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Updated: June 2, 2025
Kendrick rose from his place and laid his hand on Dredlinton's shoulder. "Come and sit down, Dredlinton," he said shortly. "You're making an idiot of yourself." "Go to hell!" the other replied truculently. "Who are you? Just that man's broker, that's all. Want to sell wheat, Wingate, or buy it, eh?" Wingate looked at him steadily. "You're drunk," he said.
There was malice in Dredlinton's pallid face, the ugly twist of his lips and the light in his bloodshot eyes. He paused opposite to them, and leaning his hands on the back of the nearest chair, spoke across the table. "Hullo, Flossie!" he exclaimed. "How are you, old dear? How are you, Wingate?" Wingate replied with cold civility, Flossie with a careless nod.
"You will forgive my reminding you, Mr. Phipps," he remarked drily, "that my visit this morning is not one of good-will. I should not be here at all except for Lord Dredlinton's assurance that the business on which you desired to see me has nothing whatever to do with the British and Imperial Granaries." "Nothing in the world, Mr. Wingate," was the prompt declaration.
"The Agricola sails to-morrow morning. The boat train, I believe, leaves Euston at four." Wingate glanced from the sailing list to his companion. The inspector was making movements as though about to depart. Wingate himself was speechless. "The physician is able to certify," Shields went on, "that Lord Dredlinton's death is due to natural causes. There will therefore be no inquest.
"Well, there's young Stanley Rees, Phipps' nephew, who came in for three hundred thousand pounds a few years ago," Maurice White answered; "old skinflint Martin, who may be worth half a million but certainly not more; and Dredlinton. Dredlinton's rabbit, of course. He hasn't got a bob.
One would have imagined that Stanley Rees had been one of his dearest friends, instead of a young man whom he rather disliked. "Come in. Inspector," he invited. "Come in. Glad to see you. Any news?" "None whatever, my lord," was the laconic reply. Dredlinton's face fell. He looked at his visitor, speechless for a moment.
He broke off abruptly in his sentence just as a tall, pale, beautifully gowned woman who had detached herself from a group close at hand turned towards them. "It is Lady Dredlinton," Kendrick whispered in his ear. "Then I will only say," Wingate concluded, "that Lord Dredlinton's commercial record scarcely entitles him to a seat on the Board of any progressive company."
It was a terrible sight upon which they looked, Dredlinton's face like a piece of marble, white to the lips, the eyes open and staring, the unmistakable finger of Death written across it. "He's gone!" Rees choked. "He's gone!" Phipps suddenly found vigour once more in his arm. He struck the table. There was a note of triumph in his brazen tone. "My God, Wingate," he cried, "you've killed him!
"It is a private message from a correspondent in New York, who is a personal friend of Lord Dredlinton's," Phipps declared. "It is of no concern to any one except ourselves. Dredlinton, you must make your wife understand " "Understand?" Dredlinton broke in. "Give me that message, madam." He snatched at it. Wingate leaned over and swung him on one side.
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