Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/151

140 "And why the Basingstoke Canal?" said Reggie placidly. "Lots of nice places to drown in nearer home. I ask you, why the Basingstoke Canal?"

Lomas and his Superintendent looked at each other. "It really is a crazy case," Lomas said slowly, "I don't quite"

Reggie jumped up. "Oh, come on. Let's go and look at him. My car's outside. Where is he?"

"Woking. Half a minute." Lomas rang his bell and turned to his papers.

So Reggie went down first. He dismissed his chauffeur with some long instructions, and himself took the chauffeur's seat. Superintendent Bell joined him. "Darker and darker, sir, isn't it?"

"Changeable weather," Reggie said. "Come on, Lomas, all aboard! Are we downhearted? No!" The car shot forward. And when it stopped in Woking:

"Is my hair white, Fortune?" Lomas said.

The two stood humbly aside while the expert was busy with the corpse. "As often as I've seen this game, sir, I'll never like it," Bell said, and Lomas nodded. But Reggie Fortune whistled as he worked.

When he turned from the body and put a scrap of something in his pocket-book—"Well, what is it?" Lomas said. "He was drowned, I suppose?"

"He was drowned all right—about teatime last