When he came at last to the short lane leading to Fen Court, he found the scene enchanting. The moon was high and near full, the river, the water plashes, the ponds, shone like molten silver. The only sad notes in that etherialised landscape were the old house, black against the grey and silver, and the melancholy hoot of an owl.

  As he drew up his car at the gate, the owl stopped hooting.

  “Please go on,” Ned apostrophised it. “I like your round note, though I have no affection for the screamer of your tribe.”

  He stopped the engine, and walked into the garden. As he turned the angle of the house, he had a slight shock. A man was standing on the near bank of the pond to the right, looking his way. He could see the figure clearly silhouetted against the pale pond.

  “That you, Hench?” he called ironically.

  “No, it’s me, Brews,” said a well-remembered voice.

  “It would be,” said Ned, rather bitterly, then he laughed, and called to the Inspector to come up.

  Chapter XIII

  “IT was awfully good of you to send me that message by Langley,” Ned said, ironically, when Brews had joined him on the terrace.

  “Oh, not at all, sir,” replied the inspector, his beam visible in the moonlight. “I thought it might help you. You see, it’s all proof.”

  “You mean the passport?” said Ned, offering a cigarette.

  “And the registered parcel,” replied Brews, taking the cigarette, and lighting up. “Proofs that settle things a bit.”

  Ned started. “Now, let us suppose that the registered parcel did not contain Bearer Bonds——”

  “Do you think it did, sir?” interrupted Brews, suavely.

  “——I think it was meant to suggest that Bearer Bonds were in it.”

  The inspector laughed. “Now that was a good shot. As a matter of rout— I mean a matter of fact, we cabled Buenos Ayres police at once. That parcel was opened at the post office, they had an idea it might be something smuggled in, you know.”

  “And what did they find?”

  “A great many copies of a pamphlet denouncing the White Slave traffic, sir.”

  “Whew!” Ned whistled. “Was Mr. Habershon——”

  “No, sir, he was not. He was against it, and the man at the other side was the agent of a Vigilance Society.”

  Ned changed the subject. “I say, Inspector, how do you people regard coroners?”

  Brews looked at him for a moment thoughtfully. “More or less like earwigs, sir. They can do some damage in your garden unless you put up empty flower-pots on sticks. They crawl into them, and are out of the way. Though, mind you, sir, there are some good coroners, who don’t get in our way.”

  “Are you going to worry about the verdict that will be brought in at the inquest?” Ned asked.

  Brews smiled. “No, sir. We never do. We can take our own action. But, may I ask, sir, what brings you down here to-night?”

  “I came to look in my house for Bearer Bonds,” said Ned.

  “That’s an idea,” agreed the other. “Parcel sent off as a blind one way, bonds pushed off elsewhere to be picked up later, eh?”

  “It’s a theory that occurred to me.”

  “And to me, sir.”

  Ned started. “Two minds with but a single thought, eh?”

  “Or but a single start, sir, only my hare seems to be ringing more than yours.”

  “Do tell me about the beast!” said Ned, eagerly.

  Brews grinned. “Now I came here to see the place at night. You can’t discover the snags in a night affair by day. Talking about the inquest, what do you think will be the verdict?”

  “Murder against old Habershon in the first case, and accident in the avoidance of his avuncular duty in the second,” said Ned.

  Brews looked doubtful. “Juries are rather like foxes, they’ll go for a safe earth generally rather than take a daring line.”

  “You’re full of hunting similes to-night,” Ned returned. “But I suppose you mean that they will not like to fix it on Habershon?”

  “Quite, sir. An open verdict of murder, and one of accident will fill the bill. It’s very hard for people to believe that an old gentleman with a white beard can commit a crime.”

  “Beards for benevolence?” suggested Ned. “You may be right.”

  The inspector threw his cigarette butt away. “If the bonds were here, to your thinking, who put them here—Habershon? And why put them here at all?”

  “You are overlooking the possibility of an accomplice.”

  “He’s not strong enough,” replied Brews.

  “But between them they might have done it.”

  Brews meditated. “Did anything strike you as odd about that passport being where it was?”

  “No, did you see anything significant in it?”

  Brews looked disappointed. Whether it was because he had expected better from his companion, or because he wanted confirmation of his own views, and had failed to get it, Ned could not say.

  “It was proof, sir, real proof. If I get many more pointers like that I shall begin to feel happier.”

  Ned fished tentatively. “Yes, of course, or proof of a ticket having been taken in advance, Brews.”

  Brews looked more disappointed than ever. “And I thought you were going to be such a help, sir,” he murmured.

  Ned laughed. “It’s cold out here, and your chill disapproval gets into my bones. Come in, and treasure hunt!”

  There was not the slightest doubt that the optimistic inspector was pulling his leg, thought Ned, as he took out his key, and went to the front door. Well, they would see who pulled the last leg.

  “If you will work the torch, I’ll tap the panels and search the cupboards, Inspector, “he told his companion. “By the way, I wanted to ask you about those watches.”

  Brews took out his own torch, and flicked it on. “Yes?”

