Neil Rockingham was not slow to act once he had made up his mind. He had determined to tell the whole story to the police, but being a punctilious and thoughtful man, he did his best to get into touch with Sybilla Attleton before he took any action. Here he was quite unsuccessful, being told by Weller that Mrs. Attleton was out of town, motoring, and had left no address. Miss Leigh was at her club—the Junior Minerva. Having dispensed this information, Weller himself inquired for news of Mr. Attleton. Had Mr. Rockingham seen him in Paris, and could he suggest a date for his return? Mr. Attleton’s lawyers were anxious to get into touch with him. Rockingham regretted his inability to give any news, and asked for the address of Todburys—Attleton’s lawyers.
This call completed, Rockingham succumbed to an impulse to call up Mr. Thomas Burroughs. He also was out of town, motoring, having left no address.
Rockingham’s third call was to the Junior Minerva, where he was put through to Elizabeth Leigh, who talked to him from her bedroom, not being addicted to the vice of early rising.
“I say, I’m terribly pleased with myself. I won the prize for my corpse-disposal do. It was a huge success,” she burst out, on learning who was speaking to her. “We had a really lively argument over it. Can you tell me how long it takes for a body to turn to dust if it’s buried in a…”
“No, I can’t!” shouted Rockingham. “Look here, Elizabeth. Can you tell me where Sybilla is? It’s really important.”
“Feeling like that? Who’d have believed it? Sorry, my dear, and all that, but I can’t tell you. I really can’t. I don’t know. Sybilla does these rest-cure jaunts. She’s probably having her face lifted, but don’t say I said so. Can you tell me where Bobby Grenville’s got to? It’s the frozen mitt for him next time we meet. I’ve rung him up three times, and he wasn’t in. That’s more than flesh and blood will stand, you know.”
Replacing the receiver, Rockingham next attacked the firm of Todbury, Wether & Goodchild in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He had no sooner mentioned his name to Mr. Todbury than that worthy gentleman piped up. “I’m very glad to speak to you, my dear sir, very glad. Can you give me the present address of my client, Mr. Bruce Attleton? The matter is really pressing—”
“I’m sure it is,” replied Rockingham. “I don’t know where he is, and as I’m thinking of asking the police to find out, perhaps I had better come to see you first.”
Mr. Todbury, a learned-looking gentleman of seventy, was much put about by Rockingham’s tidings in their subsequent interview. He hummed and hawed, being completely out of his depth, but he deprecated calling in the police prematurely. Perhaps there was some explanation…
Rockingham cut him short. “Perhaps there is, but after my experience of last night, I don’t feel disposed to wait until the explanation is forced on me. By the way, you said that you wanted Attleton yourself.”
“Just so.” The lawyer fiddled with his pince-nez. “You may have heard of Mr. Adam Marsham—the head of Mr. Attleton’s family—his great uncle in short. He is a very old man and his health is precarious. I might say his death is imminent. He has expressed a wish to see Mr. Attleton.”
“Well, I’m afraid his wish can’t be gratified just at present,” said Rockingham impatiently. “In the meantime, can you give me any advice about approaching the police—because, whatever you think, my mind is made up.”
Here Mr. Todbury was unexpectedly helpful, so that Rockingham, instead of walking into Vine Street Police Station, as he had intended, went to New Scotland Yard instead, and was shown into a small office overlooking the Embankment, where a long, lean-faced Chief Inspector named Macdonald listened patiently to his tale of woe.
Rockingham made his story fairly clear, though Macdonald stopped him once or twice and advised him to keep to the facts of which he had first-hand knowledge, since other people could add their versions later. Rockingham, accustomed, perhaps, as a successful dramatist, to an audience more easily impressed than this long-jawed Scot, had a curious feeling that he was being stripped, mentally if not physically. He was still in a state of excitement concerning his experience of the evening before, and his narrative was not as direct as it would have been had he felt his usual calm self.
