Chapter 12 Samuel Overhears

On ARRIVING in Paris Kindell went straight to the H?tel Splendide, and by so doing obtained about ten minutes' conversation with the ambassador and his daughter before M. Samuel, to whom his movements had been promptly reported, arrived on the scene

He found Mr. Thurlow irritated, and Irene worried. They thanked him for the promptness of his return, but in the next moment the ambassador broke out with:

"For God's sake Kindell, give us some light, if you can, on this infernal business. The police say you were here in this flat at two-forty-five, and it wasn't three when I came out of my own room and found the man lying here, in a filthy mess - - " He broke off with his eyes on a dark stain which disfigured the creamand-rose of the Aubusson carpet, large enough to indicate the feature of Reynard's death which appeared to be most prominent in his orderly mind; and then added, "If you'll tell me on your word of honour that you didn't know the fellow, and had nothing to do with it, of course I'll believe you, but - - "

"I couldn't say that exactly." Kindell saw Irene's startled paleness as he made this admission, but her father took it as no more than he expected to hear. He said: "Well, I'm glad you're so frank. Tell us the truth, and we'll do all we can to get you out of the mess."

"I think you misunderstand me. I didn't mean I know anything about the murder. I meant I couldn't say that I'd never met Reynard."

"Then you do know something! You knew the man, and you were here just at the time he was bumped off. If you didn't do it yourself, you must have been within arm's length of the man who did. . . . I tell you, William, as an older man than yourself, and one with more experience of the world, that you're in a tight spot, and your best chance is to hold nothing back, even if it seems to make it blacker for you."

"I can't be franker than I have been already. I had met Reynard, though I don't mean that he was a friend, or I knew him well. But I know nothing about his murder. I didn't meet him yesterday, and I didn't know that he'd come here, till I heard it after I'd landed at Newhaven."

"You'll have to say a lot more if you want to make the cops believe that."

"I'm sorry, but there's really no more to say."

"Can't you understand that we're anxious to help, if you'll only tell us everything while you've got time?"

"I quite understand that. I've shown that I don't want to keep anything back. I needn't have told you that I knew him at all. But I look on you as my friends, and I wasn't going to give you my word of honour to something that wasn't true."

Mr. Thurlow pondered this, gnawing his lips. He asked: Why do you suppose he came here? To see you?"

"No. I'm sure he didn't."

"How can you possibly be sure unless you know why he did come?"

"I'm sorry I can't answer that. I've said too much already. All I can say is that I know nothing about it, and didn't know he'd been shot till - - "

"He wasn't shot. He was knifed in the neck."

"And you heard nothing - practically in the next room?"

"There wouldn't be much to hear. If you ever get a knife through your neck from the side like he did, you'll find your larynx isn't in very good vocal order. . . . He must have been struck from behind, a particularly savage blow, and after that - - "

"I expect," the voice of M. Samuel interposed, "Mr. Kindell knows as much about that as he can be told." Three pairs of eyes turned towards a door which had been left unlatched, and quietly pushed open without attracting their notice in the tension of their own argument. How much had he heard?

Irene spoke for the first time: "Bill, you've simply got to tell everything now. It's only fair to Father, and it's sure to be best for you."

"I'm sure," M. Samuel said suavely, "that that is just what Mr. Kindell was meaning to do. If you will be so kind as to leave us together - - "

"Irene you'd better come with me," the ambassador said with a decisive sharpness in his voice that his daughter would rarely hear. When they were outside the door he added: "The young man knows a lot more than he's let out yet. When he's finished talking, I reckon that French cop will have been told who the murderer is, or know he can get him without leaving the room."

"I suppose he does," Irene replied in a troubled voice; "but I hope he hasn't got himself into a mess through being confidential to us."

"I wouldn't say that that's quite the word to use," her father replied. He felt too near to being charged with the murder himself to have much patience with the reticence of his young relative, whatever its cause might be. Ambassadors of the United States are not expected to embroil themselves, and perhaps even their Government, with foreign powers by having dead policemen inexplicably littered about their hotel suites. He was not indifferent to any trouble which Kindell - probably by some discreditable folly, if nothing worse - had brought on his own head. But he felt that he should have shown an earlier and completer frankness. He had a duty to his official relative not to involve his name in such a scandal. He must have known if not of the murder, at least enough to know that he should have stood his ground, and not slipped off to England the way he had. So he said to Irene, who replied, as in explanation, but with the coldness of tone that the name induced, "Miss Blinkwell was going back."

"And you think that was his affair? You're not suggesting that she had something to do with what happened here?"

"You think I don't like her? Perhaps not. But I'm not quite so silly as that. Besides, she left the hotel half an hour earlier."

"I don't care whom you dislike. I only hope you don't - - "

"Well, I haven't said that I do."

With this enigmatic exchange, which neither father nor daughter appeared to find any difficulty in comprehending, Mr. Thurlow had turned to pass into his own room, when Kindell's voice was heard, raised to a pitch of angry protest, though the words were inaudible through the thickness of the closed door.

"It sounds " the ambassador added, "as though that young fool's losing his temper. It's a mug's game when you're dealing with foreign cops."

It might have occurred to Irene to retort that her own father's reaction to police enquiries had not been entirely equable, but she only replied: "Men are silly like that. I think I'd better go back and see what the trouble is."

"You'd better stay where you are."

It is improbable that Irene would have accepted this advice had not the voices sunk to a more equable tone. "Well," she said doubtfully, "he ought to be old enough to look after himself. Only men never are."