The Red Book Magazine/Volume 38/Number 6/The Three Malefactors

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

 

The fifth episode in the pursuit of the arch criminal Michael Sayers and his wife Janet by the master detective Norman Greyes.

 

The Three
Malefactors

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Illustrated by W. B. King

Janet's Version

IT was about four months after I had been in the service—how I hate the phrase!—of Mrs. Trumperton-Smith, that I decided to rob her. I first went to her because, day by day, I felt the need of money for those luxuries to which I had become accustomed. After my disastrous visit to Paris, no news whatever had come to me from my husband. A slack period had set in at the dressmaking establishment where I had been employed, and I was informed that my services were no longer necessary. I spent a month at a manicurist's and a few weeks at a photographic studio. I left them for the same reason. I have killed a man with my own hand and been a partner in more than one robbery, but the one virtue of my plebeian ancestors has remained—an uncomfortable, sometimes an almost accursed gift. I have never lost my self-respect. The touch of an ungloved hand upon my fingers awakens in me at once a passionate repugnance. It was that feeling which was responsible for my one great crime.

Mrs. Trumperton-Smith advertised in the Morning Post for a companion and lady's maid. I won the post on account of my manners and appearance, but I soon found that the duties which I was expected to fill pertained far more to the latter position than the former. My mistress was a lady of ample person and ample means. She lived in excellent style and apparently had plenty of money. She was a widow about forty-five years old, still good-looking in a florid sort of way, and well enough educated from the middle-class point of view. She wasted no time upon pets. Men were her one and everlasting hobby.

We were staying at the Magnificent Hotel at Brighton when the idea which I have mentioned, of robbing my mistress, first took definite shape in my mind. I should have bided my time, I think, but for two reasons. One was that the salary which she paid me was absurdly small and I saw no chance of saving anything, and the other was the very imminent fear of being anticipated. Mrs. Trumperton-Smith was not always so discreet as she should have been in her acquaintances.

At the present time she was on exceedingly friendly terms with a Mr. Sidney Bloor, whom I put down, from the moment I first saw him, as an undoubted adventurer. He was young and rather pimple-faced, with weak eyebrows and eyelashes, small, cunning eyes, a vapid expression but an acquisitive mouth. He was always dressed in the height of fashion, and he had acquired the shibboleth of the up-to-date young man of the moment. Mrs. Trumperton-Smith admired and believed in him. I mistrusted and despised him. He made languid attempts to kiss me whenever he found me alone in the sitting-room, attempts which I always managed to evade without exaggerated prudery, and without thinking it necessary to refuse the frequent tips which his position as my mistress' declared admirer seemed to render my due.

I knew exactly what he was after, though. I had seen his covetous eyes light up when my mistress had more than usually overladen her portly person with some of the magnificent jewels in which a portion of her large means was invested. I had seen him make mental calculations as to their value with a greedy, almost ferocious light in his unpleasant eyes. There was a particular diamond necklace which seemed to move him more than any other of her possessions. I felt sure that, when he made his attempt, it would be this necklace which he would endeavor to secure.

I relieved her of the jewels. “If you will give me your key, madam, I will lock them up,” I suggested.

He found me one evening, some four months after our arrival in Brighton, alone in the sitting-room at about the hour when Madam was sometimes pleased to dispense cocktails. A spasmodic attempt at gallantry having been met and repulsed, he lingered to watch me busy repairing a hair-ornament which my mistress desired to wear that evening.

“Where is the old bird?” he asked confidentially.

I did not discourage this familiarity as I should have done, because I was really anxious to make a guess at his plans.

“Madam is out playing bridge with some friends,” I told him.

“What little gewgaws are you sending her down in tonight?”

“Whatever she chooses to wear,” I replied.

“Only last night,” he remarked, “she told me that it was generally you who made the selection.”

“She usually does wear what I put out,” I assented. “Which do you admire her in most, Mr. Bloor?”

The young man scratched his chin thoughtfully. All the amorousness of the barroom lounger was in his tone and expression as he glanced down at me.

“It doesn't matter to me what she wears,” he sighed. “I know a little girl, though, who would look the real thing decked out in those diamonds, eh?”

