jewels.
“Can you identify, gentlemen?” Mordan said.
Superintendent Bell laid on the table a sheath knife. An unusual knife, rather long, rather narrow, rather stiff. “I’ll identify that,” Reggie said, and took it up. “That’s the thing that killed her!”
“Coo!” said Mr. Gordon. “You’ve got a real head, doctor. This is Birdie’s bunch all right. Swear to those rubies anywhere.”
“Who’s the man?” said Reggie.
Superintendent Bell sat down with a bump. “He asks me that.” He appealed to the company. “I put it to you. He asks me that! The woman—she’s Miss Bolton’s maid, of course. But the man—”
“Oh, he’s Ford’s chauffeur. I told you to watch Ford. But you only sat on the steps of his flat. You’ve given me a lot of trouble, you know. I was up all last night. Chauffeur doesn’t sleep in, of course. But who is he?”
“We call him Bunco in the Force,” said the Superintendent meekly. “He’s a jewel thief. Quite in the front of the profession. American-Austrian, I think. I believe Nastitch is his name—Alexander Nastitch or Supilo.”
“Croat, I think,” Reggie said. “This knife—they use ’em down that way.”
“Coo! Tell us something you don’t know,” said the little Jew.
Reggie laughed. You may have noticed that he had his vanities. He passed his cigar-case round. “Where will I begin?” said he.
“At the beginning, please.” Mordan grinned.
“The Inspector touches the spot as ever. Well, it hasn’t been quite fair. I had the start of you. On the day before the murder Birdie Bolton consulted me. She hadn’t been sleeping well. Heard noises at night. Now you see your way, don’t you? No? Dear, dear. And I showed you that broken rose! Well, well. These two beauties, Flora and Nastitch, I suppose they got their situations to have a go for the jewels. Nastitch, as Ford’s chauffeur, would have an excuse for hanging round the house and a car to use. He’s had the car out of the garage till the small hours several times. I think he got in by the window last week—more than once, perhaps. And each time poor Birdie stirred. Better for her if she hadn’t, poor girl. But they didn’t mean murder, bless ’em. So they chose to drug her. There was morphia in that coffee. As you heard today, Birdie didn’t drink hers. Another rotten chance. So May Weston went to sleep while Birdie was storming at her. Birdie raged off to her room. Whether she got out that will and tore it, we’ll never know. It may have been Flora’s little game. Nastitch came in, reckoning she was sure to be sound, and Flora was with him, I think. Birdie was very wide awake. There was a struggle and he stabbed her. He’s a hot-tempered devil, as you saw today.”
“This is all very pretty, doctor, but it ain’t all evidence,” Mordan said.
“You’re so hasty. When she was dead, they took her into the boudoir where the Weston girl was asleep. They laid her on the couch and stabbed at her with her scissors and the bodkin. Filthy trick. That was what May Weston saw in the opium dream. Then I suppose they cleared the safe, and Nastitch went off. Flora annexed the emerald ring. Her perquisite, I suppose. Now, you shall have your evidence. When I came to the body, I saw those scissors never did the business. Ever tried killing anybody with scissors, Inspector? Poor game. No. We wanted something like this.” He fingered the knife affectionately. “Just like this. Also somebody had left his mark on Birdie—a queer hand—a hand that wasn’t quite all there—long fingers with no top joint. Did you notice Mr. Nastitch’s left hand?”
The detectives looked at each other.
“That was in a burglary in New York,” said the Superintendent. “He escaped out of a window, and a constable smashed his hand on the sill.”
“So I photographed the wound and the bruise. Well, when I saw Weston, I saw she had really been drugged. Contracted pupils, bluish pallor. Morphia. Same symptoms in Ford. Why should they drug themselves and not drug Birdie? That ruled them out. Also, I surprised Flora in Birdie’s bedroom doing something by the bed. When I browsed round afterwards I found a wet bloodstain under a clean rug. When Flora knew the Weston girl was arrested and the jewels had been missed, she chucked the ring into Weston’s room. While you were searching the house, I drifted into Miss Flora’s room. Several medicine bottles about. One of ’em empty. That had carried a strong solution of morphia. So I set my chauffeur to watch for Flora. And that night she went off to the lodgings of Nastitch. She’s been buzzing round ever since. Well?”
“Well, sir, it’s a good thing you didn’t take to crime,” said Superintendent Bell.
“Oh, that’s much harder,” said Reggie.
Case III
The Nice Girl
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them. That was Dr. Reginald Fortune’s trouble. He had become a specialist, and, as he told anybody who would listen, thought it an absurd thing to be. For he was interested in everything, but not in anything in particular. And it was just this various versatility of mind and taste which had condemned him to be a specialist. Obviously an absurd world.
The Criminal Investigation Department, solicitors, and others dealing with those experiments in social reform which are called crimes, by continually appealing to his multifarious knowledge and his all-observant eye, turned Dr. Reginald Fortune, general practitioner at Westhampton, into Mr. Fortune of Wimpole Street, specialist in—what shall we say?—the surgery of crime. And Reggie Fortune, though richer for the change, was not grateful. He liked ordinary things, and any day would have gladly bartered a murder for a case of chickenpox. This accounts for his unequalled sanity of judgement.
Reggie was in that one of his clubs which he liked best, because no member of it knew anything about his profession. He had just completed an animated discussion on the prehistoric
