Dismissing his taxi at the Archway, Inspector Furnival made the best of his way to his office. Outside a man was standing. He touched his forehead respectfully.
“Glad to see you, sir. The lady has just been to the door to say she can’t wait more than five minutes longer.”
The inspector paused.
“What is her name, Jones?”
The man shook his head.
“She wouldn’t give one, sir. She said her business was with the detective in charge of the Bechcombe case, and with him alone. I was on tenterhooks all the time, sir, fearing that she would be gone before you came.”
The inspector nodded and went on.
He turned the handle of his door quietly and entered the room as quickly and noiselessly as possible. If he had hoped to surprise his visitor, however, he found himself disappointed.
She was standing immediately opposite the door with her back to the window. She did not wait for him to speak.
“Are you in charge of the Bechcombe case?” she demanded, and he noticed that her voice was powerful and rather hard in tone.
The inspector glanced keenly at her as he walked to the chair behind his office table. Standing thus with her back to the light he could see little of his visitor’s face, which was also concealed by the hat which was crushed down upon her forehead and overshadowed by an uncurled feather mount. But he could tell that she was fashionably gowned, that the furs she had thrown back from her shoulders were costly.
He answered her question and asked another.
“I am Inspector Furnival, and I am inquiring into the circumstances of Mr. Bechcombe’s death. May I ask why you want to know?”
His interlocutor took a few steps forward, clasping her hands nervously together.
“You know that a white glove was found by Mr. Bechcombe’s desk?”
“Yes.”
“It was my glove. I left it there!”
The inspector did not speak for a minute. He unlocked a drawer and took out an official-looking notebook.
“Your name and address, madam?”
“Is that necessary?” There was a quiver in the clear tones. “I have told you that I was there—that the glove is mine. Is not that enough?”
“Scarcely, madam. But”—waiving the subject of the name for a moment—“why have you not spoken before?”
“I didn’t hear at first.” She hesitated a moment, her foot tapping the floor impatiently.
And now she was nearer to him he could see that her make-up was extensive, that complexion and eyes owed much of their brilliancy to art, and that the red-gold hair probably came off entirely. But it was a handsome face, though not that of a woman in her first youth. The features, though large, were well formed, and the big blue eyes would have been more beautiful without the black lines with which they were embellished.
“I don’t read the papers much, at least only the society news and about the theatres—never murders or horrors of that kind, and it was not until I heard some people talking about it, and they mentioned Mr. Bechcombe’s name, that I knew what had happened. I did not realize at first that it—the murder had taken place on the very day on which I had been to the office, and that it was my glove that had been found beside the desk. Even then I made up my mind not to speak out if I could help it. Mr. Bechcombe was alive and well when I saw him. I couldn’t tell you anything about the murder. And I couldn’t have my name mixed up in a murder trial, or let the papers, or certain—er—people get to know what I had been doing at Mr. Bechcombe’s office.”
“Then why have you come to us now?”
“Because I thought, if I didn’t tell you, you would be sure to find out,” was the candid reply. “And—and if I came myself I thought you might call me Madame X, or something like that. They do, you know, and then perhaps—er—people might never know.”
The inspector smiled.
“I am afraid you are too well known and the illustrated papers are too ubiquitous for that, Mrs. Carnthwacke.”
She emitted a slight scream.
“Oh! How did you know?”
The inspector’s smile became more apparent.
“I was a great admirer of Miss Bella Laymond on the Variety stage. I had the pleasure of ‘assisting’ at her marriage with the American millionaire, Cyril B. Carnthwacke—that is to say, I was passing a fashionable church, saw a large waiting crowd, and was lucky enough to get in the first rank and obtain a good view of the beautiful bride. I could not help remembering a face like that, Mrs. Carnthwacke. And now I want you to forget that I am a detective, and just think that I am a friend who is anxious to help you, and tell me all the story of your visit to Mr. Bechcombe.”
He pushed forward a chair as he spoke.
She looked from it to him undecidedly for a minute. Then, as if coming to a sudden resolution, she sat down and pulled the chair nearer to his desk.
“You promise not to tell my—husband what I am going to tell you?”
“I promise,” the inspector said reassuringly. “Now, first please, why did you come to Luke Bechcombe’s office on the day of his death?”
“Well, I dare say you know my husband is very rich?”
The inspector nodded. Cyril B. Carnthwacke’s name and his millions were well known to the man in the street.
