THE CLIFFORD
AFFAIR


ALSO BY A. FIELDING
THE CHARTERIS MYSTERY
THE EAMES-ERSKINE CASE
THE FOOTSTEPS THAT STOPPED


THE CLIFFORD
AFFAIR
T
BY A. FIELDING

NEW YORK
ALFRED • A • KNOPF
1927


THE CLIFFORD
AFFAIR


*
I


CHAPTER I
The Assistant Commissioner of New Scotland Yard listened
for a moment at one of his telephones, told the man at the
other end, it happened to be Superintendent Maybrick of
Hampstead, to hold on a moment, and sent one of his
constable-clerks in search of Chief Inspector Pointer.
It was then just a little before nine of a Tuesday morning.
A tall, lithe, lean young man came in with a step that sug-
gested the kilt and the springing heather.
"Look here, Pointer. Suppose you hand over the reins of
that case you're on to Clark. He can carry on all right now.
Superintendent Maybrick of Hampstead wants help. Or
rather, I think he needs it. He's just been called in to a horrid
mess, a murder, in one of the flats in his district. From cer-
tain things he thinks it's an anarchist plot gone wrong,
'biter bit' sort of thing," Major Pelham said vaguely; "he's
got into touch with the Foreign Office already. So by this time
there's sure to be some F.O. man sprinting along to have a
first loo*. Go and see what you think of it, will you? If it
isn't a foreign spy job, then it should be a fine problem for
you to solve. Here's the address." He handed a chit to the
Chief Inspector, who left the room with his swift, unhurried
stride that covered such an amazing amount of ground.
Pointer drove to the place mentioned—a large block of flats
with a view over Hampstead Heath.
The head porter, after a keen glance at the Chief Inspector
when the latter asked for "Mr. Maybrick," saluted, and took


4 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
him up in the lift. The only information which he volunteered
was that none of the residents had an idea of what had hap-
pened.
"These are all service flats, sir, and news gets around ter-
rible fast unless one's very careful. As a rule illnesses are
'maternity cases' when possible. Deaths are 'measles/ to
account for the body being took away, but murder—the own-
ers haven't given instructions about that. Not yet." The porter
stopped the lift at the third floor, and stepped forward to ring
the bell of a flat marked fourteen, which had no card in the
little glass case beside the door. Pointer stopped him.
"A moment!" His eye ran over the door and mat and land-
ing, as well as up and down the staircases. Then he nodded.
The porter rang. The door opened an inch. The Superin-
tendent inside, in plain clothes too, inspected them both cau-
tiously, then he stood back and Pointer entered.
Maybrick saluted. He was one of Pointer's many police-
man admirers. What a pity, he thought, that there was noth-
ing here for the Chief Inspector to get his teeth into, those
teeth that never let go.
"A moment!" Pointer said again, as he switched on the
light and gave one swift glance around the square hall, a
glance that nothing visible escaped. Then he nodded.
"Now lead the way."
"Shall I tell you first what I know, sir?"
"Not if any one from the Foreign Office is on the trail,"
Pointer said promptly. "They're quick workers. And I like
to have my clues untouched, as far as may be."
"No one's come yet, sir. Not even the doctor. And the
clues aren't ones that can be disarranged." Maybrick was
about to expand into detail, but Pointer stopped him.
"Then this way, sir." Maybrick led down to a door at the
farther end of a little passage. Pointer stepped into a tiled


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 5
bathroom. In the bath-tub—it was not a pleasant sight—lay
a man's body, stripped and headless.
"Where's his head?"
"Not on the premises, sir. Gone. Like his clothes. All
gone."
Pointer knelt down in the doorway and looked sideways
across the floor.
"Rubber-soled shoes. Man's heel marks. Apparently only
one pair. What's that?" He advanced now, and bent to a tiny
splash of something white on the tiles under the raised china
bath.
"Powder they use to clean the tub, sir. Shall I tell you
what the head porter"
Again Pointer stopped him.
"Has the body been touched by any one, as far as you
know?"
"No, sir. Not the kind of thing to get touched by any
sensible man."
"Have you photographed it?"
"Films are being developed at the station now."
Pointer lifted each of the hands in turn.
They were slender, beautiful hands, that looked as though
they would be clever at whatever they did. Hard work had
never been asked of them.
"Wore a ring on the middle finger of the right hand. Broad,
thick ring. Signet ring very likely. Cigarette smoker. Gentle-
man certainly from the care of the whole body."
There were no marks of blood-stained hands either on the
bath, or on the fitted basin beside it, or on any of the taps,
nor finger prints of any kind.
Pointer stepped on into a bedroom opening out of the bath-
Toom. Then he returned to Maybrick. . *
*We can wash our hands in the bedroom. The basin in


6 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
i.
there's not even been dusted. This one has been used."
A ring came at the door. Maybrick answered it. A small,
quick-stepping, alert-eyed, gray-bearded man stepped into the
flat. He was of the type to pass easily for English in England,
French in France, Spanish, or Eastern, according to where he
was met. "Many-tongued Tindall," a great international
sleuth or sleuther of sleuths, was an amateur. A man of
means attached to the Foreign Office, when he was not on
loan to the Home Office. In manner he was very quiet, in
speech very direct.
"I've come to see if the dead man's one of our birds," he
said, after shaking hands with Pointer. "But you here?" He
eyed the Chief Inspector with mock distrust. "No poaching,
you know!"
For a second Tindall too stood looking about him with
swift, piercing glances.
"Now for the story"—he turned to the Superintendent.
First eyes, then ears, was Pointer's way. But Tindall was as
high in his branch as Pointer was in the C.I.D., and was,
moreover, a much older man. So Maybrick led them into the
drawing-room, where the dust lay thick, and where the blinds
.still shut out the daylight.
The story, as known to Maybrick, was exceedingly simple.
The flat belonged to a Mr. Marshall, a senior clerk at Lloyds,
who, as usual, wished to let it furnished while he was away
on a four weeks' holiday. He had left last Thursday. On
Friday, about six, a man had presented himself to the head
porter with a view card from the house agents, which gave his
name as a Monsieur Tourcoin. The flat was shown him, and
a little later the head porter was informed over the telephone
by the agents that Mr. Tourcoin had taken the flat for a
friend, a Captain Brown. Captain Brown would "take pos-
session" on Tuesday or Wednesday.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 7

On Monday evening something went wrong with the lock
of an upstairs flat. The porter thought it a good opportunity,
when the locksmith arrived this morning, to have him run
his eye over the front door of Number Fourteen as well. Mr.
Marshall had complained of its not always catching properly
when hastily shut. He also remembered a difficulty with
Marshall's bathroom bolt, and took the man in there first. He
had his own pass-key, of course.
"They didn't stay to look at any bolts," Maybrick said
dryly. "Nasty sight that body in there. They rushed to the
telephone and called us in."
"What body in where?" Tindall asked impatiently. He was
taken to see it. His face paled as he looked carefully at it
and at the room.
"Horrible!" he muttered. "Horrible!"
He turned to Maybrick.
"What made you 'phone to us—made you think the crime
political?"
"This, sir." Maybrick passed into a sitting-room, which,
like the bedroom, opened out of the bathroom. He pointed to
a newspaper on the table. It was a Times of Friday, heavily
scored at a few passages. Maybrick pointed to these. Tindall
read aloud:—
"Anti-royalist plot suspected in Madrid. I see he's under-
scored that 'suspected.' What's this next? King Alfonso's
yacht Esmeralda to be ready by a certain date. A question
mark is pencilled beside the date. Indeed! Indeed! And here's
something about King Boris's coming trip to Sofia heavily
marked at the side. Except for that last, the items are only
'panish. . . ." Tindall perched on a chair in a way that sug-
sted flight rather than rest.
"Man's clothes missing. . . . Papers in them gone too, of
urse. . . . Head taken away. . . . Identity to be concealed,
r


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 9
"These settle it." He spoke calmly but with the calm of one
who forces a layer of composure over a seething mass of
red-hot feeling.
"It was a political crime! Or an act of justice, if you will."
"You know what that signature stands for?" The Chief
Inspector's tone made the remark a statement, not a question.
"The V within the outline of a house? Etcheverrey,
Pointer. Yes. Etcheverrey, the great anarchist. Or rather
anti-royalist agitator."
Pointer said nothing. Maybrick gave a cluck of delighted
amazement. The police of every country knew, and were on
the hunt for that name, that man.
"That's his secret signature," Tindall went on. "Only used
to his own men. Only known to us at the F.O. And Iguski
Aide!—'Sunny Corner'! That's Etcheverrey's well-hidden
Basque refuge, deep in the heart of some Pyrenees ravine,
not yet located. The mere name is only known to a chosen
and picked few among his followers. We at the F.O. have
only just—only just learnt it."
"He's French, isn't he?" Maybrick asked.
"Officially, yes. But there's not a drop of French blood
in his veins. Basque father. Catalan mother. Speaks all lan-
guages. Brains of the devil. And up till now his luck."
"Do you think Etcheverrey's the killer, or the killed here,
sir?" Maybrick asked again.
"The killed. The dead man," Tindall said, after a moment's
deep thought. "Etcheverrey would have taken those scraps of
paper away. His slayer is not identified by them. I think
that the tables were turned on the Basque for the first
—and last—time in his life, by the man he summoned here.
And I can make a good guess at that man's name. You know
rry slogan." He turned to Pointer. "What the brain can't see,
the eyes can't either. Eyes won't solve this problem. Not even


10
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
yours. Now what has cost Etcheverrey his head, literally is,
I think, his last break."
"His attempt on the Shah of Persia?" Maybrick knew
every one of Etcheverrey's unsuccessful efforts by heart.
"Pretty near thing for the Shah!"
"And for Etcheverrey," Tindall threw in grimly. "He was
all but caught. As it was, they got a good view of him. The
only time he's been really seen. And since then there's a fine
price on his head at Ispahan. On the real, solid head. Duly de-
livered. That's why the descriptions we get from there are so
vague. All we know of his appearance is that he has unusually
small feet, and really beautiful hands."
"First thing I noticed about the corpse." Maybrick was
sorting his notes. "Here it is. Par seven."
"Yes," Tindall was talking half under his breath, "Mirza
Khan is over here, we know. He's the Shah's secret agent. It's
his head or Etcheverrey's, I understand. We know that
Etcheverrey is in London again. Sir Edward Clifford rather
inclines to the belief that he's been here for years, carefully
hidden in some commonplace identity, and that he only leaves
London for some swift flight and one of his lightning efforts,
and then comes back again and takes up his seemingly every-
day existence. I don't agree with him, but that's Sir Edward's
view."
Sir Edward Clifford was Permanent Under Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.
"Every man jack of us has been living on a volcano, with
the King of Spain on his way here next month." Maybrick
drew a deep breath. "Etcheverrey nearly got him in Spain
last year," Tindall went on, "just as he had a hard try for
our Prince of Wales in South America." He was examining
the room carefully as he talked. There was little to discover.
A smallish, still damp splotch of blood on the thick carpet


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR n
near a little table on which stood a reading-lamp. A few drops
of blood had dried on the wooden edge of the table. Smaller
ones yet were found on the parchment lamp-shade, and a
hint of a trickle down one leg of the arm-chair standing near.
"There's been no struggle?" Tindall looked at Pointer.
"No sign of any," Pointer said cautiously.
"Just so. Yet the man summoned by such a letter as that
would have been on the alert and would have struggled.
Etcheverrey, on the other hand, would not dream that the
tables could be turned on him. He was either shot, or more
probably slogged on the head. Dragged to the tub, beheaded,
and the head's now on its way to distant Ispahan in the care
of that good old hater, Mirza Khan. But all that's for me to
find out."
"Well, sir," Maybrick slipped a band over his bulging
note-book, "as you're quite sure that the murder was political,
I hand it over to you."
The Superintendent was aware that he had done very well.
But he knew when he was out of his depth. Nor had he any
intention of wasting his time over a case of which the honours
would all go to the Foreign Office. They had their own men.
It was all very well for the Chief Inspector, who had already,
young though he was, risen so high, but he, Maybrick, had
more paying matters from the point of view of promotion
waiting for him at his police station. And so with a salute, he
passed from the scene—to his never dying regret.
"Now for the porters," Tindall continued, when the two
were alone. They learnt nothing which could explain the
crime itself from them, though they gained a clear idea of
how the flat could have been entered and left by any one un-
observed. The building had several lifts, the corner ones
being automatic and worked by the residents. There were
many staircases. There was a restaurant on the ground floor


12
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
open to the public. There were billiard rooms and reading
rooms.
The estate agent for whom they telephoned repeated in
fuller detail what Maybrick had already told them about the
taking of the flat. Monsieur Tourcoin had paid for the four
weeks in twenty-four one-pound notes, and the transaction
had been completed on the spot.
"No references asked for?"
"Not in a case of this kind. A furnished flat let for a
month. The porters here keep their eyes open. And undesir-
able people would be asked to leave a> once. We find that
simpler and better than bothering with references," the house-
agent explained.
"Now as to this Mr. Marshall"
"We know all about Mr. Marshall. Our firm has known him
and his parents, they lived in one of our houses, for twenty
years. Just as we've known the head porter here about that
long. There's nothing wrong with Mr. Marshall, I'll go bail,
any more than there is with Soulyby, the head porter."
"How did this Mr. Tourcoin learn of the flat?" Pointer
asked. *.'
"Saw our advertisement in the paper, I suppose."
"When was it advertised?"
"Friday morning for the first time."
"And the paper?"
"The Times."
"And he spoke broken English," Tindall murmured.
The agent laughed. "Rather!" He gave them a very good
copy of the man's accent.
"On leaving he nipped into a-taxi which some one was
just paying off, and called to the chauffeur. 'To the station of
Charing Cross. Arrest yourself there for one little minute
while I learn what time train for Paris he start.' The drive


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 13
winked, and said he'd arrest himself all right if need be."
"What clothes was the man wearing?" Pointer asked.
"Motor cap—he apologised very civilly for keeping it on,
but he had a bad attack of head neuralgia—big brown and
orange check motoring coat. That's all I remember."
"Young man?"
The agent thought so, but as he had seen many men yester-
day afternoon he could not be quite sure. The whole affair
was so small compared with most of their business that he had
not paid much attention.
"Do you remember his hands, when he signed those
papers," Pointer went on, "were they large hands?"
The estate agent could not remember anything about them.
More details of the conversation were asked, and as far as
possible, given. Then the agent took his leave—a very agi-
tated leave.
The head porter had not noticed the appearance of the
M. Tourcoin to whom he had shown the flat, except that the
man wore a motoring ulster of orange and brown tweed, and
a brown silk scarf. He had an impression of a young man,
but as he had already on Friday afternoon shown the flat to
several friends of Mr. Marshall's, he could not even be sure
of that. .
The man had barely glanced over the flat. *
"I never thought he meant what he said about taking it,
but within half an hour the agents phoned up to me that the
flat was gone. Taken by the monseer for a month. As to see-
ing him again—not unless that's him in there. But the chap I
showed the flat to, looked a bigger chap. Bigger and brawnier,
though I never saw his face. Not to see it."
"Was he smoking?" Pointer asked.
"Yes, sir. Briarwood pipe. One of these new comfort
pipes."


14 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"What kind of tobacco? Any kind you knew?"
"Yes, sir." It was a kind that the head porter particularly
liked when he could afford it. A well-known British make. "I
says to myself," the man went on, "France is all very well for
wines, but when it comes to pipes and baccy—there's noth-
ing like Us!"
"Umph," Tindall murmured, when the two were alone.
"Tourcoin takes the flat for a Captain Brown. He or this cap-
tain Brown can be seen; in it therefore. If need be. One of
the two is Etcheverrey. Almost certainly he would be Brown.
The Unseen. Now is Tourcoin the man to whom the summon-
ing letters were sent? Is he the man who killed Etcheverrey?
Is he, in fact, Mirza Khan, who speaks French—and English
too for that matter—like a Frenchman?" There was a short
silence broken by the Chief Inspector, who had been stand-
ing looking down at the toes of his shoes, hands loosely
clasped behind him. He looked up now.
"Those papers found in the basket"—he spoke thought-
fully—"are they in Etcheverrey's writing?"
"He had some thirty different kinds of writing."
"And on the blotter," Pointer went on musingly, "there
are no marks except from the two notes we found torn
up. . . ."
"None. Why should there be?" Tindall asked, with a faint
smile. "You police always want so much for your money."
There was another pause. Tindall eyed Pointer whimsically.
Pointer looked back at him with his tranquil, steady gaze. The
detective officer had fine dark gray eyes, pleasant, though at
times rather enigmatic in expression.
"To stake the effect of a political crime would be a capital
red herring, wouldn't it, to drag across the trail of a private <
murder."
Tindall smiled still more. A smile of real amusement at tWs


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 15
doubt on his own reading of the case from a man young
enough to be his son.
"We're like two Harley Street specialists, Pointer," he
said good-humouredly, "each reading a case according to his
own special lines. I say heart. You say liver. You're welcome
to treat the case for liver, of course. But it's a heart case.
Believe me, it's heart. In other words, I've been studying
Etcheverrey so long that I have no hesitation in saying that
this murder belongs to me. Don't waste your valuable time in
hunting for this poor chap's head. I see that search being or-
ganised already."
Pointer laughed a little. Tindall was right. He was already
charting his course.
"It's on its way to distant Ispahan," Tindall continued.
"Pity Mirza Khan has such a start. Well, he knows my
methods. They're lazy, compared with yours, but they're
1 quick."
"They often lead to splendid results," Pointer said hon-
estly. In what might be called society crimes, thefts, stolen
letters, the finer shade of blackmail, Tindall had done won-
ders, besides winning many a triumph in his own field—the
political field.
"I leave the details of the flat to you." Tindall despised
hunting for clues. "The exact spot where the murder was
committed . . . which way the man faced . . . and so on."
Pointer nodded, let him out of the flat, telephoned to Scot-
land Yard for their expert locksmith, and then rang for the
head porter. That worthy was asked to institute a sort of
house-clearing. Fortunately he was at one with the Scotland
Yard officer in wanting to make sure that the missing head
was not hidden somewhere on any premises for which he was
responsible.
"IH see to my part of it. Every nook shall be turned out.


•16 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Every cupboard moved, or I'll know the reason why,"
Soulyby promised, "and every parcel opened."
"As soon as the doctor has examined the body we shall
have a rough idea of about what time the murder was com-
mitted. As it is, we know that it must have taken place be-
tween seven on Friday evening, and eight this morning. Ask
cautiously about whether any one was seen coming into, or
going out of, this flat during that time."
Pointer dismissed him and telephoned to Lloyds. Marshall
had been with them for fifteen years, he learnt. Came straight
from London University. His present address was Bastia in
Corsica. But as he had spoken of mules and guides. . . . Yes,
the man answering the telephone was a friend of his and quite
willing to act as his reference if necessary. The firm would
act as another. But he believed the flat was taken. The in-
quiry was about Marshall's furnished flat, of course?
"Just so," Pointer murmured, as he turned away. "Of
course!"
He now began his own patient investigations. The bath-
tubs, he had learnt, were cleaned with Sapolio. The little
smear of white under this one seemed to him to be plaster.
He scraped it into a stoppered bottle and labelled it before
putting it into his attache case. Then he bent over some marks
on the tiled floor—marks such as a dull lead pencil might
make if it had been rubbed with a broad, circular motion
over the spot. Pointer decided that a tin had been placed
there, and been pressed hard down while it was moved round
and round.
Then he turned his attention to the fitted basin beside the
bath. The taps had been turned off and on with a towel
he thought. Unfortunately the hall porter could not say, nor
could the housekeeper, how many towels had been left in i
warm cupboard just by the basin. Pointer looked about him


18 * THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"And the death occurred, at a rough guess?"
"Some time last night, I should judge. That cut's about
twelve hours old. Certainly not more."
He left at that, and Pointer went on with his work. There
were no signs of any bullet having entered a wall or piece
of furniture. Nor did the man seem to have been shot in a
line with any of the windows, supposing him to have been
shot—as Pointer did, partly from the size of the blood stain,
chiefly from the fact that the chair down which a rivulet of
blood had run was the only one in the room that had a very
high, spreading back. It was the last kind of a chair to choose
had a blow been intended.
Feeling the carpet, going by the stain, Pointer replaced the
chair as it had probably stood. The bedroom door was to one
side and a little behind it—an ideal position for a shot. This
bedroom door had odd pin-marks in the wood near the handle,
two on one side, two on the other, about the same distance
apart.
Pointer finally decided that a strip of some thin but strong
material such as tape had been fastened with drawing pins
taut across the tongue, so as to prevent the rather noisy latch
from acting, and let the door be opened by a touch, though it
might looked closed.
He drew the curtains and switched on the lights. The side
of the door that interested him was then thrown into deep
shadow by a Chinese lacquer cabinet. So that, provided that
the strip had been white, for the door was white, it might
pass undetected by a casual glance, or by a short-sighted per-
son. Pointer thought this last idea very probable. It explained
the otherwise venturesome silencing of the door, it was borne
out by the position of the reading-lamp that had been drawn -
to the extreme edge of the little table, and close against the
left side of the chair. fn


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR' 19
Pointer stared at the pin marks. To him they were a very
odd detail, one that was quite out of keeping with the rest
of the crime as known so far. Primarily they showed that the
man who had been murdered was evidently not hard of hear-
ing, since they spelled care that no snap of the catch could
be heard. But they meant more than that. Those pin-pricks
meant a quick job. Just as they showed that probably there
had been no sounds—music, talk—during which the cautious
opening of the door could pass unnoticed. It looked as though
the victim had been alone. But alone or not. Etcheverrey must
be always on the alert, ever suspicious. A man wanted by the
police of all the world, a man with a price on his head, a man
who had never yet been caught, would not have let any door
pass uninvestigated, let alone one that stood half in shadow.
Incongruous in any case, the tape seemed to Pointer doubly
so in connection with the much sought-for, wily Basque.
It came to this, he thought, if Etcheverrey had been the
man in the flat, he could have taken sufficient time to silence
that door in some better way than by means of a hastily
fastened-on strip. If the man was not Etcheverrey, then the
anarchist would have noticed it.
A search found a bath mat in a hall cupboard. Where,
apparently, a loop of tape had been sewn on, now only an
end dangled; a roughly cut-off end, cut with a knife, not
scissors. The piece that remained was the width indicated by
the pin pricks. So the murderer had not come provided with
tape. He found a few drawing-pins in a drawer which left
just such marks as those on the door. Pointer again tested
each object in the room. But still only the carpet, the chair,
the table edge, and the lamp-shade showed marks of blood.
On none of these, moreover, had there been any effort to
clean away the marks. As for the crumpled papers in the
waste-paper basket, of which, each promising the other a


20 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
photographic copy, Tindall had kept one, and Pointer one,
the Chief Inspector found a few more sheets in a drawer.
It looked as though they had been left there by Marshall.
The writing had been done with a pointed fountain pen,
which, like the ink—Pointer intended to have the latter tested
at the Yard—seemed of quite an ordinary kind.
The lock expert arrived from the Yard at this point. A
close scrutiny of the Yale lock now taken off the front door
told him that though it was old and badly in need of new
springs—failing entirely to catch now and then—yet it had
not been forced, or picked, or opened with any other but its
own rightful key. The house agent had said that he had
handed Marshall's two keys to Monsieur Tourcoin.
The ambulance arrived and the body was taken away.
Pointer went back to the bath and scrutinised the bottom.
With what had those two deep gashes been made? The flat
had no kitchen. No suitable knife or weapon hung on any of
its walls.


CHAPTER II
Pointer strolled down all the stairs and let himself up and
down in all the lifts. Finally he stopped beside a couple of
workmen who were doing some plastering on the ground
floor, near the foot of the stairs that led up to Number Four-
teen. He had noticed the bags and the tools when he arrived
just now.
"I borrowed some of your plaster last night," he said
pleasantly, "how much do I owe you for what I used?"
"That's all right, sir," one of the men said civilly, "me and
my mate was just saying that one of the porters must have
done it. Quarter of a bag, wasn't it, sir. If you like to call it
a shilling, that'll be all right."
Pointer liked a half-crown better, and so apparentiy did
the men.
"Hope I cleaned the spade off all right," Pointer chatted
on, lighting a cigarette. A cigarette which he took care not
to inhale.
"Lord, sir, there wasn't no call to clean it that-away! Stag-
gered Jim here it did to see it cleaned up. We only uses it
for mixin'. Why, you sharpened the thing, didn't you?"
"No. Not beyond cleaning it." Pointer's cigarette was in
his hand. He flicked its ash over the handle and stood looking
down at it while talking. The ash, "finger-print cigarette"
r.sb. showed no marks except those of a gloved hand. The
kmen had not touched it. So some one had scraped it and
aned it since they had used it last.
nd, according to the men, some one had sharpened it as


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
certainly was quite sharp enough now to have done
what Pointer believed it had done. A couple of blows from it
would account for the marks on the bottom of the tub. The
murderer must have found his grisly task lightened unex-
pectedly by the implements left in the building. Or had
"Tourcoin" noticed them, and laid his plan accordingly?
"I think I put everything back as it was," he said again;
"messy work, plastering. When you aren't used to it. Miss
anything else?"
"Nothing, sir."
But Pointer seemed still uncertain.
"Let me see . . . didn't I take a tin?" He was thinking of
the marks on the bathroom tiles.
"That old tin isn't no loss, sir. You're more than welcome
to it. We found it on the dust-bin, and was going to throw it
out again when we was finished."
"Still," Pointer reminded them, "a tin comes in handy, I
expect. What size is it? I borrowed another from one of the
porters."
"Seven pound biscuit tin, sir. Stove in a bit at one side. It
comes in handy for plaster we've sieved and don't want to
use immediate, as you say, sir. But there's no hurry!"
"I'll send it down. Did I take its lid too?" he asked, peer-
ing about him.
He was told that he must have, as the lid was kept on the
box.
Pointer tipped them, "in case the tin shouldn't turn up,"
and went slowly out of the building, an hour after he had
first entered it.
If Tindall was right, and the body found was that of
Etcheverrey, then, as far as he was concerned, the case was
over. Some Special Branch man at the Yard would be told
off to assist the Foreign Office, and Pointer would take up


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 23
another tangle. But was it Etcheverrey? Was it "political" at
all?
Very great care had been taken to dispose of all personal
effects. Nothing but those scraps of paper in the basket had
been left to tell who the man was. And, supposing the scraps
of paper to have been faked, then no clew whatever had been
left. For the flat was a furnished flat, shedding no light on
the character of its present occupier. As far as identity went,
if the papers in the basket were what the Force calls "offers,"
a trail laid to deceive, then it was as if the police had found
a body stripped, and without a head, lying in an empty room.
Each great case, and Pointer nowadays was concerned only
with great cases, groups its facts in such a different way
from any other, that it becomes an entirely new problem.
Pointer had never had one like this before, where all the usual
means of identification of murdered man and missile used
had been taken away. Of course Tindall might be right.
Probably he was. But supposing he were not, how the dickens
was he, Pointer, to find out who the man had been? And
above all, who the murderer had been? Somewhere there was
a weak spot in the crime. There always was. There always
would be. Where was it in this case?
The detective officer's every nerve tautened at the idea of
a murderer escaping. Pointer never saw his work as a game
of brains against brains, where, provided only that the one
move was cleverer than the other, it ought to win. He was a
soldier, fighting a ceaseless battle where no quarter could be
asked or given. The battle of light against darkness. Right
against Wrong. If the other side won, it would be all up with
the world. Pointer had never failed the side of justice yet.
He would not fail it now, if he could help it.
But could he help it? Tindall was working at the case from
his end. Pointer was not sure that he wanted to follow the


24 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
other's track. He must make his own path therefore. If
Tindall were right, the Chief Inspector's road and that of the
F.O. man would meet in due course, lil:e the two ends of a
well-dug tunnel.
He went up to his rooms at Scotland Yard and did some
telephoning. By that time the analyst's report on the bottles
which had been sent in was ready. One contained nothing but
plaster mixed with water. The plaster was a very coarse kind
used by plumbers for certain face-work. The other contained
the same plaster, some water, and a mixture of blood.
Pointer walked up and down his room. He was not the
Chief Inspector now, but a man who had committed a mur-
der; a man to whom it was absolutely vital that the corpse
should not be recognised, or that the weapon used should not
be identified. Pointer had an open mind as to which of the two
reasons compelled the taking away of the head. The clothes
might have been taken for the purpose of confusing the issue.
"Yes," he murmured to himself, "I've put the head in a
biscuit tin, mixed and poured in plaster to keep it from roll-
ing around, and now what?"
In the absence of all known hiding-places, he finally, after
a short chat over the wire with the Home Office, sent a coded
message to every post office throughout the United Kingdom
that all wrongly-addressed or uncalled-for parcels were to
be reported to him at once. He thought it very possible that
the murdered man's clothes, and the towels used by his mur-
derer, had been made into small, convenient parcels, and
sent to various fictitious names and non-existent streets in
some home-town. Abroad would be out of the question.
All omnibus headquarters, taxi stands, garages, and rail-
way stations were warned to keep an eye out for similar but
unmarked parcels which either had been left in vehicles some
time last night or might be left in the near future.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 25
Similar instructions reached the L.C.C. dustmen and all
parcel deposit offices. The river police were not forgotten.
They had found nothing so far which could interest Pointer,
but they promised to be even more on the alert than usual, if
possible. Then he telephoned to the police surgeon who had
first seen the body. He learnt that nothing had been found to
explain the cause of death. There were no signs of a struggle.
Death had been absolutely instantaneous. The doctor thought
that a bullet through the head would account for the facts.
"But, of course, as Mr. Tindall suggests, a blow might be
equally swift." At any rate, the head had been certainly
severed after death. But not long after it. The death itself
had taken place somewhere around midnight on Monday
night. Pointer put down the telephone and went to the
mortuary chapel, a grimly sanitary place.
The finger prints had already been taken, and definitely not
identified at Scotland Yard, as those of any known criminal.
Flashed by wireless photographs to the continent, the
same answer had come from each capital in turn. So the body
was still nameless. And as long as it remained so, the mur-
derer was safe.
Pointer looked the body over very carefully yet once again.
Especially the beautifully shaped hands. Hands that in life
must surely have done many things well. In whose life? What
things had they done?
As he studied them, he remembered their quick examina-
tion by the doctor. He knew that on the arrival of an uncon-
scious patient at any hospital, the medical men run their eyes
over the nails for any trace of recent operations, illnesses,
chronic complaints, or even nerve shocks. Pointer, calling in
a constable to help him, scraped the inside of each well-kept
nail with his penknife on to a small glass slide. Having care-
fully covered and marked each slide, he took them back with


26 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
him to the Yard. There the slides were examined. The result
was handed to him almost immediately.
Both hands showed fluff of white paper made from esparto
grass of a kind that is usually only sold for very superior
typewriting purposes. One nail had lightly scraped a sheet of
carbon paper. One—the first of the right hand—showed
traces of sugar.
In other words, the dead man was almost certainly a writer,
or a typist. But probably a writer who was only in occasional
contact with sheets of carbon paper. He might be a secretary.
He might be a clerk. But the nails of the feet showed that he
had last worn black socks of a most expensive silk. That
suggested not a clerk. The sugar on the right hand suggested
an investigating finger among lumps in the sugar bowl, which
in its turn suggested the free and easy ways of a man's own
home. Probably his after-dinner coffee. No china had been
used in the flat where the body was found. No sugar-basin
filled there. The complete picture as filled in by the police
surgeon's and the analyst's reports and Pointer's own reading
of the room in which he believed the murder to have taken
place, was that of a well-to-do author, possibly a journalist,
one used to sudden alarms, who, after his dinner at home,
had gone out unsuspectingly to meet his terrible death. A
writer of about forty years of age, in good health and cir-
cumstances. Not blind, for he had probably drawn that read-
ing lamp towards him, but very likely short-sighted, for he
had drawn it close. Not deaf, as the muffled door showed.
Pointer took a turn around his room. It was a step for-
ward. But it looked like being the last step for the moment.
Unless— Pointer stared at his shoe-tips. Then he went back
to the mortuary chapel.
There was a tiny scar on the sole of one foot, such as might
clinch an identification but not suggest one. He studied it


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 27
afresh. No, that would not help him. There was nothing pe-
culiar about that tiny mark. Again he picked up the hands,
looked at the uncalloused palms. The man was no sportsman.
Not a hard spot anywhere. Surely there was more to be
learned. But how? The hands were the only chance. The only
possible chance. . . .
The lines on the palms were singularly clear, and not at all
like his own. Apart from palmistry in the sense of prophecy,
of charlatanry, some people claimed that you could tell a
person's character, even their profession, from the lines in
their hands.
Pointer thought of Astra. The police knew all about her.
Astra was the professional name of an American, a Mrs.
Jansen, who had amazed London by her skill in reading the
character of men and women from their hands. She was no
teller of fortunes. But she did tell what lay dormant, or
wrongly applied. Parents brought her their children in large
numbers, and Astra would examine the little palms, and then
give the parents a very truthful, sometimes appallingly truth-
ful, list of their drawbacks and their talents. She would pro-
ceed to point out that this must be encouraged, that repressed.
In what the child should succeed, in what he was bound to
fail. With elder people she was as forthright. "Your gifts are
these—your bad qualities this and that." Astra was amazingly
honest, and amazingly right. She was no pessimist. "Change
your life, use your gifts, keep under the evil in you, and the
lines will surely change," was her sermon. "Each of us is our
own enemy. Fight that enemy." And she would give clear
particulars as to where and how that fight should begin.
The two police inspectors who had been sent to test her,
for you must not prophesy for money in England, had come
back genuinely impressed. She had not prophesied, but she
had hit off each man's character very neatly. Pointer had not


28
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
much hope in the issue of any interview with her, but she
might classify these hands still more narrowly than the
microscope had done, and the microscope's testimony would
serve to check her statements, if indeed she made any.
He took very careful imprints of the palms on tablets of
thick, warmed, modelling wax, brushing a little red powder
over them to bring out the lines. He wrapped each tablet in
paraffin paper and fastened them side by side in his case.
Then he telephoned from a call office for an appointment in
the name of Yardly, an immediate appointment. As it was not
yet twelve, he was successful. He drove to a house in Sloane
Street, and was shown into a cubicle. Mrs. Jansen's clients did
not see each other. After a few minutes waiting he was taken
into a cheerful room, where, in a window sat a well-dressed
woman with a thick mop of curly gray hair held back by
combs. A pleasant, keen pair of eyes looked up. A pleasant,
firm hand shook his.
Pointer took a seat facing the light, laying his lean brown
fingers on two black velvet cushions. He would try her first
with his own hands. Her reading of them might end the inter-
view—probably would.
With a magnifying glass the American bent over them,
turning them now and then. She nodded her head finally as if
satisfied.
"I wish all the hands that have lain there were as pleasant
reading," she said, slipping the glass back into its case. "They
are the hands of one who, in any walk of life, would go to the
top. Your chief characteristic is love of justice. Your
dominant quality, penetration."
She went on to give an extraordinary accurate analysis of
the Chief Inspector's character. Pointer, who was a thor-
oughly nice fellow, and very unassuming, actually blushed at
the flattering picture drawn.
. \
I


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 29
"I wonder if you can guess the nature of my work? my
trade? or my profession?" he said, when she had done. "Or
isn't that a fair question?"
"It's a difficult one. But sometimes I hit the nail on the
head. I should say that law in some form was your branch.
You could be a barrister and a great one—you could be great
in any branch that you took up—only that the gift of a flow
of words isn't yours. Nor have you that kind of personal
magnetism. The friends you win are won by your character.
Also, I don't think that you work for money. I mean, I don't
think that your income depends on your work. So not a
barrister. . . . You're too young to be a judge. Solicitor?
. . . No, not solicitor. As I said when I read your hands,
you deal with tremendously important issues. Your life is
very varied, yet not by your own choosing. The decisions you
make are important ones. You're used to constant calls on
your physical courage. Used to it, and are going to have
plenty more of it. ... I should think the army but for—"
She bent closer.
"You know, if you were older and had an ecclesiastical
bent, from certain things in your hand I should guess you
some Superior in the Jesuit Order. Even Vicar-Gen-
eral . . ."
This did amuse Pointer. He showed it. But it gave him
little hope of any good issue from this wildest of forlorn
ventures for a Scotland Yard man.
"It's nearer the mark than you think," Mrs. Jansen said
shrewdly. "It would have suited one side of your character
very well. By your laugh I see that you're not even a Roman
Catholic. Then what about—" She frowned, gazing at the
erect figure sitting so easily in the chair. Pointer could not
slouch.
"Law . . . danger . . . executive ability," she murmured.