Macdonald, having asked a few cogent questions, summed up as follows:
Mr. Attleton had expressed strong irritation over the communications of a man named Debrette, who, in Rockingham’s estimation, might be a blackmailer. Having booked a room at the Hotel Bristol, in Paris, Mr. Attleton left his house in London on Wednesday, March 18th, with the avowed intention of going to Paris. He had not arrived at the Bristol according to plan and had not been heard of since, as far as could be ascertained. His suitcase had been found in the Notting Hill studio where Debrette had been tenant until recently. When Mr. Rockingham went to that studio the previous evening, an assault had been made on his companion, the present tenant, by a person unknown.
“That’s all straightforward,” said Macdonald, as though the history related to him had been the most normal affair. “To get one point quite clear—has anybody in the Attleton family seen Debrette?”
“Not to my knowledge. I saw him just the once, when he spoke to Attleton. Grenville saw him, last Friday evening, and he seems to be quite well known in the neighbourhood of his studio.”
“Good. Now what was the reasoning that led you to believe—or imagine—that Mr. Attleton was being blackmailed by Debrette? Why not assume that he was being dunned for a debt which he didn’t mean to pay?”
Rockingham mused for a while before he answered.
“Attleton generally pays his bills,” he replied. “In any case, if it had been a matter of an ordinary creditor, I believe he’d have told me about it. It struck me that there was fear, as well as anger, behind his agitation.”
“In addition to that, were you not aware that there was some point on which Mr. Attleton was susceptible to blackmail, sir? Half truths are no good to us here, you know.”
Rockingham moved uncomfortably in his chair. The manner of the Chief Inspector was courteous, his “sir” reassuring, but there was a relentless look in his eye.
“There was something of the kind,” he replied uncertainly. “Damn it, this is pretty beastly. What I tell you will be regarded as a confidence, I take it?”
“Certainly, as far as is compatible with the process of the law,” replied Macdonald. “The very fact that you are sitting there, informing this department that your friend has disappeared, is an indication that you consider the police have a part to play. We can’t do our part with goggles on, nor yet rose-tinted glasses.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the facts as I see them,” replied Rockingham. “When Attleton married, nearly ten years ago, he had made a considerable name over his first two novels. He also made a lot of money over them. His early promise has not borne fruit—and his wife is not over sympathetic concerning failure—or only partial success. As her husband became less prominent in the public eye, Mrs. Attleton became more so—as you probably know. It did not make for domestic felicity.” Rockingham’s face flushed uncomfortably, and he looked appealingly at Macdonald. “Need I dot all the I’s and cross all the T’s?” he said. “Attleton’s my friend. I like him and trust him. It seems a poor sort of friendship to spread myself over his failings.”
“It may be the truest friendship in the long run,” replied Macdonald. “What it amounts to is this, I suppose. That Mr. and Mrs. Attleton went their own ways, and he sought elsewhere the sympathy that was not forthcoming at home?”
“That’s about it,” replied Rockingham, and a gleam of humour showed in his troubled face, “but it’s no use asking me for the address of the sympathiser, because I don’t know it.”
“That must be a comfort to you,” said Macdonald dryly, “because I should certainly have asked for it. Next, has Mr. Attleton any private means, apart from his earnings as a writer?”
“None,” replied Rockingham. “I know that for a fact.”
“And you also probably know that a household which is presumably run by the wife’s money is not a very gratifying affair for the husband,” went on Macdonald, and Rockingham nodded his head, while one eyebrow twitched an acknowledgment of the other’s shrewdness. He was beginning to like Macdonald.
“One can also assume, I take it, that Mr. Attleton had no wish to fall out with his wife to the extent of leaving the mixed joys of their joint household? Quite. Well, I admit that the situation presents possibilities to the blackmailer, assuming that the wife was still sufficiently concerned to be jealous.”
“She’d be like a raging fury if she knew that Bruce…” Rockingham stopped abruptly, but Macdonald merely nodded.
“The situation’s not exactly a new one,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that for the moment. Now about Mr. Attleton’s relations. Has he parents living, or brothers or sisters?”
“No. His parents both died before the war. He quarrelled with his only brother—Guy. He died in Paris about a year ago. A cousin who recently turned up from Australia also died, only a few days ago. Attleton’s singularly badly off for relatives. Barring an ancient uncle, or great uncle, who is senile, he appears to have neither kith nor kin.”
“How long have you known him?”
“Ten years—rather more. I met him first at the Authors’ Club, just before his marriage. We’ve been pretty close friends ever since.”
