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  “One second, Hugh,” said Standish. “I suppose you’ve got no idea, Colonel, what tree Jimmy was barking up?”

  “Absolutely none. It may be a spy organisation: it may be a drug gang: it may be anything. But whatever it is, it’s something big or Jimmy wouldn’t have said so.”

  “No hint, of course, of the possibility of foul play will appear in the papers?”

  “Good Heavens! no,” cried Colonel Talbot. “No hint, in fact, that he was anything but an ordinary army officer with a job at the War Office.”

  He strolled into the hall with the two men.

  “I’ll let you know what I hear from Cannes,” he said. “And you have my number here and at the office. Because I’ve got a sort of hunch, boys, that the less we actually see of one another in the near future the better. And my final word – watch your step.”

  A slight drizzle was falling as Drummond and Standish reached the street, and they hailed a passing taxi.

  “United Sports Club,” said Drummond. “We may as well get down to this over a pint, Ronald.”

  Standish lit a cigarette.

  “A rum show,” he remarked. “Damned rum. And the annoying part of it is that it’s impossible to find out from Burton whether he had a good and perfectly genuine reason for crossing by that service. He may have had, and in that case the Chief’s theory goes up in a cloud of steam. But if he didn’t have–”

  “In any event he’d manufacture one,” Drummond cut in.

  “If it wasn’t true it might be possible to discover the fact. But the trouble is that it would immediately arouse all Burton’s suspicions.”

  The taxi pulled up at the club, and they went inside. The smoking-room was practically empty, and drawing two easy chairs up to the fire they sat down.

  “Let’s pool resources, Hugh,” said Standish. “What, if anything, do you know of Charles Burton?”

  “I have seen him in all about six times,” answered Drummond. “I accidentally trod on his foot at some ghastly cocktail party old Mary Wetherspoon threw at the Ritz, and we had a drink over the catastrophe. Save for that I don’t think I’ve addressed three sentences to the man in my life. He seems a reasonable sort of individual though he ain’t the type I’d choose to be shipwrecked on a desert island with.”

  “How did that remark about his not being English strike you?”

  “It didn’t – particularly. So far as I remember he speaks without the faintest trace of accent. In fact he must do, or the point would have occurred to me. But to be perfectly candid, Ronald, I do not feel that I know the man nearly well enough to form any opinion of him. He is the most casual of casual acquaintances.”

  “Have you ever been to his house in Park Lane?”

  “Once – with some wench. Another cocktail party. I don’t think I even spoke to him.”

  “But the flesh-pots of Egypt all right?”

  “Very much so. Though the whole turnout rather gave one the impression that he had issued an ultimatum – ‘Let there be furniture: rich, rare furniture. Let there be pictures: rich, rare pictures.’”

  “Precisely the criticism I heard,” said Standish. “And it rather confirms what the Chief was saying about one day he was not – the next day he was.”

  “Yes,” agreed Drummond doubtfully. “But I don’t see that it takes us much further. I can think of three or four men who have suddenly made money, and promptly bought a large house with instructions to furnish regardless of cost.”

  “Do you know when he bought that house?”

  “The time I went there was about a year ago, and so far as I know he’d been in it several months then.”

  “So presumably he took it when he first blossomed out in the City.”

  “Presumably.”

  “It would be interesting to know his history before then.”

  “That, I take it, he would say was nobody’s business.”

  “D’you see what I’m getting at, Hugh? If by some lucky speculation he made a packet in the City before he burst on society, it is one thing. If on the contrary he just arrived out of the blue, it is another. In the first event Talbot’s question as to where he got his money is answered: in the second it isn’t.”

  “It should be easy to find out,” said Drummond.

  “It doesn’t seem as if the Chief has been able to do so, and he can ferret out information from a closed oyster. Of course, he’s had a very short time. But I can’t help feeling that our first line is Mr Charles Burton’s past. Did he have a father who left him money? Did he make it himself, and if so where? Or…”

  “Or what?” asked Drummond curiously.

  “Has he been installed there for some purpose which at the moment is beyond us?”

  “And Jimmy was on the track.”

  “Exactly. I believe that is what was at the bottom of the Chief’s mind. And if so the sorest man in England was our Charles when his name was taken going up in the boat-train.”

  Hugh Drummond lay back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

  “First line settled,” he remarked. “But it is the second that contains the snags, I’m thinking. I hardly know the blighter: you, I gather, don’t know him at all. How do we set about attaching ourselves to his person with a view to extracting his maidenly secrets? Charlie is going to smell a rodent of that size pretty damn’ quick.”

  “Sufficient unto the day, old boy. It’ll have to be worked through mutual friends. By the way, has he got any other house besides the one in Park Lane?”

  “Ask me another. Not that I know of, but that means nothing.”

  Drummond sat up suddenly.

  “An idea, by Jove! Algy. Algy Longworth. He knows Burton fairly well. Waiter! Go and telephone to Mr Longworth and tell him to come round to the club at once under pain of my severe displeasure.

  “I remember now,” he continued, as the waiter left the room. “Burton has got a house in the country somewhere. Algy went and stayed there last summer. Crowds of fairies: swimming-pool: peacocks in the grounds type of thing.”