30 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Police! And since your hands show that you are a man doing
work that thoroughly suits your talents, I should say some
big man at Scotland Yard. How about the C.I.D.?"
She leant back and looked up inquiringly. Pointer gave a
nod.
"You've hit it, and very clever of you indeed! You did
that so neatly that I wonder what you'll make of the owner
of these hands." He laid down his tablets. "It's to be paid for
as a separate visit, of course. Do your best with them, won't
you."
She glanced at the tablets. Then she looked a little vexed.
"Really, Mr.—eh—" She paused. "I know the Assistant
Commissioner by sight. Are you the Commissioner?"
"No, no! I'm from the ranks. But you were saying?"
"If you take the trouble to glance through my book on
Practical Cheirography, you'll see those palms analysed in
Chapter Ten. Mr. Julian Clifford kindly let me use his hands
in my chapter on authors."
Pointer felt as though he had had a severe punch. For
Julian Clifford was England's greatest living author.
"Are you quite sure these tablets are imprints of Julian
Clifford's hands?" he asked tranquilly.
"Oh, quite! His are as unforgettable, as unmistakable, as
Sarah Bernhardt's. See. Here they are!" She drew a book
from under the table and opened it at a couple of plates.
Pointer's head was all astir. But he scrutinised them through
her magnifying glass. The illustrations seemed identical with
his tablets, even to a slight enlargement of the top joint of the
left forefinger.
He thanked her and prepared to go. She stopped him with
an exclamation. She was bending over his tablets with her
glass.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 31
"These were not taken from the hands of a living man!
Julian Clifford must be dead!"
"What an idea!" he scoffed.
"A true one! There's a lack of spring, of elasticity about
them that's unmistakable. Julian Clifford dead! What a loss
to the world! Was it in some accident?"
There was a pause. Mrs. Jansen's reputation was that of an
absolutely trustworthy woman. Besides, her face vouched for
her. Or rather, her aura. That immense, impalpable Some-
thing, woven of our thoughts, our desires, that surrounds
each one of us, that never leaves us, that perhaps is most
truly "us"—En nefss, as the Arabs call it—having its own
way of making itself felt, its own warnings, its own dislikes,
attractions, and guarantees.
"I wanted you to help us identify a body," he said simply.
"Apparently you have. I wonder if there is anything more
you can tell me—about Mr. Clifford, I mean."
She interrupted him.
"That's no good with me,—I've seen your palms, remem-
ber—I mean that air of a child asking to be helped over the
crossing. Besides, why are you here? You weren't in the
least interested in your own character. You were keenly in-
terested in those tablets. I don't think it's merely the identifi-
cation"—her eyes widened—"has something—something
criminal—happened to Mr. Clifford? Has he been—killed?"
she asked in a low, horrified voice.
"And supposing something 'wrong' has happened to him,
Mrs. Jansen?" He gave her back a long, steady stare. "Mind
you, all this is in strictest confidence. I'm Chief Inspector
Pointer of New Scotland Yard. Of the C.I.D. The whole
of this conversation, of my inquiries, must be kept absolutely
to yourself, just as the Yard will treat anything you tell me


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 33
Or perhaps hesitating before doing something would be a bet-
ter word."
Again there was a silence.
"Is that all you can tell me about him?"
"Everything," she said, with a frank look into the detective-
officer's face.
Pointer stared at his shoes.
"Mrs. Jansen, I wish you'd tell me Mr. Clifford's weak
points—as you see them. Suppose something untoward has
happened to him. Something that needs investigation. As a
rule a man's good qualities don't lead to that necessity. Was
there anything in Julian Clifford's character—as shown in
his hands—that could have brought about, or led to, or ex-
plain—sudden death? Mind you, I ask this in strictest con-
fidence."
She nodded gravely.
"In strictest confidence," she repeated, "nothing in his
hands could explain any end other than a happy and hon-
oured one. His was a fine character, noble and generous. He
had faults, of course. There was a certain ruthlessness where
his work was concerned. He would have sacrificed his all on
that altar . . . unconsciously or even consciously."
Still Pointer looked at his shoes.
"Was he a man of high morality, would you say?"
"I don't think he had ever been tempted. He was fastidious
by temperament, and his wealth made high standards fairly
easy." Mrs. Jansen rose. "And that, Mr. Chief Inspector, is
all I can tell you. Mr. Clifford sat a moment there in that
chair you're in, peering at his own palms. He was very short-
sighted. Then he looked at me half in vexation as he got up.
'What did the ancients do when the oracle wouldn't oracle?'
And with that he said good-bye."
"Can I call upon you, in case of need, to identify the hands


34 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
from which I took these wax impressions as those of Julian
Clifford?" Pointer asked, rising.
"I will identify them any time, any where, as his. Hands
are to me what faces are to most people—the things I go by."
Pointer paid the moderate fees and drove off. His whole
being was in a turmoil under his quiet exterior. Julian
Clifford, the great author, younger brother of Sir Edward
Clifford of the Foreign Office, to be that headless trunk!
Back at Scotland Yard, within half an hour, the plates
in Mrs. Jansen's book were enlarged and compared with
quickly-taken photographs of the dead man's palms. Again
they seemed to be identical. Every whorl and loop, which
showed in both tallied.
Pointer meanwhile looked up Clifford's town address. It
was given as Thornbush, Hampstead. A moment more, and
he was asking over the telephone if he could speak to Mr.
Clifford—Mr. Julian Clifford.
"Mr. Clifford is away, sir," a servant's voice answered.
"Away!" Pointer's tone marked incredulous surprise. "But
he had an appointment with the Home Secretary at eleven!"
"He's not here, sir."
"But surely he gave you a message, or a letter when he
left? It's Mr. Marbury of the Home Office who is speaking."
Pointer's tone suggested that Mr. Marbury was not accus-
tomed to be slighted.
"I'll inquire, sir," a crushed voice replied.
There was a pause, then the voice came again, very apolo-
getically.
"No, sir. No^essage was left. Mr. Clifford left early this
morning before any one was up."
"Most extraordinary!" Mr. Marbury said stiffly. "I think
I'll call and see some one about the matter." He hung up.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 35
So Julian Clifford was supposed to have left his home be-
fore any one was up. That probably meant that he had not
been seen since last night. Since last night, when a murder
had been committed in Heath Mansions.
What about Julian Clifford's brother! He might have some
information. But an inquiry at the Foreign Office for Sir
Edward told Pointer that the brother was not in town. A few
questions to his. valet in Pont Street added the information
that Sir Edward had left .town yesterday, Monday, evening
after dining with his brother, Mr. Julian Clifford, at the lat-
ter's house. He had gone to his cottage in Surrey, a peaceful
spot where the telephone was not.
Pointer opened his Who's Who. He reviewed the well-
known facts of the novelist and playwright's life. Clifford
was a little under forty-five, the younger son of the late Sir
James Clifford of Clifford's Bank, long since incorporated in
one of the big general banks; he had had a brilliant career
at Eton and Oxford, and was the author of an imposing array
of novels, poetry, plays, and serious works. He had been twice
married, the first time to Catherine Haslar, daughter of Sir
William Haslar, High Commissioner of Australia, and, some
years after her death, to Alison Willoughby, daughter of
Mr. Willoughby of Sefton Park. Clifford had no children.
That was all very well as far as it went. But again it did
not go far.
Pointer smoothed his crisp hair which always looked as
though it would curl if it dared. Then he pressed a bell. Could
Mr. Ward come to his room at once? Apparently Mr. Ward
could, for in another moment there appeared in the door a
vision to delight a tailor's eye. Ward, sartorially speaking,
was It, even in a royal group. His quaint pen-name adorned
many a weekly paper. Always up-to-date, invariably correct in


38 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"What's he like to look at?"
"Big, powerful build. Heavyweight." Ward described
Hobbs' looks. "Then there's Clifford's regular secretary. A
poor fellow who lost his memory during the war. Blown
up once too often. Just at the end too. Hard lines, eh? Name
of Newman. Clifford ran across him at a base hospital, and
gave him a try. He's very good indeed, I believe."
Again, at Pointer's request, he gave a snapshot of the
secretary's appearance. Slim, but very strong, he thought
him.
"How do these two men and Mrs. Clifford get on? You
say they both live with the Cliffords?"
"She bores her cousin, Hobbs, stiff. And I think she
secretly bores Newman too. Though he's a chap of whom it's
very difficult to know what he thinks."
"Were the Cliffords attached to each other?"
"As far as I know, very much so. But of course—there's
that talk about Mrs. Orr, the Merry Widow."
"Widow? Grass or sod, as the Americans say."
Ward laughed. "Oh, a genuine widow. As though you
hadn't heard of the beautiful Mrs. Orr. As beautiful and far
swifter than the latest eight-cylinder. Julian Clifford is sup-
posed to be—was supposed to be—putting her in his next
novel. All I know is he's been haunting her society lately. In
season and out of season."
"And what does Mrs. Clifford say to the hauntings ? Hasn't
she tried to lay the spirit?"
"Mrs. Clifford is quite unperturbed, apparently. She goes
on smiling her faint smiles and dreaming her dreams, and
hearing her voices and seeing her visions in her crystal. She's
one of the few women who haven't begun to cold-shoulder
Mrs. Orr of late. Rather the other way."
"More friendly than usual?"


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 39
"I saw them driving in the park together only last Friday.
Never saw that before."
Pointer hurried off. It was one o'clock. Gossip, even very
revelant gossip, must wait until he knew whether it were
really wanted or not.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 41
appointment he had this morning with the Home Secretary.
Can I see him a moment? The matter is connected with the
Metropolitan Special Constabulary Reserve, and is very urg-
ent. We are drawing up our lists."
Hobbs seemed puzzled. "Did Mr. Clifford have an ap-
pointment? I think there's some mistake."
"Exactly!" Pointer broke in. "I'm sure there is. Kindly let
me know where I can reach him on the 'phone."
Hobbs stroked his smooth black hair. Then he stroked
his smooth blue chin.
The Chief Inspector was by nature and training a remark-
ably astute reader of faces, but he was looking at one now
which—like his own—hid completely the character behind it.
Like himself, Adrian Hobbs looked about thirty, more or less.
Like himself, too, he suggested an out-of-door man. Like
himself, Hobbs was exceedingly neat in appearance. From his
hair to his well-shod feet he satisfied the most fastidious eye.
His mind, again like Pointer's, was clearly a tidy mind. But
beyond that even Pointer could not size him up. The eyes
were large and wide apart. Were they frank or merely bold?
The nose was long. Was it predatory or merely self-assertive?
Was the large mouth frank? Or was there something just a
shade sinister to it when he smiled?
"I really can't understand it," Hobbs said finally. "I had no
idea that Mr. Clifford took any interest in the matter"
"That is precisely why I must trouble you for his address.
Or a telephone number that will reach him," Pointer again
put in swiftly.
"Sorry," Hobbs smiled slightly, "impossible to give you
either. Mr. Clifford has gone off in search of local colour,
and where he gets it is always his own closely-kept secret. He
left no address. He never does. In good time—a day, a week,
two weeks—he'll be back."


42 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"But a man doesn't make an appointment a week ahead
with the Home Secretary and not keep it!" Pointer ejaculated,"
in the tone of a man whose patience is wearing thin.
The truism seemed to worry Hobbs. He nodded, but said
nothing.
"I feel sure that he has left some word with some one. He
must have!" Pointer urged.
"Mr. Clifford's engagement-book shows nothing for this
morning," Hobbs said finally.
"When did he leave?"
"This morning. I got down to breakfast to find that he
was gone. There was a note for me to say that he had left
to explore some Chinese haunts. Liverpool rather than Lon-
don, I fancy."
"Incredible!" Pointer murmured. "But"—an idea seemed
to strike him—"would you ask Mrs. Clifford to spare me a
few minutes? I must try and get this straightened out."
"Do you mind seeing if Mrs. Clifford's in the garden?"
Hobbs turned to another man who was writing at the farther
end of the large room where he and Pointer were talking. A
man whom Pointer knew, by Ward's description, to be New-
man, Julian Clifford's private secretary, and whom he had
been secretly watching. The Chief Inspector had purposely
lowered his voice so that what he was saying should only be
partly audible to Newman. He noticed the intent look on the
secretary's face, not when he entered the room, but when he
spoke of Julian Clifford in a purposely raised voice. The look
that came then, was that of a man straining his ears. Ordinary
curiosity might explain this with many men. But Pointer did
not think that curiosity was a trait of the dark young man
with the close-shut mouth, and the deep-set, reserved eyes.
Newman's ordinary interest, or he misread him greatly, was
concentrated in some inner life of his own. A life so inter-


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 43
esting in its close seclusion that he lived there almost ex-
clusively. True, he would, he must, come out into some other
court for business purposes, to buy and sell. The many who
penetrated thus far, might indeed think that they had the
run of all that there was to the man. But Pointer felt sure
that there would be walled courtyard within walled courtyard
and lock after lock behind which the real man stood on guard.
"Perhaps I'd better go myself," Hobbs said, after a
second.
Alone in the room, Pointer thought over the two men,
especially the secretary. There were great potentialities in
that face. Newman had lost his memory in the last year of the
war, Ward had said. But was the face at which the detective
officer had just glanced, so apparently casually, the face of
one with no memory reaching back beyond 1918?
Pointer had seen men who had lost all recollection of their
lives up to a certain point. In the eyes of each had been a look
impossible to forget or mistake. A piteous, searching look.
The look of those who feel that they are the consequences of
days that they cannot remember, that in their characters they
are reaping what, as far as their surface intelligence is con-
cerned, they have not sown. But Newman, strange though the
effect was that he produced on Pointer's keen scrutiny, had
not that look. Those watchful eyes . . . the iron reserve of
the face. . . . Nothing could give that last but year on year
of rigorous self-control. A self-control that was never set
aside for a moment. Great business men sometimes have it,
statesmen occasionally. Pointer had invariably seen it on those
privileged to attend on royalties.
His thoughts passed on to the effect which his questions
about Clifford had had on the men. Hobbs, Clifford's literary
agent, had shown no emotion. But Newman? Newman was
startled. Pointer knew that as well as though he had been one


44 -THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
of these modern instruments which record heart beats. The
man's rigid, sudden immobility had but one cause.
Yet, though Pointer could jump to conclusions when he
could alter them, he was a very wary man when, as here, his
conclusions were fundamental—were the basis on which he
must build.
At that moment the door opened. Though Pointer did not
know it, it was Julian Clifford's librarian who now looked in.
A young man called Richard Straight, who, wandering rather
aimlessly about the house, collecting missing volumes from
library sets, had just met Hobbs. He had turned and stared
after the literary agent. Hobbs' face was strangely set.
Straight promptly popped his head into the room which the
other had just left. He saw nothing to explain Hobbs' look.
A stout, elderly man was trying to disentangle his glasses
from his watch-chain. At sight of the librarian, the elderly
caller rose.
"Mr. Newman, isn't it?"
"No." Straight came on into the room. "No, but can I be
of any use? I'm the new librarian here. Very new, I'm afraid.
I only arrived yesterday—from Melbourne."
"I called," Pointer* explained wearily, "on a very urgent
matter. I must get into touch with Mr. Clifford. I'm from the
Home Office, I should mention, and Mr. Clifford was due at a
meeting to discuss the lists of the Metropolitan Special Re-
serve Constabulary. We want him on the committee." He
looked questioningly at Straight, who looked questioningly
back at him. "Mr. Clifford is absent, it seems. The Home
Secretary is waiting!" Pointer's tone was inimitable as he
pronounced those five words.
"Where is Mr. Clifford?" Pointer went on irritably,
"kindly let me have his address, and I will do what I can
to straighten out this most deplorable mistake."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 45
"I haven't it," Straight said promptly. "Mr. Clifford ap-
parently never leaves it when he goes off to collect new
material for his work. He only left this morning."
"This morning!" Pointer's tone suggested that here was
indeed the last straw. "Why, the appointment was for to-
day!"
Straight merely smiled and shook his head, as though to
say that he was not responsible for his employer's habits.
Hobbs returned. He shot a swift glance from Straight
to Pointer. An inquiring glance.
"Mrs. Clifford knows no more than I do, but if you feel
that you would like to see her, she is willing to give you a
few moments, Mr. Marbury."
Hobbs showed Pointer into a large quiet room with book-
shelves shoulder-high running around it. A big writing table
stood by one window. A Koran stand, various old carved
reading-desks, and lecterns, and broad tables such as archi-
tects use, were here and there. It was Clifford's own room,
and admirably suited to its purpose of writing. The men stood
desultorily talking of the weather, which, after having given
a selection of winter airs for the past week, had remembered
that July was the tune which it was booked to play, and
seemed at last endeavouring to provide something suitable.
After a minute or two the door opened. Pointer had never
seen any one quite like Alison Clifford. He had expected
beauty, for Julian Clifford had written of many a lovely hero-
ine. But this was not beauty as he understood it.
She was very tall, very slender, and very pale. Lint-white
the short, soft hair, so fine that, as she turned to shut the
door, it stirred above her head like thistledown. With every
movement, with her very breathing, it seemed to rise and
fall like the hair of a spirit. Her skin was white too. White
and smooth, with a sheen as of a lily's petals. Even her lips


46 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
were but a hint of colour. Her eyes were a clear aquamarine,
veiled by lashes so white that they looked as though thickly
floured. Something about the face made the Chief Inspector
think of a face seen under water, or through a veil.
Pointer explained again about the meeting at the Home
Secretary's.
"So sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Clifford, but I thought that
perhaps you might remember some trifle which would help
to locate Mr. Clifford"
Mrs. Clifford regretted that she could be of no use. "My
husband often disappears for a short time. Generally, of
course, he lets me know where he will be, but not always. And
I'm afraid he has a very poor memory for engagements."
"Sometimes he's writing, or dictating, and gets to a passage
which needs local knowledge," Hobbs put in, "when he'll stop,
think a moment, and without a word leave the room, take
down his hat and topcoat, and be off. To return with the nec-
essary information and atmosphere perhaps after a week."
Mrs. Clifford smiled acquiescence. "I'm afraid we must
possess our souls in patience. He left me a note saying that he
might be delayed until Friday."
"Delayed?" Pointer wondered at that word.
"I've heard, of course, of your wonderful powers," he
went on politely. "Couldn't you ascertain by means of them
where Mr. Clifford really is?" It was a test question. What
would the woman's reply be?
"I've been watching him in my crystal off and on all
morning," she said at once, smiling faintly with down-
dropped lids—lids so thin that Pointer could see the colour of
the iris through them.
Even as she spoke she touched the antique silver clasp of a
small black velvet bag beside her. Within it Pointer saw a


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 47
ball of what looked like glass. Bending lower she looked into
it. He watched her. Seen like this, with the light on her
silvery hair and amber frock, he saw her charm for the first
time. There was something very alluring about the picture
which she made. She looked like a tree sprite talking for a
few moments to a mortal.
"There he is now!" she exclaimed suddenly. "I can always
get results quicker if I am with some one who wants to see
what I do. Yes, there he is!"
She half turned a shoulder so that both Pointer and Hobbs
could look. Pointer saw but the shifting light beautifully
reflected in the ball. Hobbs had stalked to the window, and
stood with his back to the room, disapproval in every line of
his body.
"What is Mr. Gifford doing? Where is he?" Marbury
asked, gaping. Was the faint smile that curved her pale mouth
mischievous or malicious?
"I'm afraid there's no address given in a crystal. I only
see a street ... a very winding street. . . ." She was star-
ing into the ball with what looked like concentrated attention,
turning it now and then in its nest of velvet.
"Gables," she went on, "built like steps running up into
heaven, are on both sides of him. Now he's lighting a ciga-
rette. He's pulled out his watch. Now he's gone!"
"Gables built like steps running up into heaven?" Pointer
echoed. "What sort of houses would they be on?"
Mrs. Clifford shot Hobbs a glance from under her lids as
she shut her velvet bag. Pointer fancied that she regretted
those words, and hoped that her cousin had not heard them.
"Oh, just irregular gables," she said hurriedly.
"Wonderful!" Marbury fairly gaped; "really wonderful!
Thank you so much. And when Mr. Clifford returns, will


48 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
you ask him to have a message sent me? We may clear up
the mystery then. For I confess i find Mr. Clifford's unex-
pected absence a mystery."
His rather yellow eyeballs—there are drops, very beneficial
to the eye, which yellow the balls for the rest of the day—
turned vaguely towards the figure of a young woman who had
just sauntered down the gravel path towards them past their
window. At his words, spoken very clearly, even though in
Marbury's little staccato voice, it stopped with the small head
a little forward on the long neck, the large eyes glancing into
the room at Mrs. Clifford—at Hobbs—at their visitor. Dwell-
ing on each in turn for a length of time that meant uneasiness
to Pointer. By what, or by whom, was the uneasiness caused?
"Is that Miss Clifford?" Marbury asked, taking a step
towards her, "perhaps she"
"There is no Miss Clifford," Alison said, while the girl out-
side stood still. No one made any move towards mentioning
her name.
"What! No help towards solving the puzzle of where Mr.
Clifford is! Dear, dear!"
Mr. Marbury dropped first one glove then the other. The
girl outside in the garden had stiffened where she stood. Now
she passed on.
"That's a Miss Haslar, a niece of Mr. Clifford's," Hobbs
said quickly, and turned towards the door.
Diana Haslar walked on as though deep in thought—un-
pleasant thought. Tall and slender, she looked a mere girl,
but she was close on thirty. She had a fascinating rather than
a pretty face. There were subtle lines in it. There was both
mockery and mischief in her smile. And her large eyes looked
as though few things would escape them. Had there been a
greater warmth in it, her face would have been more universal
in its charm. Yet there were hints of fire in the tawny eyes, in


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 49
the beautiful lustre of her close-clipped, wavy hair, in some
tones of her rather deep voice. At last, still apparently lost in
thought, still unpleasant thought, she stepped into one of the
rooms, and laid a hand on the young librarian's shoulder.
Richard Straight, as he had told Marbury, had only landed
yesterday from Australia. He had been head librarian in a
large Melbourne civic library. Julian Clifford had met him
while on a world's lecturing tour, and had been struck with
his original views on how private libraries should be, and
could be, run. On his return, the author had offered him the
post of his librarian. A small position, but one that could
bring Straight into contact with many people worth meeting.
Straight had thought it over for a month, and finally ac-
cepted it. Had he known what Diana Haslar carefully did
not tell him until his decision was made, that the great writer
was a connection of hers, Straight would not have hesitated
for a day. He had been a constant visitor at the big Haslar
house in Melbourne. A friend of Arnold Haslar's, it was
not his fault if he was not by this time his brother-in-law. As
it was, he still hoped to win Diana.
"Dick!"—the two were about the same age, and Christian
names come easily in Australia—"tear yourself away from
first editions, isn't a man from the Home Office the same as
from the police?"
Richard Straight tore himself away from books very
promptly at the tone in which that question was put. He
looked at her in surprise.
"You'll be had up for slandering the Force if you mean
that benevolent old dear in the morning-room. He certainly
can't be the same as a policeman. Why?"
Diana seated herself on the table and ruffled the pages of
a book in a way to set a conscientious librarian's teeth on
edge. Dick did not seem to mind.


50 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"He came about Uncle Julian. ... I heard him say his
absence was a mystery. . . ."
"Well?" Dick asked easily.
Diana looked at him a moment in silence. Then she turned
away. Straight knew that a door had been gentfy shut in his
face.
"How do you think you're going to like your work at
Thornbush?" she asked, after a moment.
"I think I'm going to like it very much here." This was
high praise from Straight. He was an ugly, clever-looking
young man with a certain air of quiet self-possession. An air
which still annoyed Diana Haslar exceedingly at times. "I
should like any place where I could be near you," he added
rather fatuously. .
She gave him a rallying smile.
"Any place? I really can't imagine your liking any place,
Dick. You're rather a particular young man. Besides, when
Uncle Julian has finished his Life of my grandfather, I'm off.
It's only the fact I can check the family dates better than any
one else can that keeps me here, though I like the work." She
finished thoughtfully with a certain critical note in her voice.
"But not the house ?" he asked, quickly looking up.
"We're so frank 'down under,'" she said a little wistfully,
"dreadfully frank, you used to think when you first came out.
And Thornbush—" She seemed to seek for the right word.
"Thornbush isn't?"
"Not frank. No. Not lately. I seem to be always interrupt-
ing people in most private conversations. I think I shall be
glad when the Life is finished and I'm free once more.
Though I love being with Uncle Julian."
"He's a splendid chap, isn't he!" Straight said warmly.
"His welcome to me was kindness itself."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 51
"He is kind. Yet he can be hard. When it's a question of
his work."
Again there was a tone to her voice that intrigued him.
Straight was fond of conundrums.
"Your ur'-Lesaid in the notes he left each of us this morn-
ing that he haaf gone for local colour. Is it possible that you
think 'local colour' should be spelled Mazod Orr?"
This time it was Diana's expression that puzzled Straight
as she looked at him. She was far too modern a young woman
to be shocked at the suggestion. Yet there was a something
in her eye. . . -
"I see that Arnold has been repeating the silly tittle-tattle
which is going the round in some quarters," she said scorn-
fully.*" Why, Alison and Mazod Orr are tremendous friends
—she is seeing her off herself for Paris this morning."
There was a pause.
"And how's Arnold?" Straight asked; "was it anything
serious?" The name of Mrs. Orr had suggested that of
Arnold Haslar to him, for Diana's brother was madly in
love with the widow. Straight knew that Diana had had a
telephone message early this morning that had made her
hurry home, a message about Arnold having been found be-
side his breakfast table in a state verging on collapse.
"The doctor says it's trying to be 'flu. I wanted to stay,
but Arnold's not to see any one. If he remains in bed and
keeps absolutely quiet, the doctor thinks he may escape and
be up to-morrow."
"Odd if Arnold should catch 'flu," Straight thought. "He
always seemed to be immune. He looked all right last night."
"The doctor says he must have had a shock of some kind,
or some great excitement. Do you know of anything?" She
looked at Straight rather narrowly. He did not, and said so.
r


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 53
in his easy grace, more in his seldom-seen, faintly ironic,
smile, most of all in the melancholy of his dark, brooding
eyes, which rarely looked up. Newman had a habit of carry-
ing on a whole conversation with his eyes on his cigarette,
or looking out of the window. In build he was exceptionally
lean and lithe, with small, strong bones.
"I must ask Newman about th^e-Spanish books," Straight
murmured. "Mr. Clifford told me in that talk we had last
night after dinner, that he's making himself into quite an
authority on Spain."
Diana said nothing.
"Mr. Clifford seemed to think him very clever, but—"
Then Straight too decided to say no more.
"Oh, he is!" Diana spoke with a certain grimness, "so
clever that one wonders why he remains content with life at
Thornbush year after year. There's some reason why he re-
fuses every offer, and he's had some good ones. Just as
there's some reason why he cultivates Arnold as he does. Mr.
Newman does nothing without a reason."
Diana spoke half under her breath.
"You sound afraid of him!" Straight gave her a very sharp
glance.
Diana's laugh failed to achieve carelessness.
"I loathe him. I can't think why he should try so tremen-
dously to ingratiate himself with Arnold, who, unfortunately,
has taken the most tremendous fancy to him."
"Perhaps the fact that Arnold's your only brother," Dick
suggested.
"Mr. Newman and I feel alike about each other," Diana
said shortly, "mutual dislike. On my side, distrust as well.
Profound distrust."
"I must keep out of his way," Straight said lightly.
"0:i, he won't bother you! You're of no importance to


54 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
him. There's nothing to be gained by cultivating you"—she
flushed at her own rudeness and added hastily, "except the
best of pals. And possibly Mr. Newman may scent the rising
man in you that you are, Dick. However, even so, you'll be
safe. I can't imagine any one pulling the wool over your
eyes."
"I'm done brown quite often," he murmured sadly.
"Not you!" she scoffed. "I always know that if ever any
of us gets into a hole you'll get us out.' She bit her lip,
as though the words had slipped out. "Edward Clifford
thinks the paper you sent in to the Libraries Association
a masterpiece. He said he was going to keep an eye on
you."
"A benevolent or a watchful eye?"
Both laughed. Straight looked down into her face not so
far below his own.
"Were you pleased?" he asked abruptly.
"For your sake—very much." She laughed again, but
Straight did not laugh back.
"Can't you manage to love me, Diana?" he asked, with a
sudden passion in his voice.
"I thought we talked that over in Melbourne." She turned
away, not shyly—Diana was never shy—but with something
almost of impatience in her big eyes.
"Love!" she repeated under her breath. "Who does love,
really? What is it? How does it come? How do you know
when it's real, when it's not? I like you, Dick. I respect your
character immensely"
"Then give me a chance! Give me a try-out!" he urged
again.
Diana only shook her head. . ,
"I'll make you love me"—he spoke as though >w;ng a


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR . 55
vow unto himself—"with the real love The love that stands
by a man when all else drops away. You have it in you, that
I'll swear. You could love, Diana!"
Diana was very pale.
"Not with the love that calls the world well lost." There
was a note of contempt in her voice. Was it for herself? or
for the subject of their talk? It was hard to tell with Diana.
"I haven't that in me. For your own sake, make no mis-
take! But apart from that, I could be a good helper to an
ambitious, rising man. If ever I do agree to marry any one,
I'll back him up well."
"But you won't agree to marry—any one—now?" Straight
asked in his usual, rather measured voice.
"Not yet. Perhaps I shall never have any better answer.
It won't be any loss, believe me. I'm not deep. I'm shallow.
Shallow, and pleasure-loving, and greedy for good things."
Her tone was trivial again. "And now, let's talk of something
else. I mean it." Her eyes warned him not to press her for
the present.
"Well, then, let us discuss whether the Foreign Office
secret-service men will catch that chap Sir Edward talked
about so much yesterday at dinner. The anarchist with the
odd name . . ." Straight looked to Diana to help him out.
She did not glance up.
"Et—Etch— Sounds as if I were sneezing!" he said
crossly. "Etche— What was it?"
She made no suggestion.
The door opened. A girl looked in. It was Maud Gilling-
ham, a great admirer of Alison Clifford's.
"Di—but how white you are! Or is it that frock? Mrs.
Clifford has a message for you. A very important one. She's
out in the garden."


56 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Maud Gillingham slid an arm through Diana's, and the
two sauntered out on to the lawn to where, under a cedar
tree, Mrs. Clifford lay in a long garden-chair looking more
like the sketch of a woman than actual flesh and blood. She
lifted her strange aquamarine eyes as the two came up to her.
"I have a message for you from your grandfather, Diana."
She spoke as casually as though she had just met the dead
man in the street. "From Sir William Haslar. It spelled itself
out on my Ouija board. I would have sent for you at once,
only some tiresome person came in about an appointment of
Julian's. . . . But this message—'Tell Day' it began. Evi-
dently you are Day."
Diana started. That was her grandfather's name for her,
not heard for many a long year, and certainly not known to
Alison Clifford.
". . . not to mind whatever it is that you are minding,"
Mrs. Clifford went on. "That it will all come right. That he
could see the end, and it will all come right."
She signalled to Newman, who was standing watching
them, to come closer.
"Come along, Maud!" Diana turned to the girl beside her,
"let's take a stroll around the rosary. You know"—Diana
began when they were out of earshot—"there are times when
I can't bear Alison. Spiritualists can be so smug, and gener-
ally are!"
"It's like talking to a woman from Mars sometimes,"
Maud agreed, "but she can be wonderful. With Mr. New-
man, for instance. But I forgot—you don't like your uncle's
secretary."
"I'm sorry for him," Diana said rather reluctantly.
Maud Gillingham nodded. "Naturally. Anybody would
have to be sorry for a man who lost his memory in the war.
But instead of pitying him, as we all do, Mrs. Clifford makes


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 57
him feel that what he's lost is so tiny a thing in the immen-
sity of our eternal life that it really isn't worth while fretting
over."
"Yet don't you think she'd fret if she lost her memory?"
Diana checked herself. "Maud, I never can quite make up
my mind about Alison. Is she posing, or is she quite sincere?"
"Heavens, Di, if she weren't sincere she'd have to be an
utter liar. Surely you don't think that of her?" Maud was
aghast. She was an honest soul who knew no half-tones. You
were white or you were black to Maud.
"N—no. No, of course I don't think that." Diana spoke
rather as though dropping a trap-door on something within
herself that wanted to peep out. "No, of course not. Every
one knows that Alison, however mistaken, has a beautiful
mind. But that message from my grandfather . . ." There
was a pause.
"Did he call you Day?" Maud asked curiously.
"He did. But . . ." There was another pause. "This mes-
sage from him for me: Maud, doesn't it ever strike you that
Alison always gets the messages from the other world that
she wants to get? Hears the things she wants to hear?"
Maud reflected a moment.
"I think there's more than that in it, Di. Oh, much more!
Look at this last Saturday afternoon. But I don't think you
were in the room. Mcs. Orr was here, and was scoffing as
usual in her laughing way at something I said about Mrs.
Clifford's powers. But I stuck to it that she could 'see'—
sometimes—with her hands. Mrs. Orr whipped out a letter
from her bag, folded it, and held it folded on Mrs. Clifford's
knee, and said, 'Read this, then, Alison darling.' And she
did! Mrs. Clifford did! She pressed her hands hard down on
the letter and read out a whole sentence. 'If you keep your
end up, no one will suspect us.' She would have gone on,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 59
Diana gave him a long, long look. It amounted to a stare.
"I should never be able to resist the chance if I were you!"
panted Maud.
"You mean if J were you," Newman said looking at her
under his heavy, brooding lids—lids that lifted slowly. There
was something watchful about his gaze always—not suspi-
cious—just watchful.
Dick Straight joined the group, and when they moved to-
wards the house, sauntered after them with the secretary, of
whom he asked a question or two about a couple of old Span-
ish works on the shelves. They were soon discussing Spanish
bindings, and Straight found that his companion was indeed
well up in the subject. Diana passed them again.
"I'm off to see how Arnold is, though he hates me to fuss
over him." She made her remark exclusively to Dick Straight.
"Interesting girl, Miss Haslar," Dick said casually as she
walked on.
"Most girls are," was the equally casual reply. Newman's
dark eyes glanced for the barest second at Straight's face;
that face was not usually considered a tell-tale one, yet Dick
felt certain that the man beside him was aware from it of
the state of affairs between himself and Diana.
Straight took an instant dislike to the man.
"Dago blood of some sort," he told himself, as Newman
left him with a civil excuse, and turned off into the hall.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 61
rather bitter eyes, and a face that should be beautiful but
isn't. She looks a lot younger than her years, I fancy."
Pointer went on to describe her colouring. He wanted to
verify the name that Hobbs had murmured. "I have a snap-
shot of her in my glove button, but I can't develop it for the
moment."
Pointer's glove stud, a thickish stud, furnished a complete
minute roll of films, and was a perfect tiny camera by the
touch of a nail on the edge.
"That'll be Miss Haslar, Gifford's niece. She's helping
Mr. Clifford with his Life of her grandfather, Sir William
Haslar."
"Very fond of gossip, isn't she?"
"Diana Haslar? Not half as fond of it as I am," chuckled
Ward. "No, she's rather a high-brow."
"Is she attached to her uncle? Mr. Clifford would only be
her uncle by marriage, of course."
"Worshipped him. Absolutely worshipped him." <
. "Is Mr. Arnold Haslar an electrical engineer in a big way,
the head of the Wellwyn Company of Melbourne, a relative
of hers?"
"Only brother. Only relative, as far as I know. Her father's
dead."
"And this brother, was he by way of worshipping Mr.
Julian Clifford too?"
"Until he and the widow got so friendly. Mrs. Orr is ab-
solutely ripping, you know. If rumour tells the truth she has
ripped through a good deal in a fairly short time, but she's
connected with all the peerage that counts, royal god-mother,
and so on. So what would you? It'll take a lot to sink her
little boat definitely. Haslar is tremendously in love with her.
He's of no family, but he's wealthy. She can't do better.
Wonder is, she can do as well. For he's the last chap to stand


62
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
some things. Yet they say it's she who's lately holding off.
No one can understand it. Clifford's interest is purely aca-
demic. She's a type to him. That's all. But why Mazod the
Fair should be apparently turning Haslar down is the mys-
tery. Clifford can't marry her even if he wanted to, which he
doesn't. Haslar wants to. Unless she tries him too far. He's
not the sort to make a good dupe. The woman can't have
lost her very alert wits. . . ." Ward ruminated over the
problem.
"What sort of man is this Arnold Haslar?" Pointer finally
asked.
Ward pondered.
"Well, not the sort of chap I should select with whom to
wipe the floor. Not without a tussle. All correct to the out-
ward eye, of course. But there's wild blood in his back-
ground. Botany Bay, in fact. Not for anything terrific. Well-
deserved manslaughter we should call it nowadays—at least
I should." Ward corrected himself hastily. He and the Chief
Inspector had crossed swords on that point before. "You
know the retort his grandpa made when Lord Boodle wrote
an article during the last election hinting at his family's past?
Old Sir William, as he was later, wrote back that it was
quite true. His ancestor had been deported for not enduring
what his, the honourable writer's, ancestor had been ennobled
for standing. To any one who knew the Boodle pedigree it
was a bit sledge-hammer, but very amusing. Australia
crowed."
"So that there's ill-feeling between him and Clifford over
Mrs. Orr?" Pointer repeated meditatively.
Ward nodded. "Said to be."
"Does Miss Haslar know of the attachment between her
brother and Mrs. Orr?" This Ward did not know, but he
felt certain that if she did so, Diana would very much object.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 63
Pointer stood with bent head, hands deep in his pockets,
eyes on his shoes. It was a favourite position of his when
deep in thought.
"What about Sir Edward Clifford, Mr. Julian Clifford's
brother? What is his reputation among his own set?"
"None better," was the expected reply. "A stickler for con-
ventions, but that's all to the good in a man of his position."
"Were the two brothers on friendly terms?"
"On the very best. Always. Even though both wanted to
marry the same young woman, and though Julian Clifford
carried off the prize, it made no difference in their friendship.
I'm speaking of the present Mrs. Clifford."
And that finished Ward's information.
Pointer pressed a knob. A light shone out on the table of
one of his constable clerks in the next room. The man came
in.
"Get me the address of the Wellwyn Company's London
warehouse. Find out if it has any others in Great Britain."
In a few minutes Pointer had an address in Thames Street.
The only warehouse, or office, of the great Australian firm
in the United Kingdom.
To it Inspector Watts was sent, to find out by dexterous
questions whether any parcel or package had arrived there
since last night, except such as were to be handled and opened
in the usual way of trade.
Next, a woman detective was sent to call on Mrs. Orr for
a subscription to a quite genuine orphanage, and incidentally
to find out from whoever would be in the house where that
lady had been last night.
That done, an inquiry was put through to Mr. Arnold
Haslar at his office in Thames Street. Warehouse and office
were in the same building. The inquiry was intended to lead
up to a polite request to allow Mr. Marbury to come and see


64 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
him with a view to adding his name to the same M.S.C. Re-
serve in which, apparently, Mr. Julian Clifford had been so
interested. Pointer learnt that Mr. Haslar had not been at
his office all day—that he was down with influenza. And from
the butler at his house in Hampstead, Pointer heard that
complete quiet had been ordered him and a day in bed. Yes,
the attack had been very sudden. Mr. Haslar had been all
right yesterday. He had come down ill this morning.
This morning! Pointer was interested. So much so that a
plain clothes man was despatched to keep an unobtrusive eye
on the invalid's house. And an order was left that the tele-
phones of it and of Mrs. Orr's house, and of Thornbush were
to be all connected with New Scotland Yard.*
As for Thornbush, just a little over an hour after Mr.
Marbury left it, a red-haired, very freckled, lantern-jawed
man from the gas company was knocking at the back door.
They were installing meters farther down. Something had
blown out. The pipes here must be looked to, or theft might
be trouble. The butler was dazed by a string of the latest
bye-laws—so Pointer called them—rattled off at top speed,
and promptly let the man make a tour of inspection.
The gas man was very thorough, even though he worked
amazingly swiftly. Every cupboard was opened and swiftly
scanned. The top glanced over. Every movable article was
lifted quickly. Pointer had found out at the Yard, before he
started, the average weight of a dead man's head. He had
had that weight dropped into a seven-pound biscuit tin, filled
with plaster of Paris, and lifted the whole several times,
registering the weight.
He found few packages parcels at Thornbush heavy
enough for what he wanted. These few were carefulh in-
spected. He even took one swift turn over the roof.
besides being keenly oi^the watch for biscuit tins ostenb,'..5y


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 65
filled with plaster, he kept a look-out for weapons of any kind.
He drew a blank in both respects. But within ten minutes
he found what he was primarily after. Finger-prints on a
dozen articles of Julian OifFord's were unmistakably the
finger-prints of the man in the mArtuary.
Pointer was outwardly unmoved, but his pulses beat
quicker. He had won the first round. In vain had the head
f f the murdered man been cut off, the clothes taken away.
No longer could a doubter say that the man whose hands
Mrs. Jansen had photographed at Cannes, and the man who
had come to her office in town, though he called himself
Julian Clifford, might be an impostor. Here was the proof
that the author and the murdered man were one and the same.
As for the rest, neither Clifford's room, nor his wife's,
nor Hobbs', had anything important to tell the Chief Inspec-
tor. Nor, strictly speaking, had Newman's. Yet in one way
the secretary's room interested Pointer greatly. Newman
had lived many years now with Clifford, yet the bedroom
and his 'working room were as bare of oersonal effects as
hotel rooms. There was not so much as a calendar which
seemed the personal choice of the secretary. The only books
were from a circulating library unless they belonged to
Clifford.
Pointer stood looking about him, his bag of tools in his
hand—intentionally bare. Intentionally devoid of all marks
of individuality was Ms verdict. Nothing here to help any
detective. Choice or necessity? Newman #ras a conundrum.
A chat in the kitchen'told Pointer that Mr. and Mrs. Clif-
ford were considered a most devoted couple by their servants,
aid that the latter were not in the least surprised at only one
more of their master's many short disappearances.
"it's just his way," one maid said airily % "He goes off like
that, all of a sudden, when he gets igd up with writing. Mr.


