Call Mr. Fortune | Page 6

face.
"I am Dr. Fortune."
"Reconstructing the crime, eh? Oh, you needn't be discreet. I'm Lomas - Stanley Lomas - Criminal Investigation Department, don't you know? Sir Lawson Hunter came round to me last night. Patient's doing well, I see. That's providential. Just a moment - just a moment." He skipped away from Reggie to his companion, and they went over the ground. But Reggie thought them very superficial. Lomas skipped back again. "He didn't bleed, then. The other man did, though - the man you found."
"In the middle of the road. And I found him dead in the gutter."
"It's quaint what the criminal don't think of. I'm surprised every time. Did you find anything here?"
Reggie held out his match. "There were two more like that by the other man."
Lomas turned it over. "Belgian make. You buy them all over the Continent, don't you know."
"The Archduchess carries them."
"Now, that's very interesting. If you don't mind I'll walk up to the house with you." Upon the way he praised the beauties of nature and the quality of the morning air.
As they came to the door of Boldrewood a big car passed them with the Archduchess driving alone. Lomas put up his eyeglass. "She's not overcome with grief, what?"
"Not quite."
"Might be bravado, don't you know."
"I don't know."
"It takes some of them that way," Lomas said pensively. He turned on the steps of the house and looked after the car as it wound in and out among the beeches. " Striking woman. Yes. I'll come up to your room, if you don't mind."
"I thought you wanted to say something," Reggie said.
Lomas did not answer till they were upstairs. "Well, no. Not to say anything," he resumed, and lit a cigarette. " I want another opinion, as you fellows say. Sir Lawson Hunter has made up his mind."
"Oh, he always does that."
Lomas lifted an eyebrow. "Well, look at it. Somebody in a car laid for our Archduke. The other poor devil was cut down by mistake. And the somebody had nerve enough to go on. That's striking. The Archduchess comes of pretty wild stock. In love or out of love she wouldn't stick at a trifle. You find her matches by each body. You find a hatpin in the Archduke. That's a blunder, what? Yes, but it's a woman's blunder. She finds he isn't quite dead after all her trouble, she is desperate, and - wild." He made a gesture of stabbing.
"So you've made up your mind too, Mr. Lomas? "
Lomas blew smoke rings. "I'm wasting your time, doctor. I want to know - has it occurred to you - the Archduchess and the Archduke Leopold - working it together? If she's fallen in love with Leopold. That straightens it out, don't you know."
"Guess again," Reggie said.
Lomas lit another cigarette. "Well, that's what I want to know. You saw them together just after the crime." He lifted an eyebrow.
"Nothing doing," said Reggie.
"I'm afraid so. I'm afraid so. It's a disturbing case, doctor. Nothing doing, as you say. If I had all the evidence in my hands, I expect there's no one I could touch. You can't indict royalty. The Archduke's smash - well, let's say it's all in the family. But this poor devil they killed! Who's to pay for him? These royal dagoes come over and run amuck on an English road, and I can't touch them. Disheartening, what? That's the trouble, doctor."
Reggie nodded and, as his breakfast made its appearance, Lomas rose to go. He would not have even coffee. "Better get busy, don't you know. We must see if we can put the fear of God into them. If they'll go scurrying back to Bohemia it's the best way out." He skipped off, his jauntiness put on again like a coat.
Reggie was standing at the window with his after-breakfast pipe when the Archduchess brought her car back. She was very pale in spite of the morning air, and her face had grown haggard. " Something'll snap," Reggie was saying to himself, when a voice behind him said aloud, "Nice car, sir." He jumped round and saw standing at his elbow that ordinary, sturdy man who was Lomas's companion. "After all, there's nothing like an English car," said this stolid person.
"Oh. You've noticed that?" Reggie said. "You do notice something, then?"
"Of course we aren't gifted, sir. But we're professional. Something in that, don't you think? Yes, sir, as you say: we have noticed something. It was a foreign car, and foreign tyres did the trick last night. And the Archduchess drives English. And yet-did you know we had the other half of the hatpin? I picked it up last night." He held out a scrap of steel with a big head of wrought silver. "German work, they tell me."
"Viennese," Reggie said.
"You know everything, sir.