Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/221

210 Park. "Come on, Bell. The rain won't hurt you."

"I don't wonder you want a blow. Poor chap! As ugly a mess as ever I saw."

"I suppose I'm afraid," said Reggie slowly. "It's unusual and annoying. I suppose the only thing that does make you afraid is what's mad. Not the altogether crazy—that's only a nuisance—but what's damned clever and yet mad. An able fellow with a mania on one point. I suppose that's what the devil is, Bell."

"Good Lord, sir," said Superintendent Bell.

"What I want is muffins," said Reggie—"several muffins and a little tea and my domestic hearth. Then I'll feel safe."

He spread himself out, sitting on the small of his back before his study fire, and in that position contrived to eat and drink with freedom.

"In another world, Bell," he said dreamily—"in another and a gayer world, it seems to me. You wanted to know the cause of death. And you didn't want me to be prejudiced. Kindly fellow. But there's no prejudice about. It's quite a plain case."

"Is it indeed, sir? You surprise me."

"The dead man was killed by a blow on the left temple from some heavy, blunt weapon—a life-preserver, perhaps; a stick, a poker. At the same time, or immediately after death, his face was battered in by the same or a similar weapon. Death