66
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Trimble here he says that Mr. Clifford goes to find out more
to write about, but is that likely?"
A few questions about last night, when the gas man
thought that he had seen Mr. and Mrs. Clifford at a res-
taurant in company with Sir Edward Clifford, told Pointer
that the dinner at Thornbush, where Edward Clifford and
Maud Gillingham had been the only guests, had been a cheery
meal; that the two guests had each left immediately after
the meal, and that as far as the servants went, Mr. Clifford
had not been seen after the butler took him in a glass of iced
barley water about ten. Mr. Clifford had told him that "that
was all"—his usual words of dismissal for the night. Back
on his Yard-bound 'bus, Pointer thought over the household
—over Julian Clifford, who had gone to Astra's to have his
fortune told, as he might have gone to a gipsy.
He had gone recently. And he had asked the palmist to tell
him if danger was marked in his hands. A strange question
from a man who apparently within the month had passed to
where that word has no more meaning.
Yet if it was his body that Pointer had seen, as the Chief
Inspector believed that it was, he had not investigated that
flat. He did not seem to have noticed the fastened back lock
of that door. It looked as though he had had a definite idea of
where the danger lay, and did not expect it to meet him else-
where.
What was the best course now? Open or secret?
As a rule, an inquirer in a murder benefited by the rare
chance of the murderer thinking his crime was still unde-
tected. But here? Dared Pointer let him think himself safe?
If that cut-off head was cut off with the idea of blocki' the
investigation, then it and those carefully laid trails
Basque anarchist looked, Pointer believed, a9 though
thing was brewing which the knowledge of Clifford's deaNi


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 67
would spoil. Some business seemed to be on hand which must
stop if it were known who it was that on this last night had
been lured to a strange address, there murdered, and stripped
. and beheaded. They might not all belong together—the mur-
der, the beheading, the stripping. But some vital necessity
must have ruled to make a man risk any, or all, of them. No
one goes to such terrible lengths unless driven. What was it
which necessitated, perhaps the killing of Julian Clifford, but
certainly the remaining unknown of the fact that it was he
who had been killed?
Back at Scotland Yard, he arranged for a couple of his
men to be installed in a road-mender's hut just outside Thorn-
bush—men who understood tapping a telephone wire. They
were instructed to do as little damage as possible with the
maximum amount of effect. The point was that one or other
was to be permanently on guard. And a message was sent
to the police stations concerned which would be passed on at
once to every constable on his beat, that any oddity noticed
at the houses where lived Sir Edward Clifford, Mrs. Orr,
Arnold Haslar, and Julian Clifford was to be at once re-
ported directly to the Chief Inspector at New Scotland Yard.
Then he went swiftly to the Assistant Commissioner's
rooms. Tindall, to whom he had telephoned, was just enter-
ing. Without a word, Pointer laid before the two men a sheet
of paper with some red finger-prints on it. He had obtained
them by dropping collodium in thin films over the finger-
prints on a metal tube of tooth-paste in Clifford's dressing-
room, then carefully peeling them off one by one when set,
leaving them awhile in a red-tinted hardening solution, and
finally pressing each carefully out on to unglazed paper.
"You agree that they're the same as these?" he asked.
"These" were prints taken from the hands of the dead
man, and enlarged on squared paper.


68 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"They're identical," Tindall agreed, after very carefully
comparing the two. Major Pelham said the same, and the
Assistant Commissioner was an authority on finger-prints.
"How on earth—where—whose?" Tindall was all but in-
articulate.
"I got these red prints from marks on Mr. Julian Clifford's
tube of tooth paste. Equally clear are those there taken of?
a lamp switch beside his bed. The tube of tooth-paste I have
with me. And here's some of Mr. Clifford's manuscript
paper. It's esparto grass paper. In other words I'm sorry to
say that the murdered man in Heath Mansions is Mr. Julian
Clifford the well-known author." Pointer detailed the some-
what odd steps of his investigations.
"Sir Edward's brother!" Tindall murmured, as one half
stupefied. There was a long silence. Tindall strode to the
window and back. Then he wheeled.
"These prints, of course, absolutely settle the question.
So Etcheverrey was the killer this time, and not the killed!
But why should Etcheverrey kill Julian Clifford? What took
Clifford into that most dangerous man's inner circle? How-
ever, let me congratulate you, Chief Inspector. This was
good work. Marvellously good. Considering how you at the
Yard are so bound by red tape. You need a royal warrant or
an Act of Parliament before you dare step an inch off the
beaten track. With us, of course, it's different. But frankly,
I can't think how you get the results that you do."
"We have to rely more on routine," Pointer agreed sadly,
and let it go at that, while Major Pelham wrestled with a
refractory cough.
Tindall bent over the finger-prints again.
"And to think of a Scotland Yard man going to a palmist!"
he all but chuckled.
"Astra isn't what's generally meant by that word, or we


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 69
wouldn't let her alone as we do," the Assistant Commissioner
reminded him. "She's not a fortune-teller."
"It was a most amazing piece of luck that she had photo-
graphed Clifford's hands," Tindall said almost grudgingly.
Pointer nodded. It was.
"It wasn't good luck that made the Chief Inspector go to
her," Pelham pointed out.
"What would you have done if she'd never seen Clifford?"
the Foreign Office man asked with real curiosity.
"I think she might have been as good at placing him, or
his interests, as she was with mine. I tried her with my own
hands first. If so, what with her suggestions, and the clue
furnished by his fingernails, I think we should have run him
to earth in time."
"I wish you were wrong for once," Tindall pushed the
sheets of prints away. He spoke with genuine emotion. "Quite
apart from my having been a little off the true, I wish with
all my heart that you were wrong. Why, his coming novel
is said to be one of the finest things even Julian Clifford has
ever done! It's not finished yet. I must be the one to break
the news to Sir Edward, of course." Suddenly he straight-
ened. "I wonder! Is he the link between Julian Clifford and
the Basque? There's no man keener on having Etcheverrey
caught than our Chief. And there is a great resemblance be-
tween the brothers. But first of all, I must hurry to the
French Embassy." He glanced at his watch. "Four o'clock.
I've been there until now. Etcheverrey"
Pelham stopped him.
"Just a moment, Tindall. We must lay this before the
Commissioner. I've told him the facts as far as they went."
He took the two into another room. The prints were laid
before an elderly, shrewd-faced man with singularly steady,
piercing blue eyes.


72 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
sage?" Pointer asked, as he shook hands. There was only the
one door.
The manager was too full of anxiety to have any room for
objections.
"A man's body has just been discovered," Pointer began,
"in circumstances that suggest foul play. He was an acquaint-
ance of Mr. Julian Clifford's. We have discovered some notes
among his papers which make us think that he had in his pos-
session a large sum of money of Mr. Clifford's. That he was
only just in possession of it. A business venture pure and
simple, but on a large scale. Mr. Julian Clifford is out at his
home. Now this is the point. Was any large sum paid out very
recently by Mr. Clifford? We think the payment of which
we're speaking was originally by cheque, and probably was
presented to you early this morning as soon as the bank
opened."
The manager reflected a moment. He had started at the last
words.
"It's in strictest confidence, of course?" he asked.
Pointer had to tell him that as the sum might possibly be
the motive for an attempt at murder, it was not possible for
him to promise secrecy.
The manager reflected a little longer.
"You say Mr. Clifford's away from home?"
"His family tell me he's off on one of those expeditions of
his when he leaves no address. Getting up facts for his next
book," Pointer said promptly.
More meditation on the part of the manager.
"Well, I'm in rather a difficult position," he murmured.
"Why don't you get into touch with Sir Edward Clifford?"
"He's out of town. Also un-get-at-able."
"A depositor—and such a large depositor as Mr. Julian
Clifford," murmured the manager uncertainly.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 73
"Still—murder, you know!" Pointer threw in. And the
manager made up his mind.
"Well, a very large cheque of Mr. Clifford's was presented
early this morning," he said slowly.
Pointer nodded. "For how much?"
"Seventy thousand pounds."
Having said that much, the manager made up his mind to
be quite frank.
"Mr. Clifford had spoken to us of that cheque. About a
month ago he had us make the necessary arrangements to
pay a hundred thousand into his current account. He told me
that he would draw on it by a very large cheque, and that he
wished the cheque cashed without any further formalities
or delay."
Pointer nodded.
"This morning, as soon as we opened, Mrs. Clifford
presented a cheque of Mr. Clifford's drawn to a Mr. Selfe
for seventy thousand pounds. It was duly endorsed, and of
course we cashed it at once. That is the only large sum which
had been paid out of Mr. Clifford's account lately."
"Mrs. Clifford. I see. Was she alone?"
"No. A lady was with her in her car. I happened to be
coming in at the moment the car drew up."
"Did you recognise whoever was with her?"
"It was Mrs. Orr."
"You know her?"
The manager hesitated again. "No," he said finally, "but
seeing it's you, I don't mind passing on a bit of gossip. My
son Gerald is a barrister. Junior to Mr. Robinson. He tells
me that they're briefed in a case coming on shortly. Smart
society divorce. It's to be heard as soon as the courts open.
Mrs. Orr is cited in it by name. No chance of a defence. The
wife intends to get her knife into her. Gerald showed me


74 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
some photographs of Mrs. Orr. That's how I recognised her
at once. Odd companion for Mrs. Julian Clifford."
"May I see it? A Selfe is a sort of partner of this man
who was shot."
"I see. You think?"
"It's too early to think yet," Pointer returned, as though
that were with him always the last resort. "But of course I
must have a look at it. If only in the way of routine."
He was shown the cheque. It seemed in perfect order. It
was made out to R. Selfe, Esq., and endorsed R. Selfe. The
date was last Thursday.
"I must ask you to let me have this for an hour or so."
The manager agreed, provided that it be returned next
day.
"I don't want to talk over the finding of this body more
than I can help with Mrs. Clifford. It's a harrowing subject,
especially if we're wrong, and this money has nothing to do
with our case. How did she take thellloney?"
"In notes of a hundred pounds. Here is the list of the
numbers. Mr. Clifford had requested that the money should
be held ready for him in just that way. They were handed
to Mrs. Clifford in seven packages of a hundred notes. The
cashier asked, of course, if she shouldn't send it out to her
car by our commissionaire, or lend her the man's services,
but she declined both suggestions."
Pointer thanked him and left. He had much to think over.
A cheque for a fortune ... an uncrossed cheque ... a
cheque to R. Selfe . . . and cashed by Mrs. Clifford as soon
after her husband's death as it could be presented . . . with
Mrs. Orr waiting in the car outside ... a cheque which
Julian Clifford had expected to be presented, and which he
wished paid without any trouble being made to the person
who should present it.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 75
Not a simple case this . . . complex . . . very.
Pointer had the cheque photographed, and the photograph
enlarged. Then he saw what he expected to see. The final e
was not continuous with the / of Self, but had been care-
fully added. So carefully, so exactly, that only the enlarged
photograph showed the break and slight overlapping of the
strokes. The endorsement on the back presented no breaks.
There Selfe was one word, written swiftly and with a dash.
Under the camera too the initial R on the face of the cheque
showed a certain waviness of line due to slow and careful
writing ... so did the Esq. On the back the initial was
swiftly penned. In other words, the camera showed that, as
Pointer had suspected, the cheque, originally made out by
Julian Clifford—for the signature was his without a doubt,
hastily and carelessly written—had been to Self ... to
Julian Clifford. Some one into whose hands it had fallen, had
ingeniously altered it to a not uncommon family name. And
the alterations had apparently been made with Julian Clif-
ford's own pen and ink. There was a little peculiarity about
the nib used which showed throughout.
Pointer docketed these new and most important facts, then
he reached for the telephone. He mentioned to Sir Edward's
valet that it was "Mr. Marbury of the Home Office" who
was speaking.
"I understood that Sir Edward left yesterday evening to
join a commission at Chequers on the Sudan Cotton Areas,
but I find he hasn't been there. Do you know where I can
reach him over the telephone at once?"
"I am sorry to say, sir, that there is no telephone at Sir
Edward's cottage at Weybridge, where he is spending the
day."
"TTIs cottage"—Marbujy seemed perplexed—"are you
'When did he leave town?"


76 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Sir Edward left about nine yesterday evening, sir. He
changed into tweeds, and took nothing down with him but
a gun and cartridges. That always means the cottage, sir."
"Do you know which gun, and what number cartridges?"
Pointer asked in the sudden tone of a man who has a clue.
"He took his old 12-bore gun, sir, and a bag of Numbers
4 and 6 cartridges."
^ "Did he drive down himself?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, that certainly seems to settle it," murmured Mar-
bury. "When do you expect him back?"
"In time for dinner, sir. Eight o'clock."
Marbury rang off, after thanking the man. It was now just
after five. A wire would be useless. Sir Edward Clifford,
Julian's only brother, had taken a gun and a bag of cartridges
away with him yesterday about nine o'clock . . . easily
identifiable shots in some circumstances . . . under a loose
ulster a gun could be strapped to the body with comparative
ease, if a man drove his own car. . . .
Pointer hastily got into his gas-man make-up again, looked
around for his tool bag that contained other things beside
tools, pushed his cap a little farther on one side, touched it
to a sergeant coming in at the main entrance, and swung
himself on board a Hampstead bus.
The Haslar's house was a bare five minutes' drive from
that of Julian Clifford. When the latter had married Cath-
erine Haslar, Sir William Haslar had built the two houses,
and given the larger as a present to his new son-in-law.
An inquiry of the gas company had told Pointer that on
the principle of the shoemaker's barefoot children, the Has-
lars had gas fires in all their rooms.
Bag on shoulder he lounged up to the basement door.
The butler was appealed to. "Certainly not!" he announced.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 79
had just taken from a drawer in the writing table. It was to
be used according to instructions.
Pointer wanted that brown and orange ulster at once. If
Haslar continued to sleep well, it might be at the Yard by
six o'clock.
Then he took up his own work of going swiftly but care-
fully over the house.


CHAPTER V
While the Chief Inspector was roaming Arnold Haslar's
house, Julian Clifford's new librarian and Diana had been
looking at some rare books at Sotheby's. Straight was ex-
pressing his disappointment at Julian Clifford's absence.
"He has left me neither instructions nor a free hand.
Hobbs is too busy to question Mr. Clifford's preferences.
He certainly is a worker! And Newman, apart from your
warnings, dislikes me. Jealousy, I suppose. No man likes to
be supplanted."
"Supplanted? Newman?" There was joy in Diana's tone.
She had been looking rather bored by Straight's little out-
burst.
"So Mr. Clifford hinted in our after-dinner talk last night.
He's thinking of letting Newman go. But that's in strictest
confidence. What concerns me at the moment far more is
when he is coming back. I"
A passing newsboy waved his papers at them.
"French anarchist killed in Hampstead flat! Headless
man in Hampstead!" he shouted.
"Hampstead?" Straight bought two papers.
"Why it's Heath Mansions! The building near us!" Diana
said, aghast as she caught sight of a photograph on the front
page. Straight said nothing. He was reading. Suddenly Diana
gave a low cry. She went livid.
"Here! you're ill!" Dick said solicitously.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 81
"A taxi," she murmured. "I'm all right. Don't come with
me.
"Certainly I'm coming with you." He signalled to a taxi,
gave the man her home address, and jumped in beside her.
But Diana sprang to her feet.
"No! I want to be alone. I must be alone." She spoke in a
strange, wild voice. She looked around for another taxi.
There was none.
"Dick, I want to be alone. You can't come with me." She
seemed unable to find other words.
"Sorry to force my society on you," he said quietly, "but
I'm coming. You've had a shock."
Diana looked at him with dilated pupils. Her eyes suddenly
looked enormous in her pale face.
"You must keep out of this, Dick," she said again in the
same firm tone. "You of all men. I know how you would hate
to be mixed up in anything disagreeable."
"No more than the next fellow," he assured her. "And
when you're in trouble, you don't suppose blows would drive
me from you, do you? What frightened you in that paper?"
"You're quick," she said in a low tone; "I'm glad no one
else was with me. Dick, something awful has happened. I
knew evil was bound to come of— I must go home at once.
I must see Arnold—" She pulled herself up.
"Exactly!" Dick reminded her. "What was it the doctor
said ? He must have no shocks. So Arnold being out of court,
suppose you face the fact that you're driven to turn to me?"
Diana passed a hand across her eyes. She shivered.
"Murdered like that! Decoyed, and then butchered!" she
said under her breath. "Give me the paper again!" She took
it from him hurriedly, and read as though every unnoticed
punctuation mark might make a difference.
Straight, too, dipped into his sheet. There was enough and


82 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
to spare to hold his attention in the columns. When he came
to the description of the man who had taken the flat, he gave
a start. The house agent had remembered something more
than he had told the police. He had now remembered and de-
scribed to a reporter an unusual ring which the man had
been wearing on the little finger of his right hand—a black
opal very highly rounded. Two gold snakes were coiled about
it, their coils making the ring, their heads apparently holding
the stone in place between them as they nearly met across it.
The serpents were carved in great detail and in the round.
At first the house agent, though he had remembered the
ring, had not placed the man who had worn it. He was now
sure that it had been on the hand of the mysterious Tourcoin.
His clerk, too, remembered it, as well as the check ulster
which the man had worn.
Straight felt Diana sag in the corner beside him as she
came to the description of the ring and the overcoat.
"We both know a ring like that, but has Arnold such an
ulster by any chance?"
"A ring like that. . . . Such an ulster ... !" she re-
peated under her breath. "It is Arnold's ring and ulster that
are described here. As to the ulster—" She drew in her
breath sharply, with a shudder.
"It's a damnable business," Straight said, after a mo-
ment's deep thought. "All we can do is to keep our own coun-
sel—as long as we can," he added grimly. "What about the
name? The name of Tourcoin?"
"Some one in a French town of that name, or Belgian, I
don't know which, asked him to advise them about some new
electrical plant not long ago. The name would still be fresh
in his mind."
"But why in the world should Arnold have given a false
name when looking over the flat? What possible connection


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 83
is there between him and a Basque communist?" he asked,
looking bewildered.
Diana sprang to her feet, rocking with the speed of the
taxi.
"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" She turned a distorted
face on Dick. "There's another taxi!" She waved to it. "I
can't endure to hear it talked about. To speak of it!" She
motioned again. But the cab had it's flag up and passed on.
Diana sank back into her seat as though her legs gave under
her. Straight bit his lip. The incident showed him how little
he counted with her in Diana's inner life. "You saw him
yourself this morning coming out of the place—Heath
Mansions," woman-like Diana could talk of nothing else.
"Others may have seen him too!"
Straight looked at her warningly. "Forget that, Diana!
I have—completely!" A newspaper boy with a later edition
than the one which they had seen ran past. Straight got a
copy.
"Who was the Man who took the Flat?" was now
the heading. Diana and Straight, heads together, scanned it.
The description, pieced together by an able reporter, fitted
Arnold Haslar with appalling closeness.
Neither spoke until they turned into Arnold's garden.
Newman, Clifford's secretary, was just being admitted. Diana
gave a sudden cry, a cry of sheerest terror, and clutched
Dick's arm with fingers that hurt. Her hands were colder
than he had imagined living hands could be. He thought that
she had fainted. Her face with its eyes closed looked so
white. But in a second the lids lifted. She squared her shoul-
ders as the cab stopped. She seemed to pull herself together
with a great effort. She looked more like sinking to the
ground where she stood than walking up the steps, but she
went forward very steadily, refusing help. Wilkins came out


84 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
hurriedly. "Are you ill, Miss Diana? Let me call Alice. Let
me assist you"
She paid no attention to him. Newman had gone on into
the hall.
"Mr. Newman?" she asked quickly, imperiously.
"Mr. Newman is here, Miss Diana. He insists on being
allowed up to see Mr. Haslar for a moment. I told him that
the doctor's orders were to the contrary." Wilkins had ob-
viously not yet heard of the murder, nor of the man with
the black opal ring and the check ulster.
Diana stepped in swiftly, and laid a hand on the newel
post. She still looked as though she needed its support.
Newman turned at her entrance; he was just mounting
the stairs. He, too, was very pale. The eyes were far back
in their sockets, but they were still as unreadable as ever. He
and Diana faced each other in absolute silence for a long
minute.
"I didn't expect to see you," she said in an oddly shaken
voice.
"I'd like to go up and speak to Arnold for a moment,"
was his only reply.
"No one can see him," Diana said in a firmer voice.
Newman seemed to hesitate.
"He's feverish, I understand. Is he lightheaded?" he asked
in a lower tone, though Wilkins had already gone on down
the hall.
Diana did not reply at once. Then she asked:—
"Why should he be? You've seen the evening papers?"
Newman nodded.
"Hadn't we better talk in here?" He glanced towards a
room.
Diana did not seem to hear him. She was speaking in a
very low, very stony voice.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 85
"You saw about the murder in Heath Mansions?" she
asked again.
Once more he nodded.
"Did you read the description of the ulster the man was
wearing? Of the ring?"
"I read them. Yes." Newman was standing with his head
bent. His eyes only were raised and were fastened on Diana.
As before, Straight could make nothing of their expression.
Was it inimical or merely intentionally blank? Then Straight
looked at Diana. Never would he have believed her face
capable of showing such passion. The girl seemed to be swept
by a fury—a fury that was shaking her where she stood—
a fury which was in spate but which she was damming back.
"Why?" Newman asked gravely.
"Because Arnold has a coat and ring exactly like them."
Straight frowned. Women were the most imprudent of
beings.
"Because coats and rings can be borrowed, Mr. Newman."
"You mean—?" Newman still spoke very quietly, rather
thoughtfully.
"That my brother had no interest in murdering anybody.
But that might not be true of—Sanz Etcheverrey.' She
spoke the words in a low, tense whisper.
"The man who was killed?"
"No. Not the man who was killed."
Straight looked quickly from Diana to Newman, and back
to Diana. What did this scene mean? Newman did not glance
at her now. He was looking meditatively at the black and
white marble squares of the hall.
Diana swept past him. Her brother's valet came down the
stairs.
"Mr. Haslar's asleep, miss. He's been asleep nearly all
afternoon."


86 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Good." Diana hesitated. Straight took a step forward.
Could he slip up and get that ulster? He had looked in the
cloakroom just now, and it was not there.
"The tailor sent a man for an overcoat of Mr. Haslar's a
little while ago, miss. I got it out without waking him," the
man continued. "He had a card of Mr. Haslar's, saying that
his new check motor coat was to be handed to the bearer,
miss. I did quite right, I hope? I didn't wake Mr. Haslar,"
he repeated.
"Quite right, Smith," Diana said rather faintly. She turned
suddenly and came up to Newman, who was moving towards
-the door.
"A moment! I want to speak to you outside."
When they were clear of the steps she said in a low, bitter
voice, "I think it only fair to warn you that I may have to
tell all I know to the police."
"Warn me?" Newman asked, as though not understand-
ing her.
"Arnold may have gone to that flat or you may have gone
in his things," she went on, "but I am convinced that in
some way you are mixed up in the affair. I heard you tell
Arnold only last week that that flat was to let. If Arnold
gets drawn into the crime I shall speak out. Please don't go
on with the farce of having lost your memory." She looked
at him with eyes that seemed to scorch what they looked at.
He looked bewildered. "Farce? I only wish it were," he
said heavily.
"You have not lost it," she repeated firmly; "I've known it
all along."
Now he gave her a measuring look. The look that a fencer
gives another when he steps forward, foil in hand.
"Have you told Mr. Straight as much? Not yet? I see.
Not yet."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 87
He nodded thoughtfully; almost, Diana felt, as though
she, and what she was saying, had retreated into the back-
ground of his thought. Almost she could imagine that he was
hearing some other voice speak, and was listening to it
rather than to her. The feeling chilled her.
Turning towards her, he made a gesture almost of dis-
missal.
"Do what you feel you must do," he said coldly, and rais-
ing his hat, walked on past her.
For a second she stood with clenched hands, then she
turned back to the house. She went into the room where
Straight stood waiting for her. It occurred to Diana for the
first time, that possibly she had not appreciated Dick at his
proper value. There was a certain measured, and measuring
quality about the young man which had a little amused her,
and a little chilled her, out in Australia. Yet she felt sud-
denly very glad that he was in England, and at Thornbush
just now. Dick was never spectacular, but she felt, a little
self-reproachfully, that his was the kind of character
to which one turns in moments of trouble. If only he were
not at other times something so perilously approaching a
prig!
He closed the door behind her.
"What in the world?" he began. She raised her hand.
"That ulster has gone—taken—fetched! But by whom?"
There was terror in her face now.
"Well test it. Who's your brother's tailor? Rivers of
Saville Row?"
He rang up, and after a moment dropped the receiver back.
"No one was sent from there. But, of course, the fact that
your brother gave a card looks as though it might have been
some local presser . . . some regular man he employs."
"Dick, do you think it could have been Newman whom


88 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
you mistook for my brother this morning, coming out o
Heath Mansions?"
Dick did not answer for a moment, then he said:—
"Why should it be Newman, Di?"
Now it was her turn not to reply.
"Why did you connect him with this dead anarchist?" he
asked again.
She shook her head. Her eyes were closed. He had never
expected to see Diana look so broken.
"I'm only groping," she said faintly.
"What do you know of your uncle's secretary that makes
you link him with this Etcheverrey murder?" he persisted.
"You ought to tell me, Di. If there's any chance of helping
Arnold out of this unholy mess it will be that you and I pull
together."
"I can't tell you, Dick," she said, after another long mo-
ment. "I didn't mean to say as much as I did before a third
person. But it welled up. Nothing will make Mr. Newman
speak out. Nothing! He's like some creature hiding in his
lair. He knows that he's safe there, and won't come into the
open."
A passion of hate sounded in Diana's voice. Straight gave
her a very searching, not over-pleased look. No man cares
to hear the woman whom he hopes to marry speak like that
of another. It takes too much to explain it. Diana walked to
the window and stood drawing a deep breath.
"If things get worse, if suspicion falls on Arnold, I must
go to the police and tell them—what I know. But not to you,
Dick—not yet. If that's why Newman has seemed so strangely
fond of Arnold—" she stood biting her lip and quivering
afresh against the sharp light of the window.
"You won't tell me what the secret is between you and
him, then?" There was an edge to his voice.


9o THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"I must think things over first," she said finally.
He made a gesture of "as you please."
"But be careful!" he warned. When she left him Richard
Straight paced the room. Had it merely been Diana who had
connected Arnold and that flat, all would have been well.
She might have turned to him, and Dick would have had a
magnificent chance of winning her enduring love by standing
between her brother and the result of whatever it was that
he had done.
He had been proud to marry Diana Haslar as things were. .
But how long would it take for things to change? It seemed
a far cry from Haslar to a Basque anarchist, but that brown
and orange check ulster, that snake ring, might yet bring the
whole police pack out in full cry after their owner. So
Straight feared. It was an intolerable thought, that because
Arnold Haslar should have been such an utter fool as to
wear them when taking the flat, because he had been such an
utter idiot, Diana was to be mixed up in the business, if it'ever
came out. Why, he too, Richard Straight, might yet be
dragged, through them, into the affair.
This idea came like a blow to him. He was as good as en-
gaged to Haslar's sister. He had arrived but a few hours
before the crime had been committed. The police said that
the man in the flat had been murdered last night. He, Dick,
had no alibi for last night. He could tell people that he had
been fast asleep from about ten till he was roused next morn-
ing, but would they believe it?
Dick did not share Diana's suspicion that possibly it was
Newman who had worn her brother's things and taken the
flat. Yet it was maddening to think that if only Diana would
tell him the whole of what she evidently knew or suspected,
about her uncle's secretary, it might be sufficient to free


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 91
Arnold from all but the blame of a foolish fancy for taking
flats under assumed names.
Diana came back into the room.
"Arnold's still asleep. I didn't wake him but I took his ring
out of the drawer where he keeps it, and now I'm going to
Thornbush. I must speak to Newman again. What's that,
Wilkins? Can a gas man come into the room for a moment?
Certainly."
They passed a tall, lanky figure with a shock of dark-red
hair as they went out. His bag was in their way, so that there
was a second's delay as he moved it more hastily than tidily,
for half the tools spilled out, and in his very civility to pick
them up Pointer blocked the passage still more, and inci-
dentally got two very good photographs. Straight merely
looked very worried, very perplexed, and thoughtful, but
Diana's face was a travesty of her usual one. Gone was that
effect of radiant youth, gone the cool aloofness of her glance.
She had recovered a measure of composure, but in her eyes
was something desperate, frightened, very nearly cowed.
Neither Dick nor Diana spoke on the way to Thornbush,
where Diana learnt that Newman had not yet returned. Di-
ana stood a moment thinking deeply, then went on to her
own room with a heavy, dragging step. Dick decided that
the best thing for him to do would be to try and get some
work done.
Outside, a couple of boys—they looked about fourteen—
were hunting through the garden. "Sir Raymond Tirrell's
nephews," so they had explained to Trimble, had lost a pet
dormouse. The little chap, taken for an airing into the gar-
den, had developed an unexpected sprightliness. The tips of
Ha ears had last been seen disappearing through Mr. Julian
• ifford's hedge. Might they search the garden? They would


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
93
not 'ere now, sir. 'E's out. What number shall I tell 'im to
ring up?" was the next best move to asking who was
speaking.
"Westminster 1876? Oh, very good, sir." Pointer heard
the receiver slammed down at the other end, and continued,
"You'll be at the works, I suppose, sir ? And what about those
three-quarter fittings? They don't seem to work quite right.
Mr. 'Aslar 'ere seems to've made no complaint, but farther
down the road the smell is somethink awful. Very good,
sir. Yes, sir. At once!" and Pointer turned away.
"I'll send along my mate to go on 'unting for that escape.
I must 'urry. The boss is on his 'ind legs." And Pointer made
for the nearest telephone outside the house.
Here he rang tip Westminster 1876. He got the number at
once. Pointer was a capital mimic, thanks to hard work and
lessons from the best mimic on the London music halls. In a
hoarse voice, as like Haslar's as he could make it, he wheezed
into the tube.
"Just got back with a damned bad cold. Who's at that
end?"
"Me!" came in menacing tones.
"Who the devil's 'me'?" croaked the pseudo Haslar.
"Brown!" came in the same tone. "Now do you under-
stand?" 7
Pointer coughed into the receiver by way of gaining time.
He was doing double-quick thinking.
"I'm in a hurry," he croaked finally.
"What do you suppose I'm in? I want to see you at once.
At once, understand!" Haslar might have been the myste-
rious "Brown's" slave. "Same place as before."
"I'm damned if I'll come," Pointer retorted.
"Oh, yes, you will!" There was an ugly menace in the
voice. "Oh, yes, you will! I know everything. Understand?"


94 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Pointer did not reply.
"Now do you get me? Come at once. Same place as be-
fore."
"Can't. Not to the same place," Pointer said doggedly—
and truthfully.
"Why not?"
"Dangerous."
"Where, then?" growled the voice at the other end.
"How about the grill-room of the Savoy?" Pointer asked,
as a feeler in that hoarse whisper.
"How about the throne room of Buckingham Palace!"
came the retort. "I don't think you quite realise what you're
in for, my clever young friend. I've got you in a cleft stick.
One shift of a finger and you're crushed."
"I suppose you're aware that this is not an automatic ex-
change?" Haslar's voice asked roughly, thickly. "Either
speak sense, or dry up!"
"I'll talk sense fast enough. Now listen. There's a Spanish
feeding place off Shaftesbury Avenue. Fuenta Castellana.
I'll be there outside the door at seven to the moment. And
look here, Haslar, don't keep me waiting. If I got bored I
might stroll into that police station near by. Get me?"
"I've a mind to send Newman," Pointer hoarsely confided
to the wire.
"You come yourself!" was the retort, "and don't forget
your pocket-book. You'll need it, by God! No cheques,
mind."
"I shall get Straight to come too."
"What Straight? Run straight yourself!" The facetious-
ness did not extend to the voice.
"Oh, all right. But I shall be in disguise. Aged man. Two
crutches. Look out for me." Pointer did not dare hang up


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 95
for fear of the Brown at the other end ringing up the real
Haslar. He waited till the other had expressed his burning
opinion of such monkey tricks, and repeated the injunction
to bring a well-filled note-case with him. Pointer made for
his own rooms at the Yard, and turned to his book of dis-
guises.
"Old Gentleman—crutches" was Number Fifteen. In a
slit of a cupboard numbered fifteen was the complete outer
man of what might have been the Chief Inspector's great-
grandfather. Pointer's difficulty was to give himself a touch
of Haslar as well. Also his disguise had to look like a dis-
guise. The effect was to be that of an amateur at the game.
The bushy white eyebrows palpably put on, the Father
Christmas beard obviously added.
He finally took a taxi, driven by one of his own men, and
got out at the little bit of Spain indicated by the mysterious
"voice."
He could almost have smelled his way thither. Gazpacho
of true Iberian strength was evidently one of the dishes of
the day.
Outside the door four men were waiting. One was thin.
The voice over the telephone had not been that of a thin man.
One was young. Nor that of a young man. The third, though
stout and getting towards middle-age, was obviously Spanish.
The man speaking had not been a foreigner. The fourth was
—good Heavens! It was Cory! Major Cory of the Holford
Will Case. A case fought out some dozen years before,
where the major had been accused by the daughter of undue
influence in causing old Mrs. Holford to leave every far-
thing to him and nothing to her only child, a middle-aged
spinster. In spite of his expressed sympathy with the prose-
cutrix, the judge, as well as the jury, had had to let the


96 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
major bear off the spoils. Pointer had heard with great joy
that they did the man no good. Racing and Monte Carlo had
helped to run through the money in a couple of years.
Cory was one of those men in whom our police take an
abiding interest. For the Metropolitan Police have still a great
deal to learn when it comes to appreciating those who, like
certain rare orchids, seem able to live on air.
So Cory had wanted Haslar on the telephone all morning.
Cory gave his name as Brown. Cory knew Newman, but did
not seem to know Straight. Humph. . . . Pointer tottered
out of the taxi and hobbled up to him.
"Here I am, Cory, where shall we go?"
Cory eyed him, as a dog eyes a man before biting.
"Think yourself clever because you're got up like an organ-
grinder? Your voice gives you away, Haslar, though. I'd
know you anywhere."
"Would you?" Haslar's voice asked in chagrin.
"Anywhere. But now—" The other, who seemed in a very
high and mighty mood, steered Pointer to a table in a corner.
He ordered a bottle of 1896 port, mentioning gracefully that
there was no point in not having the best that the house kept,
as Haslar would foot the bill.
"And now look here, Haslar," Cory began, as soon as they
were alone. "I know all! All. Get me?" Cory bored a pair of
bold eyes into the old gentleman's. "Now, how much is it
worth to you not to have me—" Suddenly the "gallant major"
stopped, shot one glance at Pointer that made the latter get
his right hand ready, and slipped with extraordinary swift-
ness out of the place.
Pointer looked about him. A man, a police officer by his
smart, alert bearing, had entered in company with a com-
panion who looked like a needy artist in search of copy. The
two had taken a table not far from Pointer. The Detective


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 97
Inspector wondered whether ever any of his criminals had
more regretted meeting Inspector Bradly than did he at that
moment.
Pointer caught his eye and gave the signal of the C.I.D.
as he threw a match away. Rising, he handed a bank note to
his waiter and said he would be back for the change in a
moment. Bradly strolled after him.
"Mr. Gaskell, I believe?" Bradly said politely, touching
him on the arm, "Mr. Gaskell from Leeds?"
Pointer shook hands with the air of a countryman over-
joyed to see a familiar face in a strange town.
"You saw Cory leaving?" he asked under his breath.
Bradly nodded.
"Saw one of your men after him too, sir. Did I frighten
him away? Too bad ! Mr. Tindall wanted to see if he couldn't
find out something down here about a Spaniard who has been
to the mortuary to identify this Etcheverrey who's just been
found killed. Thank Heaven, if I may say so! He said he
couldn't identify him at all. Might be him, might not. But
Mr. Tindall was told that he looked at that foot as though
expecting to find a scar on the sole. Mr. Tindall thought he
might have come on here. So he might. But 'a tall, slender,
dark young man with a big drooping moustache' would fit
a dozen chaps in that very room. Still, Mr. Tindall asked me
to come along and point out a couple of dagoes who are ready
to sell any one to either side."
"You were in that Hoi ford Case, weren't you, Inspector?"
Pointer asked presently.
Bradly nodded. "Yes, sir. Before your time, wasn't it?"
"Ever heard the name of Haslar mentioned in connection
with it?"
"Haslar?" Bradly thought hard. "I don't remember that
name cropping up."


