He had hardly gone before his telephone bell went, and at the sound of the voice at the other end, she nearly dropped the receiver.
“Yes, it is I,” she said. “Good morning, Mr. Beardmore.”
“Is Yale there?” asked Jack.
“He has just gone out: he will not be back today. If there is anything important to tell him, I may be able to find him,” she said, steadying her voice with an effort.
“I don’t know whether it’s important or not,” said Jack, “but I was going through my father’s papers this morning, a very disagreeable job, by the way, and I found a whole bunch of papers relating to Marl.”
“To Marl?” she said slowly.
“Yes, apparently poor Dad knew a great deal more about Marl than we imagined. He had been in prison: did you know that?”
“I could have guessed it,” said Thalia.
“Father always put through an inquiry about people before he did business with them,” Jack went on, “and apparently there is a lot of explanation about Marl’s early life, collected by a French agency. He seems to have been a pretty bad lot, and I wonder the governor had dealings with him. One curious document is an envelope which is marked ‘Photograph of Execution’: it was sealed up by the French people, and apparently the governor didn’t open it. He hated gruesome things of that kind.”
“Have you opened it?” she asked quickly.
“No,” he answered in a tone of surprise. “Why do you jump at me like that?”
“Will you do me a favour, Jack?”
It was the first time she had ever called him by name, and she could almost see him redden.
“Why—why, of course, Thalia, I’d do anything for you,” he said eagerly.
“Don’t open the envelope,” she said intensely. “Keep all the papers relating to Marl in a safe place. Will you promise that?”
“I promise,” he said. “What a queer request to make!”
“Have you told anybody about it?” she asked.
“I sent a note to Inspector Parr.”
He heard her exclamation of annoyance.
“Will you promise me not to tell anybody, especially about the photograph?”
“Of course, Thalia,” he answered. “I’ll send it along to you, if you like.”
“No, no, don’t do that,” she said, then abruptly she finished the conversation.
She sat for a few minutes breathing quickly, and then she rose, and putting on her hat, she locked up the office, and went to lunch.
XXXV
Thalia Lunches with a Cabinet Minister
The fourth of the month had passed, and Derrick Yale was still alive. He commented on the fact as he came into the office which he and Inspector Parr jointly occupied.
“Incidentally,” he said, “I have lost my fishing.”
Parr grunted.
“It is better that you lost your fishing than that we lost sight of you,” he said. “I am perfectly convinced that if you had taken that trip, you would never have returned.”
Yale laughed.
“You have a tremendous faith in the Crimson Circle, and their ability to keep their promises.”
“I have—to a point,” said the inspector, without looking up from the letter he was writing.
“I hear that Brabazon has made a statement to the police,” said Yale, after an interval.
“Yes,” said the inspector. “Not a very informative one, but a statement of sorts. He has admitted that for a long time he was changing the money which the Crimson Circle extracted from their victims, though he was unaware of the fact. He also gives particulars of his joining the Circle, after which, of course, he acted as a conscious agent.”
“Are you charging him with the murder of Marl?”
Inspector Parr shook his head.
“We haven’t sufficient evidence for that,” he said, blotted his letter, folded it and enclosed it in an envelope.
“What did you discover in France? I have not had an opportunity of talking to you about that,” asked Yale.
Parr leant back in his chair, felt for his pipe, and lit it before he answered.
“About as much as poor old Froyant discovered,” he said. “In fact, I followed very closely the same line of investigation that he had. It was mostly and mainly about Marl and his iniquities. You know that he was a member of a criminal gang in France, and that he and his companion, Lightman—I think that was the name—were condemned to death. Lightman should have died, but the executioners bungled the job, and he was sent off to Devil’s Island, or Cayenne, or one of those French settlements, where he died.”
“He escaped,” said Yale quietly.
“The devil he did.” Mr. Parr looked up. “Personally, I wasn’t so interested in Lightman as I was in Marl.”
“Do you speak French, Parr?” asked Yale suddenly.
“Fluently,” was the reply, and the inspector looked up. “Why do you ask?”
“I have no reason, except that I wondered how you pursued your inquiries.”
“I speak French—very well,” said Parr, and would have changed the subject.
“And Lightman escaped,” said Yale softly. “I wonder where he is now.”
“That is a question I have never troubled to ask myself.” There was a note of impatience in the inspector’s voice.
“You were not the only person interested in Marl, apparently. I saw a note on your desk from young Beardmore, saying that he had discovered some papers relating to the late Felix. His father had also made inquiries about the man. Of course, James Beardmore would. He was a cautious man.”
He was lunching with the Commissioner, Mr. Parr learnt, and was not at all hurt that he was excluded from the invitation. He was very busy in these days, selecting the men who were to form the bodyguard of the Cabinet, and he could well afford to miss engagements which invariably bored him.
As it happens, his company would have been a great embarrassment, for Yale had something to communicate to the Commissioner, something which it was not well that Inspector Parr should hear. It was near to the end
