The Illustrious Prince Part 9

"Hamilton Fynes came from the village in Ma.s.sachusetts where I was brought up. I've known him all my life."

Mr. Coulson seemed a little startled.

"I didn't understand," he said thoughtfully, "that Fynes had any very intimate friends over this side."

Penelope shook her head.

"I don't mean to imply that we have been intimate lately," she said.

"I came to Europe nine years ago, and since then, of course, I have not seen him often. Perhaps it was the fact that he should have thought of me, and that I was actually expecting to have lunch with him today, which made me feel this thing so acutely."

"Why, that's quite natural," Mr. Coulson declared, leaning back a little and crossing his legs. "Somehow we seem to read about these things in the papers and they don't amount to such a lot, but when you know the man and were expecting to see him, as you were, why, then it comes right home to you. There's something about a murder," Mr. Coulson concluded, "which kind of takes hold of you if you've ever even shaken hands with either of the parties concerned in it."

"Did you see much of the poor fellow during the voyage?" Sir Charles asked.

"No, nor any one else," Mr. Coulson replied. "I don't think he was seasick, but he was miserably unsociable, and he seldom left his cabin.

I doubt whether there were half a dozen people on board who would have recognized him afterwards as a fellow-pa.s.senger."

"He seems to have been a secretive sort of person," Sir Charles remarked.

"He was that," Mr. Coulson admitted. "Never seemed to care to talk about himself or his own business. Not that he had much to talk about," he added reflectively. "Dull sort of life, his. So many hours of work, so many hours of play; so many dollars a month, and after it's all over, so many dollars pension. Wouldn't suit all of us, Sir Charles, eh?"

"I fancy not," Somerfield admitted. "Perhaps he kicked over the traces a bit when he was over this side. You Americans generally seem to find your way about--in Paris, especially."

Mr. Coulson shook his head doubtfully.

"There wasn't much kicking over the traces with poor old Fynes," he said. "He hadn't got it in him."

Somerfield scratched his chin thoughtfully and looked at Penelope.

"Scarcely seems possible, does it," he remarked, "that a man leading such a quiet sort of life should make enemies."

"I don't believe he had any," Mr. Coulson a.s.serted.

"He didn't seem nervous on the way over, did he?" Penelope asked,--"as though he were afraid of something happening?"

Mr. Coulson shook his head.

"No more than usual," he answered. "I guess your police over here aren't quite so smart as ours, or they'd have been on the track of this thing before now. But you can take it from me that when the truth comes out you'll find that our poor friend has paid the penalty of going about the world like a crank."

"A what?" Somerfield asked doubtfully.

"A crank," Mr. Coulson repeated vigorously. "It wasn't much I knew of Hamilton Fynes, but I knew that much. He was one of those nervous, stand-off sort of persons who hated to have people talk to him and yet was always doing things to make them talk about him. I was over in Europe with him not so long ago, and he went on in the same way. Took a special train to Dover when there wasn't any earthly reason for it; travelled with a valet and a courier, when he had no clothes for the valet to look after, and spoke every European language better than his courier. This time the poor fellow's paid for his bit of vanity.

Naturally, any one would think he was a millionaire, travelling like that. I guess they boarded the train somehow, or lay hidden in it when it started, and relieved him of a good bit of his savings."

"But his money was found upon him," Somerfield objected.

"Some of it," Mr. Coulson answered,--"some of it. That's just about the only thing that I do know of my own. I happened to see him take his pocketbook back from the purser, and I guess he'd got a sight more money there than was found upon him. I told the smooth-spoken gentleman from Scotland Yard so--Mr. Inspector Jacks he called himself--when he came to see me an hour or so ago."

Penelope sighed gently. She found it hard to make up her mind concerning this quondam acquaintance of her deceased friend.

"Did you see much of Mr. Fynes on the other side, Mr. Coulson?" she asked him.

"Not I," Mr. Coulson answered. "He wasn't particularly anxious to make acquaintances over here, but he was even worse at home. The way he went on, you'd think he'd never had any friends and never wanted any. I met him once in the streets of Was.h.i.+ngton last year, and had a c.o.c.ktail with him at the Atlantic House. I had to almost drag him in there. I was pretty well a stranger in Was.h.i.+ngton, but he didn't do a thing for me.