“When we were married he gave the most gorgeous jewels,” Mrs. Carnthwacke went on. “And he made me an enormous allowance. Americans are always generous—bless you, I thought I was going to have the time of my life. But I—I had never been rich. Even when I got on on the stage and had a big salary I was always in debt. I suppose I am extravagant by nature. Anyway, when I was married it seemed to me that I had an inexhaustible store to fall back upon. I spent money like water with the result that after a time I had to go for more to my husband. He gave it to me, but I could see that he was astonished and displeased. Still, I could not change my nature. I gambled at cards, on the racecourse, on the Stock Exchange, and I staked high to give myself a new excitement. Sometimes I won, but more often I lost and my husband helped me again and again. But more and more I could see I was disappointing him. At last he told me that he would pay no more for me; he hated and mistrusted all gambling and I must make my huge allowance do. I couldn’t—I mean I couldn’t give up gambling. It was in my blood. And just as I was in a horrible hole the worst happened. A—a man who had been my lover years ago began to blackmail me. I gave him all I could but nothing satisfied him.” She stopped and passed a tiny lace-trimmed handkerchief over her lips.
“Why did you not tell your husband?” the inspector inquired. “I guess Mr. Carnthwacke would have settled him pretty soon.”
“I—I daren’t,” she confessed. “And I have been an awful ass. He—this man—had letters. They were silly enough, goodness knows, and they might have been read to mean more than they did, and my husband is jealous—terribly, wickedly jealous of my past. At last he—the man—said that if I would pay him a large, an enormous sum, he would go abroad and I should never hear of him again. If I did not he swore he would send the letters to my husband in such a fashion that the worst construction would be placed upon them. What was I to do? I hadn’t any money. I dared not tell my husband. I made several attempts to pull off a grand coup, and only got worse in the mire. I made up my mind to sell my diamonds and substitute paste. A friend of mine had done so and apparently had never been suspected. But I couldn’t take them to the shop myself—we were too well known in London. And, when I was at my wit’s end to know what to do with them, I happened to hear a woman saying how she had disposed of hers quite legitimately and openly through a solicitor, Mr. Luke Bechcombe. I thought perhaps he might do something for me, and I rang him up.”
“Well?” the detective said interrogatively; his face was as expressionless as ever, but there was a veiled eagerness in his deep-set eyes as they watched Mrs. Carnthwacke’s every movement.
“I told him what I wanted. And he said it would be necessary to have them valued. We talked it over and made an appointment for two days later, the very day he was murdered. I was to take them to him myself. And he told me to go down the passage to his private door so that none of his clients should see me, because I explained that it must be kept a real dead secret.”
“What time was your appointment for?” the inspector asked.
“A quarter past twelve,” Mrs. Carnthwacke answered. “But I was late—it must have been quite half-past when I got there. He looked at the diamonds and said that they were very fine and he would have them valued at once and get them disposed of for me if I approved of the price. He was to ring me up at twelve o’clock the next day. But of course he didn’t, and I couldn’t think what had happened, until I saw this dreadful thing in the papers. Oh, you will keep my name out of it, won’t you?”
She broke off and looked appealingly at the inspector. He did not answer. For once in his long experience he was thoroughly taken aback. The woman had told her story calmly and convincingly enough, but—and as the inspector looked at her he wondered if she had no idea of the horrible danger in which she stood.
“I will do my best for you in every way,” he said at last. “But you must first answer all my questions straightforwardly. You have at least done the right thing in coming to us now, though it might have been better if you had come earlier. Now first will you tell me exactly what time you reached Mr. Bechcombe’s office?”
“Well, as I say, I ought to have been there at a quarter past twelve, but I dare say it was half-past, or it might have been a quarter to one.”
The inspector kept his keen eyes upon her face; not one change in her expression could escape him.
“Mrs. Carnthwacke, do you know that the doctors have stated that Mr. Bechcombe died about twelve o’clock—sooner rather than later?”
“Twelve o’clock!” Her face turned almost livid in spite of its make-up, but her blue eyes met the inspector’s steadily. “It’s no use, inspector. I suppose doctors make mistakes like other folks sometimes. Luke Bechcombe was alive, very much alive, when I went in about half-past twelve.”
The inspector did not argue the question, but his eyes did not relax their watchful gaze for one second as he went on.
“How did Mr. Bechcombe seem when you saw him? Did you notice anything peculiar about his manner?”
“Well, I had never seen him before, so I couldn’t notice any difference. He just seemed an ordinary, pleasant sort of man. He admired my diamonds very much and said we ought to get a high price for them. He was to have had them valued the next day. Now—now I am in pressing need of money and I want to have them valued myself if you will give them back to me.”
For once Inspector Furnival was shaken out of his usual passivity.
“You—do you mean that you left the diamonds there?”
“Well, of course! Haven’t I been telling you so all this time?” Mrs. Carnthwacke said impatiently. “Mr. Bechcombe gave me a receipt for them, and locked them up in his safe—like that one!”