“I take it that he hasn’t many intimate friends?”
“Why do you assume that?”
“Because you haven’t mentioned them. If he had any particular crony, you’d have gone to him before coming to me. The only other man you’ve mentioned is Mr. Grenville, whom you speak of as considerably junior to you and Mr. Attleton. Where does Mr. Grenville come in?”
“He wants to marry Elizabeth Leigh—Attleton’s ward. He’s been haunting the house for months.”
“Why doesn’t he marry her, then?”
The dryness of the tone set Rockingham chuckling and he replied, “Elizabeth’s a minor, and can’t marry without her guardian’s consent—which isn’t forthcoming at the moment.”
“I see. Any fortune involved?”
“Hardly a fortune. A competence. A few hundred a year, I gather.”
Macdonald’s next question went off at a tangent.
“Why did you hit on Mr. Grenville to rout out Debrette?”
“First, he’d already heard of Debrette and questioned me about him,” replied Rockingham. “I told you the incident of the telephone call. Now, while I very much wanted to find out where Debrette lived, I didn’t want to go investigating him myself, because the chap had seen me with Attleton. I thought that if he saw me near his own quarters, or in a pub he frequented, he might get wind up and bolt. Then Grenville is a shrewd fellow. He’s done a good deal of inquiry work along journalistic lines, and he’s intelligent. Where I went wrong was in trusting him to go so far and no farther—but as things have turned out, I suppose it was all to the good that his curiosity got the better of him.”
“It appears so. You and he were the only people present when Attleton was told about that phone call? There weren’t any other visitors?”
“Not just then. A man named Burroughs had been there during the evening, but he had just left.”
“Another friend of Mr. Attleton’s?”
“Of his wife’s, more correctly speaking, but he’s a pretty frequent visitor.”
“And Mrs. Attleton is away?”
“She is—the deuce knows where. It was a pretty problem for me, Inspector. If you’d found out what I did, what the blazes would you have done?”
“Just what you have done. It was the only possible thing to do. Mr. Grenville ought to have informed us as soon as he discovered that suitcase. A man doesn’t leave his passport in an empty studio for any normal reason. A suitcase conceivably. A passport, no.”
“That’s what I felt about it,” said Rockingham, “but I’d like to say this. Grenville may not appear to you to have acted with much wisdom, but he’s straight enough. I swear to that.”
“It’s always satisfactory to have a testimonial of good character, sir,” replied Macdonald equably. “A little common sense is a desirable asset, also. Can you tell me this? Why did Mr. Attleton object to Mr. Grenville marrying his ward? Anything against his character?”
“No. Nothing. Miss Leigh is only nineteen, and Attleton has theories about marrying in haste and repenting at leisure. The girl’s only been out of school a year or less. Attleton likes Grenville all right. I think he’d have agreed to the marriage if he hadn’t been preoccupied with this business of Debrette, whatever it is.”
“I see. Well, I think I’ve got all the data that’s immediately necessary, sir. I shall find you at The Small House I take it, if I want further information?”
“Yes—or at the Authors’ Club. I haven’t a resident servant, so if I’m out the phone won’t be answered after midday. I shall be in this evening, anyway.”
“Good. I may get Mr. Attleton’s servant to go through the contents of the suitcase and see if anything’s missing. Meantime, I’ll have that studio looked into.”
Rockingham drew a breath of relief.
“Thank the Lord I’ve got it off my chest!” he said. “I had the hell of a night wondering what I ought to do. I loathed the idea of handing Attleton’s affairs over to a police department.”
Macdonald shrugged his shoulders.
“You might have found yourself in a very queer corner if those susceptibilities had guided you,” he replied.
When Rockingham had gone, the Chief Inspector made a précis of his notes and considered them for some time. He then spent a short time on certain works of reference which gave a few precise details about Bruce Attleton, his wife, the well-known actress, and about Neil Rockingham, dramatist.
Armed with which information, he went and reported the matter to Colonel Wragley, the Assistant Commissioner.
“It’s a funny story, Macdonald,” grunted the latter. “Open to various interpretations.”
