CHAPTER VI

SEVEN DIALS AGAIN

Bundle stared at him. And very slowly the world, which for the last

three quarters of an hour had been upside down, shifted till it stood

once more the right way up. It was quite two minutes before Bundle

spoke, but when she did it was no longer the panic-stricken girl but

the real Bundle, cool, efficient, and logical.

"How could he be shot?" she said.

"I don't know how he could," said the doctor dryly. "But he was. He's

got a rifle bullet in him all right. He bled internally, that's why you

didn't notice anything."

Bundle nodded.

"The question is," the doctor continued, "Who shot him? You saw nobody

about?"

Bundle shook her head.

"It's odd," said the doctor. "If it was an accident, you'd expect

the fellow who did it would come running to the rescue--unless just

possibly he didn't know what he'd done."

"There was no one about," said Bundle. "On the road, that is."

"It seems to me," said the doctor, "that the poor lad must have been

running--the bullet got him just as he passed through the gate and he

came reeling on to the road in consequence. You didn't hear a shot?"

Bundle shook her head.

"But I probably shouldn't anyway," she said, "with the noise of the

car."

"Just so. He didn't say anything before he died?"

"He muttered a few words."

"Nothing to throw light on the tragedy?"

"No. He wanted something--I don't know what--told to a friend of his.

Oh! yes, and he mentioned Seven Dials."

"H'm," said Doctor Cassell. "Not a likely neighborhood for one of his

class. Perhaps his assailant came from there. Well, we needn't worry

about that now. You can leave it in my hands. I'll notify the police.

You must, of course, leave your name and address, as the police are

sure to want to question you. In fact, perhaps you'd better come round

to the police station with me now. They might say I ought to have

detained you."

They went together in Bundle's car. The police inspector was a

slow-speaking man. He was somewhat overawed by Bundle's name and

address when she gave it to him, and he took down her statement with

great care.

"Lads!" he said. "That's what it is. Lads practising! Cruel stupid,

them young varmints are. Always loosing off at birds with no

consideration for anyone as may be the other side of a hedge."

The doctor thought it a most unlikely solution, but he realized that

the case would soon be in abler hands and it did not seem worth while

to make objections.

"Name of deceased?" asked the sergeant, moistening his pencil.

"He had a cardcase on him. He appears to have been a Mr. Ronald

Devereux, with an address in the Albany."

Bundle frowned. The name Ronald Devereux awoke some chord of

remembrance. She was sure she had heard it before.

It was not until she was half-way back to Chimneys in the car that it

came to her. Of course! Ronny Devereux. Bill's friend in the Foreign

Office. He and Bill and--yes--Gerald Wade.

As this last realisation came to her, Bundle nearly went into the

hedge. First Gerald Wade--then Ronny Devereux. Gerry Wade's death might

have been natural--the result of carelessness--but Ronny Devereux's

surely bore a more sinister interpretation.

And then Bundle remembered something else. Seven Dials! When the

dying man had said it, it had seemed vaguely familiar. Now she knew

why. Gerald Wade had mentioned Seven Dials in that last letter of his

written to his sister on the night before his death. And that again

connected up with something else that escaped her.

Thinking all these things over, Bundle had slowed down to such a sober

pace that nobody would have recognised her. She drove the car round to

the garage and went in search of her father.

Lord Caterham was happily reading a catalogue of a forthcoming sale of

rare editions and was immeasurably astonished to see Bundle.

"Even you," he said, "can't have been to London and back in this time."

"I haven't been to London," said Bundle. "I ran over a man."

"What?"

"Only I didn't really. He was shot."

"How could he have been?"

"I don't know how he could have been, but he was."

"But why did you shoot him?"

"I didn't shoot him."

"You shouldn't shoot people," said Lord Caterham in a tone of mild

remonstrance. "You shouldn't really. I daresay some of them richly

deserve it--but all the same it will lead to trouble."

"I tell you I didn't shoot him."

"Well, who did?"

"Nobody knows," said Bundle.

"Nonsense," said Lord Caterham. "A man can't be shot and run over

without anyone having done it."

"He wasn't run over," said Bundle.

"I thought you said he was."

"I said I thought I had."

"A tyre burst, I suppose," said Lord Caterham. "That does sound like a

shot. It says so in detective stories."

"You really are perfectly impossible, Father. You don't seem to have

the brains of a rabbit."

"Not at all," said Lord Caterham. "You come in with a wildly impossible

tale about men being run over and shot and I don't know what, and then

you expect me to know all about it by magic."

Bundle sighed wearily.

