come from the Willoughby stuff! If it didn't — look here, you don't think there are two gangs of counterfeiters operating within a dozen miles of each other, do you?'
'Oh, no. I was just sittin' and thinkin', you understand. I was just devisin' ways and means to convey something to somebody. We won't get much forrader until we have a go at Serpos and Bowers. The idea's got into my head that Serpos is both the key and the door to this business; and that's a dual role that's goin' to bother us a whole lot. But Bowers — yes, I got great hopes of Bowers.'
'The little one?' asked Evelyn curiously. 'Why?'
''Hi, cocky',' quoted H.M. 'I've had one go at Bowers already, and he strikes me as being a devilish shrewd lad. Burn me, look at his conduct back at the villa in Moreton Abbot! Look at the way he saw that spindle and knob missing from Hogenauer's parlour door, and immediately tumbled to what had happened, and ducked down on the floor and found the knob before Ken's thick wits had even clicked over! That wasn't half bad, you know. Well, you've been askin' yourselves a lot of questions about that hundred-quid note; but you've missed most of the important ones. Who would 'a' been closest to it? Bowers's particular province was cleanin' up litter — like newspapers. Bowers's province was the kitchen and the scullery. If anybody was likely to observe how a big bank-note got mysteriously wafted into the Daily Telegraph, it should 'a' been Bowers. Didn't he ever read the newspapers, after Hogenauer had finished with 'em? Most servants do. And, I repeat, he's an observant lad. Finally, there's one thing I want to impress on your fat heads. Ken, do you remember only to-night, when we were drivin' up there, I gave you a list of Hogenauer's accomplishments? Do you remember what I said was his greatest accomplishment?'
'You said,' I answered, 'that there wasn't much about engraving he didn't know, or inks, or dyes'
'Right,' said H.M., and opened his eyes slightly, just as there was a knock at the door.
'Dr. Antrim, sir,' said Sergeant Davis.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Incredible Burglar
The first thing to be noted about Dr. Lawrence Antrim was, surprisingly, that he was not nearly so nervous or disturbed as he had been earlier that night. He was still excited, but that was a quality which he had not in his thirty years been able to control. It might have been a bad professional handicap to him, if it had not been for the quality-call it personality, or reassurance, or strength, or what you like-which came with him behind his awkwardness. It seemed to wake up the room, where even H.M.'s gigantic vitality was beginning to dim in the hour before dawn. It made me realize how drowsy I was myself.
Antrim, though his eyes were hollow and his brush of mahogany-coloured hair stood up like a goblin's, was almost sombrely genial. He had a cigarette in his hand, which he carried crooked, with the lighted end towards him as though he were shielding it. After running an appraising eye over us, he tumbled down into a chair, crossed his long lanky legs, and said:
'Going to go over it all again? Right you are. I don't mind. Got my story pat, thanks.- Here!' He looked at me. 'I owe you an apology. When I saw you running away in that car to-night, and I thought it was Charters's car, I thought you were a crook-'
'That's not the only mistake that's been made to-night, son,' said H.M. 'You and your wife have been makin' a much bigger one.'
'Probably,' returned Antrim coolly. 'We all do, at one time or another. Well?'
'And there we hear the note of defiance. Bah!' said H.M., opening his eyes. 'You seem to be modellin' your manner after hers. No, no. Honestly, son, the manner don't sit well on you and it's not necessary. This isn't a court or third degree: it's a court of good news. I'm tryin' to tell you that we know all about your hideous suspicions of bein' haunted by Secret Service men in false whiskers. They're all rubbish. We're not after you. We never were. So get the bogies out of your mind and forget every suspicion while you answer my questions.'
Antrim went a little red under his freckles.
'Hell ' he said in a resounding tone which ended in mid air, like a suppressed shout. But in continuance of it he jumped in the chair. 'Here! You've got a nasty habit of taking a fellow off-guard'
'You told us that Paul Hogenauer, with his bottle of strychnine or bromide, left you about quarter past ten. You took a walk and came back to the house about ten-thirty. During that time the house was open and unguarded. Where was your wife then? Quick!'
'Upstairs in our bedroom,' replied Antrim, and pulled himself up. 'Here! Stop a bit! Give a fellow a chance. What's that got to do with it?' He considered, sharply, and then his face lightened. 'I see. You mean she might have heard somebody sneak in to change those bottles back again? But she didn't, or she'd have told me.'
'How do you know she was up in the bedroom?'
'I heard her walking about when I came back. The bedroom is just over this room and the surgery. This room has been partitioned off to make a surgery. I could hear her.'
'Uh-huh. What'd you do after you came back?'
'I locked up the house. I told you that.'
'And when you locked up in the surgery,' asked H.M., nodding heavily towards the half-open door, 'did you lock the sash-window as well as the French window?'
'This is new ground,' said Antrim. 'You didn't ask me — The ordinary window? No. I didn't touch that. Always keep it locked, anyway, so there wasn't any need to look. We never open it. Too much of a nuisance to open; it sticks like the devil.'
'Does it? But did you know that somebody broke it open the same night, and got into the house?'
'By gad,' said Antrim softly.
His sandy eyelashes flickered a little, but be kept fixed on H.M. a blank stare, which seemed to grow through wonder to excitement. He was sitting motionless and erect, his large knuckled hands on his knees and the cigarette burning almost to the flesh. Shifting the cigarette to his left hand, he lifted up his right hand slowly, brought it down, and snapped the fingers. It had almost the air of a ritual.
'By gad, I knew it! I thought so. And I'm willing to bet I saw the fellow who did it.'
'Did you, now?' inquired H.M. He said it casually. But the rest of us, I think, seemed to hear a clang as gates closed; or as somebody tumbled headlong into a trap. 'But weren't you at all curious? Do you usually see people in the act of burglin' your house without any comment?' How is it we haven't heard about this before?'
He brushed this aside.
'Don't joggle me! It wasn't anything like that. Nothing — serious. I couldn't be sure. It was like this. After I had locked up the house, I went up to bed about a quarter to eleven. But I couldn't sleep…:'
The strange part was that despite the limping sound of this (even the familiar term, 'But I couldn't sleep,' was delivered like a poor actor speaking bad lines), there was a certain conviction about the man. I was poised between two incredulities, and I did not know what to think.
'Why couldn't you sleep?' asked H.M.
'You ask me,' retorted Antrim bitterly. 'Ha! I say! That's good. You tell me you know all about what Betty and I have been afraid of, and then you ask me why I couldn't sleep! Because we didn't know what the devil was going on, that's why. Because that infernal letter about her father had come only the day before, and-'
'And she hadn't told you, until she did get that letter,' interposed H.M., 'who her father was or what he was? Hey? And she mentioned who Hogenauer was, too?'
'Got nothing to do with it,' said Antrim aggressively. 'Think I cared a rap? Rot! It wasn't that. It was wondering what game there was: if Hogenauer had a game: if — it was wondering about absolutely nothing. Only nerves. Think I could talk naturally to Hogenauer that night? I ask you!' He was becoming incomprehensible, turning out his knobby hands with a fierce gesture, but he conveyed a state of mind. 'Funny thing, too. I'll be frank with you. While I was sitting talking to poor old Hogenauer in here, I remember thinking, `What if I should shove a dose of poison into your bromide, and you should take it with your mineral water?' You may not believe it, but that's what I thought.
'Whew!' added Dr. Antrim, after a pause.
'You ask me what I had to be afraid of,' be went on. 'I don't know. That's always why you're afraid. As I say, I couldn't sleep. About half-past twelve I decided I'd better get up. I didn't want to wake Betty; she was sleeping
