“Five o’clock,” said Nigel.
“Fox — will you take the papers back to the Yard and let Bailey have them? And tell the constable outside he can go.”
“Go!” echoed Fox dazedly.
“Yes, and don’t send anyone to relieve him. I’m staying on here myself.”
“Until nine?” asked Nigel.
“Until nine — or earlier.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “You can get hold of Felix Gardener again. You can tell him the police believe Surbonadier to have written the article in the Morning Express. Ask him if he can give us more information about Surbonadier’s Cambridge days. Anything at all that he can remember. There may be something he’s holding back. He’s feeling jumpy, you tell me. If he’s got the idea we’re suspecting him his natural reaction will be to disclaim any previous relationship with Surbonadier.”
Nigel looked uncomfortable.
“I don’t like the idea of pumping him.”
“Then you are useless. I’ll see him myself.”
“Sorry if I’m tiresome.”
“All amateurs are tiresome. You want to be in on this, but you shy off anything that is at all unpleasant. We had this out before in the Wilde case. You’d much better keep out of it, Bathgate. I should have said so at the beginning.”
“If you can assure me Felix is safe—”
“I can give you no assurances about anybody who was behind the scenes. I have my own theory, but it may be all wrong. It’s by no means cast-iron and a new development might set us off on a completely new track after any one of them, from Gardener himself down to old Blair. You want me to assure you with my hand on my heart that I am not interested in Gardener. I can’t do it. Of course I’m interested in him. He fired the revolver. I might have arrested him there and then. He’s one of the mob, and I’ve got to prove to myself he didn’t plant the cartridges. Like everyone else in the case, he isn’t volunteering information. As an innocent man he’s a fool if he tries to blind the police. He may have a specific reason for doing so. He’s in love. Think that out. If you choose, you may tell him the theory as regards Saint, and if he knows anything about Surbonadier’s past that may throw light on that theory, and cares to tell you, and you are still on the side of justice — well and good. Otherwise I shall have to ask you to regard me as you would any other detective on his job, and to expect to get no information but the sort of stuff you can publish in your paper. Have I made myself intelligible?”
“Abundantly. I can take a snub with as good a grace as anyone else, I hope,” said Nigel miserably.
“I’m sorry you look at it like that. What line do you mean to take?”
“May I think it over? If I decide to pull out, you may be quite sure I shall treat this afternoon’s discoveries as entirely confidential. I promised that, anyway. And I’ll let you see my copy, of course.”
“That’s a very fair answer. Let me know at my flat this evening, will you? Now I must ask you both to go.”
Nigel followed Fox into the passage. At the door he turned and looked back.
“Well — good-bye for the present,” he muttered.
“Good-bye, you old sausage,” said Inspector Alleyn.
Fox told the constable at the entrance to the flat to go off. Then he turned to the still discomfited Nigel.
“I dare say you think the Chiefs been a bit hard, — sir,” he ventured, “but you don’t want to look at it that way. It’s a matter of what you might call professional etiquette. The Chief likes you, you see, and he’s so— so blasted honest, if you’ll excuse me. His job has to come before anything. Don’t you worry about Mr. Gardener. He’s been the cat’s-paw, and nothing else, and if he starts holding back information he’s very foolish.”
“I don’t think he has done anything of the sort,” complained Nigel.
“Well, all the better. If you decide to help us, Mr. Bathgate, I’m sure you won’t regret it and I’m sure Chief Inspector Alleyn will be very pleased.”
Nigel looked at his large, comfortable face and suddenly liked him very much.
“It’s nice of you to bother, inspector,” he said. “I was a bit disgruntled. He made me feel such an ass and — and I do admire him so very much.”
“You’re not alone in that, sir. Well, I must be off. Going my way, sir?”
“I’m for Chester Terrace.”
“And I’m for the Yard. No rest for the wicked. Good night, sir.”
“Good night, inspector.”
Nigel’s flat in Chester Terrace was a short walk from Gerald’s Row. He strode along quickly, still rather miserable over his lecture from Alleyn. He had only gone a couple of hundred yards when a taxi passed him, moving slowly along the kerb as though cruising for a passenger. Nigel automatically shook his head, and then saw that the man had a fare — a woman. As the cab passed him a streamer of light from the street lamp caught her face. It was Stephanie Vaughan. She gave no hint of recognition, and in a moment had passed him. He turned and stared after the taxi. She must have misunderstood, he thought, and is going now to the flat. However, the man drove slowly down the little street, past Surbonadier’s windows, and then turned off to the left and disappeared.
“Rum!” thought Nigel and walked on thoughtfully. “Very rum!” he said aloud.
Back in his own flat he turned on the light and, after further cogitation, decided to try and put himself in a better mood by writing to Angela North, who does not come into this story. She was an ardent admirer of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn and would know just how raw Nigel felt. Would she suggest he kept in the game? Would she tell him his scruples about “pumping” Gardener were ridiculous? He couldn’t ask her without breaking confidence. Damn it all, what was he going to do? Perhaps he’d better go to the Queen’s in Cliveden Place and have an evening meal. He wasn’t hungry. Alleyn was fed up with him and had made him feel young, and a prig. He knew, Good Lord, that Felix hadn’t murdered Arthur Surbonadier. Why shouldn’t he ask him if—
The telephone pealed shrilly. Nigel muttered and grumbled and took off the receiver.
Gardener’s voice came urgently.
“Is that you, Nigel? Look here, I want to see you. There’s something I didn’t tell you, about Cambridge, this morning. I was a fool. Could I see you now?”
“Yes,” said Nigel. “Yes.”
“Will you come here or would you rather I came to you? How about dining here with me? Will you?”
“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”
“Well, don’t change — come along now.”
“Yes,” said Nigel. “Thank you, Felix.”
They rang off. He could have shouted with joy. His problem was solved. He rushed to the bathroom and washed, lavishly. He changed his shirt and brushed his hair. Seized with a desire to acquire a little merit in Alleyn’s eyes, he rang up Surbonadier’s flat He could hear the telephone ringing there and waited for some time, but nobody answered it. Alleyn had gone, after all. He would ring up again later. He seized his hat and ran downstairs. He hailed a taxi, gave Gardener’s address, and flung himself back. Only then did it occur to him that it was very clever of Chief Detective-Inspector Alleyn to have guessed that Gardener would be able to tell them something more about the peculiar behaviour of Arthur Surbonadier, during the days when he was an undergraduate. Gradually he was conscious of an idea that edged in at the back of his mind, an idea that was still only half sensed. He examined it now more closely, letting it come up to the front of his consciousness. For a moment he shied round it nervously, but it was insistent, and presently he fell to reasoning it out with logical persistence. Then a great light dawned on Nigel.