“I’ll do what I can for ‘Flush’ Barnet,” she said. “Not because I’m scared of your going into the box—that’s the part of the police court where you’ll be least at home, Macroy—but because the poor little wretch was innocent of the murder.”
Miss Macroy swallowed something at this description of her lover.
“I’ll talk to Yale in the morning. I can’t be sure it will do any good, but I’ll get a heart-to-heart talk with him if he gives me a chance.”
“Thank you,” said Miss Macroy, a little more graciously, and proceeded to admire the flat in conventional language.
Thalia showed her from room to room.
“What’s this place?”
“The kitchen,” said Thalia, but made no attempt to open the door. The girl looked at her suspiciously.
“Have you got a friend?” she asked, and before Thalia could stop her she had opened the door and walked in.
The kitchen was a small one and empty. The electric light was burning, which suggested to Miss Macroy that the girl had left the kitchen to answer her knock.
Thalia could have smiled at the obvious disappointment on Milly Macroy’s face, but her inclination to amusement departed as Macroy walked to the sink and picked up a bottle.
“What is this?” said she, and read the label.
It was half-filled with a colourless liquid, and Miss Macroy did not attempt to take out the stopper. The label told her all she wanted to know.
“ ‘Chloroform and Ether,’ ” she read, looking at the girl. “Why have you been using chloroform?”
Only for a second was Thalia taken aback, and then she laughed.
“Well, do you know, Milly Macroy,” she drawled, “when I think of poor ‘Flush’ Barnet in Brixton Gaol, I just have to sniff something to put him out of my mind.”
Macroy banged down the bottle on the table with a snort.
“You’re a bad lot, Thalia Drummond, and one of these days they’ll be waking you at eight o’clock, and ask you if you have any message for your friends.”
“And I shall reply,” said Thalia sweetly, “bury me next to ‘Flush’ Barnet, the eminent crook.”
Miss Milly Macroy did not think of a suitable retort until she was in the Marylebone Road, and then it came to her with annoying force that, for all her interview, Thalia Drummond had promised nothing.
XXVII
Mr. Parr’s Mother
Jack Beardmore had heard of Brabazon’s arrest, and went straight to police headquarters to see Mr. Parr.
He found that excellent gentleman had gone home.
“If it is important, Mr. Beardmore,” said the police clerk on duty, “you will find him at home in his house at Stamford Avenue.”
Beyond his natural interest in the Crimson Circle and all that pertained thereto, Jack had no particular wish to see the inspector, and Derrick Yale had telephoned all that was known or could be told.
“Parr thinks this arrest may have an important development,” he said. “No, I haven’t seen Brabazon, but I accompany Parr tomorrow morning when he visits him.”
Yale, too, was apparently un-get-at-able; he had hinted that he had a theatre party that night, and Jack bent his steps homeward. He had sent his car away, for he felt he needed exercise to dissipate his energies, and as he crossed the gloomy park, taking a shortcut to his house, he found himself wondering what sort of a home life a man like Parr could have. He had never spoken about his family, and his mode of living outside of the police headquarters was almost as much of a mystery as that which he was trying to unravel.
Where was Stamford Avenue, he wondered. He had reached a deserted spot of the park, when he thought he heard footsteps behind him, and turned his head. He was not a nervous type, and ordinarily the sound of somebody walking in his rear would not have interested him sufficiently to make him turn. The path here skirted a dense thicket of rhododendrons. There was nobody in sight. Jack went on, quickening his pace.
He heard no more footsteps, but looking round he thought he saw a man walking on the grass by the side of the path. As Jack stopped he too halted. He was doubtful as to what he should do. To challenge the man might put him into an absurd position; there was no reason in the world why any good citizen should not walk in the park at night, or, for the matter of that, why they should not walk behind him anywhere at a respectable distance.
And then ahead of him he made out a slowly strolling figure, and heard the unmistakable “beat walk” of a policeman.
To his own amazement he felt relieved, and when he looked round, the figure that had followed him had disappeared. He tried to reconstruct his impression; whoever his tracker had been, he was smally made. At first Jack had thought it was a boy; perhaps some poor park beggar who was mustering up courage to approach him for the price of a night’s bed. It seemed absurd that he was glad to be out of the park, and to step into the well-lighted street, but it was the case.
He made an inquiry of a policeman.
“Stamford Avenue, sir? That bus you see over there will take you, or you can get there in a taxi in ten minutes.”
Jack stood for a long time before he called the taxicab. Mr. Parr would rightly resent this intrusion into his domestic privacy, and really he had no excuse to offer. But making up his mind of a sudden, he called a cab, and in a very short time was experiencing exactly the same doubts and misgivings before the door of Inspector Parr’s maisonette.
It was Parr himself who opened the door.
His face was naturally free from expression, and he neither showed surprise nor annoyance at the arrival of his late visitor.
“Come in, Mr. Beardmore,” he said. “I have just arrived, and am having supper. I suppose you’ve had your evening meal a long time ago.”
“Don’t let
