It was no news to Yale: nor was it news to the youngest officer at police headquarters.
But the person who seemed least concerned was Inspector Parr himself. He went about his routine work as though unconscious that any extraordinary change in his position was contemplated, and even when he met his successor, who came to look at the office he was shortly to occupy, was geniality itself.
One afternoon he met Jack Beardmore by accident in the park, and Jack was struck by the stout little man’s good spirits.
“Well, inspector,” said Jack, “are we any nearer the end?”
Parr nodded.
“I think we are,” he said. “The end of me.”
This was the first definite news Jack had received of the inspector’s retirement.
“But surely you’re not going? You have all the threads in your hands, Mr. Parr. They can’t be so foolish as to dispense with you at this very critical moment unless they have given up all hope of capturing the scoundrel.”
Mr. Parr thought “they” had given up all hope long ago, but the attitude of headquarters was a subject which he did not care to pursue.
Jack was going down to his country house. He had not visited the place since his father’s death, and he would not have gone now but the necessity had arisen for revising a number of farm leases, and since the business could not be done in town, and there were other matters which needed local attention, he decided to spend a night in a place which had, in addition to the memory of this tragedy, memories almost as distasteful.
“Going down into the country are you?” said Mr. Parr thoughtfully. “Alone?”
“Yes,” said Jack, and then as he guessed the other’s thoughts, he asked eagerly, “You would not care to come down as my guest, would you, Mr. Parr? I should be delighted if you could, but I suppose this Crimson Circle investigation will keep you in town.”
“I think they’ll get on very well without me,” said Mr. Parr grimly. “Yes, I think I should like to come down with you. I haven’t been to the house since your poor father’s death, and I should like to go over the grounds again.”
He asked for an additional two days’ leave, and headquarters, which would have willingly dispensed with him for the remainder of his lifetime, agreed.
As Jack was leaving that night the inspector went home, packed a small Gladstone bag, and met him at the station.
Neither the weather nor the roads were conducive to a long motorcar journey, and on the whole the inspector agreed that travelling by train was more comfortable.
He had left a little note addressed to Derrick Yale, telling him where he was going, and added at the foot:
It is possible circumstances may arise which would need my presence in town. Do not hesitate to send for me if this should be the case.
Remembering this postscript, Mr. Parr’s subsequent conduct was not a little odd.
XXXIII
The Posters
Jack did not find him a pleasant travelling companion; the inspector had brought with him a whole bundle of newspapers, in each of which he read religiously the comments upon the Crimson Circle. His host saw what he was reading, and was astonished that the man, phlegmatic as he was, could find any pleasure in the uncomplimentary references to himself which filled the journals. He said as much.
The inspector put down a paper on his knees, and took off his steel-rimmed pince-nez.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Criticism never did anybody any harm; it is only when a man knows he is wrong that this kind of stuff irritates him. As I happen to know I am right, it doesn’t matter to me what they say.”
“You really think you are right? In what respect?” asked Jack curiously, but here Parr was not offering any information.
They arrived at the little station and drove the three miles which separated the line from the big gaunt house which had been James Beardmore’s delight.
Jack’s butler, who had come down to superintend arrangements for his master’s comfort, handed a telegram to Inspector Parr almost as soon as he put his foot across the threshold.
Parr looked at the face of the envelope and then at the back.
“How long has this been here?”
“It arrived about five minutes ago; a cyclist messenger brought it up from the village,” he said.
The inspector tore open the envelope and extracted the form. It was signed “Derrick Yale,” and read:
Come back to London at once; most important development.
Without a word he handed the message to the young man.
“Of course you’ll go. It’s rather a nuisance; there isn’t a train until nine o’clock,” said Jack, who was disappointed at the prospect of losing his companion.
“I’m not going,” said Parr calmly. “Nothing in the wide world would make me take another train journey tonight. It must wait.”
This attitude toward the summons did not somehow go with Jack’s perception of the inspector’s character. He was, if the truth be told, secretly disappointed, although he was glad enough that Parr would share his first night in the house, every corner, every room of which, seemed to have its own especial ghost.
Parr looked at the telegram again.
“He must have sent this within half-an-hour of our leaving the station,” he said. “You have a telephone, haven’t you?”
Jack nodded, and Parr put through a long distance call. It was a quarter of an hour before the tinkle of the bell announced that he had been connected.
Jack heard his voice in the hall, and presently the detective came in.
“As I thought,” he said, “the wire was a fake. I’ve just been on to friend Yale.”
“And did you guess it was a fake?”
Mr. Parr nodded.
“I’m getting almost as good a guesser as Yale,” said the detective good-humouredly.
He spent the evening initiating the young man into the mysteries of picquet, of which Parr was a past-master. There is probably no more fascinating card game for two