“Yes, sir. Possible murder of Attleton by Debrette or Debrette by Attleton. Possible dirty work on the part of the inquiring Mr. Robert Grenville. There’s only his own statement to prove that that suitcase was found in the studio cellar. Also possible ingenious work on the part of defaulting guardian, getting away with his ward’s money while the going’s good. That’s an old story.”
“Seems a bit elaborate, with Debrette and all—and there’s one cogent point against it.” He pointed to a sentence in Macdonald’s notes, but the latter replied:
“I see a way out of that. However, I think the Belfry Studio and Mr. Robert Grenville are worth interviewing simultaneously.”
“What did you make of Mr. Neil Rockingham?”
“Difficult to size a man up when he’s on edge, as this chap was. He struck me as intelligent and reasonably straightforward. The only really silly thing he did was to put that journalist on to the track of Debrette. He ought to have turned it over to us if he suspected blackmail, or else have left it alone.”
“More men lose their heads over a threat of blackmail than for any other reason on this earth,” said Wragley. “Well, get down to it. You’d better find out if Debrette really exists.”
“Or existed,” corrected Macdonald. “I think that answers itself. He’s been seen to drink whisky in a pub. Mr. Grenville wouldn’t have dared to invent that. Too many witnesses of the conversation, sir.”
Macdonald, after leaving instructions to Inspector Jenkins to carry on with the job which he had been employed on before Rockingham turned up (a series of burglaries in the outer suburbs), got his car out, and, taking Detective Reeves with him, drove up to Park Village South. Here he saw Weller, and inquired about the time when Bruce Attleton had left home on the previous Wednesday.
“Mr. Rockingham is a bit worried because he can’t get into touch with your master, and his lawyers are bothered by his absence, so they want us to find him,” explained Macdonald cheerfully. “Our lost property department is the most popular section of our organisation.”
Weller smiled. “Yes, sir. I shall be glad when you’ve got into touch with him. Very disturbing, all these inquiries and not being able to give any answer. Mr. Attleton left here on Wednesday morning last, shortly after ten o’clock. I packed his suitcase the previous evening—just a change of clothes and a dinner jacket, etc., seeing he only meant to be away for a week or ten days. He left by taxi—I called one up from the rank myself—and he told the driver to go to Victoria, continental side. Folkestone-Boulogne he was travelling.”
“That’s just what I wanted to know,” said Macdonald. “The only other point is this. Did you call that taxi by phone, or go out and whistle up a crawler?”
“By phone, sir—the Gloucester Gate rank.”
“Thanks. I hope I shall soon have some news for you,” said Macdonald, and hastened out to instruct Reeves to follow up the taxi report.
“You oughtn’t to have any difficulty over finding the taximan who took Attleton to Charing Cross—or wherever he did take him,” said Macdonald. “Then, if you go to Leon’s, in Bond Street, you can get a photograph of him. There was a good one of theirs in the Writers Who’s Who. Carry on with that. Railway stations are your long suit.”
Reeves grinned and departed—a good man at his job, as Macdonald knew well. The Chief Inspector himself drove on to Notting Hill, where he had made an appointment over the phone with Grenville before he left Scotland Yard.
Arrived at the Belfry Studio—as The Morgue was described in the house-agents’ registers, Macdonald was admitted by Grenville. Before he gave much attention to the building (and he was so accustomed to queer buildings that Macdonald took this one as all in the day’s work) he studied Robert Grenville unobtrusively. A hefty fellow, about five feet ten in height, with powerful square shoulders which showed their muscular development through the loose tweed coat he wore, and a square, cheerful face, comely in a rustic fashion. There was aggressiveness in the tilt of his jaw and humour in his eyes, but in addition Macdonald noted a shrewdness and quickness of glance in those rather wide-set eyes, and a tendency to look all round him as though he were suspicious of the very walls. A young man who could look silly if he chose, and yet had all his wits about him, Macdonald decided, of country stock and rearing, to judge by his physique, and yet city trained—too quick and alert for the countryman.
Grenville in his turn stared at Macdonald and summed him up. “Scot to his finger tips. Pragmatic and prosy may be. A fine upstanding fella’, in good training, hard as nails. Reckon he’d enjoy clapping the darbies on anybody.”
