I
AFTER that one moment of introspection, Anthony headed his car for Fleet Street. At twenty-five minutes past eleven he burst into the room of The Owl’s editor.
The editor and his secretary were rather close together. The shining golden hair of the secretary was noticeably disordered.
‘Er—hallo!’ said Hastings.
Anthony said: ‘Get hold of private ’tec called Pellett; 4 Grogan’s Court. Find out what he knows about the ownership of The Searchlight, The St Stephen’s Gazette, and Vox Populi. He was commissioned for same thing some time ago by J. Masterson. Never mind how much he costs, I’ll pay. If Pellett doesn’t know anything, find out yourself. In any case give me the answer as soon as is damn well possible. Got that? Right. ’Night. ’Night, Miss Warren.’ The door banged behind him.
Margaret Warren snatched some papers from her table and followed. She caught him in the entrance hall.
‘Mr Gethryn!’ she said, breathless. ‘Here’s the report—asked—for—inquest. Just finished—typed. You may—want it.’
Anthony raised his hat. ‘Miss Warren, you’re wonderful.’ He took the papers from her hand. ‘Many thanks. Hope I don’t seem rude. Very busy. Good-night—and good luck.’ He shook her hand and was gone.
Slowly, Margaret went back to her editor. He was found pacing the room, scratching his head in bewilderment.
‘Yes, darling, he was a bit strange, wasn’t he?’ Margaret said.
‘He was.’ Hastings spoke with conviction. ‘I’ve known that man for fifteen years and I’ve never seen him all hot and bothered like that before. He’s usually calmest when he’s got most to do.’
Margaret patted his cheek. ‘But, you silly baby, he wasn’t like that because of the work he was doing. It was something much, much more important than that—or I’m a Dutchman!’
Hastings was alarmed. ‘Not that! Anything but that! What was it, then?’
‘A woman, of course. The woman! Heaven, am I tied to an idiot?’
‘Just you wait, wench, until I’ve seen Mr Pellett!’ said Hastings.
II
From Fleet Street, Anthony drove straight to the Regency, over whose great frontage flaring placards and violently winking electric signs announced that the great, the incomparable Vanda was gracing with her art this mecca of vaudeville. As he reached it the audience were streaming out from its great glass doors.
He anticipated difficulty, and approached the stage door-keeper with a five-pound note and broken English. He was, it seemed, Prince Nicolas Something-or-the-other-vitch. He was oh! so great a friend of the great, the incomparable Vanda—even a relation. He must, it was of an imperativeness, see her. Further, the good keeper of the door really must accept this so little piece of paper.
The good keeper did; then proceeded laboriously to explain that Vanda was not in the theatre. Hadn’t been there at all that day. And there ’adn’t been half a row about it, neither! She had wired to say she couldn’t appear. Why? Gawd perhaps knew; certainly nobody else did. When would she reappear? The keeper of the door reely couldn’t say. P’r’aps to-morrer. P’r’aps never. Good-night to you, sir.
Anthony went to his flat, surprised his man, and ordered a drink, a bath, fresh clothing, a drink, and supper.
At the meal, his hunger surprised him. Then he remembered that since the lightest of lunches he had eaten nothing. Having made up the deficiency, he lit a cigar, sat in a chair by the open window and read through, not once but many times, the typed report of the inquest.
Somewhere a clock struck two. Anthony put down the report, clasped his head with his hands, and plunged into thought. Presently he found his mind to be wandering strictly against orders—wandering in a direction forbidden. He swore, got to his feet, and crossed to the writing-table. At this he employed himself with pen and paper for more than an hour.
At last he put down his pen and read through what he had written. The clock struck four. He finished his reading, said: ‘H’mm! Those blasted gaps!’ and went to bed.
III
He had barely two hours’ sleep, for by a quarter past six he was breaking his fast. At twenty minutes past seven he was driving his car slowly through London.
This morning he took the journey to Marling slowly: the pointer of his speedometer touched eighteen as he left the outskirts of town, and remained there. For Anthony was thinking.