She pointed to the wall where a large cupboard was built into it.
“The—the executors will give them to me, won’t they?”
The inspector went over and stood near the door.
“Mrs. Carnthwacke, when the door of the safe was opened in the presence of Mr. Bechcombe’s executors and of the police, there were no diamonds there.”
“What! You do not—you cannot mean that my diamonds are lost!” Mrs. Carnthwacke started to her feet. “Mr. Bechcombe put them in the safe himself, I tell you.”
“That was not a safe. It is just an ordinary cupboard in which papers and documents of no particular importance were kept. And when the safe was opened there was no sign of diamonds there,” the inspector said positively. “It may be possible that Mr. Bechcombe moved them before, otherwise—”
“Otherwise what?” she demanded. “Heavens, man, speak out! My diamonds are worth thousands of pounds. Otherwise what?”
“Otherwise they may have provided a motive for the crime,” the inspector said slowly. But no—that is impossible, if you saw him lock them up.”
“Of course I did, you may bet I watched that.” Mrs. Carnthwacke calmed down a little. “Besides, I have got the receipt. That makes him, or his executors, liable for the diamonds, doesn’t it?”
“Have you the receipt here?” the inspector asked quickly.
“Of course. I thought it might be wanted to get back my diamonds. The fact that your firm might deny having them never entered my head.”
She opened the vanity bag which hung at her side and took out a piece of paper crushed with much folding.
“There! You can’t get away from that!”
The inspector read it.
“Mrs. Carnthwacke has entrusted her diamonds to me for valuation and I have deposited them in my safe. Signed—Luke Francis Bechcombe,” he read.
The paper on which it was written was Luke Bechcombe’s. There was no doubt of that. The inspector had seen its counterpart in Mr. Bechcombe’s private room. But his face altered curiously as he looked at it.
“Certainly, if this receipt was given you by Mr. Bechcombe, the estate is liable for the value of the diamonds,” he finished up.
“Well, Mr. Bechcombe gave it me, safe enough,” Mrs. Carnthwacke declared. “I put it in this same little bag and went off, little thinking what was going to happen. It struck one as I came out.”
“One o’clock!” The inspector was looking puzzled. If Mrs. Carnthwacke’s story were true it was in direct contradiction to the doctors’. “Did you meet anyone on the stairs?”
Mrs. Carnthwacke looked undecided.
“I don’t remember. Yes, I think I did—some young man or another. I didn’t notice him much.”
“And you didn’t notice anything peculiar in Mr. Bechcombe’s manner?”
“Nothing much,” Mrs. Carnthwacke said, holding out her hand for the receipt. “I’ll have that back, please. You bet I don’t part with it till I have got my diamonds back. The only thing I thought was that Mr. Bechcombe seemed in rather a hurry—sort of wanted me to quit.”
The inspector felt inclined to smile. Half an hour in the busiest time of the day seemed a fairly liberal allowance even for a millionaire’s wife.
“Now, can you tell me how many people knew that you were bringing the diamonds to Mr. Bechcombe?”
“Not one. What do you take me for? A first-class idiot?” Mrs. Carnthwacke demanded indignantly. “Nobody knew that I had the diamonds at all—not even my maid. I kept them in a little safe in my bedroom—one my husband had specially made for me. Great Scott, I was a bit too anxious to keep the whole business quiet to go talking about it.”
“Not even to the friend that told you that Mr. Bechcombe had helped her out of a similar difficulty?”
“No, not a word! I didn’t think of asking Mr. Bechcombe while she was with me, and the next day she went off to Cannes and I haven’t seen her since. The receipt, please?”
The inspector did not relax his hold.
“You will understand that this is a most valuable piece of evidence, madam. You will have to entrust it to me. I will of course give you a written acknowledgment that I have it.”
The colour flashed into Mrs. Carnthwacke’s face.
“Do you mean that you will not let me have it back?”
“I am afraid I cannot, madam.”
She sprang forward with outstretched hands—just missed it by half an inch. The inspector quietly put it in his notebook and snapping the elastic round it returned it to his pocket.
“You may rely upon me to do my best for you, madam. I shall make every possible search for the diamonds and will communicate with the executors, who will of course recognize their responsibility if the jewels are not found. And now will you let me give you one piece of advice?”
“I don’t know. I guess I am not a good person to give advice to.”
Evidently Mrs. Carnthwacke was not to be placated. Her eyes flashed, and one foot beat an impatient tattoo on the floor.
The inspector was unruffled.
“Nevertheless, I think I will venture upon it. Tell your husband yourself what has happened. He will help you more efficiently than anyone else in the whole world can. And Mr. Carnthwacke’s advice is worth having.”