Nancy was more or less convinced by his reasoning. “Still,” she put a last objection, “he told you plainly that he considered the passport and the registered parcel clear proofs.”

  Ned patted her on the arm. “Good girl! You have the nicest way of bringing up doubtful points so that I can clarify them in my own mind. Proofs? By Jove, now, what are proofs? Double-sided like records; like criticism, what? Think of criticism. The word has grown to mean censure. But it really may mean praise as well. A proof can be positive or negative. Am I right, sir?”

  “As the pudding,” Nancy agreed.

  He went on more eagerly. “Don’t remind me of my pudding-head. I see that. I was a dud not to think of it before. Nancy, you make me think! Left to myself I only maunder and burble.”

  “Well, what are you thinking of?”

  “These proofs. They may prove that old Habershon faked a suicide, and intended to bolt with the boodle. But they may prove that old Habershon was innocent of both.”

  “Prove that proof,” said Nancy, severely.

  “Easy. Dead easy. And where was old Habershon’s luggage, and why did he take a passport with him. And why pinch the money when the fake suicides would have left him heir to a good deal of the gold? Nancy, we may have to start again from the beginning.”

  She shrugged. “I wish you would clear up what you’ve said before you start again.”

  Ned shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I must think it over first. Now we are nearing the taxidermists. We cross here.”

  For the moment Nancy could get no more out of him. They crossed the road, went on two hundred yards, and entered a shop where stuffed animals and birds filled an attractive window.

  They emerged fifteen minutes later with assorted information. The photographs were very finely taken, the sketches were splendid. But the hawk was a kestrel, and the expert gave it as his opinion that the hen-harrier was not at all likely to nest near Fen Court, and, if it had been seen so near town, a dozen correspondents would have written to the papers about it.

  “But the photographer insists that there was a harrier,” Ned had replied

  The expert admitted that it might be so. At the same time he assured them that many expert photographers, even those who might be fond of birds, did not necessarily know much about ornithology.

  “Either Hench is a liar, or there was a harrier, or Hench does not know one bird from another,” Ned said as they found themselves in the street.

  “If he doesn’t know the difference, and told us he was writing a book on the nidification of British birds, he’s a liar anyway, old thing.”

  “Finally,” said Ned, “if these photos are so fine, why the difficulty in getting them published? Really well-done bird books sell like hot cakes.”

  Nancy reflected. “There may just be one reason. If Hench is not really an expert ornithologist, the letterpress may be the snag. That sort of book must be accurate, mustn’t it?”

  “I think you may have hit it,” said he. “At any rate, I’ll put off showing these to my publisher until I can get a squint at the book of words. Meantime I’ll shadow Hench. There’s something odd about him. It looks, as we thought before, as if he got in the policeman’s way to prove an alibi.”

  “Are you going down again to-day?” she asked.

  “Not till I take you to the next gloomy function at Upperton,” he told her. “But I should much like to know when Hench went to Pear Cottage, and where he came from before that.”

  “Would he tell you?”

  “Not very likely. I’ll ring up Brews now, and ask him. He always knows what I want to discover, drat him!”

  He went to the first telephone office, and rang up Upperton. In ten minutes he had got through, and called Brews away from an important conference with Superintendent Langley and the Chief Constable of the County.

  “Well, Mr. Hope, what is it?” asked Brews, good-humoured as ever.

  “I want to know how long Hench has lived at Pear Cottage, and where he came from last,” said Ned.

  “Four months, and was formerly living with his brother at No. 19 Heath Buildings, North Finchley,” replied Brews, like an informative automatic machine. “That all?”

  “For the present,” said Ned, and rang off.

  “We’ll have an early lunch, and then barge out to North Finchley,” he told Nancy when he rejoined her. “But what a memory!”

  Chapter XV

  AS there was no need for haste, they reached North Finchley by tube and ’bus, and set out in search of Heath Buildings. They expected to find a block of flats; they found instead an agglomeration of semidetached houses, one of which, No. 19, boasted a glass structure running back into the narrow garden.

  “Photography,” said Ned.

  “Genius!” said Nancy. “It was too obvious for me.”

  He smiled indulgently. “We’ll be relatives, neither newspaper nor police. Cornelius is my second cousin—Got that?”

  “Registered and held,” said Nancy, as he opened the gate.

  The door of No. 19 was opened presently by a middle-aged woman who, on hearing their errand, bade them come in. They went into an Edwardian parlour. Mrs. Bray, the owner, followed them, and shut the door. She was one of those not infrequent people who turn away no opportunity for fresh conversation, and take on themselves with avidity the business of local guides.

  Having established contact with this amiable woman, Ned successfully launched his inquiries.

  “Ah, Mr. Hench did live here,” Mrs. Bray informed him. “He and his elder brother. I lived round the corner then. ’Twas them who built the studio in the garden, for their photography.”

  “I knew my—my cousin Cornelius was a photographer,” said Ned. “But I never heard his brother was.”

  “Well, indeed, it was he started it, and they did very well for a time; being cheap and good, till they neglected it, and people weren’t going to wait months for their photos. At least that was Mr. James. Mr. Cornelius was here, but he couldn’t do it all himself.”