98 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Nor Clifford?"
"Oh, Clifford was one of the chief witnesses against Cory.
He all byt dished him. Mr. Julian Clifford, the great author,
I mean. He was a friend of old Mrs. Holford's. He main-
tained that Cory had stolen a later will and burnt it. Knew
the very hour he stole it. But he couldn't prove anything.
Though he saw to it that every one knew what he thought,
so that there should be no hanging on to clubs or society
afterwards for Cory. It did me good to hear him in the
witness-box."
Suddenly Bradly clicked his fingers. "Mr. Clifford's
nephew! Australian boy. Yes, Haslar was his name. It was
in the holidays, and he used to come into court with his uncle,
Mr. Clifford, and ask me no end of questions in between
whiles."
"You're keeping an eye on Cory, I suppose?"
Bradly said that during the twenty-four hours about sixty
police orbs were more or less focused on the major.
"He's evidently up to no good," the police officer went on,
"he never is, of course. But I mean that he's evidently up to
something he can get into trouble over, or he wouldn't have
faded away like that when he saw me. I don't deny that I
would give a year's pay to jug him, and he knows it! That
poor old Miss Holford in an Institute sticks in my crop."
Pointer let Bradly return to Tindall, and walked off. That
telephone message from Brown . . . the whole. tone of
Cory's conversation with the supposed Haslar ... a previ-
ous grudge against Clifford ... a boy, now a man, who
knew of that grudge. ... »
Pointer walked on deep in thought, leaving his change for
some other time.
Clifford—Haslar—Cory. . . . Linked, though but loosely,
by the old crime of the stolen will. Clifford as principal wit-


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 99
ness, Haslar as a young, eager listener, with the retentive
memory of a boy for what interests him, Cory as the accused
man. Were these three once more linked closely, fo^all time,
by a new crime, by the most terrible of all crimes?
Pointer returned at once to New Scotland Yard where he
learnt several things. No one could be found who had seen
any stranger entering or leaving flat fourteen, where, accord-
ing to the head porter, some silver ornaments had been stolen.
Nothing of any importance had been listened to along
either Mrs. Orr's, Clifford's or Haslar's telephones, except
his own conversation with "Brown."
The woman detective who had been sent to Mrs. Orr's
house reported that that lady had an impeccable bill of health
as far as last night went. This morning she had left for Paris
by the eleven boat train from Victoria, and Mrs. Clifford had
been among the little group of friends to see her off.
Inspector Watts sent in word that no packages of any kind
had been delivered at Wellwyn and Co.'s warehouse in
Thames Street after closing time yesterday, until a vanload
of wireless masts had arrived this morning about ten.
Detective-Inspector Watts had been assured that no mistake
was possible.
Finally came the account of a very pretty bit of wizardry
that had been performed in the office of the house-agent while
the Chief Inspector had been finishing his investigations
among Haslar's effects. Arnold Haslar's voice had been
reeled off by a tiny microphone phonograph which had been
in the gas man's bag. The house-agent had identified the
"What the devil are you doing with my clothes?" as un-
doubtedly the voice of Monsieur Tourcoin, who had taken
Marshall's furnished flat on Friday last. The same perform-
ance had obtained the same result from the head porter. So
Tourcoin was now fairly well proved to be Arnold Haslar.


ioo THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Was it quite true that no packages whatever had been left at
the warehouse? There could be no question of a "burglary"
there. Every building in that street had its night watchman.
Pointer's ruminations were interrupted by still another piece
of information. It was from the man who was trailing Cory.
The wily major had taken a bus to some flats, had walked up
to the third floor, had shot down in a lift for one storey, and
there caught another on its way to the roof garden, while
Pointer's man was covering the door nearest to the first
shaft. After the roof garden all trace of Cory was lost.
Pointer had given his man very strict instructions to lose
him rather than let him see that he was followed. He did hot
want the major to leave London. The police had half a dozen
funk-holes of his on their list, to one of which he was sure to
return once he believed that no one was trailing him.


CHAPTER VI
It was eight o'clock. Pointer began to think that he might
waste a few minutes of the case's time in eating a dinner,
when a message that reached him along his telephone wire
whisked that prospect away once more.
* "Is that Chief Inspector Pointer? Police-Constable Caldi-
cott speaking. Acting in accordance with instructions received
at the station, I am reporting directly to you, sir, that Mr.
Haslar has just been murdered."
Pointer's lips tightened. He had not expected this. Yet, at
the same time
"I was called in by the butler at four minutes past eight,
sir. Just two minutes ago"—P.-C. Caldicott was evidently
an accurate young man—"Mr. Haslar was shot in his study.
Don't know yet how it happened, sir."
It was not many minutes later when Pointer was hurrying
with the speaker up the winding drive.
"Left a man in the house, I hope?" the Chief Inspector
asked.
"Yes, sir. P.-C. Bacon. I whistled for him at once."
Bacon stood in the hall waiting for them. The servants
were evidently battened down below hatches.
"Mr. Haslar isn't quite dead, sir, as we thought at first.
The doctor found some signs of life. He insisted on having
him carried to his bedroom."
Pointer ran upstairs, and with one constable went thor-
oughly, but swiftly, over the house and through the garden.


i/' THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"No one was in hiding. Then the Chief Inspector turned the
handle of Haslar's room very gently. - if
A young man looked up as he entered without "i sound.
"Medical man?"
Pointer laid his card on the table.
"You'll have to be quick, Chief Inspector," the doctor
whispered. "We've just sent for Sir Hercules Hawkins. Not
that he can do anything. Bullet went in here and is still in."
He pointed to a spot just above the right ear. The injured
man lay on a table pulled between the windows. Sheets had
been spread on it, sheets covered him. Pointer did not waste
more than one long look at the head and face. The doctor
had cleaned the wound too carefully for him.
"Singed hair?" he asked.
"Singed hair and blackened skin," the doctor assured him.
"Revolver must have been fired pressed against the head."
"No hope of his speaking?" Pointer asked.
The doctor shook his head.
"I don't say that for some brief moment consciousness
may not come back. It often does just before the end. The
final flicker. But that's the merest chance. Ah, here's Sir
Hercules, with a couple of nurses!"
A gray-haired man entered hurriedly. Pointer slipped from
the room as silently as he had entered it.
"Who's he?" the surgeon muttered; "splendid-looking
chap! Knows how to put his feet down. Boxes, I'll bet."
Downstairs Pointer went into the study, the room where
the injured man had been found. He stood with his back to
the door closely eyeing the whole before he took a step for-
ward.
Suddenly he heard the front door open. Stepping into the
hall, he saw Diana come hurrying in. Straight was with
her.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 103
Both stopped appalled as they caught sight of the constable
who rose irom his seat in the hall. Diana's face, already pale,
grew ghastly. Then she saw Pointer at the study door. She
took a step towards him. Something in its swift motion sug-
gested the pathetic effort of a mother-bird between her nest
and a robber. She knew at once that this man with the sun-
browned face and the steady, very clear, gray eyes was in
command. As she looked at him, she felt a sudden sense of
his power, of his ability to surmount difficulties that would
stop a smaller man. And with that sense came a sickening
knowledge of her brother's danger.
"Miss Haslar? I am Chief Inspector Pointer of New Scot-
land Yard. Can I have a word with you in the next room?
This gentleman is—?" He eyed Straight as though he had
never seen him.
"Mr. Straight. My uncle's secretary," Diana said swiftly.
"He merely accompanied me to the house when I could not
make out a telephone message just now. But please don't
wait." She turned- to Dick very resolutely. She did not in-
tend to involve him in her brother's disgrace, for she feared
that an arrest had been made.
His answer was to open a door. The three stepped in.
"What is wrong?" Diana asked in a toneless voice.
Something in the grave kindness of the face looking at her
frightened her more than any words would have done. She
read Pointer's look rightly as profound pity. Pity for this
young life caught up into the swirl of dark passions, she who
should have been a creature of sunshine and happiness.
Somehow, Pointer felt that so far the lines had not fallen
unto Diana in very pleasant places.
"Miss Haslar," Pointer broke the painful silence, "your
brother has met with an accident. The doctor and a surgeon
are with him upstairs. He has been shot in the head."


104 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Shot!" Diana wheeled. She made for the door, but
Pointer stopped her.
"No one is allowed to enter his room. They are trying to
extricate the bullet."
"He's not dead?"
"Not when I was there a moment before the surgeon came.
He's very badly wounded, but he was not dead."
"Who shot him?" Diana asked, putting out a hand and
grasping the back of a chair. Whom did she suspect? The
dread in her eyes told the keen eyes that barely seemed to
glance at her that she suspected some one.
"I know nothing about the case yet," Pointer said quietly.
"You probably can tell me who was Mr. Haslar's enemy?"
"He has no enemy. No open enemy," Diana said slowly.
"A so-called friend, then," Pointer said swiftly. He hoped
to get some name out of her in her agitation. But she only
turned away with a weary, yet resolute, gesture.
"He has a host of friends whom I don't know."
Pointer glanced inquiringly at Straight, who promptly
passed the look on to Diana. But she met his eyes stonily.
"Who sent for you?" Pointer asked, after a pause.
"I don't know. A telephone message just reached me at
my uncle's, Mr. Julian Clifford's house, saying that something
had happened to Mr. Haslar. I couldn't make out what."
She had not tried to. She had guessed an arrest, not a fresh
crime. Whose crime?
"If you and Mr. Straight could wait for me in the ,
drawing-room, I should like to come on up in a few minutes,
and ask some questions," Pointer went on.
She looked at him like a creature caught in a snare. Then
she nodded, and followed by Dick mounted the stairs as
Tindall arrived hot-foot. The Chief Inspector had telephoned
him the news before starting out


106 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
And I thought you hadn't yet seen that burnt paper under
the desk, while— Hallo!"
Pointer had lifted the flounce of a chair cover and both
men now saw a revolver lying under the seat near an open
window. Holding it in place with one gloved finger, the Chief
Inspector ran a chalk outline around it. Then he lifted it
with the greatest care. It was a .25 automatic. From some
faint marks in the barrel, Tindall thought that a very light
silencer might have been used. They found no finger-prints
on the metal. Two shots had been fired.
"Two shots!" Both men looked carefully around the room
again. They found no bullet or blood spatters.
"Went wide, probably out through that window, or the
other man has the bullet. Carried it away in his body, though
that's unlikely, as there's no blood trail. Look here"—Tindall
was down on his knees—"that revolver was flung. Flung so
as to look as though the murderer had got out into the gar-
den." He pointed to a long streak on the polish of the par-
quet floor which had stopped at the little snub-nosed thing
Pointer was now wrapping in tinfoil.
"It wouldn't have been flung here, from where Haslar was
found lying. That disposes of any idea of suicide. Besides,
two shots were fired from it. No. Haslar must have fired the
first at his opponent, and then had the revolver wrenched
from his hand and got the second in his own head, practically
killing him. That done, the murderer stepped away from the
falling body, and flung the revolver towards the window
from about here." Tindall stood "here." "And then left,
either by the front door or by the other window. I believe
there's a connection between this murder and Julian Clif-
ford's. Uncle and nephew. What do you say, Chief In-
spector?"


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 107
"A connection? Oh, yes; I, too, think there may be one.
Probably a close one."
Tindall joined Pointer, who, after strolling around the
room again, touching this, feeling that, even testing the earth
around a palm, and lifting the pot up and down in its brass
jardiniere, was now bending over a small heap of charred
remains of paper which lay under the desk, a match among
them. Both stood up after a long scrutiny. Not even the
magic of modern science could reconstruct that black dust.
"Some one ground it into the carpet after burning it,"
Tindall murmured.
"Haslar. His right heel shows it. I looked at his shoes up-
stairs," Pointer replied. He was down on his knees minutely
examining the carpet in front of the pushed-back chair, run-
ning a tiny but very powerful vacuum cleaner over it. The
gadget was barely the size of his hand, but it did its work
well.
Tindall watched him with secret impatience.
"The eyes of the mind, Chief Inspector, are the ones that
see farthest. As soon as you've done sweeping, I'd like to
question the servants again."
"By all means." Pointer put the little patent back in his
case. They called the butler in again and then the valet. The
rest of the servants knew nothing.
At half-past six this afternoon Arnold Haslar had rung:
said he was fed up with bed, and intended to get up. He was
in a very grim mood; but he had been tending that way for
a fortnight past, both men agreed.
The butler thought it was due to the coming attack of the
'flu, but the butler, under Tindall's careful pressure, was
inclined to connect it with the arrival of a couple of letters
by this morning's post. Wilkins had a nephew who collected


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 109
unhesitatingly by Wilkins as that of a man who, giving no
name, had first come to see Arnold Haslar last Thursday
evening. He had come on Friday, and also last night, and
had then for the first time given the name of Captain Brown.
Wilkins' eyes met those of the Chief Inspector and the man
from the Foreign Office with a certain dignity.
"I'm telling you the exact truth, sir. Things can't be
worse"—which incidentally spoke volumes for Wilkins' idea
of the police.
The man had arrived each time at about the same hour on
Thursday and Friday and yesterday. Somewhere around
nine. Questioned closely, Wilkins said that there had been
no signs of any trouble between his master and the man
whose photograph he had identified, but he had noticed that
on no occasion had Mr. Haslar offered to shake hands with
his visitor, who had stayed over an hour on the first two oc-
casions, though but a bare half-hour last night. On the first
occasion, at any rate, the conversation must have been of a
very private character, because he, Wilkins, had had some
business that took him to the library at the same time, and
had only caught a low murmur.
"A very unusual thing with Mr. Arnold Haslar talking in
his study, sir. As a rule, you have to hear every word, whether
you want to or not. It and the library are really only one
room, partitioned off."
Pointer referred to some coolness between Mr. Haslar and
his uncle, Mr. Julian Clifford. But obviously the butler knew
nothing of any such feeling.
Both he and Smith unhesitatingly identified the automatic
found by the window as Mr. Haslar's. More important still,
the valet swore that it had been in its usual place when his
master was having his bath. He had opened the drawer to
drop a penknife into it. Smith had an idea that he had heard


no THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Mr. Haslar come up and go into his bedroom while he, the
valet, was tidying up in the dressing-room. He must have
taken the weapon then. As far as Smith knew, Mr. Haslar
had never taken the automatic downstairs before.
"So Mr. Haslar expected trouble," Tindall mused. "Knew
when it was coming, and got ready for it. Was he a good
shot?"
"He was apt to get over-eager, and spoil his aim." And
just out of bed, he, Smith, wouldn't be surprised if his mas-
ter had missed the man entirely, worse luck. Smith knew
nothing about any caller last night, but he did know that
about ten Mr. Haslar had driven off in a great hurry, telling
Wilkins not to let any one sit up, as he would not be back till
very late. Smith had an idea, only an idea, that Mr. Haslar
had rushed off in answer to a telephone message that had
seemed to vex him very much.
"Any one in the house who knows more than you and
Wilkins do?" Tindall asked, pulling on a glove.
"No. None of us knows anything really. It's tough! . . .
not knowing . . . not being able to do something." And
Smith left them.
"Strange case!" Tindall mused; "strange and deep.
Etcheverrey like a spider in the middle of the web. I wonder
what Sir Edward Clifford will say. He must be back by now.
It's close on nine. There's the devil of a lot to do. To bridge
the gap between Clifford and Haslar, and link both with
Etcheverrey!"
Caldicott, the constable, came in.
"Gentleman of the name of Dance to see you, sir. Mr.
Haslar's manager. Said you just telephoned him."
Pointer had. <
Dance was a stout, frank-faced man with a strong Austra-
lian accent. He was considerably older than Haslar. Just now


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR in
he looked consternation personified. He was of no help, ex-
cept that he scoffed at the idea of a business enemy of Arnold
Haslar's.
"This has nothing to do with business," he maintained.
"Search for the dame! Fortunately at the office Haslar's sup-
posed to be still ill with 'flu. He'll stay ill with it too. We're
a good firm. A darned good firm. But shootings—.-whew!"
"There's a strong-room built into one end of this study,"
Pointer said finally, "would you open it for us? I want to
see inside it." He did—very much indeed.
Dance hesitated.
"You know the code word?"
"Oh, yes, I know it. But"
"The butler told me Mr. Haslar keeps no valuables on the
place."
"That's right. Still, you see, after all, a code word"
Pointer and Tindall stood with their backs to Mr. Dance
who, even so, held his hat over what he was doing. Finally
he called to them.
"Door's open."
The opening showed a fairly large strong-room, large as
a big cupboard. Dance glanced at the shelves, on which dusty
deed boxes were stacked.
"Nothing's gone. Haslar keeps six-year-back accounts, and
papers, and so on, here. Like his grand-dad. The boxes are
unlocked. There's nothing else in them."
Pointer found that there was nothing else in them. He
looked very, very carefully. So did Tindall, catching his idea.
"And about a package," Pointer went on, after the door
had been locked with the same coyness on Mr. Dance's part,
"a package that Mr. Haslar, or a friend of his, sent, or
brought down, to the warehouse late last night"—Pointer
ran over the possible times and sizes—"will you inquire for


112 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
it and send it along to me?" He gave his name and home
address, for Pointer believed that Watts might have been
deceived. "We think it will help us, give us a line about this
affair. I should expect the parcel to be marked 'to be kept
in a cold place.' You haven't a furnace, have you?"
To his relief he learnt that the warehouse was only a
between-station for electrical parts and material on its way
to or from Australia. There was no furnace.
Mr. Dance would obviously have liked a fuller explana-
tion of many puzzling points, but this was a very busy eve-
ning with him, and as all Pointer's hours came under that
heading, the meeting quickly broke up. Tindall too shook
hands and hurried off.
Pointer looked at his boot-tips for a long second. Then he
had Smith in again, and offered him a cigar and a chair.
"There's a confidential question I want to put to you," he
said slowly. He waited.
"Confidential it is," the ex-Anzac said cheerfully.
"What was the quarrel about between your master and
Mr. Clifford?"
"Mr. Clifford?" For a second Smith stared as a man does
who is suddenly, unexpectedly, wrenched around to face
another way. Then he looked a little dubious.
"Though you may not see the connection, that quarrel may
give us a line on who it was who shot Mr. Haslar," Pointer
said very quietly.
Smith eyed him with respect.
"That so?" He straddled his chair and clasped the carved
back in a meditative embrace. "That so," he repeated thought-
fully. "Well, I don't know what it was about, but it was a
pretty hot affair. You're referring to last Wednesday eve-
ning, of course?"
Pointer nodded.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 113
"You didn't hear anything?"
"Nope. I never was much of a listener-in," Smith ,iid
carelessly, and Pointer regretfully believed him. He did i>
look it.
"Only as Mr. Haslar flung the door open he nearly caught
my toe, and I had to step back to let Mr. Clifford pass out.
Mr. Clifford looked very calm, I must say. Quite unruffled.
But Mr. Haslar called after him, 'If you do do it, look out
for yourself !' That's all. Not much of a clue there, is there?
But it's funny"—Smith sat up straighter—"it's funny that
then he threatened 'If you do do it,' and to-day he was shout-
ing that 'You've got to do it!' " He looked keenly at Pointer,
who shook his head.
"No, Smith. It wasn't to Mr. Julian Clifford that he spoke
to-day. I wish it had been," he added cryptically.
Smith got up rather sheepishly. "Of course, sleuthing can't
be as easy as that, I suppose. And, of course, Mr. Julian
Clifford had nothing to do with any shooting."
He went away to make other and more startling combina-
tions yet, of the two sentences, while Pointer went up to the
drawing-room where Diana and Straight sat waiting for him.
Straight looked as though he very much wished himself
well out of it all. Murders, or shootings, were not at all what
he had expected when he had landed in Portsmouth only
yesterday as Julian Clifford's librarian. Straight felt that he
had a grievance against fate. Here he was, a plain, common-
sense sort of young man, only desirous of doing well in the
world, of getting on, being drawn into a very black, deep,
and dangerous affair. What was the reason for that bullet
which had all but killed Arnold Haslar?
"You have no idea who fired that shot at Haslar?" he had
just asked Diana.
She only stirred as though in pain.


ii4 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
What did Arnold know? Had he learnt something? Did
he guess something? Was it because of some incautiously
shown curiosity that—these were the knives at which she
was staring, wondering which of them was about to be
plunged in her heart.
The door opened and Pointer came in.
"Did you ever hear your brother speak of a man of the
name of Cory?"
She shook her head. Straight, too, shook his when Pointer
turned to him.
"And you, Mr. Straight, have you by any chance ever
heard Mr. Haslar speak as though there were any especial
person with whom he is on bad terms?" Straight never had.
Pointer next ostensibly asked each about the other per-
sons at Thornbush this afternoon. In reality he was obtaining
from Diana and Straight a time-table of their own actions.
They were simple. When Wilkins had telephoned to Diana
they had ostensibly been having tea together. In reality Dick
had had the tea, and tried in vain to coax Diana to have some.
After another careful glance in every room, Pointer drove
away from the house to stop and question his watcher at the
corner—a taxi-driver with a cab that would not go, tinker
though he might.
The man had seen no one enter, or leave, Arnold Haslar'?.
house, but he was not a picked man. The coming royal visitoj .
kept every good man busy combing through the aliens' quar-
ters of London. Also, nothing is harder than to watch a place
for hours on end. Especially if, like this man, he had to pre-
tend to attend to other interests as well. Doubtless he' had
done his best, yet Pointer knew that at least one person—a
man probably—had come, and therefore gone, from Arnold
Haslar's house. This person had left a plentiful sprinkling of
yellow sand on the carpet in front of that dashed-back chair. .


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 115
Now the paths in Haslar's garden were gravelled with red
gravel. The roads and pavements around showed only the
usual town dust. At Thornbush, however, the paths were all
of yellow sand, rolled for the most part into compact ribbons.
But one little walk, cutting off a corner of the drive—a cor-
ner that shortened the distance to Haslar's house too, was
freshly sanded, and soft as a country lane. It looked, there-
fore, as though a person from Thornbush had been the man
—or woman—who had pushed back that chair.
Diana and Straight had been in each other's company.
They were out of the question. Mrs. Clifford was at a Spirit-
ualist meeting. Hobbs was located in the Ritz dining with
some South American film magnate. There remained New-
man. . . . Newman . . . Pointer had a theory of what had
happened in that study. But his theories were always subject
to modification, should facts not fit them without having to
be twisted. Had Major Cory, after he had given his trailer
the slip, made his way to Haslar's house? Pointer thought
that he had.
He himself drove to Thornbush and stopped in the garden.
In his hand was what appeared to be a stereoscopic camera.
It was an uncommonly good binocular. He chose a position
against a plane tree and donned dark gray gloves. His cuffs,
too, were tucked well up out of sight. A casual eye from the
house could hardly notice him at this hour of gloaming
against the snake markings of the trunk, as he carefully
studied a certain open window facing him.
Newman was bending over a well-lit table on which a
paper sprawled, by its ungainly size an English paper. He
was reading it avidly. Pointer recognised a picture in it.
Newman was reading an account of the "Heath Mansions
Mystery," as it was now called. A moment, and he had tossed
it to the floor and spread out another from a pile beside him.


116 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
I
Suddenly he stopped, turned his head towards the door, and
called cheerily, "Come in!" Pointer could hear his voice
easily through the open window. As he called, Newman,
working with noiseless speed, shoved the several papers into
a drawer of his writing table with an amazing stealth. Not a
crackle reached Pointer; not a crackle could reach the door
of the room.
Newman now called, "Oh, is it locked?" in a tone of great
surprise, closing the drawer. All without any noise. Then with
an "I'm so sorry, I'd no idea!" he strode to the door. A serv-
ant entered. Pointer went around to the front and rang the
bell.
He sent in his name as Pointer, without prefixing his po-
sition. Newman saw him at once. Pointer introduced himself
to him as of Scotland Yard.
"I've come about the accident to Mr. Haslar," he began.
"Accident?" Newman started, or seemed to.
"He was shot at close range just about the time you
dropped in to see him this evening."
"Do you mind telling me what happened?" Newman asked
coolly, but his lips had a white line around them.
Pointer told him the bare facts.
Newman sat with his head leaning on one hand. He had an
unusual power of absolute immobility.
"Miss Haslar must be in great trouble," Newman said,
when Pointer had finished.
"She's not so much in trouble as she's keen on getting the
man who shot her brother. She thinks he was shot, you see."
"Don't you?"
"Not necessarily. Haslar might have meant to commit
suicide. Might have all but succeeded," Pointer said, appar-
ently not looking at the man.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 117
Newman's hand gave a little quiver before it steadied
again.
"Why should he do that?" he asked without raising his
head.
"Ah, why! Can't you suggest anything?" Pointer asked.
"You were the last person seen with Mr. Haslar."
"Was I indeed?" Newman seemed lost in thought. "No, I
can suggest nothing."
"What time exactly did you see him?" Pointer went on.
"Somewhere around seven, or a little after."
"Did you see any one coming or going to the house?"
"No one."
Newman did not mention that he had called earlier
and had been refused permission by Diana to speak to
Arnold.
"How about some one having shot him who has a grudge
against him? A man of the name of Cory, for instance?"
Pointer suggested idly.
"Cory!" Newman repeated reflectively. "I seem to've
heard the name before. But where"
Newman was no fool; Pointer had not thought him one.
"And you think this same Cory—?" Newman queried,
as one at sea.
"One or two things were told us that show that he had a
grudge against Mr. Haslar. That he felt that he had been
drawn into something," Pointer said vaguely. As a boxer,
he watched always the feet of the person to whom he spoke.
Newman moved no part of his body above the table, but his
feet shifted now.
''According to what was told us," Pointer went on in his
''t/iet, ruminative way, "this Major Cory was acting for Mr.
islar in some way."


n8 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"Indeed!" Newman looked politely interested, but no
more.
Pointer rose. He had met a wall. For the moment he
thought it best to retire. It would be sheer waste of time to
ask this man of what he and Haslar had talked, or why he
had called on him.
At the nearest telephone he learnt that a message had just
reached the Yard asking the Chief Inspector to come to Sir
Edward Clifford as soon as possible. He also listened for a
minute to the report from one of his men concerning the
same gentleman. Then he hurried off in his swift gray car.


CHAPTER VII
It was close on ten when Pointer was shown into the room
where Sir Edward sat talking in low tones to Tindall. The
Chief Inspector found a man who, under his surface calm,
looked as though he had had a tremendous shock.
For the rest, Sir Edward was a typical diplomat in appear-
ance. That is to say, a man who kept his real self completely
out of sight. Urbane, courteous, non-committal, he was a
pleasant talker who could speak for hours without betraying
one private opinion—a man who never made a positive state-
ment in public in his life.
Pointer's police glance sought the man behind the arras.
He seemed to see a gentle and affectionate nature with a
strong sense of duty, of right and wrong—not a man of hot
blood, nor one given to swift action. Tindall was with Clif-
ford. He had been waiting for Pointer.
"Sir Edward has a very striking theory," the F.O. man
began, as soon as Pointer had sat down. "He thinks that
though Etcheverrey would not commit an ordinary murder,
yet he might if he thought he was being spied on, or if, even
more, Mr. Clifford had ever—say for some literary purpose
in the future—got into his organisation in some way. You
see? You remember that while the Cliffords were at St. Jean
de Luz two years ago, Etcheverrey's name was in every
paper?"
Pointer nodded. The anti-royalist Basque had given a sort
of free pardon to the ex-Empress Zita through the press.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR til
Mansions this morning. To-morrow will see a big step for-
ward, or all the signs deceive me. I don't think this is a case
that can stand still. There's hurry in it, to my thinking. Did
Mr. Clifford ever say anything to you, Sir Edward, on which
you base your idea of his being particularly interested in
Etcheverrey?"
Sir Edward roused himself from a deep reverie which was
too deep for Pointer's taste. Men do not usually go off into
brown studies when their own theory of their brother's mur-
der is being discussed.
"My brother Julian never referred to Etcheverrey at
Thornbush as if he had any personal knowledge of him.
Though he seemed, I often thought, amazingly well up in his
life story. But then, my brother was well up in so many
things." Clifford spoke in a voice of deep regret.
"Who beside Mr. Clifford referred to Etcheverrey at
Thornbush?" Pointer asked. "Can you remember any one
else who ever questioned you about him?"
"No one but Miss Haslar; and she merely because as a
girl she had heard a good deal of him during the war, when
she once spent a summer at Hendaye."
There was a short silence.
Tindall rose and took a sympathetic leave. He had many
new lines now to follow up. Pointer went with him into the
street, and stood a second beside his car. ,
"How did Sir Edward take the sight of the body in the
mortuary? Did he identify.it?"
"It was a frightful shock to him. Naturally."
"He recognised the body quite definitely?"
"He did. Quite definitely."
"Did he recognise it quickly?" Pointer persisted.
Tindall pulled at his beard.
"I pretty well insisted at the Commissioner's on being the


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 123
fore nothing to do with me." He went on "I happen to know
that Hobbs hadn't even heard of the man's name, except as
Sir Edward talked about him at Thornbush. Of course all of
us at the F.O. are full of nothing else these days. No, what
brought Hobbs would only be some family worry. Or"—
he stopped a moment—"I wonder! Hobbs hinted once to me,
not so long ago either, what one might call his suspicions as
to Clifford's reasons for leaving home every now and then.
But Hobbs had had a glass too much, and I thought nothing
of it. But it's possible that he really thinks Clifford is mixed
up in some scandal. Or may be mixed up in some. And that
would exactly explain Edward Clifford's manner by the
coffin. He didn't want to rush things. He wants time to think
them over. He does, you know. 'Slow and sure' is said to be
his motto. But it's not mine!" And Tindall jumped into a
taxi.
Pointer was shown in again.
"When you spoke to Mr. Clifford of Etcheverrey, was any
other person present?" Pointer asked after a sympathetic
pause.
"Certainly. I often spoke of him when all the Thornbush
household was there. And this last time—after dinner yester-
day—only yesterday!" His voice shook.
"Who was there then?".
"The whole Thornbush household.'*
"Did you ever speak of Etcheverrey's diagram-signature,
or of the name of his refuge in the Pyrenees?"
"Certainly not."
"Do you think Mr. Clifford knew of it?"
"That I cannot say." Sir Edward seemed to be thinking
back. "Tindall has told you, I suppose, of my general im-
pression of my brother being much more up in the facts of
Etcheverrey's activities than I should have expected. A word


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 125
"My bfother never mentioned such a thing to me," he said
finally, with his eyes now intently fixed on the Chief In-
spector. m
"Can you hazard a guess as to any dangerous thing that
Mr. Clifford wis on the eve of doing?" Pointer went on.
"You mean those words of the palmist's—though it's
hardly fair to call Mrs. Jansen that. I think Julian referred
to something connected with Etcheverrey. Obviously, one
might even say."
"I'm always rather distrustful of the obvious," Pointer
said quietly. "You didn't see Mr. Clifford yesterday after
dinner?"
"No, I left Thornbush about nine and went to my rooms
here, where I changed, and drove down to my cottage at
Weybridge. The wood pigeons needed thinning out if any
of my blue peas were to be saved."
Now Pointer was a country boy. The gun taken, the car-
tridges chosen, were such as a man would choose for this
purpose. But, as a rule, wood pigeons come and go between
the hours of five and nine of a July evening.
"Did you shoot many?" he asked carelessly.
"You mean this afternoon? I forgot to take my long-
distance glasses down with me. I'm as blind as a bat a couple
of yards off. So, though I blazed away for half an hour or
so, I only succeeded in hitting one of my own decoys."
"But did you meet any friends at your cottage, Sir Ed-
ward?" Pointer did not disguise the fact that he wis ques-
tioning the other, asking for his alibi.
Sir Edward did not seem to notice what he must have
known lay behind the questions.
"No, I never take friends down with me to Weybridge.
I only go to my cottage whdS I want to be alone. Driving
down a tyre burst. I had no spare wheel. By jogging along


126 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
slowly I crawled to the cottage on the rim, getting to Wey-
bridge nearer one than ten. I slipped in without waking my
housekeeper or her husband, who acts as my butler-valet.
Everything I need is always put up ready for me in the
dining-room. Cold supper, electric kettle. So, as so often
before, I wenf to bed without any one in the house being the
wiser, after leaving a note on the hall table telling them at
what hour to serve breakfast."
"And the car?"
"My chauffeur put on a new wheel."
They drew up at Thornbush. Sir Edward Clifford rang
the bell. Mrs. Clifford was out, he was told, with Mr. Hobbs.
Mr. Newman was out too; so was Mr. Straight.
"That's all right, Trimble. I shall be in Mr. Clifford's
library with this gentleman." Sir Edward led Pointer quickly
into the room and tried a drawer. It was unlocked. From the
back he drew a sealed envelope addressed to himself. It was
marked "The Last Will and Testament of me, Julian
Clifford."
"You think I had better open it?"
Pointer looked the envelope over with his glass. It had not
been tampered with. He handed it back.
"Please."
Again a quiver passed over Sir Edward's face. It looked
like intense emotion as he read the address to himself. In
other words, it was just the look that a clever man would as-
sume at such a moment. And Sir Edward was considered
clever in a quiet way. He glanced it over.
"This is a new will. Made only some six months ago. I'm
still the sole executor and residuary legatee, but the bequest
of ten thousand which my brother told me he was leaving
to Hobbs is halved. Five thousand goes to Newman. And
only five thousand to Hobbs. To Newman 'if still unmarried*


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 127
is the wording. A thousand pounds he asks Mrs. Clifford to
distribute among the servants as she thinks fit. He adds,
after some very moving words of gratitude to her, that he
leaves her nothing at her express wish, as she strongly ob-
jects to inheriting anything from him on his death, and is
otherwise amply provided for."
He handed the will to Pointer, who read it through.
So Sir Edward was his brother's heir. And both he and
the dead man were believed to have loved the same woman,
a woman whom her husband's death would set free. . . .
Pointer did not suspect Sir Edward Clifford, but no po-
sition, however worthily won, no reputation for personal in-
tegrity, could undo these facts.
"Five thousand seems a lot for Mr. Newman," was his
only comment.
"Umm. ... I don't suppose Julian ever expected it would
be handed over. There's not so much difference between them
in years, you know."
"There was no ill-will between Mr. Clifford and Mr.
Hobbs, you think?"
"None whatever. Simply Julian knew that Hobbs is doing
uncommonly well out of his literary commissions, and so on."
"May I copy out the gist of the will?" Pointer asked. He
wanted to stay on a#Thornbush until Mrs. Clifford should
return.
Sir Edward nodded and sank heavily into a chair in a
dark corner.
Head on hand he sat there, apparently deep in thought.
Pointer too was thinking hard. He was busy with the will.
So Mrs. Clifford was left out of the will, and knew it. She *
did not benefit in a monetary sense by her husband's death. ''
Not in the ordinary way. But Mrs. Clifford had cashed a
cheque for seventy thousand pounds as soon after her hus-


128 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
band's murder as the banks were open. To that extent, merely
going by the facts, she had benefited to the tune of a large
fortune.
And the will gave Newman as well as Hobbs five thou-
sand pounds. Seeing that that young man was, as far as was
known, unmarried.
Curious proviso that. Yet both men lost their legacy, or
could not claim it, as long as Clifford's death remained un-
certain. Whoever had cut off Julian Clifford's head had be-
lieved that he had rendered recognition of the corpse im-
possible. And Pointer, though he had not an ounce of vanity
in his nature, knew that with nine out of ten detectives the
ghastly device would have succeeded.
He asked Sir Edward a few questions about the papers
in the desk as he looked them over. The other gave rather
absent-minded but apparently carefully truthful replies.
It was not far short of eleven when a ring came at the
front door. A voice, it sounded like Straight's, but if so it
was tense with excitement, asked if by any chance Sir Ed-
ward Clifford was at Thornbush. The servant showed him in,
Straight's usually impassive face was working. He looked
intensely, painfully stirred.
"Can you get a message through to Mr. Clifford, Sir Ed-
ward?" he asked in the same eager voice.
"No," Sir Edward said dully; "no, I can't. Why?"
"Miss Haslar wants him fetched if it's humanly possible.
She's just had an awful shock. Haslar's spoken. He's re-
covered consciousness. I've come from his house. I had
walked over to find out if anything fresh had been found out.
They fetched Diana, who had gone to bed early—" Straight
seemed to be unable to continue.
"And what did Mr. Haslar say?" Pointer asked quietly,
in that steadying voice of his. He guessed what the injured


130 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"There is a man who might have tried to kill both men,"
Pointer agreed, "a Major Cory."
"Cory!" Edward Clifford recognised the name on the in-
stant. "He certainly hated Julian, and with reason. You
mean, of course, the Major Cory of the Holford Will case.
But where would Haslar come in?"
"We know that Cory and Haslar knew each other,"
Pointer said cautiously. "Here's his picture." He pulled it
out of his pocket and handed it to Straight. "It was taken
some years ago, but it's a good likeness. Did you happen to
see this man at Mr. Haslar's last night?"
But Straight had not seen whoever it was that had been
closeted with Arnold Haslar in his study when he had walked
over to Haslar's house after dinner at Thornbush. He ex-
plained that Haslar had come out and asked him to wait a
few moments, adding that the caller wouldn't stay long.
After the man left, Arnold had spoken of going to a music
hall and a dance club afterwards, but he, Straight, thought
his friend was looking ill, and would be better for a quiet
evening. As Haslar was indignantly denying either looking
ill, or any intention of staying in, the telephone bell had rung.
His friend had gone back into his study—they were in the
library—and had listened to a rather long message. He had
hung up the receiver after saying grudgingly, "Very well; I'll
be there. But it's damned inconvenient." To Straight he had
explained that a very urgent business summons would take
him out of town for some hours. They arranged to postpone
what had been intended as a sort of welcome-back-to-England
celebration for himself till to-night.
"And to-night—" Straight began, when he turned to the
door. They heard the swish of a car driving up. A minute
more and Diana came flying in.
"Uncle Edward, where is Uncle Julian? You must tell me.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 131
I must find him. If you don't know, Alison must speak."
"Why, Miss Haslar?" Pointer asked.
"Tell him, Dick." For once Diana was not equal to a task.
"I have told them. They believe with me that the same—"
He stopped short.
"Uncle Edward, Arnold's raving! But if we could only
find Uncle Julian and bring him to his bedside— There she
is. That's Alison!" She ran out of the room again. Those
inside, openly listening, heard the front door open, heard
Diana's quick, feverish sentences telling Mrs. Clifford of
what her brother Arnold had just said.
"Of course Arnold was delirious. He was shot just after
reading that awful account in the paper about the headless
man found near us, and Uncle Julian being away, he has
confused the two all up as one does in a nightmare. But if
Uncle Julian comes at once"
"Diana dearest!" Mrs. Clifford was speaking in a very
kind tone as she came on into the room.
"You here, Edward? What have you been saying to
frighten Diana? Julian's safe and well, thank God. But I
can't reach him, Di. He gave no address in that note he left
for me. But he said he would be home in time for lunch on
Thursday."
Her eyes went to Pointer.
"This is Chief Inspector Pointer of New Scotland Yard,"
Sir Edward introduced him.
Pointer bowed.
"I'm afraid you must prepare for bad news, Mrs. Clif-
ford," he said very quietly. "We of the police believe that an
accident has happened to Mr. Clifford."
"An accident?" For a second her colour, always pale, grew
whiter still. Then she recovered.
"Oh, no," she said confidently, "I should have known of


132 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
it at once. When do you think this—accident—happened to
my husband? Why do you think it is to Mr. Clifford?" She
spoke with an air of bearing with the stupidity of a child.
"The accident happened last night," Pointer said gravely.
"It was a mortal accident." Then he added, after a little
pause, "The body has been identified beyond any possibility
of doubt, Mrs. Clifford, by the finger-prints."
"But not as my husband's," she said with certainty.
"We believe," Pointer went on, "that a body found near
here at Heath Mansions this morning, and taken at first to
be that of a Basque anarchist, was really that of Mr. Julian
Clifford. There is no possibility of a mistake this time, I am
sorry to say."
"Uncle Julian!" Diana gave a cry. "Uncle Julian!"
Mrs. Clifford stared at Pointer, her head held very high.
"A body? Anarchist? You don't mean that headless body
of which the evening papers are full?"
Pointer said that he did mean that. Her eyes darkened to
green.
"What appalling nonsense I" she said indignantly. "Do you
think that I shouldn't have known immediately—felt it at
once—if anything had happened to him! How abysmally
ignorant you people are of the things of the spirit!" She
turned on her brother-in-law.
"You too, Edward! You too think I wouldn't know! Julian
will laugh when he gets back on Friday!"
"Mrs. Clifford," Pointer said solemnly, "from where he
is, there is no coming back."
Alison flushed a deep rose flush. She drew herself up.
"It's incredible! It's almost as though you all wished—"
Then she checked herself. "Forgive me," she turned to Ed-
ward Clifford, "poor Edward, you look so worn! But your


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 133
grief is all for nothing. Julian is alive ... is well ... is
happy."
"Where is he?" Pointer asked, with something of stern-
ness in his voice.
She gave a careless twitch of her slender shoulder. "You
will know all in good time."
"I am afraid we must take our own measures then,"
Pointer replied.
"You mustn't do anything that Julian wouldn't approve of
when he gets back," she said quickly. "Edward, I trust you
to see to that."
"I want to look into his money matters," Pointer said
slowly.
Alison Clifford started palpably.
"Certainly not! That is my cousin, Mr. Hobbs', affair. He
is my husband's literary agent. Julian would never forgive
such a thing. You must wait, Edward"—she spoke with
urgency—"Julian will be back by Friday."
"May I see the letter left for you this morning?" Pointer
asked. "I understand that a note was left for each person in
the house."
"I have destroyed my letter," the answer was instant, and
Mrs. Clifford left the room with an air of deep displeasure.
"How about you, Miss Haslar?" Pointer turned to the
slender figure shrinking, almost cowering back away from
the others.
"I—I don't know where mine is," Diana said in a stran-
gled voice.
"Could you give us an idea of its contents?"
She seemed to force herself with difficulty to speech.
"It was only a line to say that Uncle Julian wanted to
verify some topographical point, that he would be back on


134 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Friday at latest, and would I meanwhile go on with my
grandfather's letters."
"And dated?"
"It was dated yesterday." Diana had turned to Edward
Clifford while speaking. He avoided her eye.
So he believed that his brother was dead. He believed that
Arnold was responsible, that those wild words . . .
Suddenly she stepped up to Pointer, laid her hands on his
arm, and looked dumbly up into his face. An agonised ques-
tion was in her eyes. It would have been touching had it been
any woman, but from Diana Haslar that mute appeal was
very moving.
"I see," she said hoarsely. "There is no hope. He is dead.
Oh, God!" It was a prayer, not a mere ejaculation.
Straight stepped forward as she made for the door and
took her hand. Sir Edward looked on with no softening
lines of his set mouth.
"I'd like a word with you, Mr. Straight, as soon as you've
seen Miss Haslar into her car," Pointer suggested.
Straight came back, looking years older than the young
man whom Sir Edward had met for the first time only last
Saturday.
"Now, Mr. Straight," Pointer began, "we know you've
only just landed in England, but it seems that Mr. Julian
Clifford had talked with you after dinner last night"—the
gas man had learnt that from the butler—"his last dinner.
Did he seem to have anything on his mind?"
"Well, I think he had," Straight said judicially. "Of course
I thought then that he probably was always a little distrait."
"Julian was distrait at times," Edward Clifford murmured,
with what struck Pointer as a rather wary look at Straight.
"At any rate he was so then. Long silences. Just a word
now and then."


