Call Mr. Fortune by H. C. Bailey

Author:H. C. Bailey [Bailey, H. C. (Henry Christopher)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective and mystery stories, Forensic scientists -- Fiction
Published: 2019-06-01T00:00:00+00:00

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CASE V

THE HOTTENTOT VENUS

IT was a night in June. The Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department was pensive. “Did you ever want to marry, Fortune?” he murmured.

“Often; but never one at a time.” Reggie Fortune looked curiously at his host. The dinner had been good, the claret very good, the cigars were of the most benignant. But still—“Why this touch of sentiment, Lomas?” said he.

“Some students say women have no minds,” Lomas murmured drowsily. “But that’s partiality. The trouble is, women aren’t human beings. Consider the parallel case of the dog. He is intelligent. But he sets different values on things from our values. Inhuman values. Think of bones, cats, boots. It is so also with women.”

“‘I love a lassie’—but she ate my best pumps. Lomas, my good child, are you merely drivelling or shall we come to something soon?”

“I am much exposed to women,” said the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department pathetically, and roused himself. “But this is a family skeleton. I have a sister, Fortune. She is intelligent. She is almost as omniscient as you, my dear fellow, and much more practical. But she can be quite maddening. She is maddening me now. Unfortunately she has no husband. She had too much intelligence. She owns a princely school at Tormouth. I believe it makes her as rich as Rockefeller. She certainly does herself very well. A month ago she wrote to me that a strange thing had happened. In the night one of the mistress’s rooms had been turned upside down.”

“Do they rag much at girls’ schools?” Reggie yawned. “It might be picturesque.”

“My wonderful sister wanted me to tell her what it meant. I’m not proud, Fortune. I know my limitations. I did not see myself in a girls’ school. Especially as an official. Now she has been writing to me that there are extraordinary developments. The room of another mistress has been upset.”

“They do rag in girls’ schools! Another advance of women. Oh, they'll have the vote soon.”

“You show levity, Fortune. My sister would not like it. This is a crime. A number of photographs were taken—photographs of girls at the school. And there is no clue to the criminal.”

“The great Tormouth mystery. Leader in the Daily Scream—‘Brains for Scotland Yard.’ But the independent expert found a pink hairpin in the mouth of the dachshund next door but two and brought the foul deed home to the junior curate.”

“I envy your spirits, Fortune,” Lomas sighed. “You have no sister—no maiden sister.”

And the desultory conversation turned feebly to something else. In fact, both men were feeling the strain of that tangled and squalid crime, the Pimlico murder. They had at last contrived to hang (you remember it) the reluctant borough councillor; but only Reggie Fortune could take a holiday. As he was going, he said that he thought of motoring in Devonshire.

“You’d better call on my sister and investigate her case.” Lomas smiled sourly. “If it is a case. Sometimes I think it’s a dream.”

“Ragging in Girls’ Schools.

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