He went back to his car, and drove away, but he stopped it at the first telephone box, and rang up Superintendent Bell. “Fortune speaking. The Bournham case. Has your intelligent inspector down there been looking up the files of the local paper? Find out, will you? He should have, but, if he hasn’t, tell him not to. I have.”
“Why, what were you after, sir?” said Bell.
“I didn’t know. Don’t know now. I read the report of Blunt’s trial for arson. The late Mrs. Blunt borrowed the money to pay Blunt’s fire premium from Mr. Frederic Garner. Then the fire happened. You didn’t tell me that.”
“Well, what about it?” Bell protested. “It makes the case against Blunt worse. It don’t seem to have any other bearing.”
“Bearin’ not obvious. No. However. Some discreet man in the force, if any, might find out what were the relations between Garner and the defunct Mrs. Blunt. Have you found a trace of the Smiler yet? You have not. Well, well. Does he look like a prize - fighter? Oh, he hasn’t got a cauliflower ear?”
“Not him,” said Bell, with scorn. “You’d take him for a nice college - boy. What ever have you got on to now?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. But a man as described had been looking up the Blunt trial in the files of the local paper just before I did.”
“My oath!” Bell grunted. “It don’t make sense.”
“No. We don’t, do we? Have you put Goldschild’s chauffeur through it?”
“I have not,” said Bell impatiently. “What’s that mean?”
“Oh, my Bell. Meanin’ simple and obvious, Chauffeur slept very sound, didn’t he? That struck David Moss. Why was the chauffeur so sure that he saw Blunt near the house?”
“All right, sir,” Bell grunted. “I’ll try it. Not very hopeful to my mind. But I’ve got to own it’s a stinker of a case.”
Mr. Fortune is fond of arguing that if the police had been efficient from this stage onwards the case would have been brought to a quite different conclusion, which must have been still more unsatisfactory. From this he infers that it may be a mistake for the human race to reform itself suddenly.
That night. Bell telephoned to him inability to find the chauffeur. The chauffeur was reported gone with Goldschild on a business tour to the North.
On the subsequent Friday, which was three weeks all but two days since the Goldschild burglary Bell rang him up again, and asked if he could come to a conference. He found Bell with his favourite lieutenant, Underwood, both importantly solemn, in front of the Bournham inspector, who wore an air of bitter self - satisfaction.
“Well, well.” Reggie sidled round to the fire, and stood in front of it and surveyed them. “Are we downhearted? Yes.”
“Thank you, sir. I don’t see anything to be downhearted about.” The inspector was truculent. “The theories seem to have gone west, that’s all.”
“He means he can’t trace the Smiler in any of these Bournham cases,” Bell explained.
“I cannot. Never a sniff of him,” the inspector said loudly. “I have no reason to believe the Smiler was ever working in my division - except Mr. Fortune’s theory.” He gave Reggie a baleful grin. “And you may be surprised to hear, sir, that nobody else can get a line on the Smiler anywhere.”
“No. I had heard,” Reggie murmured. “And I wasn’t surprised. Just like the rest of the case. However. The decision of the experts is that our Smiler has faded out?”
“Looks that way, sir,” Bell nodded. “He may be in the provinces somewhere, or left the country altogether.”
“Or gone out of business,” Underwood suggested. “They do sometimes - the clever ones, and the Smiler was always brainy, wasn’t he, sir?”
“First - class brains,” Bell grunted. “Educated too. Had a bit of some Irish college, Mr. Fortune. Anyhow, he seems to be out of it.”
“Stwrlos versenkt,” Reggie murmured. “‘Sunk without trace.’ I wonder.”
“What - you mean somebody’s done him in?” Bell asked.
“Oh no. No. I wouldn’t say that. No evidence.” Reggie sighed, and surveyed the three detectives with the patient, pensive curiosity of one who seeks a reason for the human race. “Well, well. What about the gentleman with the thick ear who went to the local paper office to read up Blunt’s trial for arson - sounds like the house that Jack built - but an actual gentleman - are you making anything of him?”
“No, I’m not,” the inspector sneered. “I want facts, Mr. Fortune. That story’s all up in the air.”
“I can’t make it fit in, sir.” Bell shook his bead. “Very difficult. Yes. Only, it happened.”
“I dare say,” the inspector broke in again. “What then? If it means anything, it means the chap had his reasons for looking after Blunt. All right. Why would that be? We’ve got it clear the Blunts were mixed up in the Goldschild burglary. You say that yourself. So what it comes to is, this thick - ear chap knew something about the burglary too, and was trying to make sure he had Blunt where he wanted him. Either blackmail or keeping Blunt from squealing. That was his game, you bet.”
“Yes. That’s not bad. Rational argument,” Reggie said slowly. “The thick - eared gentleman is in the burglary enterprise. Yes, it could be. I wonder.”