136 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
as he stepped over the sill, I thought he was going to ask
my advice about something—or wanted me to help him in
something"
"Julian!" repeated Edward Clifford, in palpable amaze-
ment.
"I'm only giving my impressions. And the impressions of
a stranger may be all wrong. But that's what I thought. I
was going to say something like 'Is there anything I can do?'
But of course I thought that if there was, he'd have said so."
Straight stopped. He looked as though half minded to say
no more, half inclined to add something to what he had said.
"Well?" Pointer prompted.
Still Straight hesitated. "It's rather difficult to go on. You
don't know me. I might be an imaginative chap . . . given to
romancing. . . . I'm not. I'm the opposite. But you don't
know that."
"Well?" Pointer asked again.
"You'll think I've fear on the brain—but I thought Mr.
Clifford not at all keen on the short absence from Thornbush
of which he spoke. Or rather, to which he referred. The first
time was in the course of some directions as to what he
wanted done. He said—as nearly as possible—'I've a lot of
foreign books, most of which I don't care about, yet some
of which are quite worth having. Pick out those you would
propose to keep. Then leave the rest for me to look over. I
may be away for a short time from Thornbush, but I'll
glance them over when I get back.' There he stopped. There
was a long silence. Then he said to himself, 'when I come
back.' And his face and voice sounded like a man very doubt-
ful of his coming back. That was all then. Another moment
came in the course of a few words about Australia, and trav-
els in general. He said—after another long silence— 'Yes,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 137
travelling is pleasant. If you want to go, and are sure you'll
get back safely.' That's all I have to go on. Just those two
remarks. But both, and especially the latter, sounded to me
as though Mr. Clifford was nervous of something that lay
before him. I thought at the time, until just now, in fact,
that he must be a poor traveller, bad sailor, and so on."
"Julian! Well, Straight, thank you for telling us this. You
certainly have surprised me." Sir Edward sounded genuinely
amazed and also a shade relieved, Pointer thought. "It's as
unlike my brother as though you had been talking of
a stranger. I suppose it really was Julian? You saw his
face?"
"Oh, yes." Straight laughed at the idea of a substituted
Julian Clifford. "He sat on after dinner and went out into
the garden . . . joined you. ... I heard your voices dimly."
There was a little pause.
"And here," Straight rose, "is the note which I received,
ostensibly from Mr. Clifford, this morning." He handed a
folded piece of paper to Pointer.
"Did you keep it for any especial reason?" the Chief In-
spector asked, reading it.
"I—don't—know," Straight said slowly. "I suppose I
should have kept it in any case, but—well, the note struck
me as odd."
"In what way 'odd'?"
"Well—unlike his words of the evening before. Here he
tells me to turn to Hobbs and Newman."
Edward Clifford looked the letter over very carefully. It
was dated yesterday.
"Dear Mr. Straight,—A passage in my novel needs verifi-
cation on the spot. I expect, however, to be back at Thornbush
by Friday. I should like you to begin with the subject index


138 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
as you planned. Newman will give you any help in his power. So
will Hobbs, of course.
"Faithfully yours,
"Julian Clifford."
"You think this is Mr. Clifford's writing?" Pointer asked
Sir Edward.
"I should say so. Certainly. The very way the punctuation
marks are made is his. And that signature. It's on his own
paper, too."
It was more than that, thought Pointer. Like the additions
to the cheque, it was written with Julian Clifford's own pen,
or its exact mate. But as to whether the dead man had writ-
ten it
"Did you see Miss Haslar's note?" he asked Straight.
"Yes. She showed it me. Hers and mine were lying on the
hall table when I went out for a walk before breakfast. I
noticed them lying there along with two for Hobbs and New-
man."
"She expressed no surprise at her letter?"
"None." Straight did not add that she had looked very un-
easy and had scanned it in silence more than once. Instead
he said good-night.
He left a profound silence behind him.
"His conversation with Mr. Straight—the tone of it—was
very unusual on Mr. Clifford's part?" Pointer asked.
"My brother must have been deeply disturbed," Edward
Clifford replied in the tone of a man taking swift mental
soundings. Pointer thought that some little part of what he
had heard fitted in, perhaps very badly, with something^else.
Edward Clifford, supposing him to be honest, had not ex-
claimed at the idea of Julian Clifford dreading his journey
as he had at the idea of his being afraid of his secretary.
"Afraid of Newman," he repeated again. "Amazing! Un-


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 139
ider ordinary circumstances I should say Straight was romanc-
ing, but as it is—!" He sighed profoundly. "Well, I have
always known that my brother's secretary is a queer fish. But
this throws a new, and a most sinister light on his queerness."
"In what way queer?" Pointer asked, as though Newman
had struck him as a type of the commonplace.
"In every way. Of course I know about his lost memory,
and so on, but I used to watch him very closely after Julian
first took him up, and I came to the conclusion that he didn't
want his past to come back to him. There are exercises,
founded on the Freudian theories, of getting into touch with
the submerged half of the mind. He never would allow them
to be tried on him. I— Well—frankly I sometimes doubted
whether his memory was entirely gone. And I'll tell you an-
other person who more than doubted, and that's Miss Haslar.
She never said so, but I'm sure of it. She distrusted Newman
from the first, and insisted that Julian was doing a foolish
thing to keep him on. But Julian was one of those men who,
when they back a side, can only see that side. He never backed
it lightly, I'm bound to say. But once his stand was definitely
taken, nothing could shift him."
"Could I speak to Mr. Newman?" Pointer asked. Sir Ed-
ward rang the bell. But Mr. Newman was out. When had he
left? Directly after "this gentleman" had called to see him.
About half-past nine.
"This gentleman," otherwise Chief Inspector Pointer, rose
as soon as the door shut behind the servant.


CHAPTER VIII
"I think we had better have a look at Mr. Newman's rooms.
Will you show me where they are?" Pointer asked.
Sir Edward took him up. The secretary's bed-room pre-
sented a scene of wild disorder. Coats and clothing had been
flung here and there. A bag stood half packed, and then aban-
doned. A gaping suit-case too had been apparently discarded
at the last moment as too hampering.
"Flight!" Edward Clifford looked about him with a slow
pallor creeping over his face. "Does this mean that we're
standing in the room of the man who murdered my brother
and mutilated his body so horribly? If so, it'll be"
Pointer said nothing. He was looking intently about him.
"If so"—Edward Clifford's tone changed: it hardened—
"if so, Chief Inspector, then that legacy was the motive."
He spoke in a quiet but authoritative voice. Pointer won-
dered what other possibility he was definitely shutting out.
"Five thousand pounds might tempt a poor man," Pointer
agreed.
"And, as you know, Newman has a salary of only two
hundred and fifty pounds a year. Ample, but not if he were
of extravagant tastes. If Newman killed my brother, there
is no other motive possible."
"It will be a shock to Mrs. Clifford, I'm afraid," Pointer
murmured, "I mean this apparent flight."
"A frightful one. She believed entirely in the man's good
faith. So much of a shock that I think it should be kept from
her for the present."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 141
"If possible," Pointer said non-committally.
"I think it will be quite possible. But—if Newman is
guilty, what are we to think of Haslar's cry?"
"It's a very intricate case this, Sir Edward," Pointer said
thoughtfully, as he too glanced all around the room. "One
step at a time is all that we can hope for."
"I suppose Newman will be followed if he really has
tried, as this room suggests that he has, to escape?"
Pointer set his mind at rest. One of his best men was in
charge of Newman. He swiftly made up a parcel of the
absent man's clothing—a very complete parcel.
"They give us his measurements," he explained in answer
to Edward Clifford's inquiring stare. "Part of the regular
routine. You knew Mr. Newman well?"
"I lived at Thornbush for five months after he first came
to Mr. Clifford. While Cleave Ford was being fitted with
central heating."
"What about his time off? Regular time on which he could
count, I mean," Pointer asked.
"His evenings were generally his own. So were Saturdays
as a rule. And Sundays always."
"Do you know what he did in the evening, or over the
week end?"
"Evenings—I think he never went anywhere except to
Arnold Haslar's. He became tremendous friends with him
from the first. But on Sundays he vanished utterly and
completely. We used to chaff him about it until we saw that
he didn't like it much." Sir Edward stopped.
Pointer had stepped to the fireplace. All the grates at
Thornbush were concealed by handsome, wrought-iron double
doors like small casement windows inset within the marble
of the fireplace. It was the neatest way of dealing with small
stoves, or grates, that Pointer knew. He believed it to be


142 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
a Belgian idea. At least, he had often come across it in
Brussels. He now opened the little doors and stooping down,
felt the bars. Then his eye travelled up the wall. He stepped
quickly into the bathroom, and came out with a small nickel
shaving-cup in his hand. He detached a water-colour picture
from the wall. Then he dragged a table across the fireplace,
placed a chair on it, and stepping lightly up, held the picture,
glass-side up, as a tray, while he gently blew something on
to it off the picture rail—a small wisp of charred paper,
so black that no writing showed on its thin film. Then he
drew out the cup from his pocket and carefully turned it
down over the fragment, holding it all very level as he
stepped down on to the floor, and put it on the table.
"Mr. Newman burnt something in that grate. The bar is
still warm. Nothing big. He crushed it all into fragments,
but this one bit must have escaped his notice and blown up
there. I'll send a man with it and Mr. Newman's clothes to
the Yard at once. We may learn something from them."
From below came the sound of a banged door. And then
another.
"That must be Hobbs." Clifford listened for a moment.
"He must be told, of course; about Newman, I mean. But
I think Mrs. Clifford should be kept in ignorance of what
has happened. After all, Newman may return to the house.
It's just possible that this room does not mean what it seems
to mean. Don't you think so, Chief Inspector?"
"I don't think he'll come back," Pointer said thought-
fully, following Clifford down the stairs and into the library,
after handing his parcel to his chauffeur, and placing the
cup and picture with extreme care in an attache case which
he strapped over an air cushion on a collapsible table in the
car.
Julian Clifford's literary agent was standing with his legs


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 14?
far apart, swaying slightly. He looked savagely up at them
as they entered.
"Well, what d'ye want?" was his greeting. "What's up
now?"
Clifford looked at him with thinly veiled disgust. The
man had been drinking.
"Something has happened to Julian," was Sir Edward's
short reply.
Hobbs stared. White streaks like dead fingers showed on
his cheeks. He seemed trying to pull himself together.
"What d'ye mean?" he asked a trifle less surlily. "I
thought I told you . . ."
"He's been killed—murdered." Edward Clifford could be
terse too. "This is Chief Inspector Pointer of New Scot-
land Yard. He's investigating the case."
Hobbs's dropped jaw all but prevented his nodding to
Pointer. He certainly looked an amazed man.
"It was his body that was found near here in Heath Man-
sions this morning. That headless body." Edward Clifford
gulped at those last horrid words.
Hobbs seemed sobered. His face grew mealy white. He
was a handsome enough man in a big, burly way. He seemed
to shrink a little now.
"I say, this is going too fast! How do you know—if it
has no head—how do you know it's Julian?"
"There is no doubt possible," Pointer assured him. "And
now Mr. Hobbs, would you mind explaining just where you
thought Mr. Clifford was when you assured an official of the
Home Office this morning that he was collecting local colour,
probably in Liverpool?"
Edward Clifford was looking intently at Hobbs. Hobbs
looked back at him. A blank, non-committal look. And yet
he sent a message to the other.


*44 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"I thought he had gone, as he so often does, for literary
material. But I can't grasp this awful news! It's incredible.
Surely there's been some mistake. If his head is off, I repeat
how can you be sure it's Julian's body?"
Pointer explained about the identified finger-prints.
"And the thickened finger-joint is his. So's the scar on
the sole of the foot," Edward Clifford finished.
"You're absolutely certain it's Julian?" Hobbs asked,
biting his lip.
"Certain? Absolutely," the dead man's brother assured
him.
Hobbs grew paler yet.
"I can't believe it!" he said thickly. "I can't realise it."
Suddenly he straightened up.
"My God! Haslar was all but murdered too!" He turned
a white, wild face from one to the other. "What does it
mean? Why these two?"
"Mr. Hobbs," Pointer asked again, instead of replying,
"where did you think that Julian Clifford was? Have you
no idea where he might be expected to be, supposing he had
really gone away of his own free will yesterday morning?"
"None whatever," Hobbs said promptly—a shade too
promptly. He looked hard at Sir Edward.
There was a silence. Pointer noticed that Edward Clifford
did not seem any more anxious to question Hobbs than he
had been to question Straight, though he listened with an
even more strained attention.
"Have you had any unusual visitors at Thornbush lately?"
Pointer asked.
"By Jove!" Hobbs looked this time hard at the detective
officer. "There was a man—refused to give his name—asked
for Newman. Saturday morning around twelve. Newman
was out. He then asked for me by name. I had him shown


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 147
a full minute. And then Hobbs said in a thick, low voice,
hoarse with passion:—
"What's Mrs. Orr to do with this? I was speaking of a
possible separate establishment of Julian's. Not of friends
of himself and his wife."
"And now, Mr. Hobbs, one question," Pointer went on
coolly, "where were you last night from, say, ten onwards?"
"I went out to post a letter at ten or half-past," Hobbs
said easily enough. "I was talking with Mrs. Clifford and
writing at the same time, till my cousin went up to bed. Then,
as I said, I went out to post a letter, found it a marvellous
summer night. Came back and sat on in the garden for a
while, then went to bed. It was just short of twelve when
I wound up my watch. This morning I found I'd caught a
chill out under the trees. When I got down about eleven I
found a letter for me from Julian"
"You kept that letter?"
"Don't think so. I'll look, of course; but, as a rule, I
never keep any but important letters."
"Did you hear or see anything of Mr. Clifford before you
went to bed?"
"Yes, I heard him in his library, I thought. I feel certain
I left him there when I went out to post the letter. After-
wards I didn't come through the house at once. By the time
I went up to bed all was dark downstairs."
He was not able, or appeared not to be able, to add any-
thing more except just as he was turning away. "Wait a
bit—I seem to remember a telephone ringing in the library as
I sat talking to Mrs. Clifford. I have a fancy that I heard
Clifford reply. That's what made me certain he was there
when I went out."
"You can't remember any words of his reply?" Pointer
asked.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 149
ruin of him unless he checks it," Edward Clifford went on,
"a habit of taking more than is good for him. But he's not
a criminal. On the other hand, he's a man who lives a fast,
careless life. That idea of his about my brother's absences"—
Edward curled his lip—"put it quite out of your head, Chief
Inspector. Anything dishonourable would be impossible
to—" And then Edward Clifford came to a full stop. He
flushed scarlet. "Er—er—his private life was absolutely
exemplary." He finished hastily, and getting up began to
walk up and down the room, apparently getting deeper and
deeper into a brown study.
Pointer was certain that Julian Clifford was engaged in
something not strictly legal when he had met his death. It
had seemed a strange thing of which to suspect the great
author. But there was his odd question to Astra. There was
Hobbs. . . . Hobbs knew something, or thought that he did.
So did Mrs. Clifford. Edward Clifford's flush of just now,
all bore out the same idea. Besides, though he was apparently
grief-stricken at his brother's terrible fate, he also seemed
absolutely without any ideas as to how, and where, the
search for the murderer should be started. He was as one lost
in bewildered helplessness. Pointer had come to the conclu-
sion that Sir Edward did not want the circumstances of
Julian Clifford's death probed, except as they concerned
Etcheverrey. He either knew, or feared, that any other line
of inquiry would open up painful details—painful to the
living. He must have some reason for this. It was not one
that would have occurred offhand to any reader of Julian
Clifford's lofty books. He had turned down Robbs's idea of
an intrigue with scorn. But what other idea did he hold
himself?
Pointer had believed at first that if he could find the head
of Julian Clifford and establish the identity of the murdered


ISO THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
man beyond question, that he would get all the members of
his family to speak, and so come on the clue to this most
strange death. But not if this idea were right. In that case,
even then, he could look for no help from the Thombush
circle. Nothing would bring back the dead, they would ar-
gue. Pointer knew how egoistic people can be when it is a
question of a family scandal. Better, they would think, that
ten murderers escaped than that one just man should have
cause to wince. Pointer did not agree. But that being the case,
the whereabouts of Julian Clifford's head faded into the
second place beside the question of what the writer had been
doing, what planning, what other interests he had, besides
his interest in Etcheverrey?
How could he, Pointer, locate the place where Clifford
was supposed to be, if he were honestly supposed to be alive?
That vision of him in her crystal which Mrs. Clifford had
thought that she saw, or had pretended to see. . . . Houses
with -"gables like steps" mounting into heaven. He believed
that those words had really slipped out. If so, they might help
to orient the search. But how could the Chief Inspector get
on the track of those gables? Where were such gables? Eng-
lish they were not. Nor Basque. Nor French. Nor Spanish.
Pointer ran through a long list of the impossibles. Yet ap-
parently they were in the street where Mrs. Clifford thought
that her husband was—supposing her to be innocent.
Tindall was shown in.
"So the secretary's run away! Being trailed, of course."
Pointer said that he sincerely hoped so.
"Can I see his room?" Tindall surveyed the wild scene
thoughtfully. Then he returned to the two men in the library.
He closed the door carefully, even though a detective was
on duty in the hall.
"Sir Edward, a thought has been growing in my mind


152 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
day, the finished chapters being in the left-hand drawers, the
notes for the future parts, or for the whole, in the right-
hand ones. I took the liberty of glancing at the contents of
the middle drawer"—for the second time, he might have
added. "Mr. Clifford has apparently stopped at the very last
line of a page and in the middle of a sentence. Of course
I don't know, but I should have thought that an author
would finish a sentence, especially this one. It runs: 'Roberts
felt that the*—I can't imagine even a boy in school of a
summer day when the bell rang leaving a sentence hung up
like that. And Mr. Clifford has a pile of untouched manu-
script paper in the same drawer."
"My brother would have finished writing down his thought
while the boat sank beneath him!" breathed Edward Clifford
tensely. "But the remainder of the sentence—the next page—
may be in a blotter." Hurriedly he led the way into the room
where he had handed Pointer the will. He pulled open the
central drawer.
There, in a neat pile, lay Chapter nine of The Soul of
Ishmael. There lay the third page with its typing running
down to the very margin of the lowest edge. As Pointer had
said, it ended with the unfinished sentence. Beside it was a
carbon copy. It, too, showed no further pages.
Tindall and Sir Edward hunted skilfully, minutely, as men
hunt who are used to searching for papers. Neither they, nor
the Chief Inspector, found any completion of the phrase.
Apparently Julian Clifford had stopped his typewriter at
"the" and never touched it again.
"Some one has taken the page, or pages, following!"
Edward Clifford muttered, as he straightened the piles again;
"Newman probably."
Pointer was examining a sheet of carbon paper in front
of a mirror.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 153
"Here's proof or at least strong presumptive evidence of
the fact that there were more pages on that pile. That sheet
there is page three. Here are a whole bunch of superim-
posed numbers, that's certainly an eighteen. Mr. Clifford is
hardly likely to have torn up so many pages?"
"Certainly not. He worked page by page, not leaving one
until it was perfect in his eyes. I wonder"—Sir Edward
tapped the table nervously—"if it was his next chapter for
the Arcturus. If so, it would be nearly finished by now, I
fancy. He was never behind with his work. Where's the
last Arcturus?" He spun round on his heel and pulled the
monthly in question out of a revolving bookstand. "Yes.
Chapter eight was the last. What can you make out on the
carbon sheet, Chief Inspector?"
Pointer explained that chemicals and photographs would
get the full value. As it was, he could only read a few sen-
tences. Tindall, more experienced at such work, did a little
better, but he soon flung it down.
"That all takes place in England! That's no good!" Then
a moment later he gave an exclamation that brought Pointer
and Clifford to his side. He held up a slip of paper with
some sentences scribbled on it. They were in Julian Clifford's
small, close writing.
He read them aloud.
"'Have Roberts next go to Capvern, and meet E. Join
E.'s band—England having become dangerous. Get neces-
sary details as to organisation of E.'s band.' There we are!"
Tindall waved the paper in front of Sir Edward, who nearly
snatched at it, and then tried to read it upside down. He
nodded when he had scanned it.
"Get necessary details as to organisation of E.'-s band,"
he repeated. "Julian's way, when a thought occurred to him,
was to jot it down on the 'first thing that came to hand


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 155
L.hey return home, build something in the style of the
icuntry where they made their money. But now about this
idea of yours. I think we shall score this time. Team work
does it. That, of course, was why Mr. Clifford asked Mrs.
Jansen the question about possible danger. Playing with
dynamite wasn't in it with probing too deeply into Etche-
verrey's organisation, or into his past."
There was a pause.
"I wonder if Julian suspected the truth, or what we be-
lieve to have been the truth, at the end?" Clifford said,
coming out of a deep reverie. "If so, that would explain
why he wanted quietly to get rid of his private secretary,
why he warned the new librarian of Newman. He might
well! Poor Julian, he might well! And if only suspicious,
Julian would not speak of it to any one—least of all to
me—about a man who might be innocent, who might really
have lost his memory."
"That lost memory was a master-stroke," Tindall mur-
mured appreciatively. "Now I'll confess something that's
been disturbing me not a little." Clifford shot a glance at
Pointer. "Julian asked me about"—he seemed to think a
moment—"about two months ago, how one could best make
a large payment to a foreigner in such a way that it couldn't
be traced back to oneself. I naturally showed surprise. I
suggested letters of credit, but he insisted that the money
must be untraceable. I couldn't help him with any advice.
Bonds to bearer seemed the only way out, since he said
that a large sum of money might be in question. But when
I pressed him as to what he was up to, he looked at me
thoughtfully and finally said that I had better know nothing
whatever about the matter.
"I confess I asked no more. I was startled, uneasy. No
one likes to hear a member of his own family put questions


156 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
like those. No one occupying a responsible post in the coun-
try, that is. Not with the Labour Party always ready to
sling mud at us. I confess I thought of a subsidised paper
for distribution in Italy—to be printed in Switzerland, inde-
pendent of Fascist censure. Julian had some such idea in
his mind, I know. I was, of course, strongly opposed to it.
But now I see that he was probably thinking of Etche-
verrey or some lieutenant of his. Perhaps that was partly
in Hobbs's mind when he talked to me this afternoon in the
train. He told me that he believed Julian was away on an er-
rand which it might be as well not to investigate. He told
me that, apropos of a man from the Home Office who had
called at Thornbush this morning. A man called Mar-
bury"
Pointer bowed with a faint smile. "I was Marbury."
"Hobbs said that he hoped he would not insist on investi-
gating where Clifford really was. Warned me that he was
afraid that Julian had got mixed up in something—well,
something of which it might be as well not to speak in the
market-place at the moment. Then he even suggested, as he
did again before you, that Julian was mixed up in some vul-
gar intrigue."
Edward Clifford took a turn up the room and back.
"That discovery of the Chief Inspector's about the page—
his idea about the coming revelations in Julian's novel—
they do indeed open up vistas. Julian lunched with Ban-
croft only last week, I know. I know too that he talked
very freely with his publishers. Bancroft may have some
precious piece of information to give us to-morrow. You'll
come with me, of course, Tindall, and you too, I hope, Chief
Inspector."
But Pointer could not promise. He arranged for a tele-
phone report in case he were detained.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 157
"Was Mr. Clifford in the habit of talking over what he
was writing? In his own home, I mean?"
"As far as I know, never. He liked to get away from his
work in his leisure hours. But, of course, to his secretary
he would doubtless refer to his work. Probably discuss
it—dreadful thought—with him."
"And the person who took the remaining page or pages
of the chapter that Clifford was writing"—Tindall was deep
in conjectures—"would be that same private secretary, who,
if we're right—as we most certainly are—was the very char-
acter that Clifford was about to introduce. Newman may
have sent that telephone message to Clifford which
Hobbs thinks he heard. The message might easily have asked
Clifford to come to Fourteen Heath Mansions to meet some
one whom Newman might have assured Clifford was an ex-
pert Basque scholar. But an invalid, say. Yes, that all fits in
quite well into the known facts."
"And Haslar?" Edward Clifford frowned, "what was
Haslar's role?"
"Haslar," Tindall replied thoughtfully, "was, we know,
or rather is, supposed to be a great friend of Newman's.
He may be, instead, merely his tool or his prisoner. But
Haslar, we may take it, acting according to his instructions,
takes the flat." Tindall paused, evidently getting together
some more straw for his next brick. "Cory—like a vulture,
his presence with both men means that something's wrong,
he's the very emblem of death throughout—Cory who was to
figure as Captain Brown ... as the Basque expert, per-
haps"—Tindall's cheeks were flushed as he reconstructed
his scene—"Cory, we learn from Hobbs, was sent on Satur-
day morning to Thornbush to get a general idea of Mr.
Clifford. Perhaps he was to invite Mr. Clifford to Fourteen
Heath Mansions then. At any rate, that fell through. Etche-


158 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
verrey miscalculated there. Or Cory outran his instructions.
But about Haslar—are we to take Haslar's ravings as merely
empty words? Or have they a substratum of fact?" He ad-
dressed this directly to Pointer.
"Not as empty words, merely," Pointer thought decidedly.
"I believe the relations between Mr. Clifford and Mr. Has-
lar have been a little strained of late?" he asked, turning to
Sir Edward.
"They have seen less of each other," Edward Clifford al-
lowed. "Like Hobbs, Haslar is prone to put the worst con-
struction on the most innocent things. My brother was in-
terested as a character in a coming novel, in a friend of the
Haslars. In the Mrs. Orr whom you mentioned, and whom,
for once, Hobbs had the grace to defend. Arnold Haslar
took it upon himself to resent my brother's interest."
"Perhaps Mr. Haslar was in love with the lady," Pointer
suggested artlessly.
"Very likely. But as my brother was in love with his own
wife, he need have had no fears on that score," Edward
Clifford replied curtly.
There was a short silence broken dreamily by Tindall, still
at his weaving. "Was Newman's the hand that actually fired
the shot at Haslar? What do you say, Chief Inspector?" He
wished that Pointer would join a little more freely in the
discussion. After all, though not the Foreign Office, the Yard
does good work—quite good work.
Pointer told the facts of Newman's probable visit to Has-
lar's house as revealed by his tiny vacuum sweeper. But he
made no comment on them. Instead he seemed to change the
subject.
"Apart altogether from his own work, did Mr. Clifford
have any papers or letters in his possession which Mr. Has-
lar wanted, or may have wanted?" he asked unexpectedly.


160 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
dall looked almost wistfully at Pointer, who was staring at
his own shoe-tips.
"I wonder," Pointer said suddenly, "if you would allow a
chartered accountant to go through Mr. Clifford's accounts,
Sir Edward?"
Clifford stared. "You think?"
"I think they ought to be very carefully looked into,"
Pointer said, rising, "merely as a matter of routine, of
course."
"Oh, yes, I see. Of course. I heard my brother say, by
the way, that Straight was a chartered accountant before he
took up librarian's work."
"Good. Perhaps you would see him about it. I would like
it done as soon as possible. The thing can't be done secretly,
of course, since the accounts are under Mr. Hobbs, I be-
lieve?"
"Entirely. As I told you, Julian was more than satisfied
with him. Besides having a splendid knowledge of where to
place work, he's a wonder with figures. He was Third
Wrangler, you know."
And on that Pointer took his leave.
"Fine fellow, Pointer," Tindall said, as the door closed.
"One of the best brains at Scotland Yard. Quite a marvel
for his years, but the police routine sets its seal on a man's
mind. They can't get away from it." And he plunged into
the necessary steps to be taken to follow up and prove his
theory.
Pointer meanwhile drove back to his own rooms at Scot-
land Yard. Night and day were but figures of speech to him
when need was. Various men had been routed out of bed and
some modern magic as soon as his car had reached Scotland
Yard.
When Sir Humphry Davy saved the papyri of Pompeii,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 161
he blazed the trail £->r the treatment of all charred papers,
though that trail has turned many a corner since then.
In this instance the paper was heated again and photo-
graphed the second before it crumbled to a white ash. Charred
paper so heated gives off minute quantities of gas which fog
certain specially prepared plates. Ink, however invisible to the
r aked eye, acts like a screen between the paper and the cam-
era, shutting off the action of the gases, so that when devel-
oped the plate is foggy except in the places marked with ink.
Pointer was finally handed a photograph of that small
island of salvaged paper, which a touch would have turned
into black dust, on which now he read
I know the danger
discovered your secret
wife
The last word was very doubtful. It might have been knife
or life. The writing and the paper and the ink were all those
of Julian Clifford.
Pointer sat for a second lost in meditation. Tindall would
he pleased to see this. He had a copy sent over to his flat.
Compared with this feat, the deciphering of the carbon
paper was child's play. Heated, treated, rolled, photographed,
enlarged, one of Pointer's men had typed page after page
from it—ten pages in all—with only here and there a blank
word. Evidently Clifford used a very good brand of carbon
paper. It showed that there had been twenty pages in all,
finishing the chapter. As Tindall had thought, they were en-
irely concerned with England, but copies would none the
.ess be sent to him and Sir Edward, along with the copies
>f the two sentences extracted from the burnt paper that had
down up on to Newman's picture rail.
Then Pointer turned to another report, concerning New-


l62
THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
man's clothes, which he had sent to the Yard at the same time.
These had one by one been put into as many paper bags,
sealed, beaten, and the dust then microscopically examined.
A certain gray waistcoat had yielded, among other usual
trifles such as cigarette dust, lead pencil dust, quite a knob—
microscopically speaking—of fiddler's rosin, more properly
called colophane; a rosin, that is, which is used by violinists
to give their bows more bite on the strings. The analyst had
added a note to say that this special rosin was "black rosin,"
such as is used exclusively by players of the double bass.
The microscope had also found on the knob several bits
of very fine quality Wilton carpet wool of a deep, soft blue.
In other words, the waistcoat had been worn by some one
who played the double bass in a room where there was a blue
Wilton pile carpet. The same message came from one of the
coat sleeves.
So Newman played the double bass. It suited his grave face,
his slender hands and wrists, that Pointer thought looked
made of whipcord.
Double bass and blue carpet. . . .
It was not an address, but it was something.
An inquiry over the telephone brought confirmation of
the terrible words gasped out by Haslar to his sister. Words
heard by the night nurse as well. But Haslar was not yet
dead. He still breathed. Pointer's plain-clothes man added
that he himself was sitting in the room behind a screen.
And finally there came yet another message for the Chief
Inspector before he left the Yard.
It was from a very unhappy wight, who explained that he
had lost Newman—lost him hopelessly.
"Clever of you, Black," Pointer murmured. "How did you
manage it? Or is it a patent process?"
"I didn't do it, sir," the man breathed apologetically, "it's


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 163
not the first time that chap's given a trailer the slip. Not by
a long chalk. He left Thornbush immediately after you. I
followed him on to a bus. He got off at Charing Cross post
office, and posted two letters. Then he went into a cinema."
"Ah," said Pointer, "just so!"
"But he didn't try the usual trick of walking in one door
and out another," the detective explained resentfully. "I was
prepared for that. No. He must have doubled back on his
own tracks in some way. Sat down for a second and then
slipped out by the door he came in. All I know is, he has gone.
Gone completely."
Pointer was not pleased. But no man, not even a detective,
can do more than his best. And after all, the Yard had the
blue carpet and the double bass to cling to.
He wrote out a description of Julian Clifford's missing
secretary for insertion in the Gazette, the police daily paper
which no civilian may read. In it, and over the telephone to all
police stations, orders were given that the constables were to
report any place, where they heard, or had heard in the re-
cent past, stringed music regularly played, especially on a
Sunday.
They were told to pass on the request to all milkmen and
postmen on their beats or in their neighbourhood. The
stringed instrument especially suspicious was given as the
double bass, but as Pointer was not sure that a constable's
ear could be certain of distinguishing it properly, he also
included the whole range of riddles, preferring to sift all in-
formation later.
A snapshot of Newman was enlarged for the paper and
printed on a grating so that every deviation from the abso-
lutely regular was at once noticed. They were very trifling,
very few.
Ordinary enlargements of the snapshot were got ready to


164 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
be taken to-morrow by detectives to all musical societies, all
instrument dealers, and musical supply stores. A double bass
presupposes chamber music, or membership of some or-
chestra, or musical society. A telephone call was sent to all
taxi stands and garages asking any men to report at the
Yard who had recently carried a double bass. It was barely
possible that they had carried one to-night. Newman, even
though he thought his home address undetectable, might
have changed it, and his instrument, to a fresh place. Here
was one of those points that no amount of reasoning could
settle. No deductions in the world would discover where that
place was. But the dust beaten out of his waistcoat pocket
and examined under the microscope might yet find it. Then
Pointer called it a day, and went to bed.
But at dawn he was up again, and out at Thornbush,
watching with the two road-menders the summer sun wake
the garden. Nothing on earth is more lovely. When it grew
light enough to see, the men shook off the spell, and fell to
work on the places which had been marked by the two "lads
after their dormouse," as having been recently disturbed.
They found nothing, let alone a tin box with plaster—and
a head—in it.
Then Pointer whizzed along to Haslar's garden. The same
dormouse had escaped there too, it seemed. Places of dis-
turbed earth had been marked. So the same search took
place here too, with the same negative result.


CHAPTER IX
Pointer was at breakfast at eight o'clock when he received
a letter rushed up to him by a motor cyclist from Scotland
Yard, where it had just been delivered. It had been posted the
previous evening at Charing Cross. It was signed A. New-
man, and ran:—
"To Detective Chief Inspector Pointer.
"Dear Sir,—I know that you have had your suspicions of
me, and that it is only a question of days before the trap closes
if I stay at Thornbush. I prefer to slip away while I can. The
headless body found in Fourteen Heath Mansions, and iden-
tified—publicly, at any rate—by the police as Etcheverrey, a
Basque anarchist, is Mr. Julian Clifford's. I killed him last
night for reasons which concern no one but myself. I took the
flat for a month, under the name of Tourcoin, and induced Mr.
Clifford to come there late last night. The rest you know.
Haslar guessed what had happened when he read the description
of his coat and ring, borrowed by me; as well as from some
things that I let slip. I shot him to prevent his going to the
police. I did not intend to hurt him severely. My intention was
to inflict a slight wound to disable him until I could make my
arrangements.
"Faithfully yours,
"A. Newman."
Pointer had barely finished this when his telephone buzzed.
It was one of the men whom he had left at Arnold Haslar's
house. He was speaking from a near-by telephone. He read


166 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
out to the Chief Inspector the letters which he had just taken
from the postman. None interested Pointer except one from
Newman. Practically a replica of his own letter, informing
"Dear Miss Haslar" of the same terrible facts and ending up
"yours very truly."
The letters were duly re-fastened and delivered.
Newman evidently believed that he had got clear of the
police, or this letter would not have been written—not yet.
So Pointer read the situation. But had Newman really es-
caped? Time alone would tell. As for the telephone message
to the taxis, no information was brought in overnight that
fitted Newman, nor was his portrait identified by any of the
men.
Pointer himself drove at once to Thornbush and had a
short talk with Sir Edward, who had spent what remained
of the night there. Clifford read Newman's letter with a
puckered brow.
"It fits in with our idea of last night, and with that de-
ciphered bit of burnt paper. T know the danger/ Julian wrote.
But that was evidently just what my brother did not know.
Of course the last word on that fragment is either knife or
life. Certainly not wife. I see no necessity of even suggesting
that third reading."
Pointer agreed that until they knew more, either of the two
words might be substituted.
There was a silence.
"This confession of—we will continue to call him Newman
—is an extraordinary document. Is it a genuine confession,
do you think?"
"Very difficult to say, Sir Edward."
Mrs. Clifford came into the room at that. She looked very
composed. Yet Pointer thought that she had not slept well.
He handed her the letter from Newman. Sir Edward had


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 167
decided that that ought to be done. She read it, and let it fall
to the ground. For a second she stared at him with eyes di-
lated by horror, then she sat motionless in the chair which
Clifford brought forward. So motionless, that she scarcely
seemed to breathe. Finally she looked up, outwardly at any
rate quite calm.
"This is all some wild mistake. Arnold began it with his
ravings, and now Mr. Newman writes this with some idea of
saving him from suspicion. Suspicion of—oh, it's too hor-
ribly grotesque! I wish I could make you understand, both
of you, that Julian is perfectly well, and never has been in
any danger, at least not in danger of his life. I had a letter
from him only this morning. I kept it to show you, Edward.
Though he expressly asks me to destroy it. I'll get it."
"It's not possible that Julian wrote that letter, Alison,"
Edward Clifford said sadly. "My dear, there's no doubt what-
ever that our Julian is dead—none."
Mrs. Clifford bit her lip.
"I'll get his letter. That'll convince you. . . ."
A minute later she returned looked rather flushed. "I
must have dropped it somewhere. I thought I had locked it
in my bureau, but it's not there."
"What was in it?" Pointer asked bluntly.
"Just vague generalities," Mrs. Clifford said casually, "ex-
cept that he repeats that he'll be back for certain on Friday at
latest."
"Still no address?" Pointer asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Still no address," she said coldly. Pointer stood looking
down at her. His face was very grave.
"Mrs. Clifford, I don't think you realise the position at
all," he said finally. "We at Scotland Yard believe that your
husband was murdered. I believe that he was murdered by
some one in, or closely connected with this house. We know


168 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
that he is dead. I'm sorry to say, we know it. You yoursel
are not free from suspicion. No one who is in any way con
nected with Mr. Clifford can be. Yet you persist in an atti
tude which cannot but be considered suspicious, for it trie
its best to hold up the search—to put it off. As Sir Edwarc
says, that letter of which you speak is a forgery. We must see
it—if it is to be found. It is most unfortunate that it should
have been—lost."
Clifford listened as though each word hurt him. He all but
interposed once, then he caught the Chief Inspector's warn-
ing eye and kept silent.
Mrs. Clifford looked absolutely unmoved. Her rather
rabbit-like mouth set itself perhaps A shade firmer.
Clifford leant forward and took her hand.
"Alison, I wish I could spare you. If there were a doubt
possible. . . ."
Mrs. Clifford looked at him very pleasantly, but apparently
she was not to be shaken from her attitude of absolute con-
viction that Julian Clifford was well, and would return by
Friday evening.
"That's only the day after to-morrow," she pointed out,
"do wait till then, Edward, before doing anything. Anything
whatever."
Trimble came in. Chief Inspector Pointer was wanted on
the telephone. It was Richard Straight's quiet voice this time.
"Is that you, Chief Inspector Pointer? Could you come at
once to Mr. Haslar's? I walked over before breakfast to hear
how he is. He's still alive. But Miss Haslar is in trouble. She's
just had a letter from Newman, and has something to tell
you about him that she thinks you ought to know. She may
change her mind. I've had a great deal of difficulty. . . ."
Pointer could not fly to the house, but he did his best to get
there before Diana should have done anything so unkind.


