimatedaughter of a man well-known in London Society."

  "Do you know the name of the man?"

  Davis tapped his forehead in the effort of recollection.

  "It's on the tip of my tongue, sir: it will come to me in a moment--aman who was mixed up in a gambling scandal, and had to leave thecountry. Ah, I have got it now, he was known familiarly as TommieEsmond."

  Mr Bryant rose. He had got all he could out of his new acquaintance.The threads in his hand were drawing closer into a web.

  "Well, Mr Davis, good-day. Many thanks for the information you havegiven me, it has been very helpful. I will keep in touch with you."

  "And you think, with me, it was a murder, and not a suicide?" questionedDavis as he left.

  But Bryant was not the man to express a decided opinion until he wasfully justified by the facts. He kept his thoughts to himself till thelast moment.

  He smiled pleasantly. "Time will show. I shall have that body exhumed,as soon as I have made a few further inquiries."

  Davis had to be content with this oracular utterance, and bowed himselfout. He solaced himself by narrating all that had occurred to thewondering Carrie.

  The matter had now become one for the activities of Scotland Yard. Thefirst thing to be done was to ascertain the whereabouts of HughMurchison, that is to say, if he was still in the land of the living.Some time had elapsed since he had communicated with Parkinson. Ofcourse, in itself, there would be nothing strange in that. Parkinsonhad got the information that was required, been paid for it, and withthat payment, their relations had ended.

  Bryant went to the hotel where the Major had stayed, at any rate up tothe time that the detective had last seen him, and interviewed themanager, whom he had known for some years in his professional capacity.This person, a genial and cosmopolitan Italian, readily answered hisquestions.

  Yes, the Major had stayed there for some little time. When he came, heexplained that he was only paying a flying visit to London. Had hebrought a servant with him? No, he had not. A somewhat strangeomission for a man in his position, was it not? The circumstance waseasily explained. The Major had had to dismiss his late valet fortheft, and was not in a hurry, for the present, to suit himself with afresh one. This he had told the manager and he was valeted at thehotel.

  He had left some time. How long? The manager would find out the exactdate. This he did. On the afternoon of the fourth of July. The Majorhad taken his things down to Victoria Station in a cab with the view ofdepositing them there, as he was going to take an evening train toBrighton.

  Bryant brightened up at this information. The discovery of the deadbody at Cathcart Square had taken place early on the morning of thefifth.

  Now arose the question, had the Major got through his business with theSpencers before the fourth of July? In that case Mrs Spencer washardly likely to be still living at Eaton Place with her husband.

  Inquiries at Eaton Place soon established the fact that Mrs Spencer wasstill there. What had happened? Had the Major communicated the resultof his research to the husband, with the result that, infatuated withhis wife, that husband had refused to credit the story and acceptedStella's denials?

  It was a fairly plausible theory. When men are deeply in love, womencan twist them round their little finger. In that case, it was easy tounderstand that, disgusted with the failure of his intervention, theMajor had made up his mind to leave London at once.

  One other thing was to be done, to ascertain if the Major had intimatedto any of his friends his intention of leaving London so abruptly. Forthis purpose, Bryant sought out the brother Roderick, who had rooms inJermyn Street.

  Yes, Roderick had met the Major in Bond Street in the morning, andlearned of the proposed journey to Brighton. The young man added thathis brother was very erratic in his movements, and sometimes woulddisappear for weeks at a stretch without communicating with any of hisfriends or relatives.

  There was now one of two theories that stood out: the first one that GuySpencer had been told, and refused to believe the true facts about hiswife. The second was, that the Major had shirked the unpleasantness ofa personal interview of such a delicate character, and had gone down toBrighton intending to write privately to Spencer from there.

  Further inquiries elicited the fact that the Major had never made thatprojected journey to Brighton. His belongings had never been claimed,they were still lying in the cloak room at Victoria Station.

  There was now no further doubt as to what steps had to be taken. TheMajor had disappeared at a date practically coinciding with thediscovery of the dead body at Cathcart Square, the dead body which hadbeen wrongly identified as that of Reginald Davis, whose likeness to theMajor was so pronounced. Of that fact, Bryant himself was aware.

  The authorities were applied to, and gave permission for the body to beexhumed. As the living Reginald Davis had established his identity tothe satisfaction of Scotland Yard, it was necessary to find out, ifpossible, that of the man who had been mistaken for him.

  The body was exhumed and pronounced by half-a-dozen people, includingGuy Spencer, to be that of the Major.

  It had now become clearly a case of murder, and although those in chargeof the case had little or no doubt as to the guilty persons, it mighthave been very difficult to prove, but for one convincing fact, suppliedby the murdered man himself.

  But this evidence, which was overwhelming, the police kept to themselvesfor some little time, for their own good reasons.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

  The luggage which had been left at Victoria Station on the fatal daywas, of course, seized by the police. They searched it thoroughly inthe hope that they would find something useful to them in the shape ofletters or memoranda.

  Of letters there were only two, brief ones from Iris Deane, in which sheexpressed her determination of sticking out for her ten thousand pounds.As we know, in the end she gave way and accepted seven.

  But they did find one priceless thing, and that was a diary, bound inred leather, a small volume as to the size of the page, but very bulky.It had evidently been the dead man's habit to keep a fairly close recordof his doings, for it was numbered, and contained entries from some datein May 1919 up to July 3rd, the day before he left the hotel, andannounced to the manager that he int
ended to take a late train toBrighton.

  For the twentieth time since he had discovered this important piece ofevidence, Mr Bryant sat in his room at Scotland Yard, reading andre-reading the entries which he knew almost by heart.

  With the entries before the visit to London, Bryant had no concern.They recorded trifling events which had no reference to the tragedy atCathcart Square. There was, of course, allusion to the letter fromRoderick which had so startled his family, the letter announcing hisengagement to the chorus-girl, Iris Deane, and his fixed resolve to makeher his wife. There was a note of a family council, in which the elderbrother was deputed to approach the young woman herself, with the objectof buying her off.

  There were a few records of his first days in London, after a longabsence, his visits to his clubs, his meeting with old pre-waracquaintances, his first interview with Iris Deane, the difficulty ofarranging further interviews either at his hotel or her flat, owing