The Eight of Swords

cocktail.

The colonel stopped the car. 'Don't go on saying, 'What ho, demmit,' he complained. 'We can't stay. We're in a hurry. What do you want?'

'Come on in,' invited the other hospitably. 'Have a cocktail. I know it's early, but have one anyway. Besides, there's news.' He turned his head over his shoulder, and called, 'Madeleine!'

At the sight of the amber-brown contents of that glass, Donovan's feelings underwent a sudden convulsion. On the lawn beyond the hedge he could see an enormous beach umbrella propped up over a table bearing materials which reminded him forcibly of New York. And, unless his eyes were deceiving him, the sides of that great nickelled cocktail-shaker were pale with moisture. A nostalgia swept over him. He was aware that ice for drinks was an almost unknown commodity in rural England. At the young man's hail, a girl's head appeared round the edge of the umbrella and gave everybody a beaming smile.

Getting up from a deck chair, she hurried to the gate. She was a dark-eyed, bouncing little piece of the sort known as a Japanese brunette; and that she was sturdy and admirably fashioned was rendered obvious by the fact that she wore beach pyjamas and one of those short silk coats with the flowers on them. She hung over the gate, inspected them all pleasantly, raised her eyebrows, and said, 'Hullo!' as though she were very pleased with herself for thinking of it.

Colonel Standish coughed when he saw the pyjamas, looked at the bishop, and went on hastily:

'Don't think everybody knows everybody. Hum. This is Dr. Fell — detective fella, you know; heard me speak of him, hey? — come down from Scotland Yard. And Mr. Donovan, the bishop's son… I want you to meet,' he said, rather proudly, 'Henry Morgan, the writin' fella. And Mrs. Morgan.'

Donovan stared as the introductions were acknowledged. Not even his formidable father could keep him quiet now.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'you are Henry Morgan?'

Morgan wryly scratched the tip of his ear. 'Um,' he said in an embarrassed way. 'I was afraid of that. Madeleine wins another bob. You see, the bet is that if you say that to me, I pay her a shilling. If, on the other hand; you look at her and make some remark about The Old, Bold Mate of Henry Morgan,' then I win it. However…'

'Hoora!' gurgled Madeleine delightedly. 'I win. Pay me.' She regarded Dr. Fell and said with candor: 'I like you.' Then she looked at Donovan and added with equal impartiality: 'I like you too.'

Dr. Fell, who was chuckling in the tonneau, lifted his stick in a salute. Thank you, my dear. And I’m naturally pleased to meet you both. You see—'

'Hold on a bit!' Donovan interrupted with pardonable rudeness. 'You are the creator of John Zed, diplomatist-detective?'

'Um.'

Another question, which could not be kept down despite his father's eye, boiled to the surface. He pointed to the glass in the other's hand and demanded: 'Martinis?'

Morgan brightened eagerly.

'And how!' agreed the creator of John Zed, diplomatist-detective. 'Have one?'

'Hugh!' interposed the bishop in a voice that could quell the most rebellious chapter, dean and all. 'We do not wish to take up your time, Mr. Morgan. Doubtless all of us have more important matters to which we can attend.' He paused, and his furry brows drew together. 'I hope I shall not be misunderstood, my friend, if I add that in the solemn presence of death your attitude seems to me to be somewhat reprehensibly irreverent. Start the car, Standish.'

'Sorry, sir,' said Morgan, looking at him meekly over his spectacles. 'I mean to say — sorry. Not for a moment would I in my irreverence stay your headlong rush to get at the corpse. All I wanted to tell you was—'

'Don't you mind him, bishop,' said Madeleine warmly. 'Don't you mind him. You can slide down our bannisters as much as you like, and nobody shall stop you. There! Fll even get a big cushion for you to land on, though I expect,' she added, scrutinizing him with a thoughtful air, 'you won't need it much, will you?'