170 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
given him pneumonia. All the hotels were being used as mili-
tary hospitals along the coast. But we finally took a villa, his
wife and I, at Hendaye. Just this side of the Spanish frontier
which was practically unguarded just there. Even long after
the Bolo affair, a five-franc or peseta note, as the case might
be, would get you over the line and no questions asked. There
were lots of Spaniards swarming everywhere as far as Bor-
deaux. Sanz Etcheverrey was one of them. He called himself
Senor Rosa. But he told me in strict confidence that his real
name was Sanz Etcheverrey, then an unknown name to me,
and to everybody outside a very small circle. Well, he and
I—" She gave a half shrug. "I adored him. He seemed to
adore me, though he refused to have our engagement made
^public. He said that as he was on a very private and danger-
'ous mission it would injure him if it became known that he
jwas attending to anything else but his orders. He never pre-
tended—to me—not to be a secret service agent. But I didn't
guess that what he was after were the Melbourne Harbour
plans which Mr.—he was Sir Karri only the night he diet!—
Riply always kept with him. Sanz used to ask me all sorts of
questions about those plans too. Where Mr. Riply kept
them, and so on. I, like a fool, used to consult him as to the
best place." Diana gave a hopeless gesture of her hand, then
she let it fall back into her lap. "Karri Riply died quite un-
expectedly. I hurried home from the hospital where I helped,
to find Mildred, his wife, holding him up in her arms while
he fought for his last breath. Suddenly I thought of those
plans. Sanz Etcheverrey had been talking about them only
that day. And at that moment, as though I at last had a ray
of sense, I remembered that he had got the password to the
safe out of me—oh, very cleverly! But for the first time I
had, as I say, a ray of sense. I hurried to the room where the
safe stood, opened the door, and there, working with an elec-


172 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
and swayed! Another car went after us, but Etcheverrey hit
its tyres when it gained too much. They only hit one of our
petrol tins and set it on fire. We just beat them into France.
He had a British passport, it seems—a military passport! And
I had mine! It was our papers that got us over the border.
Because, after all, when it came to shooting, the French
guards turned out to a man in a solid line across the road, on
their side of the bridge. Etcheverrey ran me on to Bayonne,
where he dropped me at our consul's. Then he turned the car
and dashed off. I never saw him again—until I saw him come
into the drawing-room at Thornbush in the wake of Uncle
Julian, and heard that his name was Algernon Newman,
and that he had lost his memory in the last year of the war
while fighting on our side in a Surrey regiment at Saint
Quentin!"
Again there was a silence.
"Why didn't you tell us this before," Straight asked stiffly,
"when first you heard that Etcheverrey was supposed to have
been murdered?"
"I don't suppose I can make you understand." And she
turned to Pointer as though there was more chance with him
than with Richard. "If he had really lost his memory, it
seemed an awful thing to bring up a past when he was a spy
against us. . . . And he saved my life. . . . Whatever he
did as well, he saved my life that day at Pamplona. He was
wounded saving me."
"Did you ever tell Mr. Clifford about your belief that Mr.
Newman was Sanz Etcheverrey the Basque anarchist?"
Pointer asked.
"No. If he had really lost his memory—that was the di-
lemma. Had he lost it, or had he not?"
"You couldn't be sure?" Pointer was looking at her ap-
parently casually but in reality very keenly.


174 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
course, as distinct from Mr. Newman, his secretary?" Pointer
asked next.
"I thought so. Lately it seemed to me that he was always
talking of him, to Mr. Newman of all men! Uncle Julian
spoke as though he got all sorts of ideas about him from Mr.
Newman."
"Do you think Mr. Clifford intended to make any literary
use of the knowledge. Expected to put Etcheverrey himself
in a book?"
Diana stared in horror.
"That thought would have been the last straw!" she said
in a low voice. "Reckless as Sanz Etcheverrey—as Mr. New-
man is, he wouldn't dare to chance that! Yet—" She bit
her lip.
"You think it would appeal to him?" Pointer finished.
"It might," Diana agreed, "he loved to play with danger."
"But you yourself had no idea of any such intention on
Mr. Clifford's part?"
"None whatever. Nor have I now, I'm thankful to say."
The answer came with convincing sincerity. So she had not
taken those missing pages of Mr. Clifford's unfinished chap-
ter. A suspicion that had crossed Pointer's mind just now.
Pointer turned to ask Straight the same question, but the
look of absolute stupefaction on that young man's face was
answer enough. Obviously he had not heard of any idea of
introducing the anarchist into the author's work.
"Good Lord!" he breathed, "what a coincidence that Mr.
Clifford should have been murdered by the man! I suppose
it is a coincidence?"
"More probably Mr. Clifford stumbled on some truth,"
Pointer explained.
"I see," Straight still looked amazed, "and Etcheverrey,
finding himself discovered, killed him."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 175
This was Tindall's and Sir Edward Clifford's suggestion
too. And like a warning notice not to keep to the wrong side
of the road, two sentences stood out before Pointer's mental
eye. Two sentences that had been burnt to a brittle cinder:
"I know the danger"; "discovered your secret."
"Oh, no, no, no!" Diana burst out, with a sound to her
voice as though it came tearing from her very heart itself,
"not that! Etcheverrey would never have killed Uncle Julian
for any personal reason. If it's true that he killed him, then
it was for some other, some political end."
"I believe you love him still," Straight said harshly, look-
ing at her in onen indignation.
"And if I do—can I help myself?" she asked passionately.
"Can you cure yourself of cancer by wanting to be cured?
Don't you suppose I've told myself all the facts over and
over again? Of course it's glamour and only glamour. Of
course I've had a lucky escape—but I can't tear it out." She
was all but whispering. Tears stood in her eyes as in a
child's, but these were the tears that scald.
"And I thought you loathed the chap!" Straight looked
bewildered and hurt. "You always said you loathed him," he
repeated accusingly.
"Of course I said so, because I didn't," Diana retorted in-
dignantly.
"Well—women are the devil," was the morose and very
feeling reply. "And only now that he has murdered Mr. Clif-
ford and tried to murder your brother, you think the time
has come to speak out?" Straight snorted. "And I thought
it was love of justice! To tell me to my face that you still
love this murderer"
"He's not a murderer." Diana was white but decided. "He's
a man acting for his government. If he—if he—had anything
to do with Uncle Julian's death it was as an agent; as a secret
I


176 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
service agent"—she hid her face in her hands—"obeying or-
ders as a soldier does."
There was a pause.
"And now, Miss Haslar, to pass on to another point"—the
Chief Inspector looked very grave. "It was not Mr. Newman
who took that flat, 14 Heath Mansions; it was your brother,
Mr. Haslar. He has been identified beyond any doubt."
"He was all muffled up," Diana began quickly.
"Mr. Haslar has been identified by his voice—an unusual
voice," Pointer said quietly, inexorably.
Diana gazed in dumb misery out of the window. A lovely
day seemed to mock human suffering. A thrush, even though
it was July, the month of flowers, not of birds, tried a few
notes. Then he fell silent, as suddenly as though he were a
friend and had seen her face. But the calls of the gold-finches
flashed to and fro across the roses; and on a sudden, sweet
and clear, a wren's song rang out like a silver bugle, as gay,
as spiritually alive, as in spring. The little brown singer
popped back into its shady nook, but something in the gallant
strain had helped Diana. She turned around.
"When you first read in the papers of the murder of
Etcheverrey, what did you think?" Pointer went on. "You
could not then have thought that it was Mr. Newman who
had taken the flat, since you say that Mr. Newman is Etche-
verrey?"
"I thought it was Arnold then, of course, who had taken
it," she agreed. "I thought—he had learnt of Sanz's treachery
—and had—killed him."
"Because of you?" Pointer asked gently.
"Because of me, and because of the taking of the Mel-
bourne Harbour plans."
Straight understood that drive back to Arnold's house now.
That cry of fright when she had seen the man, of whose


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR* 177
terrible death she had just read, standing on the steps."
"And when you saw Mr. Newman?" Pointer pressed.
"I knew then that it was he who had killed—not been killed.
I thought that he had taken Arnold's ulster and ring. But
I never guessed that the unknown, murdered man was Uncle
Julian! And in spite of what he writes in those letters, I can't
believe it. I can't!" Diana ended on a strangled cry.
Straight jumped as though something had stung him.
"I can't stand your grief .for this anarchist," he said hotly.
"You're not even pretending to—to cast him off. If you were
disgusted with him, it would be different. But, as it is—I
told you that I loved you. I told you that I wanted nothing
better than to make you my wife. That I would wait years
for you to say yes." He paused dramatically.
"Well?" Diana—it is regrettable to record the fact—
snapped at him.
"I won't trouble you any more," he said coldly. "I with-
draw any pretensions to winning your affections. I could
hardly hope to carry the day against such a rival as this
Basque murderer evidently is."
He stalked from the room. Diana burst into an unmirthful,
cackling laugh.
"Jilted by the second man," she murmured. "Really I
seem to be most unfortunate!" But her laughter died out
as suddenly as .it had come. Her head resting against her
folded hands, she lay quite still in the chair, looking very
forlorn all of a sudden. She had counted on Dick Straight.
She had not loved him. She had known he could be severe,
but she had counted on him.
The door opened again. Straight held it shut behind him.
"But if ever you should need me—" he began a little
heepishly.
"I don't need you. I never have, and never shall," Diana


178 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
retorted. And this time Straight banged the front door be-
hind him in earnest.
Diana turned to Pointer, who had apparently been looking
at his shoes as a man does when two people forget that they
are not alone.
"You had no idea that your brother and this Mr. Newman
were concocting any scheme together in which your uncle,
Mr. Clifford, figured?" Pointer asked.
The blood seemed to leave Diana's face.
"I—I—knew they were together a good deal," she tem-
porised.
» "Did Mr. Newman ever seem to you to take a high hand
with Mr. Haslar?"
"With Arnold? On the contrary, he always fell in with
everything—" Diana started. She had spoken too quickly.
"I couldn't say what went on when the two were alone to-
gether," she corrected herself.
"You had no idea of anything being planned which con-
cerned Mr. Clifford?"
"No.'\It was an obvious lie. So something was on foot
which she had noticed!
"Miss Haslar, your brother is in a most dangerous posi-
tion," Pointer said in a low and gentle but very decided
voice. "I'm not trying to trap you into some admission. Dur-
ing this interview I'm really only trying to see if he might
not have taken that flat for some other reason—for a quite
different purpose—than what seems the obvious one."
She was silent.
"You know of none? You can think of no reason?"
"None," Diana said firmly—much too firmly. Real ignor-
ance would have hesitated, have cast about. ... So the
reason of which she knew, or at which she guessed, told


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 179
against her brother, and probably did concern Julian Clifford,
her uncle.
"What papers were they which Mr. Haslar wanted taken
from Mr. Clifford?" Pointer asked immediately.
He had hit some mark. Diana's eyes widened, as do the
eyes of a man before he drops, who has been struck over the
heart.
"I don't know what you mean?" She was gone, before
Pointer could intercept her, slipping out of her chair and
through a door like swift running water.
Pointer had had an outline of the Holford Will case
hunted up at Scotland Yard, and had read it through—
once. What was there in it which had made Haslar pick out
Major Cory? What purpose could such a man serve? Sup-
posing always that Haslar had selected him of his own free
will—and Cory, in the few minutes when he talked to Pointer,
had not spoken of any common master. He had, indeed,
seemed to feel for Haslar the resentment a man feels for
one who has personally tried to dupe him, to entangle him.
Why, then, had Haslar selected Cory? All that was shown
of the major by the evidence at the trial, was that he was an
unscrupulous blackguard who would have sold his grand-
mother to make glue were he offered a good price for her. He
had stolen a will very cleverly though—for that Cory had
stolen old Mrs. Hoi ford's will Pointer did not doubt after
he had read the inside police information—and he had stolen
it so cleverly that the best brains in England had not been
able to bring the crime home to him. He had done it by a
trick. He had returned what purported to be the new will to
the family solicitor, but when the envelope was opened, it
showed quite another, relatively unimportant paper.
Yes, Pointer had decided, Cory was the last man whom


180 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
any one who had sat through that trial would pick out for a
capable assassin. He had shown up as a white-livered whelp.
But if any one wanted a paper stolen . . . Clifford's missing
manuscript pages did not affect this. They were taken to be
destroyed, not preserved. They were not stolen in Pointer's
sense; nor, if it was anything to do with Clifford's work,
would Haslar have had need of an outside thief or furnished
flat, so that if, as he believed, Haslar had deliberately chosen
Cory, Pointer thought that he held one end of the very
tangled coil which surrounded the murder of Julian Clifford.
Back at Scotland Yard, Pointer had not finished his swift
notes on the latest development of the Clifford Case when yet
another telephone message reached him.
Thirty-three constables, five milkmen, and seven postmen
had already reported stringed enthusiasts along their usual
beats. One postman even claimed that the instrument in ques-
tion had been most certainly a double bass. It proved to have
been a piccolo, but at one of the addresses—a block of cham-
bers off Gray's Inn—Newman's portrait was recognised as
that of a Mr. Pollock, Mr. Algernon Pollock, who had had *
rooms in the building for some five years now. Mr. Pollock
was a country gentleman, the porter said, who only came up to
town now and then, about once a week it might be, and always
over the Sunday. Great musician, in the sense that he was very
fond of music. Many a ticket for a concert, or the opera, had
been bestowed on the porter. Pointer had arranged that each
of his men should represent himself as a buyer of old stringed
instruments, who was trying to locate the contrabasso used
by the great Domenico Dragonetti, which was believed to be
in private hands in London. Each of the detectives went on
to say that a gentleman had been described to him by a
musical-instrument mender as the possessor of this particular
treasure. And he in his turn described Newman. In this case


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 181
the description fitted—fitted perfectly. Could the collector
of musical instruments see Mr. Pollock? Mr. Pollock was
away; he had telephoned up yesterday evening late to say
that he would be out of England for a few weeks.
Pointer had a very curious volume in his library at Scot-
land Yard. He turned to a chapter headed Window-cleaners.
Every reputable firm supplied him with a list of the houses
for which they worked. A little later, and the head porter of
the chambers was called up by a man who told him over the
wire that he was the manager of the particular window-
cleaners company who had a contract for the building. There
was talk of a strike. Rather than incommode their most
valued customers, the Window Association were sending out
a couple of their best men to do the windows this week, so
that, should there be any question of trouble, the Gray's Inn
flats at any rate would not suffer.
The hall porter told them to send the men along, and within
a quarter of an hour a tall, lanky, bearded man, with another
smaller companion in the well-known uniforms, carrying the
proper appliances, arrived. The one had been a regular
window-cleaner, at least for a while. Pointer had picked up
tips from him as they came along—the best of which was a
bottle of methylated spirit. Even so, he was no speed-fiend
at the work. A glance at the board told him that Mr. Pollock
had one of the top flats. Pointer promptly left his assistants
to begin with the ground floor, and started up the stairs. A
maid unlocked the little suite. There were three rooms. The
gray music room had a harebell blue Wilton carpet; a fine
piano was in one corner, a double bass stood against one end.
The bedroom, the next room into which Pointer stepped,
was painted to represent an opening in a beech forest. It was
beautiful in colour, but it told Pointer nothing. The third
room, the living-room, was furnished with a luxury which


182 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
made him stand a few minutes considering it very carefully.
Those Heppelwhite chairs with their carved wheat .ears, and
shaped rail backs were genuine. They were not to be picked
up for a song; nor that sideboard to match; nor those Water-
ford tumblers; nor the Spengler Chelsea figures standing
on both sides of an early Worcester jar, whose green tinge
spoke for its honesty. A rare old Pretender goblet faced
Pointer. Its crowned cypher I.R. had an Amen engraved be-
low it. Behind it was a beautiful piece of Beauvais tapestry.
Or was it from Mortlake? In either case, it was a lovely
though sombre thing, and far beyond most purses. Pointer
stepped to some candlesticks on a superbly carved writing-
table, and looked at the hall mark. York silver, and a Paul
Lamerie tray, on the table of a man whose salary was £250 a
year! And then Pointer saw something coiled on the wall
over the writing-table which kept even him rigid in his place
for a second. It was a hangman's noose. .'


CHAPTER X
Pointer knew that especial twist of rope, and knew that knot.
He stared at it fascinated. What was its meaning? He ex-
amined the top of the rope with his lens. Its dust suggested
many months in the same position. An ice-axe had been thrust
through the loop. On each side were snapshots of glacier
climbing, but that was not a climber's rope. Nor a knot used
for any other purpose in the world. Nor in any prison but a
British prison. What did it mean? Placed where the eyes of
the man at the desk would always see it—must always see it—
in that room where everything else was a joy to look at.
Pointer went over the many books. Mr. Pollock had not
come back here to "tidy up" last night. Evidently he was
afraid of his hiding place being discovered, and preferred to
make yet another.
One whole wall was given over to Spanish works alone.
Many of these were political. The books were mostly blank as
far as name went, but here and there was an Algernon Pol-
lock in Newman's very characteristic writing.
Pointer found three names in an address book, which skil-
ful telephone inquiries soon showed were the names of the
other members of a musical quartet which met every Sunday
afternoon at Pollock's flat for chamber music. Each had
known his host for a varying length of time, but all only
since the end of the war. A few more well-planted questions
showed that Mr. Pollock had by no means lost his memory
of what went on during, or before, that great event. The


184 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Chief Inspector next unlocked the drawers of the writing-
table. He found nothing that bore on his hunt, until he fished
a roll of pink tape out of a drawer. It was wound around a
postcard to serve as a core. Unrolling the tape, Pointer
smoothed out the card. The top had been cut off at some time
to permit of its going into a frame. So at least Pointer
thought from the little marks on the edges. At the back, one
line of writing alone survived the shears. A rather faded "you
an idea of the place." The words were in Mrs. Clifford's
writing, but that was not why Pointer stared at the card.
"Gables like steps running up into heaven," that was how
these roofs were built. The picture was of a street in some
town—not an English town—and those peculiar gables.
. .' . Pointer put the card carefully into his letter-case. Then
he glanced over the bathroom, and went out into the hall, told
the porter that he was feeling ill and that his mate would
carry on, and hurried back to New Scotland Yard. Here he
changed and went in his own person to interview the pro-'
prietor of the flats, and to explain to him that Scotland Yard
feared, "from information which had come to hand," that a
robbery was being planned on some of the rooms in the
chambers. He wanted, therefore, to introduce two of his men
in the guise of a night and a day porter. They would require
no pay. The proprietor was enchanted with this proof of the
wide-awake attitude of our great detective force, and
Pointer's men were accepted on the spot. Only the proprietor
and the head porter were to know the truth.
In his car he studied the little picture postcard again—
studied it through his glass. The architecture, all brick, was
new to him, and was quite charming. It was a definite style,
Pointer saw, and an old style—one that had grown. A house
or two showed it in its entirety, but all of them in some par-
ticular. In every case the gables were high, and rose in steps,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 185
generally seven or nine, on a side to the peak, another step.
Che windows were high. Some of the houses showed each
window enclosed in vertical mouldings crowned with arches,
which were again enclosed in one large moulding carried up
into the gable. The doors were many of them of slatted wood.
Some were studded. Pointer the man quite forgot Pointer
the detective-officer as he came on item after item of charm-
ing design and work. Where was this place where the builder
was still a craftsman? He studied each detail anew. The
houses were all of brick—small Tudor bricks, and all the
courses— Pointer got his first clue.
"Flemish bond," he muttered to himself.
That is to say, the rows did not, as in "English bond," con-
sist of bricks laid alternately longways and endways,
"stretchers and headers," as a builder would call them. But
each row was alternatively composed of all headers or all
stretchers. And the whole of every house all down the side of
the curving street which the postcard showed, was built in
this way. Only Flemish bond . . . those fireplaces at Thorn-
bush had told Pointer that probably some one there knew
Belgium.
Pointer took the postcard and went to see one of his many
friends. He had them in all walks of life. It was to a priest
that he turned now. Father Warbury had given a lantern lec-
ture to some of the young plain-clothesmen only a little while
ago, which Pointer had attended. He had lectured on the
architecture of Holland, and at one point in his very interest-
ing address, he had made a little leap into Flemish styles
before pulling himself up, and saying that that was a subject
in itself, and a most fascinating subject.
Pointer found the priest in, and showed him the postcard.
He looked at it for a bare second.
"Bruges. Charming town. Don't know it? I'm pained. I


186 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
thought you knew all that we ordinary mortals do 'and then
some,' as the boys say. Yes, Bruges." He looked again at the
little piece of cardboard. This time the word seemed a talis-
man. Bruges to the good father meant but the fifteenth and
sixteenth-centuries, and stood, not for a town of misery and
horrors, but only for a little square which, running from the
Pont des Augustins to the Pont Flamand and the Porte
d'Ostend enclosed a world of art and genius the like of which
could not be matched then, or later. To him it meant van
Eyck painting in the Main d'Or, Menlinc in the rue St.
Georges, with Bourbus and Gerard David near by; and Cax-
ton bending over his presses. At any other time Pointer would
have been delighted to be conducted into this submerged city
of old, but now he was only anxious to get away. The priest
noticing this, picked up the card again and turned to modern
times.
"Yes. This is a picture of the rue de l'Aiguille in Bruges.
There's no other architecture in the world quite like it—not
even in Belgium. Leopold II. had sense when he wouldn't let
the modern mason spoil his Nuremberg . . . 'the Venice of
the North,' as some call it . . . ridiculous, of course. Bruges
hasn't the colours of Venice, but neither has Venice such sky-
lines."
Father Warbury again lost himself in a disquisition. Be-
ginning cheerily this time with broken, redented bows, to
pass on over perpendicular string courses, brick lace work,
decorated key stones, and relieving arches, to the gloom of
disappearing timpans, rounded frontons, and plastered door
cases.
Pointer hurried away as soon as the last word was said.
Bruges? What could be supposed to be taking Julian Clif-
ford to that town? . . . supposing that Mrs. Clifford's slip
about the gables that climbed into heaven was a genuine slip,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 187
and it was so slight that Pointer believed it to be genuine. He
got a guide-book, and soon saw that had she wanted to direct
his attention to Bruges, she would have described the beffroi,
or the cathedral, or the canals. Yes, Pointer believed the slip
to have been a true one. What illegal action then could Clif-
ford have been, or have been supposed to be, engaged in at
Bruges? Bruges is very near Ostend—a few minutes by train
or car. Could Ostend be the real objective? But Ostend has
no streets where the gables climb into heaven in converging
sets of steps that meet at the gable point.
Pointer called Ward in again.
"Anything going on in Bruges to draw such a man as
Julian Clifford there, and have him want his presence kept
secret?" he asked. ✓
Ward pondered.
"Plenty to draw any lover of the beautiful to Bruges. In
spite of its trippers, and its drinking water that may, or may
not, be typhoid. But to have Julian Clifford want his presence
kept secret"—his face lightened—"of course! Mrs. Orr! Her
mother, Lady Winter, married a Belgian. Baron van der
Bracht. They live just outside Bruges."
"Family respected? The van der Brachts, I mean?"
"Very much so. Tremendously hit by the war, but he's one
of the Court Chamberlains. Mrs. Orr is supposed to be over
there, I've heard to-day."
Pointer pondered over the idea after Ward had gone. Mrs.
Orr? Mrs. Orr and Julian Clifford? That idea might con-
ceivably be stretched to explain Clifford's murder by some
one, Haslar or another, who was in love with Mrs. Orr. But
it would not explain Mrs. Clifford's attitude. There were
plenty of things to take an artist or a collector to Bruges.
Collectors walk in very dark places sometimes. Did Julian
Clifford collect? His house did not show any such taste. His


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 189
"Perfectly. Now what do you want to know? Open out."
"Is there anything buyable in Bruges that would take, say,
three or four days to get hold of, would cost a pot of money,
would be risky to get out of the country, or at least get the
purchaser into serious trouble if he were found out?"
"There is. More properly there are. Several things. Bruges,
like many another Belgian town, wishes to sell a few of its
treasures—but you know all this, of course."
"Just assume that I know nothing whatever. Why shouldn't
the town sell?"
"The government doesn't want the nation's treasures cast
out wholesale. It's passed a very stiff law to that effect, and
it's very much on the alert. I've had several things offered me,
from this very town we're speaking of, provided I would take
all responsibility if things went wrong."
"All responsibility if things went wrong," murmured
Pointer thoughtfully. "How wrong could they go?"
"Prison. Long term. Theft. And theft of church property,"
Aronstein said briefly. "The agent who approached me, made
it quite clear that the town council would disown all part in
the affair—would never have heard of any offer. But pri-
vately I would be put into touch with the right people who
would let me have the various articles—at a price, mind you—
if I would take all risk of the government getting on the
track of what was going on. It wasn't good enough for me. I
don't need to do things in that style. Caveat emptor in an
ordinary way, yes. But prison! Though I don't say that if
Vagneau mystique from Ghent"
"Could you tell me in detail what was offered from, or by,
Bruges?"
"Several pictures. . . ."
Pointer shook his head. He did not think that pictures
would account for the mystery at Thornbush. Mr. and Mrs.


190 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Clifford had sent a large number away to homes, and down
to their brother's place at Cleave Ford.
"A couple of tapestries well worth having from the cathe-
dral. A gold monstrance. Possibly—doubtful that—but pos-
sibly the St. Ursula shrine. A missal. . . ."
Pointer shook his head at each item.
"And, low be it spoken, the Charlemagne Crystal."
"The Charlemagne Crystal?" Pointer pricked up his ears.
Aronstein lit a cigar nearly as fat as himself. He loved to
lecture.
"Genuine Charlemagne. Genuine crystal. Supposed to have
been the reason for Charlemagne's successes . . . saw things'
in it. Saw Ronceval, but too late. Eginhard, his secretary,
mentions it. So do all the Romans de geste. Charlemagne
willed it to Luis of Aquitaine, his third son, who took it to
Aquitaine. The legend runs that Joan of Arc is supposed to
have consulted it at Rheims and seen her awful end, and that
was why she tried to give up politics. Unfortunately for
the legend, before her day it had left France. How did it
get to Bruges ? Well, after the Bruges Matins, when the town
rose against the French, and the gutters ran red with his
soldiers' blood, Philippe-le-bel, the then King of France, took
the crystal with him as a talisman to aid him in the great re-
prisal against the city. Though one would have thought three
to one would have been sufficient preparation without magical
aid. Anyway, when he was defeated at the Battle of the
Golden Spurs, the crystal fell into the citizens' hands and be-
came Church property. So did the king, pretty nearly. The
crystal has remained in Bruges to this day. Unless it's been
sold secretly, since it was offered to me for Mr. Seaborn.
The town took charge of it after they dissolved a Dominican
monastery. But, mind you, it would still rank as Church-
owned."


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 191
"When was it offered to you?"
"Nearly two months ago, on June first or second."
"How would any one set about purchasing the crystal?"
Pointer asked.
"Very cautiously, if he were wise," laughed Aronstein.
"But Bruges at last has built a splendid new museum. The
great West Flanders Museum, and appointed a new director.
A Mr. de Coninck. He's willing to deal, if the purchaser
can get the stuff out of the country, and will take the risk of
p -osecution should he be caught. Some men might be tempted.
I'm not."
"How much is the crystal worth?"
"You'd have to pay something around sixty, or possibly
seventy thousand. Even I should have to fork out fifty."
"Mr. Julian Clifford collects, doesn't he?"
"Not that I know of. But Sir Edward attends a sale now
and then. He has some good things down at Cleave Ford."
"Ah, yes, I understand that Mr. Julian Clifford's secretary,
a man called Newman, buys for him."
"Newman? I've met Newman. Wonderful chap on Spanish
bindings. But I've never seen him at a big sale."
"Would Julian Clifford be likely to hear of these things on
offer at Bruges?"
Aronstein laughed.
"I wondered how much of this you already knew!"
"The agent's name?" Pointer suggested trying to look om-
niscient.
"Mrs. Orr. Ah! I thought you knew it. Yes, she's a sister-
in-law of Coninck's—or at least her half sister is Madame de
Coninck."
As soon as the lunch was over, Pointer wirelessed an in-
quiry to Bruges as to the Charlemagne crystal. The reply
came back at once. The crystal was very well, thank you.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 193
"But have they nothing to do with his head having been
cut off?" Pointer asked, without apparently glancing at Sir
Edward.
The man he was questioning almost tripped.
"I—how could it be connected with mat terrible mystery?"
"If the cheque were not yet presented when Mr. Clifford
was murdered, his death would delay, or prevent, its being
cashed. The only way to get that money quickly would be to
avoid any suspicion arising until after the money was paid
out by the bank, that the man killed was Julian Clifford.
Given certain circumstances, it is not easy to think of a better
way of preventing that identity being known than the one
taken here. Given the circumstances of a murder, for instance,
or a death in town, where a body is hard to dispose of."
They were in the empty, quiet Temple Gardens, and Clif-
ford stood still. Tindall, too, stopped and tugged at his beard.
"A very natural thought, Chief Inspector," Sir Edward
said at last, "Jput one which does not apply here. I can assure
you that the money was not needed in any particular hurry.
On the contrary, had those at Thornbush had any idea that
my brother was dead, it would never have been presented
at all, and a great deal of trouble would have been saved."
Pointer looked unconvinced.
"I should like to hear the explanation given you of that
cheque," he said finally. Pointer generally got his own way.
His was a compelling personality, perhaps because it was so
quiet as a rule.
"Suppose we take a cab for a few minutes' talk. We're be-
fore our time." Clifford lifted his stick to one passing on the
embankment.
As they settled themselves, Pointer asked: "I suppose that
Mr. Straight is at work on Mr. Clifford's accounts?"
"Well—not to-day. No. I think I must talk the matter over


194 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
with Hobbs first. In fact—in fact the accounts are rather con-
nected with the affair of which I was informed last night."
"By Mr. Hobbs, Mr. Clifford's literary agent?"
"By his cousin, Mrs. Clifford, in the first place. She con-
fided to me her belief that my brother has got himself into
some trouble—abroad. I can't be more precise. She would not
give names of places, even supposing that she knew them. It's
not exactly an illegal thing which he intended to do, and
which, therefore, she and .Hobbs believed he was actually
doing over there this week. But, on the other hand, it's one
which would perfectly explain her and Hobbs's attitude. You
see they thought, and she still thinks, that in Julian's own in-
terest, by his own express commands, nothing must be said of
where he is. She told me enough to let me see that we must
go very carefully indeed. For unfortunately certain negotia-
tions have already been opened up. It's a question of the pur-
chase of something which is not allowed to leave the country
—openly. Hobbs, whom I immediately tackled, assured me
that he is putting things right, and that by the end of this
week, all danger will be over of my brother's name being
mixed up in any scandal, provided we do nothing to make a
scandal inevitable. That cheque is quite in order, Chief In-
spector. It's for the purchase of this—object; a huge sum,
but I understand not beyond the worth of the object, and
after all, Mr. Clifford could afford to gratify the only re-
quest of the sort that his wife has ever made. Hobbs cabled
last night to stop the deal. He thinks he was in time to pre-
vent its actually leaving its own country, and that being so,
he has every expectation, certainty almost, of having the
money refunded—in time. The money was sent off to an in-
termediary yesterday morning. But any investigation on our
part, Chief Inspector, would do irreparable mischief just
now. Quite irreparable. My brother's name would be brought


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 195
into a most deplorable prominence. Hobbs went so far as to
assure me solemnly that were he alive—and were the facts
to become known—my brother, Julian Clifford, would be
liable to imprisonment! Of course, I myself would have to
resign at once at the mere whisper of such a thing. Now, this
whole affair has nothing whatever to do with Julian's death,
nor with the terrible taking away of his head. As I say, Hobbs
believes that he sees his way to put things back exactly as
they were. Mrs. Clifford will not get her wish—for the mo-
ment. But if only matters can be adjusted, she, when she
knows the facts, as she must very soon, will look at the mat-
ter exactly as we do."
"And the alteration on the cheque?" Pointer asked rather
dryly.
"Hobbs spoke of it to me. The cheque was first drawn out
to Self. Then, when Mr. Clifford decided not to appear so
directly in the matter, and learnt that one of the—ah—inter-
mediaries was called Selfe, he himself merely added an e,
and so on. The alterations did not show, and Julian did not
initial them."
"I see," Pointer said. "Mr. Hobbs seems to've thought of
everything." He spoke in a tone of real appreciation.
"Our aim now," Sir Edward went on, "is to uncover the
reason for Etcheverrey's murder of my poor brother, and how
far Hlaslar was guilty, or accessory to the fact. It's a hard
enough task without adding other tangles to it. That dis-
covery of yours points to the only solution of this riddle, I
do believe—the discovery that my brother was going to write
something which Etcheverrey felt that he must stop. Add to
that Mr. Tindall's remarkable guess as to the identity of
Etcheverrey, and I think we may safely feel that we are on
the right road."
There was a little silence.


196 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"What was it, what could it have been that my brother was
going to write which caused his death?" Edward Clifford
repeated ruminatingly.
"I've a notion that only a betrayal, real or fancied, would
have made Etcheverrey kill a man," Tindall said, "unless it
was all a ghastly mistake."
Mr. Bancroft proved to be a pleasant, business-like man,
an old acquaintance of both Tindall and Sir Edward.
"Necessary to reach Clifford at once . . . and you think
. . . yes, I see the idea. I know he is away from home. Mrs.
Clifford told me as much when I 'phoned to her yesterday.
For Clifford had made an appointment. He was going to
bring us in the next chapter of The Soul of Ishmael himself
some time during yesterday morning. We had been discuss-
ing it last time he and I lunched together. We're bringing
it out in parts in our monthly magazine as you know. We
suggested a little more—eh—well, adventure—incidents—"
Bancroft looked apologetic at having to mention such words.
"The public taste is so depraved nowadays that it insists
on high seasoning. Over-seasoning. And even such a giant as
Julian Clifford who leads the masses, has to take account
of it."
"'I must follow the mob, because I lead them.'" Tindall
quoted the French revolutionary's words.
"Ex—actly! As it happens, Clifford was turning over in his
mind a very dramatic idea. His—I really cannot call William
Roberts a hero—his chief character, let us say, being forced
to leave England, was to go abroad and find an outlet for
a quite unsuspected side of his character with a notorious
Basque anarchist. The anarchist was to be drawn from life
if possible. Clifford gave me an outline of what was to come."
Bancroft here unlocked a drawer. "I think he meant to take
these notes with him, but he jotted them down at my house


198 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"You're bringing out a life of William Haslar shortly, I
understand?" he asked.
"We hope to. But the proofs are still at Thornbush. As a
rule, Mr. Clifford is most prompt in returning them."
"Interesting book to write," Pointer rambled on in the tone
of a lover of books, which he was. "Still, for even a distant
connection, there must have been some difficulties. What let-
ters to leave out . . . what incidents to suppress. . . ."
Mr. Bancroft agreed. But he only agreed. He added noth-
ing to Pointer's knowledge.
"Miss Haslar is helping him with them," Pointer went on.
Mr. Bancroft again agreed.
"Arnold Haslar came down with flu yesterday," Pointer
went on. "High fever. Odd thing is, he keeps calling out
to Julian Clifford to let him have 'the paper.' Implores us
to 'take the paper' from him. We don't know what paper.
No one knows what to make of it or what to do. The doctors
seem to think we're keeping something back. But how on
earth can any one tell what paper, or what letter it is, which
Haslar wants to get away, or get back, from Clifford?"
Mr. Bancroft was interested, but he could not help. He
could only instance a distant relative who had also behaved
in an eccentric manner during a high temperature. So a
disappointed fisherman had to leave, with no fish, large or
small, of the kind that Pointer thought would alone explain
the choice of Major Cory by Arnold Haslar.
The photographed copies of Julian Clifford's notes were
quickly sent on to him, and Pointer glanced them over. Then
he went on with his telephoning—telephoning that took him
all the rest of the afternoon and evening.
It was past midnight when he was disturbed by a report
from one of his road-menders.


zoo THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
tense joy. One of Pointer's men was in a distant arm-chair
by the window, ostensibly as an assistant nurse. Round the
leg of his chair was a cord, the colour of the wood,
which ran through eyelets in the wainscoting to each of the
doors. In the day-time it was taken away, but slipped on at
night by the man on duty.
Pointer stooped down and gave it two quick tugs.
A minute later, and the man stepped out with an empty
glass. He followed Pointer to his own room and closed the
door.
"Has Miss Haslar left the room at all?" Pointer asked.
"Yes, sir. She went down about twelve for a snack. She's
taking the watch till two, as I reported to you, sir. She came
back just now, at ten to one. I suppose she dosed off a bit."
"You didn't hear any sounds at all just before she went
down?"
"No, sir. No sound at all."
Pointer melted away. Merely as a matter of routine,
genuinely so this time, he stepped into the library, shut the
door, and switched on the light.
Sometimes people in a very engrossing conversation left
odd things behind them, and the low voices which he had
heard had sounded very absorbed.
The room looked as usual, except that a couple of chairs
had been moved from one side to the centre of the room.
They were not very near each other. Neither they, nor their
position, suggested intimacy.
Pointer looked beyond them at the place where they had
stood. Moving them had left free an old knee-hole writing-
table, which, so Pointer had found yesterday, was used as a
hold-all for odds and ends. Just now the table too stood a
little away from the wall at one end. Pointer eyed it curiously
—closely. Something caught that keen eye of his lying be-


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 201
tween one of the feet of the table and the wall—something
that had prevented that end of the table being rolled back
true as it had stood yesterday and this morning.
It was the ferrule of an umbrella—rather new-looking.
Now umbrellas are not much used in libraries at any time,
let alone in a dry July. Pointer turned it over very thought-
fully. Hobbs had not carried an umbrella when he left here
just now, nor when he left Thornbush. His trailer had told
Pointer that he was carrying nothing in his hands.
But Julian Clifford had taken his umbrella with him when
he left his home night before last. The butler was certain of
this, for on going up to bed he had noted its absence as well
as that of his master's soft felt hat. Besides, Clifford was one
of those men who always carry an umbrella. Pointer had sent
one of his men to the house with a gamp this morning which
purported to be one that Mr. Clifford had left in the post
office. The butler had rejected it promptly. The detective,
by clever doubts and beliefs, had obtained a close description
of the author's umbrella—a fairly new oae, a recent present
—among other more praiseworthy peculiarities it had a loose
ferrule, one that threatened to drop off at any moment. Mr.
Clifford had caught it in tram points the first day of carrying
it. Trimble mentioned that Hawkins meant to have it seen
to, but Hawkins never saw to anything before he had to.
Pointer laid the little thimble down on the writing-table
and studied that piece of furniture intently. The chairs
moved away from it meant that the whole table had been
swung out. He swung it out. Behind it, the papered wall
showed no opening, nor did the carpeted floor. The wains-
coting ran unjointed past the spot. There remained the table
itself. But to open any of its drawers it would not have
been necessary to move the chairs away. Pointer took out
the drawers and laid them on one side. Then he examined the


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 203
Pointer was sorry. He had planned a very busy and very
early morning at her brother's warehouse as a rat-catcher,
with a wiry-haired marvel from the Yard—a champion rat-
ter. No night watchman and no warehouseman in Britain
could resist the offer that he intended to make.
However, after due reflection, he decided on "ladies first."


