Mr. Fortune's Practice

THAT is what it would have been called in the evening papers if they had known all about it. They did not. They made the most of the mystery, you remember; it was not good for them or you to know that the sequel was a sequel. But there is no reason why the flats should not be joined now.

So let us begin at Ascot on the morning of that Cup Day. One of our fine summers, the course rather yellow, the lawns rather brown, a haze of heat over the distant woodland, and sunshine flaming about the flounces and silk hats. There were already many of both in the Royal Enclosure (it was a year of flounces), and among them, dapper, debonair, everybody’s friend, the youngest middle-aged man in Europe. He, of course, is the Hon. Sidney Lomas, the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, though mistaken by some outsiders for a comic actor of fame. Tripping back from a joke with the stewards, he discovered, sprawling solitary on the end of one of the seats, Mr. Fortune, the adviser of him and all other official and important people when surgery, medicine or kindred sciences can elucidate what is or is not crime. No one looks more prosperous than Reginald Fortune. He is plump and pinkly healthy, he and his tailor treat each other with respect, his countenance has the amiability of a nice boy.

But on this occasion Lomas found fault with him. “Why, Fortune, you’re very pensive. Have you lost the lady of your present affections? Or backed a wrong ’un?”

“Go away. No fellow has a right to be as cool as you look. Go quite away. I feel like the three fellows in the Bible who sang in the furnace. How can you jest, Lomas? I have no affections. I cannot love, to bet I am ashamed. I always win. Half-crowns. Why is the world thus, Lomas?”

“My dear fellow, you’re not yourself. You look quite professional.”

Reggie Fortune groaned. “I am. This place worries me. I am anatomical, ethnological, anthropological.”

“Good Gad,” said Lomas.

“Yes. A distressing place, look at it”; he waved a stick.

The people in the Royal Enclosure were as pleasant to behold as usual. Comely girls and women who had been comely passed in frocks of which many were pretty and few garish; their men were of a blameless, inconspicuous uniformity.

“What is he?” said Reggie Fortune. “I ask you. Look at his feet.”

What Lomas saw was a man dressed like all the rest of them and as well set up, but of a darker complexion. He did not see anything remarkable. “The big fellow?” he said. “He is a little weak at the knee. But what’s the matter with him?”

“Who is he?” said Reggie Fortune.

Lomas shrugged. “Not English, of course. Rather a half-caste colour, isn’t he? From one of the smaller legations, I suppose, Balkan or South American.” He waved a hand to some elegant aliens who were at that moment kissing ladies’ hands with florid grace. “They all come here, you know.”

“I don’t know,” said Reggie Fortune peevishly. “Half-caste? Half what caste? Look at his feet.” Now the man’s feet, well displayed beneath white spats, were large and flat but distinguished by their heels, which stuck out behind extravagantly. “That is the negro heel.”

“My dear Fortune! The fellow is no more a negro than I am,” Lomas protested: and indeed the man’s hair was straight and sleek and he had a good enough nose, and he was far from black.

“The negro or Hamitic heel,” Reggie Fortune drowsily persisted. “I suspect the Hamitic or negro leg. And otherwise up above. And it’s all very distressing, Lomas.”

“An Egyptian or perhaps an Arab: probably a Foreign Office pet,” Lomas consoled him. “That would get him into the Royal Enclosure.”