Aloud, Grenville said, “Well, so old Rockingham’s spilled the beans. Probably wasting your time. Here’s my choice abode. What d’you think of it?”
He threw open the inner door of the porch with a dramatic gesture, but got no exclamation from Macdonald. His steady grey eyes roaming round the building, he gave no sign of surprise. “J’en ai vu bien d’autres,” he said with a shrug.
“I bet you have,” grinned Grenville, thereby showing Macdonald that he was not unacquainted with idiomatic French. “Still, this isn’t bad for a high-class residential neighbourhood, what?”
“Not at all bad.” Macdonald’s eyes went afresh over the littered floor and came to rest on the grand piano in the apse. Then his gravity gave way, and he fairly laughed.
“Lord! What a mess!” he exclaimed, and seeing his face then, Grenville saw that the long-legged “Presbyterian of a chap” was not merely a police automaton, but a human being like himself.
“Is that your bed?” inquired Macdonald. “If so, let’s sit on it and get down to the story.”
Grenville was an excellent witness. He told his story well, keeping events in order, and making the whole thing “come alive,” and Macdonald, who sat smoking a pipe, let him go straight on without interruption. At the conclusion of the narrative he said:
“At present the only people connected with this case who have actually seen this Debrette are you and Mr. Rockingham, and your view of him was a snapshot affair. Still, give me your impression of him as fully as you can.”
Grenville sat forward, his fingers caressing the large bruise on his forehead which was now stained a lively purple hue.
“He was a neatly-built chap, I should say a bit shorter than myself, and several stone lighter. Neat on his feet. Beard and gig-lamps as I told you, and a lot of hair—fuzzy and curly. Look here, I’ve got a dotty sort of idea. I’ve kept it to myself so far, but since old Rockingham’s lost his nerve and gone pouring out his woes to you, I might as well go all frank and candid, too. I told you how I saw the chap—in silhouette against the light, and only for a second or two at that. Something in his build reminded me of Bruce Attleton—and something in his voice, too. Sounds idiotic, I dare say, but there it is.”
“Quite interesting,” said Macdonald, “so when you saw that suitcase you weren’t so flabbergasted as you might have been? You didn’t tell Rockingham this notion?”
“Not I. He’d have gone up in smoke. Stiff old stick is Neil. Reminds me of the Head of my Prep school. Besides, it opens up some nasty avenues.”
“Such as?”
“Glory! Don’t put on the innocent abroad air to me. Don’t suit you. Look here, Neil R. told you he’d seen Debrette with Attleton, didn’t he? Well then, they’re not one and the same. There was a Debrette. Wherefore if the chap I saw was Attleton, it means he’d togged himself up to impersonate Debrette. If that’s so, I say again there was a Debrette—used to be. Had been. Tense past historic. Perfect.”
“I see. If that story’s got any punch to it, why did Mr. Attleton leave his suitcase here to give the show away?”
“Well, there’s various ways of looking at it. That suitcase is a noticeable affair, opulent, and all that. Got Attleton’s name and private brand on it, so that it’s nice and easy to pick out in the Customs—Douane—Dogano—Bagaglio Spedito in transito and all that. It’s covered with gaudy labels, too, Meurice, Ritz-Astoria and so forth. Not the sort of bag I’d carry about in the street if I didn’t want to be noticed—nor yet put in a taxi. Better to come back one evening with a nice large sheet of brown paper and some string, and take it away under cover, No adequate paper here. No string. Lots of bits and pieces, but not suitable.”
“Quite. An idea. Now funny stuff apart, Mr. Grenville, can you really imagine Mr. Attleton murdering Debrette and then bolting—in such a manner that he could never hope to show his head in any civilised country again?”
“I don’t know.” There was a wicked gleam in Grenville’s aggressive blue eyes. “I’m not murderous by disposition, but if I ever chose to murder anybody, I’d hit on a blackmailer to start on. Dirty swine! Moreover, if Bruce Attleton did do anything of the kind, he’s had bad luck. How was he to know that old Rockingham’d set me sleuthing just when he was getting busy? Another point—most chaps who’d had a glass of whisky chucked on their faces by way of welcome would take care not to ask for another. Stay away, in fact. I’m not like that. I came again, and took on the tenancy of this desirable abode when a man might well have believed it’d stand vacant until the housebreakers took over. I look at this all round, you know.” He faced Macdonald truculently. “It’s your job to see people don’t run amok, and since you’re on the job I’ve got to be straight with you—for my own sake—but there’s two points of view.”
