"Yes, I'm three days ahead of my time, but it's because I've got to get out of England pretty quick to meet a friend of mine in Nice." The doctor threw the packet across to him, and he caught it clumsily.

    "There are twelve hundred pounds in that envelope. You needn't count them, because they're all there," said Dr Judd, and leaning back in his chair, he took out a golden toothpick, eyeing the other straightly and thoughtfully. "Of course I am the biggest fool in the world," he said, "or I would never submit to this iniquitous blackmail. It is only because I want to keep the memory of my dead brother free from calumny that I do this."

    "If your brother goes shooting up people in Montpellier and I happen to be on the spot," said Flash Fred unctuously, "and help him to escape—as I did, and I can prove it—I think I'm entitled to a little compensation."

    "You're an unutterable scoundrel," said the other in his pleasant way, and smiled. "And you amuse me. Suppose, instead of being what I am, I were a bad-minded man? Suppose that I was desperate and couldn't find the money? Why, I might do anything!" He guffawed at the thought of doing anything very terrible.

    "It wouldn't make any difference to me," said Fred. "But it wouldn't make any difference to you, either. I've got all the facts written down about that shooting—how I helped the man escape and recognized him in London as Mr David Judd when I came back—and my mouthpiece has got it."

    "Your lawyer?"

    "Sure, my lawyer," said Fred, nodding. He leaned forward. "You know, I didn't believe your brother had died. I thought it was a fake to get me out of the way, and I shouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it in the papers and been to the funeral."

    Dr Judd rose and replaced his toothpick. "That a man like you could besmirch a name like his!" he said. All the good humour had gone out of his voice, and he trembled with indignation and passion.

    He had passed to the other side of the table and stood glowering down at Flash Fred, and Fred, who was used to such scenes—for this was not his first blackmailing case—merely smiled.

    "He was the best man that ever lived, the cleverest, the most wonderful," said Dr Judd, and his face was white. "The greatest man perhaps that this world has seen." His voice shook with the intensity of his emotion. "And for you—" he reached down, and before Fred knew what had happened, the big hand had gripped him by the collar and jerked him to his feet.

    "Here, none of that!" cried Fred, and strove to break loose.

    "The money I do not mind paying," Judd went on. "It is not that which maddens me. It is the knowledge that you have it in your power to throw mud at a man—" Here his voice broke, and the other hand came up.

    With a cry like a wild beast, Fred flung himself back with all his might and broke the grip of his adversary. Suddenly, as if by magic, there appeared in his hand a revolver.

    "Put 'em up and keep 'em up, damn you!"

    And then a voice, the gentlest voice in the world, asked: "Can I be of any assistance?" Fred turned with a start. Larry Holt was standing in the doorway, an engaging smile upon his face.

 

 

V - The Will

 

 

    Flash Fred looked upon the intruder, a picture of comical amazement.

    "You don't lose no time, do you?" The protest was forced from him, and Larry laughed softly.

    "For carrying concealed weapons, you're pinched, Fred."

    "It's no crime in this country," growled the other, putting up his gun.

    By this time Dr Judd had recovered himself.

    "You know our friend, Mr Grogan," he said easily. "He's a member of our amateur dramatic society, and we were practising a scene from the Corsican Brothers. I suppose it looked rather alarming."

    "Thought it was Julius Caesar," said Larry dryly. "The scene between Cassius and Brutus, though I don't remember the gun play."

    The doctor looked at Flash Fred and then at Larry.

    "I'm afraid I don't know you," he said. He was still rather white, but this tone had recovered its good nature.

    "I am Inspector Larry Holt from Scotland Yard," said Larry. "Now seriously, Dr Judd, are you charging this man with anything?"

    "No, no, no," said Judd with a laugh. "Honestly, we were only doing a little harmless fooling." Larry looked from one to the other. The managing director of an insurance company, even a small company, does not fool with a known criminal.

    "You know this man, I suppose?"

    "I've met him several times," said Judd easily.

    "You know also that he's a member of the criminal classes, and that he is in fact 'Flash Fred', who has served penal servitude in this country and a term of imprisonment in France?" The doctor said nothing for a while.

    "I'm afraid I guessed that too," he said in a low voice, "and in consequence my association with the man must seem rather curious to you—but I cannot explain." Larry nodded. The one perturbed person in the room was Flash Fred. He was in an agony of apprehension lest Dr Judd told his secret and the reason for his visit.

    But Judd had no such intention.

    "You can go now," he said curtly, and Fred, trying to summon up some of his old swagger, lit a cigar with a hand that trembled, and Larry watched the operation.

    "You want 'Nervine for the Nerves', Fred," he said. "I saw a chemist's shop open at the corner of the street when I came along."

    Fred walked out with a pitiable attempt at indifference, and Larry watched him go. Then he turned to the doctor.

    "I'm sorry I came in at such an inconvenient moment," he said, "though I don't think you were in any danger.