“That is too good a joke! The real good, simple Havelock! So clever a man! And,” he demanded archly, “did our friend find my lord? No? That is remarkable. Perhaps he did not move quick enough! Perhaps he went by train when airplanes were procurable!”
He seated himself at the table, tapping a tattoo with his uncleanly fingers upon its surface.
“What else does my friend want?” he asked, eyeing the other keenly.
“I want some money,” said Cody, in a sulky voice.
Without a word, the doctor stooped down and unlocked a drawer of his desk, took out a battered tin cashbox, opened it, and extracted a thick bundle of notes.
“There are fewer to pay now,” he said. “Therefore your money is increased. If I die, it will be to your benefit. Per contra—”
“Don’t let us talk about death,” shivered the little man, his trembling hands straying to his bald head. “We don’t want any of that sort of thing; we’ve gone right away from our first idea, which was good. If you take life—”
“Have I taken life?”
“Have you?” demanded Cody, and waited.
The doctor’s red mouth curled in a smile.
“There was a Mr. Pheeney,” he said carefully. “Is that how you name him? He certainly died, but I think that must have been suicide.”
He chuckled again.
“I do not love people who go to policemen. That is very bad for business, because the police have no imagination. Now, suppose I go to a policeman”—he was eyeing the other from under his drooping lids—“and suppose I make statements—what a catastrophe!”
The little man jumped to his feet, quivering.
“You dare not!” he said hoarsely. “You dare not!”
Again Stalletti shrugged his thin shoulders.
“Why do I stay in this cold and horrible country,” he asked, “when I could be sitting on the patio of my own beautiful villa in Florence? There I would be away from these stupid policemen.”
He stopped suddenly and raised his finger to signal for silence. Cody had not caught the faint squeak against the shuttered window, but the doctor had heard it twice.
“There is somebody outside,” he whispered.
“Is it—?”
Stalletti shook his head.
“No, it is not Beppo.” His lips curled at the word, as though he were enjoying the best jest in the world. “Wait.”
He crossed the room noiselessly and disappeared into the dingy passage. Cody heard the sound of a door being softly unlocked, and there was a long wait before the man returned. He was blinking as though the return to the light was painful to his eyes, but Cody had seen him in this condition before, and knew that this strange, unearthly man was labouring under an unusual emotion.
He carried in his hand a thing that looked like a telephone earpiece with a rubber attachment.
“Somebody was listening at the window, my friend. I will give you three guesses—you were not driven here by car?”
“I walked,” said the other shortly.
“Your excellent chauffeur—he suffers from curiosity?”
“I tell you I walked. No chauffeur came with me.”
“He could walk also. What is this?”
He took from his pocket a cap and laid it on the table.
“Do you recognize this—no?”
Cody shook his head.
“He had taken this off to put on the earpieces. The microphone I could not find. But he listened—yes.”
“Who was it? It couldn’t have been Cawler,” said Cody fretfully. “He is my wife’s nephew.”
“And adores her?” sneered the doctor.
He turned the cap inside out, and read the name of the seller.
“How strange it would be if, after all, you harboured in your house a spy.”
“How can that be?” said the other violently. “You know as much as I know about Cawler.”
“And you know—what? Nothing except that he is a thief, a stealer of motorcars, on whom the police have their eye all the time. When this friend of yours came, this Martini—Martin, is it?—he knew your Cawler, and I was instantly compromised.”
Then Cody began to speak in a low, earnest tone, and the bearded man listened, at first with contemptuous indifference and then with interest.
“It is a pity that my Beppo was not in the grounds. We should have known for sure,” he said at last.
Mr. Cody walked half a mile along the road to where he had left his car. The chauffeur was dozing in his seat, but woke at the sound of his employer’s voice.
“Cawler, have you been by the car all the time? Did you follow me?”
“Would I walk if I could ride?” growled the man. “Of course I’ve been here all the time. Why? Somebody been shadowing you?”
“You play the fool with me, my friend, and you’ll be sorry.”
“I’m never sorry for anything I’ve done,” said the other coolly. “Get inside—it’s raining.”
He swung the car out on the main road and drove back to Weald House at breakneck speed. Amongst the many things which Mr. Cody dreaded was fast driving, and the only way his chauffeur could get even at times was to do one of the things that the little man did not like. He got out, livid with rage, and spluttered an expletive at the unmoved chauffeur.
“You’re giving yourself airs because you think you’re indispensable, you—!”
Even while he was talking, the car moved on to its garage. As a debater, Tommy Cawler did not regard his master as being worthy of his metal.
XI
Mr. Havelock had scarcely reached his office the following morning when Dick arrived. The bushy brows of that gentleman rose at the sight of his visitor.
“I’ve come to make a confession, Mr. Havelock,” he began.
“That sounds ominous,” said the other, his eyes twinkling.
“Maybe it’s more ominous than it sounds,” said Dick. “I’ve kept something back from you—information which ought to be in your hands.”
Briefly he told the story of the blotting-paper he had found in the hotel in Buenos Aires.
“Obviously Lord Selford is in communication with this person. Because I wasn’t quite sure how the land lay, and whether there was something behind Selford’s absence from England, I took the trouble to investigate.”
“Mr. Bertram Cody?” frowned Havelock, “I seem
