Ned looked rather disappointed. “It certainly looks as if Hench was merely down there trying to finish his brother’s manuscript, and not quite knowing how, but we can’t let him out yet. He may have stuck in those loose leaves to give that impression; not because he was in a hurry last night. The fact is that Hoggett must have seen a light in Pear Cottage; and there’s the navigable drain. We must have a look at that before we come to any further decision about the little man.”

  “Brews will be at Gale Street,” Nancy said, suddenly.

  “So he will. I forgot that,” cried Ned, “Well, we’ll run over at once and see him. This is our chance to get a tip about old Habershon’s safe.”

  They went by tube to British Museum station, and then hurried to 11 Gale Street. When they rang the door was opened by a plain-clothes man, the one Ned had accosted the previous day. He smiled, and asked their business.

  “I want to have a talk with Inspector Brews,” Ned told him. I saw him at Upperton the night before last, and this morning I had a letter from him.”

  He drew the envelope from his pocket. The plainclothes man nodded.

  “Come in, please. Mrs. Hoing, the housekeeper, is away for the day, and the inspector has sent the servants out. They’re going at the end of the week anyway.”

  He admitted them, closed the door behind them, and took them upstairs to what had been Mr. Habershon’s library. From the footfalls and other noises they heard in the house, they concluded that Brews had a small army of his myrmidons searching the house from cellar to attic.

  When they entered the library, Brews was on his knees amid a pile of books and papers. He beamed up at them, and got to his feet.

  “As you see, I am pretty busy,” he told them. “But I can spare you five minutes. Shut the door, Haselden,” he added to the plain-clothes man who had shown them up. “Don’t let any pressmen in on any excuse whatever.”

  When the man had gone, he looked expectant, but waited for Ned to speak.

  “I’ve come about the safe, that’s all,” Ned told him. “Miss Johnson and I thought we should like a look at it.”

  “The safe?” Brews stared at him thoughtfully. “Well, that’s easily done. It’s in the wall over there. You can see the handle.”

  “But we want to see inside,” said Nancy.

  “Still easier,” said Brews, taking a key from his pocket, and crossing the room. “One turn does it. It’s empty, I’m afraid, but perhaps you don’t mind that.”

  “Not a bit. What kind of safe is it, Inspector?”

  Brews shook his head. A very nice, straightforward little bit of metalwork. It will keep papers clean and dry, and proof against the ordinary pilferer. These safes give confidence without protection, and are much liked by burglars!”

  “Could be opened by any knowledgeable person, eh?”

  “Even by a plumber, sir. But most house safes are like that.”

  “So you didn’t expect to find the bonds there?”

  The inspector smiled. “No. I asked Mrs. Hoing if she knew anything about the bonds. The only information she could give me leads me to believe that the bonds were deposited here, for a short time at least, after Mr. Habershon bought them. But she was quite sure he did not take a parcel, other than the thermos, with him on the night of his death.”

  “I don’t suppose he did, or the man at the garage would have mentioned it,” Ned remarked. “But how did Mrs. Hoing know the bonds were ever put in the safe?”

  “She simply said that Mr. Habershon went to the bank one morning, and came back in a taxi-cab with a large, sealed parcel. That day, as I know, was the day he purchased the Bearer Bonds. The bank did the business for him. Mrs. Hoing says he took the parcel straight up here. She had occasion to go to him half an hour later for orders. He was still in this room, and the parcel was not visible. Naturally enough she assumed that he had put the parcel in the safe.”

  “Naturally enough,” Ned agreed. “Well, Inspector, do you think it would have been possible for Mr. Hench, when he visited Mr. Habershon here, to open that safe, and see what was in it?”

  “If he was left alone here for ten minutes, sir, and knew how to manipulate a simple lock, it would be possible, of course. But you mustn’t let Mrs. Hoing’s slip about the coffee make you suspicious of every one, Mr. Hope; you really mustn’t!”

