Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/253

242 Hold the line. Cut that out," said Reggie. "We'll go down, Lomas, please. Tell your chap to meet us at the house. My car's here."

Lomas gave the orders and rang off. "I'll have to go, I suppose," he agreed. "One doesn't kill Cabinet Ministers every day. More's the pity. Damn the case! There's nothing in it, though, Fortune. Sandford was walking up to the house. He met Kimball in the lane. They were crossing the ornamental water in the park when they had a quarrel. Kimball was thrown in. He called out, 'You scoundrel, you have murdered me.' When they got Kimball out he was dead. That's all. I'm afraid it washes your stuff about Kimball right out."

"Well, well," Reggie drawled, looking through his eyelashes. "Where is he that knows, Lomas? From the great deep to the great deep he goes, Lomas. We'll get on."

"What about lunch?"

"Damn lunch!" said Reggie, and went out.

The other two, who liked food far less than he but could not go without it, lingered to collect sandwiches, and found him chafing in the driver's seat.

They exchanged looks of horror. "I'm too old for Mr. Fortune's driving, and that's a fact," Bell mumbled.

"When I got out alive after that day at Woking I swore I'd never go again," said Lomas.

But they quailed before Reggie's virulent