THE WORLD WAR COLLECTION OF H. C. MCNEILE (SAPPER). Sapper
a surprising question. Tranter looked like a man consumed with fever.
"Am I disturbing you?" Try as he would he could not prevent his voice from shaking, and Featherston whistled softly under his breath. Undoubtedly a very sick man.
"Disturbing me!" he laughed. "Not a bit. I've been balancing up my budget, and after that anything is an anti-climax. It strikes me you'd better have a drink."
He stopped the wireless, while Tranter climbed in through the window. Then, leaving the door open, Featherston went out of the room, to return a few moments later with tantalus and glasses. A queer-looking sort of tiger, he reflected, this sudden arrival out of the blue. But the man looked like death, and common humanity dictated asking him in. "Brandy or whisky?" he said genially. "They're both here. Help yourself."
But Tranter made no reply: with his hand gripping the revolver in his pocket, he stared at Featherston and went on staring. And at length Featherston frowned: sick his unexpected visitor might be, and undoubtedly was, but the fellow was proving a damned bore.
"When you've quite finished staring at me," he said curtly, "you might let me know what I can do for you. You don't appear to want a drink."
And Tranter spoke. "Are you Captain Featherston?"
Featherston raised his eyebrows. "I am. Who are you?"
"Do you ever sign your letters. 'Jacko'?"
Featherston stiffened, his pipe half-way to his mouth. "What the devil has that got to do with you?" he said slowly. "Are you crazy?"
"To do with me." croaked Tranter. "That's a good one, you swine: that's a good one."
He threw back his head and laughed: then, taking the letter from his pocket, he brandished it in front of Featherston.
"Do you recognise that, Jacko?" he shouted. "'My own adored woman.' And who is your own adored woman, you devil? My wife. I'm Tranter—"
"Put it away, you fool," roared Featherston, as Tranter's other hand came out of his pocket. Came a sharp report—then silence.
Curiously, dispassionately, Tranter stared at the body lying at his feet. Now that he had done it; now that he had killed his man, he felt strangely cool and collected. Featherston was quite dead: the bullet had gone through his heart. A motor-bus rumbled by on the road and Tranter went to the window. There was no one to be seen. All he had to do was to walk out of the house, get into his car and drive away. Everything had been so easy as to be almost laughable. Just one shot, and the man who had stolen his wife was dead. Of regret he felt not the slightest twinge: Captain Jack Featherston had richly deserved all he got. He would have liked to prolong things a little, but perhaps it had been better as it was. And "Jacko" had known before he died who it was who was going to kill him.
Moreover, he was safe: who would identify Mr. Johnson of the Bull, Newbury, with Charles Tranter of Dorking? He had no intention whatever of returning to the hotel: the body would almost certainly be discovered before he could get away in the morning. So by then he proposed to be at his club in London, having spent the night there. Safe! And with one last gloating look at the dead man sprawling on the floor, Charles Tranter turned out the light and left the house.
Now it is just conceivable that he might have got away with it for a time but for the fact that the man in charge of the garage at the Bull had noted, as was his invariable custom, the number of his car. And that being so, the chase was the swiftest on record. In fact, it was just before lunch next day that an inspector and a sergeant of police arrived at Charles Tranter's house. I was having a cocktail with Janet at the time.
"XYZ23," she said, in reply to their question. "Yes: that's the number of one of our cars. My husband has it in London at the moment. Why do you ask?"
"Your husband, madam? Is that Mr. Charles Tranter?"
"Yes," said Janet. And then, with quick alarm: "The poor old dear hasn't had an accident, has he?"
"Oh no, madam. Might I ask you to describe your husband?"
"Of course. He's fifty: tall, grey, with a stoop. And he wears pince-nez."
The inspector stared at the sergeant: the sergeant stared at the inspector. And for a space no one spoke.
"What is all the mystery, Inspector?" cried Janet irritably. "Why are you asking these questions?"
"Mrs. Tranter," said the inspector gravely, "do you know a man called Featherston? Captain Jack Featherston, who has a house near Newbury?"
"Featherston! Newbury! As a matter of fact I do—very slightly. I met him at my club the other day. There's another Mrs. Tranter who has just joined: and what is so confusing is that she is Mrs. C. Tranter, too. Mrs. Cyril Tranter. We're continually getting one another's letters. And the last time I was at the club, this Captain Featherston came to see her and was brought to me in mistake by a page-boy. She came up almost at once and called him Jack. So that must be the man you mean, though what it has to do with me I can't imagine."
She found out very soon. One of the most dreadful sounds I have ever heard came from just outside the open window. It rose and fell in hideous cachinnations—peal upon peal of wild, maniacal laughter. And while Janet, white-faced, shrank back in her chair, I followed the two policemen outside.
Charles Tranter had returned: Charles Tranter had learned the truth—too late. He was sitting on the grass with a revolver in one hand and the letter in the other. And he offered no resistance to the two officers when they took both things away from him. He only laughed and went on laughing. As he still does in Broadmoor, where he is detained during His Majesty's pleasure.
XI. — A STUDENT OF THE OBVIOUS
MAVIS HOUGHTON laid down her magazine and stared out of the window at the flat Thames valley. It was a non-stop run to Swindon, and then another hour by a slow train before she reached her destination. And what was the good of a magazine when the time could be spent so much more pleasantly in dreaming?
Even now she could hardly believe it true. Up to date her Christmases had been spent in No. 11, Pileditch Road, N.W.94, where her father saw panel patients daily and swore genially in the intervals. His heart was in research work, but that costs money; and with Robin at a public school and John at a preparatory, the research work had to wait. And so panel patients came and went, and Mavis—whose mother had died at John's appearance—looked after the house.
Then had come the letter. It had arrived a week ago, and her father, having read it, at once overrode her objections. "Not leave us for Christmas, Kidlet? Of course you will. It's about time Jane did do something beyond sending out cards with frosted angels on 'em. She's not a bad old thing really, and Hoxted Grange is just the place for a party."
So she went, though she'd almost chucked it up at Paddington. Robin had seen her off, and though he was an absolute sportsman he couldn't help looking just a little—well, dash it all, Pileditch Road and Hoxted Grange! But he scoffed at her when she half suggested it and talked rot continuously till the train started.
And now they were roaring through Maidenhead, and—marvel of marvels!—the country was white. There was literally snow, instead of the prevalent yellow ooze of N.W.94. Would it last? Were they really going to have the Christmas of fiction instead of the usual one of fact? They must: it would be too cruel if it all went and melted. And dances, and a big party and—
"It's good to feel like that, isn't it?"
A man's voice cut into her thoughts, and she turned round with a start. In her absorption she had forgotten all about the other occupant of her third-class carriage, though she had noticed him vaguely before they started. And now she found herself looking into the smiling face of a young man in the opposite corner. He was a large young man, and quite obviously a gentleman.
Mavis Houghton frowned. "I beg your pardon," she said coldly.
"I said that