"Just attend," she said. "I'll tell you all about it in words of one

syllable."

"There," she said when she had concluded. "Now have you got it?"

"Of course. I understand perfectly now. I can make allowances for your

being a little upset, my dear. I was not far wrong when I remarked to

you before starting out that people looking for trouble usually found

it. I am thankful," finished Lord Caterham with a slight shiver, "that

I stayed quietly here."

He picked up the catalogue again.

"Father, where is Seven Dials?"

"In the East End somewhere, I fancy. I have frequently observed buses

going there--or do I mean Seven Sisters? I have never been there

myself, I am thankful to say. Just as well, because I don't fancy it is

the sort of spot I should like. And yet, curiously enough, I seem to

have heard of it in some connection just lately."

"You don't know a Jimmy Thesiger, do you?"

Lord Caterham was now engrossed in his catalogue once more. He had made

an effort to be intelligent on the subject of Seven Dials. This time he

made hardly any effort at all.

"Thesiger," he murmured vaguely. "Thesiger. One of the Yorkshire

Thesigers?"

"That's what I'm asking you. Do attend, Father. This is important."

Lord Caterham made a desperate effort to look intelligent without

really having to give his mind to the matter.

"There _are_ some Yorkshire Thesigers," he said earnestly. "And unless

I am mistaken some Devonshire Thesigers also. Your Great Aunt Selina

married a Thesiger."

"What good is that to me?" cried Bundle.

Lord Caterham chuckled.

"It was very little good to her, if I remember rightly."

"You're impossible," said Bundle, rising. "I shall have to get hold of

Bill."

"Do, dear," said her father absently as he turned a page. "Certainly.

By all means. Quite so."

Bundle rose to her feet with an impatient sigh.

"I wish I could remember what that letter said," she murmured more to

herself than aloud. "I didn't read it very carefully. Something about a

joke--that the Seven Dials business wasn't a joke."

Lord Caterham emerged suddenly from his catalogue.

"Seven Dials?" he said. "Of course. I've got it now."

"Got what?"

"I know why it sounded so familiar. George Lomax has been over.

Tredwell failed for once and let him in. He was on his way up to town.

It seems he's having some political party at the Abbey next week and he

got a warning letter."

"What do you mean by a warning letter?"

"Well, I don't really know. He didn't go into details. I gather it

said 'Beware' and 'Trouble is at hand,' and all those sort of things.

But anyway it was written from Seven Dials, I distinctly remember his

saying so. He was going up to town to consult Scotland Yard about it.

You know George?"

Bundle nodded. She was well acquainted with that public-spirited

Cabinet Minister, George Lomax, His Majesty's permanent Under Secretary

of State for Foreign Affairs, who was shunned by many because of his

inveterate habit of quoting from his public speeches in private. In

allusion to his bulging eyeballs, he was known to many--Bill Eversleigh

among others--as Codders.

"Tell me," she said, "was Codders interested at all in Gerald Wade's

death?"

"Not that I ever heard of. He may have been, of course."

Bundle said nothing for some minutes. She was busily engaged in trying

to remember the exact wording of the letter she had sent on to Loraine

Wade, and at the same time she was trying to picture the girl to whom

it had been written. What sort of a girl was this to whom, apparently,

Gerald Wade was so devoted? The more she thought over it, the more it

seemed to her that it was an unusual letter for a brother to write.

"Did you say the Wade girl was Gerry's half-sister?" she asked suddenly.

"Well, of course, strictly speaking, I suppose she isn't--wasn't, I

mean--his sister at all."

"But her name's Wade?"

"Not really. She wasn't old Wade's child. As I was saying, he ran

away with his second wife, who was married to a perfect blackguard. I

suppose the Courts gave the rascally husband the custody of the child,

but he certainly didn't avail himself of the privilege. Old Wade got

very fond of the child and insisted that she should be called by his

name."

"I see," said Bundle. "That explains it."

"Explains what?"

"Something that puzzled me about that letter."

"She's rather a pretty girl, I believe," said Lord Caterham. "Or so

I've heard."

Bundle went upstairs thoughtfully. She had several objects in view.

First she must find this Jimmy Thesiger. Bill, perhaps, would be

helpful there. Ronny Devereux had been a friend of Bill's. If Jimmy

Thesiger was a friend of Ronny's, the chances were that Bill would know

him too. Then there was the girl, Loraine Wade. It was possible that

she could throw some light on the problem of Seven Dials. Evidently

Gerry Wade had said something to her about it. His anxiety that she

should forget the fact had a sinister suggestion.