For the first third of the journey his thoughts were incoherently redundant. They were of a certain scene in which A. R. Gethryn had lost his temper; had behaved, in short, abominably, and this to the one person in the world for whose opinion he cared.
It cost him an effort greater than might be supposed to wrench his thoughts out of this gloomy train, but at last he succeeded.
This puzzle of his—some of it fitted now, only there were several idiotic pieces which, unfitted, made nonsense of the rest. He flogged his unwilling brain for the rest of the journey.
He backed the Mercedes into the garage of the Bear and Key at twenty-five minutes to ten. By five minutes to the hour he was walking with his long, lazy stride up the winding drive of Abbotshall.
Drawing near the house he saw that the great oaken door stood open, letting a shaft of hot, clean, morning sunlight paint a golden track across the polished floor of the wide hall. He entered, flung his hat on to a chair, and turned in the direction of the stairs.
He had set foot upon the third step when from behind and below him came a noise—a rasping roar of a noise. To his overtired brain and overheated imagination it seemed a noise evil and inhuman. He swung round. The hall was as he had left it, empty of all save furniture. He descended the three steps; stood looking about him; then walked towards the front door. Before he could reach it, the noise came again, louder this time. The same roaring, rasping sound. But this time it had for a tail a snuffling choke which came, obviously, from the throat of a man.
Anthony laughed at himself. Noiselessly, he retraced his steps, passed the foot of the stairs, and halted outside the door opposite that of the study. It stood ajar, giving him a glimpse of the little room which he remembered as being the lair of the butler.
Anthony waited. In a moment came the roar again, now recognisable as half-cough, half-sneeze. Anthony pushed the door wide. Facing it, huddled in a chair, was the butler. His grey head was on a level with his knees. In one claw of a hand he clutched a bandanna handkerchief with which he dabbed every now and then at his streaming eyes.
Anthony stood unmoving in the doorway. Presently another spasm shook the old man.
‘Bad cold, that,’ Anthony said loudly.
There was no answer. The coughing gasps went on; gradually grew less frequent. The thin shoulders ceased to shake.
‘Bad cold, that,’ said Anthony again.
This time he got an effect. Poole leapt to his feet, fumbling hurriedly to hide in a tail pocket the capacious handkerchief.
‘Your pardon, sir!’ he gasped. ‘Did you want me, sir?’
‘I only remarked that yours was a bad cold.’
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you. Not that it’s a cold, sir, exactly. It’s this hay-fever. And very troublesome it is, sir, for an old fellow like me!’
‘Must be.’ Anthony was sympathetic. ‘D’you have these attacks many times a day?’
‘I used to, sir. But this summer it does seem to be improving, sir. Only takes me every now and then, as you might say.’ The old man’s voice showed gratitude for this concern about his ailment.
But Anthony’s interest in hay-fever was not yet abated. ‘This the first bad fit you’ve had for some time?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir. Quite a while since I was so bad, sir. It didn’t trouble me at all yesterday, sir.’
Anthony drew nearer. ‘D’you happen to remember,’ he said slowly, ‘whether you—er—sneezed like that at all on the evening your master was killed?’
Poole exhibited agitation. ‘Whether I—the master—’ the thin hands twisted about each other. ‘Forgive, me, sir—I—I can’t remember, sir. I’m a foolish old fellow—and any mention of—of that terrible night sort of seems to—to upset me, sir.’ He passed a hand across his forehead. ‘No, sir, I really can’t remember. I’m an old man, sir. My memory’s not what it was. Not what it was—’
But Anthony was listening no longer. He was, in fact, no longer there to listen. He had suddenly turned about and sprung into the hall. As Mr Poole said later in the servant’s hall: ‘I’d never of believed such a lazy-looking gentleman could of moved so quick. Like the leap of a cat, it was!’
Had he followed into the hall, he would have had more matter for gossip. For by the door of the verandah Anthony stood clutching, none too gently, the skinny shoulder of Robert Belford—the man-servant he had christened ‘Ferret-face’.