  “How they stopped,” Ned remarked. “Langley was very official. But I recognise you as a kind soul, and communicative on occasion. I rather suspect that you make the occasions, and are not strictly truthful in your communications, but we’ll let that pass.”

  “How can we be truthful, with you gentlemen of the press about, sir? But what was it you wanted to know about the watches?”

  “Did the wrist-watch stop, or was it stopped?”

  “It stopped, sir?”

  “By water, or in the effusion of time?”

  “Simpler than that, sir. Because the owner forgot to wind it. It was run down.”

  “Bless your simple kindness, Brews! Now what about the good gold watch worn by Mr. Habershon?”

  The inspector pointed his torch at a piece of broken panelling in the hall. “Here’s a bit you might look at, sir.”

  “Becoming official?” Ned asked, genially.

  “I like to be truthful when I can, sir.”

  “Coward!” cried Ned. “Well, I’ll find out somehow. But if you want to be an oyster, do! I shan’t love you as much, but you can bear that.”

  They began their search in earnest, and Brews helped Ned conscientiously until he had gone through the house and found nothing.

  “He didn’t hide anything here, inspector,” Ned remarked, half an hour later.

  “No, sir. I never saw how any one could have done. You see, as a matter of— I mean to say, we had a look at the doors and windows here. None of them had been broken or entered, and you had the only key.”

  “Is there anything your people didn’t do, Brews, as a matter of, shall we say, routine?”

  Brews laughed. “Several still to do,” he observed. “Now, sir, I am quite interested in your theory about Hench.”

  “Did I say I had one?”

  “No, but I say you have. It wasn’t the kestrel did it, was it?”

  Ned did stare sincerely now, “The what?”

  “The kestrel that Mr. Hench was watching,” replied the surprising Brews.

  Ned shook his head. “If you mean the hen-harrier that took wings, and flew away in disgust, I can assure you that it did not give me any hints.”

  “The hen-harrier is rare, but the kestrel is common,” said Brews. “Still, if you got nothing out of that, it may interest you to look it up.”

  “I’d sooner have the number in the index,” said Ned. “Be a sport!”

  Brews tacitly refused to respond to this appeal. “What use have you for the punt, if you bring in Hench?” he asked.

  “Ah, that would be too complicated for you to understand, my dear fellow. Subtlety with us takes the place of routine with you. But, honestly, what is there against the theory that Hench helped old Habershon to do in the two young people, then thought two into one didn’t go, and made a simple unit by pushing off Habershon?”

  “It’s possible, sir. I won’t say it isn’t. Of course we have Mr. Hench under observation all the time.”

  “And possibly myself, since I was here that night?”

  Brews grinned. “Well, it isn’t necessary now. You keep coming up for us to have a look at you.”

  “So I do. I forgot that. Now I have done what I came out to do, and I shall be getting back. But, before I go, one word. Does it occur to you that a letter written to the wicked uncle would not appear in part pinned on to Mr. Habershon’s niece’s clothing when she was recovered from the pond?”

  Brews was standing beside Ned. He reflected for a few moments, then took his hand out of his pocket, and looked grim.

  “Do you mind if I search your inner pocket on the left-hand side, sir?” he demanded.

  “Love it!” said Ned. “But why?”

  Brews dived a hand in there, and brought it up clutching two crumpled pieces of paper. He straightened them out, flashed the light of his torch on one, and showed it to Ned.

  “How did you come to have these on you, sir?”

  Ned glared, “I didn’t!”

  Brews’ face relaxed, and he smiled once more. “You’re right, sir. I had them. It’s a common idea among old lags that we plant evidence on them. Those two papers are bits of a letter, written by Miss Rowe to her uncle. The scrap found on her clothing was the missing bit in the middle.”

  “Good Heavens!” cried Ned. “Where did you find them?”

  “Where they drifted,” said the other, putting them back in his pocket. “Well, I must be off. But when you’re driving home, you can have something to think over.”

  “Bless you again!”

  “And that,” said Brews, as he turned to the door, “is the question of Mr. Habershon’s luggage.”

  “Come back, you ruffian, and be matey!” cried Ned after him, as he strode away. “Don’t leave me in the air.”

  “Good-night, sir, and a safe journey home,” said the voice of that irritating detective. Then the door banged.

  Chapter XIV

  NED went to the park next day, taking Nancy with him. The weather was still extraordinarily fine, the sky pale blue, flecked with drifting white clouds; the grass was so green, the black traceries of branches so beautiful, that Nancy involuntarily cried that it was a lovely day to be alive.

  “That’s what the fat fellow just over there is saying,” Ned agreed, pointing to one of the incorrigibly impudent and monstrously fat old wood pigeons pecking among the grasses. “He’s as confiding as Inspector Brews.”

  “And why is Inspector Brews so confiding?” asked Nancy.

  He lit a cigarette and shrugged. “That is the question that has been worrying me since I first saw his beaming smile.”

  “Do you think police work makes people calIous?” she asked.

