“Did she make a noise?” Reggie frowned.
“No, she was very good.”
Reggie went out to take the air, and the air is not bad on the Westhampton heights. He made a good pace under the great beeches of Boldrewood, and came out on the open road across the heath. Just there he had found the dead man. A dull red stain could still be seen. It was farther on that the Archduke was struck. Just beyond the turn to Brendon. He found the place. There was a loosening of the road, as if a heavy car had been brought up sharply or made a violent swerve. He walked to and fro scanning the ground. Another of those foreign matches.
He was just picking it up when a motorcar stopped a few yards away. Two men jumped out and came towards him. One was middle aged and singularly without distinction. The other had a youthful and very jaunty air, and it was only when he came near that Reggie saw the fellow was old enough to be his father. An actor’s face, with that look of calculated expression, and an actor’s way of dressing, a trifle too emphatic. His present part was the gay young fellow.
“Dr. Fortune, I think?” He smiled all over his face.
“I am Dr. Fortune.”
“Reconstructing the crime, eh? Oh, you needn’t be discreet. I’m Lomas—Stanley Lomas—Criminal Investigation Department, don’t you know? Sir Lawson Hunter came round to me last night. Patient’s doing well, I see. That’s providential. Just a moment—just a moment.” He skipped away from Reggie to his companion, and they went over the ground. But Reggie thought them very superficial. Lomas skipped back again. “He didn’t bleed, then. The other man did, though—the man you found.”
“In the middle of the road. And I found him dead in the gutter.”
“It’s quaint what the criminal don’t think of. I’m surprised every time. Did you find anything here?”
Reggie held out his match. “There were two more like that by the other man.”
Lomas turned it over. “Belgian make. You buy them all over the Continent, don’t you know.”
“The Archduchess carries them.”
“Now, that’s very interesting. If you don’t mind I’ll walk up to the house with you.” Upon the way he praised the beauties of nature and the quality of the morning air.
As they came to the door of Boldrewood a big car passed them with the Archduchess driving alone. Lomas put up his eyeglass. “She’s not overcome with grief, what?”
“Not quite.”
“Might be bravado, don’t you know.”
“I don’t know.”
“It takes some of them that way,” Lomas said pensively. He turned on the steps of the house and looked after the car as it wound in and out among the beeches. “Striking woman. Yes. I’ll come up to your room, if you don’t mind.”
“I thought you wanted to say something,” Reggie said.
Lomas did not answer till they were upstairs. “Well, no. Not to say anything,” he resumed, and lit a cigarette. “I want another opinion, as you fellows say. Sir Lawson Hunter has made up his mind.”
“Oh, he always does that.”
Lomas lifted an eyebrow. “Well, look at it. Somebody in a car laid for our Archduke. The other poor devil was cut down by mistake. And the somebody had nerve enough to go on. That’s striking. The Archduchess comes of pretty wild stock. In love or out of love she wouldn’t stick at a trifle. You find her matches by each body. You find a hatpin in the Archduke. That’s a blunder, what? Yes, but it’s a woman’s blunder. She finds he isn’t quite dead after all her trouble, she is desperate, and—voilà.” He made a gesture of stabbing.
“So you’ve made up your mind too, Mr. Lomas?”
Lomas blew smoke rings. “I’m wasting your time, doctor. I want to know—has it occurred to you—the Archduchess and the Archduke Leopold—working it together? If she’s fallen in love with Leopold. That straightens it out, don’t you know.”
“Guess again,” Reggie said.
Lomas lit another cigarette. “Well, that’s what I want to know. You saw them together just after the crime.” He lifted an eyebrow.
“Nothing doing,” said Reggie.
“I’m afraid so. I’m afraid so. It’s a disturbing case, doctor. Nothing doing, as you say. If I had all the evidence in my hands, I expect there’s no one I could touch. You can’t indict royalty. The Archduke’s smash—well, let’s say it’s all in the family. But this poor devil they killed! Who’s to pay for him? These royal dagoes come over and run amuck on an English road, and I can’t touch them. Disheartening, what? That’s the trouble, doctor.”
Reggie nodded and, as his breakfast made its appearance, Lomas rose to go. He would not have even coffee. “Better get busy, don’t you know. We must see if we can put the fear of God into them. If they’ll go scurrying back to Bohemia it’s the best way out.” He skipped off, his jauntiness put on again like a coat.
Reggie was standing at the window with his after-breakfast pipe when the Archduchess brought her car back. She was very pale in spite of the morning air, and her face had grown haggard. “Something’ll snap,” Reggie was saying to himself, when a voice behind him said aloud, “Nice car, sir.” He jumped round and saw standing at his elbow the insignificant little companion of Mr. Lomas. “After all, there’s nothing like an English car,” said the little man.
“Oh. You’ve noticed that?” Reggie said. “You do notice something, then?”
“Of course we aren’t gifted, sir. But we’re professional. Something in that, don’t you think? Yes, sir, as you say: we have noticed something. It was a foreign car, and foreign tyres did the trick last night. And the Archduchess drives English. And yet—did you know we had the other half of the hatpin? I picked it up last night.” He held out a scrap of steel with a big head
