door he held open. There was a quick stir among the reporters, and two of them hastily detached themselves and confronted her, hats in hand. She forced a smile.
‘It’s no use, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘I will not be interviewed.’ She looked very dainty and pathetic as she spread out her hands in a helpless little gesture. ‘Can I not appeal to your chivalry? You are besieging a house of mourning. And, please—please, I know what is in your minds—do not follow me.’
She had struck the right note. There was no attempt to break her down. With apologies the men withdrew. After all, they were gentlemen whose intrusion on a private grief was personally repugnant to them.
The girl reached Scotland Yard while Heldon Foyle was still in talk with Green. Her name at once procured her admission to him. She took no heed of the chair he offered, but remained standing, her serious grey eyes searching his face. He observed the high colour on her cheeks, and almost intuitively guessed that she was labouring under some impulse.
‘Please do sit down,’ he pleaded. ‘You want to know how the case is progressing. I think we shall have some news for you by tomorrow. I hope it will be good.’
‘You are about to make an arrest?’
The words came from her like a pistol-shot. A light shot into her eyes.
The detective shook his head. He had seen the look in her face once before on the face of a woman. That was at Las Palmas, in a dancing-hall, when a Portuguese girl had knifed a fickle lover with a dagger drawn from her stocking. Lady Eileen was scarce likely to carry a dagger in her stocking, but—his gaze lingered for a second on the muff, which she had not put aside. It was queer that she should not withdraw her hands.
‘I don’t say that. It depends on circumstances,’ he said gently.
Her face clouded. ‘I will swear that the man Fairfield killed him,’ she cried passionately. ‘You will let him get away—you and your red tape.’
He came and stood by her.
‘Listen to me, Lady Eileen,’ he said earnestly. ‘Sir Ralph Fairfield did not kill Mr Grell. Of that I have proof. Will you not trust us and wait a little? You are doing Sir Ralph a great injustice by your suspicions.’
She laughed wildly, and flung herself away from him.
‘You talk to me as though I were a schoolgirl,’ she retorted. ‘You can’t throw dust in my eyes, Mr Foyle. He has bought you. You are going to let him go. I know! I know! But he shall not escape.’
The superintendent stroked his chin placidly. As if by accident he had placed himself between her and the door. He had already made up his mind what to do, but the situation demanded delicate handling.
‘You will regret this when you are calmer,’ he said mildly.
He was uncertain in his mind whether to tell the distraught girl that her lover was not dead—that the murdered man was a rogue whom probably she had not seen or heard of in her life. He balanced the arguments mentally pro and con, and decided that at all hazards he would preserve his secret for the present. She took a step towards the door. She had drawn herself up haughtily.
‘Let me pass, please,’ she demanded.
He did not move. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked. Her eyes met his steadily.
‘I am going to Sir Ralph Fairfield—to wring a confession from him, if you must know,’ she said. ‘Let me pass, please.’
‘I will let you pass after you have given me the pistol you are carrying in your muff,’ he retorted, holding out his hand.
Then the tigress broke loose in the delicately brought-up, gently nurtured girl. She withdrew her right hand from her muff and Foyle struck quickly at her wrist. The pistol clattered to the floor and the man closed with her. It needed all his tremendous physical strength to lift her bodily by the waist and place her, screaming and striking wildly at his face with her clenched fists, in a chair. He held her there with one hand and lifted one of the half-dozen speaking-tubes behind his desk with the other.
In ten minutes Lady Eileen Meredith, in charge of a doctor and a motherly-looking matron hastily summoned from the adjoining police station in Cannon Row, was being taken back to her home in a state of semi-stupor. Foyle picked up the dainty little revolver from the floor and, jerking the cartridges out, placed it on the mantelpiece.
‘You can never tell what a woman will do,’ he said to himself. ‘All the same, I think I have saved Ralph Fairfield’s life today.’
HELDON FOYLE was more deeply chagrined than he would have cared to admit by the disappearance of Waverley. It was not only that one of the most experienced men of the Criminal Investigation Department had fallen into a trap and so placed his colleagues in difficulties. The very audacity of the coup showed that the department was matched against no ordinary opponents. There is a limit even to the daring of the greatest professional criminals. If there were professionals acting in this business, reflected the superintendent, the idea was none of theirs. Besides, no professional would have written the letter threatening the Yard. That was no bluff—the finger-prints proved that. To hold a Scotland Yard man as a hostage was a game only to be played by those who had much at stake.
Only one man shared Heldon Foyle’s confidence. That was Sir Hilary Thornton. To the Assistant Commissioner he talked freely.
‘It’s an ugly job for us, sir, there’s no disguising that. Naturally, they count on us keeping our mouths shut about Waverley. It’s lucky he’s not a married man. If the story of the way he was bagged becomes public property we shall be a laughing-stock, even if we get him out of his trouble. And if we don’t, the scandal will be something worse.’
‘Yes. It’s bad—bad,’ agreed the Assistant Commissioner. ‘The Press must not hear of this.’
‘Trust me,’ said Foyle grimly. ‘The Press won’t.’
‘I don’t like this affair of Lady Eileen Meredith,’ went on Sir Hilary. ‘After all, she has a good right to know the truth. Wouldn’t it be better to let her know that Grell is alive?’
Foyle jingled some money in his trousers pocket.
‘I hate it as much as you do, Sir Hilary. I can’t take any chances, though. Grell knows we know he is alive. When he finds that this girl has not been told he may try to communicate with her, and then we may be able to lay hands on him and Ivan, and so clear up the mystery. There’s another thing. As far as our inquiries through his solicitors and the bank go, he couldn’t have had much ready cash on him. He’ll try to get some sooner or later—probably through his friends. He’s already tried to approach Fairfield.’
‘I see,’ agreed the other in the tone of a man not quite convinced. ‘Now, when are you going down to Grave Street again? You’ll want at least a dozen men.’
‘There won’t be any trouble at Grave Street,’ answered Foyle with a smile; ‘and if there is, Green and I will have to settle it. More men would only be in the way. Our first job is to get hold of Waverley.’
‘But only two of you! Grave Street isn’t exactly a nice place. If there is trouble—’
‘We’ll risk that, sir,’ said Foyle, stiffening a trifle.
He went back to his own room and signed a few letters. Some words through a speaking-tube brought Green in, stolid, gloomy, imperturbable. The chief inspector accepted and lit a cigar. Through a cloud of smoke the two men talked for a while. They were going on a mission that might very easily result in death. No one would have guessed it from their talk, which, after half an hour of quiet, business-like conversation, drifted into desultory gossip and reminiscences.
‘Sir Hilary wanted me to take a dozen men,’ said Foyle. ‘I told