“She must have the best lawyers procurable,” he said quietly. “I don’t know that I ought to take you into my confidence, Mr. Parr, because you naturally will be on the other side.”
“Naturally,” said the inspector, “but I’ve got a sneaking regard for Thalia Drummond, too.”
“You?” said Jack in astonishment. “Why, I thought—”
“I’m human,” said the inspector. “A criminal to me is just a criminal. I have no personal grudge against the men I have arrested. Truland, the poisoner, whom I sent to the gallows, was one of the nicest fellows I’ve ever met, and I got quite fond of him after a bit.”
Jack shuddered.
“Don’t talk of poisoners and Thalia Drummond in the same breath,” he said testily. “Do you honestly believe she is the leading spirit of the Crimson Circle?”
Mr. Parr pursed his thick lips.
“If somebody came to me and told me the Archbishop was the leading light, I shouldn’t be surprised, Mr. Beardmore,” he said. “By the time this Crimson Circle business is settled, we are all going to have shocks. I started my investigations prepared to believe that anybody might be the Crimson Circle—you, or Marl, the Commissioner or Derrick Yale, Thalia Drummond—almost anybody.”
“And you still hold that opinion?” asked Jack with an attempt at a smile. “For the matter of that, Mr. Parr, you yourself might be the villain of the piece.”
Mr. Parr did not deny the possibility.
“Mother thinks—” he began, and this time Jack did actually laugh.
“Your grandmother must be a remarkable personality; has she views on the Crimson Circle?”
The inspector nodded vigorously.
“She always has had, since the first murder. She put her finger down on the very spot, Mr. Beardmore, but mother always could do that sort of thing. I’ve had my best inspirations from her; in fact, all the—” He stopped himself.
Jack was amused, but he was pitying, too. This man, so ill-equipped by nature for his work, had probably won himself a high place in the police service by dogged unimaginative persistence. In every service men had reached near to the top with no other merit than their seniority. It was just a little fantastic at this moment, when the keenest brains were exercised to lay this bizarre association by the heels, to hear this stout man talking solemnly of the advice he had received from his grandmother!
“I must come along and renew my acquaintance with your aunt,” said Jack.
“She has gone into the country,” was the reply, “and I’m all alone. A woman comes in every morning to clean the place, but there’s nobody there evenings—it doesn’t seem like home to me now.”
It was a relief to Jack to get on to the subject of Mr. Parr’s domestic affairs. Their very unimportance was a sedative to his racked mind. He felt that an evening spent with the inspector’s knowledgeable grandparent might even restore him to something like normality.
Parr himself led the conversation back to more serious channels.
“Drummond will be brought up tomorrow and remanded,” he said.
“Is there any hope of getting bail for her?”
Parr shook his head.
“No. She’ll have to go to Holloway, but that won’t do her much harm,” he said, heartlessly, as Jack thought. “It is one of the best prisons in the country, and maybe she’ll be glad of the rest.”
“How came Yale to arrest her? I should have thought that was your job?”
“I instructed him,” said Parr. “He has now the status of a regular police officer, and as he had been in the case earlier in the day, I thought I would let him continue it to the end.”
Just as the inspector had foreshadowed, the police-court proceedings of the next day were confined only to evidence of arrest, and Thalia Drummond was remanded in custody.
The court house was packed, and a big crowd, attracted by the sensational character of the charge, filled all the roads approaching the court.
Mr. Willings was not well enough to attend, but well enough to send his resignation to the Cabinet in response to the Prime Minister’s suggestion, contained in a letter couched in such unpleasant terms—and the acidulated vocabulary of the Prime Minister was notorious—that even he, the thick-skinned Willings, was pained.
Whatever happened, he was everlastingly disgraced; even the thick and thin supporters of his policy would be revolted by the evidence he must give. He had taken the girl—a comparative stranger—to his country house, made violent love to her, and had been stabbed. There could be no romantic version of that unpleasant story; and he heartily cursed himself for his stupidity.
Parr made one call upon the girl whilst she was in prison. She refused to see him in her cell, and insisted upon the interview taking place in the presence of a wardress. She explained her attitude when they sat together in the big gaunt waiting-room of the gaol, he at one end of the table and she at the other.
“You must excuse my not seeing you in my apartment, Mr. Parr,” she said. “But so many promising young emissaries of the Crimson Circle have met with an untimely end through interviewing policemen in their cells.”
“The only one I can recall,” said Parr stolidly, “is Sibly.”
“Who was a shining example of indiscretion.”
She showed her even white teeth in a smile.
“Now what do you want of me?”
“I want you to tell me what happened when you called at Onslow Gardens.”
She gave him a faithful and a detailed account of that afternoon visit.
“When did you discover the dagger was gone?”
“When I was looking round the room whilst Willings was putting on his coat. How is Lothario?”
“He’s all right,” said Parr. “I am afraid he will recover—I mean,” he added hastily, “I am glad to say he’ll get better. Was that the first time Willings noticed the absence of the dagger?”
She nodded.
“Did you carry a muff?”
“Yes,” she said. “Is that the place where the deadly weapon was supposed to be concealed?”
“Did you have your muff in your hand when you went into his house at Hatfield?”
She thought
