Page:Bailey - Call Mr Fortune (Dutton, 1921).djvu/83

72 showed in his poise. It was a dark, aquiline face with a good brow, but passionate and cruel.

"What is the charge, doctor?" said Superintendent Bell.

"Oh. On the seventh instant—murder of Wilhelmina, otherwise Birdie Bolton," Reggie drawled. "Better search them."

"It is a lie!" Flora screamed; and continued to scream.

Reggie and Gordon were smoking in another room when Bell and Mordan came back with the results of the search. A suit-case was put on the table, opened, and seemed to be full of light, a mass of jewels.

"Can you identify, gentlemen?" Mordan said.

Superintendent Bell laid on the table a sheath knife. An unusual knife, rather long, rather narrow, rather stiff. "I'll identify that," Reggie said, and took it up. "That's the thing that killed her!"

"Coo!" said Mr. Gordon. "You've got a real head, doctor. This is Birdie's bunch all right. Swear to those rubies anywhere."

"Who's the man?" said Reggie.

Superintendent Bell sat down with a bump. "He asks me that." He appealed to the company. "I put it to you. He asks me that! The woman—she's Miss Bolton's maid, of course. But the man"

"Oh, he's Ford's chauffeur. I told you to watch Ford. But you only sat on the steps of his flat.