Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/103

92 right eyebrow to hair was a red furrow. He had prominent, pale eyes.

"Who is the sportsman with the scratched face?" Reggie said, as the door shut on him.

"Oh, that's Victor Lunt. Been inquiring after Lady Lunt, I suppose."

"Bright and brotherly," Reggie murmured.

There appeared briskly a man of grave and military aspect, who was presented to Reggie as Radnor Hall, Sir Albert Lunt's secretary. Radnor Hall (in a faintly American accent) was very glad to see Mr. Fortune; hoped for Mr. Fortune's company to lunch; after which, Lady Lunt was most anxious to see Mr. Fortune.

"I want to see the body," Reggie said gruffly.

So to the body he was taken, and saw that Gerald Barnes was right enough: there could be no doubt of the cause of death. A pistol bullet, fired from some little distance, had entered the chest and lodged in the spinal vertebrae. Sir Albert Lunt might not have died on the instant. He could not have lived long. But that mortal wound was tiny. What made the dead man look horrible was the gash in his forehead and the bruise round it. And over that Reggie frowned and pondered. "Showy, isn't it, very showy?" he complained. Such a hurt a man might get by falling on a stone. But Sir Albert Lunt had fallen on his back on the turf. If some one had hit him with a stone or some such jagged