Never asked me to look him up, or introduced me to his club. He just drank his c.o.c.ktail, mumbled something about being in a hurry, and made off.

"I tell you, sir," Mr. Coulson continued, turning to Somerfield, "that man hadn't a thing to say for himself. I guess his work had something to do with it. You must get kind of out of touch with things, shut up in an office from nine o'clock in the morning till five in the afternoon. Just saving up, he was, for his trip to Europe. Then we happened on the same steamer, but, bless you, he scarcely even shook hands when he saw me.

He wouldn't play bridge, didn't care about chess, hadn't even a chair on the deck, and never came in to meals."

Penelope nodded her head thoughtfully.

"You are destroying all my illusions, Mr. Coulson," she said. "Do you know that I was building up quite a romance about poor Mr. Fynes' life?

It seemed to me that he must have enemies; that there must have been something in his life, or his manner of living, which accounted for such a terrible crime."

"Why, sure not!" Mr. Coulson declared heartily. "It was a cleverly worked job, but there was no mystery about it. Some chap went for him because he got riding about like a millionaire. A more unromantic figure than Hamilton Fynes never breathed. Call him a crank and you've finished with him."

Penelope sighed once more and looked at the tips of her patent shoes.

"It has been so kind of you," she murmured, "to talk to us. And yet, do you know, I am a little disappointed. I was hoping that you might have been able to tell us something more about the poor fellow."

"He was no talker," Mr. Coulson declared. "It was little enough he had to say to me, and less to any one else."

"It seems strange," she remarked innocently, "that he should have been so shy. He didn't strike me that way when I knew him at home in Ma.s.sachusetts, you know. He travelled about so much in later years, too, didn't he?"

Penelope's eyes were suddenly upraised. For the first time Mr. Coulson's ready answers failed him. Not a muscle of his face moved under the girl's scrutiny, but he hesitated for a short time before he answered her.

"Not that I know of," he said at length. "No, I shouldn't have called him much of a traveller."

Penelope rose to her feet and held out her hand.

"It has been very nice indeed of you to see us, Mr. Coulson," she said, "especially after all these other people have been bothering you. Of course, I am sorry that you haven't anything more to tell us than we knew already. Still, I felt that I couldn't rest until we had been."

"It's a sad affair, anyhow," Mr. Coulson declared, walking with them to the door. "Don't you get worrying your head, young lady, though, with any notion of his having had enemies, or anything of that sort. The poor fellow was no hero of romance. I don't fancy even your halfpenny papers could drag any out of his life. It was just a commonplace robbery, with a bad ending for poor Fynes. Good evening, miss! Good night, sir! Glad to have met you, Sir Charles."

Mr. Coulson's two visitors left and got into a small electric brougham which was waiting for them. Mr. Coulson himself watched them drive off and glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past six. He went into the cafe and ordered a light dinner, which he consumed with much obvious enjoyment. Then he lit a cigar and went into the smoking room.

Selecting a pile of newspapers, he drew up an easy chair to the fire and made himself comfortable.

"Seems to me I may have a longish wait," he said to himself.

As a matter of fact, he was disappointed. At precisely seven o'clock, Mr. Richard Vanderpole strolled into the room and, after a casual glance around, approached his chair and touched him on the shoulder. In his evening clothes the newcomer was no longer obtrusively American. He was dressed in severely English fas.h.i.+on, from the cut of his white waistcoat to the admirable poise of his white tie. He smiled as he patted Coulson upon the shoulder.

"This is Mr. Coulson, I'm sure," he declared,--"Mr. James B. Coulson from New York?"

"You're dead right," Mr. Coulson admitted, laying down his newspaper and favoring his visitor with a quick upward glance.

"This is great!" the young man continued. "Just off the boat, eh? Well, I am glad to see you,--very glad indeed to make your acquaintance, I should say."

Mr. Coulson replied in similar terms. A waiter who was pa.s.sing through the room hesitated, for it was a greeting which generally ended in a summons for him.