The Evil Shepherd Part 8

Francis nodded.

"Certainly I am," he confessed.

"You don't believe that he was getting at us?"

"Not for a moment."

"You believe that something is going to happen here in this place, or quite close?"

"I am convinced of it," was the calm reply.

Wilmore was silent. For a moment he was troubled with his old fears as to his friend's condition. A glance, however, at Francis' set face and equable, watchful air, rea.s.sured him.

"We must see the thing through, of course, then," he a.s.sented. "Let us see if we can spot the actors in the coming drama."

CHAPTER IX

It happened that the two men, waiting in the vestibule of the restaurant for Francis' car to crawl up to the entrance through the fog which had unexpectedly rolled up, heard the slight altercation which was afterwards referred to as preceding the tragedy. The two young people concerned were standing only a few feet away, the girl pretty, a little peevish, an ordinary type; her companion, whose boyish features were marred with dissipation, a very pa.s.sable example of the young man about town going a little beyond his tether.

"It's no good standing here, Victor!" the girl exclaimed, frowning. "The commissionaire's been gone ages already, and there are two others before us for taxis."

"We can't walk," her escort replied gloomily. "It's a foul night.

Nothing to do but wait, what? Let's go back and have another drink."

The girl stamped her satin-shod foot impatiently.

"Don't be silly," she expostulated. "You know I promised Clara we'd be there early."

"All very well," the young man grumbled, "but what can we do? We shall have to wait our turn."

"Why can't you slip out and look for a taxi yourself?" she suggested.

"Do, Victor," she added, squeezing his arm. "You're so clever at picking them up."

He made a little grimace, but lit a cigarette and turned up his coat collar.

"I'll do my best," he promised. "Don't go on without me."

"Try up towards Charing Cross Road, not the other way," she advised earnestly.

"Right-oh!" he replied, which illuminative form of a.s.sent, a word spoken as he plunged unwillingly into the thick obscurity on the other side of the revolving doors, was probably the last he ever uttered on earth.

Left alone, the girl began to s.h.i.+ver, as though suddenly cold. She turned around and glanced hurriedly back into the restaurant. At that moment she met the steady, questioning scrutiny of Francis' eyes. She stood as though transfixed. Then came the sound which every one talked of for months afterwards, the sound which no one who heard it ever forgot--the death cry of Victor Bidlake, followed a second afterwards by a m.u.f.fled report. A strain of frenzied surprise seemed mingled with the horror. Afterwards, silence.

There was the sound of some commotion outside, the sound of hurried footsteps and agitated voices. Then a terrible little procession appeared. Something--it seemed to be a shapeless heap of clothes--was carried in and laid upon the floor, in the little s.p.a.ce between the revolving doors and the inner entrance. Two blue-liveried attendants kept back the horrified but curious crowd. Francis, vaguely recognised as being somehow or other connected with the law, was one of the few people allowed to remain whilst a doctor, fetched out from the dancing-room, kneeled over the prostrate form. He felt that he knew beforehand the horrible verdict which the latter whispered in his ear after his brief examination.

"Quite dead! A ghastly business!"

Francis gazed at the hole in the s.h.i.+rt-front, disfigured also by a scorching stain.

"A bullet?" he asked.

The doctor nodded.

"Fired within a foot of the poor fellow's heart," he whispered. "The murderer wasn't taking any chances, whoever he was."

"Have the police been sent for?"

The head-porter stepped forward.

"There was a policeman within a few yards of the spot, sir," he replied.

"He's gone down to keep every one away from the place where we found the body. We've telephoned to Scotland Yard for an inspector."

The doctor rose to his feet.

"Nothing more can be done," he p.r.o.nounced. "Keep the people out of here whilst I go and fetch my hat and coat. Afterwards, I'll take the body to the mortuary when the ambulance arrives."

An attendant pushed his way through the crowd of people on the inner side of the door.

"Miss Daisy Hyslop, young lady who was with Mr. Bidlake, has just fainted in the ladies' room, sir," he announced. "Could you come?"

"I'll be there immediately," the doctor promised.

The rest of the proceedings followed a normal course. The police arrived, took various notes, the ambulance followed a little later, the body was removed, and the little crowd of guests, still infected with a sort of awed excitement, were allowed to take their leave. Francis and Wilmore drove almost in silence to the former's rooms in Clarges Street.

"Come up and have a drink, Andrew," Francis invited.

"I need it," was the half-choked response.

Francis led the way in silence up the two flights of stairs into his sitting-room, mixed whiskies and sodas from the decanter and syphon which stood upon the sideboard, and motioned his friend to an easy-chair. Then he gave form to the thought which had been haunting them both.

"What about our friend Sir Timothy Brast?" he enquired. "Do you believe now that he was pulling our legs?"

Wilmore dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. It was a chilly evening, but there were drops of perspiration still standing there.

"Francis," he confessed, "it's horrible! I don't think realism like this attracts me. It's horrible! What are we going to do?"

"Nothing for the present," was the brief reply. "If we were to tell our story, we should only be laughed at. What there is to be done falls to my lot."

"Had the police anything to say about it?" Wilmore asked.

"Only a few words," Francis replied. "Shopland has it in hand. A good man but unimaginative. I've come across him in one or two cases lately.

You'll find a little bit like this in the papers to-morrow: 'The murder is believed to have been committed by one of the gang of desperadoes who have infested the west-end during the last few months.' You remember the a.s.sault in the Albany Court Yard, and the sandbagging in Shepherd Market only last week?"

"That seems to let Sir Timothy out," Wilmore remarked.