“Can’t understand it? Why, it’s perfectly clear. This is the coincidence for which, in my capacity of Gridley Quayle, I was waiting. I can now resume inductive reasoning. Weighing the evidence, what do we find? That young sweep, Freddie, is the man. He has the scarab.”
“But it’s all such a muddle. I’m not holding his letters.”
“For Jones’ purposes you are. Let’s get this Jones element in the affair straightened out. What do you know of him?”
“He was an enormously fat man who came to see me one night and said he had been sent to get back some letters. I told him I had destroyed them ages ago and he went away.”
“Well, that part of it is clear, then. He is working a simple but ingenious game on Freddie. It wouldn’t succeed with everybody, I suppose; but from what I have seen and heard of him Freddie isn’t strong on intellect. He seems to have accepted the story without a murmur. What does he do? He has to raise a thousand pounds immediately, and the raising of the first five hundred has exhausted his credit. He gets the idea of stealing the scarab!”
“But why? Why should he have thought of the scarab at all? That is what I can’t understand. He couldn’t have meant to give it to Mr. Peters and claim the reward. He couldn’t have known that Mr. Peters was offering a reward. He couldn’t have known that Lord Emsworth had not got the scarab quite properly. He couldn’t have known—he couldn’t have known anything!”
Ashe’s enthusiasm was a trifle damped.
“There’s something in that. But—I have it! Jones must have known about the scarab and told him.”
“But how could he have known?”
“Yes; there’s something in that, too. How could Jones have known?”
“He couldn’t. He had gone by the time Aline came that night.”
“I don’t quite understand. Which night?”
“It was the night of the day I first met you. I was wondering for a moment whether he could by any chance have overheard Aline telling me about the scarab and the reward Mr. Peters was offering for it.”
“Overheard! That word is like a bugle blast to me. Nine out of ten of Gridley Quayle’s triumphs were due to his having overheard something. I think we are now on the right track.”
“I don’t. How could he have overheard us? The door was closed and he was in the street by that time.”
“How do you know he was in the street? Did you see him out?”
“No; but he went.”
“He might have waited on the stairs—you remember how dark they are at Number Seven—and listened.”
“Why?”
Ashe reflected.
“Why? Why? What a beast of a word that is—the detective’s bugbear. I thought I had it, until you said—Great Scott! I’ll tell you why. I see it all. I have him with the goods. His object in coming to see you about the letters was because Freddie wanted them back owing to his approaching marriage with Miss Peters—wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“You tell him you have destroyed the letters. He goes off. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“Before he is out of the house Miss Peters is giving her name at the front door. Put yourself in Jones’ place. What does he think? He is suspicious. He thinks there is some game on. He skips upstairs again, waits until Miss Peters has gone into your room, then stands outside and listens. How about that?”
“I do believe you are right. He might quite easily have done that.”
“He did do exactly that. I know it as though I had been there; in fact, it is highly probable I was there. You say all this happened on the night we first met? I remember coming downstairs that night—I was going out to a vaudeville show—and hearing voices in your room. I remember it distinctly. In all probability I nearly ran into Jones.”
“It does all seem to fit in, doesn’t it?”
“It’s a clear case. There isn’t a flaw in it. The only question is, can I, on the evidence, go to young Freddie and choke the scarab out of him? On the whole, I think I had better take this note to Jones, as I promised Judson, and see whether I can’t work something through him. Yes; that’s the best plan. I’ll be starting at once.”
Perhaps the greatest hardship in being an invalid is the fact that people come and see you and keep your spirits up. The Honorable Freddie Threepwood suffered extremely from this. His was not a gregarious nature and it fatigued his limited brain powers to have to find conversation for his numerous visitors. All he wanted was to be left alone to read the adventures of Gridley Quayle, and when tired of doing that to lie on his back and look at the ceiling and think of nothing.
It is your dynamic person, your energetic world’s worker, who chafes at being laid up with a sprained ankle. The Honorable Freddie enjoyed it. From boyhood up he had loved lying in bed; and now that fate had allowed him to do this without incurring rebuke he objected to having his reveries broken up by officious relations.
He spent his rare intervals of solitude in trying to decide in his mind which of his cousins, uncles and aunts was, all things considered, the greatest nuisance. Sometimes he would give the palm to Colonel Horace Mant, who struck the soldierly note—“I recollect in a hill campaign in the winter of the year ’93 giving my ankle the deuce of a twist.” Anon the more spiritual attitude of the Bishop of Godalming seemed to annoy him more keenly.
Sometimes he would head the list with the name of his Cousin Percy—Lord Stockheath—who refused to talk of anything except his late breach-of-promise case and the effect the verdict had had on his old governor. Freddie was in no mood just now to be sympathetic with others on their breach-of-promise cases.
As he lay in bed reading on Monday morning, the only flaw in his