  Nancy started, and Ned stared. “Are you on to that, too?” he cried.

  Brews feigned surprise. “You will have your little joke, sir. Why, of course; it stood out plain from the beginning that whoever did the murders knew a lot about Mr. Habershon’s private affairs. No use killing three poor things for the mere sake of making an unprofitable sensation, was there? We don’t know the extent or intimacy of Mr. Hench’s relations with Mr. Habershon. He may have known all about the bonds. So we have to watch him closely. But Mrs. Hoing was in a position to know something, too. Or may have been. That is the wisest way to put it. We have few enough straws to make our bricks with in this case, Mr. Hope; we can’t afford to throw away a straw, you can take it from me.”

  Ned nodded, dejectedly. “Then you think it possible Mrs. Hoing may have had access to the safe?”

  “I don’t know if she had. But she was in a privileged position here. She had dozens of opportunities to open it, if she had the will, and the means.”

  Nancy smiled. “Inspector, you don’t know how hateful you are! Please complete our destruction by telling us that you know Mrs. Hoing was near Fen Court on the night of the murder.”

  He laughed. “I know she was here all that evening and night, Miss. She has a cast-iron alibi. I’d go bail on it myself.”

  “Then who——” began Ned.

  Brews interrupted him. “There’s your chance, sir. The field’s open, and the chances even.”

  Ned grinned. “All right. Miss Johnson and I are going down this afternoon to see Hench again. What’ll you bet we don’t get something out of him?”

  “I won’t bet; but I’ll raise my hat to you, if you do,” said Brews. “Good luck to you.”

  “Did you notice that Brews only guaranteed a cast-iron alibi for Mrs. Hoing as far as Fen Court was concerned?” said Ned, as they set off in search of lunch. “The Commander-in-Chief of an army always has an alibi for the trenches. It isn’t his business to go there, but he directs operations all the same.”

  Nancy smiled. “Brews is a beast—but a very agreeable beast. We’ll see his hand one day, but not yet.”

  Two o’clock found them once more on the well-remembered track to Fen Court, and as they drove Ned instructed his companion in the part she had to play.

  He reminded her that a man in a corner, like a rat in a corner, is a painful as well as a dangerous sight. If she did not mind, she would get down short of Pear Cottage, cut across the fields to where the broad drain met the river, and beginning there, investigate the bank very carefully.

  “That will take you twenty minutes at least,” he added. “By that time Hench and I will have come to some sort of understanding.”

  The programme being agreed to, Nancy was eventually dropped at the point mentioned. Ned drove on, until he was at the entrance to the field intersected by the path to the cottage and orchard.

  In theory, he had a very good weapon for a duel with Hench. But as he got down, he felt that really skilful fencing would be necessary to avoid wounding the little man unnecessarily. That is to say, if Hench was innocent of the crime, he must not be allowed to suspect that he was under surveillance.

  Mr. Hench was in. He received Ned warmly, and almost at once inquired about his book.

  Ned dropped into a chair, lit a cigarette, and rubbed his chin, while he studied Hench’s face thoughtfully.

  “I came to speak to you about that manuscript,” he said slowly. “But did I understand you to say that it was yours?”

  Chapter XXI

  “WHAT do you mean, Mr. Hope?”

  Hench had turned rather white, and there was a sickly smile on his lips. Obviously he was uncomfortable and uneasy. He dropped the cigarette he had lighted, and picked it up again with fumbling fingers. He shifted his feet as he sat back.

  Ned did not look severe. He smiled faintly, as if he knew human weaknesses and was prepared to indulge them.

  “I was just asking, Mr. Hench. You see I took the trouble to have the manuscript read. Most of it was typed, a few pages——”

  “Did I enclose those?” Hench cried with exasperation. “But of course that means nothing, my dear sir. I have no typewriter, you see, and I have not collected enough new material to——”

  “Wait a moment,” Ned interrupted. “Let me be frank. It wasn’t a question of that. It was pointed out by the expert who read the typewritten portion that the work showed keen observation, and an original method, though he did not consider the writer to be a trained ornithologist.”