“I expect you have a large acquaintance amongst my sex,” I replied demurely.

“Wasn't thinking of anyone farther away than this room,” he assured me. “You're a damn' good-looking girl, you know, Janet.”

“Do you think so, Mr. Bloor?” I ventured

“I do indeed,” he insisted, edging a little nearer toward me. “I say, go and fetch them just for a joke, and try them on. I'd like to see how they look on that white throat of yours.”

“And have Madam come in and send me away without notice! No, thank you, Mr. Bloor!”

“If you lost your job through me,” he declared magniloquently, “I should take good care to make it up to you.”

Your way of making it up might not appeal to me,” I answered

“You're a cold young woman, Janet,” he complained. “My last evening, too.”

“Are you going away?”

“Back to the City tomorrow. I'm my own master and all that, of course,—take a week or two just when I want it——but one has to pick up a bit of the rhino now and then. We haven't all got Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's money.”

“If it is really your last night,” I said, “tell me what jewelry you would like the mistress to wear this evening, and I will put it out for her.”

He affected to treat the matter with indifference, but it was obvious what he had been leading up to.

“What about the diamond necklace, then?” he suggested. “She's coming to dine at my table, so I ought to have a say. The diamond necklace, earrings and bracelet! What-ho! We sha'n't need any other illumination!”

“I will do my best,” I promised him.

My mistress came bustling in a moment or two later and busied herself making the cocktails. I went through into her bedroom to lay out her gown. It was perfectly clear to me now that if I were going to rob Mrs. Trumperton-Smith at all, it had better be done quickly. Mr. Sidney Bloor's choice showed that he had a very fair idea of the value of jewels.

The drinking of cocktails was concluded a little more quickly than usual, and Mrs. Trumperton-Smith joined me in the bedroom, full of what passed with her as geniality. She was always agreeable when things had been going her way, and she had a certain florid good-nature which made her popular in the hotel and among her casual acquaintances. It was a quality, however, which was entirely superficial, and in a general way I found her disagreeable, selfish and jealous to a degree. Her whole expression altered as she submitted herself to my ministrations.

“How long has Mr. Bloor been here?” she asked.

“About five minutes, madam.”

“Another time,” she said stiffly, “it would be more seemly if you brought any work you had to do, in here, while he was waiting for me.”

“Very good, madam.”

“And what a mess you've made of this aigrette!” she went on. “I don't think I shall ever wear it again.”

“I have arranged it exactly according to your instructions, madam,” I told her.

“Don't answer me, woman,” she snapped. “And be careful with my hair on the left side. You're making me look a perfect fright. Here!”

She withdrew the key of her jewel-case from a bracelet and passed it to me.

“As Madam is wearing black,” I said, “I thought she would prefer the diamonds.”

“Bring them along and don't talk so much,” was the curt reply.

I selected the diamond necklace, earrings and bracelet, locked up the case and returned the key. My mistress' expression softened as she looked at herself in the glass.

“I really think,” she reflected with a little sigh, “that black does become me.”

“I have heard a great many people say so, madam,” I assured her.

I intervened. “I am afraid the supervisor is correct. The number has been disconnected.” “What do you mean?” he gasped.

She picked up her gold bag, looked inside to see that I had placed her handkerchief there, and turned away.

“See that the fire is kept up in the sitting-room, Janet,” she ordered. “Mr. Bloor and I will take our coffee there.”

“Very good, madam,” I replied.

I went into the steward's room and had my supper as usual, and I also paid a visit to Mr. Bloor's bedroom and borrowed certain trifles which I proposed to use later on. It was not yet clear to me by what means the young man was scheming to possess himself of the jewels, but I was quite convinced that the attempt itself would be made that night. I happened to know that both he and Mrs. Trumperton-Smith were engaged to play bridge after dinner at a neighboring hotel, and I was quite sure that it was the jewels she was wearing, rather than those left in her case, upon which he had designs.

I contrived to leave open the connecting door between the bedroom and the sitting-room, and to be in the former when they returned for their coffee. Madam had come in for her cloak, and they were on the point of starting out again, when her escort at last gave me the cue for which I had been waiting.

