“Oh my friend!” Dubois smiled indulgently. “None at all. And when they go out of Paris, it is to Monte Carlo, to Aix, not to rough it in Brittany, you may be sure. No. You shall forgive me, but I find nothing in your menu to change my mind. I must look for my Farquhar here.” He shook his head sadly at Reggie. “I am desolated that you do not agree.” He turned to Lomas. “But this is the only way, hein?”
“Absolutely. There’s no other line at all,” said Lomas, with satisfaction. “Don’t let Fortune worry you. He lives to see what isn’t there. Wonderful imagination.”
“My only aunt!” Reggie moaned. “Not me, no. No imagination at all. Only simple faith in facts. You people ignore ‘em when they’re not rational. Unscientific and superstitious. However. Let’s pretend and see what we get. Go your own way.”
“One does as one can,” Dubois shrugged.
“Quite. Fortune is never content with the possible. We must work it out here. I’ve put things in train for you. We have a copy of Farquhar’s photograph. That’s been circulated with description, and there’s a general warning out for him and the jewels. We’re combing out all his friends and his usual haunts.”
“‘So runs my dream, but what am I?’” Reggie murmured. “‘An infant cryin’ in the night. An infant cryin’ for the light’ - - Well, well. Are we downhearted? Yes. A little Armagnac would be grateful and comfortin’.” He turned the conversation imperatively to the qualities of that liqueur, and Dubois was quick with respectful responses. Lomas relapsed upon Olympian disdain and whisky and soda.
When he took Dubois away, “Fantastic fellow, Fortune, isn’t he?” Lomas smiled. “Mind of the first order, but never content to use it.”
“An artist, my friend,” said Dubois. “A great artist. He feels life. We think about it.”
“Damme, you don’t believe he’s right about this Brittany guess?”
“What do I know?” Dubois shrugged. “It means nothing. Therefore it is nothing for us. However, one must confess, he is disconcerting, your Mr. Fortune. He makes one always doubt.”
This, when he heard of it, Reggie considered the greatest compliment which he ever had, except from his wife. He also thinks it deserved… .
Some days later he was engaged upon the production in his marionette theatre of the tragedy of Don Juan, lyrics by Lord Byron, prose and music by Mr. Fortune, when the telephone called him from a poignant passage on the rejection of his hero by hell.
“Yes, Fortune speaking. ‘Between two worlds life hovers like a star.’ Perhaps you didn’t know that, Lomas. ‘How little do we know that which we are.’ Discovery of the late Lord Byron. I’m settin’ it to music. Departmental ditty for the Criminal Investigation Department. I - -”
“Could you listen for a moment?” said Lomas sweetly. “You might be interested.”
“Not likely, no. However. What’s worryin’ you?”
“Nothing, except sympathy for you, Reginald. I’m afraid you’ll suffer. To break it gently, we’ve traced Farquhar. But not in Brittany, Reginald.”
Reggie remained calm. “No. Of course not,” he moaned. “You weren’t trying. I don’t want to hear what you’ve missed. Takes too long.”
A sound of mockery came over the wire. “Are you ever wrong, Reginald? No. It’s always the other fellow. But the awkward fact is, Farquhar hadn’t gone to Brittany, he’d gone to Westshire. So that was the only place we could find him. We have our limitations.”
“You have. Yes. C’est brutal, mais fa marche. You’re clumsy, but you move - sometimes - like the early cars. What has he got to say for himself?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t put our hands on him yet. We - what?”
“Pardon me. It was only emotion. A sob of reverence. Oh, my Lomas. You found the only place you could find him, so you haven’t found him. The perfect official. No results, but always the superior person.”
“Results quite satisfactory,” Lomas snapped. “We had a clear identification. He’s been staying at Lyncombe. He’s bolted again. No doubt found we were on his track. But we shall get him. They’re combing out the district. Bell’s gone down with Dubois.”
“Splendid. Always shut the stable door when the horse has been removed. I’ll go too. I like watching that operation. Raises my confidence in the police force.” …
As the moon rose over the sea, Reggie’s car drove into Lyncombe. It is a holiday town of some luxury. The affronts to nature of its blocks of hotel and twisting roads of villas for the opulent retired have not yet been able to spoil ail the beauty of cliff and cove. When Reggie saw it, the banal buildings and the headlands were mingled in moonlight to make a dreamland, and the sea was a black mystery with a glittering path on it.
He went to the newest hotel, he bathed well and dined badly, and, as he sat smoking his consolatory pipe on a balcony where the soft air smelt of chrysanthemums and the sea, Dubois came to him with Bell.
“Aha.” Dubois spoke. “You have not gone to Brittany then, my friend?”
“No. No. Followin’ the higher intelligence. I have a humble mind. And where have you got to?”
“We have got to the tracks of Farquhar, there is no doubt of that. What is remarkable, he had registered in his own name at the hotel, and the people there they recognise his photograph - they are sure of it. In fact, it is a face to be sure of, a rabbit face.”
“The identification’s all right,” Bell grunted. “The devil of it is, he’s gone again, Mr. Fortune. He went in a hurry too. Left all his traps behind, such as they were. The hotel people think he was just bilking them. He’d been a matter of ten days and not paid anything, and his baggage is worth about nothing - a battered old suitcase and some duds fit for the dust - bin.”
“Oh, Peter!” Reggie moaned. “No, Bell, no. I haven’t got to look at his shirts again?”