  “Perfectly true, Mr. Hope.”

  “The last few pages, however, he said were laughable,” Ned continued, his eyes steadily fixed on the uneasy features of the little man.

  “Absurd!” said Hench, and threw his cigarette angrily into the fire.

  “My trouble is this,” went on Ned, comfortably and easily. “You asked me to do something which is the business of an agent—to try to market the manuscript for you. I was quite willing. I think those photographs and sketches are too good to be lost. But the publisher’s allegation is a serious one. He practically tells me that the person who wrote the final eight pages that I showed him must be trying to pass off some one else’s book as his own. Now if he had accepted it, and that was the case, I might have been included in any action taken for infringement of copyright.”

  Hench bit his lip. “How can he prove that? Why, it’s libellous!”

  “It may be. I am not an expert on ornithology. But the man who is an expert says that the eight pages, where they are not copied verbatim from standard works, show that the writer does not know his subject.”

  Hench lit a fresh cigarette, and puffed smoke gustily. “One can quote to a certain extent, Mr. Hope. I intended to give the sources in footnotes.”

  Ned shook his head. “I am afraid you are not meeting my point. If the first part of the manuscript passes with the expert as accurate, and more or less valuable, we may take it that the writer knew what he was talking about. If he did, why descend into inaccurate nonsense at the end?”

  Hench scowled. “I know what I am talking about.”

  “I don’t think you know what you were writing about then,” said Ned, irritated by the little man’s obstinacy. “Why all this mystery about it? I am speaking to you in confidence, and you may do the same with me. But you put me in an awkward position with the publisher, and I insist on having an explanation.”

  Hench got up. He took a turn up and down the room. He looked more dejected and troubled now than angry.

  “I don’t see what more I can say to you.”

  Ned shrugged. “Now, Mr. Hench, it won’t do! I am not the only person who saw that you were not a trained ornithologist—not even an average amateur at the game. You told me, and the inspector too, I think, that you were watching a hen-harrier. Now what you were looking at was a kestrel. There are no hen-harriers here.”

  “You never saw the bird, Mr. Hope.”

  “No, but if you can tell me which of your photographs represents a hen-harrier, on the nest or off, I’ll apologise to you.”

  Hench sat down. “I don’t deny it. I was unable to get photos of the hen-harrier.”

  “Because we frightened her away, eh? But, surely, since you were watching her nest, you have a picture of the nest.”

  “Go to the devil!” Mr. Hench retorted with extraordinary ferocity.

  Ned laughed. “Perhaps then you will draw me a hen-harrier? I suppose those sketches were really yours?”

  Somehow, looking at Hench’s sullen eyes, he felt that they were not. The little man drew in his lips.

  “You’re impertinent.”

  “I am actually trying to be helpful,” murmured Ned. “But, if you take that line, perhaps I had better leave you to the tender mercies of Inspector Brews.”

  The phrase acted like a bomb. Hench sprang to his feet, frightened and anxious.

  “What has he to do with it?”

  “Nothing so far, but I’ll tell you what it may come to. Brews is investigating the murders, and you are the only man living here who had relations with the late Mr. Habershon.”

  Hench’s face showed relief. “Does he think I killed him—the man I was depending on for money to get my book published?”

  “That is just the point. So far Hench hasn’t roped you in, because you are supposed to be living in this seclusion to study birds, and that common interest explained your connection with the dead man. But if Brews discovers that you are a fraud as an ornithologist, he’ll put you through it. How would you like to be confronted with an expert, who would examine you in ornithology? He wouldn’t handle you as tentatively as I have done.”

  Hench winced. “Whatever my reason for living down here, it does not connect me with the murders. How could it?”