“I say, Mimi,” he drawled—he called her 'Mimi' although she weighed fourteen stone, “I don't feel comfortable walking along the front with you in those diamonds. Leave them behind, there's a dear. All those women at the Royal wear flashy jewelry. You'll look much more the real thing with none on at all.”

“Just as you like, dear,” she assented meekly. “Perhaps you're right, especially if we go on to supper afterward. Here, Janet!”

I hurried out.

“Yes, madam?”

“Take these off—all of them,” she directed, extending her arms and poising her neck. “I am going out and may be late.”

I relieved her of the jewels. All the time Mr. Bloor was watching with a gleam in his eyes.

“If you will give me your key, madam, I will lock them up,” I suggested.

I could judge that this was the critical moment for Mr. Bloor. He had gambled correctly, however, upon Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's general indolence.

“Oh, that will do when I get back,” she said. “Put them in one of the drawers, Janet.”

They went off together. I did exactly as I had been bidden, and afterward lingered in the sitting-room while I completed my plans. I had just come to a decision when there was a sharp knock at the door. The manager of the hotel—a Mr. Léon Grant—made his appearance. He looked around the empty sitting-room.

“I understood that Mrs. Trumperton-Smith was up here,” he said courteously.

“Mrs. Trumperton-Smith went out some little time ago,” I told him. “I think she has gone to the Royal Hotel to play bridge.”

He seemed disappointed. He was a thin, rather nervous-looking person, with a very agreeable face and manner, but with lines about his eyes and a general air of overanxiety. It was rumored that the hotel was not doing quite so well as some of its rivals.

“What time do you expect your mistress back?” he inquired.

“She did not say, sir,” I replied. “The last time she went out to play bridge, it was about one o'clock when she returned. Mr. Bloor is with her.”

The manager nodded and turned away.

“Can I give her any message, sir?” I added.

He hesitated, closed the door and came back again.

“I should imagine,” he said, looking at me attentively, “that you are a trusted servant.”

“I was engaged as companion-lady's-maid, sir,” I told him. “I believe that my mistress has every confidence in me.”

He nodded.

“To tell you the truth,” he explained, “I am a little worried about your mistress' jewels. There was a small robbery last night at a hotel in the neighborhood, and I have had an indirect sort of warning from the police that there are thieves about. Mrs. Trumperton-Smith has the reputation of being very careless. I came to ask her if she would allow me to keep her jewels in the hotel safe.”

“I should be very glad if you could persuade her to do so, sir,” I assured him. “I suggested it when we arrived, but Madam likes to take them out and look at them when she is alone.”

“It is scarcely fair upon any hotel,” the manager pointed out a little querulously. “Will you be so kind as to tell me where she keeps them?”

I showed him the case, although I said nothing of the diamonds in the drawer. He frowned severely.

“It is placing temptation in people's way,” he declared.

“The door of the bedroom is always locked,” I reminded him, “and you have a night-watchman. Then, too, we are on the fourth story—”

“My dear young woman,” he interrupted irritably, “those things are nothing to an experienced thief. The hotel safe is the only place for such jewelry as Mrs. Trumperton-Smith possesses. I shall wait upon her tomorrow morning and tell her so.”

He said good night pleasantly and left me. I went back to my room, undressed, and donned a complete suit of Mr. Bloor's evening clothes, and theater hat, which I had taken the liberty of borrowing from his room. At the time when I knew that the night-watchman's back was turned, I slipped out, descended a few of the stairs which were exactly opposite my door, ascended them again noisily, walked along the corridor, entered Mr. Bloor's room, waited there a moment or two, came out again, and entered the sitting-room of our suite. In ten minutes I was back in my bedroom with the diamonds. In an hour's time Mr. Bloor's clothes were back in his room and the diamonds safely disposed of.

Norman Greyes Tells His Side

IT was really, in the first place, not owing to any request from my friend Rimmington that I became interested in the Brighton robbery and murder case. Philip Harris, who was a director of the hotel company, wrote me a personal letter, asking me to represent the interests of the hotel in any way I thought fit, and it was on the strength of this appeal that I traveled down to Brighton and took up my temporary residence at the Magnificent Hotel. Within a few minutes of my arrival the manager himself waited upon me. As was only natural, he was in a state of great distress. Almost before we had shaken hands, he had commenced to unburden himself.

