“I should hope it had,” said Kirk.
“I am perhaps going too far when I ask you to overlook my defection, Mr. Kirk. I assure you, however, that it was my fondness for you, my keen desire to remain in your service, that prompted my rash act. If we could only go back to the old basis, sir—of mutual confidence and esteem—”
Kirk laughed. “I don’t know. I shall have to think this over. Are you sure you’re fond of me, Paradise?”
“Very, sir.”
“Have you analyzed your emotions carefully? No little hidden trace of resentment, or disapproval?”
“None whatever, sir. I give you my word.”
Kirk shrugged. “Very well. Then you might go and prepare the—er—the tea. In the usual manner, please.”
“Thank you, sir,” answered Paradise, and departed.
“The poor old dear,” said Miss Morrow. “I’m sure he never did it. He was the victim of circumstances.”
“Perhaps,” admitted Duff. “Personally, however, I thought the evidence very strong. But I was new to the work at that time, and I may have been mistaken. At any rate, I am happy to have been able to eliminate Paradise from our case. It clears the air a bit.”
“He may be eliminated from the case,” Barry Kirk remarked. “But I’m free to admit that to me he is more important than ever.”
“You don’t believe he had anything to do with killing Sir Frederic?” Miss Morrow inquired.
“No—but I’m afraid he may have something to do with killing me. I’m faced by a private and personal problem—and a very pretty one, too. I’d hate to lose Paradise, but I’d hate to lose myself even more. Imagine taking the glass of good old orange juice every morning from a hand that has been up to tricks with hydrocyanic acid. Not so good. Charlie, as a guest here, you’re interested. What do you say?”
Chan shrugged. “It may be he disliked his wife,” he suggested.
“I should hate to think he was fond of her,” Kirk replied. “But at that, he’s a good old soul. And some wives, no doubt, drive a man too far. I think I’ll let him stay a while. However”—he looked at Miss Morrow—“something tells me I’ll do an awful lot of eating out.”
“Sergeant Chan,” Duff said, “you have not been idle. What discoveries have you made in our case so far?”
“None but the slightest,” Chan told him. “I am very bright in tracking down Paradise here, and we have just seen the value of that. Alas, there are sprouting crops that never ripen into grain.”
“True enough,” agreed the Inspector. “But you must have had ideas along other lines, too. I should be interested to hear them.”
“Some time we have little talk,” Charlie promised. “For the present—I hesitate to speak of it. I am not without tender feeling to my heart, and I know only too well the topic must be one of deep pain to Major Durand. He must pardon my rudeness if I have keen desire to hear something of that faraway night when Eve Durand was lost.”
Durand came out of a deep reverie. “Ah, yes—what’s that? The night when Eve—of course, it was all so long ago.”
“Yet a moment you are not likely to forget,” suggested Chan.
Durand smiled ruefully. “I’m afraid not. I have tried to forget—it seemed the best way. But I have never succeeded.”
“The date was the third of May, in the year 1913,” Chan prompted.
“Precisely. We had been living in Peshawar just six months—I was assigned to a regiment there only a month after our marriage, in England. A Godforsaken place, Peshawar—an outpost of empire, with a vengeance. No place to bring a woman like Eve, who had known nothing save the civilized life of the English countryside.”
He paused, deep in thought. “Yet we were very happy. We were young—Eve was eighteen, I was twenty-four—young and tremendously in love. The discomforts of that far garrison meant nothing—we had each other.”
“And on this night under question,” Chan persisted.
“There was a gay social life at the garrison, and Eve took an important part in it, as was natural. On the evening you ask about, we had arranged a picnic party in the hills. We were to ride our ponies out of the town and up a narrow dirt road to a small plateau from which we could watch the moon rise over the roofs of Peshawar. The plan was rather foolhardy—the hills were full of bandits—I was a bit fearful at the time. But the ladies—they insisted—you know how women are. And there were five men in the party, all fully armed. There seemed no real danger.”
Again he paused. “Eve wore her jewels—a pearl necklace her uncle had given her—I remember protesting against it before we set out. She only laughed at me. Sometimes I have thought—But no, I do not like to think that. Was she killed for her necklace, her rings? I have had to face it.
“At any rate, we packed our supper and rode out of the town. Everything went well until the hour arrived to go home. Then someone suggested a game of hide-and-seek—”
“You recall who suggested that?” asked Chan.
“Yes—it was Eve. I objected, but—well, one doesn’t like to be a spoil sport, and the party was in a gay humor. The women scattered among the tamarisks—disappeared into the shadows, laughing and chatting. Within the half-hour we had found them all—save one. We have not found her yet.”
“How terrible,” Miss Morrow cried.
“You can scarcely realize the true horror of it,” Durand returned. “Those black hills filled with innumerable dangers—oh, it was a foolish thing, that game. It should never have happened. Of the night that followed—and the long, hot dreadful days after that—I need not go on, I’m
