CLOWNS AND CRIMINALS - Complete Series (Thriller Classics). E. Phillips Oppenheim

Letty is in such trouble isn’t worth taking care of! Just listen to them all!”

      They were certainly becoming a little boisterous. A magnum of champagne was being opened. Fluffy Dean’s cheeks were already flushed, and her eyes glittering. Every one at the table was talking a great deal and drinking toasts.

      “This is the end of Fluffy Dean,” Violet Brown said, severely. “I hate to be uncharitable, but it serves her right.”

      Peter Ruff paid his bill.

      “Let us go,” he said.

      In the taxicab, on their way back to Miss Brown’s rooms, Ruff was unusually silent, but just before he said good night to her—on the pavement, in fact, outside her front door—he asked a question.

      “Violet,” he said, “would you like to play detective for an hour or two?”

      She looked at him in some surprise.

      “You know I always like to help in anything that’s going,” she said.

      “Letty Shaw was an Australian, wasn’t she?” he asked.

      “Yes.”

      “She was born there, and lived there till she was nearly eighteen—is that true?” he asked again.

      “Quite true,” Miss Brown answered.

      “You know the offices of the P.& O. line of steamers in Pall Mall?” he asked.

      She nodded.

      “Well?”

      “Get a sailing list to Australia—there should be a boat going Thursday. Present yourself as a prospective passenger. See how many young women alone there are going out, and ask their names. Incidentally put in a little spare time watching the office.”

      She looked at him with parted lips and wide-open eyes.

      “Do you think—” she began.

      He shook her hand warmly and stepped back into the taxicab.

      “Good night!” he said. “No questions, please. I sha’n’t expect you at the office at the usual time to-morrow, at any rate. Telephone or run around if you’ve anything to tell me.”

      The taxicab disappeared round the corner of the street. Miss Brown was standing still upon the pavement with the latchkey in her hand.

      It was afternoon before the inquest on the body of Austen Abbott, and there was gathered together in Letty Shaw’s parlor a curiously assorted little group of people. There was Miss Shaw herself—or rather what seemed to be the ghost of herself—and her mother; Lady Mary and Sir William Trencham; Peter Ruff and Violet Brown—and Mr. John Dory. The eyes of all of them were fixed upon Peter Ruff, who was the latest arrival. He stood in the middle of the room, calmly taking off his gloves, and glancing complacently down at his well-creased trousers.

      “Lady Mary,” he said, “and Miss Shaw, I know that you are both anxious for me to explain why I ask you to meet me here this afternoon, and why I also requested my friend Mr. Dory from Scotland Yard, who has charge of the case against Captain Sotherst, to be present. I will tell you.”

      Mr. Dory nodded, a little impatiently.

      “Unless you have something very definite to say,” he remarked, “I think it would be as well to postpone any general discussion of this matter until after the inquest. I must warn you that so far as I, personally, am concerned, I must absolutely decline to allude to the subject at all. It would be most unprofessional.”

      “I have something definite to say,” Peter Ruff declared, mildly.

      Lady Mary’s eyes flashed with hope—Letty Shaw leaned forward in her chair with white, drawn face.

      “Let it be understood,” Peter Ruff said, with a slight note of gravity creeping into his tone, “that I am here solely as the agent of Lady Mary Sotherst. I am paid and employed by her. My sole object is on her behalf, therefore, to discover proof of the innocence of Captain Sotherst. I take it, however,” he added, turning towards the drooping figure in the easy-chair, “that Miss Shaw is as anxious to have the truth known.”

      “Of course! Of course!” she murmured.

      “In France,” Peter Ruff continued, “there is a somewhat curious custom, which, despite a certain theatricality, yet has its points. The scene of a crime is visited, and its events, so far as may be, reconstructed. Let us suppose for a moment that we are now engaged upon something of the sort.”

      Letty Shaw shrank back in her chair. Her thin white fingers were gripping its sides. Her eyes seemed to look upon terrible things.

      “It is too—awful!” she faltered.

      “Madam,” Peter Ruff said, firmly, “we seek the truth. Be so good as to humour me in this. Dory, will you go to the front door, stand upon the mat—so? You are Captain Sotherst—you have just entered. I am Austen Abbott. You, Miss Shaw, have just ordered me from the room. You see, I move toward the door. I open it—so. Miss Shaw,” he added, turning swiftly towards her, “once more will you assure me that every one who was in the flat that night, with the exception of your domestic servant, is present now?”

      “Yes,” she murmured.

      “Good! Then who,” he asked, suddenly pointing to a door on the left—“who is in that room?”

      They had all crowded after him to the threshold—thronging around him as he stood face to face with John Dory. His finger never wavered—it was pointing steadily towards that closed door a few feet to the left. Suddenly Letty Shaw rushed past them with a loud shriek.

      “You shall not go in!” she cried. “What business is it of his?”

      She stood with her back to the door, her arms outstretched like a cross. Her cheeks were livid. Her eyes seemed starting from her head.

      Peter Ruff and John Dory laid their hands upon the girl’s wrists. She clung to her place frantically. She was dragged from it, screaming. Peter Ruff, as was his right, entered first. Almost immediately he turned round, and his face was very grave.

      “Something has happened in here, I am afraid,” he said. “Please come in quietly.”

      On the bed lay Fluffy Dean, fully dressed—motionless. One hand hung down toward the floor—from the lifeless fingers a little phial had slipped. The room was full of trunks addressed to—

      MISS SMITH,

       Passenger to Melborne.

       S.S. Caroline.

      Peter Ruff moved over toward the bed and took up a piece of paper, upon which were scribbled a few lines in pencil.

      “I think,” he said, “that I must read these aloud. You all have a right to hear them.”

      No one spoke. He continued:

      “Forgive me, Letty, but I cannot go to Australia. They would only bring me back. When I remember that awful moment, my brain burns—I feel that I am going mad! Some day I should do this—better now. Give my love to the girls.— FLUFFY.

      They sent for a doctor, and John Dory rang up Scotland Yard. Letty Shaw had fainted, and had been carried to her room. While they waited about in strange, half-benumbed excitement, Peter Ruff once more spoke to them.

      “The reconstruction is easy enough now,” he remarked. “The partition between this sitting room and that little bedroom is only an artificial one—something almost as flimsy as a screen. You see,” he continued, tapping with his knuckles, “you can almost put your hand through it. If you look a little lower down, you will see where an opening has been made. Fluffy Dean was being taken care of by Miss Shaw—staying with her here, even. Miss Dean hears her lover’s voice in this room—hears him pleading with Miss Shaw on he night of the murder. She has been sent home early from the theatre, and it is just possible that she saw or had been told that Austen Abbott had fetched Miss Shaw after