Michael stared at her.
“Bhag could use the sword, then? Penne told me he did, but I thought he was lying.”
“Oh, yes, he could use the sword. Gregory taught him everything.”
“What is Penne to you?” Michael asked the question bluntly, and she coloured.
“He has been a friend,” she said awkwardly, “a very good friend of mine—financially, I mean. He took a liking to me a long time ago, and we’ve been—very good friends.”
Michael nodded.
“And you are still?”
“No,” she answered shortly, “I’ve finished with Gregory, and am leaving Chichester tomorrow. I’ve put the house in an agent’s hands to rent. Poor Mr. Foss!” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “Poor soul! Gregory wouldn’t have done it, Mr. Brixan, I’ll swear that! There’s a whole lot of Gregory that’s sheer bluff. He’s a coward at heart, and though he has done dreadful things, he has always had an agent to do the dirty work.”
“Dreadful things like what?”
She seemed reluctant to explain, but he pressed her.
“Well, he told me that he used to take expeditions in the bush and raid the villages, carrying off girls. There is one tribe that have very beautiful women. Perhaps he was lying about that too, but I have an idea that he spoke the truth. He told me that only a year ago, when he was in Borneo, he ‘lifted’ a girl from a wild village where it was death for a European to go. He always said ‘lifted.’ ”
“And didn’t you mind these confessions?” asked Michael, his steely eye upon her.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“He was that kind of man,” was all she said, and it spoke volumes for her understanding of her “very good friend.”
Michael walked back to Jack Knebworth’s house.
“The story Penne tells seems to fit together with the information Mendoza has given us. There is no doubt that the woman at the top of the tower was the lady he ‘lifted,’ and less doubt that the little brown man was her husband. If they have escaped from the tower, then there should be no difficulty in finding them. I’ll send out a message to all stations within a radius of twenty-five miles, and we ought to get news of them in the morning.”
“It’s morning now,” said Jack, looking toward the greying east. “Will you come in? I’ll give you some coffee. This news has upset me. I was going to have a long day’s work, but I guess we’ll have to put it off for a day or so. The company is bound to be upset by this news. They all knew Foss, although he was not very popular with them. It only wants Adele to be off colour to complete our misery. By the way, Brixan, why don’t you make this your headquarters? I’m a bachelor; there’s a phone service here, and you’ll get a privacy at this house which you don’t get at your hotel.”
The idea appealed to the detective, and it was at Jack Knebworth’s house that he slept that night, after an hour’s conversation on the telephone with Scotland Yard.
Early in the morning he was again at the Towers, and now, with the assistance of daylight, he enlarged his search, without adding greatly to his knowledge. The position was a peculiar one, as Scotland Yard had emphasized. Sir Gregory Penne was a member of a good family, a rich man, a justice of the peace; and, whilst his eccentricities were of a lawless character, “you can’t hang people for being queer,” the Commissioner informed Michael on the telephone.
It was a suspicious fact that Bhag had disappeared as completely as the brown man and his wife.
“He hasn’t been back all night: I’ve seen nothing of him,” said Sir Gregory. “And that’s not the first time he’s gone off on his own. He finds hiding-places that you’d never suspect, and he’s probably gone to earth somewhere. He’ll turn up.”
Michael was passing through Chichester when he saw a figure that made him bring the car to a standstill with such a jerk that it was a wonder the tyres did not burst. In a second he was out of the machine and walking to meet Adele.
“It seems ten thousand years since I saw you,” he said with an extravagance which at any other time would have brought a smile to her face.
“I’m afraid I can’t stop. I’m on my way to the studio,” she said, a little coldly, “and I promised Mr. Knebworth that I would be there early. You see, I got off yesterday afternoon by telling Mr. Knebworth that I had an engagement.”
“And had you?” asked the innocent Michael.
“I asked somebody to take tea with me,” and his jaw dropped.
“Moses!” he gasped. “I am the villain!”
She would have gone on, but he stopped her.
“I don’t want to shock you or hurt you, Adele,” he said gently, “but the explanation for my forgetfulness is that we’ve had another tragedy.”
She stopped and looked at him.
“Another?”
He nodded.
“Mr. Foss has been murdered,” he said.
She went very white.
“When?” Her voice was calm, almost emotionless.
“Last night.”
“It was after nine,” she said.
His eyebrows went up in surprise.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because, Mr. Brixan”—she spoke slowly—“at nine o’clock I saw the hand of the man who murdered him!
“Two nights ago,” she went on, “I went out to buy some wool I wanted. It was just before the shops closed—a quarter to eight, I think. In the town I saw Mr. Foss and spoke to him. He was very nervous and restless, and again made a suggestion to me which he had already made when he called on me. His manner was so strange that I asked him if he was in any trouble. He told me no, but he had had an awful premonition that something dreadful was going to happen, and he asked me
