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"I shall be glad to take the reward, my lord, if I am fortunate enough to earn it," he said, rising to his feet. "Until then I do not require payment for my services." Dredlinton replaced the note in his pocket. "Just as you like, of course, Inspector. I only meant it as a little incentive.
Phipps answered scornfully. "Your title and your social position aren't worth a damn to me. I put you on because of your wife." Dredlinton stared at him. "Why, you didn't even know her!" "Never mind. I knew her to look at. I wanted to know her. Now I do know her, and it hasn't done me much good." Dredlinton sat a little more erect in his place.
"Perhaps I may be able to earn that two thousand pounds." Phipps rose at once from his chair and made his way towards the door. "Lord Dredlinton wishes to have a word with you, Mr. Wingate," he said. "I shall be on the premises, in case by any fortunate chance you should decide to change your mind." Dredlinton sank into Phipps' vacated chair and leaned back with his hands in his trousers pockets.
"If you really want some one, I dare say I can help you," Wingate replied. "The telephone was disconnected by my orders, as soon as you had spoken to Phipps' rooms. But now you are only wasting your time." Dredlinton had rushed to the door, shaken the handle violently, only to find it locked. He pommelled with his fists upon the panels.
"I should advise you to get a friend to take you home." "Drunk, am I?" Dredlinton shouted. "What if I am? I'm a better man drunk than you are sober although she may not think so, eh?" Wingate looked at him from underneath level brows. "I should advise you not to mention any names here," he said. "I like that!" the other scoffed. "Not to mention any names, eh?
Rees' disappearance will not be brought to justice. But I considered it my duty to point out to you that the directors of your company appear to have excited a feeling throughout the whole of England, which might well bring you enemies wholly unconnected with the ordinary criminal classes. That is where our difficulty lies." Lord Dredlinton had the air of a man argued into reasonableness.
"Lord Dredlinton is dead," he announced in a shocked tone. "I feared so," Wingate murmured. "Will you call in some servants?" the doctor went on. "I should like the body carried into his lordship's bedroom at once." Grant appeared, quickly followed by two of his subordinates. The melancholy little procession left the room, and Shields turned to follow it.
"Why, I had a dozen of those this morning. My secretary is making a scrapbook of them." "That one of mine seems pretty definite, doesn't it?" Dredlinton remarked nervously. "Some of mine were uncommonly plain-spoken," Phipps acknowledged, "but what's the odds? You're not a coward, Dredlinton; neither am I. Neither is Skinflint Martin, nor Stanley.
Dredlinton felt hope stir once more through his shocked and terrified senses. He lit a cigarette with fingers which had ceased to tremble, leaned a little back in his place and stared at his companion curiously. "Phipps," he asked, "what the devil do you and this fellow Wingate see in my wife?" "What a man like you would never look for," was the harsh reply.
When he opened his eyes, the sunlight was streaming in through a chink in the closed curtains. He looked towards the table. Dredlinton had not moved; Rees was crying quietly, like a child. An unhealthy-looking perspiration had broken out on Phipps' face. "Really," Wingate remarked, "you are all giving yourselves an unnecessary amount of suffering."
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