*
CHAPTER XI
And that was why, on the morrow, when Diana got down
at Bruges, a chauffeur followed her out of the train and into
the town—a chauffeur who had crossed to Ostend with her,
had taken a ticket to Bruges just after her, who had arranged
with the Bruges police to have a taxi-cab waiting for him
outside the station. But Diana was walking, so he made a
sign to the man at the wheel and walked on after her.
Bruges, ringed and intersected by canals, is interesting, and
can be charming; but not in July, when it is crowded with
British trippers who surge noisily in serried ranks along its
main streets, avoiding its art treasures but crowding its cake
shops.
As it happened to be a saint's day, or a wedding, or a
funeral, the bells of all the churches, above all the great bell
of Saint Sauveur, the massive cathedral, were shattering the
air with swift, jarring peals. The bells of Bruges are now
rung by electricity, and need not even pause for tired muscles.
It was the half-hour. And the beffroi, that beautiful tower
that lifts its coronet high into the air above Bruges' big place,
was giving one of its quarter-hour selections of carillons.
Melodies may sometimes be suitable for being played on
bells; this one certainly was not. Barrel organs were grind-
ing merrily within a few feet of each other. Trams banged
their gongs all down the curving street.
Diana, who looked a little dizzy with the clamour of
Bruges-la-morte, turned into the rue Sud de Sablon. Being


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 205
July, her English ears did not miss the songs of birds in this
country that eats them.
The roof lines of the constantly winding streets were
enchanting. Dentellated, crenellated, they rose against a sky
whose colours told that the waves of Zeebrugge, the harbour
of Bruges, or Brugge, as the Flamand calls it, were very near.
She walked on, glad of the exercise.
"Pas op, mejuffroww! (Look out, miss!)" a white-hatted
gendarme, who was regulating the traffic, said quietly.
Mistaking the Flemish word for the equivalent of "Pass
on," Diana stepped forward. She nearly "passed on" alto-
gether. A car, dashing around the corner, taught her the
perils of ignorance. But a long arm swept her back into
safety. A chauffeur, a tanned man in a trim uniform, with
a pleasant flash of white teeth below his drooping moustache,
touched his cap with a "Pardon, Madame!"
She turned at the French, for Bruges is Flemish speak-
ing. She saw him step towards a taxi from which a man had
just slipped, and take the wheel.
"Is that your taxi? Can you drive me to the Beguinage?"
she asked in the same language.
"Certainly, Madame!" and shutting her in the cab, he
drove off into a side street, where he pulled up, and got off,
apparently to do something to the back of the hood; in reality
to open a map of Bruges and take a long look at Ten
Wyngaerde, The Vineyard, as the town calls its Beguinage.
The Beguinages of Belgium are peculiar to this corner of
Europe. From the thirteenth century on, women solved the
question of domestic difficulties and dangers by living a
community life which gave them all the protection of a con-
vent, but where they could have almost the liberty of the
world. The Beguines, who dress at a glance like other nuns,
in white and black, sometimes take no vows, sometimes all


2o6 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
but that of poverty. Their money is their own to use and
leave. They dwell, not in narrow cells under one roof, with
every hour of the day mapped out for them, but live, if they
so prefer, in little houses, alone, or with another Beguine
friend, set in the encircling, protecting wall of the Beguinage.
In the centre of the Beguinage at Bruges—a small affair
compared with that of Ghent—is a quiet green. Tall elms,
elms that saw men set out on the last crusade, give it a thin,
elderly shade. Orchards and vegetable gardens lie behind it.
Inside the little houses a simple austerity must nowadays
reign, just as all the inmates are women of the highest
character. For the rest, they live pious lives under their
chosen Superior beloved by the poor, given over to good
works. The chauffeur drove the car to the arched entrance
over a bridge that spanned one of the canals. Here he had to
stop. Before them, like a city within a city, lay the Beguinage,
its little red roofs dotted among the greenery. In front the
water mirrored the curve of its gray wall. Artists sat sketch-
ing it. To one side was the Minnewater, Bruges' much over-
rated beauty spot. For though the town has charming corners,
they lie in quiet nooks, off the main roads. But here at least
was peace. Softly the carillon floated down, melodious
sounded Saint Sauveur's tireless majestic bells.
Diana got out. No carriage may mar the silence of the
Sister's home. She made to pay her driver.
"I'll wait for Madame," he said promptly.
But Diana told him that she had no further need of his
services, paid him, and walked on quickly under the domed
gate, past the crucifix where the Beguines kneel, coming and
going. A sister met her going swiftly towards their church.
"Mademoiselle van Bracht?" Diana asked.
"Over there. The white house with the geraniums in the
green windows, Mademoiselle," and the Beguine hurried on.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 207
"But she's at service just now," she added over her shoulder.
Diana did not seem to be put off her intended call. The
chauffeur, who had lounged in after her, with the vacuous
air of a man staring at unfamiliar sights, saw her step on as
swiftly as before. He saw her rap at a little green-painted
door.
"Baronesse van Bracht? Sceur Therese?" Diana asked.
"I am Sister Therese. Won't you come into my sitting-
room?" the sister said in French. Diana followed her into a
little back room on the ground floor, furnished plainly but
comfortably, and so dark that the light had to be kept switched
on beneath a statue of Sainte Begge.
The chauffeur tried the latch of the door. It opened under
his careful hand without a sound. In his rubber-soled deck
shoes he passed into a tiled passage with two doors on either
hand. A door at the end of the passage showed the canal,
quiet and deserted. He turned, and softly opened the first
door on his left. He stood in a neat kitchen. As he hoped, a
door led into the next room, where he could hear the two
women. Noiselessly he drew the curtains shut over the win-
dow, then he cautiously opened the communicating door.
Diana was just handing an envelope to the Beguine, who was
saying:—
"I will see that it is passed on at once to my sister, Madame
de Coninck. She will do the rest. By this evening all will be
put right. I will give you a receipt if you will step into this
balcony"
At that instant the light went out. Sceur Therese called
out in English, and in English English too.
"Who's that? Who's holding my hand?" Then she
screamed.
"What's wrong?" Diana called quickly. "I'm here, Sister.
What's wrong?"


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 209
little minute. Pardieu, la pauvre sceur! I will notify the police
on the way to the station."
"No," Diana said quietly, "I don't leave her like this. What
package is it you miss, sister? The one I brought?"
For a second the sister stared at her, then she said, "I
thought you were in it. I see you're not. This man has that
letter you brought. I'm sure of it. I'm certain he opened
the door from that next room, switched out the light, and
twisted the package from my hand before he pretended to
knock at the other door. It's only a step between them."
She spoke in English. The man goggled stupidly.
"Quoif She says?"
Diana translated all that was necessary.
"A letter has been lost? Then why not telephone to the
gendarmerie at once? There is a telephone at the portress's
lodge. I saw the wires as I passed it. We can all three go
there if the sister doubts me. But she is mad. The poor lady!"
Diana looked at the sister, whose face was white with red
circles on the cheek-bones—circles of fury. She looked like
a horrible clown.
Diana, with an odd look of uncertainty in her usually
self-possessed glance, did not move.
"If you will be so good as to open that wooden shutter
over there we could see better," the chauffeur said again. "I
do not like to let her go. She may do herself a mischief.
Throw herself out of that window, for instance." He gave
the sister a look in which there was something mocking and
something very stern. "The window that is open," he went
on, "the window of the little balcony. A slip, and one would
be in the canal. And the canal just here is choked with weeds,
and quite deep enough to drown the sister, especially if by
any chance that sort of iron raft were to fall down which


214 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Mrs. Clifford. He, too, was bending over the ball, his arms
on either side of her.
"She's locked in an iron cell. There's very little air. She's
pounding on the wall. She seems to be calling for help. It's
all dark. Outside some one is standing listening. He's in
the shadow, yet he seems familiar. Why, it's Arnold's study!
Then that cell must be his strong room. And the word that
opens the door must be lost. But what "Newman had
gone.
Pointer came over on the same boat and train with Diana,
heard her give her taxi driver her brother's address, and then
turned into the buffet for a hasty sandwich. He telephoned
to the Yard for the day's reports. There were several. From
parcels addressed to non-existent streets and people Mr.
Clifford's clothes had practically all been retrieved. Along
with them was a blood-stained and beplastered hand towel.
The clothes had been identified by Mr. Clifford's tailor.
Pointer felt as though his boat were drawing in, drawing
in all the time.
Last of all he learnt that ten minutes ago Hobbs, Mr.
Clifford's literary agent, had left Thornbush and had been
followed to Haslar's house. He was still there.
On the instant Pointer was out of the telephone booth,
and speaking to the sergeant in charge of the station-police.
In another he was on one of their motor-bicycles which are
fitted with silencers as perfect as expense can make them.
He whizzed off for the Haslar's house at a speed which
only his steering made possible. Even so, one tabby never
returned to its home.
Arrived at the house, Pointer looked at the gravel of the
drive. It showed that a car had just turned at the front door,


216 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
the door on her, never guessing that she was inside. Quick,
Mr. Hobbs, the password!"
Pointer was throwing the man a rope. But the colour was
coming back into Hobb's face.
"Miss Haslar's upstairs in bed, I take it. I haven't seen
her, nor do I know anything about the safe or the combina-
tion lock. I dropped in to look up a technical point in one
of Haslar's electrical books. I was in the library when I
heard a tremendous thud. It took me a second to realise that
it was the door of the strong room that I heard. At least,
I suppose it was. I'm not certain even of that much."
He rattled off the speech at top-speed. His words were
not exactly blurred, but there was a thickness about them
that made Pointer's heart sink. Hobbs was the worst for
drink, and the only chance for the girl locked in would have
been a clear-headed, shrewd Hobbs, a Hobbs who would
have known when he must cut his losses. Pointer knew from
yesterday what Hobbs could be like when he was not sober,
and to-day he was more nearly drunk than yesterday—much
more nearly.
Pointer gave a whistle like a blackbird's when a poacher
blunders too close at night. A man clambered in through the
open window. He said a word to him. The man moved to
Hobb's side, who looked as though he were watching some-
thing awful come up to him.
Pointer jumped to the telephone. He was taking no chances.
He might yet get the password out of Hobbs, but meanwhile
he was telephoning the Yard to send him the safe-expert
with his most up-to-date tools to open a strong room door,
which was—Pointer gave the makers' name and the size of
the door. But the master-cracksman was away. No one knew
when he would be in. Another man would, of course, be
sent, but there was no second Cockerell.


218 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
hesitating, as though disliking to set foot in Arnold Haslar's
house, came Sir Edward.
"What's this about Haslar's strong room and Miss Has-
lar?" Straight asked.
"Know the password?" Pointer asked, but without any
hope. Straight only shook his head with a look of horror.
"You mean to say it's true? That she's been locked in
there?" he asked under his breath. "Isn't there a way of tell-
ing the right word by listening to the fall of the tumblers?"
"Not with this safe," Pointer said gravely, "but there's
still time." His eyes rested for a fraction of a second on
Hobbs— "Still time."
Hobbs half stepped forward. Almost, Pointer thought, his
hand went towards the dial, but the neat brandy that he had
drunk made him wheel about and return to a chair in the
shadow by the window.
The safe-breaker arrived from the Yard. He set to work
at once with a pneumatic drill. Chemicals were out of the
question because of the girl inside.
"How did you hear of what had happened?" Pointer asked
Straight above the roar of the drill.
"Mrs. Clifford got some one to telephone me. A commis-
sionaire at a concert hall, I understand. She seemed quite
certain of what had happened. . . . But surely Miss Haslar
can be got out all right?"
"We must hope for the best," Pointer said none too en-
couragingly. "If the safe had been standing wide open for
a little time before it was closed, she may have a better chance.
Our man is quite good as a rule. Sir Edward was with you, I
suppose?" Pointer finished.
"No, I ran into him in the garden outside," Straight ex-
plained absently.
"I had something very important to say to Miss Haslar,"


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 219
Sir Edward explained at once, retreating with Pointer to
the farthest end of the room; "I will tell you about it later,
Chief Inspector. A fact has come to my knowledge which
makes me wonder. . . . However, Miss Haslar had not re-
turned when I asked for her at half-past four."
"You waited in for Miss Haslar?" Pointer asked, watching
his man try another way of tackling those immovable
tumblers.
"No, I decided to call again later."
"Did you think the servant who let you out looked as
though he had just come in from outside?" Pointer asked
next.
"I let myself out, so I cannot say. Looked as if he had
come in—?" Sir Edward began to repeat Pointer's odd
question, a question which had served its turn of learning
that Clifford had not been shown out.
Sir Edward looked round. Hobbs was out of earshot if he
spoke low.
"Hobbs is under arrest? So you know?"
"Know what, Sir Edward?"
"Straight came to me about it. It seems he did go through
the books yesterday and to-day. Straight suspected Hobbs's
accounts from something that Diana told him about a letter
which* she opened by mistake. Straight says the books are
cooked: cleverly done, but he's certain they're cooked. He
wants another chartered accountant to go through them with
him. He speaks of something like fifty or sixty thousand not
accounted for. Of course in ten years. . . ."
The man from the Yard approached Pointer.
"I'm beaten, sir. This latest pattern is beyond me. There's
a chap in Bermondsey, Silly Billy, he might do it. He's just
out of a stretch. Not a bad sort."
Bermondsey! From Hampstead to Bermondsey and back!


224 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
had been pulled off in the heat of the work, and the sweat had
washed the make-up from his hands and face.
Diana clung to him.
"Sanz!" her arms went round his neck, "I called you, and
you came! I called you the whole time . . . with all my
heart and all my soul."
Her face was transfigured. Her beautiful hair clung in
damp curls to her finely-shaped head as a baby's does. She
was pale. Under her lids were purple shadows, but her eyes
were like stars.
"If you won't hold me fast, I shall you." She spoke with a
strange solemnity.
This was no laughing meeting of lovers. Diana knew what
the hand to which she clung might have done. Yet she clung
to it.
"In spite of—everything?" he asked her gravely.
"In spite of—beyond—through—everything. Don't put me
down, Sanz. Don't let me go again."
He only looked at her—a searching look to which the
foreign sharpness of his features gave something rapier-like.
Standing there still holding her, he had a dark, virile beauty
which struck those watching him afresh.
Suddenly her eyes fell on Pointer. A look of terror swept
down upon her face, putting out the light in it.
"I forgot; I betrayed you!" she stepped back from him,
"and then I called you and you came! Oh, Sanz, I've lured
you into their hands!"
"How do you mean that you betrayed me?" he asked
quietly.
"I told them who you are. After your letter I—I thought it
was a love of justice, but I couldn't bear that they should
think you—it—a murder!" She whispered the last words,
her face gray again.


226 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Pointer carried it out. Then he saw that Mrs. Clifford was
back in the room, her arms around Diana. Pointer put the
tin on a table behind him, but his thoughts did not leave it.
Inside it was, he knew . . .
Alison Clifford would have helped the girl up to her room,
but Diana refused any help. Mrs. Clifford, smiling a little,
moved back. She caught her foot in a rug. To steady herself
she laid a hand on the tin which Pointer had just set down.
There came the oddest sound from her—a gasp, followed by
a sort of strangled cry. She fell forward across the table
grasping the tin in her arms.
"Julian! Oh, Julian!" She gave a frightful scream and tore
at the wrappings with her fingers, shrieking like a demented
woman.
"Hush, Mrs. Clifford," Pointer said firmly but very gently,
"for the sake of the sick man overhead, for your own sake,
you must not scream like that."
She had her hands still on the box, and the look in her eyes
frightened Diana, who had run to her. She thought that her
reason had gone.
"It's Julian's head!" Mrs. Clifford said in a strange, hor-
rible whisper to Sir Edward, who had come in hastily. "In
there! In that tin! His!"
This time Diana screamed—a low, horrified cry.
"Is she mad?" she whispered in mingled terror and pity.
"Mrs. Clifford," Pointer said gravely, "I'm so sorry for
this horrible shock"
"His eyes are closed," Mrs. Clifford was murmuring now
in a wild whisper.
Pointer forcibly lifted the box out of her grasp. He could
not let her continue to "see" what that face must look like
now. Not yet earth—no longer flesh.
"You know the truth now," he said gently.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 227
Alison knelt on trembling violently.
"Mrs. Clifford," Pointer said again, "I must take this away
for a little while. You shall see your husband's body shortly,
believe me. But not like this! Not—" She did not seem to
heed him. Pointer thought that she had fainted. He would
have left her to the care of Diana and Sir Edward, but when
he turned away she clutched his sleeve. She almost tore the
stout cloth of his cuff.
"Give me that back! It's mine! Mine by every law of God
and man!"
"It is yours," Pointer said with real emotion, "but you
must let me put it where it belongs. You must give us"—he
glanced at the clock then at Sir Edward—"just one hour.
Then you shall see your husband's body, if you still wish to
do so, to-night."
She let him go at that and sat staring in front of her
with a terrible expression on her face. At once wild and lost,
as of a woman who felt the very foundations of her soul
rocking within her.
"I'll bring her. To the mortuary chapel, I suppose? Where
exactly is it?" Clifford asked. He himself was a ghastly white.
"I'll leave my car. My man will know." Again Pointer
turned towards the door, that precious tin clasped in his arm.
This time it was Newman who stopped him.
"Aren't you forgetting me?" he asked shakily, "your
prisoner?" Like every one else in the room, whether they
understood it or not, he looked profoundly moved by what
had just happened.
"No," Pointer said easily, "oh, no, Mr. Newman, I'm not
forgetting you. I must ask you to return to your old rooms
at Thornbush until I have an interview with you." New-
man would be better watched this time, Pointer knew.
Outside he saw Diana talking to Wilkins, her face con-


228 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
vulsed. He motioned to her to come into an empty room. She
all but refused.
"How did that tin come to be in this house at all?" he
asked her.
"It came from the warehouse early this afternoon," she
replied in a quiet, dull voice. There are points beyond which
sensation becomes numb. "Wilkins put it on the hall table
thinking it was sent up by mistake, or that I had asked for
it. That is all he knows about it. And all I know about it."
The Chief Inspector gave a few more directions to the
man in charge of Hobbs. Then he drove off with his precious
tin—the tin for the sake of hiding which, so he believed, a
half-sober Hobbs had been willing to let Diana Haslar die a
frightful death.
The Commissioner and Major Pelham were present when
the tin was opened. The plaster was carefully sprayed away
until that appeared which they had expected to see, and
which Mrs. Clifford had apparently already seen in some
strange way—the head of Julian Clifford.
It had a bullet mark behind one ear.
An hour later, Mrs. Clifford followed with Sir Edward.
The head had been carefully joined to the severed neck, and
a cloth laid over the juncture. The face itself was made as
little repulsive as possible. The plaster had done much to
preserve it, and the warehouse chill had helped.
Sir Edward brought her in finally when word was sent
out. She tottered to the coffin, and stood bending over it
for a long time in silence. Then she dropped to her knees
beside it.
"Ferryman, take me across? Oh, Ferryman, take me
across!" The choking cry brought tears to the eyes of a
very stolid-looking young policeman who was on duty in an
unobtrusive corner.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 231
home on Monday night? Why were you so sure he was in
safety?" he continued.
She gave a cry at that and wrung her hands.
"Did you think he was in Bruges buying the Charlemagne
crystal?" he persisted.
She interrupted him. "To think I believed him safe! To
think I thought I saw him in the crystal! Then what did I
see? How did I see?" She stared wild-eyed at Pointer.
She looked shaken to the heart. Pointer said nothing. If
this were not acting, then he realised that the woman must
have had such a shock as to be near the confines of what could
be borne.
"I who thought I could see further than others!" she mur-
mured. "But I did see Julian in the crystal . . . just as I
saw Diana a little while ago. She was there where* I saw her.
Then why not Julian? Why not my husband?" she asked
wildly.
"You have very wonderful gifts, Mrs. Clifford," he said
quietly, "but you could not see what was not there, the dead
among the living. I think your own imagination, your own
belief as to where your husband was, projected itself into that
crystal."
She was, or seemed to be, too exhausted to be questioned
further, and he helped Sir Edward put her into her car and
take her home to where a "nurse" from Scotland Yard was
waiting to look after her—with a most vigilant eye.
Her objections to helping him find the criminal, were they
solely as she represented them?
Pointer's profession, one he greatly respected, led along so
many dark and twisted paths of the human heart. As a doctor
spends his days at sick beds beside diseased bodies, so did the
Chief Inspector's work take him among diseased minds. It


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 233
stepped gables—saw her own thoughts, I take it, supposing
she's innocent."
"This is going to be a slow, intricate case," Tindall said
thoughtfully.
Intricate, certainly, but Pointer did not think it would be
slow. He made no reply.
"How did Miss Haslar come to be locked into the safe,
and who in the world put the head there?" Tindall asked, al-
most tearing his hair.
Pointer only turned to take the doctor's report which a
man had just brought in.
The bullet had just failed to pass entirely through the lower
part of the back of the head from left to right and was easily
taken out. It was the kind to fit a .25 automatic, and had been
fired from too far off to singe or blacken the skin.
"It fits Haslar's automatic," Pointer murmured. "No one
else at Thornbush seems to own a weapon of any kind, ex-
cept Sir Edward Clifford. He, too, has a .25—a common
enough type."
"Haslar's warehouse—Haslar's revolver!" murmured Tin-
dall. "I've taken the liberty, by the way, of putting one of
our men as well on guard outside Thornbush. I confess I
expected Etcheverrey to be detained. Or are you leaving him
to me?"
"I'd like nothing done about him till to-morrow," Pointer
said thoughtfully, "just as I want to keep my own counsel for
that time."
"After his accomplices, eh? Good! So Etcheverrey's under
our hands again. Rather fine of him coming back to save
Miss Haslar, after that confession of his. Sort of thing he
might be expected to do, though. Twisted nature his, with odd
streaks of generosity in it."
Tindall accompanied Pointer to his rooms in Scotland
r


234 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Yard. Sir Edward had spoken of going there as soon as he
had seen Mrs. Clifford home. Evidently he had something
important to say, and something important to ask. He did not
keep them waiting long.
"Now Chief Inspector, how did you learn about the
Charlemagne crystal and Bruges?" Edward Clifford began
at once. "Mrs. Clifford only told me that in strict confidence
last night. Hobbs had hinted at it in the train, and obviously
Julian had had it in his mind when he questioned me about
paying over large sums so that they could not be traced. But
how did you learn of it?"
"In the course of some routine work," Pointer said eva-
sively. "I expect, however, to get fuller details from Mr.
Hobbs presently."
"Hobbs!" Sir Edward made a wry face. "You certainly
let no grass grow under your feet in his case either. Straight
had only just told me of the defalcation. Straight found"—
Sir Edward now turned to Tindall—"Straight found that
Hobbs has cooked the books for the last ten years or so. And
to the tune of a large fortune. He wants a first-class man to
go through the books with him. The Chief Inspector was right
in his suspicions of Hobbs."
They had not been suspicions with Pointer. The belief in
the existence of heavy defalcations was the bed-rock of one
half of Pointer's theory as to what had happened to Julian
Clifford.
"And what about that cheque?" Sir Edward again ad-
dressed himself exclusively to Pointer. "Did Hobbs pay it
over? He handed it to Mrs. Clifford to cash yesterday morn-
ing, telling her that Julian had enclosed it in the note which
he had left for him. Hobbs's story is that in that letter Julian
wrote that he had received word too late of some urgent
necessity, some hitch, which only his own presence over in


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 235
Bruges would smooth out, and that he was leaving at once,
shortly after midnight on a returning fruit-cargo boat. Julian
had all sorts of odd friends. The boat would get to Zeebrugge
at eight Tuesday morning, and my brother would be at
de Coninck's house by ten. He had to leave the cheque for
Hobbs to cash and forward the money. Hobbs had a very
busy morning ahead of him yesterday, and asked Mrs. Clif-
ford to go to the bank for the money. She knew what was
on foot. My brother intended the crystal as a surprise for
her, but she had, it seems, overheard some words of his to
Mrs. Orr which had told her what he was about. But as he
had set his heart on surprising her, she kept up, before him,
the pretence of knowing nothing. So Mrs. Clifford cashed
her husband's cheque at once on Tuesday morning, and
handed Hobbs the money. He assures me that there really is
a Selfe assisting Mrs. Orr at the Bruges end, and that the
cheque is perfectly in order. Mrs. Clifford, when I asked her
a few questions, she cannot talk much about it yet, confirmed
all this. She added that Mrs. Orr pressed her very hard to
let her take the money over. She, too, was going to Bruges,
and was, as I suppose you know too, acting in the affair for
her sister, the wife of the newly-appointed director of the
West Flanders Museum, that great building that's just been
built outside Bruges. The director was not to appear in the
affair at all. But Mrs. Clifford preferred to carry out what she
believed to be Julian's instructions. Were they his instruc-
tions?" Sir Edward looked hard at Pointer, who only stirred
his tea thoughtfully.
"If not," Clifford's hand shook a little, "the murderer must
be— But I confess I find Julian's death a deeper and deeper
mystery the more I study it. I, too, found out a piece of
evidence yesterday—not bearing on Hobbs, however, but on
Haslar. Mrs. Clifford handed me Julian's diary when I


236 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
pressed her for dates and hours. In that diary there's ar
entry about the discovery in an old bureau that belonged tc
Sir William Haslar's private secretary, or at least was alway:
used by him, of two copies of letters which had been sent tc
the writer's wife, some thirty years ago now. He was killec
in a carriage accident. She died shortly afterwards. In then
this man, Walton was his name, accuses Sir William of ver
terrible things. Subversion of party funds, and what practi
cally amounts to blackmail. They're poisonous imputation
though there have been whispers at times that Sir Williar
did sail very close to the wind now and then. My brothe
makes a note to say that he intends in fairness to the publi
to have these letters inserted as an appendix in his comin
Life. He notes down the indignation of Diana, but especiall
of her brother Arnold. Diana, according to Julian, was cei
tain after the first shock, that no one would credit the allegs
tions. But Arnold Haslar took it differently. There is an entr
only this last Thursday in which Julian records that Arnol
practically threatened him with violence if he dared to dc
fame a dead man by printing those libels. My brother at
parently was quoting Arnold's exact words. I have no ide
where the letters are. I asked Hobbs, and he told me the ver
disquieting fact that Julian had had them on him when he lei
Thornbush—carried them on his person. He distrusted Miss
Haslar, believed that in spite of her apparent acquiescence,
she might steal the letters. And after all, family pride is a
very strong chain. Now, Chief Inspector, where do we stand?
I confess I am puzzled. Here are the defalcations—not yet
proven, it is true—but Straight says he'll go bail that he's
right, and believes it's not far short of a hundred thousand
pounds has gone. Julian never lived up to his income, I
knew. Here's the fact of these Haslar letters with the fury of
Arnold Haslar at the idea of their being published—Arnold


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 237
Haslar, who called out that he 'did it for nothing!' Arnold
Haslar, who knew about the missing head, and who the mur-
dered man was, when the only printed information was that
the corpse was Etcheverrey! But then, what about Etche-
verrey himself?"
Still Pointer did not reply. He only nodded thoughtfully.
"Are we wrong about those destroyed pages in my brother's
manuscript: the pages pointing straight to Etcheverrey—to
Newman?"
This time Pointer did look up.
"It's a very intricate case," he agreed, "but I think—I think
—that the pages of Mr. Julian Clifford's coming novel were
taken and destroyed because of what was in them. And I
think that because of the information shortly to be published
through them, Mr. Clifford was murdered." And Pointer
inhospitably rose and with an apology ended the few minutes'
talk. He was at work before the door closed behind them.
The paper in which the tin box had been wrapped was of an
unusually good quality. It matched some which Pointer had
seen at Thornbush—paper in which his publishers sent Julian
Clifford his proofs. Who would open Mr. Clifford's proofs?
Newman probably. And the string . . . Pointer found within
the half-hour that the string was the same as the ball on New-
man's writing table.
Pointer drove on to the warehouse. He found the night
watchman just closing shutters and gates. From him he learnt
that the box had been handed to a pensioned-off night watch-
man very early Tuesday morning. The man was only called
in for extra duty when, as then, the regular man was busy
on some especial job. This extra watchman had put the box
in the cellar, but had forgotten to mention the fact to any
one. It was only by chance that to-day, Friday, he had learnt
of Mr. Dance's inquiry, and by that time, unfortunately,


238 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
the foreman had mislaid the address given him by the man-
ager to which any such parcel was to be sent. The men pre-
ferred not to mention this fact to Dance, but sent the pack-
age to Mr. Haslar's house, believing that though down with
the flu, he could still see about his own parcels.
Pointer went to interview the ex-night watchman. He left
him not much the wiser. A car had driven up to the gates
of the warehouse about three on Tuesday morning. The driver
had got down and handed him a parcel, saying that Mr. Has-
lar wanted it taken care of according to instructions which he
had written on it. But he did not want it entered on the
books, as it would not be left for long. With that the man
had clambered back into his seat, turned the car, and driven
off. Stanley, the man who took the tin, had marked it K for
the cold storage, and, after putting it in the appropriate cellar,
had forgotten all about it until to-day. His belief that it was
Mr. Haslar's chauffeur who had called in the car rested on
mere assumption. He had too little to do with the warehouse
nowadays to know Arnold Haslar's car or driver. He could
not even describe the latter. He might have been Arnold
Haslar himself, and he might not.


CHAPTER XIII
Pointer drove to the police station where Hobbs was lodged
in a comfortable enough room. The shock of the arrest had
cleared his brain. He was quite himself again now, and had
ordered, and eaten, a very good dinner.
"Why am I being detained here? Why is bail refused, if
it's on any charge for which you have a right to detain me?
Why am I not allowed to communicate with my solicitor?"
he began in the tone of a man who had determined to take
the upper hand.
"Bail is never allowed on a murder charge, Mr. Hobbs."
Pointer took a chair.
Hobbs was holding himself in with some difficulty.
"Murder? Whose murder? What murder?"
"The murder of Julian Clifford. And, if we see fit, the at-
tempted murder of Miss Haslar through a plan concocted
together with Mrs. Orr in Bruges where she posed as her
unmarried half-sister, a Beguine there called Soeur Therese.
Mrs. Orr was really quite talkative when I explained how
things stood over here. She had no idea Julian Clifford was
dead."
Hobbs's face twitched.
"You don't think you can get away with this sort of stuff
with me, do you?" he asked.
"It's the truth, Mr. Hobbs. Mrs. Orr is not the kind to
throw good money after bad. She gave us every help, like the


240 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
sensible woman that she is. We have, as I told you, the money
you sent her by Miss Haslar. Five thousand pounds."
"Ay, yes, the money that was sent to straighten things out,
if necessary. Sir Edward told you about Mr. Clifford's pro-
posed purchase of the Charlemagne crystal. Needless to say,
the money I sent her, except her own promised rake-off of
one thousand, was only deposited with Mrs. Orr, so to speak.
She was expected to account for it very strictly. As to her
own commission, I saw no reason why she should be the
loser because Mr. Clifford's terrible end had cut short the
negotiations."
"Especially after she had inserted that personal in the
Times of yesterday, Tuesday? 'Hobby. Five needed instantly
as promised. No letters. May.' She says a small official in the
new museum had heard something about the proposed sale.
And the money found on you when you were searched
just now! A nice sum, Mr. Hobbs. The remainder of the
cheque for seventy thousand, as well as some bearer
bonds."
"I was carrying that sum according to Julian Clifford's in-
structions," Hobbs retorted. "It now returns to his estate, of
course. Now that I know, what I did not believe until this
afternoon, that he is dead. You know why that cheque was
cashed. Whatever happened to Mr. Clifford after he wrote
those notes which each of us at Thornbush got Tuesday
morning, I was only carrying out instructions."
Pointer shook his head. "It won't do, Mr. Hobbs. We've
had an accountant looking into the books. According to him
you've had altogether not far short of a hundred thousand
pounds already out of Mr. Clifford's fortune."
Hobbs did not question the figure.
"The new librarian, Straight, was the accountant, I sup-
pose? I thought that was his game! But you'll have to have


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 241
reasonable proof, better proof than that before arresting me
for murder."
"We have ample proof of motive," Pointer said tranquilly.
"Really quite good. Just let me run the facts over to you, Mr.
Hobbs. There is the systematic robbery extending over many
years—about ten, Straight thinks. Mr. Clifford evidently
made some discovery—you determined to kill him at once.
You were already getting ready to leave England with Mrs.
Orr. She had determined to throw in her lot with you when
she found that her name must be published in a coming di-
vorce suit. But before you both went off to subsist quite
pleasantly on the money you had accumulated, you thought
that the Charlemange crystal would give you the opportunity
for additional loot. You never intended Mr. Clifford to get
the crystal. What you did intend was to see that Mr. Hobbs
got the seventy thousand which you and Mrs. Orr claimed
was being asked by the town for it. You have no alibi for
Monday night. You lured Mr. Clifford to Fourteen Heath
Mansions, or you took advantage of some one else's having
lured him there, followed him, and murdered him. You cut
off his head, packed it in plaster in a biscuit tin, wrapped it in
some paper in which Mr. Clifford's proofs had been sent
home, tied it with string from Mr. Newman's ball, and took
it to Mr. Haslar's warehouse, rightly thinking that in the
ordinary course it would not be detected there for a long time
—long after you had left England. How much chance will
you have in the dock against that story, Mr. Hobbs? Re-
member your palm prints on the spade handle through the
opening in the gloves you carefully wore."
That last improvised touch did it. Hobbs sagged down in
his chair, his mouth working.
"I'm innocent!" he said at last in a hoarse voice, "inno-
cent of all the charges."


