his chambers and did not reappear again until seven o'clock. He dined alone at a small and unfashionable restaurant in Soho, went on to his box at Covent Garden, where he remained for an hour, also alone, and then went home. He had no callers throughout the day.'
Deliberately Paul Harley had read the report, only removing his hand from his chin to turn over the pages. Now from the cabinet at his elbow he took out his tin of tobacco and, filling and lighting a pipe, lay back, eyes half closed, considering what he had learned respecting Nicol Brinn.
That he was concerned in the death of Sir Charles Abingdon he did not believe for a moment; but that this elusive case, which upon investigation only seemed the more obscure, was nevertheless a case of deliberate murder he was as firmly convinced as ever. Of the identity of the murderer, of his motive, he had not the haziest idea, but that the cloud which he had pictured as overhanging the life of the late Sir Charles was a reality and not a myth of the imagination he became more completely convinced with each new failure to pick up a clue.
He found himself helplessly tied. In which direction should he move and to what end? Inclination prompted him in one direction, common sense held him back. As was his custom, he took a pencil and wrote upon a little block:
Find means to force Brinn to speak.
He lay back in his chair again, deep in thought, and presently added the note:
Obtain interview with Ormuz Khan.
Just as he replaced the pencil on the table, his telephone bell rang. The caller proved to be his friend, Inspector Wessex.
'Hello, Mr. Harley,' said the inspector. 'I had occasion to return to the Yard, and they told me you had rung up. I don't know why you are interested in this Ormuz Khan, unless you want to raise a loan.'
Paul Harley laughed. 'I gather that he is a man of extensive means,' he replied, 'but hitherto he has remained outside my radius of observation.'
'And outside mine,' declared the inspector. 'He hasn't the most distant connection with anything crooked. It gave me a lot of trouble to find out what little I have found out. Briefly, all I have to tell you is this: Ormuz Khan— who is apparently entitled to be addressed as 'his excellency'—is a director of the Imperial Bank of Iran, and is associated, too, with one of the Ottoman banks. I presume his nationality is Persian, but I can't be sure of it. He periodically turns up in the various big capitals when international loans and that sort of thing are being negotiated. I understand that he has a flat somewhere in Paris, and the Service de Surete tells me that his name is good for several million francs over there. He appears to have a certain fondness for London during the spring and early summer months, and I am told he has a fine place in Surrey. He is at present living at Savoy Court. He appears to be something of a dandy and to be very partial to the fair sex, but nevertheless there is nothing wrong with his reputation,considering, I mean, that the man is a sort of Eastern multimillionaire.'
'Ah!' said Harley, who had been listening eagerly. 'Is that the extent of your information, Wessex?'
'That's it,' replied Wessex, with a laugh. 'I hope you'll find it useful, but I doubt it. He hasn't been picking pockets or anything, has he?'
'No,' said Harley, shortly. 'I don't apprehend that his excellency will ever appear in your province, Wessex. My interest in him is of a purely personal nature. Thanks for all the trouble you have taken.'
Paul Harley began to pace the office. From a professional point of view the information was uninteresting enough, but from another point of view it had awakened again that impotent anger which he had too often experienced in these recent, strangely restless days.
At all costs he must see Ormuz Khan, although how he was to obtain access to this man who apparently never left his private apartments (if the day of his vigil at the Savoy had been a typical one) he failed to imagine.
Nevertheless, pausing at the table, he again took up his pencil, and to the note 'Obtain interview with Ormuz Khan' he added the one word, underlined:
'To-morrow.'
Chapter 10 HIS EXCELLENCY ORMUZ KHAN
The city clocks were chiming the hour of ten on the following morning when a page from the Savoy approached the shop of Mr. Jarvis, bootmaker, which is situated at no great distance from the hotel. The impudent face of the small boy wore an expression of serio-comic fright as he pushed open the door and entered the shop.
Jarvis, the bootmaker, belonged to a rapidly disappearing class of British tradesmen. He buckled to no one, but took an artistic pride in his own handiwork, criticism from a layman merely provoking a scornful anger which had lost Jarvis many good customers.
He was engaged, at the moment of the page's entrance, in a little fitting room at the back of his cramped premises, but through the doorway the boy could see the red, bespectacled face with its fringe of bristling white beard, in which he detected all the tokens of brewing storm. He whistled softly in self-sympathy.
'Yes, sir,' Jarvis was saying to an invisible patron, 'it's a welcome sight to see a real Englishman walk into my shop nowadays. London isn't London, sir, since the war, and the Strand will never be the Strand again.' He turned to his assistant, who stood beside him, bootjack in hand. 'If he sends them back again,' he directed, 'tell him to go to one of the French firms in Regent Street who cater to dainty ladies.' He positively snorted with indignation, while the page, listening, whistled again and looked down at the parcel which he carried.
'An unwelcome customer, Jarvis?' inquired the voice of the man in the fitting room.
'Quite unwelcome,' said Jarvis. 'I don't want him. I have more work than I know how to turn out. I wish he would go elsewhere. I wish—'
He paused. He had seen the page boy. The latter, having undone his parcel, was holding out a pair of elegant, fawn-coloured shoes.
'Great Moses!' breathed Jarvis. 'He's had the cheek to send them back again!'
'His excellency—' began the page, when Jarvis snatched the shoes from his hand and hurled them to the other end of the shop. His white beard positively bristled.
'Tell his excellency,' he shouted, 'to go to the devil, with my compliments!'
So positively ferocious was his aspect that the boy, with upraised arm, backed hastily out into the street. Safety won: 'Blimey!' exclaimed the youth. 'He's the warm goods, he is!'
He paused for several moments, staring in a kind of stupefied admiration at the closed door of Mr. Jarvis's establishment. He whistled again, softly, and then began to run—for the formidable Mr. Jarvis suddenly opened the door. 'Hi, boy!' he called to the page. The page hesitated, glancing back doubtfully. 'Tell his excellency that I will send round in about half an hour to remeasure his foot.'
'D'you mean it?' inquired the boy, impudently—'or is there a catch in it?'
'I'll tan your hide, my lad!' cried the bootmaker—'and I mean that! Take my message and keep your mouth shut.'
The boy departed, grinning, and little more than half an hour later a respectable-looking man presented himself at Savoy Court, inquiring of the attendant near the elevator for the apartments of 'his excellency,' followed by an unintelligible word which presumably represented 'Ormuz Khan.' The visitor wore a well-brushed but threadbare tweed suit, although his soft collar was by no means clean. He had a short, reddish-brown beard, and very thick, curling hair of the same hue protruded from beneath a bowler hat which had seen long service.
Like Mr. Jarvis, he was bespectacled, and his teeth were much discoloured and apparently broken in front, as is usual with cobblers. His hands, too, were toil-stained and his nails very black. He carried a cardboard box. He seemed to be extremely nervous, and this nervousness palpably increased when the impudent page, who was standing in the lobby, giggled on hearing his inquiry.
'He's second floor,' said the youth. 'Are you from Hot-Stuff Jarvis?'
'That's right, lad,' replied the visitor, speaking with a marked Manchester accent; 'from Mr. Jarvis.'
'And are you really going up?' inquired the boy with mock solicitude.
'I'm going up right enough. That's what I'm here for.'
'Shut up, Chivers,' snapped the hall porter. 'Ring the bell.' He glanced at the cobbler. 'Second floor,' he said, tersely, and resumed his study of a newspaper which he had been reading.
