When Macdonald returned to Scotland Yard after his talk with Mr. Todbury, it was nearly half-past four. His note-book testified to a good day’s work, being entered up as follows.
8.0–8.15. Interviewed Burroughs at Station.
9.0–9.45. With Rockingham at The Small House.
10.0–12.0. Author’s Club. Took Jennings to Mortuary.
12.15–1.15. Park Village South. Weller.
1.30–2.30. Lunch. Pagani’s.
2.45–4.0. Lincoln’s Inn Fields. Todbury, Wether & Goodchild.
Seated drinking his tea, Macdonald listened to Reeves’ report of his day which had also been profitably spent, but Reeves, a great believer in routine, kept his narrative in strictly chronological order, so that his bonne bouche came last. His morning had been occupied by “getting a line” on Mrs. Attleton—not very successfully. After an overnight consultation with Weller, Reeves knew that Mrs. Attleton had a mother, Mrs. Langtree, who resided at Brighton. The Southern Electric took Reeves to that famous resort in exactly an hour—according to schedule—(a trip he had much enjoyed) and by half-past ten he was interviewing a very unwilling parent in the Riviera Hotel. Mrs. Langtree described herself as a neurasthenic, under the treatment of a psychoanalyst, and she interviewed Reeves from a couch, speaking languidly and petulantly by turns. She assured Reeves that she had no idea of her daughter’s address, that Mrs. Attleton was taking a rest cure (like herself) and that this fuss over Mr. Attleton’s whereabouts was uncalled for. Bruce was the most erratic of men, and it was quite characteristic of him to break engagements, to stay away for days at a time without giving any address, and generally to behave in an inconsiderate manner, and this intrusion on her (Mrs. Langtree’s) privacy was quite unjustified. She had already told Mr. Rockingham so, and considered that the latter had lost his head completely to be making such a to-do. Reeves left the scented, over-heated apartment without any information, but a conviction that Mrs. Langtree was frightened—very much frightened.
“She’s probably agitated about her daughter and Mr. Thomas Burroughs,” said Macdonald. “I expect we shall find that Thomas has spent the last week with the injured wife—that’s why he’s doing the strong silent man touch. What oddities these people are, Reeves. Mrs. Attleton wants a divorce, but she also wants to be the injured party. Her husband was to supply the evidence while she posed as Julius Cæsar’s wife and got the world’s sympathy. We’d better turn the B.B.C. on to the job—and if Mesdames Langtree and Attleton get a shock, that’s not our fault. We’ve wasted enough time considering their feelings. I’m glad you liked Brighton. Personally—and professionally—I never want to hear the name of the place again.”
“It doesn’t bring the department luck, and that’s a fact,” admitted Reeves, “however, I earned my oats when I got back. Caught the eleven twenty-five. Back at Victoria at twelve-thirty. Not bad. I’ve been on the run about after Debrette. That chap Grenville wasn’t pulling the long-bow. Debrette was in Trafalgar Square yesterday evening, and what’s more, he’s pretty well known by sight.”
Reeves had got his first information from a newspaper vendor close to Charing Cross Post Office. Apparently the man with a white streak in his beard was a not infrequent visitor to Trafalgar Square. He stood and listened to the outpourings of Communists and Fascists, he had been seen by the janitors of the National Gallery, and had on one occasion been moved on by the police for “causing an obstruction” by the peaceful pursuit of drawing on the paving-stones to earn a few pennies. (According to the newspaper man, “Streaky Beaver” was a toff with a bit of chalk.) Continuing his researches (occasionally with the assistance of small largesse) Reeves had talked to the loungers who were always to be found in Trafalgar Square—wrecks of men, unemployed and unemployables, who spent wretched days and nights in streets and doss-houses, scavenging in the very gutters, living on the uncertain charity of passers-by. To them “Streaky Beaver” was not unknown. While he was not, apparently, destitute, inasmuch as he had decent boots and a presentable suit, he yet lived a queer nomadic existence, having no property save what he could carry about with him, and sleeping occasionally in hostels such as those run by the Church Army and the Salvation Army for the flotsam and jetsam of London’s manhood. From lodging to lodging Reeves had gone in his search, hearing reports that the man he was after had spent the night there.
“Calls himself all manner of names,” said Reeves. “Barbler is one of the most frequent. Talks English all right and puts on a foreign accent or not as the fancy takes him.”
“Barbler,” ruminated Macdonald, “Barbe Bleu, probably—Bluebeard—Go on.”
