They went up the broad stairs into a little drawing-room on the first floor. It was empty. His lordship was evidently surprised.
“I wonder—” he began, when the door opened and Lady Pertham ran in. Her face was white and her thin lips were trembling.
“Pertham,” she said rapidly, “I’m sure there’s a man in my dressing-room.”
“In your dressing-room?” said Lord Pertham, and ran out quickly.
The two men would have followed him, but he stopped halfway up the stairs and waved them back.
“You had better wait with her ladyship,” he said. “Ring for Thomas, my love,” he said.
Standing at the foot of the stairs they heard him moving about. Presently they heard a cry and the sound of a struggle. Manfred was halfway up the stairs when a door slammed above. Then came the sound of voices and a shot, followed by a heavy fall.
Manfred flung himself against the door from whence the sound came.
“It’s all right,” said Lord Pertham’s voice.
A second later he unlocked the door and opened it.
“I’m afraid I’ve killed this fellow.”
The smoking revolver was still in his hand. In the middle of the floor lay a poorly dressed man and his blood stained the pearl-grey carpet.
Gonsalez walked quickly to the body and turned it over. At the first sight he knew that the man was dead. He looked long and earnestly in his face, and Lord Pertham said:
“Do you know him?”
“I think so,” said Gonsalez quietly. “He is my colour-blind criminal,” for he had recognised the brother of Mrs. Prothero.
They walked home to their lodgings that night leaving Lord Pertham closeted with a detective-inspector, and Lady Pertham in hysterics.
Neither man spoke until they reached their flat, then Leon, with a sigh of content, curled up in the big armchair and pulled lovingly at an evil-smelling cigar.
“Leon!”
He took no notice.
“Leon!”
Leon shifted his head round and met George’s eye.
“Did anything about that shooting tonight strike you as peculiar?”
“Several things,” said Leon.
“Such as?”
“Such as the oddness of the fate that took Slippery Bill—that was the name of my burglar—to Lord Pertham’s house. It was not odd that he should commit the burglary, because he was a ladder larcenist, as you call him. By the way, did you look at the dead man’s hand?” he asked, twisting round and peering across the table at Manfred.
“No, I didn’t,” said the other in surprise.
“What a pity—you would have thought it still more peculiar. What are the things you were thinking of?”
“I was wondering why Lord Pertham carried a revolver. He must have had it in his pocket at dinner.”
“That is easily explained,” said Gonsalez. “Don’t you remember his telling us that his life had been threatened in anonymous letters?”
Manfred nodded.
“I had forgotten that,” he said. “But who locked the door?”
“The burglar, of course,” said Leon and smiled. And by that smile Manfred knew that he was prevaricating. “And talking of locked doors—”
He went into his room and returned with two little instruments that looked like the gongs of electric bells, except that there was a prong sticking up from each.
He locked the sitting-room door and placed one of these articles on the floor, sticking the spike into the bottom of the door so that it was impossible to open without exercising pressure upon the bell. He tried it and there was a shrill peal.
“That’s all right,” he said, and turned to examine the windows.
“Are you expecting burglars?”
“I am rather,” said Leon, “and really I cannot afford to lose my sleep.”
Not satisfied with the fastening of the window he pushed in a little wedge, and performed the same office to the second of the windows looking upon the street.
Another door, leading to Manfred’s room from the passage without, he treated as he had served the first.
In the middle of the night there was a frantic ring from one of the bells. Manfred leapt out of bed and switched on the light. His own door was fast and he raced into the sitting-room, but Gonsalez was there before him examining the little sentinel by the door. The door had been unlocked. He kicked away the alarm with his slippered foot.
“Come in, Lord Pertham,” he said. “Let’s talk this matter over.”
There was a momentary silence, then the sound of a slippered foot, and a man came in. He was fully dressed and hatless, and Manfred, seeing the bald head, gasped.
“Sit down and make yourself at home, and let me relieve you of that lethal weapon you have in your pocket, because this matter can be arranged very amicably,” said Leon.
It was undoubtedly Lord Pertham, though the great mop of hair had vanished, and Manfred could only stare as Leon’s left hand slipped into the pocket of the midnight visitor and drew forth a revolver which he placed carefully on the mantelshelf.
Lord Pertham sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands. For a while the silence was unbroken.
“You may remember the Honourable George Fearnside,” began Leon, and Manfred started.
“Fearnside? Why, he was on the Prince’s yacht—”
“He was on the Prince’s yacht,” agreed Gonsalez, “and we thoroughly believed that he did not associate us with escaping malefactors, but apparently he knew us for the Four Just Men. You came into your title about six years ago, didn’t you, Pertham?”
The bowed figure nodded. Presently he sat up—his face was white and there were black circles about his eyes.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said, “it seems that instead of getting you, you have got me. Now what are you going to do?”
Gonsalez laughed softly.
“For myself,” he said, “I am certainly not going in the witness-box to testify that Lord Pertham is a bigamist and for many years has been leading a double life. Because that would mean I should also have to admit certain uncomfortable things about myself.”
The man licked his lips and then:
“I came to kill you,” he said thickly.
“So we gather,” said
