was already packed with opulent-looking cars, and I caught the sound of a dance-orchestra giving out as we went. up the steps.
Coming back to the hall to find Mr. Brett after dumping my cape, I caught sight of a face that made me stop in my tracks. I’m pretty good at recognizing people and it was him all right. I must have been staring pretty hard. Anyhow he turned his head and stared back, finally giving me a tentative half-smile. I didn’t reciprocate, however, not with the idea of snubbing him, but because I was too preoccupied. I hurried on my way and found Mr. Brett standing somewhat aloof from the crowd milling round.
“Guess who I’ve just seen?” I said a trifle breathlessly.
“I’ll buy it. Who?”
“Raymond Ward, the ex-secretary who pinched his girlfriend. Remember?” Well, not unnaturally I expected him to show some sign of surprise or even a mild interest, but all he did was to go a little bleak round the mouth and gaze past my left ear with a faraway expression.
“Wonder which way the bar is?” he said.
But before he could make a move, a character with receding hair had come up and eyed him expectantly.
“Mr. Martin Brett?”
Mr. Brett nodded.
“My name is Selby. Mr. Tisdall’s secretary.”
“Good,” Mr. Brett said, without any enthusiasm whatsoever.
Farringdon Tisdall had certainly taken no chances over the man he’d hired to take the place of young Ward.
Selby was a weedy-looking individual with thick-lensed spectacles and about as much appeal as a jellyfish.
I calculated there was practically no risk at all of him running off with anybody’s girlfriend, except maybe another jellyfish. And she’d have to be frantically hard up. He coughed apologetically, looked as if he was washing his hands without any soap, and said;
“Mr. Tisdall asked me to look out for you soon as you arrived. He would like to see you in the library.”
Mr. Brett said abruptly: “Has he got any drink there?”
The secretary looked slightly startled, but recovered himself to smile thinly. “I’m sure Mr. Tisdall will be able to offer you some refreshment.”
Mr. Brett threw him a nod and we trailed off to the library. Farringdon Tisdall greeted us with quite a show of affability, and with a cigar which looked about three feet long stuck in his face, began pouring out the drinks. As he handed them to us, he said:
“I thought we might have a chat and if there’s anything you’d like to know that would be useful....” He left the rest of the sentence suspended on the cigar smoke and looked helpful.
Mr. Brett let his gaze take in the surroundings over the rum of his glass. And Farringdon Tisdall’s library was something that you really had to take in. Luxury literally leered at you from every side. Rich oak panelling from floor to ceiling, curtains and tapestries that glowed with gorgeous colour, and a carpet so thick you felt you were walking in velvet up to your ankles,
After a moment Mr. Brett said: “Where’s the ruby tucked away?”
The other crossed obediently to the wide fireplace, and then pressed somewhere underneath the massive ornately carved mantelpiece. At his touch a section of the woodwork about nine inches square sprang open to reveal a small wall safe. “Neat isn’t it?” Mr. Tisdall said over his shoulder. He went on; “Needless to say, we in this room are the only people who know if its existence.”
Mr. Brett glanced casually at Selby who’d remained unobtrusively in the background, making no contribution to the conversation, and doing precious little to improve the scenery either. Now, however, he ventured to put his oar in with:
“And my predecessor.”
“Ah, yes,” Farringdon Tisdall murmured as if reminded of the fact. His face took on an abstract expression, then he seemed to dismiss whatever it was he’d been thinking, and bent slightly in an attitude of concentration before the safe.
There was a sharp metallic click and the safe-door swung back. Mr. Tisdall rummaged inside and after a moment held the Crimson Lake under the light for our inspection. It was beautiful, glowing up at us like something alive. I cooed the usual assortment of appropriately admiring remarks while Mr. Brett, his thoughts for all I knew wandering round the wilds of Tibet or somewhere, gazed at it as if it was a bit of coloured glass.
Then Farringdon Tisdall looked up and said conversationally: “By the way, Mr. Selby’s—er—predecessor already referred to happens to be one of my guests tonight.” He smiled slowly. but it seemed to me it didn’t quite match up with his lidless eyes. “Yes,” he went on smoothly, “the circumstances of his leaving were somewhat painful to me at the time, but I hope all that’s forgotten now. And forgiven. His presence here is in fact an attempt on my part to persuade him to let bygones be bygones. Ward his name is, Raymond Ward. Charming and very able young man.” He considered a moment while Mr. Brett and I didn’t bat an eyelash, though what we were hearing hardly added up to the inside-story tipped off to me by Bill Foster. Mr. Tisdall was continuing: “I feel I was perhaps too harsh on him. After all, one shouldn’t forget the time when one’s self was young—” He broke off and turned to Selby: “Mr. Ward has arrived?”
“Er—yes,” the other nodded.
“Perhaps you’d find him presently and say I’d be glad for him to join me over a drink?”
“Very well.” He hesitated for a moment and then muttered: “If you’ll excuse me, there are one or two other matters I have to attend to.”
After he’d gone, Mr, Brett said: “Presumably your secretary has some idea why we’re here?”
“He knows who you are, yes. No one else does, of course.”
“And the letter?”
“I told him about that—I saw no reason why I shouldn’t. Why?”
“No reason at all,” Mr. Brett agreed amiably.
He began to wander apparently aimlessly round the room drawing abstractedly at his cigarette. I had worn out all the superlatives I could think up over the ruby, and there was a little silence. Mr. Tisdall glanced at Mr. Brett over his cigar, shot a glance of inquiry at me, which I answered with a beaming smile, leaving him to make what he liked of it, and he crossed over to the safe with the ruby. As he bent to close it up, he said over his shoulder: “Of course, as an added precaution I switch the combination every two or three days. Only Selby and I know what it is.”
The remark was intended for Mr. Brett, who, however, appeared to have lost what little interest he’d ever had in the jewel and was, I saw from the corner of my eye glancing idly through some magazines and newspapers on a table. I covered up his unresponsiveness by blathering something about what a smart idea it was for Mr. Tisdall to take the extra precaution.
And then Mr. Brett spoke from the other side of the room, very quietly. “No risk of either of you jotting down the combination and leaving it about for anyone else to see?” he asked, which just shows what a mistake it is to kid yourself he ever lets a darn thing get past him, no matter how much you think his mind’s on something else at the time.
The other replied that the combination was simple enough to remember, no need to write it down, you just kept it in your head. A few minutes later we left Farringdon Tisdall in the library, and Mr. Brett complaining he was still thirsty, was pushing off in the direction of what he hoped was a bar. On our way we saw Selby talking to Raymond Ward, and they passed us, presumably going to the library. The secretary peered at us shortsightedly with a nod of acknowledgement, while the other looked at me as if he’d liked to give me that tentative half-smile again.
Mr. Brett leant against the bar for a surprisingly short time and I trailed after him back to the hall. He lit a cigarette for me, then his own, and I listened to the dance-music watching the celebrities, and those who