‘A word in your pointed ear, my friend,’ he said, and tightened his grip. ‘Now where shall we chat? The garden?’ He pulled his trembling captive, whose face was a dirty grey with fear, out through the verandah and on to the terrace.
‘Suppose,’ Anthony said, dropping his hand, ‘suppose you tell me why in hell you listen to my conversations with other people.’
‘I wasn’t listening.’ The man’s voice was sullen, yet at the same time shrill with fear.
‘Why take the trouble?’ Anthony asked plaintively. ‘Besides, it’s wicked to tell stories, Belford. Wicked! Unhappy is the burden of a fib. We will, I think, get farther from our fellows and you shall tell me all about everything. I’ve been watching you, you know.’
With these last words, true but intentionally misleading, a black shadow of hopelessness seemed to fall upon the prisoner.
‘All right,’ he mumbled wearily, and followed meekly, but with dragging feet, while his captor led the way down the steps and across the lawn and into the little copse which faced the eastern end of the house.
As he walked, Anthony thought hard. He was something more than mystified. What in heaven, earth or hell was this little person going to tell him? Another old boot turning into a salmon, what? Father Gethryn, confessor! Well, every little helps.
When the house was hidden from them by the trees, he stopped. He sat on a log and waved Belford to another. Then he lit his pipe and waited. To his surprise, the little servant, after clearing his throat, began at once. Much of his nervousness seemed to drop from him, though he still looked like a man in fear.
‘I’m rather glad this has happened, sir,’ he said, ‘because I was going to come to you anyway.’
‘You were, were you?’ thought Anthony. ‘Now why?’ But he went on smoking.
‘I couldn’t of stood it much longer, sir, reely I couldn’t! And ever since you stopped that great brute of a sergeant from popping it across me, sir, I’ve been tryin’ to make up me mind to tell you.’ He paused as if expecting an answer; but getting none, plunged on.
‘I wasn’t upstairs all the time that night, like I said I was at the inquest!’ Again he paused.
Anthony went on smoking. Here, if he wanted the story quickly, silence was best.
Belford swallowed hard. His face, as he went on speaking, turned from muddy grey to dead white.
‘I—I come downstairs, sir, after I’d finished in the master’s room. And when I got to the ’all I heard old Poole starting on one of them sneezing’ fits. And—and, sir, I went into the study and I saw the master lyin’ there on the rug—just like they found ’im! And—and I shut that door behind me quick—old Pooley was still coughin’ and chokin’ his ’ead off—and I nipped back up the stairs, sir. It’s God’s truth, sir! It is—’
This time the pause was so long that Anthony knew speech was necessary.
‘Are you trying to explain,’ he said, ‘that though you did go into the study that night you didn’t have anything to do with the murder?’
‘Yes, sir, yes.’ The man’s eagerness was pathetic. ‘That’s just it, sir! I didn’t have nothink to do with it, sir, nothink! So ’elp me God!’
‘What did you go into the room for?’ Anthony shot out the question. ‘Must’ve been for something you didn’t want found out or Poole’s hay-fever wouldn’t have been so important to you?’ The logic, he knew, was faulty. But the thrust told.
Belford hung his head. ‘Yes, sir, it was what you say. I thought—one of the girls told me—the master was in the billiard-room. And I knew as ’e always kept money somewheres in the study. I was goin’ to pin—steal it if I could. I was desprit, sir. Desprit!’
Anthony was puzzled. ‘But if you came out without stealing anything, why didn’t you rouse the house when you saw Mr Hoode was dead?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Except that it all come as such a shock like—my sneaking in there while old Poole was sneezin’—and then finding—that, sir. You see, when I nipped out, the old man was still sneezin’ with ’is ’ead on his knees. And I knew as he hadn’t spotted me. And I bolted away to think. An’ the more I thought, the more I feels as if I couldn’t—hadn’t better like—tell anybody.
