Scarecrow. Dorothy Fielding

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      "Luckily we belong to what is known as Friends of the Police," Norbury said with a grin. "It was my wife's doing that we joined, when we first took the farm. It's a small enough subscription when one finds what red tape it saves one from. I told you you ought to take your passport with you, Blythe!"

      "But that would have meant a delay to find it," Blythe pointed out. "You went with me—that was enough."

      "It wouldn't have been if we hadn't been Amicales," Norbury told him. "You've no idea how many forms have to be filled in in a matter of this kind."

      "Were the police troublesome?" Inskipp asked.

      "At first they were inclined to be a bit stuffy," Norbury replied. "But when they heard about the baboon, they knew that Professor Voronoff had a 'Permis' to have another taken to his Château, and Blythe's account of it tallied. Very luckily, too, the man and it were rounded up at Mortola within half an hour. Fortunately the day is dry and the road showed the ape's prints as well as the marks of poor Miss Rackstraw's shoes where they slipped over the edge, so that there was no mistaking what had happened. But now, about Rackstraw at the Red Caves, how on earth are we to reach him? The police have learnt that he has already left the place, so there's nothing for it but to tell him when he gets here."

      The Norburys were called away, and Inskipp promptly seized the opportunity to hand Blythe the letter from his sister.

      Blythe read the few lines with a frown on his face. He was still frowning as he thanked the other for lending his sister the money. He did not look pleased, Inskipp saw, and the fact added to those doubts roused by Edna's manner.

      The telephone rang. It was from Nice. From Miss Blythe, who was asking for her brother.

      After a few minutes' listening to what she had to say at her end of the wire, Blythe told her that there would be no autopsy—that the police considered the tragedy to be quite simple and straightforward. He went on to say that he had her letter, and would settle with Inskipp whom he had just thanked for his most opportune help. That done, he hung up, and went to change and have a bath, for the ravine had left its marks on him.

      Norbury came in then. His wife had to hurry away on some household matter, but he poured out a glass of whisky and soda for himself. "Talking is thirsty work—especially talking to the police. Then, too, Blythe—" He paused to make sure that the door was shut before adding. "His nerves were in tatters. He took that poor girl's death uncommonly hard."

      Quite unconsciously Norbury's tone suggested his surprise at such a display of emotion on Blythe's part.

      "I was afraid at one time that the police might think he was taking it too hard, and once the French Johnnies get that idea in their heads they can be very tiresome. Fortunately for Blythe, the place bore out his story in every detail. Personally I hardly know Miss Rackstraw. You and she were rather by way of being friends, weren't you?"

      "Yes, she had some sterling virtues," said Inskipp warmly. He did not add that having Mireille de Pra as a friend was the chief among them.

      Norbury and he now went up to Rackstraw's room, and tried to find the mother's address. But apparently Rackstraw had no note of it, and finally Inskipp went on to his own room.

      He was rather surprised when, sometime later, Blythe slipped in and closed the door carefully behind himself. First of all, Blythe returned to him the five hundred francs lent to Edna, and then he added, with a very poor attempt at casualness—

      "By the way, Inskipp, do you mind my asking you not to do it again? I mean, lend my sister money. I'm no end grateful as things happened, but even so, I ask you not to do it a second time."

      Inskipp stared.

      "The fact is," said Blythe awkwardly, "the fact is, that Edna is rather addicted to gambling. That's between ourselves strictly, of course. She's doing her best not to play again, but that's why she never goes down to Menton with the rest of you, and for her sake I cut it out too. So—well—should she ever ask you to let her have any money again, just have a word with me first, will you?"

      He waited till Inskipp, very startled, said that Blythe could rely on him not to lend money again to Miss Blythe, then he hurried off as the telephone bell began to ring down below.

      So Edna Blythe was a gambler—or had been one of those unfortunate people. But nothing told him by Blythe just now would explain the real fear in her face and voice when she learnt that her brother had been alone with the girl who had met her death—Inskipp went over in his mind every detail of his talk with Edna when she asked him for the loan of the money—though it did explain her and her brother's prolonged stay at the farm, and their refusal ever to go down into Menton.

      Going to the big sitting-room used by all the guests as a lounge, he learnt that Edna Blythe had telephoned to say that she had already started back for the farm. So she was not spending the evening at any casino. Curious...Blythe must have been very urgent on the matter. Or had her own good sense triumphed?

      His thoughts turned to Mireille. She must be told, of course, but it would be a dreadful shock to her. By this time, he and she wrote to each other as implicit lovers. He had finally made no secret of his hope that, once her divorce was secured, they could stand affianced before their world; and Mireille had written him a most touching little note that never left him, confessing that she asked nothing better of life than that this should happen, that his letters had completely won her heart.

      Miss Blythe got back late that night, and seemed delighted to be once more at the Chèvre d'Or. In reply to Mrs. Norbury's questions as to what commission of Florence Rackstraw's had taken her so hurriedly to Nice, she only shook her head, and said that she was pledged to secrecy.

      The next day, Rackstraw was still absent, very much to Norbury's vexation, for a note had come from the police requesting some one from the farm to go down to the British Consulate at Nice, and there explain just what had happened. The police had sent in their report, but, if the Consul thought fit, he might want an independent investigation made.

      Norbury could not possibly leave, and Blythe had, he said, developed a throat overnight which prevented his using his voice.

      Inskipp volunteered to go down and see the Consul at Nice, for he wanted to buy the most gorgeous frames that he could find there for the two portraits of Mireille. Mrs. Norbury thought that since her husband could not go, she ought to. So finally it ended in Mrs. Norbury, Elsie, and Inskipp going down together, while Edna Blythe insisted on her brother going to bed and letting her stir him up a linseed poultice.

      Mrs. Norbury had begged her husband at breakfast to look again for Mrs. Rackstraw's address. But it was not until the car was almost at the gate that Norbury came down, waving a letter in his hand.

      "Here's a note I found on Miss Rackstraw's mantel. In it is her mother's address in Bulawayo, or just outside it."

      A cable was immediately telephoned. A long cable breaking the dreadful news.

      At the British Consulate in Nice, they found that the French report had been so detailed that, after a few signed statements, the matter was at an end, as far as inquiries went. But the Consul wanted Florence Rackstraw's passport to be returned for cancellation.

      "I think she had it with her," Mrs. Norbury explained. "We can't find it anywhere among her things, I feel sure it must have slipped out of her bag when she fell, and is lost somewhere among the undergrowth, but I'll look again for it when I get back to the farm."

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