THE WHODUNIT COLLECTION: British Murder Mysteries (15 Novels in One Volume). Charles Norris Williamson

ways of forcing them to speak. In England it was impossible.

      With a yawn Foyle relinquished his efforts, and his head dropped forward on his desk. In a little he was fast asleep. He was roused by a light touch on the shoulder. Green had returned.

      "Hello!" said the superintendent. "I must have dozed off. How have you got on?"

      Green adjusted his long body to the comfort of an arm-chair. "We found the Chinaman. He'd climbed through a trap-door on to the roof. We went over the house with a tooth-comb, both before and after I'd had a little talk with Keller. It seems that both he and his partner the Chinaman had known the man for some time before they gave him a room. They're old hands at the game and won't talk too much. He went out very occasionally, and mostly at night. We found nothing bearing on the murder, but plenty to show that Keller and his pal were running a pretty hot shop."

      "H'm! could you dig anything out of any of the others? There was the door-keeper."

      "No. Tight as oysters, all except those who don't know anything. Ivan has a fit of the sulks. He's called in Mordix to help him fix up his defence."

      The superintendent was rubbing his chin. "Mordix isn't too scrupulous. I think we'll hold over the charge of abduction for the time being until we see how things look. Nobody hurt much, I suppose?"

      The saturnine features of the inspector wrinkled into as near a grin as they were capable of. "Some of them are rather sore, but the doctor thinks they can all appear in court to-morrow."

      Foyle stretched himself and rose. "Right. We won't worry any further about it for the moment. I'm feeling that the best thing for me is a good night's rest. You'd better go home and do the same. Good night."

Chapter XL

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      A note came to Sir Ralph Fairfield while he was lingering over his breakfast, and the first sight of the writing, even before he broke open the envelope, caused a thrill to run through him.

      "You must see me at once," said the well-remembered writing imperatively. "Urgent, urgent!"

      The paper trembled in Fairfield's hands, and it was only the reminder of the servant that the messenger was waiting that brought him sharply out of his daze.

      "Yes, yes. Show him in. And, Roberts, while I am engaged I don't want to be disturbed by anybody or anything. Don't forget that."

      If Roberts had not been so well trained it was possible that he might have shown surprise at his master's order. For through the door he held open there shambled an ungainly figure of a man, hunchbacked, with a week's growth of beard about his chin, and wearing heavy, patched boots, corduroys, a shabby jacket and a bright blue muffler. His cap he twisted nervously in gnarled, dirty hands as he stood waiting just inside the room till he was certain that the servant had retired out of hearing.

      Then, with a swift movement, he locked the door, straightened himself out, and strode with outstretched hand to where Fairfield stood, stony-faced and impassive. The baronet deliberately put his hands behind him, and the other halted suddenly.

      "Fairfield!"

      Then it was that the impassivity of Sir Ralph vanished. He gripped his visitor by the arm, almost shaking him in a gust of quick, nervous passion.

      "You fool—you damned fool! Why have you come here? If they catch you, you will be hanged. Do you know that? For all I know the place is watched. They may have seen you come in. Perhaps the place is surrounded now."

      "I'll risk it," said the other coolly, drawing a chair up to the table. "I've got to risk something. But I don't think they saw me come in. I don't think they'll catch me, and if they do I don't think they'll hang me. What do you think of that, Fairfield?"

      There was the old languid mockery in his voice, but his friend, looking at him closely, could see that the face had become a trifle thinner, that beneath the dirt that begrimed it there were haggard traces that betrayed worry and sleeplessness. Fairfield had thought much of Robert Grell lately, but he had never dreamed that the hunted man would come to him—come to him in broad daylight, without a word of warning. Did Grell know that he was in touch with the police? Had he come, a driven, desperate man, to fling reproaches at the friend who had joined in the hunt? That was unlikely. Grell, murderer or not, was not that type. He did nothing without a reason. He was, Fairfield reflected, a murderer—a murderer who had not dared stay to face the consequences of his deed. That surely severed all claims, whatever their old friendship might have been.

      "What do you want?" he asked, with a hard note in his voice. "Why have you come to me?"

      The man in the chair lifted his shoulders.

      "That is fairly obvious. I want you to do what, if our situations were reversed, I would do for you. I want money. If you can get me a few hundreds I shall be all right."

      A spasm contracted Fairfield's face for a second. He had not asked for explanations. Grell had volunteered none. It seemed as though he were taking for granted the assumption that he was guilty of the murder. Surely an innocent man would have been eager to assert his innocence at the first opportunity. When Sir Ralph answered, it was slowly, as though he were weighing each word that he spoke. "I would be willing enough to help a friend—you know that, Grell. But why you should think I would lift a finger to help you evade justice I fail to see. I know enough of the law to know that I should become an accessory to the fact."

      "You really think I killed that man?" The words came quick and sharp, like a pistol shot. "I thought you had known me long enough——"

      "Words," interrupted Fairfield bitterly. "All words. You were the last man I should have thought capable of such a thing; but all the facts are against you. Need I go over them? Let me tell you that if ever a jury knows what Scotland Yard knows and you stand in the dock, no earthly power can save you. If that crime is on your conscience it seems to rest lightly enough."

      Grell stood up and rested one hand lightly on the sleeve of his companion. "Fairfield, old chap," he said earnestly, "we have been through enough together to prove to you that I am not a coward. I swear on my honour that I had nothing to do with that man's death—though I have had reason enough to wish him dead, God knows. Do you think it is fear for myself that has driven me into hiding?"

      Fairfield shook his head impatiently, and shaking himself clear paced quickly up and down the room. "That's all very well, Grell," he said more mildly, "but it is hardly convincing in the face of facts. You disappear immediately after the murder, having got me to lie to cover your retreat, and the next I hear from you is when you want money. It's too thin. If I were you I should go now. For the sake of old times I will say nothing about your visit here, but to help you by any other means—no. If you had no hand in that murder, come out like a man and make a fight for it. I will back you up."

      "Thanks." There was a dry bitterness in Grell's tone that did not escape Sir Ralph. "I couldn't have got better advice if I'd gone to Scotland Yard itself." His voice changed to a certain quality of harshness. "Look here, Fairfield. Suppose I do know something about this business; suppose I know who Harry Goldenburg was, and how and why he was killed; suppose I had stayed while inquiries were being made, then I should either have to have betrayed a friend or taken the burden on my own shoulders; suppose I say I was honest that night when I asked you to conceal my absence from the St. Jermyn's Club; that I did nothing which I would not do over again"—he banged his fist on the table and his eyes glowed fiercely—"I tell you I have had no choice in this matter. Even you, who know me as well as any man, do not know what I had been through until that man lay dead. Since then I have suffered hell. The police have been at my heels ever since. I carried little enough money away with me, and I dared not attempt to change a cheque while I was thought to be dead." He drew a gold watch from his pocket. "I dare not even pawn this, for even the pawnbrokers are watched. They stopped all my efforts to raise money in other directions, and have isolated me from my friends. I have fifteen shillings left, and yet since they routed me out of cover