“I wouldn’t dare. Do you know her? She looks a nice young woman for a quiet tea-party. Passion and poison for two.”
“It’s the physique, you know,” said Mr. Fortune sadly. “When they’re long and sinuous and dark they will be intense. That’s the etiquette of the profession. But it’s spoiling her comedy. She takes everything in spasms now and she used to be quite restful.”
“Some silly fool probably told her she was a great actress,” Lomas suggested.
Mr. Fortune did not answer. He was steering the punt to the bank. As it slid by the rushes he stooped and picked out of the water a large silk bag. This he put down at Lomas’s feet, and saying, “Who’s the owner of this pretty thing?” once more drove the punt on at the rate of knots.
Lomas produced from the bag a powder-puff, three gold hair-pins and two handkerchiefs. “The police have evidence of great importance,” he announced, “and immediate developments are expected. S. Sheridan is the culprit, Fortune.”
“Sylvia Sheridan?” Reggie laughed. “You know we’re out of a paragraph in a picture paper. ‘On the river this week-end all the stars of the stage were shining. Miss Rose Darcourt was looking like Juliet on the balcony of her charming boat-house and I saw Miss Sylvia Sheridan’s bag floating sweetly down stream. Bags are worn bigger than ever this year. Miss Sheridan has always been famous for her bags. But this was really dinky!’”
At the bridge he put Lomas into his car and strolled up to leave Miss Sheridan’s bag at the police-station.
The sergeant was respectfully affable (Mr. Fortune is much petted by subordinates) and it took some time to reach the bag. When Ascot and the early peas and the sergeant’s daughter’s young man had been critically estimated, Mr. Fortune said that he was only calling on the lost property department to leave a lady’s bag. “I just picked it out of the river,” Reggie explained. “No value to anybody but the owner. Seems to belong to Miss Sylvia Sheridan. She’s a house down here, hasn’t she? You might let her know.”
The sergeant stared at Mr. Fortune and breathed hard. “What makes you say that, sir?”
“Beg pardon, sir. You’d better see the inspector.” And the sergeant tumbled out of the room.
The inspector was flurried. “Mr. Fortune? Very glad to see you, sir. Sort of providential your coming in like this. Won’t you sit down, sir? This is a queer start. Where might you have found her bag, Mr. Fortune?”