  “You will have to ask Brews that. Possibly he might say that you were living here as one of the agents in a plot. This flapdoodle about bird-watching in itself proves that you are not—shall I say, strictly veracious.”

  That shot went home. Hench did not fire up this time. He resumed his seat, and sat crumpled in it, looking from the fire to Ned, and from Ned back to the fire.

  “On the other hand,” said Ned, looking away from him, and speaking very slowly and distinctly, “there may be an explanation of your bluff. If you think fit to let me know the truth, I am quite ready to take it into account. But I resent the idea of being the agent for the sale of a book you are passing off as your own.”

  “Inspector Brews must know that I have an alibi—if I needed one.”

  The words came desperately from the little man hunched up in the chair.

  Ned nodded. “For a certain hour. You went to Hitherland, you say you saw a light about here at a quarter to ten. But how do you know that the murders took place at a quarter to ten, or before that hour?”

  Hench looked alarmed. “The watches. I understood——”

  “The watches were tampered with—one at least was. No, Hench; the inspector will want to know how you could say you had an alibi, if you don’t know when the murders took place. An alibi covers time as well as place, you know.”

  Hench drew a long, deep breath. He sat for quite five minutes, staring into the fire, his face a kaleidoscope of chaotic and ever-changing emotions. Then he looked at Ned, bit his lip and surrendered at discretion.

  “You’re right, Mr. Hope. I am sorry I deceived you. I did not know that my deception might involve you in trouble. I never thought of that.”

  Ned smiled faintly. “Good. Now we are getting at it. I won’t prompt you, or hint at my theories. Just carry on with your explanation, if you don’t mind.”

  Hench sighed, then he began to speak rapidly, his face flushed now, and his eyes ashamed.

  He explained with a sort of melancholy pride that his elder brother had taken most of the photographs, and had done the sketches. He himself, while quite as expert a photographer, had no knowledge of birds, and no interest in ornithology until James’s death. James had had a certain amount of capital, and Hench admitted that he had been disappointed and upset when the valuation for probate of his brother’s estate disclosed the fact that most of the capital had been spent. His brother had, he said, not pulled his weight in the business they had set up together. He had let it down, and when he died, it was hardly worth carrying on.

  “But he left you what property he had, including the book?” said Ned, when Hench had got so far.

  “Yes, he did. I was very proud of James, though he did let me down,” Hench replied. “I couldn’t help seeing that the photographs were magnificent, almost unique; but, of course, the written part stumped me. My first idea was to get it published in James’s name. But the people I submitted it to said it had no value unless it was finished. Well, I thought and thought. I knew what I could do. I felt sure I could photograph birds as well as James, and it seemed to me I could get information from books to complete the letterpress. I didn’t realise that it would be such a job.”

  Ned reflected. “But why try to pass it off as your own work?”

  Hench looked abashed. “I don’t know. I did a lot of photos myself, and you couldn’t tell them from James’s. Somehow, I began to wonder if I couldn’t make a name for myself. Conceit, I suppose, if it comes to that.” He broke off and resumed again in a curious tone. “I suppose it never occurred to you, Mr. Hope, that little people want to be big ones? People don’t think of that! They never seem to imagine that butchers, and bakers, and candlestick-makers, yes, and suburban photographers, want to be anything else. But they do often enough. I did! When I looked at those photographs, I asked myself why I shouldn’t be famous. James started knowing no more than I about birds. He taught himself. Why shouldn’t I study birds, and bring out a big book in my name on them? It couldn’t hurt poor James, who was dead.”

  “No,” said Ned, looking at him in some surprise, finding indeed a puzzled, half-sympathetic interest in the dreams of this little would-be climber.

  Hench went on quickly. “Yes, I thought what people would say. When I went back to North Finchley where I came from, they would think differently about me. It would not be the man who used to take their photos for thirty shillings a dozen, but ‘Mr. Hench, who is so famous with that book of his.’ And it would have been half mine!” he added.