Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/134

Rh "Yes. You're intelligent, Lomas. But you're prejudiced. You always believe in the obvious."

"The obvious is what happens."

"Oh, Peter! If it did, we wouldn't want a Criminal Investigation Department. Well, now, this is what I've got. Check it, please. Geoffrey quarrelled with the old man—went away, commenced artist, and married an Italian girl—at her wish tried to make it up with the old man—old man was willing, called on Geoffrey twice, and after the second visit Geoffrey found him stabbed and dead just outside."

"That's all right," Lomas nodded. "An odd thing is, just before the murder the old man remade his will in favour of Geoffrey. When they quarrelled, he had a will drawn up which left everything to the nephew Herbert. Under this last will Herbert gets twenty thousand, and all the rest goes to Geoffrey. It was only sigoed [sic] on the morning of the murder."

"There's a deuce of a lot of unknown quantities in this equation," Reggie said. "Silly, futile things facts are. This set will do for anything you please. As soon as he knew the will was in his favour, Geoffrey does the old man in. Or when he heard there was a new will cutting him out, Herbert sees red and knifes the old man. By the way, Lomas, I suppose the old boy was stabbed?"

"What? Oh, damme, don't be clever. He was stabbed all right. The divisional surgeon and his