  “Then James went away often?” said Nancy.

  “The way of it was this,” said Mrs. Bray, licking her lips as if to lubricate them for a long talk. “Mr. James, they say, was mad about birds. He knew all about them, and more than half his time he would be off to Scotland or Ireland or somewhere—they say he had a bit of money that Mr. Cornelius hadn’t—to take photos of them.”

  “Really?” said Ned, glancing for a moment at Nancy.

  “True as I sit here. He was always busy over the birds, and some said—anyway the last curate who caught him at it once—that he was writing a book on them.”

  “How very interesting,” said Nancy.

  Mrs. Bray drew in her lips. “It may have been to him, but it would have been more sense, I say, if he’d helped his brother more.”

  “But I thought Cornelius was keen on birds too,” said Ned.

  “I never heard it, sir, though it may be so. What I heard was just what people were saying. Anyway, when Mr. James died, it came out that he’d had about five thousand pounds in money, and spent most of it gallivanting about the country after birds.”

  Ned nodded.

  “But surely the book which had cost so much trouble would have some value?” he asked.

  “Well, I don’t know, sir. But the curate I think was asked to have a look at it. Mr. Cornelius asked him, by all accounts. Being a curate, he knew nothing about birds, but he did his best, and took it to show a friend, who was a taxi’ expert, they say.”

  “A taxidermist?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Anyway the curate was very sorry about it, for the gentleman you mention who does these things said it wasn’t worth anything. Spite and jealousy I expect it was, for Mr. James was a good photographer, and cheap too when he stuck to it.”

  Ned repressed a start. “James was a clever man in his way,” he agreed, “but we haven’t all got the gift of writing.”

  “No, indeed. But that’s the way it was. Mr. Cornelius came into whatever his brother left by will, and he sold out this house (which was all there was), not to mention the photos of birds, and the book, and little things like that that he kept. Meantime the business had gone down, and not enough to keep him, as my husband says, and there was just enough money from this house to bring in a hundred a year invested, instead of what would have been if Mr. James hadn’t wasted his money on birds.”

  Having achieved this long speech, Mrs. Bray licked her lips again, and looked amiably at Nancy, who smiled back.

  “Were the brothers much attached to one another?” Ned asked.

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. Every one liked Mr. Cornelius better, but that may have been because he did his best to get their photos for them, while Mr. James would forget them being busy over his book, that turned out no good, or the birds he was so fond of. Why, he was that absentminded he sent old Miss Paverton a photo of a hawk, with a letter saying he considered it a good likeness. Never meant any harm, of course, but she is a bit beaky and the upshot of it was she didn’t go back any more, things like that being upsetting to trade as you will understand.”

  Nancy laughed merrily, and was joined by Mrs. Bray. Ned smiled, and rose. “Well, you have been very kind, Mrs. Bray, but we mustn’t keep you any longer. Do you know my cousin’s present address?”

  “I am sorry, I don’t. He told no one,” said Mrs. Bray.

  “Well, do you think she has been interviewed by the police already, for I don’t,” said Ned, as they walked back to the ’bus. “If she had been, we should have heard all about it.”

  Nancy agreed. “No, I think they have left her alone. She’s a cheery soul, if a bit gossipy, but she’s overturned all our theories.”

  Ned frowned. “I said from the first that people in my job are too apt to make the circumstance fit the crime. It’s true this evidence does not implicate Hench, but it does explain a little how he came to make that mistake about the hawk.”

  “That’s what I thought, old thing.”

  “As I see it,” Ned went on, “James took marvellous photographs of birds, but he hadn’t the training or the expert knowledge to write a book about them. A water-colour artist, or a fellow who paints river scenes, may be a poor filter expert. When he dies, Cornelius gets this expert opinion. Probably he, too, puts it down to spite. He thinks his brother, who has spent most of his life and his money chasing birds, must know all about them. Either because he wants to bring out the book as a monument to his brother, or because he has been cheated of his expectations, and hopes to get money by it, he starts to photograph birds himself. For corroboration about the letterpress of the book being unfinished, we have the fact that he doesn’t hand it to me to try with a publisher, but just gives me the photographs, which even an idiot can see are top-hole.”

  “Here’s our ’bus,” said Nancy.

  They climbed into the half-empty ’bus, and secured a seat in the corner. Ned resumed.

  “The book must be unfinished, or he wouldn’t be taking more photographs for it. Probably he has been trying to read up some books on birds, with a view to finishing the manuscript himself.”

  “But he could get correct information from books.”

  “And I can get accurate information on relativity from Einstein’s works, only I don’t understand them, old thing! Research in any subject is not an easy job. No. Cornelius takes a hawk for a heron-shaw, or a harrier. Brews is not as clever as he thinks. His hint about the kestrel has fallen down sadly.”

  “Unless,” said Nancy, “he thought you could do the inquiry at this end for him. Also he may be trying to put you on the wrong track. It would be quite like him.”

