Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 25, No. 2, August 13, 1927

He walked into the library between them, one hanging to each arm.

Nearly an hour later, Tommy and Delia emerged from the library and came down the stairs together. Tommy was unusually pale and silent. He looked like a man who found it difficult to get a grip on his emotions and pull himself together. His eyes were shining.

Delia was clinging to his arm. She too was rather pale, but her face was lit with a light that Tommy had never yet seen in it; her eyes were red, and her long lashes wet.

“Let’s go where we can be alone,” said Tommy. “Out in the open, don’t you think? Out on to the heather, where we can feel the sky over us.”

“Yes,” said Delia. “Come on, dear.”

It was not to be. Fate interposed in the shape of Inspector Maffet, who came striding in through the porch with a decisive step, like a man who means business.

“Mr. McKellar!” he said. “I am lucky to find you in; I’d meant to warn you not to leave the house this morning. However, all’s well. I have some urgent news for you which you must hear at once.”

“I hardly feel equal to it just now,” said Tommy. “Can’t it wait?”

“No, it can’t. It’s a job that won’t stand for any delay, sir, in your own interest. Miss Allister had best hear it too.”

Tommy led the way to the library, which was now empty.

“If you’ve any news more surprising than I’ve had already to-day,” he said as they seated themselves, “it will have to be something startling.”

“That so? I’m afraid my news is going to beat yours, sir,” said Maffet. “But if you’ve anything fresh since the morning, you had better tell me before I start in.”

Tommy told him of Mrs. Harding’s visit, and the story of the Harding marriage. Maffet listened to the end, without comment.

Chapter XLIX “The Quick and the Dead”

“Mr. McKellar, I congratulate you!” Maffet said at last. “That pulls you out of a very ugly mess. It sets you right on your feet. But it isn’t by any means the end of this business, and I’m afraid there’s an uglier settlement to come, which we’ve got to face.

“Tracking Mr. John McKellar’s marriage was not my job. And Slaney is not my job either; at the most he was only a sideshow. My real business is with Mrs. Renée McKellar and Mr. Laurence Drumont. As far as I’m concerned, that’s been the chief issue, from the first.

“That’s what I came down here for three weeks ago. This has been the queerest case in all my experience, and I doubted whether we’d ever fill in the evidence against them. But now I have them set.

“I may tell you there’s been suspicion against those two even before you came over from America. But they’re coming over here this afternoon. And I want you to receive them.”

Tommy sat up.

“Here! To Dunkillin?”

“Yes, sir. I arranged it! They know nothing about me; they imagine they are coming for a final interview with you. I should like you to let them have it. If you won’t, I’ll deal with them myself.”

Tommy stood up frowning.

“I don’t like this; I’ll have nothing to do with it,” he said abruptly.

“You will remember, sir,” said Maffet, “you gave me a free hand to make what arrangements I choose. I told you the case was not an easy one. In a business as serious as this, it is up to you to give the police all the help you can, however little you like it. If for no other reason, because you owe it to the memory of your father.”

“Can’t you leave my father out of it? He is dead.”

“Yes, sir,” said Inspector Maffet quietly, “and for that I hope to bring Mrs. Renée McKellar before a jury, and to see her convicted.”

Tommy sank back into his chair, staring at Maffet dumbly.

“The evidence,” said Maffet, “has been built up, piece by piece, and it all points in this one direction. The woman has been diabolically clever. Your father’s death occurred when she was out of the country.

“I am applying for a home office order for exhumation; I am sorry to tell you this, but it is necessary, sir. What am I going to do now? It depends, for the moment, on what I get out of her when she comes here this afternoon — as she will. But she’ll not slip through my fingers, now or later.

“I should not be telling you any of this, sir, but for its concerning you so very closely, and because you have helped me already. But I’ll outline the case. Your father’s death, I suppose, gave you no cause for suspicion; everything vouched for and in order. We have a different opinion at headquarters, though the case didn’t come to our notice till seven weeks ago.

“Mr. John McKellar died in April. He was attended during his brief illness by two persons only: Dr. Ker of Inveralloch, and an old sick nurse named Gourlay. Both these persons have completely disappeared, and there is no doubt they left the country, one within a week, and the other a month after the death of your father.

“Dr. Ker signed the certificate of John McKellar’s death as due to acute pneumonia. I am confident we shall find that it was not due to pneumonia nor any other natural cause. Here again, I am not going to fill in for you all the details.