  “However he got it the money is evidently there,” said Standish dryly.

  “Mr Longworth is coming round at once, sir.”

  The waiter paused by Drummond’s chair.

  “Good. Then repeat this dose and bring one for Mr Longworth. A drivelling idiot is our Algy,” he went on as the man moved away, “but there is a certain shrewdness concealed behind that eyeglass of his which may prove useful.”

  “At any rate he gives us a point of contact with Burton,” said Standish. “And that’s all to the good.”

  Ten minutes later Algy Longworth arrived and Drummond swung round his chair.

  “Come here, you pop-eyed excrescence. What the devil are you all dressed up like that for? And you’ve dribbled on your white waistcoat. You look awful.’’

  “Thank you, my sweet one. Evening, Ronald.”

  The newcomer adjusted his eyeglass, and smiled benignly.

  “Evening, Algy. Take a pew.”

  “You wish to confer with me – yes? To suck my brain on some deep point of international import? Gentlemen – if I may be permitted so to bastardise the word – I am at your service.”

  “Look here, Algy,” said Drummond, “there may be a spot of bother in the air. Only may: we don’t know yet. So this conversation is not to go beyond you. What do you know about Charles Burton?”

  “Charles Burton!” Algy Longworth stared at him. “What’s he been doing? Watering the Worcester sauce? As a matter of fact it’s darned funny you should ask that, Hugh; I’m going to that place of his tonight. Hence the glad rags.”

  “What place? His house in Park Lane?”

  “No; no. The Golden Boot.”

  “The new Club that’s just opened? It’s Burton behind it, is it?”


  “Entirely. He found all the others so ghastly boring that he decided to have one run on his own lines. More than likely he’ll be there himself. However, what is it you want to know about him?”

  “Everything you can tell. What sort of a bloke is he?”

  “He’s all right. Throws a damned good party. Stinks of money. Clean about the house and all that kind of thing.”

  “D’you know where he got his money?”

  “Haven’t an earthly, old boy. Cornering lights for cats, or something of that sort, I suppose. Why?”

  “Where is his house in the country?”

  “West Sussex. Not far from Pulborough. I went and stayed there last July.”

  “I remember you telling me about it,” said Drummond. “Algy, would you say he was English?”

  Algy stared at him, his glass halfway to his mouth. “I’ve never really thought about it,” he said at length. “I’ve always assumed he was, especially with that name. He speaks the language perfectly, but for that matter he speaks about six others equally well. I’d put it this way – he isn’t obviously not English.”

  “That I know,” said Drummond.

  “And I should think Sir George would have satisfied himself on that point,” continued Algy. “You know old Castledon – the most crashing bore in Europe?”

  “His wife is the woman with a face like a cab horse, isn’t she?”

  “That’s it. Well, Molly, their daughter, is an absolute fizzer. When you see the three of ’em together you feel that you require the mysteries of parenthood explained to you again. However, Burton met Molly at some catch-’em-alive-’o dance in Ascot week, and as our society writers would say, paid her marked attention. So marked that Lady Castledon who was attending the parade as Molly’s chaperon had a fit in a corner of the room, and was finally carried out neighing. She already heard the Burton doubloons jingling in the Castledon coffers, which by all accounts sadly need ’em.”

  “What’s the girl’s reaction?” asked Drummond.

  “Definitely anti-click. After all, she’s young: she’s one of this year’s brood of debs. But what I was getting at is, that though Sir George can clear a room quicker than an appeal for charity, he’s a darned fine old boy. And he’s not the sort of man who’d let his daughter marry merely for money, or get tied up with anyone he wasn’t satisfied about.”

  Algy drained his glass.

  “Look here, chaps,” he said, “it seems to me I’ve done most of the turn up to date. Why this sudden interest in Charles Burton?”

  “We’ve got your word you’ll keep it to yourself, Algy?”

  “Of course,” was the quiet answer.

  “Good. Then listen.”

  He did – in absolute silence – whilst they put him wise.

  “Seems a bit flimsy,” he remarked when they had finished. “Though I agree that it’s not like Burton to cross via Newhaven.”

  “Of course it’s flimsy,” said Drummond. “There’s not a shred of evidence to connect Burton with Jimmy’s death. It’s just a shot in the dark on the Chief’s part. And if we find out nothing, no harm is done. On the other hand it is just possible we may discover that it was a bull’s-eye.”

  “I must say that he’s not a man I’d like to fall foul of,” remarked Algy thoughtfully. “I don’t think he’d show one much mercy. He sacked the first manager he put into the Golden Boot at a moment’s notice for the most trivial offence. But murder is rather a tall order.”

  “My dear Algy,” said Standish, “the tallness of the order is entirely dependent on the largeness of the stake. And if Jimmy was on to something really big…”

  He shrugged his shoulders and lit a cigarette.

  “Perhaps you’re right,” said Algy. “Well, boys, I’m afraid I haven’t been of much assistance, but I really know very little about the fellow myself. Why don’t you come round to the Golden Boot with me now?”

  “Short coats all right?”

