“Nothing you can say will ever surprise me,” said Mr. Parr.
The third shock which Derrick Yale received that day came on his return home. The first half of his surprise was to find that his servant was out. The one woman he employed did not sleep on the premises, but she was supposed to remain in the flat until nine o’clock in the evening. It was exactly six when Derrick Yale came in to find the place in darkness.
He turned on the light and made a tour of the rooms. Apparently, the sitting-room was the only apartment which had been disturbed, but here, whoever the intruder had been and he could guess her name, she had been very thorough and painstaking. It was not necessary for him to seek out the servant and discover what had happened. She had been called away from the house by a message purporting to come from him—he guessed that much. And whilst she was away Thalia Drummond had examined the contents of the flat at her leisure.
“A clever young woman!” said Derrick without malice, for he could admire even the genius which was employed against himself. She had lost no time. Within twelve hours she had broken gaol, ransacked both his office and his flat, and had removed documents which had a vital bearing upon the Crimson Circle.
He dressed himself leisurely, wondering what would be her next move. Of his own he was certain. Within twenty-four hours Inspector Parr would be a broken man. From a drawer in his dressing-room he took a revolver, looked at it for a moment speculatively, and slipped it into his hip pocket. There was going to be a startling and a sensational end to the chase of the Crimson Circle, an end wholly unforeseen by the spectators of the tragic game.
In the wide lobby of the Prime Minister’s house he found a guest, the excuse for whose presence he could not fathom. Jack Beardmore had certainly been a sufferer from the activities of the Crimson Circle, but he had no part in the latter incidents.
“I suppose you are surprised to see me, Mr. Yale,” laughed Jack, as he took the other’s hand, “but you’re not more surprised than I am to be invited to a meeting of the Cabinet.”
He chuckled.
“Who invited you?—Parr?”
“To be exact, the Prime Minister’s secretary. But I think Parr must have had something to do with the invitation. Don’t you feel scared in this company?”
“Not very,” smiled Derrick, slapping the other on the back.
A youthful private secretary bustled in and ushered them into the severe drawing-room, where a dozen gentlemen were talking in two groups.
The Prime Minister came forward to meet the detective.
“Inspector Parr has not arrived.” He looked questioningly at Jack. “I presume this is Mr. Beardmore?” he said. “The inspector particularly asked that you should be present. I suppose he has some light to throw upon poor James Beardmore’s death—by the way, your father was a great friend of mine.”
The inspector came in at that moment. He wore a dress suit which had seen better days, a low collar with an awkwardly-tied bow, and he seemed an incongruous figure in that atmosphere of intellect and refinement. Following him came the grey-moustached Commissioner, who nodded curtly to his junior and led the Prime Minister aside.
The two were engaged in a whispered conversation for a little time, and then the colonel came across to where Yale was standing with Jack.
“Have you any idea what sort of a lecture Parr is going to give?” he said, a little impatiently. “I was quite under the impression that he was making a statement by invitation, but from what the Prime Minister tells me, it was Parr who suggested he should give the history of the Crimson Circle. I hope he isn’t going to make a fool of himself.”
“I don’t think he will, sir.” It was Jack’s quiet voice that had interrupted, and the Commissioner looked at him inquiringly until Yale introduced the young man.
“I agree with Mr. Beardmore,” said Derrick Yale. “I have not the slightest expectation of Mr. Parr making a fool of himself, in fact, I think he is going to fill up a number of gaps and bridge over seemingly irreconcilable circumstances, and I am ready to fill in a number of spaces which he may leave blank.”
The company seated itself, and the Prime Minister beckoned the inspector forward.
“If you don’t mind, sir, I’ll stay where I am,” he said. “I’m not an orator, and I should like to tell this yarn as if I were telling it to any one of you.”
He cleared his throat and began speaking. At first his words were hesitant and he paused again and again to find the right phrase, but as he warmed to his subject he spoke more quickly and lucidly.
“The Crimson Circle,” he began, “is a man named Lightman, a criminal who committed several murders in France, was condemned to death, but was saved by an accident from execution. His full name is Ferdinand Walter Lightman, and on the date of his attempted execution his age was twenty-three years and four months. He was transported to Cayenne, and escaped from that settlement after murdering a warder, and it is believed got away to Australia. A man answering his description, but giving another name, was working for a storekeeper in Melbourne for eighteen months, and was afterwards in the employment of a squatter named Macdonald for two years and five months. He left Australia in a hurry, a warrant having been issued against him by the local police for attempting to blackmail his employer.
“What happened to him subsequently we have not been able to trace until there appeared in England an unknown and mysterious blackmailer who signed himself the Crimson Circle, and who, by careful
