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Page 13
"You were acquainted with the captain?"
"Slightly," I told him. Archie's letter kept popping into my mind,
frightening me. "I had just met him--that is all; through a friend
of his--Archibald Enwright was the name."
"Is Enwright in London to vouch for you?"
"I'm afraid not. I last heard of him in Interlaken."
"Yes? How did you happen to take rooms in this house?"
"The first time I called to see the captain he had not yet arrived
from India. I was looking for lodgings and I took a great fancy to
the garden here."
It sounded silly, put like that. I wasn't surprised that the
inspector eyed me with scorn. But I rather wished he hadn't.
Bray began to walk about the room, ignoring me.
"White asters; scarab pin; Homburg hat," he detailed, pausing before
the table where those strange exhibits lay.
A constable came forward carrying newspapers in his hand.
"What is it?" Bray asked.
"The Daily Mail, sir," said the constable. "The issues of July
twenty-seventh, twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth and thirtieth."
Bray took the papers in his hand, glanced at them and tossed them
contemptuously into a waste-basket. He turned to Walters.
"Sorry, sir," said Walters; "but I was so taken aback! Nothing like
this has ever happened to me before. I'll go at once--"
"No," replied Bray sharply. "Never mind. I'll attend to it--"
There was a knock at the door. Bray called "Come!" and a slender
boy, frail but with a military bearing, entered.
"Hello, Walters!" he said, smiling. "What's up? I-"
He stopped suddenly as his eyes fell upon the divan where
Fraser-Freer lay. In an instant he was at the dead man's side.
"Stephen!" he cried in anguish.
"Who are you?" demanded the inspector--rather rudely, I thought.
"It's the captain's brother, sir," put in Walters. "Lieutenant
Norman Fraser-Freer, of the Royal Fusiliers."
There fell a silence.
"A great calamity, sir--" began Walters to the boy.
I have rarely seen any one so overcome as young Fraser-Freer.
Watching him, it seemed to me that the affection existing between
him and the man on the divan must have been a beautiful thing. He
turned away from his brother at last, and Walters sought to give
him some idea of what had happened.
"You will pardon me, gentlemen," said the lieutenant. "This has
been a terrible shock! I didn't dream, of course--I just dropped
in for a word with--with him. And now--"
We said nothing. We let him apologize, as a true Englishman must,
for his public display of emotion.
"I'm sorry," Bray remarked in a moment, his eyes still shifting
about the room--"especially as England may soon have great need
of men like the captain. Now, gentlemen, I want to say this: I am
the Chief of the Special Branch at the Yard. This is no ordinary
murder. For reasons I can not disclose--and, I may add, for the
best interests of the empire--news of the captain's tragic death
must be kept for the present out of the newspapers. I mean, of
course, the manner of his going. A mere death notice, you
understand--the inference being that it was a natural taking off."
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