‘I can see, now, sir, ’ow blasted silly it were—me having done nothink wrong. But there it was, sir; I meant to tell, but as I’d gone in there to steal and ’ad sneaked in in the way I did—well, it made me feel as if they’d all jump on me immediate as the murderer. Specially as I never goes into the study in the ordinary way. You do see ’ow it was, don’t you, sir?’
‘I do,’ Anthony said. ‘But I also see that you’re a fool. A fool for not rousing everyone at once; a fool for not keeping quiet after you’d decided to say nothing about it.’
Belford’s little eyes opened wide. ‘But you—you were on to me, sir! You suspected me like—thought I was the murd’rer!’
Anthony shook his head. ‘Not really, Belford. You know, you looked too guilty to be true. I nabbed you just now because I don’t like eavesdroppers. Also because anything fishy in this house interests me at present.’
‘I may be a fool,’ cried Belford in heavy tones not without humour, ‘but I feel better now I’ve got it off my chest like. Reely I do, sir! I kept sayin’ to meself as how I wasn’t guilty of anythink, and yet I ’ad the conscience awful! I’ve bin trying to tell you for twenty-four hours, sir, but when I ’eard you askin’ Poole if ’e’d ’ad a ’tack of that hay-fever on the night the master was killed, I got frightened again and was goin’ to bolt. Only you copped me.’ He was silent a moment, then burst out: ‘Mr Deacon didn’t do it, sir. He couldn’t of! You know that, sir?’
Anthony did. But he wanted to turn this tragi-comic confession of nothing into evidence of importance, though he had but little hope of success.
‘What time,’ he asked with affected carelessness, ‘did you go into the study?’
‘I was only just in and out like a flash, sir. But when I got back to the stairs, the clock there said five past eleven, sir—I remember it perfect. I wasn’t lookin’ for the time reely, only some’ow I saw it and couldn’t forget it like.’
Anthony repressed elation. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and got to his feet.
Belford jumped up. ‘Are you—going, sir?’
Anthony nodded.
‘But what—what are you goin’ to—to do about me? About what I told you, sir?’
Anthony looked down benignly. ‘Nothing.’
Belford’s mouth fell open. ‘Nothing! Nothing? But—’
‘What I mean, Belford, is this. I’ll keep you out of trouble. You’ve told me one thing that makes all your confession of nothing worth while. You may, later on, have to give evidence; but that’s the worst you’ll have to do as far as I’m concerned. And don’t worry. And for the Lord’s sake don’t walk about as you’ve been doing lately, looking like Charles Peace with a belly-ache.’
The little man smiled all over his wizened face. Anthony looked at him curiously. Somehow, when talking to him as a man and not a servant, one found something so far from being sly as to be almost lovable.
Anthony gave the narrow shoulders a reassuring pat and strolled away, making for the house. He had covered perhaps twenty yards when he stopped, turned on his heel, and walked back.
Belford was seated again on his log. His face was buried in his hands. Anthony stood looking down at him.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.
The other dropped his hands with a cry, bounding to his feet.
‘I—beg your pardon, sir. You—I—’
Anthony soothed him. ‘Steady, man, steady. Take your time. Lots of it.’
Belford looked up at him, tried to speak, failed, and hung his head again.
‘Just now,’ Anthony said, ‘you told me something about being desperate. What is it? Money?’
Belford nodded. ‘You’re right, sir,’ he muttered. ‘It’s—it’s my wife, sir. Been very ill, she has. And is still. I was goin’ to ask the master to ’elp me; but when it come to the point, I couldn’t. That’s why I was after pinchin’, sir. I would ’ave asked ’im, I would reely, sir; but I knew he’d ask Miss Hoode about it, and that’d ’ave made it ’opeless. You see, sir, the missus was in service here before we was married—and, well, sir, she ’ad—’ad to leave in a nurry. And through me! You understand, sir—our nipper—’ He broke off, looking up appealingly. ‘We’re very fond of each other, sir,’ he finished. ‘And it’s ’ard to see ’er so ill like!’
