On taking his abrupt leave of Diana’s flat, Headcorn paused a moment on the landing, then, descending the stairs, rang Blundell’s bell.
“Master in?” he inquired of Gaylord, who, recognising him from previous visits, met him with a smile.
“Just, Inspector. I’ll tell him you’ve come.”
There was no need, for Blundell, still wearing his overcoat, bustled forward to grasp the officer’s hand.
“Well, Inspector! Any further news from Holland?”
“Nothing worth mentioning. I’ve been saying that to Miss Lake, and I thought you’d want to hear it too, seeing you’ve felt so much concern over the Fairlamb case.”
The solicitor, his face fallen into heavier lines, nodded.
“The Lakes are among my oldest friends,” he said. “That girl up there has come in for more than her share of trouble. I don’t mind admitting I’m disappointed over your lack of news. Knowing those jewels had turned up I expected a speedy arrest. A drink, now you’re here? No? Then let me offer you a cigar. Sit down, let’s have the details.”
“They don’t amount to much.” The Inspector spoke absently, and although declining the hospitality, showed no hurry to depart. “By the way,” he said, “I’ve been poking about upstairs to test an idea I’ve got. Oh, not very relevant, I’m afraid! It was to satisfy Miss Lake. I noticed what seems to be a blind door, and was curious about it. Any particular reason for not walling it up?”
“You mean the door in the linen cupboard?” Blundell’s three-cornered eyes lit with enjoyment as over a secret joke. “Come with me, I’ll show you something worth seeing.”
Propelling the Inspector into the library he brought him face to face with the long expanse of sunken bookcases. “Look,” he ordered, watching him. “Got the answer?”
“Can’t say I have,” was the stodgy reply. “What is it?”
“Here, then!” Laying hold of the middle section of shelves the owner tugged briskly, and with the utmost ease the whole section slid towards him on concealed castors. “How’s that for a tidy bit of mechanism, eh? Go through, see what’s behind.”
Insinuating his bulk through the eighteen-inch space, Headcorn saw an arched door set flush with the wall. It slid sidewise at his touch, and disclosed a dim cavity within which ascended a flight of curving stairs. Blundell, following, switched on light which, flooding the stuffy corridor, revealed walls exquisitely panelled in fragrant cedar and a grey carpet soft and thick. Blundell waved a proud arm. He might have been a conjurer producing a rabbit from a hat.
“There you are! Those stairs lead direct to the door you noticed. No use to me, but as Mrs. Somervell said—and I always trusted her judgment in matters of this kind—it was almost a sacrilege to rip out anything so neat and so handsome. Take a look at that panelling. Lifted straight out of an Italian palace, same as what’s been used in the outer halls. Oh, Ryman knew how to spend! It landed him behind bars, eh? Yet this place didn’t fetch the fifth part of what it must have cost when it came under the hammer, else I shouldn’t have bought it.”
“These lower rooms were Ryman’s own private ones, I take it?” asked Headcorn, fingering the smooth cedar with a touch of awe.
“They were—and up above he’s supposed to have kept a sort of harem. Be that as it may, it was his fancy, when he’d worked late, to slip up this concealed way. Whew! Nice bit of dust collected in here. Hold on till I fetch a duster, or you’ll be smothered.”
Along, Headcorn mounted the stairs, recalling as he did so various Aladdin-like tales of the ruined financier’s extravagance. There had been one single dinner where each woman-guest was presented with a diamond bangle, the men with dressing-cases each costing a hundred pounds—all of which had been drained out of widows, toiling clerks, downtrodden school-mistresses. . . .
“Is this upper exit nailed up?” he called out.
“Only fastened from both sides,” Blundell’s voice floated up to him. “Mutual protection, as Mrs. Somervell used to say. I had the bolts put on.”
There was little furring of dust on the woodwork. The carpet underfoot seemed cleaner than might have been expected. Headcorn studied the strong steel rods affixed to the door at top and bottom, felt their surfaces, removed the key protruding towards him and rubbed it between his fingers. He was holding his hand to his nostrils when Blundell came spryly round the curve below him, holding a yellow duster.
“Mind if I open this up?” the Inspector greeted him. “Before I came down to you I took the liberty of undoing the lock and bolts from the other side.”
Blundell’s face fell boyishly.
“Oh! So you expected something of the kind?”
“Not stairs. I thought it would be box-rooms or what not. Well, thanks for showing it to me. I must tell my wife about it. She has a passion for secret passages, priests’ holes, and so on.”
