His wife met him in the hall.
“Hugh, for goodness’ sake, compose your face,” she said severely. “Poor Mrs. Goodman is here, and Brenda, and you come in roaring with laughter.”
“Good Lord! I’d forgotten all about ’em,” he murmured, endeavouring to assume a mournful expression. “Where are they?”
“Upstairs. They’re going to stop here tonight. Brenda telephoned through to her mother. Hugh—what an awful thing to have happened.”
“You’re right, my dear,” he answered seriously. “It is awful. The only comfort about it is that it must have been absolutely instantaneous. Where’s Algy?”
“He’s in your room. He’s most frightfully upset, poor old thing, principally on Brenda’s account.” She laid her hand on his arm. “Hugh—he said something to me about it not being any accident. What did he mean?”
“Algy is a talkative ass,” answered her husband quietly. “Pay no attention to him, and don’t under any circumstances even hint at such a thing to Mrs. Goodman or Brenda.”
“But you don’t mean he killed himself?” said Phyllis in a horrified whisper.
“Good heavens! no,” answered Hugh. “But there is a possibility, my dear, and more than a possibility that he was murdered. Now—not a word to a soul. The police think it was an accident; let it remain at that for the present.”
“But who on earth would want to murder the dear old man?” gasped his wife.
“The Professor had made a discovery, darling,” said Hugh gravely, “which threatened to ruin everyone who was concerned in the diamond industry. He had found out a method of making diamonds artificially at a very low cost. To show you how seriously the trade regarded it, he was offered two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to suppress it. That he refused to do. This morning he received a letter threatening his life. This afternoon he died, apparently as the result of a ghastly accident. But—I wonder.”
“Does anybody know all this?” said Phyllis.
“A few very interested people who won’t talk about it, and you and Algy and I who won’t talk about it either—yet. Later on we might all have a chat on the subject, but just at present there’s rather too much of the fog of war about. In fact the only really definite fact that emerges from the gloom, except for the poor old chap’s death, is this.”
He held out an envelope in his hand, and his wife looked at it, puzzled.
“That is the discovery which has caused all the trouble,” went on Hugh. “And the few very interested people I was telling you about don’t know that I’ve got it. And they won’t know that I’ve got it either—yet.”
“So that’s why you were looking like that as you came in.”
His wife looked at him accusingly, and Hugh grinned.
“Truly your understanding is great, my angel,” he murmured.
“But how did you get it?” she persisted.
“He gave it to me at lunch today,” said her husband. “And in the near future it’s going to prove very useful—very useful indeed. Why, I almost believe that if I advertised that I’d got it, it would draw old Peterson himself. Seconds out of the ring; third and last round: time.”
“Hugh—you’re incorrigible. And don’t do that in the hall—someone will see.”
So he kissed her again, and went slowly up the stairs to his own room. Most of the really brilliant ideas in life come in flashes, and he had had many worse than that last. There were times when his soul positively hankered for another little turn-up with Carl Peterson—something with a real bit of zip in it, something to vary his present stagnation. But he fully realised that a gentleman of Peterson’s eminence had many other calls on his time, and that he must not be greedy. After all, he’d had two of the brightest and best, and that was more than most people could say. And perhaps there might be something in this present show which would help to keep his hand in. Sir Raymond Blantyre, the bird with the agitated eyeglass, for instance. He didn’t sound much class—a bit of a rabbit at the game probably, but still, something might come of him.
He opened the door of his room, and Algy looked up from his chair.
“You don’t think it was an accident, do you, Hugh?” he remarked quietly.
“I don’t know what to think, old man,” answered Drummond. “If it was an accident, it was a very remarkable and fortunate one for a good many people. But there is one point which is a little difficult to explain unless it was: Hannah, or Mary, or whatever that sweet woman’s name is who used to breathe down one’s neck when she handed you things at dinner, saw the old man at work through the open door. She heard him lock the door. Moreover, the key was found in the room—on the floor or somewhere; it was found while I was there. From that moment no one else entered the room until the explosion. Now, you haven’t seen the appalling mess that explosion made. There must have been an immense amount of explosive used. The darned place looks as if it had had