“Some reckon he’s a bit touched,” went on Reeves after a good drink of tea, “but they all say he’s harmless. One chap—an old actor—said Barbler must have been in the profession at one time. When he’s had a drink he’ll rant away for hours—old melodrama stuff, and Shakespeare and French and German as well. He’s never been in our hands, that’s certain. There’s no official record of him anywhere. The last place I heard of him was a doss-house behind King’s Cross. He stayed there a month or so ago, and the funny part was he seemed in funds. He’d got a clean shirt and collar and cooked himself a chop in the kitchen. He seems to’ve been off the map for weeks, most of the reports I’ve got went back to before Christmas.”
“And for the moment he’s still off the map?”
“Yes, sir—but we’re sure to cop him before long.”
“It’s a queer story, Reeves. Sounds all wrong to my mind. Now listen to my bit.”
Macdonald produced a résumé of the facts he had gleaned from Mr. Todbury, and when he had concluded, Reeves said:
“Well, I grant you it’s a rum story, but it seems to fit. This Debrette—or Barbler or Brossé or whatever his name is—gets a line on old Marsham somehow, and rings up Attleton to sound him. They compare notes, and between them clear the ground of other claimants. Probably Debrette presses Attleton for funds to keep him going, and Attleton gets tired of stumping up. Finally Attleton goes to the Belfry intending to put a stop to Mr. Debrette, and gets put a stop to himself. That’s all right. Seems quite clear. It was Attleton who supplied the funds in the first place for Debrette to take the studio. If what you guess is anywhere near the truth, Attleton would have had to pay up—and go on paying up.”
Macdonald frowned down into his cup, deep in thought, and Reeves went on cheerfully:
“Debrette’s been quite smart, really. He made himself known as a harmless, half batty, down-and-out in some of the London doss-houses, so that he had got a background he could sink into if ever the time came for playing possum. Probably got an alibi, too, if he needed one. With a few coppers to spare you could buy as many alibis as you want from some of those poor devils, as you know well enough. He’s a cunning old fox, is Streaky Beaver.”
“Then why the dickens hasn’t he had the elementary common sense to shave his beard off?” demanded Macdonald. “Tell me that. Does it make sense to you, because it doesn’t to me.”
Reeves cocked his chin up as this great thought percolated to his policeman’s brain, and Macdonald went on:
“Go back to the beginning again, assuming Debrette is Brossé. Debrette approaches Bruce Attleton, and the two charmers—both hard up according to their different standards—put their heads together over the possibility of raking in a few odd thousands. I’m convinced that there must be something of the kind in the offing, because there have been too many sudden deaths in the family just lately. Attleton, as you say, provides funds, and probably provided that reference for the agents which led to a dead-end. Debrette took a fancy to the Belfry, envisaging further possibilities, and lived there, more or less, occasionally putting in an appearance at his old haunts. He gave out at The Knight Templar that he was a sculptor, he needed to be, if he wanted plaster of Paris in bulk. That’s all believable. Very cunning, as you say—but, and it’s a large but, why did he show himself to two different people whom Attleton knew? He went out of his way to draw Rockingham’s attention to himself, and likewise Elizabeth Leigh’s. What’s the point? To show himself was simply to ask for trouble. It was silly—and the rest of the story isn’t silly, it’s infernally clever.”
“I can’t see his point,” admitted Reeves.
“Nor any one else either. Now remember that Grenville had a chance of looking at him, too—not much of a look, admittedly, but enough. That’s three different people had seen Debrette and he knew it. He next contrives a murder, mutilates the corpse, conceals it, and bolts. Yet a week later he is wandering round the Strand with his silly beard like a Belisha beacon, plain for all the world to see, when he must know that Grenville would tell the police sometime about that little do with the whisky glass.”
“Yes, but isn’t he being just a shade too clever,” argued Reeves. “It’s not easy to identify a corpse like that one. First, Debrette reckoned that his hidey hole wouldn’t be discovered until the housebreakers get going at Michaelmas. Then he argued that the corpse would be taken for his own—with Attleton as the murderer.”
“More fool he not to have shaved his beard,” said Macdonald. “For a man who’s done an uncommonly skilful bit of murder, he seems to have got some blind spots. I wonder…”
He went off into a blue study over his empty teacup, and at last said:
“I’ve got it! He took the risk of showing himself to that blithe young ass Grenville just to fix it in the chap’s mind that Streaky Beaver’s still going strong, and then hopped into some suitable spot and shaved himself, took off his blinkers, and reappeared as commonplace looking as you—or me. Now can you tell me how we’re going to find him—until the Old Soldier dies, and he rolls up to claim the boodle. If that boodle’s not in existence, Reeves, I shall retire and grow mushrooms. I’ve simply put my money on it.”