“Forty different people,” he told me distractedly, “have given notice to leave the hotel within the next few days. Several have gone already, right in the middle of the season.”

I probably seemed a little unsympathetic.

“It was another tragedy I came down to investigate, Mr. Grant,” I reminded him.

I think that he perceived the justice of my rebuke, for he apologized at once.

“I am sorry, Sir Norman,” he said, “but there are times when one can't help being selfish. Mr. Johnson, the chief of the local police, is here waiting to see you. Is there anything I can tell you first? You will visit the suite in which the affair happened, of course?”

“Presently,” I answered. “Apart from the obvious evidence, have you any personal impressions you would like to confide?”

Mr. Léon Grant hesitated.

“There is just one small matter, Sir Norman,” he said, “which worries me a little. Mr. Sidney Bloor is all the time practically under arrest. He has left the hotel and is staying in lodgings on the front, but he is watched night and day.”

“There seems to be a moderately clear case against him,” I remarked.

“In many respects it would appear convincing,” the manager assented. “His antecedents are bad, his attentions to a woman nearly twenty years his senior are difficult to explain on any other basis except that of self-advantage. He escorted her round to the Royal Hotel to play bridge, cut out during the evening, came back to this hotel, and was seen by the fireman, who acts as night-watchman, to enter Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's suite. The presumption is, of course that he stole the jewels then, left the hotel with them in his pocket and passed them on to a confederate. Mrs. Trumperton-Smith and he returned together early in the morning, between one and two, and he escorted her to her suite. His story is that he stayed there for about five minutes and had a whisky and soda in the sitting-room, parted with her on friendly terms and subsequent went to his room, to be awakened at nine o'clock and told by the floor valet that Mrs. Trumperton-Smith had been murdered the night and her jewelry stolen.”

I opened the door for her. “Good night, Janet,” I said. “The reward will certainly be paid.”

“And what is your comment upon his story?” I asked

“Just this,” was the earnest reply: “There is no doubt whatever that the young man did return to the hotel alone, but whereas the night-watchman swears that he saw him enter Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's suite at half-past ten, the hall-porter downstairs, two of the pages and a reception-clerk are equally positive that it was exactly midnight when he came in and went upstairs.

“Could he have paid two visits?” I suggested.

“It is exceedingly unlikely, Sir Norman. If he had come in at the time that the night-watchman swore that he saw him go into Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's suite, he must have been noticed downstairs.”

“This divergence of evidence,” I observed, “is interesting, but I scarcely see what it leads to. Perhaps I had better talk to Mr. Johnson for a little time.”

The chief constable himself paid me the honor of a visit accompanied by Johnson, who was an exceedingly painstaking and capable officer. They had very little fresh information to give me excepting certain technical details which certainly told against Bloor.

“You say that none of the jewelry has been recovered?” I asked

“None of the jewelry in question, I fear,” Johnson admitted “Mr. Bloor has two very handsome pins in his possession, but he was clever enough to admit at once that these were given him by the deceased.”

“Is he short of money?”

“Apparently,” was the somewhat dry reply.

“You haven't been able to collect any evidence as to his having spoken to anyone outside, on his way back to the Royal?”

“Not at present, I am sorry to say, sir. We are working on that now.”

“What about this discrepancy in the alleged time of his visit?”

“That is another of the things we are trying to straighten out. Anyway, the night-watchman, who is a very respectable fellow, is prepared to swear that he saw Sidney Bloor reënter the suite, even though his idea of the time seems to be out Assuming that the theft took place then, though, the motive for the murder becomes obscure.”

“And Mr. Bloor's own story?”

“He came a terrible cropper, sir,” Johnson declared, a little triumphantly. “He at first stated that he only left the bridge-table when he cut out, to get some fresh air—that he leaned over the wall of the promenade, looking at the sea, the whole of the time. Afterward he admitted that he had visited the hotel and gone up for a moment to Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's suite, where he thought he had dropped his cigar-case.”