242 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
"You can't be innocent of both the charge of embezzle-
ment and the charge of murder, Mr. Hobbs. Your one chance
to clear yourself of the capital charge is to prove to me that
Mr. Clifford's death absolutely disarranged your plans."
Hobbs sat a moment, then he straightened up. He had
feared as much from the beginning of the interview, but had
hoped to avoid a confession.
"I warn you, of course," Pointer went on, "that anything
you say about Mr. Clifford's death may have to be used in
evidence, whether against you or another, but anything that
you tell me about other matters will be considered as confi-
dential, except where it touches on the murder."
"What does Edward Clifford say?"
"I haven't discussed the matter with him. The only bargain
I can make with you, Mr. Hobbs," Pointer said with steel
in his voice, "is that one lie, and you may find yourself ar-
rested on a capital charge. But, on the other hand, if you tell
frankly all that you know, we may waive the accusation of
attempted murder. I can make no promises, of course."
There was a long silence.
"I'll tell you exactly what happened," Hobbs said finally,
"it's my best chance with you, I see. It may help—I think it
will. Monday night I sat out in the garden till about ten.
When I came in, I found a note on the telephone pad for me
from Mr. Clifford asking me toAgo on after him to Fourteen
Heath Mansions, where he would wait for me. No name was
given of the flat's owner. I was rather surprised, for I had
no idea that he knew any one there. But I went to the address,
used an automatic corner lift—I had a friend who lived there
once, so I knew my way about. As I stepped out of the lift
on to the landing, my scarf caught in the lift door. I stopped
to put it right. Had to peel off my gloves, and stepped over to
the window ledge to lay them down. That brought me to one


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 243
side of the landing in the shadow. While I was rewinding the
scarf, the door of Number Fourteen opened suddenly, and a
man thrust his head out, looked around, and then slipped out
and closed the door, standing still again for a moment to
listen. I was just going to move towards him when he ran
down the stairs as light as a cat. Well, I was startled. I
stepped to the door and caught hold of the little brass knocker.
It gave—the door was open. Apparently the lock hadn't
caught. I couldn't understand the affair at all. But I knew
that Clifford had the Haslar letters with him in a letter-case.
I called his name. No one answered. I walked into the first
room to my right and there I found him—dead—shot—sitting
with his head sunk forward on his breast ... he was quite
warm. There was no weapon to be seen. Well,"—Hobbs
stopped and lit a cigar with a match that quivered—"I was
appalled. There's no use pretending that Julian Clifford's
death wasn't the end of things for me. Edward Clifford, or
any other executor, would run a very careful eye over ac-
counts. I couldn't cover my tracks under a couple of days' in-
tensive work, and I wasn't ready to fly at once—I daren't
with a murdered man. Then there was the cheque for seventy
thousand pounds which Clifford carried ready to cash when
necessary, and which, as you know, we'd been working for. I
thought of taking his body off with me, but you can't carry
dead people around town. Wthought of all sorts of things.
Then I remembered that on coming in, I had come by a
corner door—I had noticed some workmen's tools and sack-
ing. I thought of a sack, and of dumping the body into the
river somewhere. I went downstairs and found that there was
no empty sack. But there was an empty tin, a tin large enough
to contain a head. I went back to Thornbush, got my car out
—by some lucky chance the chauffeur had the evening off—
took along with me some paper and string, left the car not


244 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
far from Heath Mansions, walked in by the same way, still
without meeting any one. The porters and people were all in
the big, central, well-lit part. I took the tin and a spade up
with me. The spade went under a loose topcoat which I had
put on at Thornbush when I went back for the wrapping
material. I had left the door with the latch caught back. I
went in, took off Clifford's clothes, did them up into two
parcels, and addressed them to fictitious names—I've forgot-
ten what names, or where, for then I took the head . .
His voice shook. "I don't need any punishment for having
done that. It's punishment enough. I see it night and day.
Shall see it. . . . You can't do a thing like that and be the
same man afterwards. However ... I poured plaster into
the tin, and so on, as you already know. And after some
thought I decided that the best place for it would be Haslar's
warehouse. He had once told me how things got snowed under
in the cellars, do what they would. Besides, I thought then
that there was a poetic justice about it, for I believed that
Haslar had killed Julian Clifford."
"But we found the tin on a shelf in Mr. Haslar's strong
room," Pointer said doubtfully.
Hobbs swore at himself. "Like a fool I put it there when I
went to Arnold Haslar's this afternoon and found it on the
hall table."
"And what took you to Mr. Haslar's house?"
Hobbs kept sullen silence for a moment. Then, "I had
found the Haslar letters Wednesday night which had been on
Mr. Clifford before his death, and for which I had been look-
ing everywhere, letters which only interested Haslar, in a
secret drawer in his library along with Clifford's umbrella.
I forgot the letters while talking to Miss Haslar, and getting
her to take some money across for me to Mrs. Orr. I knew
quite well that I was watched by day, but I thought I could


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 245
slip across at night and get them. They were better de-
stroyed."
"That version won't do, Mr. Hobbs," Pointer said de-
cidedly. "You took those letters from Mr. Clifford's body—
from his dead body you maintain—when you took the cheque.
Just as you—not Haslar—took the umbrella, hacked it into
pieces to get it into a parcel with the clothes, and then found
after all that it was too awkward to manage."
This was only the sounding of a pilot going carefully in
difficult waters.
"You went out for a walk on Tuesday morning as soon as
you came down. You walked over to Mr. Haslar's house, let
yourself in, or found the door open and walked in, and put
the umbrella in that secret partition. You could easily hide
the umbrella on you, or carry it in a roll of maps or papers.
. . . Then when the whole affair began to get unpleasantly
hot, you decided that the letters which you were carrying on
you must be hidden somewhere. Somewhere known only to
yourself. Some hiding-place, moreover, that would tell against
the person in whose presumed possession they were found,
should they be found. Mr. Haslar is not likely to open any
of his drawers for a long time, so to Mr. Haslar's old bureau
you carried them Wednesday night. Miss Haslar caught you
with them in your hand. You pretended, of course, that you
had just taken them out of the place where her brother
had hidden them."
That Diana had actually seen Hobbs with letters in his
hand which it was known that Julian Clifford had been carry-
ing on Monday night, the night when he was murdered, was
one of the things that explained why she ran so much danger
in going to the Beguinage. Why, once her help was no longer
needed, it was not intended that she should return to Eng-
land.


246 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Pointer reasoned—rightly—that when Hobbs had to send
the money to Mrs, Orr by some carrier who he believed was
not being watched, he was in a quandary. Whoever was
taken into his counsel, however slightly, would be a permanent
danger to him and to Mrs. Orr. That person had therefore
better be silenced. Hobbs, so Pointer believed, chose Diana
both because she could be easily induced to take the letter, and
because she would be as well out of the way. She knew too
much. She had opened a letter meant for Hobbs, Sir Edward
said. One that had made her suspect that the literary agent's
entries were not accurate. She was a grave menace. Once let
the idea that Hobbs had been robbing his brother take root in
Sir Edward's mind, and—supposing that he himself knew
nothing of the crime—then, in spite of Newman's confession,
Hobbs's chance of getting away with, or without, the money
for the crystal would be small.
"You decided this afternoon to get back those letters in
order to frighten her into silence if things went wrong,"
Pointer continued, "that is, if she should by any chance return
from Bruges. And that was why you went to Mr. Haslar's
house when you fancied yourself unwatched. You evidently
have a latchkey. You let yourself in this afternoon, and the
first thing you saw was that tin in the hall. You put it in the
strong room whose password you knew, like most of Mr.
Haslar's friends. And because it was there, Miss Haslar had
been locked in by you when you thought she had gone in after
it—you refused to say to what word you had set the dial."
Pointer bit back with difficulty his comments on what had
happened.
"I forgot the word." But Hobb's eyes did not meet the
other's. "Besides, I'd had a glass of brandy. Neat too. Who
wouldn't, when they found that damned tin resurrected, and
staring at them from a hall table? Ever since that night in


248 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
wrote the letters, of course, the letters signed by Clifford's
name. There's nothing easier than what's called forgery. No
one ever thinks of doubting a letter when they see a familiar
name at the foot. I had to do something to keep people from
suspecting what had happened. I knew about what to say in
each, of course. Fondest love to Alison. Poor girl. General
directions to Newman to carry on. Same to Diana. Straight
was to start on the subject-index I'd heard Clifford speak of.
I wrote the notes Tuesday morning after leaving the tin."
"You think Mrs. Clifford had no doubts throughout as to
the genuineness of the two she got?"
"None whatever. A baby in swaddling clothes cpuld deceive
my cousin."
"And was it usual with Mr. Clifford to leave her like that
—with only a written note for good-bye?'
"He had done it at least once before, I knew, when he was
at work on a serial. He never worked out his serials before-
hand. I remembered that on that occasion he had scribbled her
a line, poked it under her door, and been out of the house
when she got up."
Pointer nodded. "I see. Now, as to the cheque? We know,
of course, that you altered the name to Selfe. But how did
you account for the name to Mrs. Clifford, I mean?"
"I told her Selfe was the man through whom the crystal
would actually be purchased."
"And the second letter, also in Mr. Clifford's writing, the
letter which Mrs. Clifford received Wednesday morning at
breakfast? The letter posted in Bruges by Mrs. Orr?"
Hobbs grinned sarcastically.
"Well, naturally, I had to take it from her desk and de-
stroy it. It wouldn't have deceived either of you. It wasn't
meant to. It was meant to do what it did. Keep my cousin,
Mrs. Clifford, quiet."


252 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
to, but he finally said, 'You're too straightlaced a chap, Dick,
my son. We will not blacken your innocent soul with the
night's dark deeds.' I decided to go for a walk, it was a
heavenly evening, and turn in early. I had only landed that
morning. I walked about the heath at random, and then made
for Thornbush. Passing what I now know to be Heath Man-
sions, I ran into Mr. Clifford. He stopped me, asked me if
I'd mind dropping a couple of letters in a pillar-box for him,
and then coming on after him to flat Fourteen in the building
to which he pointed. He added"—Straight looked at Diana as
though asking her to forgive him—"he added that he ex-
pected to have rather an unpleasant interview with Arnold
Haslar. Would I mind coming up? He had left a message for
Hobbs, but Hobbs mightn't get it in time. I wasn't very keen
on an unpleasant interview between my friend and my em-
ployer. Mr. Clifford evidently read as much in my face, for
he said, 'It's all right. I only want to borrow your eyes.
Haslar has just telephoned me that he has a friend who lives
there and who can prove that certain letters which I believe to
be genuine are forgeries.' With that he turned in at the gates
of the flats. I didn't find a letter-box at once. Doubtless I
passed several. When I got back, I walked up the stairs and to
my surprise found the door of Number Fourteen ajar. I
rang, and then, as no one came, I walked in. The door of a
room on my right was open. There sat Mr. Clifford at a
little side table beside a lamp, reading a letter. He glanced up
and said, 'It's all right, Straight. I shan't need you after all.
Sorry to've given you the trouble of coming up here for noth-
ing.' I murmured something and went out. As I closed the
door, Mr. Clifford said something which I didn't quite catch.
But I think—I only think, mind you, Chief Inspector, that it
was 'Newman's here. I shall be quite all right.'"


254 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
the door listening, as I said, to see if I had really heard
Haslar, and how I could not have seen any one if they had
been standing outside the flat, or on the landing—" Straight
shook his head.
"You think whoever saw you was inside the flat, not out-
side?" Pointer asked.
"I don't know what to think," Straight replied, "it's too
terrible a case to decide on quickly."
There was another silence. Diana sat with her head resting
on her hand, her face shaded, her lips tightly pressed together.
"And you, Miss Haslar, you knew of this meeting on Mon-
day night between your brother and Mr. Clifford?"
She looked at Pointer, tightening her lips still more.
"I'd like a word alone with you if you would let me have
it," Pointer said.
Straight rose reluctantly at her glance. He stepped up to
Pointer before opening the door.
"Be gentle with her," he murmured under his breath,
"she's going through a frightful ordeal."
When the door closed behind him Pointer began again.
"Suppose you chance it, Miss Haslar, and trust me to see
the truth through all the maze of misleading events and side
issues. I don't see how you can do any harm by speaking out.
Nothing can make matters worse for Mr. Haslar, and know-
ing that, suppose you take heart."
"Then you don't believe in Mr. Newman's confession?" she
asked eagerly and yet with dread in her voice.
"Until all the facts are cleared up, it's not possible to be
certain who was an accomplice and who not," Pointer said
truthfully. "We know your brother took the flat. But it's
possible that he may have taken it simply as the first step in
a rather elaborate plan to get back those letters blackening
your grandfather's character which Mr. Clifford intended to


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 255
include in his coming biography of Sir William Haslar. We
have the letters themselves."
Diana looked sceptical. But her look changed as Pointer
drew a note-case from his pocket and took out of an envelope
photographic copies of the two fateful notes. She was
startled. Yet, oddly enough, it gave her courage. Here was a
man who wanted but the truth. A man who had the knack
of getting it, moreover. Diana searched his face again. It
was the face of a man of high personal character. There were
brains in it. But it could be an absolutely unyielding face.
She sat through another agonised moment of silence. There
was danger whatever she did or said.
"I think he may have taken it in order to lay a trap for
Mr. Julian Clifford," Pointer said again, "a trap to get pos-
session of those letters. Am I right? I've thought so all
along. But it wasn't easy to get the proof, to find out what he
wanted."
Diana surrendered the position.
"I think so too," she said slowly. "I know nothing definite.
But I think he meant to—well, keep Mr. Clifford there for a
few days."
"Against his will?"
Diana nodded.
"That, at least, was what I feared when I heard on Tues-
day morning that Mr. Clifford had left Thornbush so sud-
denly before breakfast. And when a man from the Home
Office called during the morning, and spoke of Uncle Julian's
absence as such a riddle. Seemed so amazed at it! But Mrs.
Clifford and her cousin appeared so certain that they knew
where Uncle Julian was, that I thought how silly I had been.
. . But you see Arnold had just been taken ill that morning,
at the breakfast table, and the doctor had spoken of some ex-
citement or shock." She bit her lip.


258 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
telephone last Saturday evening. I heard him say, 'He can't
come till Tuesday, but the flat's taken for a month, so that's
all right.'"
"Do you know to whom he was talking V
Diana hesitated.
"Was it to Mr. Newman?"
Her silence was answer in itself.
"Mr. Straight is a great friend of yours and your brother's,
I believe?"
"Very great."
"Did he know about the letters—I mean about their ex-
istence?"
"Not in the least," she said earnestly. "Mr. Straight is the
last man to permit himself to be drawn into a family
squabble."
"And Mr. Newman?"
"Mr. Newman was with Uncle Julian when they were
found. He and Adrian Hobbs both knew of them."
"And Sir Edward Clifford?"
"I begged Uncle Julian not to tell him. Sir Edward has
always been most unjustly critical of my grandfather's policy
about the Australian navy."
"And now—how did you come to go to Bruges, Miss
Haslar? You found Mr. Hobbs at that desk in your brother's
study, didn't you—at the secret drawer?"
"He had the letters you've shown me in his hand. And
Uncle Julian's umbrella too. He told me that he had only just
found them in that old concealed double back, after hunting
for them all day. But I hardly cared about the letters, for he
told me something else. I thought it too good to be true, and
yet, I believed it!"
"That Mr. Julian Clifford was alive after all?"
"Yes, that you had made a mistake about identifying the


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 259
body found in Heath Mansions as his; that Alison was right,
that Uncle Julian was safe and sound only in a most awkward
position. I would rather not tell you about that," Diana said,
pausing.
Pointer assured her that the police knew it already.
"And you? Did you know that the nun was Mrs. Orr?"
Diana asked. "Or did you just suspect it?"
"I suspected it so strongly that I knew it," Pointer said, a
trifle grimly, "chiefly from her manicured nails. They posi-
tively glittered. And a little from the marks of having worn
rings very recently on her fingers, especially the dent of a
wedding ring."
"And was it really her intention to—or was that about
the window and the canal only to frighten her?"
Pointer did not answer. He thought that the less said about
that the better. He had practically had to promise as much to
Mrs. Orr before she would speak. He had only his suspicions
on which to go.
"And did Adrian Hobbs intentionally shut me in that
strong room?"
Pointer did not answer that either.
"And about Sanz," she said, after a pause, in a low voice;
"what is going to be done with him?"
A door had just opened in the east library. Pointer had
heard it and recognised the step. Not so Diana.
"You would never have known that he was Etcheverrey,
but for me!" Suddenly she sprang up. Diana's spirit was ever
for action, weary though her body might be. "Chief Inspector,
I feel as though somehow you were my one hope. Sanz
Etcheverrey couldn't have killed Uncle Julian. I know he
traded on my love for him to take those Melbourne plans, but
that was different—that was political. He was against us all
during the war, and I thought I hated him. I told myself I


260 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
did. I lost my only other brother though he was a chaplain, in
the war. But this is quite different. In spite of all, I know he
didn't kill Uncle Julian."
Pointer looked at her. She read his look.
"You mean that I think that because I love him?" She
seemed to think over that possibility. "I do. And in that awful
strong room last night I learnt that nothing in the world is
more worth while than being able to love. It's a miracle. To
be loved is nothing—that's easy; that's chance. But to be able
to love! And I had been trying to crush it out of me all these
years. I thought hatred finer. For years I've been trying to
think that Sanz was playing some deep game of his own here
at Thornbush. But he didn't play a game when he came
back, in spite of his confession, to get me out last night. He
offered up his life for mine. Has he—has he given up his life
for mine?"
Diana asked the dreadful question with indescribable
anguish.
"That coming back to rescue you stands to his credit what-
ever the issue." Pointer would not say more.
"And that confession?" Diana was in an awful position.
Her brother stood on the one side, her lover on the other.
"It's a good thing to doubt everybody and everything in a
case of this kind," Pointer said vaguely but kindly.
Diana looked at him imploringly. A very strange look to see
on Diana's face. But nothing of the thoughts behind them
were mirrored in the Chief Inspector's inscrutable gray eyes.
He was as usual aloof, remote, and tranquil.
"But if Re didn't kill Uncle Julian, then he must have
written that letter to save some one. To save Arnold. Not
that Arnold needs saving," Diana added hastily, "but I've
wondered whether Sanz didn't think he did, and so jump
in to the rescue. I was mad to think Sanz could have tried to


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 261
shoot Arnold. I wanted to think anything bad of him, so as
to—" She seemed to recollect herself. "Forgive me ranting
like an Adelphi heroine. I'm not taken that way often. But
what's his fate to be? Mind you," she came a step nearer,
"nothing will alter my feelings towards Sanz. Imprison him
for life, hang him—I shall always love him, always wait for
him! For no matter what his ideas of duty force him to do,
however horrible his political opinions, he himself—Sanz
Etcheverrey the man, not the anarchist—is a hero!"
The communicating door between the two libraries opened
sharply with a jerk. Algernon Newman, as he still signed
himself, came in very gravely. He hardly glanced at Diana.
"Chief Inspector, I've come to clear up a few things—no,
not directly concerned with what interests you, but only per-
sonal matters. No, please stay, Miss Haslar!"
"Miss Haslar? It wasn't 'Miss Haslar' whom you got out
of the safe last night, Sanz," Diana threw back at him. There
is no confidence in the world greater, no power surer than
that of a woman who is talking to the man whom she knows
loves her. And Diana had looked deep into the eyes of her
rescuer last night. She knew his heart.
"It wasn't Sanz Etcheverrey who opened the safe," New-
man said heavily. "Sanz Etcheverrey is a more or less ro-
mantic figure, at least in a woman's eyes. There's nothing ro-
mantic about me." He paused. Diana said nothing, but she
was obviously with him in any change of name or personality
which he might be going to make.
Newman looked ill and very tired. Evidently some fierce
fighting hadgone on within him. "I'm only a crook's son.
Worse—a murderer's son."
Diana half rose. He stopped her with a weary lift of his
eyes.
"You mustn't sacrifice your life to a sham romantic person-


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 263
ital. When the firm got into difficulties after Penfold's death,
my father came to England. I believe there was a fire, and
he started with the insurance money as manager in a biggish
firm. Anyway he began to speculate, lost, and borrowed the
firm's money; to conceal these he forged entries stole more
money, and so on—the usual thing. He was convicted and sent
to prison. Meanwhile he had married a woman in the set
into which he had by this time sunk. Crooks, all of them. My
father came out of prison—I was twelve by that time—and
went from bad to worse. He now made his living as a safe
breaker, a cracksman. He invented a wonderful way of open-
ing safes; had he been honest he might have risen high, I
sometimes think. He made a great deal of money, stole it, in
other words. Lived in great style. Called himself Baron de
Ribiera from Argentina. Then came the war. I was just
short of eighteen, but I joined up, thankful to get free. I
had tried several times to earn my own living, but some-
thing always gave me away. My father would find out where
I was, or some friends of his recognised me, or the police
warned my employers whose son I was"
"But you weren't a thief!" Diana said with confidence.
"Not I! I'd have starved first. I hated the life, the whole
horrible family life—I enlisted under the name of Pollock,
my mother's name. Then came the news that my father had
murdered one of his accomplices who was about to give him
away. He was caught red-handed, and hanged. You remember
the case, I suppose?"
Pointer had been looking it up. Cockerell had finally re-
membered where he had seen a safe that had been opened
on lines similar to those followed for that strong room door
last night.
"Man called Strachey?" he asked gently.
"Just so. Well, I slogged away at soldiering. They put me


266 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
the tragic leave-taking that the Chief Inspector had promised
her.
"That's what you meant by Padre Haslar?" Diana had
hardly noticed the reference before. He nodded.
"It was next best to being with you. Life was a bit grim
those days. Your brother was a man in a million. He"—
Newman made a gesture of inability—"but what's the good,
you can't describe a man like him!"
"He was a dear!" Diana said, with a catch in her voice; "he
loved the whole world."
"He loved God," Newman said seriously. "It takes a very
good man to be able to love God. But he did. You knew he
was killed trying to get a couple of wounded soldiers out of a
shell-hole that was filling with water? Hit just after he got
them through our barbed wire."
Diana nodded. She guessed what was coming.
"I was one of the two. We had been three days in that
shell-hole."
There was a long pause.
"When I woke up in hospital—I had collapsed at the wire
—I found that no one knew who I was. My identity disc had
been cut off when they dressed my arm at a clearing station.
So had my few remaining rags. We had all to be evacuated
quickly and my things were left behind. I was too weak to
be questioned. And I didn't care to talk. I had heard the Padre
had been shot helping poor Wingate to make a last effort.
Wingate was much worse wounded than I was. I didn't want
to live. But in the ward was a chap who had lost his memory.
It struck me that he was a lucky devil. And then I pretended
to've lost mine. Only to be left in peace, at first. But I began
to think what a wonderful thing it would be if I really had
lost it—for ever. The memory of that circle of crooks, of the
underworld, of all I loathed, of my father whom I secretly


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 267
loathed too. Though, as I say, he was always kind to me—
kind and forbearing. To be rid of it all! To drop it off like
a dirty shirt. It seemed a heavenly thought. I played it. It
worked. No one suspected me. You see, I had been studying
the poor fellow in the ward who really had lost his memory.
He wanted it back. Lucky man! Then Mr. Clifford came
along, and spoke of Padre Haslar. Spoke of him as a friend.
I couldn't claim to've known him, but that made me accept
Mr. Clifford's offer to see what he could do for me. What I
could do for myself was how he put it. Well—the rest you
know. Any one of the name of Haslar could wipe their boots
on me for"—he pulled himself up—"for Peter Haslar's
sake," he finished hastily. But he had intended to bracket an-
other name with the dead chaplain's.
"And now, Chief Inspector, what are you going to do about
me? Nothing of this alters my confession. Diana, Miss
Haslar, is going too far there. I give myself up for the
murder of Julian Clifford and the shooting of Arnold Has-
lar." Newman spoke in a steady, firm tone. "I stand to
that."
Pointer said nothing. He seemed lost in a profound con-
viction that his bootmaker had sent him two rights or two
lefts, and that a closer scrutiny of his shoes would reveal the
mistake.
"What are you going to do with me?" Newman asked
again.
"Have a word in private, I think, first of all," Pointer
suggested.
Diana got up. She looked as though she felt the need for
thought. This Newman was another man. Son of a crook, son
of a murderer, and yet . . . Diana felt that life could be
extraordinary difficult. Suddenly she wheeled.
"Then if you're not Etcheverrey, why did you kill Uncle


268 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Julian? If it's not political, if you're not—" She did not
finish either sentence.
Newman's face hardened. His jaw line showed more
clearly. He said nothing, only stared with expressionless eyes
out of the window as she left the two men together.
s


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 275
Funny thing medicine. One capsule an hour makes for re-
covery, while three would kill him before he could swallow
them. Hell be able to speak to-morrow. To tell us the real
story. For, of course, Mr. Newman, until he does that, it's
hard to believe that he was not more implicated in the murder
than you represent him."
Newman's face had darkened at the good report of Haslar.
"And that rope on your sitting-room wall," Pointer went
on; "I recognised it as one of ours, of course. From inquiries
I find that the rope that hung Cadby is missing. They are al-
ways kept, as you know, together with a death mask of each
man. You tipped some out-going sergeant of police a little
too freely, I'm afraid. But it belongs to us, Mr. Newman.
You must let us have it back."
"You can have it any time you like," Newman said
through his teeth. "It's served its turn. I put it there to re-
mind me of who I am. But as Miss Haslar knows the truth
now, it can go. She'll be wise and take the respectable side of
the road. Oh, life is damnation!" The sudden outburst was
repressed as soon as it flashed out.
Pointer looked at his shoes for some moments.
"That rope belongs to us," he repeated slowly. "I suggest
that you have a talk with a Superintendent of Police whom
I've asked to come here as soon as he can. He's a man who
was sent over to Barcelona in connection with the Strachey
case."
Newman's face grew more sombre still.
"I don't want any last messages," he said hoarsely.
"You'll want this one. You'd have had it long ago but for
your change of name. Pollock was posted as missing, of
course. The man who murdered Strachey was not your father.
Your father, so Cadby swore in a duly witnessed statement
which he made to the governor the day before his execution,


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 277
on the registers, was duly baptized at the English Church
there. Your sins are on your own head. Whatever you have
done, now that you know the truth, you will not be able
to plead that it was your father's blood that was too much
for you, family traits too strong for you. Copies of the
papers concerning your parentage will be handed you by the
Superintendent when he comes."
Newman stood staring at him. All the colour had drained
from his face. Before his mind's eye passed his miserable,
desperate, hate-filled boyhood in surroundings from which
his honest fibre revolted. He thought of his efforts to get out
of them, of the years at Thornbush, happy years had he been
leading a true life. And now! He shut his eyes for a second.
"But for your confession you could walk out of this house
with a lighter heart than I dare swear you've known before,"
Pointer went on.
"You're a devil!" Newman said passionately. "What
you've told me alters nothing." There was something desper-
ate in the tense voice and in the eyes that stared out at the
sunshine. "Alters nothing! I did kill Julian Clifford and shoot
Haslar. But not a word of this news of yours about myself to
Miss Haslar, nor to any one."
"Oh, certainly. It's entirely your own affair," Pointer
agreed.
Newman, very pale, stood biting his lip, swallowing hard.
"It was Mr. Clifford I understand who wished Hobbs to
leave him?" Pointer asked suddenly.
Newman stared for a second as though he could hardly
hear the other through the tumult in his head.
"The other way around," he said absent-mindedly.
"I asked, because, but for your confession, Mr. Newman—
yrpe you wish me to continue calling you that—we at the
Yard would wonder whether he might not have just found


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
stir in that darkened bedroom where on a narrow white bed
it took keen sight to make out a shape lying motionless. A
head so bandaged that it was scarcely distinguishable from
the pillows into which it sank. A chalk-white hand lay inert
on the metal brocade of the blanket. Light, and slow, and
faint, came the breaths from between lips but a few degrees
less colourless than the bandages, than the linen.
The nurse had come and gone, the patient had had his
hourly capsule, and had immediately seemed to slumber on—
if slumber it could be called.
It was past midnight when the door opened slowly—slowly
but not furtively. In came a man. He stood a second to get his
bearings in the dimness of the one light that shone like a
large pearl above the table on which stood the medicine. He
stepped up to the bed. Then he moved to the little table and
looked at the box of capsules—read the label, the directions,
and stood a second quite still. He switched off the light and
crossed to the window. Looked out. Rearranged the curtains
and turned up the light. Then he went to a huge walnut
wardrobe—opened it and felt inside. Once more he came back
to the bed. Something in his circling suggested a vulture
about to settle. His hand went out to the box. He opened it
and counted oat six of the little objects inside. From an en-
velope in his pocket he shook out six other capsules into the
box, the same as the others in appearance. Now he paused,
listening intently. Then bending over the bed, he pressed shut
the nostrils which a bandage loosely covered. The mouth
under Haslar's toothbrush moustache opened. Into it the man
swiftly dropped the capsules taken from the box. Instantly
the breathing stopped half-way. A faint shudder ran through
the body. The hand drew down in a spasm beneath the sheet.
The whole body seemed to straighten itsel f. The head slipped
sideways off the pillows' on the farther side. The man waited


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 281
a second. Then he laid his hand on the man's heart. There is
an elementary trick in Ju-Jitsu by which a hand so placed is
held by a grip above the elbow, while the body on which
it rests bends forward all but breaking the wrist. This hap-
pened now. The man screamed like what he was—a trapped
animal.
"Take it quietly," said the man whom he thought dead.
"Tindall, Doctor Evans, and an Inspector are in the next
room watching you.
"Richard Straight, I arrest you for the murder of Mr.
Julian Clifford last Monday night." The usual warning was
given by Chief Inspector Pointer—in bandages, lavish chalk
make-up, and a shirt which fastened up his back by tapes.
"Inspector Watts, you can take away the Japanese cine-
matographic camera from the top of the wardrobe. It's a
camera that works in the dark, Mr. Straight."
"Rubbish!" Straight had some difficulty in getting his lips
to shape the words. "Why, I had only met Mr. Clifford an
hour or so before—what earthly motive would I have had for
killing him?" He tried for a note of derision.
"Motive? His novel The Soul of Ishamel is coming out in
monthly parts in the Arcturus magazine. Either you had met
Mr. Clifford before, or he had come on your story by some
chance, without knowing your name. You might have met
without either of you recognising the other again for he often
dressed in a disguise when he was on his investigations, and
he was very near-sighted. At any rate, in The Soul of Ish-
mael, the reason why the chief character has to leave England,
is the same as that which made you leave England. Only you
went to Australia, while the man in the book was to go to
the Pyrenees and join Etcheverrey's band. And that reason
was appropriation of money which the town council thought
was properly invested. With a swindle to cover the tracks—a


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 283
ind on the best of terms, as the servants, as every one at
Thornbush can testify."
"Quite so. Therefore it was probably after that dinner that
you read the current number of the Arcturus. A number in ^
which the story breaks off just before the crucial point—for
you. A few more pages and it would be too late. An Arcturus
was lying on the table in the library where you sat while
waiting for Mr. Haslar's visitor to go. You read it, saw your
danger, it's imminence, and heard a plan being finally run
through beside you which you thought would save you. That
was why you shot Mr. Clifford in the flat to which you lured
him by just such a telephone message as you had heard sug-
gested. You doubtless imitated Haslar's voice, or claimed to
be speaking for him. And afterwards you took away from his
writing-table drawer the typescript pages which would have
oetrayed your story.
"It was you, not Mr. Haslar, who postponed the planned
gaieties of last Monday night. You probably alleged some
work for, or talk to, Mr. Clifford. Or your own fatigue after
your journey. That telephone call that you told us arrived
ifter you got to the house and which hurried Mr. Haslar into
:he country, came from you yourself as soon as you left him.
You sent another to Mr. Newman. So that neither man could
stray into the flat. And also so that if things went wrong,
neither man could have an alibi. I think you used Cory's name
for that purpose, and let them think they were to meet him
for some urgent reason. After the murder, Mr. Haslar would
}f course think those bogus appointments confirmed Cory's
guilt. To Mr. Newman it would look like Haslar's doing. The
<ey to flat Fourteen you took from Mr. Haslar's ulster hang-
ing in the hall before you left the house. You also took his
nitomatic which you know from his habits in Australia he
sept beside his bed. You were friends enough to chance being


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 285
He maintained this at his trial, but when his appeal against
1 he death sentence passed on him was disallowed, he wrote
a letter to the Chief Inspector, one of those long, detailed
letters that men of his temperament often do write at such
a time. In it he confessed that Pointer's theory of the motive;
a theory proved up to the hilt at the trial was right; that Mr.
Clifford in the course of talking to him after dinner on Mon-
day about his work had let fall that he was going to take
the coming instalment of The Soul of Ishmael to his pub-
lisher's next morning. This was an item which had meant
nothing to Straight at the time but which had spelled disaster,
full and complete, when he had read while waiting in Haslar's
! i brary the last published chapters of the novel. Straight knew
then that he had only a few hours in which to avert discovery
—practically only Monday night.
After many digressions, Straight went on to say, in this
final confession, that he had probably himself given Julian
Clifford one half of his own story long ago,—on a boat going
to Corfu,—when he, Straight, had met a man who claimed
to be a commercial traveller in dried fruits. It was after a
d inner at which Straight had taken too much to drink. The
rink and a gorgeous night unloosed his tongue, and half the
tale of a clever swindle on the council funds was told to the
commercial traveller as a good yarn.
Next morning a very sober Straight found that the com-
1 lercial had left the ship at dawn. Straight never touched
stimulants again. He hoped, and believed, that the part told
I iy him would be forgotten. In any case it was fairly harmless
as long as the man to whom it was told did not come upon
the other half and put two and two together to make a most
,mpleasant four—a four that could mean prison. Unfortu-
nately for himself this was what had happened. Julian Clif-
ford had come upon the other half of the story which had


288 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Etcheverrey, to you pointed to Straight? Odd!" It was Sir
Edward speaking.
Tindall made a grimace.
"His carbon sheet, rather? Eh, Pointer ? The sheet I turned
down."
Pointer nodded.
"Still, that phrase in the notes about 'England dangerous'
struck me very much. Seeing that I had Straight in my mind
as the probable criminal. I wondered if Roberts's past, instead
of his future association with Etcheverrey, might not be the
danger, the cause of the murder. And the five pages on the
carbon sheet gave us just the clue we needed. On the very
last page of the chapter as it was meant to be.
"We have two men who are very good at that sort of an
investigation. By the help of it, they soon worked back to
the truth. Incidentally Newman, who I found knew about the
notes left nearly a fortnight ago with Mr. Bancroft, had made
no effort to get hold of them."
"You suspected Straight from the first!" Clifford asked,
"On what grounds?"
"I suspected everybody," Pointer said a little dryly. Tindall
smoothed away a grin under cover of stroking his beard. He
knew quite well whom Pointer had included in his suspicions.
"Of course Hobbs' telling you that you saw Straight come
out of the flat was a plain enough tip," he murmured, "but
I imagined you didn't believe the tale. Hobbs himself thought
"Hobbs had to think so. He was going to be under the
same roof as Straight, and had a tremendous grudge against
him. Which was why I had to question Straight about the
incident, for if he had learnt from Hobbs that I knew of it,
he would have known by my silence, that he was suspected."
Tindall nodded to each point in turn. "But what set you
so.


THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR 289
"on Straight's trail in the beginning?" he pressed. "You talk
of clues. Surely it was reasoning rather. Reasoning from the
facts, not to them. Pointer too preferred the latter way when
possible, but it had not been possible in the Clifford affair.
In other words reasoning from a clue I found."
"Which clue? Where?"
"The tape pinned across the door catch. If the murderer
was one of the narrow circle at Thornbush, in which circle
1 included the Haslars, that pointed to some very hurried,
very improvised, plan.
"Whoever did that, knew that only a short time could
elapse between the arrival of the victim and his death. Else
so clumsy a precaution would have aroused suspicion. But evi-
dently the man who came was not, and was not expected to be,
suspicious. Here was where the oddity lay. For apparently,
too, he did not know the flat well enough to roam about it.
That tape looked to me very unlike the work of whoever had
taken the flat. Let alone the work of Etcheverrey. For, they
would have had ample time to silence the lock invisibly. It
certainly did not look like the work of an engineer, let alone
an electrical engineer of Arnold Haslar's standing. It looked
to me like some sudden arrival to the Thornbush circle, and
the choosing of Monday night, also made the crime seem the
work of a newcomer. For if the criminal knew of the flat, he
n buld probably know that Cory, who never runs two enter-
ises simultaneously—he had some pigeon-plucking to finish
.might come in by Tuesday. But why should any one wait
itil the last night when the flat would be free unless he
uldn't help himself? Unless that was his first opportunity?
>r Mr. Clifford might have refused to come to Heath Man-
sions, or some hitch might have occurred. On the other hand,
if a new arrival, it must be one who knew that Mr. Clifford
is short-sighted, or he would never have chanced that tape.


294 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
papers. Saw yourself implicated very deeply. Believed that
you could not clear yourself. Knew that you had opened the
door to life-long blackmail. Suppose you were suffering from
an illness which peculiarly affects people's nerve. Couldn't you
imagine yourself going up to your room, getting your re-
volver, and telling yourself that you must use it, and use it
at once. 'Do it' were the words Mr. Haslar used. 'Do it, and
do it at once!'"
"Arnold does talk to himself when he's very much stirred."
Diana was half dazed. "You mean that Arnold shot himself?"
There was horror, and there was boundless relief, in her
voice.
"Just so. With the second bullet in his revolver. The first
had been fired by Straight, who used a silencer. The faint
mark is on the revolver still. I think that your brother had
but that moment come downstairs and learnt from Mr. New-
man, who had rushed in to tell him the terrible truth—the
truth he had to know—of who it was that "had really been
murdered in Heath Mansions. Then Mr. Newman had to
leave him for fear lest through his presence that truth be
suspected, and Thornbush be connected with the brown and
orange ulster. Probably your brother let Mr. Newman out. In
the letter-box he saw a letter which Major Cory had just
dropped in. I've had a chat, rather unwillingly and one-sided,
perhaps, with that gentleman. It was a peculiarly menacing
letter from a man who felt that he had been intended for a
scapegoat. It was, I fancy, the little heap of charred paper
that Mr. Tindall and I found under Mr. Haslar's writing-
table."
"But how did Mr. Newman know who the dead man was?"
"When Mr. Clifford left his home so abruptly, Mr. New-
man, I think, suspected that Mr. Haslar had had a hand in
his absence. And even on being told by your brother that he


296 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
Clifford, he had handed Julian Clifford over to a man who
had killed him in revenge for what had happened years ago,
—happened and never been forgotten by Cory. The rest was
but the effect of the shock of the lurid descriptions in the
papers, and of his knowledge of whose that missing head
was."
"Straight seemed shocked enough at what happened to
Haslar," Tindall pointed out.
"Because he guessed the truth—that Mr. Haslar shot him-
self. Straight knew that there was no murderer at large but
himself. And that meant that Mr. Haslar had learnt who it
was that had been killed in Heath Mansions, and did not
believe in the Etcheverrey trail. And if Mr. Haslar, then
why not o'hers? When Mr. Haslar called out those words
that night, Straight saw that his best chance—there was no
question of concealing them—was to take his stand beside
Miss Haslar. For a while."
Again came one of the short pauses which people need
when they are trying to keep up with information that quite
upsets their own ideas.
"Then it wasn't my brother whom Mr. Straight had seen
near Heath Mansions?"
"I should say not, Miss Haslar. I think that was part of
a plan of Straight's to frighten you about your brother's
connection with the murder for his own ends. To play the
part of the faithful friend."
"But Arnold must have had some shock, so the doctor
thought, to account for his state that morning."
"That was probably administered by Mrs. Orr. In our talk
at Bruges after you left, I learnt from her that she had writ-
ten—well—a farewell little note to Mr. Haslar from Paris.
It reached Hampstead Tuesday morning. He found it lying
on the breakfast table for him. It was a very cruel little note.


298 THE CLIFFORD AFFAIR
It was a very official eye that looked frostily at the other
man.
"I—at the time it seemed the only chance. I knew Arnold
would never have done it in cold blood, of course. But I was
afraid that some discussion about his grandfather's letters—
And when you nearly broke me down with what the police
might think but for my confession, I didn't dare speak with-
out thinking it all over. I—well, frankly I thought it might
be a trap. Though there was the ghastly chance that it might
all be true. It was—it was"
With a deep sigh, Newman tossed what it had been, away
from him for ever.
"It was my duty to break down what I firmly believed to
be a spurious confession," Pointer said, inwardly a little
amused at the positively ferocious glare that Diana was fix-
ing on him. "Now I really would like to hear your explana-
tion of two things. First, Mr. Pollock's furniture."
Diana stared. But Newman looked faintly self-conscious.
"Ever heard of The Knight's Dream?" he asked.
"You mean the musical comedy that's been running for a
couple of years?"
"I wrote it—words and music. It's a gold-mine apparently.
I'm working on another. My agents only know me as Pollock,
of course. And the only address they have are my bankers and
the Musicians' Club in Wigmore Street. And your second
question, Chief Inspector?"
"We found a charred piece of a letter in your room at
Thornbush on which we deciphered in Mr. Clifford's writing,
T know the danger,' 'discovered your secret,' 'wife.' At least
I believe the word to be wife. Now those sentences looked
rather damning, but wasn't the secret that Mr. Clifford
thought he had discovered your love for Miss Haslar?"





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