“These stairs aren’t exactly secret. I’ve shown them off a hundred times to my friends. That door may stick. . . . No? Might have done, after so long a time. I don’t believe I’ve had it open this twelvemonth . . . not since the Duke of Duxborough, who’d lost heavily through Ryman, was here getting me to trim down his super-tax. Going to take the short cut, are you?”
Headcorn paused in the doorway, peering into the lavender-smelling darkness beyond.
“I may as well, don’t you think? I’ve left a bag behind, and I’d like to apologise for barging off without a word just now. Good-evening, sir. I promise to keep you informed if anything crops up.”
“Do, Inspector. And just see to those inside bolts, won’t you?”
As they shook hands, the Inspector thought that his host looked worn, worried, yet driven on to further exertions by an unconquerable nervous energy. He gave forth an impression of boundless vitality and power, and that despite the yellowed tinge of ageing features. What a span of shoulder, what depth of chest—and the arms like oak boughs! Short though he was, the confined space seemed crowded with him.
The door closed. In the inky darkness of the cupboard Headcorn heard the key turn, the other pair of bolts shoot into place. He performed his half of the fastening up, sniffed again at his fingers, and, putting on the light, gazed meditatively at the snowy piles of linen. What he sought was not here, but in the second cupboard, amongst cleaning materials, he found it—a chemist’s bottle with a greasy label and an inch of amber-hued liquid inside. . . .
He reached the drawing-room just in time to catch a few words spoken by his unofficial rival. With his attention riveted by new matters, he was puzzled to think why Miss Lake and Bream were staring as at a ghost.
“How on earth did you get in?” Diana demanded. “I heard you shut the front door.”
Headcorn blinked, comprehended, and, smiling, explained the phenomenon.
“Another staircase? Funny! I’ve never heard of it. Or have I?” The girl knit her brow. “I was away at school when this house was taken over,” she added thoughtfully. “I suppose that explains it. I never even came here much till this flat was lent me. My mother knew, undoubtedly. Were you wondering if Elsie Dilworth used those stairs?”
“In a general way,” returned the Inspector guardedly, and with a side-glance at the third of the party. “Not that it gets us anywhere. I advise you, though, to keep that door bolted as it is now. If Miss Dilworth did want to come in here again—well, you never know, do you?”
He hesitated, glanced again at Bream, and with some awkwardness made his adieux. This time he did not return.
On quitting the house, Bream found his Scotland Yard acquaintance indeterminately loitering at the nearest corner.
“Not gone, Inspector?” he greeted him in some surprise.
Without speaking, Headcorn fitted his stride to Bream’s shorter one and accompanied him to the Albert Hall. His air was one of reluctant but dogged purpose. One would have said he had something to say, but found it supremely difficult to bring forth. Full of quiet enjoyment, Bream let the battle continue. At last with obvious effort the words came out.
“Going to eat?”
“I sometimes do about now,” answered the agent tranquilly. “And you?”
Again professional pride and burning curiosity waged war.
“The fact is,” remarked Headcorn grudgingly, “there is just a possibility that your line of investigation and mine may have points of contact. If that’s so, it occurred to me we might mutually benefit by—by getting together. Oh, quite unofficially,” he muttered. “No obligation or prejudice on either side, you understand. As we both want food, what do you say to our sharing a meal?”
“Well done, old boy!” Bream silently applauded. “Strained your braces a bit, but never mind that.” Aloud he acquiesced as uneventfully as though no extraordinary proposal had been made; and so it was that some ten minutes later the two faced each other across a steak and sizzling chips, presided over by an out-size bottle of Bass.
“You’ve something concrete in mind, perhaps,” ventured the free-lance, betraying no sign of his secret triumph.
“Actually,” replied Headcorn, now entirely human, “it was the Indian I heard you mention as I came back into the room. You did say Indian, I think?”
Bream hid an excited thrill. Was it possible a link existed between the two murders hitherto regarded as wholly separate, and that it was embodied in the ex-student who for more than a week had been leading him up the garden path?
“I did, Inspector. An Indian from Bombay, name of Haji, enrolled at the School of Economics. May I inquire why he interests you?”
“Simply this.” Headcorn glanced about the quiet restaurant and sank his voice to a low rumble. “The pawnbroker’s assistant, now sacked and in a Dutch jail, caught one glimpse of the man who, he declares, brought the jewellery into the shop. Yes, the two articles taken from Miss Fairlamb’s body. In notable distinction from his employer, he swears this man was an Indian—young, flashily dressed, and with two prominent gold teeth.”