The lawyer was dining in solitary state at the end of a long, polished table. A glass of red wine stood at his elbow, a long, thin cigar was between his teeth. He was a man between fifty and sixty, tall and rather thin. He had the brow and jaw of a fighter, and his iron-grey side-whiskers gave him a certain ferocious appearance. Dick liked him, for the eyes behind his horn-rimmed spectacles were very attractive.
“Mr. Martin, eh?” He half rose and offered his firm, thin hand. “Sit down. What will you drink? I have a port here that was laid down for princes. Walters, give Mr. Martin a glass.”
He leaned back in his chair, his lips pursed, and regarded the young man fixedly.
“So you’re a detective, eh?” It sounded reminiscent of an experience he had had that morning, and Dick grinned. “The commissioner says you’re leaving the police force tomorrow, and that you want a hobby. By heavens, I’ll furnish you a hobby that’ll save me a lot of sleepless nights! Walters, serve Mr. Martin and clear out. And I am not to be interrupted. Switch off the phone; I’m not at home to anybody, however important.”
When the door had closed behind the butler, Mr. Havelock rose and began a restless pacing of the room. He had a quick, abrupt, almost offensively brusque manner, jerking out his sentences accusatively.
“I’m a lawyer—you probably know my name, though I’ve never been in a police court in my life. I’m very seldom in any court of law. I deal with companies and estates, and I’m trustee for half a dozen, or maybe a dozen, various charities. I’m the trustee of the Selford estate.” He said this with a certain emphasis, as though he thought that Dick would understand the peculiar significance of this. “I’m the trustee of the Selford estate,” he said again, “and I wish to heaven I wasn’t. Old Lord Selford—not that he was old, except in sin and iniquity, but the late Lord Selford, let me say—left me the sole executor of his property and guardian of his wretched child. The late Lord Selford was a very unpleasant, bad-tempered man, half mad, as most of the Selfords have been for generations. Do you know Selford Manor?”
Dick smiled.
“Curiously enough, I was on the edge of it today. I didn’t know there was such a place until this afternoon, and I had no such idea there was a Lord Selford—does he live there?”
“He doesn’t.” Havelock snapped the words, his eyes gleaming fiercely from behind his glasses. “I wish to God he did! He lives nowhere. That is to say, he lives nowhere longer than two or three days together. He is a nomad of nomads; his father in his youth was something of the same nature. Pierce—that is his family name, by the way, and he has always been called Pierce—has spent the last ten years wandering from town to town, from country to country, drawing heavily upon his revenue, as he can well afford to do because it is a large one, and returning to England only at the rarest intervals. I haven’t seen him for four years.” He said this slowly.
“I’ll give you his history, Mr. Martin, so that you will understand it better,” he went on. “When Selford died, Pierce was six. He had no mother, and, curiously enough, no near relations. Selford was an only child, and his wife was also in that position, so that there were no uncles and aunts to whom I could have handed over my responsibility. The boy was delicate, as I found when I sent him to a preparatory school at the age of eight, expecting to be rid of the poor little beggar, but not a day passed that he didn’t send me a note asking to be taken away. Eventually I found a private tutor for him, and he got some sort of education. It was not good enough to enable him to pass the Little Go—that is the entrance examination to Cambridge—and I sent him abroad with his tutor to travel. I wish to heaven I hadn’t! For the travel bug bit deep into his soul, and he’s been moving ever since. Four years ago he came to me in London. He was then on his way to America, where he was studying economic conditions. He had a wild idea of writing a book—one of the delusions from which most people suffer is that other people are interested in their recollections.”
Dick flushed guiltily, but the lawyer went on, without apparently noticing his embarrassment.
“Now I’m worried about this boy. From time to time demands come through to me for money, and from time to time I cable him very respectable sums—which, of course, he is entitled to receive, for he is now twenty-four.”
“His financial position—” began Dick.
“Perfectly sound, perfectly sound,” said Mr. Havelock impressively. “That isn’t the question at all. What is worrying me is, the boy being so long out of my sight. Anything may happen to him; he may have fallen into the worst possible hands.” He hesitated, and added: “And I feel that I should get in touch with him—not directly, but through a third person. In other words, I want you to go to America next week, and, without saying that you came from me, or that I sent you, get acquainted with Lord Selford—he travels, by the way, as Mr. John Pierce. He is a very quick mover, and you’ll have to make careful inquiries as to where he has gone, because I cannot promise that I can keep you as well informed of his movements as
