After he had driven Adele home, he went to the police station and made his wishes known; but it was too late to see the chief constable, and the subordinate officer in charge did not wish to take the responsibility of detaching an officer for the purpose. It was only when Michael threatened to call the chief on the telephone that he reluctantly drew on his reserves and put a uniformed officer to patrol the street.
Back again at Knebworth’s house, Michael examined the two articles which the girl had found. Butyl chloride was a drug and a particularly violent one. What use would the Headhunter have for that, he wondered.
As for the handcuff, he examined it again. Terrific force must have been employed to snap the connecting links. This was a mystery to him, and he gave it up with a sense of annoyance at his own incompetence.
Before going to bed he received a phone message from Inspector Lyle, who was watching Griff Towers. There was nothing new to report, and apparently life was pursuing its normal round. The inspector had been invited into the house by Sir Gregory, who had told him that Bhag was still missing.
“I’ll keep you there tonight,” said Michael. “Tomorrow we will lift the watch. Scotland Yard is satisfied that Sir Gregory had nothing to do with Foss’s death.”
A grunt from the other end of the phone expressed the inspector’s disagreement with that view.
“He’s in it somehow,” he said. “By the way, I’ve found a bloodstained derby hat in the field outside the grounds. It has the name of Chi Li Stores, Tjandi, inside.”
This was news indeed.
“Let me see it in the morning,” said Michael after long cogitation.
Soon after breakfast the next morning the hat came and was inspected. Knebworth, who had heard most of the story from Michael, examined the new clue curiously.
“If the coon wore Lawley’s hat when he arrived at Mr. Longvale’s, where, in the name of fate, did the change take place? It must have been somewhere between the Towers and the old man’s house, unless—”
“Unless what?” asked Michael. He had a great respect for Knebworth’s shrewd judgment.
“Unless the change took place at Sir Gregory’s house. You see that, although it is bloodstained, there are no cuts in it. Which is rum.”
“Very rum,” agreed Mike ruefully. “And yet, if my first theory was correct, the explanation is simple.”
He did not tell his host what his theory was.
Accompanying Knebworth to the studio, he watched the charabanc drive off, wishing that he had some excuse and the leisure to accompany them on their expedition. It was a carefree, cheery throng, and its very association was a tonic to his spirits.
He put through his usual call to London. There was no news. There was really no reason why he should not go, he decided recklessly; and as soon as his decision was taken his car was pounding on the trail of the joy wagon.
He saw the tower a quarter of an hour before he came up to it: a squat, ancient building, for all the world like an inordinately high sheepfold. When he came up to them the charabanc had been drawn on to the grass, and the company was putting the finishing touches to its makeup. Adele he did not see at once—she was changing in a little canvas tent, whilst Jack Knebworth and the camera man wrangled over light and position.
Michael had too much intelligence to butt in at this moment, and strolled up to the tower, examining the curious courses which generation after generation had added to the original foundations. He knew very little of masonry, but he was able to detect the Roman portion of the wall, and thought he saw the place where Saxon builders had filled in a gap.
One of the hands was fixing a ladder up which Roselle was to pass. The story which was being filmed was that of a girl who, starting life in the chorus, had become the wife of a nobleman with archaic ideas. The poor but honest young man who had loved her in her youth (Michael gathered that a disconsolate Reggie Connolly played this part) was ever at hand to help her; and now, when shut up in a stone room of the keep, it was he who was to rescue her.
The actual castle tower had been shot in Arundel. Old Griff Tower was to serve for a closeup, showing the girl descending from her prison in the arms of her lover, by the aid of a rope of knotted sheets.
“It’s going to be deuced awkward getting down,” said Reggie lugubriously. “Of course, they’ve got a rope inside the sheet, so there’s no chance of it breaking. But Miss Leamington is really fearfully awfully heavy! You try and lift her yourself, old thing, and see how you like it!”
Nothing would have given Michael greater pleasure than to carry out the instructions literally.
“It’s too robust a part for me, it is really,” bleated Reggie. “I’m not a cave man, I’m not indeed! I’ve told Knebworth that it isn’t the job for me. And besides, why do they want a closeup? Why don’t they make a dummy that I could carry and sling about? And why doesn’t she come down by herself?”
“It’s dead easy,” said Knebworth, who had walked up and overheard the latter part of the conversation. “Miss Leamington will hold the rope and take the weight off you. All you’ve got to do is to look brave and pretty.”
“That’s all very well,” grumbled Reggie, “but climbing down ropes is not the job I was engaged for. We all have our likes and our dislikes, and that’s one of my dislikes.”
“Try it,” said Jack laconically.
The property man had fixed the rope to an iron staple which he had driven to the inside of the tower, the top of which would not be shown in the picture. The actual descent had been acted by “doubles” in Arundel on a