“I agree with you in part,” said Macdonald. “You’re wise to recognise that frankness is a synonym for wisdom so far as you’re concerned, just now.”
“Gosh, I’m not entirely a mug!” protested Grenville. “Old Neil R’s eyes nearly blew out of his head when I told him I’d found that suitcase just below there. You promptly ask yourself, ‘Did he find it there—or did he plant it?’ Nothing like understanding one another, is there?”
“Nothing,” agreed Macdonald politely. “Meantime, let’s go and have a look in that cellar.”
“Right.” Grenville sprang to his feet with alacrity. “Not that there’s anything interesting to see. I’ve looked. Concrete floor, not dug up or anything.”
“Concrete floors aren’t easy to dig up,” said Macdonald, “and most men accustomed to good living aren’t much of a hand with picks. Hullo! What’s that?”
They had reached the “offices,” the bathroom and kitchenette annexe when a clatter of ironmongery sounded below them, a prolonged rattle of pails and trays which echoed weirdly in the space below.
Grenville sprang forward with a shout.
“Hell! The blighter’s come back and sprung my booby trap. Down here. Lor! What a lark!”
He sprang forward down the stone steps which led from a door in the corner of the room, with Macdonald close at his heels. Daylight filtered in through a little unglazed window in a little area recess, where dank ivy pushed its shoots across bars which had been broken and twisted awry. Pails there were, a tin tray and scattered fire-irons, odd bits of coke and coal, old tins and a variety of other rubbish, but no sign of any living intruder to account for the collapse of the booby-trap.
“Damn and blast!” burst out Robert Grenville, “the blighter’s hopped it again. Hi! If we legged it out of the back door we might…” He turned violently and collided with Macdonald, who saved him from collapse on the one-time coal heap by a powerful, but not gentle, arm.
“Too late,” said the Chief Inspector calmly. “If there were any one here, he’s had lashings of time to get away. You’d like me to be quite frank with you in return for your frankness, I take it?”
“Yes, of course!” Grenville’s nose fairly twitched with eagerness.
“Good. The most helpful thing you can do now is to go home and stay there. I shall have this place searched and other matters attended to, but I’m afraid you can’t help. Got that?”
“Marching orders? Damn it, you’re no sport. There’s a lot of things I could show you here—”
“I’ve no doubt you could, but I promise you I shan’t miss much on my own account. The one thing you can do is to phone the Yard for me, and tell them to send another man along here to help.”
“Ah!” Resentment shone in Grenville’s eyes. “You don’t fancy being left here alone, Scotty! Cold feet?”
“Definitely,” said Macdonald placidly, pulling out a note-book. “Pity there’s no phone here, to match the other amenities. Just give this message word for word as I write it.” A moment later he tore out the sheet and handed it to Grenville. “Did you bust those bars yourself when you first got in here, Samson?”
Grenville’s eyes followed the Yard man’s to the broken grating. “More or less,” he admitted. “I’m the whale of a chap for moving things. Look here, Lord Trenchard etc., let me stay and help search. I’ll look after you, I will really.”
“Git!” said Macdonald, pointing to the stairs. “This turn may prove to be funny, or it may not, but you’re going to be conspicuous by your absence. Up the stairs, laddie, and quick march!”
Still protesting, Grenville climbed the stone stairs to the “bathroom,” and Macdonald saw him to the door of the porch.
“Now go home, and stay there!” he said severely. “No Sherlocking on your own account. If you make yourself a nuisance to me by not being where I want you when I want you, I’ll have an all-stations call sent out, and have you in jug by the evening. No smokes. No drinks. It’s dull, I tell you straight!”
“Fer—r-r-rightfulness. Thr-r-reats, and me the star turn witness! All right, Mr. Elder of the Meeting but I’ll tell you this. If I meet that Debrette round the corner, I’ll bash his ugly face in so he’ll be past identification for weeks!”
“Do,” said Macdonald, and shut the heavy door.