“Did he mention any time?” I asked.

“He thought it was about midnight.”

“The inquest,” I remarked, “has been adjourned.”

“Till Thursday week, Sir Norman,” the chief constable told me. “The evidence given at the inquest is at your disposal at any time.”

“I have already studied it—thanks,”' I said. “I should like, if possible, to have a few words with the night-porter and with the deceased's maid.”

The former, whose name was John O'Hara, proved to be a very respectable, stolid and obstinate man. Nothing could shake his conviction that he had seen Sidney Bloor enter Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's suite at about half-past ten and emerge from it five minutes later. He admitted that the corridor was badly lighted, but he would not hear a word against his watch. I dismissed him with the conviction that, so far as he knew it, he was speaking the truth. Then I sent for the maid. There was a brief delay, followed by the sound of soft footsteps outside and the opening and shutting of a door. I glanced up from the copy of O'Hara's evidence which I had been studying, and I received, I think, the greatest shock of my life. With her back pressed to the closed door, her fingers clinging to the handle, stood the woman whom I had known as Janet Stanfield!

NEITHER of us spoke for several moments. Her lips were parted, but if she gave vent to any exclamation, it was inaudible. Her eyes were fixed upon my face in a stare of amazement. I could see the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. It was obvious that no one had mentioned my name—that she had come to me as a stranger, that her surprise at this meeting was as great as mine. I rose to my feet, and then, at the moment of attempting speech, a new horror seemed to flow in upon my senses. She had been the maid of the murdered woman—an ominous coincidence!

Janet came slowly over toward me.

“I did not know that you were here,” she said.

“Nor I that you had reëntered domestic service,” I replied.

She flinched a little, but she answered me quite quietly.

“Poverty is a hard mistress. When you met me in Bond Street some months ago, and I lunched with you, I was engaged at a dressmaker's establishment. Then my husband sent for me to go to Paris. You know very well what happened to us there. I returned to London worse off than when I had left it. I lost my situation. Then I became a manicurist. I stood that for about three weeks. I had nine shillings in my purse when I saw Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's advertisement. I answered it and came here.”

“You are better off now?” I ventured.

“Hadn't you better warn me that anything I say may be used as evidence against me?” she asked mockingly.

“I agree. Yet I shall ask you one question, and one only.”

“I do not promise to answer it.”

“But you will answer it,” I insisted, watching her steadily, “and you will tell me the truth. Had you anything to do with Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's death?”

“I had not,” she replied unfalteringly.

A feeling of relief seemed to be lightening my whole being.

“You were not even an accomplice?”

“One question you promised to ask, and one I to answer,” she said. “I have finished.”

I was thoughtful for a moment. I was thinking of the doctor's evidence at the inquest. The coroner had asked him whether the injuries on the throat of the deceased could have been inflicted by a woman. The reply was there on the depositions before me: “I should think it very unlikely.”

“Very well,” I said, “I will waive my second question, Instead I will make an appeal to you. I am here to try and discover the person who robbed and murdered your late mistress. Can you help me?”

“If I could, why should I?” she demanded. “We are in opposite camps.”

“There will certainly be a reward for the recovery of the jewels.”

“I should very much like to earn it,” she admitted. “I do not know who stole them.”

“Have you any idea,” I asked her, “why Mrs. Trumperton-Smith left the hotel for her bridge-party that night without any jewelry at all?”

She considered for a moment.

“Mr. Bloor suggested that she should take off her diamonds and leave them at home,” she answered.

“And did she?”

“Yes!”

“You know that Mr. Bloor came back to the suite?”

“I have been told so.”

“And you know that the evidence is very conflicting as to what time he paid his visit?”

“Yes, I know that. Why shouldn't he have paid two?”

“It is an idea,” I admitted. “Do you think that Sidney Bloor is the man we want?”

“Why should you imagine that I would help you if I could?” she asked coldly.

“From the little I have heard of Mr. Sidney Bloor, I should have looked upon him as a nincompoop,” I continued.

“I should not have thought,” she agreed, “that he would have had courage enough to wring the neck of a chicken.”