  “Good Lord! yes. Though he insists on evening clothes. Of course, I can’t guarantee that he’ll be there, and even if he is I don’t see that it will do any good. But you might stumble on something, and you’re bound to find a lot of people there that you know.”

  “What about it, Ronald?” said Drummond. “It can’t do any harm.”

  “It can’t. But I don’t think we’ll both go, Hugh. If anything comes out of this show it would be well to have one completely unknown bloke on our side – unknown to Burton, I mean. Now he knows you and he knows Algy; he does not know me. So for the present, at any rate, we won’t connect you and me. You toddle off with Algy; as he says, you might find out something. Let’s meet here for lunch tomorrow, and I’ll put out a few feelers in the City during the morning.”

  Drummond nodded.

  “Sound idea. You’ve got a wench with you, I suppose, Algy?”

  “I’m with a party. Why don’t you join up too?”

  “I’ll see. It’s one of these ordinary bottle places, I take it?”

  “That’s right. Same old stunt in rather better setting than usual – that’s all. Night-night, Ronald.”

  CHAPTER 2

  The Golden Boot

  As Algy Longworth had said, it was the same old stunt. After a slight financial formality at the door, Drummond became a guest of the management for the evening with all the privileges appertaining to such an honoured position. Though unable to order a whisky and soda, he was allowed – nay, expected – to order a bottle. To consume one drink was a crime comparable to murdering the Archbishop of Canterbury: to consume the entire bottle was a great and meritorious action.

  Accustomed, however, as he was to these interesting sidelights on our legal system he gave the necessary order, and then glanced round the room. Being only just midnight there were still many empty tables, though he saw several faces he recognised. It was a long, narrow building, and a band, in a fantastic red and green uniform, was playing at the far end. But the whole get-up of the place was, as Algy had said, distinctly better than usual.

  Algy’s party had not yet arrived, so they sat down at an empty table, near the microscopic dancing-floor, and Drummond ordered a kipper.

  “I’ll wait, old boy,” said Algy, and at that moment a girl paused by their table.

  “Hullo! darling.” He scrambled to his feet. “You look absolutely ravishing. Hugh, you old stiff – this is Alice. Around her rotates the whole place: she is our sun, our moon, our stars. Without her we wilt: we die. Hugh: Alice.”

  “You blithering imbecile,” said the girl with a particularly charming smile. “Are you his keeper, Hugh?”

  Drummond grinned – that slow, lazy grin of his, which made so many people wonder why they had ever thought him ugly.

  “Lions I have shot, Alice; tigers, even field mice; but there is a limit to my powers. When this palsied worm joins his unfortunate fellow guests will you come and kipper with me?”

  “I’d love to,” she answered simply, and with a nod moved on.

  “I’m glad you did that, Hugh,” said Algy. “She’s an absolute topper, that girl. Name of Blackton. Father was a soldier.”

  “What’s she doing this job for?”

  “He lost all his money in some speculation. But you’ll really like her. There’s no nonsense about her, and she dances like an angel.” He lowered his voice. “No sign of C B so far.”

  “The night is yet young,” said Drummond. “And even if he does come I’m not likely to get anything out of him. It’s more the atmosphere of this place that I want, and sidelights from other people.”

  “Alice might help you there,” remarked Algy. “She’s been here since it opened. Hullo! here come my crowd. So long, old boy, and don’t forget if anything does emerge the bunch are in on it.”

  He drifted away and a smile twitched
round Drummond’s lips. How many times in the past had not the bunch been in on things? And they were all ready again if and when the necessity arose.

  If and when… The smile had gone, and he was conscious of a curious sensation. Suddenly the room seemed strangely unreal: the band, the women, the hum of conversation faded and died. In its place was a deserted crossroads with the stench of death lying thick like a fetid pall. Against the darkening sky green pencil lines of light shot ceaselessly up, to turn into balls of fire as the flares lobbed softly into no-man’s-land. In the distance the mutter of artillery: the sudden staccato burst of a machine-gun. And in the ditch close by, a motionless figure in khaki, with chalk white face and glazed staring eyes, that seemed to be mutely asking why its legs should be lying two yards away being gnawed by rats.

  “A penny, Hugh.”

  With a start he glanced up: Alice was looking at him curiously.

  “For the moment I thought of other things,” he said quietly. “I was back across the water, Alice; back in the days of the madness. I almost seemed to be there in reality – it was so vivid. Funny, isn’t it, the tricks one’s mind plays?”

  “You seemed to me, Hugh, to be staring into the future – not into the past.” She sat down opposite him. “The world was on your shoulders and you found it heavy. This is the first time you’ve been here, isn’t it?” she continued lightly.

  “The future.” He stared at her gravely. “I wonder. However, a truce to this serious mood. Yes, it is the first time I’ve been here: I’ve been up in Scotland since it opened. And as such places go it seems good to me. I gather that one Charles Burton is behind it?”

  “Do you know the gentleman?” Her tone was non-committal, but he glanced at her quickly.

  “Very slightly,” he said. “You do, of course.”

  “Yes, I know him. He is in here most nights when he’s in London.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “My dear Hugh, girls in my position neither like nor dislike the great man. We exist by virtue of his tolerance.”