‘How much d’you want?’ Anthony felt for his note-case. ‘Here, you’d better have twenty now. And I’ll fix you up properly tomorrow. Now, for God’s sake, man, pull yourself together!’ he added sharply.
For Belford’s shrivelled, sharp-featured little face was working in a way which was not good to see. Gratitude is sometimes more terrible to watch than baser emotions.
Anthony thrust the notes into one limp hand and beat a hurried retreat.
Belford stood where he was left. His lips moved soundlessly. The banknotes in his hand crackled as the stubby fingers clenched upon them. Presently he raised his head and looked with blurred vision along the path through the trees.
‘Gawd!’ he said, the refinement of the servants’ hall now completely gone. ‘Gawd! What a bloke! What a bloody good bloke!’
Anthony took the terrace steps three at a time. He was elated. The elation was short-lived; before he had reached the house, despair had taken its place. After all, this playing at detectives was foolery. Why, such a day as this, with its hot, clean peace, its drowsiness, its little scented breeze—was it not a day for a lover to lie at the feet of his mistress? Was it not a day for hot, sun-warmed kisses?
He shook himself, laughing bitterly. ‘Affectioned ass!’ he said to himself.
Sir Arthur came out of the house. ‘Lovely day, Gethryn. Early, aren’t you?’
‘It is and I am. I am also a detective of the greatest. Do I look it?’
Sir Arthur grew eager. ‘What d’you mean? Have you got anything? Found out anything important?’
Anthony nodded. ‘Yes, twice.’
‘But what, man? What?’
‘One, the butler suffers from hay-fever. Two, the murder was committed at as near eleven o’clock as I am to you.’
‘Damn it all, Gethryn,’ said the elder man, ‘I don’t think it’s quite fair to pull my leg like that. Not about this. I don’t really!’
‘You’re right, it isn’t. I’m sorry,’ Anthony was contrite. ‘But you know, I’m not as silly as I sound. You must think I’m telling you things you knew before; but I’m not really. What I think these things mean I’m not going to say just yet. Not to anyone.’
‘I see. That’s all right, Gethryn. You must forgive me if I seem touchy.’ Sir Arthur smiled forgivingly.
‘Seen Deacon lately?’ Anthony asked.
‘This morning. In fact, I’ve just come back. He’s wonderful, that boy!’
‘He is,’ agreed Anthony. ‘I’m just going to see him now. Walk to the gate with me, will you? I want you to help me.’
‘My dear chap, with pleasure!’ He put his arm through Anthony’s as they walked.
‘I want to know,’ said Anthony, as they reached the end of the house, ‘whether anyone in any way connected with the household does any playing about with carpenter’s tools. Amateurs, professionals, or both.’
‘Funny you should ask that, Gethryn? I’ve been thinking about that. But it’s no help. You see, the place is full of ’em—carpenters, I mean. There’s Diggle, the gardener, he’s really an excellent rough-job man. Then there’s the chauffeur, he made that shed over there—and a splendid bit of work it is. And John, well, it was his one hobby as it is mine. You know that set of three small tables in the drawing-room?’
‘I did notice them. They puzzled me rather. Couldn’t place ’em.’
‘John made those,’ said Sir Arthur, with a touch of pride, ‘nearly twenty years ago. I remember I was very jealous at the time. I couldn’t ever have done anything so good, you see. I was a bit better than he at the finer sorts of work, though.’ He broke off, seeming to fall into a reverie. After a while he added: ‘No, Gethryn, I’m afraid this line’s no good to us. That wood-rasp doesn’t belong to Abbotshall.’
‘You’re sure?’ Anthony asked.
‘Well, it isn’t mine, it didn’t belong to John, it isn’t Diggle’s—he was questioned by the police, you know—and it certainly isn’t the chauffeur’s.’
‘Humph!’ Anthony seemed annoyed.
They walked on to the gate in silence. Anthony nodded an adieu and set off down the white, dusty road with his long horseman’s stride.