I regarded her fixedly.

“Why don't you try to earn the reward?” I asked.

“I am thinking about it,” she replied. “If I have any luck, I'll come to you.”

SHE left me then, and I went for a stroll along the front. Seated in one of the shelters, a little way toward Hove, was a young man who I felt sure, from his description, was Sidney Bloor. I looked around and found that one of Rimmington's men was seated on the other side of the shelter. I touched the young man on the arm, and his violent start assured me that I had not made a mistake.

“I believe that you are Mr. Sidney Bloor,” I said. “Can I have a few words with you?”

“If you're a journalist—” he began surlily.

“I can assure you that I am not,” I replied. “My name is Norman Greyes. I was once a detective, but at present I do not hold any official position. It is more likely to be to your advantage than not, to spare me a few minutes.”

He rose doubtfully to his feet.

“We can't talk here,” he objected.

“Let us take a stroll along the sands,” I suggested. “We shall be sufficiently alone there.” And then, as we walked along side by side:

“I have no official connection with this case, Mr. Bloor,” I began, “but the hotel company have asked me to make a few inquiries. If you are guilty, the police will probably bring the crime home to you. If you are not—”

“I am not!” he interrupted passionately.

“If you are not,” I repeated, “I am here for your assistance. Remember, I am here to discover the truth, not to try and fix the guilt on any particular person..... Why don't you tell me the truth?”

He was silent for several moments—probably, I decided, piecing together the story he had made up his mind to tell. He went farther, however, than I had expected.

“I have never laid violent hands upon a woman in my life,” he declared. “I never would. All the same, I did mean to rob her. I meant to steal her diamonds.”

“Why didn't you?”

“They were stolen before I could get at them. I made her take them off before we went out to bridge. They were left in a drawer, not even locked up. The first time I cut out of the rubber, I came back to the hotel. I went up to her room and searched the drawer where the jewels had been put. They were gone. I concluded that some one had either been there before me, or that Mrs. Trumper-ton-Smith's maid had put them in a safer place. I went back to the bridge-party, came home with Mrs. Trumperton-Smith about two o'clock, said good night to her in her sitting-room, had a whisky and soda and went to bed. That's all I know about it, so help me God!”

“When you couldn't find the diamonds, why didn't you take the jewel-case?” I asked as we turned back.

“I should have been seen carrying it,” he replied, “and I had no tools with which to open it. I am not a professional thief. That night I almost wished I had been.”

“You are aware that the evidence looks rather black against you?” I pointed out.

“I can't help it,” he answered sullenly. “I didn't do it.”

“Have you any theory as to who did?”

“The maid, I should think,” he replied. “She was much too superior for her job—a secretive, unsociable sort of person. She wasn't there for nothing.”

“I am sorry that you made that last suggestion,” I said. “Otherwise, you have done yourself no harm by your frankness. Your story may possibly be true. If it is, you have nothing to worry about.”

I LEFT him on the promenade, and saw him stroll across the road to a chemist's shop for a pick-me-up. I went back to the hotel, and discovered that my friend Inspector Rimmington from Scotland Yard had already arrived and had taken over formal conduct of the case. He was waiting for Bloor, whose very unenviable dossier he had brought down with him. I glanced it through without any particular interest. Rimmington watched me curiously.

“The young man is a thoroughly bad lot,” he observed.

“There's only one thing in his favor,” I nodded. “When you talk to him, you will realize that he is a decadent, a young man without nerve or any manlike quality. Now, I don't know whether it has ever occurred to you, Rimmington, but I should imagine that it would take a person with great strength of nerve to hold a woman by the throat and watch her die. Somehow, I don't believe Bloor could have done that.”

Rimmington was unconvinced.

“I shall know better when I have talked to him, perhaps,” he remarked.

“Don't encourage these local fellows to make an arrest until tomorrow,” I advised.

I took the midday train to town, and traveled in the Pullman with Mr. Léon Grant, the manager of the hotel, who was on his way up to confer once more with the directors. It was obvious that he had taken the tragedy very much to heart. He showed me a cable from Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's son, who was on his way back from Egypt. It ran as: follows:

Greatly shocked. Arrive 17th. Hope police will discover criminal. Believe jewels principal part mother's estate. Offer reward immediately for return anyone not connected crime.