“Doesn’t look a certainty to me,” replied Reeves cautiously. “One of the points I froze on to was that about Debrette being an old actor. Seemed to fit in with what Miss Leigh suggested. Ever seen Sybilla Attleton on the stage, sir?”
Macdonald shook his head. “Not I. Modern comedy gives me what Jenkins calls the proper pip.”
“Well, I’ve seen her, and I’d say she’s a hard-faced jane,” said Reeves darkly. “I rather fancy Mr. Burroughs as number one, with the funny stuff supplied by the wits of the leading lady. You look into it for yourself, sir. This Streaky Beaver sounds the goods to me—a real balmy penniless gutter-crawler who’s come down from touring companies to street crawling. Say if Mrs. A. employed him to show up and draw suspicion, while her gentleman friend got on with the job.”
“Who taught him to plaster like an expert?” asked Macdonald, “and what did he go back to the Belfry for last night?”
“Why, the suitcase, sir.”
“He hadn’t a nice large piece of brown paper and string on him,” complained Macdonald. “I rather like that chap Grenville. He’s got a constructive mind. Answer that phone for me.”
Reeves grinned as he put down the receiver.
“Park Village South speaking, sir. Mrs. Attleton’s come home, and would be pleased to see you. What did I say? She’s come to bail out Mr. Thomas Burroughs—Faithful and all that.”
“Wind-up, more likely, Reeves. You might do a little more combing out after Streaky Beaver.”
“If your hunch is right and his beaver’s gone west, it doesn’t look too good,” groaned Reeves. “We shall have to publish to-morrow morning and get the papers to find him for us. Did you hear how much money Mr. Attleton had on him when he left home, sir?”
“About £20, in treasury notes,” replied Macdonald. “Enough to give Beaver a run for his money but you’re going back on yourself; ten minutes ago you were arguing a brief in favour of Streaky Beaver as a harmless and much maligned innocent.”
“When I have a hunch and you have a different one, sir, it’s mine goes to the wall every time,” said Reeves.
Macdonald set out for Park Village South with feelings of very lively curiosity, human as well as professional. It was Sybilla Attleton’s dramatic reappearance which interested him most. What was the reason that she had thus suddenly come back from her retreat? An appeal from Mr. Thomas Burroughs, or a natural sense of the dramatic?
The door of the Attletons’ house was opened to him, not by the friendly faced Weller, but by an exceedingly smart maid in the smartest of organdie aprons over her black taffeta frock. One glance at her face and immaculately neat hair prepared Macdonald for her speech.
“Monsieur désire?”
No one but a Frenchwoman ever looked quite so perfect in a maid’s uniform.
“Mrs. Bruce Attleton.” He produced a card, and the Frenchwoman motioned to him to enter, closed the door behind him and led him through the fragrant conservatory, up the little state staircase, to a door on the extreme left which corresponded to the library door on the right. Having picked up a salver, the maid preceded him into the room, and Macdonald stood at the doorway and looked in. The room was papered in dull silver; candelabra of some silvery metal were on the walls, and silver bowls held tall purple irises. The floor was covered with a silvery-grey carpet, very light and silky in texture. The curtains and upholstery were of the same intense violet as the irises. Macdonald, standing at the door, felt that the whole scheme of “decor” was unreal, as though he were looking at some costly ballet set. Outside, the grey light of a March evening was closing in. Here the violet silk curtains were drawn across the long windows, their shot texture reflecting the pearly light which shone through nacre shades on the sconces.
The maid returned to the door, saying “Entrez, Monsieur,” and Macdonald advanced across the silken carpet, and bowed to the lady who sat on the couch before the cedar-wood fire.
A striking apparition was Sybilla Attleton, as thousands of playgoers testified. Her skin was dead white, like a powdered camellia. Her hair, intensely black and smooth as silk, was parted above the centre of the low, broad forehead, drawn behind the small ears, and dressed in a great knot low on the nape of the neck.
She looked up at Macdonald with grey eyes as expressionless as stone, surprisingly large and round beneath the pencilled arches of her black brows. Dressed in a tea gown of dead white satin, she lay back against her violet cushions, and stared at her visitor.
“Mrs. Attleton?”
“Yes, Chief Inspector. I am anxious to have an explanation of your visits to my household.”
