Number Seventeen | Page 5

I've got to stick round here till six in the
morning," grinned the policeman.
"Well, cheer-o, mate."
"Cheer-o."
Bates looked in on his master before retiring for the night.
"What time shall I call you, sir?" he said.
Theydon was in the pipe and book stage, having exchanged his dress
coat for a smoking jacket. He was reading a treatise on aeronautics, and,
like every novice, had already formulated a flying scheme which would
supersede all known inventions.
"Not later than 8," he said. "I must be out by 9. And, by the way, I may

as well tell you now. After lunch tomorrow I am going to Brooklands. I
return to Waterloo at 6:40. As I have to dine in the West End at 7:30,
and my train may be a few minutes behind time, I want you to meet me
with a suitcase at the hairdresser's place on the main platform. I'll dress
there and go straight to my friend's house. It would be cutting things
rather fine if I attempted to come here."
"I'll have everything ready, sir."
Bates was eminently reliable in such matters. He could be depended on
to the last stud.
The storm which had raged overnight must have cleared the skies for
the following day, because Theydon never enjoyed an outing more than
his trip to the famous motor track. His business there, however, lay
with aviation. A popular magazine had commissioned him to write an
article summing up the progress and practical aims of the airmen and
he was devoting afternoon and evening to the quest of information. A
couple of experts and a photographer had given him plenty of raw
material in the open, but he looked forward with special zest to an
undisturbed chat that night with Mr. James Creighton Forbes,
millionaire and philanthropist, whose peculiar yet forcible theories as to
the peaceful conquest of the air were for the hour engaging the
attention of the world's press.
He had never met Mr. Forbes. When on the point of writing for an
appointment he had luckily remembered that the great man was a
lifelong friend of the professor of physics at his (Theydon's) university,
and a delightfully cordial introductory note was forthcoming in the
course of a couple of posts. This brought the invitation to dinner. "On
Tuesday evening I am dining en famille," wrote Mr. Forbes, "so, if you
are free, join us at 7:30, and we can talk uninterruptedly afterward."
The train was not late. Bates, erect and soldierly, was standing at the
rendezvous. With him were two men whom Theydon had never before
seen. One, a bulky, stalwart, florid-faced man of forty, had something
of the military aspect; the other supplied his direct antithesis, being
small, wizened and sallow.

The big man had a round, bullet head, prominent bright blue eyes, and
the cheek bones, chin and physical development of a heavyweight
pugilist. His companion, whose dark and recessed eyes were noticeably
bright, too, could not be more than half his weight, and Theydon would
not have been surprised if told that this diminutive person was a
dancing master. Naturally he classed both as acquaintances of his valet,
encountered by chance on the platform at Waterloo.
He was slightly astonished, therefore, when the two faced him, together
with Bates. A dramatic explanation of their presence was soon
supplied.
"These gentlemen, sir, are Chief Inspector Winter and Detective
Inspector Furneaux of Scotland Yard," said the ex-sergeant, in the awed
tone which some people cannot help using when speaking of members
of the Criminal Investigation Department.
Though daylight had not yet failed it was rather dark in that corner of
the station, and Theydon saw now what he had not perceived earlier,
that the usually sedate Bates was pale and harassed looking.
"Why, what's up?" he inquired, gazing blankly from one to the other of
the ominous pair.
"Haven't you seen the evening papers, Mr. Theydon?" said Winter, the
giant of the two.
"No, I've been at Brooklands since two o'clock. But what is it?"
"You don't know, then, that a murder was committed in the Innesmore
Mansions last night or early this morning?"
"Good Lord, no! Who was killed?"
"A Mrs. Lester, the lady--"
"Mrs. Lester, who lives in No. 17?"
"Yes."

"What a horrible thing! Why, only the day before yesterday I met her
on the stairs."
It was a banal statement, and Theydon knew it, but he blurted out the
first crazy words that would serve to cloak the monstrous thought
which leaped into his brain. And a picture danced before his mind's eye,
a picture, not of the fair and gracious woman who had been done to
death, but of a sweet-voiced girl in a white satin dress who was saying
to a fine-looking man standing by her