Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/140

Rh seems wrong way up. Why did anybody kill the old man? "He was making friends with Geoffrey again and anyway he had enough to live on. Herbert had an allowance and something of his own, too. Nobody to gain by his death."

"If you leave out the Italian girl, sir."

"It keeps coming back to her," Reggie said mournfully. "But why? Suppose he was nasty to her when he called. Would she run out and stab him in the street? I wonder. Did he know some horrid secret about her past? What is her past, Bell?"

"Pretty short, sir, anyway. She's not more than eighteen. She was a café singer, all right. But we have nothing against her. In my experience they're no worse than others."

"And that's that. Have you seen his papers?"

"Better come up to the house, sir. His solicitor will be there. But I understand there's nothing in them. Very few private papers at all."

"Well, well. I suppose he was murdered."

Superintendent Bell stared. "Mr. Lomas said you were harping on that. Pretty clear, sir, isn't it?"

"I suppose so," said Reggie drearily. "But it's all wrong, Bell, it's all wrong."

At the dead man's house, his solicitor, old Sir Thomas Long, was busy in the library, and helping him, to Reggie's surprise, was Herbert Charlecote.