'Angel sweetheart,' said Morgan dispassionately, 'shut your trap. What I was about to say was—'

'Madeleine gurgled. 'But he won't, will he?' she protested, swinging on the gate. 'And what's more, I wouldn't be mean like you, when you said you'd put the goldfish bowl there instead of a cushion. I mean, that isn't nice, is it?'

'Dawn of my existence,' said her husband querulously, 'all this is beside the point. Whether nature in her abundance has equipped His Reverence with a lower dorsal frontage sufficiently spacious to withstand the shocks of sliding down bannisters all over England, is not only beside the point, but savors of indelicacy.' He looked at Standish, and his face suddenly clouded. He moved the loose spectacles up and down his nose, uneasily. 'Look here, sir. We don't — well, the bishop is right. We don't take this very seriously, I admit. If it weren't for what Betty would feel about it, I shouldn't be very much cut up about it. I know; de mortuis, and all that. But after all, sir — old Depping was rather a blister, wasn't he?'

Standish punched at the steering-wheel, hesitantly.

'Oh, I say!' he protested…

'Right,' said Morgan in a colorless voice. 'I know it's none of my business. All I wanted to tell you was that I was to look out for you when you arrived and tell you that Inspector Murch has gone home for something to eat; he said to tell you he would be back directly… He allowed me to prowl about the Guest House with him, and we found a couple of things.

'And may I ask, young man,' said the bishop, stung, 'on what authority you did that?'

'Well, sir, I suppose it was rather like your own. There wasn't much to be seen there. But we did find the gun. I should say a gun, though there isn't much doubt it's the one. The autopsy hasn't been performed, but the doctor said it was a thirty-eight bullet. The gun is a thirty-eight Smith & Wesson revolver… You will find it,' said Morgan, in the negligent manner which would have been employed by John Zed, diplomatist-detective, 'in the right-hand drawer of Depping's desk.'

'Eh?' demanded Standish. 'In Depping's desk? What the devil is it doing there?'

'It's Depping's gun,' said Morgan; 'we found it there.' He noticed that he had a cocktail in his hand, and drank it off. Then he balanced the glass on the edge of the gate, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of the red-and- white blazer, and tried to assume a mysterious profundity like John Zed's. But it was difficult. For the first time Donovan saw the excitability of his nature. He could imagine him striding up and down the lawn with a cocktail in one hand, shifting his spectacles up and down his nose, and hurling out theories to a beaming wife. He said:

'There's no doubt it was his gun, sir. His name on a litde silver plate on the grip. And his firearms license was in the same drawer, and the numbers tallied… By the way, two shots had been recently fired.'

Dr. Fell bent forward abruptly. He made a queer figure against the hot green landscape, in his black cloak and shovel hat.

'Two shots?' he repeated. 'So far as we have heard, there was only one. Where was the other bullet?'

That's the point, sir. We couldn't discover it. Both Murch and I are willing to swear it isn't lodged in the room anywhere. Next—'

'I am afraid we are wasting a great deal of time,' the bishop interposed. 'All this information can be obtained officially from Inspector Murch. Shall we proceed, Standish?'

There were times, Donovan thought, when his old man was lacking in ordinary courtesy. Still, these constant references to sliding down bannisters must be wearing on his temper; and Madeleine Morgan seemed to be pondering some new remark about cushions. Dr. Fell rumbled something angrily, glaring at the bishop, but Standish was under the influence of that cold ecclesiastical eye, and obediendy pressed his starter.

'Right,' said Morgan amiably. 'Break away as soon as you can,' he suggested to Donovan, 'and come down and try one of our Martinis…' He leaned over the gate as the car backed round. He looked at the bishop. And then up rose Old John Zed himself, to speak in a tone of thunder across the road. 'I don't know what deductions you will make, Your Reverence,' said Old John Zed, 'but I’ll give you a tip. Look for the buttonhook.'

The car slewed round slighdy as it sped on. Standish goggled.

'Eh?' he inquired. 'What was that he said, hey? What button-hook? What's a demnition button-hook got to do