Mr. Fortune's PracticeBailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher)
General
Mr. Fortune's Practice
Bailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher)
Detective and mystery stories; Forensic scientists -- Fiction
“What’s the trouble?” said Reggie, with his head out of window: and
slipped the catch and came out in a bundle.
The chauffeur’s face was the face of Lady Chantry. He saw it in the
flash of a pistol overhead as he closed with her. “I will, I will,”
she muttered, and fought him fiercely. Another shot went into the
pines. He wrenched her hand round. The third was fired into her face.
The struggling body fell away from him, limp.
He carried it into the rays of the headlights and looked close.
“That’s that,” he said with a shrug, and put it into the car.
He lit a cigar and listened. There was no sound anywhere but the
sough of the wind in the pines. He climbed into the chauffeur’s place
and drove away. At the next crossroads he took that which led north
and west, and so in a while came out on the Portsmouth road.
That night the frost gathered on a motor-car in a lane between
Hindhead and Shottermill. Mr. Fortune unobtrusively caught the last
train from Haslemere.
When he came out from a matinee with Joan Amber next day, the
newsboys were shouting “Motor Car Mystery.” Mr. Fortune did not buy a
paper.
It was on the morning of the second day that Scotland Yard sent for
him. Lomas was with Superintendent Bell. The two of them received him
with solemnity and curious eyes. Mr. Fortune was not pleased. “Dear
me, Lomas, can’t you keep the peace for a week at a time?” he
protested. “What is the reason for your existence?”
“I had all that for breakfast,” said Lomas. “Don’t talk like the
newspapers. Be original.”
“‘Another Mysterious Murder,’” Reggie murmured, quoting headlines.
“‘Scotland Yard Baffled Again,’ ‘Police Mandarins.’ No, you haven’t a
‘good Press,’ Lomas old thing.”
Lomas said something about the Press. “Do you know who that woman
chauffeur was, Fortune?”
“That wasn’t in the papers, was it?”
“You haven’t guessed?”
Again Reggie Fortune was aware of the grave curiosity in their eyes.
“Another of our mysterious murders,” he said dreamily. “I wonder. Are
you working out the series at last? I told you to look for some one
who was always present.”
Lomas looked at Superintendent Bell. “Lady Chantry was present at
this one, Fortune,” he said. “Lady Chantry took out her car the day
before yesterday. Yesterday morning the car was found in a lane above
Haslemere. Lady Chantry was inside. She wore chauffeur’s uniform. She
was shot through the head.”
“Well, well,” said Reggie Fortune.
“I want you to come down and look at the body.”
“Is the body the only evidence?”
“We know where she bought the coat and cap. Her own coat and hat were
under the front seat. She told her servants she might not be back at
night. No one knows what she went out for or where she went.”
“Yes. Yes. When a person is shot, it’s generally with a gun. Have you
found it?”
“She had an automatic pistol in her hand.”
Reggie Fortune rose. “I had better see her,” he said sadly. “A
wearing world, Lomas. Come on. My car’s outside.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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