(“So that’s going to be her line, is it?” said Macdonald to himself.)
With a wave of her hand she indicated a chair on her right, and turned her head to watch him as he sat. Macdonald had a feeling that he was acting a part in a carefully-staged production.—The curtain is raised to discover leading lady, c., detective, r., french windows up-stage. (“Tilburina, stark mad in white satin, her confidant, stark sane in blue suiting,” ran idiotically through his mind.)
“I can surely take it for granted that you have heard something of the reason of my investigations, madam,” he replied.
“I take nothing for granted at all,” she replied coldly. “When, on returning home after a much needed holiday, I find that Scotland Yard has been taking possession of my household, I do not expect my servants to supply adequate explanations. I look to the Inspector who has undertaken the inquiries.”
“Very good.” Macdonald returned stare for stare, trying to formulate an estimate of the personality behind that powdered mask. “Acting on information received” (he produced the good old tag with a certain satisfaction), “my department investigated premises known as The Belfry Studio in Notting Hill. A suitcase of Mr. Attleton’s was discovered in a cellar there, containing his passport and the usual luggage for a short holiday. Mr. Attleton, we learnt, was not at home, and he had not been to the hotel in Paris where he had booked rooms.”
He paused here, and watched for any sign of anxiety or emotion on the face of the woman beside him, but could read none. Almost expressionless, save for the slightest aspect of insolent scorn, she sat as still as a graven image, hardly breathing, it appeared, beneath the matt white draperies of her trailing gown.
“I regret that my narrative must be of a distressing character,” he continued formally, but because he was a very humane man Macdonald’s voice altered a little in pitch. This was the wife of the man whose poor remains had been taken from the boarded-up niche last night, and Macdonald felt a very human distaste from telling that story to his wife.
“Further investigation,” he continued, “resulted in a very ghastly discovery. A man’s body had been concealed in a niche in the walls of the Belfry Studio. I am sorry to say that we have every reason to believe that the remains are those of Mr. Bruce Attleton.”
As he ceased speaking, a crystal clock which stood upon the mantelpiece began to chime, tinkling out an intolerably long preamble of lucid notes, and then striking six with maddening leisureliness.
Still perfectly motionless, Sybilla Attleton raised her grey eyes to the clock face and stared at it. Macdonald realised that she was too good an actress to show any expression on her face against her will, and his eyes dropped to her hands. Half concealed by the long open sleeves of her gown, the white fists were clenched, the scarlet nails driven into her palms.
“What do you mean by telling me that you have every reason to believe that the body was Mr. Attleton’s? Could you not find anybody to identify him? Has he no friends, no servants, who could enlighten you?”
The deliberate voice, devoid of any feeling at all, took away from Macdonald the sense of discomfort which humanity had aroused in him. This woman, it seemed to him, was as devoid of feelings as the clear-speaking clock.
“Neither friends nor servants were able to enlighten us,” he replied quietly. “The only hope of identification was in the physique of torso and limbs. I got the masseur who had treated Mr. Attleton to assist us. In this man’s opinion—and I think his opinion is to be relied upon—the remains are those of Mr. Attleton. Other opinions, and measurements, reinforce this judgment. I am sorry, but I do not think there is any reasonable doubt about the identification.”
“You assume, then, that my husband was murdered?”
“I do not think that any other assumption is tenable for a moment.”
Quite suddenly Sybilla Attleton sat erect, her back quite straight, her magnificent shoulders squared, and she looked Macdonald full in the face.
“You have been very straight with me, Chief Inspector. I asked you for a clear statement, and you gave it, without beating about the bush. I will be straight with you in turn. Any murder is horrible and revolting. You have told me this horrible story with a minimum of horror—and I appreciate it. Understand this. I am shocked as I might be shocked if I had read such a story in a paper. It is a long time since I had any feelings of affection for Bruce. He killed all that. I am not complaining, nor posing as the injured wife, but don’t expect me to cry. Any tears I had to shed on his account were shed a long time ago—a very long time ago.”
She got up, and began to walk to and fro over the silken carpet, the train of her dress gliding soundlessly over it, like a snake in its ripples and undulations. Macdonald rose, too, and watched her, an almost unreasonable dislike overcoming him. Something of the Calvinism of his ancestors rose to the surface in him, and tried to condemn this marble-faced woman for every trait she showed, her lovely powdered face and exquisitely clad body, her red-tipped fingers and cruel blood-red mouth. He pulled himself up, and realised that he had let personal antipathy colour his outlook, and tried once again to be impartial.
