my clothes in the dressing room there, and come straight here. Guess my astonishment when I found Bates—Bates is the name of my factotum—in the company of two strangers, whom he introduced as representing the Criminal Investigation Department."
He paused. He had brought in his own address skilfully enough, and kept his voice sufficiently under control that no tremor betrayed a knowledge of Forbes's vital interest in any mention of that one block of flats among the multitude.
Now, for the first time, Innesmore Mansions figured as his abode, the correspondence which led to the dinner having centered in his club. But not a flicker of eyelid nor twitch of mobile lips showed the slightest concern on Forbes's part. Rather did he display at once a well-bred astonishment on hearing Theydon's concluding words.
"Do you mean detectives from Scotland Yard?" he cried.
"Yes."
Forbes smiled, and commenced filling a pipe.
"Evidently they did not want you as a principal," he said.
His tone was genial, but slightly guarded. Theydon realized that this man of great wealth and high social position had reminded himself that his guest, though armed with the best of credentials, was quite unknown to him otherwise, and that, perhaps, he had acted unwisely in inviting a stranger to his house without making some preliminary inquiry. This reversal of their roles was a conceit so ludicrous that Theydon smiled too.
At any rate, he meant now to pursue an unpleasing task, and have done with it.
"No," he said slowly. "It seems that I am the worst sort of witness in a murder case. I may have heard, I may even have seen, the person suspected of committing the crime, or, if that is going too far, the person whom the police have good reason to regard as the last who saw the poor victim alive and in ordinary conditions. But my testimony, such as it is, is so slight and inconclusive that, of itself, no one could hang a cat on it."
"Good gracious! That sounds interesting, though you have my sympathy. It must be rather distressing to be mixed up in such an affair, even indirectly."
Forbes struck precisely the right note of friendly inquiry. He wished to hear more, and was at the same time relieved to find that Professor Scarth had not introduced a notorious malefactor in the guise of a young writer seeking material for an article on airships!
Theydon could have laughed aloud at this comedy of errors, but the fact that at any moment it might develop into a tragedy exercises a wholesome restraint.
"I happen to live at No. 18 Innesmore Mansions," he said. "Opposite—on the same floor, I mean—lives, or did live, a Mrs. Lester. I do not—"
"Are you telling me that a Mrs. Lester of No. 17 Innesmore Mansions is dead—has been murdered?"
Forbes's voice rang out vibrant, incisive. His ordinarily pale face had blanched, and his deep-set eyes blazed with the fire of some fierce emotion, but, beyond the slight elevation of tone and the change of expression, he revealed to Theydon's quietly watchful scrutiny no sign of the terror or distress which an evildoer might be expected to show on learning that the law's vengeance was already shadowing him, even in so remote a way as was indicated by the presence under his roof of a witness regarded by the police as an important one.
"Yes!" stammered Theydon, quite taken aback by his companion's vehemence. "Do you—know the lady? If so—I am sorry—I spoke so unguardedly—"
"Good heavens, man, don't apologize for that! I am not a child or weakling, that I should flinch in horror from one of life's dramatic surprises! But, are you sure of what you are saying? Mrs. Lester murdered! When?"
"About midnight last night, the doctor believes. That is what Bates told me. I was so shaken on hearing his news, which was confirmed by the two detectives, that I really gave little heed to details.... She was strangled—a peculiarly atrocious thing where an attractive and ladylike woman is concerned. I have never spoken to her, but have met her at odd times on the stairs. I was immeasurably shocked, I assure you. In fact, I was on the point of telegraphing an excuse to you for this evening, but the Chief Inspector—Winter, I think his name is—said it would suffice for his purpose if I met him at my flat about eleven o'clock, as he was engaged on other inquiries which would occupy the intervening hours."
"But if the news of this dastardly crime only reached you tonight at Waterloo Station, and you have no personal acquaintance with Mrs. Lester, what evidence can you give that will assist the police?"
"Mrs. Lester received a visitor last night, an incident so unusual that I, who heard him arrive, and Bates, who was in my sitting room when we both heard him depart, commented on the strangeness of it. That, I suppose, is the reason why I am in request by Scotland Yard."
"You say 'him.' How did you know it was a man? Did you see him?"
"Er—that was impossible. We were in my flat, behind its closed door. Bates and I deduced his sex from the sound of his footsteps."
Again Theydon nearly stammered. Events had certainly turned in the most amazing way. Instead of carrying himself almost in the manner of a judge, he was figuring rather as an unwilling witness in the hands of a skilled and merciless cross-examining counsel.
"Did the police officers supply any theory of motive for the crime? Was this poor woman killed for the sake of her few trinkets?"
By this time Theydon was stung into a species of revolt. It was he, not Forbes, who should be snapping out searching questions.
"I regret to say that my nerves were not sufficiently under control at Waterloo that I should listen carefully to each word," he said, almost stiffly. "Bates had picked up such information as was available; but he, though an ex-sergeant in the Army, was so upset as to be hardly coherent. When I meet the detectives in the course of another hour I shall probably gather something definite and reliable in the way of details."
Forbes laid the pipe which he had filled but not lighted on the table. He poured out a glass of port and drank it.
"Try that," he said, pushing the decanter toward Theydon. "They cannot trouble you greatly. You have so little to tell."
"No, thanks. Nothing more for me tonight until the Scotland Yard men have cleared out."
Forbes rose as he spoke and strode the length of the room and back with the air of a man debating some weighty and difficult point.
"Mr. Theydon," he said, at last, halting in front of the younger man and gazing down at him with a direct intensity that was highly embarrassing to one who had good cause to connect him with the actual crime. "I want you to do me a favor—a great favor. It was in my mind at first to ask you to permit me to go with you to Innesmore Mansions, and to be present during the interview with the detectives. But a man in my position must be circumspect. It would, perhaps, be unwise to appear too openly interested. I don't mind telling you in confidence that I have known Mrs. Lester many years. The shock of her death, severe as it must have been to you, is slight as compared with my own sorrow and dismay. More than that I dare not say until better informed. I remember now hearing the newsboys shouting their ghoulish news, and I saw contents bills making large type display of 'Murder of a lady,' but little did I imagine that the victim was one whom—one whose loss I shall deplore.... Are you on the telephone?"
"Yes," said Theydon, thoroughly mystified anew by the announcement that Forbes had even contemplated, or so much as hinted at, the astounding imprudence of visiting Innesmore Mansions that night.
"Ring me up when the detectives have gone. I shall esteem your assistance during this crisis as a real service."
For the life of him, Theydon could not frame the protest which ought to have been made without delay and without hesitation.
"Yes," he said. "I'll do that. You can trust me absolutely."
Thus was he committed to secrecy. That promise sealed his lips.
CHAPTER III
IN THE TOILS