  “Absolutely. But this is a side issue. The nonsense about watching a hen-harrier may be nonsense without being wilfully untrue. We have proved that Hench may not have lied in this matter, but we haven’t proved that Hench had nothing to do with the murders—if murders they were.”

  “But do you think he could have had something to do with it?”

  “He could, of course. You know what a deserted countryside it is down there, and he was the only person old Habershon knew.”

  “By the way, Ned, some one said Habershon didn’t care about birds much. But he was a F.Z.S., wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, but what of it? Lots of Fellows of the Zoological Society aren’t experts. They pay, and they gets tickets for Sundays. By the way, he may have been financing the book to try to get credit for efforts in ornithology. But that doesn’t worry me about old Habershon. The point about his affairs that makes me a guesser is that matter of the Bearer Bonds, Nance.”

  “That he sold out to get them?”

  “No, that, having the power apparently to sell the whole caboodle—a hundred thousand pounds worth of property—he didn’t sell all.”

  “His sisters were fools to leave him unlimited power. They ought to have made a——”

  “Trust? Of course. But they didn’t. What I mean is this. Habershon had the power of life and death over a hundred thousand of the best. He only sold out sixty thou., and invested that in bonds. Was he surprised at his own moderation, like Warren Hastings, or why was that? If he intended to bolt, why not scoop the lot?”

  Nancy considered. “On the face of it,” she said, slowly, “I should say that he didn’t want to leave his nephew and niece quite penniless.”

  Ned raised his eyebrows.

  “Now that is exactly what I want to get at. If he could get clear away, then he was safe to take the lot. If he couldn’t, he would be given as hot a sentence for the sixty as he would be for the hundred thousand. Our justice is not measured out in hundreds of thousands. That being so, Portia, you’re a Daniel come to judgment! The wish not to be too hard on his young relatives is the only valid reason for his self-denying ordinance.”

  “I think so.”

  “Good! Now that brings us, old girl, to the paradox of the strange Mr. Habershon. As things stand, we are confronted with the miraculous spectacle of the man who does not wish to leave his relatives in want, but is quite ready to dope them, fire them into a pond, and stage a monstrous fake. Is he a Jekyll and Hyde, or what?”

  “Not quite. That split personality was benevolent on one side, Ned, but Habershon, if we are right, was only a big rogue one way, and a slightly smaller rogue another.”

  “Good. I agree. Still there is the paradox, and I’m hanged if it doesn’t flummox me. Bell and his editor are asses! They really think my work helps me in this. All the time I have been manufacturing a Mr. Habershon who will fit my theories. But Mr. Habershon, with whom we are dealing, is not a fictional figure but a concrete fact. He was created before I was, and what I have to try to get at now is not the Habershon who suits my book, but the man who was alive until a few days ago.”

  “But Brews is also manufacturing a Mr. Habershon.”

  “We have no proof of that. He has given me a little mascot of Mr. Habershon to play with, but whether he thinks it’s at all like the late Mr. H. I do not know.”

  “Ask?”

  Ned did not reply to that. He frowned severely.

  “He may have seen from the first that I was going to hang about, and develop my experiences of criminology. He may have put it to the massive Langley that I would be sure to get in the way anyway, and, if they could provide me with some innocuous occupation, so much the better. Brews is as deep as a draw-well, but he’s good-natured. He’s more likely to say, ‘Go along and play, little man,’ than to tell me to go where the coals are hotter.”

  “Don’t give up!” she adjured him.

  “Give up? The last thing I thought of. The first thing is to start again from the beginning,” said Ned.

  Chapter XVI

  THERE was a quickening of local interest once more when the adjourned inquests were proceeded with. The court was very full, the streets hummed, the police and the pressmen conducted their usual activities both inside and outside the official building.

  Ned and Nancy watched the coroner with interest. They did not look very much at the jury. The coroner appeared quietly competent. Either he did not know that detectives classed him with the earwig tribe, or he was one of those who earn an exemption by fitting in tactfully with the officers’ plans.

  As the first inquiry was further unrolled, Ned saw that the police had a hope of getting an open verdict. They failed to stress, or to produce, details that might have firmed up a wavering jury. Their witnesses spoke so impartially that the jurymen looked at one another, and showed perplexed brows, as if they had looked for light and leading and got none. Their inexperienced eyes detected murder, but no murderer.

  Even the fact that Mr. Habershon had been ordered mordinal, and traces of mordinal had been found in the flask did not topple them from the razor-edge of their fence. Mr. Habershon had had a white beard and now he was dead, so that no one could be quite sure what had happened to him. The evidence was too circumstantial, and there was too much theory about it. Not that individual jurymen objected to theory in itself, only there were eleven of them, and theories are like statistics, each likes to handle them in a different way.

  In fact, as the inquiry went on, it became plain that the jury had made up their minds, and wanted to be done. And no one tried to upset this frame of mind by being convincing on one side or the other. Presently Superintendent Langley had a short whispered colloquy with the coroner, and, from his faint smile, Ned took it that the coroner was definitely not in the earwig class. He had been primed with police wisdom, and knew where to check exuberance of theory.