The room to which the inspector was shown was that which had been occupied by James Beardmore in his lifetime. It was a roomy apartment, lofty and expansive. There were three long windows, and at night the room, as the rest of the house, was lighted by means of an acetylene-gas plant which James Beardmore had installed.
“Where are you sleeping, by the way?” he said as he paused at the entrance of his room, after saying good night.
“I’m in the next room,” said Jack, and Parr nodded, closed the door, locking it behind him.
He heard Jack’s door shut, and proceeded to divest himself of part of his clothing. He made no attempt to undress, but taking from his battered suitcase an old silk dressing-gown, he wrapped it about him, turned out the light and, walking to the windows, pulled up the three blinds.
The night was fairly light; there was sufficient to enable him to find his way back to the bed, on which he lay, pulling the eiderdown over him. There is a method by which the worst cases of insomnia-haunted patients may obtain sleep, though it is one which I believe is very little known. It is to attempt deliberately to keep one’s eyes open in the dark.
Mr. Parr succeeded only by turning on his side and staring out of the nearest window, which he had opened a little.
Towards morning he rose suddenly and stepped noiselessly towards the nearest window; he had heard a faint whirr of sound, a noise which a smoothly-running motorcar makes, but now there was a profound silence. He went to the washstand, and rubbed his face with cold water, drying it leisurely. Then he walked back to the window, pulled up a chair and sat so that he commanded whatever view there was of the avenue leading to the front of the house.
He had to wait nearly half an hour before he saw a dark figure steal from the shadow of the trees, only to disappear again in a deeper shadow. He momentarily glimpsed it again as it passed out of his range of vision into the shadow of the house itself.
The inspector moved softly from the room and, crossing the landing, went down the stairs. The main door of the house was bolted and locked, and it was some time before he could open it. When he stepped out into the night there was nobody in sight. He crept stealthily along the path which ran parallel with the house, but found no intruder, and he had reached the main entrance again when he heard the sound of the motor fading gradually—the midnight visitor had gone.
He closed and bolted the door and went back to his room. This visit puzzled him. It was clear that the man, whoever he was, had not seen Parr, nor could he have been certain that he was under observation. He must have come and gone almost immediately.
It was not until he came down to breakfast in the morning that the mystery of the visitation was revealed.
Jack was standing before the fire reading a crumpled paper which looked as if it had been posted up and torn. It was the size of a small poster and hand-printed. Before he saw its contents, Parr knew that it was a message from the Crimson Circle.
“What do you think of this?” asked Jack, looking round as the detective came in. “We found half a dozen of these posters pasted or tacked on to the trees of the drive, and this one was stuck up under my window!”
The detective read:
Your father’s debt is still unpaid. It will remain unpaid if you persuade your friends Derrick Yale and Parr to cease their activity.
Underneath was written in smaller characters, and evidently added as an afterthought:
We shall make no further demands upon private individuals.
“So he was bill-posting,” said Parr thoughtfully. “I wondered why he came and left so early.”
“Did you see him?” asked Jack in surprise.
“I just glimpsed him. In fact, I knew he would call, though I expected a more startling consequence,” said the detective.
He sat through breakfast without saying a word, except to answer the questions that Jack put to him, and then only in the briefest fashion, and it was not until they were walking across the meadows that Parr asked:
“I wonder if he knows you’re fond of Thalia Drummond?”
Jack went red.
“Why do you ask that?” he said a little anxiously. “You don’t think they will take their vengeance on Thalia, do you?”
“If it would serve his purpose, he would wipe out Thalia Drummond like that.” The detective snapped his fingers.
He put an end to further conversation by stopping and turning about in his tracks.
“This will do,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to go to the station gate—the way Marl came to the house that morning?”
Parr shook his head.
“No, I wished to be sure how he approached the house. Can you point out the spot where he suddenly became so agitated?”
“Why, of course,” said Jack readily, but wondering what it was all about. “It was much nearer the house; in fact, I can give you the exact spot, because I particularly remember his stepping aside from the path and ruining a young rose tree on which he put his foot. There is the tree—or one the gardener has put in its place.”
He pointed, and Parr nodded his large head several times.
“This is very important,” he said. He walked to where the ruined tree had been. “I knew he was lying,” he said half to himself. “You cannot see the terrace from here at all. Marl told me that he saw your father standing on the terrace at the very moment he had his seizure, and my first impression was that it was the sight of your father which was responsible for his scare.”
He
