He went slowly down the stairs, through the hall and the butler’s pantry to the side door, where he had left his boots, his overcoat and his shiny silk hat, for he was in evening dress. Then he stole softly forth along the covered passageway running by the side of the house. Here a door opened into the little forecourt of Marl’s house. He reached the garden and his hand was on the gate when somebody touched him and he spun round.
“I want you ‘Flush,’ ” said a well-remembered voice. “Inspector Parr. You may remember me?”
“Parr!” gasped the bewildered Barnet, and with an oath wrenched himself free and leapt through the gate, but the three policemen who were waiting for him were not so easy to dispose of, and they marched “Flush” Barnet to the nearest police station, a worried man.
In the meantime Parr conducted a search of his own. Accompanied by a detective he made his way to the hall of the house and up the stairs.
“This is the only room occupied apparently,” he said, and knocked at the door.
There was no reply.
“Go along and see if you can rouse any of the servants,” said Parr.
The man came back with the startling information that there were no servants in the house.
“There’s somebody here,” said the old inspector, and flashing his lamp along the corridor he saw the table, and with an agility remarkable in one of his age, he leapt up and peered through the ventilator.
“I can just see somebody asleep,” he said. “Hi! Wake up!” he called, but there was no reply.
Hammering on the door did not produce any response.
“Go down and see if you can find a hatchet, we’ll break open the door,” said Parr. “I don’t like this.”
Hatchet there was none, but they found a hammer.
“Can you show a light, Mr. Parr?” asked the man, and the inspector flashed his lamp on the door. It was a white door—white except for the Crimson Circle affixed to a panel as by a rubber stamp.
“Break in the door,” said Parr, breathing heavily.
For five minutes they smashed at a panel before they finally hammered it through, and the sleeper within gave no sign of consciousness.
Parr reached his hand through the door, turned the key and, by dint of stretching, found the bolt at the top. He slipped into the room. The light was still burning and its rays fell across the man on the bed, who lay upon his back, a twisted smile on his face, most obviously dead.
XVII
The Blower of Bubbles
It was long after midnight and Derrick Yale was sitting in his pretty little study—he lived in a flat overlooking the park—when the knock came to the door and he rose to admit Inspector Parr.
Parr related the incident of the evening.
“But why didn’t you tell me?” asked Derrick a little reproachfully, and then laughed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I always seem to be butting in on your affairs. But how came the murderer to escape? You say you had had the house surrounded for two hours. Did the girl come out?”
“Undoubtedly; she came out and drove home.”
“And nobody else went in?”
“I wouldn’t like to swear that,” said Parr. “Whoever was in the house had probably arrived long before Marl returned from the theatre. I have since discovered that there was a way out through the garage at the back of the house. When I said the house was surrounded that was an exaggeration. There was a way through the back garden which I did not know. I didn’t even suspect there were gardens there. Undoubtedly he went through the garage door.”
“Do you suspect the girl at all?”
Parr shook his head.
“But why were you surrounding Marl’s house at all?” asked Derrick Yale seriously.
The answer was as unexpected as it was sensational.
“Because Marl has been under police observation ever since he came back to London,” said Parr. “In fact, ever since I discovered that he was the man who wrote the letter, the scrap of which I found and which I compared last week with his writing—I asked him for the address of his tailor.”
“Marl?” said the other incredulously.
Inspector Parr nodded.
“I don’t know what there was between old man Beardmore and Marl, or what brought him to the house. I’ve been trying to reconstruct the scene. You may remember that when Marl came to the house on a visit he was suddenly seized with a panic.”
“I remember,” nodded Yale. “Jack Beardmore told me about it. Well?”
“He refused to stay at the house, said he was going back to London,” said Parr. “As a matter of fact, he went no farther than Kingside, which is a station some eight or nine miles away. He sent his bag on to London and came back by road. He was probably the person whom the murderer saw in the wood that night. Now why had he come back if he was so scared that he ran away in the first place? And why did he write that letter for delivery in the night when he had every opportunity to tell James Beardmore by day, when he was with him?”
There was a long silence.
“How was Marl killed?” asked Yale.
The other shook his head.
“That is a mystery to me. The murderer could not possibly have entered the room. I had an interview with ‘Flush’ Barnet—as yet he knows nothing about the murder—and he admits he broke in for the purpose of burglary. He says he heard the sound of somebody moving about the house, and very naturally hid himself. He also says he heard a strange hissing sound, like air escaping from a pipe. Another remarkable clue was a round wet patch on the pillow, within a few inches of the dead man’s hand. It was exactly circular. At
