Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/68

Rh Speaking as man to man, doctor, are you working with us?"

"May I?"

"That's very handsome. Yes. Inspector Mordan, he has a kind of a manner, as you might say. I'll speak to him. Is there anything you'd like to tell me, doctor?"

"Nice flowers, aren't they?" Reggie nodded to the rose-bed under Birdie Bolton's window. It was minutely neat.

"Look as if they'd been brought up by hand," said the Superintendent, but he looked at Reggie, not the roses. "Anything queer, sir?"

"There's that," Reggie said. He pointed to a spray of the Gloire de Dijon beside the window. It bore a bud; it had been broken, and the bud was limp and dead.

"That wasn't broken last night," said the Superintendent.

"No. That's what's interesting," said Reggie, and turned away.

At the door and in the drive there was some congested traffic. Mr. Ford's big car still waited. Reggie's humbler car had come back with his camera. The taxis of Mr. Gordon and Superintendent Bell took up more room. And yet another taxi was trying to get to the steps.

"Who's this, Superintendent?"