The Ringer by Edgar Wallace

ONE unpleasant change had come over Maurice Meister since his visit to Scotland Yard: he was drinking heavily, the brandy bottle was never far away from his table. He looked old and ill in the mornings; did what he had never done before--wandered into his big room soon after breakfast, and, sitting down at the piano, played for hours on end, to her great distraction. Yet he played beautifully, with the touch of a master and the interpretation of one inspired. Sometimes she thought that the more dazed he was, the better he played. He used to sit at the piano, his eyes staring into vacancy, apparently seeing and hearing nothing. Hackitt used to come into the room and watch him with a contemptuous grin, speaking to him sometimes, well assured that the mind of Meister was a million years away. Even Mary had to wait by him patiently for long periods before she could obtain any intelligible answer to her questions.

He was afraid of things, jumped at the slightest sound, was reduced to a quivering panic by an unexpected knock on his door. Hackitt, who was sleeping in the house, had dark stories to hint at as to what happened in the night. Once he came and found Maurice's table littered with brandy bottles, all empty save one. Two days after the workmen had left the house, Alan Wembury, dozing in the charge room at Flanders Lane, waiting for the arrival of a prisoner whom he had sent his men to "pull in", heard the telephone bell ring and the exchange between the desk sergeant and somebody at the other end of the line.