  “No more than war made men brutal,” he said. “The brutes went out brutes, and the others went out, and came back, as they were. The only monument to the soldier that these decadent war novelists want is to look about them. Where are the beasts and savages they tell us about? Have you met them? Have I? Not on your life! And it’s the same with the police—decentest lot of chaps you can meet.”

  “I quite agree, but you haven’t answered my question, old thing. Why is Brews so confiding. Why does he tell you all the latest news? It isn’t usually done.”

  Ned nodded. “I can only come to one conclusion, and that is that it has something to do with the Judges’ Rules.”

  “Have they any?”

  “Several. The first is not to know what every one else knows, and there are several others about the taking of evidence by the police. I am not very sure of the terms, but I think generally there is some prohibition about a policeman asking certain questions if he believes the man to be guilty. He must warn him before he goes on in that case.”

  “I see.”

  “Now, Brews and I are exchanging information, and he knows that I am investigating in my amateur way. I can ask any questions I like, you see. I may get information from a man he has his eye on, without being hampered as he is. There is no rule binding him not to take notice of something somebody else has said to me.”

  “In other words, he is making use of you?”

  “Absolutely. I never believed that he loved me for myself alone. But don’t let that worry you. I hope to be able to make a personal score before I end. By the way, he seems a jolly smart chap. He told me last night to keep kestrels in my mind. You’re more of a country mouse than I am, Nance. What exactly is a kestrel?”

  “What a juggins you are, Ned! A kestrel is the chap that gets after the country mouse and the bucolic beetle. It’s a kind of hawk that never does much work, but hangs in the sky, fluttering its wings, till it sees some wretched little thing below.”

  Ned grinned. “Why, you’re a blinking Buffon, if that was the fellow’s name. Is the bird large?”

  “It looks large, though it hasn’t any pluck.”

  “Good again. Now what is a harrier?”

  Nancy reflected. “A kind of hound. But they couldn’t call a hound a hen. A hen-harrier is what I am after.”

  She nodded. “Let’s move on. It’s too cold to sit. A hen-harrier? Why that was the hawk Hench was watching.”

  He started. “So it was. ‘Kestrels are common, harriers rare.’” He added: “A cryptic but poetic line of Brews’.”

  He had a portfolio under his arm. It contained Hench’s photographs, which he intended to take later to his publishers. He now drew Nancy back to her seat, and opened the portfolio.

  “None of these illustrations has a legend on the back or front,” he told her. “But one is certainly taken near the back of Fen Court. You can’t escape the fact.”

  “Why should I? What do you mean.”

  Ned now glanced rapidly through the photographs, and selected one. “Here we have a lazy bird hanging in the sky. Give it a name.”

  “Common or garden kestrel,” said she.

  Ned raised his eyebrows. “Well, if Hench was taking photographs of that, under the impression that it was some kind of harrier, he’s a cheap kind of ornithologist. I wonder if that is what Brews meant.”

  “That Hench was making it an excuse to hang about there?”

  “It seems like it,” said Ned, as he wrapped up the portfolios again. “He may have meant too that harriers were so rare that we should not be likely to find one so close to clvilisation.”

  “A hint to investigate Hench further,” she murmured.

  He nodded. “Come along. We’ll go down Piccadilly and show these nice pictures to the big man in the stuffing line. We may hear his views.”

  “It isn’t long now till the inquest,” said Nancy, as they set out across the park towards Hyde Park Corner.

  “No, very soon. We’d better go down again for it. They may want us. In any case, I should like to hear the police evidence before I go on. If they have anything up their sleeves, it may give us a pointer. Brews thinks the jury will hedge.”

  “Will the verdict effect him?”

  “He thinks not. I am not very sure if the police can ignore the verdict of a coroner’s court in certain cases. You see, the inquest is not directed to punishing a man, but finding the cause of death. You can’t try a man twice on the same charge, if he has been acquitted the first time, but I don’t see that you can call the inquest a trial.”

  “Why wouldn’t Brews tell you about the gold watch?” she asked, as they approached the gates of the park. That was funny, especially as he told you the wrist-watch had run down.”

  Ned ran her across the mouth of Park Lane before he replied. “It can only mean one thing—that old Habershon’s watch was tampered with, to give the impression that he slipped in accidentally soon after the two committed suicide. But can any one believe that Habershon, in pursuit of the frenzied young things—and they must have been in a frenzy if they rushed off to commit suicide—reached the pond and fell in just four minutes after they did? Couldn’t be done. The car was left ever so far off.”

  “But if Brews is as smart as you think, can’t he see that?”

  “He seems to have seen all I have, and about twenty things I haven’t glimpsed yet. That’s what makes him so irritating. But we must remember that the coroner wants to complete his job, while the police want to make an arrest. I have a feeling that they work an inquest sometimes, so that all their cards aren’t laid on the table.”

  “To prevent the criminal taking the alarm?”

  “That’s my idea. They may feel that half a dozen adjournments would be necessary before they could get enough evidence to arrest. The coroner would jib at that, so they give him a flower-pot to crawl into, as Brews hinted, and then get on with the business of stalking their man. I may be wrong, but that is how I see it.”