Men of Affairs Part 10

"Anything else?"

"I was looking over his bill this afternoon and it seems to me he did himself too well to be natural. Rare for a man by himself to order a long dinner like that. Then again he looked at the prices on the menu just as if he meant to spend up to a certain amount. Something odd in that--unusual. But I'm pretty sure it was in his mind, sir."

"And you believe he spent the last of his notes."

"Certain of it."

"What's your idea?"

"He was very hungry--eat everything put before him. I should say--'course it's only a guess----"

"Well?"

"He'd gone a bit short and was wanting that meal."

"Did he seem depressed?"

"Not a bit. Rather amused. But it struck me when he got up he looked like a man saying goodbye to his mother."

"How old should you think?"

"Thirty-two or three."

"Old Etonian tie?"

"Yes."

"You're a man of experience, Brown," said Cranbourne. "Ever known a case of a chap who's on the point of going under, blueing the last of his cash on one big dinner?"

"I should just think so. There's a type does that sort of thing."

"His type?"

"Or one very like it."

"Many thanks. You've helped me no end. Now I'll get a taxi and drive to Windsor. Goodnight."

Just beyond the Ritz he found a taxi willing to undertake the journey.

It was a pity he found it so easily for a hundred yards further down the slope the man he sought was sleeping fitfully on a bench facing Green Park.

It was not a lucky drive since it included three punctures and some engine trouble. They came into Windsor about 7.30 in the morning.

Cranbourne made a hurried breakfast and set out to interview the photographers of the town. The particular one he sought did not arrive until nearly nine but on being questioned proved himself amiable and anxious to help. He produced Eton school groups of fifteen years antiquity and Cranbourne spent an hour anxiously scanning the faces of the boys in the hope of tracing a likeness to Barraclough. But boys are very much alike and very dissimilar from the men they grow into and though there were several dozen who might well have pa.s.sed for Barraclough in infancy no particular one could have been selected with positive a.s.surance. Cranbourne made a list of twenty names and Frencham Altar's was not among them.

Rather despondent he said goodbye to the photographer and entered the taxi.

"Think I'll go back by the Bath Road," said the driver, "it's a better surface."

"Please yourself," said Cranbourne and settled himself within.

He was beginning to feel a trifle done. His eyes had the sense of having been sand papered and his lips were dry and parched from want of rest. He glanced at his watch and shook his head.

"Only thirteen hours left," he said and closed his eyes.

Sleep comes very suddenly to the weary--like a pistol shot out of the dark. Cranbourne's head pitched forward against his chest and his hands slithered inertly from his knees.

He awoke with a start to the sound of smashing gla.s.s, a sharp rattle of imprecations and a sense of being turned upside down. The front nearside wheel of the taxi was in a ditch, the wind screen broken and a large dray horse was trying to put its fore hoof through the buckled bonnet. The taxi driver had fallen out and lay cursing gently on the gra.s.s slope to the left, one of his legs was up to the knee in water.

Through the offside window Cranbourne caught a glimpse of the man in charge of the dray horses--a powerful person, high perched, his weight thrown bask against the tightened reins--his face purple with effort.

From his mouth came an admirable flow of oaths, choicely adjusted to suit the occasion. Then Cranbourne saw something else. Beneath the man's vibrating jaw showed the pleasant colours of an Old Etonian tie.

There could be no mistaking it--neither could there be any reason why the driver of a Covent Garden dray should exhibit such an ensign.

Cranbourne let the window down with a bang, stuck out his head and shouted,

"Where the devil did you get that tie?"

It is not hard to believe that this remark, apparently so irrelevant, did little to calm an already excited situation. The driver loosed his hold upon the reins, seized his whip and slashed it at Cranbourne's head. Cranbourne caught the whistling thong and tugged hard, with the result that the driver, who held on to the b.u.t.t, lost his balance, pitched forward on to the flank of the nearside dray horse and rolled harmlessly on to the road. Cranbourne embraced the opportunity to get out, seized the bit rings of both horses and backed them away from the debris of the taxi.

Meanwhile the driver picked himself up and removed his coat as a proper preliminary to engagement.

"Put 'em up," he invited Cranbourne. "Put 'um up, you----" but the descriptive t.i.tles he employed do not affect the narrative.

Cranbourne shook his head and tugged a note case from his pocket.

"Five pounds," he said, "if you answer my question. Where did you get it?"

The driver exhibited some sample upper cuts and left hooks and beseeched Cranbourne to guard himself. But Cranbourne detached a fiver from its fellows and extended it temptingly.

"Don't you see I'm in earnest, man?"

The tone of his voice had a sobering effect and the amateur pugilist ceased manoeuvring.

"Why do you want to know?" he demanded.

"Never mind that--take the money and tell me."

"I got it," said the driver, "from a blame fool at the coffee stall by Hyde Park Corner. Bought 'im a doorstep and a ball of chalk b'way of return."

"When was this?"

"Day before yesterday--six o'clock in the morning."

"And what was he like?"

The answer clinched it.

"Was he shaved?"

"No."

"Broke?"