Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/245

234 why he's a little jerky. But he's pretty adequate still."

"You talked about mad. You were emphatic, as you might say," Bell insisted. "What might you have in your mind, sir? Mr. Kimball's generally reckoned uncommon practical."

"He isn't ordinary mad," said Reggie. "He don't think he's Julius Cæsar or a poached egg. He don't go out without his trousers. He don't see red and go it blind. But there is something queer in him. I doubt if they're physical, these perversions. Call it a disease of the soul."

"Ah, well, his soul," said Bell gravely. "I judge he's not a Christian man."

"I wish I did know his creed," said Reggie, with equal gravity. "It would be very instructive."

Lomas tapped his pencil impatiently. "We're not evangelists, we're policemen," he said. "And what do we do next?"

"Take out a warrant and arrest Kimball," said Reggie carelessly.

Bell and Lomas looked at each other and then at him. "I don't see my way," said Lomas.

"The corpse can be identified as Mason. I'll swear to the operation. Totteridge will swear it's the man he operated on as Mason. Kimball admits several visits to Mason. In the room from which the corpse was thrown was a gold snuff-box containing cocaine. Shortman's will swear that box is their