Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/158

Rh Bell stood up and blew a police whistle.

"Don't do that. Don't do it," said Reggie irritably, his first sign of troubled nerves. "I have telephoned for the ambulance and all that. Why don't you think of things beforehand?"

Superintendent Bell was startled out of his wonted composure. "God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, and stared at Reggie.

And Lomas took Reggie's arm. "Come upstairs, Fortune, please," he said gravely.

Reggie let himself be taken up to Herbert Charlecote's room, and when he was there again flung himself down on the couch. "Thirdly and lastly," said he. "And that's the end of the Charlecote case, Lomas, old dear."

"Oh, don't take that tone," Lomas cried. "We're in a very difficult position, Fortune."

"My dear Lomas! Oh, my dear Lomas! We have emerged with credit from a most difficult case. We have tracked and caught a very cunning criminal, who, when taxed with the murders of which he was guilty, became desperate, and committed suicide by flinging himself from a fourth-story window."

"You said you threw him out."

"Lomas, dear, my little jokes aren't evidence."

"You'll have to give evidence at the inquest, you