“As the officer in charge of this investigation, madam, it is my duty to question you.”
She came to a halt in front of the fire, ceasing her restless pacing, much to Macdonald’s relief, and threw herself back into her corner of the sofa. “All right. Get on with it—but do, for heaven’s sake, get me a drink. I need it.”
It was not, as Macdonald said to himself, an unreasonable request, given the tension of the last few minutes, but the voice in which it was uttered, and the gesture of her hand to a cabinet by the wall, reinforced that feeling of acting in a drama. He went to the cabinet—an object of some ivory-like substance, edged and handled with some silvery metal, and found therein the usual bottles and shaker for cocktails. Mixing gin and bitter he thought to himself disgustedly “Gin! That about puts the lid on it,” and carried the glass to the lady on the sofa. Taking it from him, she swallowed it down and said:
“What do you want me to tell you? I don’t know one single thing that can help you.”
“You know the name Debrette, I think.”
The grey eyes met his own. “Yes, I know the name, but that is all. I don’t know the individual who answers to the name.”
“Will you tell me, please, how you know the name?”
Turning away from him she stared up at the clock.
“Some man calling himself Debrette rang up and asked for my husband once or twice. He was a foreigner, apparently, but would never give me any idea of his business. Then—he wrote to me.”
She paused and Macdonald waited without a word until she chose to continue.
“I told you, just now, that there was no longer any affection between my husband and myself. He has long ceased to care for me, and bestowed his attentions elsewhere. I knew that quite well. I am not a long-suffering woman, Chief Inspector. I intended to divorce my husband when I could get the evidence—but he was clever. I did not care to submit to the degradation of employing a private agent. I waited for an opportunity. One day this man, Debrette, wrote to me. He said that he could obtain for me evidence of my husband’s infidelity if I made it worth his while. The sum he asked was £50, to be paid after he had delivered the evidence. I replied that I would pay the sum he asked when I received that evidence.”
“Where did you write?”
“To an address in Charing Cross Place. I have his letter. You can see it. Then, when I was away, I received a letter that astonished me. I had given my address to no one, and had taken trouble that no one should have any idea where I was going, and yet this man Debrette wrote to me where I was staying in the New Forest. He said this time that if I sent a trustworthy agent to the Belfry Studio in Notting Hill on the night of March 26th—last night—I should get the evidence I wanted.”
“And now we’re coming to Mr. Thomas Burroughs,” said Macdonald to himself.
“I told you that I was astonished. I had no idea how the creature got my address, but one thing seemed evident. His agency—or whatever it is—was obviously competent in finding out what he wanted to know, else he would not have discovered my address. I assumed that he knew what he was talking about. I did ask a friend to go to the Belfry last night.”
Her eyes met Macdonald’s again, and this time there was some expression in them. Macdonald, of all men the least susceptible to a charm like Sybilla Attleton’s, thought her eyes were like the big grey marbles he had played with at school, but what was the look in them now? Inquiry—to see how he was taking the story?
“And your friend’s name?” he inquired stolidly. She shook her head. “No. I won’t tell you that, not until I have seen him.”
Macdonald sat and stared at her in his turn, quite calmly, pondering over his next move. At last he decided, and went on, “It is probable that I need not trouble you for it. A Mr. Thomas Burroughs was arrested in the grounds of the Belfry last night.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth, but the consternation on her face struck Macdonald as a cleverly assumed mask. (“From the theatrical point of view, she knows her stuff,” he admitted to himself.)
“Arrested—but why?”
“For various reasons. In the first place Mr. Burroughs was apparently seeking to enter a building in which a murder had recently been committed, and he sought to enter by the one place at which it was possible to break in. When challenged by the man on duty, Mr. Burroughs violently attacked the man who challenged him. Arrest was inevitable after that. Asked by the superintendent to give an account of his reasons for visiting the Belfry premises, Mr. Burroughs refused any explanation at all, and has persisted in that refusal.”
“His reason for doing so is now obvious to you,” rejoined Mrs. Attleton calmly. “He would not let me down. He could not give you any explanation without involving me in it.”
“The explanation which you have given involves a good deal in addition to yourself,” said Macdonald dryly. “I think your wisest course would be to give me an account of your own movements since you left home last Wednesday week.”
Mrs. Attleton studied him once again with eyes that were now not only inquiring, but slightly pathetic. Macdonald’s immobile face gave nothing away, but in his mind he said to himself, “And if you think you can put that sort of stuff across me, you’ve got a lot to learn, Sybilla Attleton.”