“I have therefore taken upon myself the responsibility of altering our entertainment for this evening; and the idea that has occurred to me in this connection will, I both hope and believe, appeal to you very considerably. I venture to think that it is both novel and enthralling.” Roger paused and beamed on the interested faces around him. Chief Inspector Moresby, a little puce below the ears, was still at grips with his cigar.
“My idea,” Roger said, “is connected with Mr. Graham Bendix.” There was a little stir of interest. “Or rather,” he amended, more slowly, “with Mrs. Graham Bendix.” The stir subsided into a still more interested hush.
Roger paused, as if choosing his words with more care. “Mr. Bendix himself is personally known to one or two of us here. Indeed, his name has actually been mentioned as that of a man who might possibly be interested, if approached, to become a member of this Circle. By Sir Charles Wildman, if I remember rightly.”
The barrister inclined his rather massive head with dignity. “Yes, I suggested him once, I think.”
“The suggestion was never followed up,” Roger continued. “I don’t quite remember why not; I think somebody else was rather sure that he would never be able to pass all our tests. But in any case the fact that his name was ever mentioned at all shows that Mr. Bendix is to some extent at least a criminologist, which means that our sympathy with him in the terrible tragedy that has befallen him is tinged with something of a personal interest, even in the case of those who, like myself, are not actually acquainted with him.”
“Hear, hear,” said a tall, good-looking woman on the right of the table, in the clear tones of one very well accustomed to saying “hear, hear” weightily at appropriate moments during speeches, in case no one else did. This was Alicia Dammers, the novelist, who ran Women’s Institutes for a hobby, listened to other people’s speeches with genuine and altruistic enjoyment, and, in practice the most staunch of Conservatives, supported with enthusiasm the theories of the Socialist party.
“My suggestion is,” Roger said simply, “that we turn that sympathy to practical uses.”
There was no doubt that the eager attention of his audience was caught. Sir Charles Wildman lifted his bushy grey brows, from under which he was wont to frown with menacing disgust at the prosecution’s witnesses who had the bad taste to believe in the guilt of his own client, and swung his gold-rimmed eyeglasses on their broad black ribbon. On the other side of the table Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, a short, round, homely-looking woman who wrote surprisingly improper and most successful plays and looked exactly like a rather superior cook on her Sunday out, nudged the elbow of Miss Dammers and whispered something behind her hand. Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick blinked his mild blue eyes and assumed the appearance of an intelligent nanny-goat. The writer of detective-stories alone sat apparently unmoved and impassive; but in times of crisis he was wont to model his behaviour on that of his own favourite detective, who was invariably impassive at the most exciting moments.
“I took the idea to Scotland Yard this morning,” Roger went on, “and though they never encourage that sort of idea there, they were really unable to discover any positive harm in it; with the result that I came away with a reluctant, but nevertheless official permission to try it out. And I may as well say at once that it was the same cue that prompted this permission as originally put the whole thing into my head”—Roger paused impressively and glanced round—“the fact that the police have practically given up all hope of tracing Mrs. Bendix’s murderer.”
Ejaculations sounded on all sides, some of dismay, some of disgust, and some of astonishment. All eyes turned upon Moresby. That gentleman, apparently unconscious of the collective gaze fastened upon him, raised his cigar to his ear and listened to it intently, as if hoping to receive some intimate message from its depths.
Roger came to his rescue. “That information is quite confidential, by the way, and I know none of you will let it escape beyond this room. But it is a fact. Active inquiries, having resulted in exactly nothing, are to be stopped. There is always hope of course that some fresh fact may turn up, but without it the authorities have come to the conclusion that they can get no farther. My proposal is, therefore, that this Club should take up the case where the authorities have left it.” And he looked expectantly round the circle of upturned faces.
Every face asked a question at once.
Roger forgot his periods in his enthusiasm and became colloquial.
“Why, you see, we’re all keen, we’re not fools, and we’re not (with apologies to my friend Moresby) tied to any hard-and-fast method of investigation. Is it too much to hope that, with all six of us on our mettle and working quite independently of each other, one of us might achieve some result where the police have, to put it bluntly, failed? I don’t think it’s outside the possibilities. What do you say, Sir Charles?”
The famous counsel uttered a deep laugh. “ ’Pon my word, Sheringham, it’s an interesting idea. But I must reserve judgment till you’ve outlined your proposal in a little more detail.”
“I think it’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Sheringham,” cried Mrs. Fielder-Flemming, who was not troubled with a legal
