The crimson circle
not until he stood in the hall of the house in Marisburg Place that he
broke the silence.
“We ought to find a small steel cylinder somewhere,” he said slowly.
The policeman standing on duty in the hall came forward and saluted
the inspector.
“We found an iron bottle in the garage, sir?” he said.
“Ah!” cried Derrick Yale triumphantly. “I thought so!”
He almost ran up the stairs ahead of the detective and paused in the
passage, which was now lighted. The little oak table stood against the
ventilator and toward that he moved. Then he went down on his hands
and knees and sniffed the carpet. Presently he choked and coughed and
got up, red in the face.
“Let me see that cylinder,” he said.
They brought it to him. The policeman’s description of it as a bottle
was nearer the truth. It was an iron bottle, at the end of which was
a small pipe to which was attached a tiny turn-key.
“And now there ought to be a cup somewhere,” he said, looking round,
“unless he brought it in a bottle.”
“There was a small glass bottle in the garage near this, sir,” said
the policeman who had found it, “it is broken, though.”
“Bring it to me quickly,” said Yale. “And I can only hope that it
isn’t so completely smashed that none of its contents are left.”
The stout Mr. Parr was regarding him sombrely.
“What is all this about?” he asked, and Derrick Yale chuckled.
“A new way of committing a murder, my dear Mr. Parr,” he said airily,
“now let us go into the room.”
The body of Marl lay on the bed covered by a sheet and the circular
patch of wet on the pillow had not dried. The windows were open and a
fitful wind kept the curtains fluttering.
“Of course you can’t smell it here,” said Yale speaking to himself,
and again went on his knees and nosed the carpet. And again he coughed
and rose hurriedly.
By this time they had returned with the lower half of a glass bottle.
It contained a few drops of liquid, and this Yale poured into his
hand.
“Soap and water,” he said; “I thought it would be. And now I’ll
explain how Marl was killed. Your thief, ‘Flush’ Barnet, heard a
hissing sound. It was the sound of a heavy gas escaping from this
cylinder. I may be wrong, but I should imagine there is enough poison
gas in that little iron bottle to settle your account and mine. It is
still lying on the floor, by the way. It is one of those heavy gases
which descend.”
“But how did it kill Marl? Did they pump it through the grating on to
his head?”
Derrick Yale shook his head.
“It is a much simpler and a much more deadly method which the Crimson
Circle employed,” he said quietly. “They blew bubbles.”
“Bubbles!”
Derrick Yale nodded.
“The end of this cylinder--you can still feel the slime of the soap
upon it--was first dipped into the soap solution, then thrust through
the grating. The tap was turned down and a bubble formed, which was
shaken off. From the ventilator,” he ran outside and jumped on to the
table, “yes, I thought so,” he said, “he could see Marl’s head. Two or
three of the bubbles must have been failures. One struck the pillow,
but I should imagine that that was blown after his death; one struck
the wall, you will find the wet patch, but one, and probably more,
burst on his face. He must have been killed almost instantaneously.”
Parr could only gape.
“I thought it all out on the way here. The circular patch on the
pillow reminded me of my own boyish exploits and their disastrous
effect when I started blowing bubbles in the bedroom. And then when
you mentioned the ventilator and the hissing noise, I was perfectly
certain that my theory was right.”
“But we smelt no gas when we came into the room,” said Parr.
“The wind may have blown away the fumes,” said Derrick Yale. “But
apart from that, the weight of the gas would send it to the floor, and
by its own density it would spread evenly--look!” He struck a match,
shielded it for a moment until it caught light, and then slowly
brought it down to the floor level. An inch from the carpet the match
was suddenly extinguished.
“I see,” said Inspector Parr.
“Now what about searching the place? Perhaps I can be of use,”
suggested Yale, but his offer of help did not meet with any very
gracious response.
A small police audience, which had listened awe-stricken whilst Yale
had developed his theory, could understand the inspector’s feelings.
Apparently Yale did, too, for with a good-humoured laugh he made his
excuses and went home. There are moments when the head-quarters police
should be left alone with their own emotions. Nobody realised this
more than Derrick Yale.
Chapter XVIII.
“Flush” Barnet’s Story
Inspector Parr, after a further search, proceeded to the nearest
police station to interview Mr. “Flush” Barnet.
“Flush,” a depressed and weary man, had no illuminating information to
give.
The proceeds of his robbery lay upon the station-sergeant’s table, a
miscellaneous collection of rings and watches, a perfectly valueless
bank-book--valueless to “Flush,” at any rate--and a silver flask. But
the most surprising circumstance was that in “Flush” Barnet’s pocket
were two brand new bank-notes for a hundred pounds, which he insisted
stoutly were his own property.
Now burglars, and particularly the type of burglar that “Flush” Barnet
was, are notoriously improvident people. They do not work whilst they
have money, and with two hundred pounds in his possession, it is
certain that “Flush” Barnet would not have attempted to break into
Marisburg Place.
“They’re my own, I tell you, Mr. Parr,” he protested, “would I tell
you a lie?”
“Of course you would,” said Inspector Parr without heat. “If they are
your own, where did you get them?”
“They were given to me by a friend.”
“Why did you light a fire in the library?” asked Parr unexpectedly,
and “Flush” Barnet started.
