Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/273

262 "Really?" Lomas was dim behind cigar smoke.

"All quite natural now, isn't it?"

"My dear fellow, you knew it all and you knew it right. You told me so. Kamerad, kamerad."

Reggie lit his pipe. "Jealously, hate, mania. He broke the man the girl married. Curious that affair, wasn't it? Even the great criminal, he runs in a groove, he keeps to one kind of crime. The same dodge for the son that he used for the father. Then either he lost track of the mother or he preferred to hurt her through the son. He was an epicure in his little pleasures. The son came along. I dare say Kimball took that department because the son was in it. And then he was ready to smash everything for the sake of his hate—damage his own career, do a filthy murder, die himself, if he could torture his sister's child. Yes. The devil is with power, Lomas."

"I fancy you annoy him a little, my dear Fortune. But how can you believe in the devil? You have just seen—her."

Reggie smiled. "She is a woman, isn't she?"

"I think you might act on that theory. When is it to be?"

"Lomas, old thing, you're not only bland, you're obvious. Which is much worse."