“I am suggesting a tenth part of the insured value,” he announced. “I shall see the solicitors before I return.”

As we drew into Victoria, I offered my companion a lift. He refused, however, on the ground that he had a case of wine in the van, which he was taking back to a wine-merchant. I made a few calls, dined at my club, and traveled back again to Brighton by the late train. I met Rimmington; in the hall of the hotel and we strolled jato the manager's office. Mr. Léon Grant, looking more tired than ever after his long day in town, was speaking passionately into the telephone.

“It is absurd,” he declared as we came in. “I spoke from the number I am asking for, several times this afternoon. The telephone is in perfect order.”

“If you are speaking of Mayfair 1532, Mr. Grant,” I intervened, “I am afraid the supervisor is correct. The number is disconnected.”

His face, as he looked at us, grew horrible. The receiver slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground.

“What do you mean?” he gasped.

“Simply that Scotland Yard disconnected your flat in town, for fear you should ring up and find out that the case of wine you brought up to London has been opened,” I explained. “Rimmington, this is your job.”

Rimmington was quick, but not quick enough. Grant's right hand was in the drawer by his side in a moment, and the silver-plated little revolver at his temple. I believe that he was a dead man before the Inspector laid hands on him.

RIMMINGTON came to my sitting-room later on, and helped himself to a whisky and soda.

“A little secretive this morning, weren't you, Sir Norman?” he observed.

“We wanted the jewels,” I pointed out. “Directly the man told me he had a case of wine in the van, I knew that everything was all right. "

“When did you get his dossier?”

“By the second post this morning,” I replied, “and a pretty bad one it was. He has a flat in town under another name; he owes one bookie alone over two thousand pounds, and his domestic arrangements were, to say the least of it, irregular. He was desperately in need of money.”

“Even now the reconstruction isn't absolutely simple,” my companion mused. “Léon Grant evidently made his way to Mrs. Trumperton-Smith's rooms after her return; she woke up while he was making off with the jewel-box, and he strangled her. But what about the two visits from Bloor, earlier in the evening, and the missing diamonds? I think you said that they were not in the jewel-case which you have recovered?”

“I imagine that the night-watchman must have made a mistake,” I told him. “On the other hand, Bloor may have already disposed of the diamonds. Again, they may have been mislaid and will be brought in for the reward.”

“What first of all made you think of Grant?” Rimmington asked a little later, as he was preparing to take his leave.

“A very slight thing,” I answered. “The woman was strangled, as you know, although the finger-marks were undistinguishable. There was a scratch upon her throat, and a few drops of blood, evidently caused by the fingernail of the murderer. Now, Sidney Bloor's finger-nails are bitten almost to the quick. The manager's, on the other hand, were really noticeable. They were long, and brought to a point. The nail on his right forefinger, however, was broken off short.”

“I see,” Rimmington replied. “Good night!”

I SAT up for some little time, waiting for what I felt sure was inevitable. It was nearly one o'clock when there was a soft knock at the door, and in reply to my invitation, Janet entered. She was still fully dressed; her manner was as composed as ever. She closed the door behind her and came over toward me.

“I have found the diamonds,” she announced.

“I congratulate you,” I replied.

“I have heard all that has happened,” she continued. “There will be no trouble about the reward?”

“None whatever,” I assured her.

She laid them upon the table—the necklace, the bracelet and the earrings.

“Where did you find them?” I asked.

“In the small silk bag which Mrs. Trumperton-Smith took with her to the bridge-party,” she replied. “She came back to her room for a moment just before starting, and must have taken them without saying anything to anybody.”

“A most ingenious supposition,” I murmured.

She looked at me for a moment with the strangest light in her eyes. She had no need of speech. I knew perfectly well of what she was reminding me. I opened the door for her.

“Good night, Janet,” I said. “I have stood in the way of your fortunes more than once. This time I am able to remind myself that Mrs. Trumperton-Smith is not my client. The reward will certainly be paid.”