“Because I was cold,” he said after a pause.
“H’m,” said Inspector Parr, and then as though speaking his thoughts
aloud, “he has two hundred of his own, he breaks into a house, he
burgles a safe and lights a fire. Now, why did he light the fire? Why
did he light the fire? To burn something he’d found in the safe!”
“Flush” Barnet listened without offering any comment, but he was
visibly distressed.
“Therefore,” said Parr, “you were paid to break into Marl’s house and
you got two hundred for pinching something from his safe and burning
it. Am I right?”
“If I died this moment----” began “Flush” Barnet.
“You’d go to hell,” said the inspector dispassionately, “where all
liars go. Who is your pal, Barnet? You’d better tell me, because I’m
in two minds whether I shall charge you with the murder----”
“Murder!” almost screamed “Flush” Barnet, as he sprang to his feet.
“What do you mean? I haven’t committed a murder!”
“Marl’s dead, that’s all; found dead in his bed.”
He left the prisoner in a state of mental prostration, and when he
returned in the early hours of the morning to renew his inquisition,
“Flush” Barnet told him all.
“I don’t know anything about Crimson Circles, Mr. Parr,” he said, “but
this is the truth.”
He added a pious wish that Providence would deal hardly with him if he
departed from veracity.
“I’m keeping company with a young lady at Brabazon’s bank. One night
when she was working late, I was waiting for her when a gentleman came
out of the side entrance of the bank and called me. I was surprised to
hear him mention my name, and I nearly dropped dead when I saw his
face.”
“It was Mr. Brabazon?” suggested Parr.
“That’s right, sir. He asked me into his private office. I thought
he’d got something against Milly.”
“Go on,” said Parr, when the man paused.
“Well, I’ve got to save myself, haven’t I? And I suppose I’d better
speak the whole truth. He told me that Marl was blackmailing him, and
that Marl had some letters of his which he kept in his private safe,
and offered me a thousand if I’d get them. That’s the truth. And then
he gave me an idea that Marl kept a lot of money in the house. He
didn’t exactly say so, but that is what he hinted. He knew I’d been
inside for burglary, he’d made inquiries about me, and said that I was
the right kind of man. Well, sir, I went round and took a squint at
the place, and it seemed to me that it was a bit difficult. There were
always men servants in the house, except when Mr. Marl was
entertaining ladies to supper,” he grinned. “I’d have given up the
job, only there’s a young lady in the office that Marl was sweet on.”
“Thalia Drummond?” suggested Parr.
“That’s right, sir,” nodded “Flush.” “It was what you might call an
act of Providence, him being sweet on her, and when I found that he’d
invited her to dinner, I thought that was a good opportunity to get
in. It seemed money for nothing when I found out that he’d drawn his
bank balance. I opened the safe--that was easy--and I found the
envelope, but it had no papers, only a photograph of a man and a woman
on a rock. I think it was a photograph of some place abroad, for there
were lots of mountains in the background, and he seemed to be pushing
her over and she was holding on to a bit of tree. Maybe it was one of
those cinema pictures. Anyway, I burnt it.”
“I see,” said Inspector Parr. “And that is all?”
“That’s all, sir. I never found any money.”
At seven o’clock, with a warrant in his pocket, and accompanied by two
detectives, Inspector Parr made a call at the block of flats where
Brabazon had his residence.
A servant in night attire opened the door to them and indicated the
banker’s room. The door was locked, but Parr kicked it open without
ceremony. The room, however, was empty. An open window and a fire
escape suggested the method by which the eminent banker had made his
get-away, and the fact that the bed had not been slept in and that
there was no sign of disorder in the room, showed that he had gone
hours before the detective’s arrival.
By the side of the bed there was a telephone, and Parr called the
exchange.
“Can you find if any message came through to this number during the
night?” he asked. “I am Inspector Parr, of police head-quarters.”
“Two,” was the reply. “I put them through myself. One from
Bayswater----”
“That was mine,” said the Inspector. “What was the other?”
“From the Western Exchange--at 2.30.”
“Thank you,” said the inspector grimly, and hung up the telephone.
He looked at his companions and rubbed his big nose irritably.
“Thalia Drummond is going to get another job,” he said.
Chapter XIX.
Thalia Accepts an Offer
It took over a week to settle the preliminaries of Brabazon’s
insolvency, and at the end of that time, Thalia walked from the bank
with a week’s salary in her little leather bag, and no immediate
prospects of employment.
Inspector Parr had not minced his words, which he had addressed to her
before an impressed audience.
“Only the fact that I saw you come out of Marl’s house and saw him
close the door on you, saves you from a serious charge,” he said.
“If it had only saved me from a lecture also, I should have been
pleased,” said Thalia coolly.
“What do you make of her?” asked Parr, as the girl disappeared through
the swing doors of the office.
“She rather puzzles me,” it was Derrick Yale to whom he had addressed
his question. “And the more I think of her, the more I am puzzled. The
woman Macroy says that she has been engaged in pilfering since she has
been at the bank, but there is no proof of that. In fact, the only
person who could supply the proof is our absent friend, Brabazon. Why
didn’t you call her as a witness in the prosecution of Barnet?”
“It would be a case of Barnet’s word against hers,” said the
detective, shaking his head, “and the case against Barnet was so clear