The Sea Mystery

by the whistling under his breath of a melancholy little tune. Then at last he also moved away and French was able to stretch his aching limbs. Carefully he followed his man back to the tube station and eventually to his rooms in Kepple Street.

He did not know what to make of the conversation to which he had just listened. The statements made were so surprising and unexpected that at first sight he was inclined to dismiss the whole thing as a blind, deliberately arranged to throw him off the scent. Then he saw that for several reasons this could not be. In the first place, Phyllis and Pyke did not know he was listening. In the second; such a plan would require careful prearrangement, and since his visit to Pyke the latter had had no opportunity of communicating with Phyllis Berlyn. Then there would be no object in such a scheme. They surely did not imagine that because of it French would relax his watch on them. Moreover, if it were false, its falseness would be demonstrated on the very next day. No, French felt the interview must be genuine.

And if so, what a completely new view it gave of the crime! Berlyn, Phyllis, and Jefferson Pyke all apparently mixed up in the affair and all innocent! Who, then, could be guilty? French had to own himself completely puzzled. If this view were correct, the murderer must be someone whom he had not yet seriously considered.

Unless it could be Domlio, after all. Nothing that the two had said directly precluded the possibility. Of course, in this case it was difficult to see why they should not denounce Domlio, if it would free themselves and Berlyn from suspicion. But then again, they might suspect Domlio, even perhaps be reasonably certain of his guilt, and yet unable to prove it.

French continued to turn the matter over in his mind, and the more he did so the more he leaned to the opinion that Domlio must be, after all, the murderer. All the arguments which had before led him to this conclusion recurred to him with redoubled force and the difficulties in the theory seemed more and more easily surmountable. Domlio’s motor drive on the night of the crime, his denial of the trip, the hiding of the clothes and duplicator parts in the well, his depressed and absorbed manner⁠—these really were not accounted for by any theory other than that of the man’s guilt. And Domlio might easily have invented the story of the photograph and produced the letter to account for his nocturnal excursion.

Puzzled and worried, French began to believe that he was on the wrong track in London and that he must return to Devon and try once more to get the truth from Domlio. But he would not relax his watch on Mrs. Berlyn and Pyke. Pyke he would himself shadow next day, so that if he communicated with Berlyn he, French, would learn the latter’s whereabouts.

He turned into the nearest telephone booth, and ringing up the Yard, arranged for reliefs for himself and Sergeant Carter. Then, Sergeant Deane having taken over the watch in Kepple Street, he went home.

Next morning he called at the Yard for Carter, and about nine o’clock the two men reached Kepple Street.

“That’ll do, Deane. You may get away,” French greeted the night man. “Nothing stirred, I suppose?”

“Nothing, sir. No one in or out the whole night.”

“Now, Carter,” French went on, “it’s your show mostly today. Pyke knows me and I’ll have to keep in the background. You stay about here and I’ll get a taxi and wait round the corner. If I see your signal I’ll come along.”

Time soon began to drag for the watchers. Evidently their man was in no hurry. Ten o’clock came, then eleven, then eleven-thirty, and still he made no sign. French began to grow seriously uneasy.

At last he could stand it no longer. He got out of his taxi and strolled up to Carter.

“Go up to the door and ask for him, Carter. If he sees you say I sent you to ask if he would call round at the Yard any time this afternoon.”

Taking his subordinate’s place, he watched him walk up to the door and knock. In a moment the door was opened and Carter disappeared.

For several minutes he remained inside, while French, growing more and more anxious every second, remained pacing impatiently up and down. Then Carter reappeared, and without any attempt at secrecy beckoned to French.

“What is it?” the latter whispered, sharply, as he joined the sergeant on the doorstep. “Anything wrong?”

“I’m afraid so, sir. We can’t make him hear.”

French swore. A wave of misgiving swept over him. Why in Heaven’s name hadn’t he arrested the man last night when he had the chance? He pushed into the house to meet an anxious-looking landlady in the hall.

“I am Inspector French of Scotland Yard,” he explained, quickly. “Where is Mr. Pyke?”

“Lawks!” said the landlady, recognising her former visitor. “Are you police? And I thinking you were a friend of Mr. Pyke’s all the time.”

“Yes, madam, I am a police officer and I want to see Mr. Pyke at once. Where is he?”

The anxious look returned to the woman’s face.

“He’s in his room,” she explained. “But he’s not had his breakfast and he won’t answer my knocking. He said last night that he had a chill and that he wouldn’t get up this morning, and for me not to disturb him. But that’s no reason why he shouldn’t answer a knock.”

“Which is his room?” said French, grimly. This should be a lesson to him to avoid his confounded trick of waiting till he was sure. If this man had slipped through his hands, any chance of that chief inspectorship was gone⁠—if his job itself remained.

They went to a first-floor room at the back of the house and French knocked peremptorily. There was no reply.

“Down with the door, Carter. Put your shoulder